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GRAVY, VEAL, FOR WHITE SAUCE (another way)
Take a knuckle of veal from which the meat has been taken, and saw it into small pieces. Put these into a stewpan, with two ounces of undressed lean ham, cut into dice, and two pints of water. Cover the pan closely, and simmer very gently for three hours after the water has once boiled. Strain, and put aside until required. A small piece of lemon-rind, with a sprig of parsley and thyme, half a dozen peppercorns, and half a blade of mace, may be stewed with the bones if a flavouring is desired. Probable cost, 6d. Sufficient for a pint and a half of gravy.
This is a light veal stock, the base for the white sauces and blanquettes that fill the rest of the book. The whole point is restraint: no browning, no hard boil, no salt.
- Keep it at a bare simmerA rolling boil emulsifies fat and albumin into the liquid and turns it cloudy, which defeats the purpose of a white gravy. Aim for the barest tremble, with an occasional bubble breaking the surface, and skim the grey scum off in the first twenty minutes.
- The knuckleA veal knuckle is the joint end of the leg, usually sold simply as "veal bones" at a butcher's; the osso-buco cut comes from the shank just below it. Ask to have it sawn for you; a domestic knife will not do it. The recipe gives no weight, only two pints of water to cover.
- Ham instead of saltThe two ounces of undressed (uncooked) lean ham supplies both savour and salt. Use raw gammon or unsmoked prosciutto trim, not cooked ham, and do not add salt to the stock itself — it will concentrate later when the gravy is reduced.
- AromaticsA blade of mace is one strip of the lacy casing round a nutmeg; for the half blade called for here, an eighth of a teaspoon of ground mace is a rough stand-in, though it will cloud the liquid slightly. The book has the rind, herbs and peppercorns stewed with the bones throughout; adding them later is a modern preference, not the recipe's method.
- Yield and reductionThree hours in a covered pan should leave you close to the pint and a half the book promises. If you want more body, strain first and then reduce uncovered.
- Cost note"Probable cost, 6d" is the book's own estimate for bones that were near enough a by-product, the meat having already been taken for another dish. Today a veal knuckle is a special order and rarely cheap, so blanched chicken wings and a pig's trotter make a reasonable everyday substitute for the same gelatine-rich, pale result.
- StoringChill it fast and uncovered, then lift off the set fat. It keeps three days refrigerated, or freeze it in half-cup blocks; a good veal stock will set to a firm jelly, which is the sign the gelatine has come out properly.
A pale veal stock was the hinge on which the whole nineteenth-century white-sauce repertoire turned — béchamel enriched, velouté, fricassees, blanquettes and the endless "white gravies" poured over boiled fowl and sweetbreads. The practice descends from French kitchen method, where the equivalent fond blanc de veau was distinguished from the browned fond brun by whether the bones were roasted first. That the book offers it as "another way" and reckons the cost at sixpence tells you something about the Victorian larder: veal knuckle bones, stripped of their meat for another dish, were cheap enough that a household could afford to spend three hours of coal on extracting their gelatine, and the resulting jelly did work that a modern cook hands to cream and cornflour.