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Forcemeat of Veal
Chop lean veal, free from skin or fat, and then pound it in a mortar; add a third of its weight of butter or suet, and the same of fine bread, which should be first soaked in cold milk and squeezed dry. Pound all in a mortar, with a flavouring of salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Bind with the yolks of two eggs, and make the paste into little balls, or use it as a stuffing.
A classic veal panada forcemeat, given in proportions rather than measures so it scales to whatever meat you have. Everything hangs on the ratio: three parts lean veal to one part fat to one part soaked bread.
- Work out the weights firstWeigh the trimmed veal, then take a third of that weight in butter or suet and a third in bread. For 12 oz veal that is 4 oz fat and 4 oz bread (weighed before soaking). Getting this right matters more than any other step; too little fat and the balls are dry and crumbly.
- Mortar or processorA food processor does in a minute what the mortar did in twenty. Pulse the veal cold, almost frozen at the edges, so the fat does not smear, then add the fat and squeezed bread and pulse again to a smooth paste. Over-processing at room temperature gives a greasy, broken mixture.
- SuetBeef suet is the traditional choice and gives a firmer, more savoury result; butter gives a softer, richer one. Packaged shredded suet is usually part flour and will behave differently, so use fresh butcher's suet, hard and dry, if you want the original texture.
- The panade"Fine bread" means the crumb of a plain white loaf, no crust. Soak in cold milk, then wring it out in a cloth until it is genuinely dry to the touch. Wet bread is the usual reason forcemeat balls collapse in the pot.
- NutmegGrate it fresh and use a restrained hand, perhaps a quarter teaspoon per pound of veal. Nutmeg is the signature of English forcemeat, but pre-ground jars are flat and it is easy to overdo.
- Testing the seasoningFry a teaspoon of the mixture flat in a pan and taste before you shape the rest. Raw veal paste tastes of very little, and the salt level is impossible to judge otherwise.
- Cooking the ballsThe recipe stops at shaping. Poach walnut-sized balls in simmering stock for about 8 to 10 minutes, or shallow-fry them, until firm and cooked through to 165F. As stuffing, allow for the fact that it will cook alongside the joint and should reach the same temperature.
- YieldA pound of veal with its fat and bread makes roughly 24 to 30 small balls.
Forcemeat, from the French farce by way of the older English "farced meat" (stuffed meat), was one of the workhorses of the Victorian kitchen: a pounded meat paste that could be rolled into balls to garnish a stew, packed into a boned joint, spread under a raised pie crust, or used to bulk out a fricassee. Veal was a common base because it is pale, mild and gelatinous, taking flavour without asserting its own. The bread-and-milk panade is the technique that makes the whole thing work, keeping the pounded protein tender rather than rubbery, and it survives today in meatballs, quenelles and the Scandinavian and German traditions of forcemeat cookery. That the method is given by proportion rather than in fixed measures suggests it was meant to be learned once and used constantly, rather than looked up each time.<br><br>The mortar and pestle called for here would have been a heavy marble or hardwood affair, and pounding meat smooth in one was genuinely hard labour. The arrival of the mechanical mincer in the nineteenth century, and later the food processor, made forcemeat a five-minute job and, arguably, hastened the decline of the dish it was meant to serve.