Home › The Principles of Cookery › Veal, Blanquette of, with Mushrooms
Veal, Blanquette of, with Mushrooms
Cut some cold cooked veal into pieces about an inch square and a quarter of an inch thick. Take a quarter of the bulk of the meat in button mushrooms, clean these with a piece of flannel and a little salt, and simmer them very gently with a slice of fresh butter till they are done enough. Put the pieces of veal in a saucepan, lay the stewed mushrooms upon them, and pour over all a little nicely-seasoned veal stock thickened with a small piece of white thickening. Heat the preparation gently till it is on the point of boiling. Beat one or two eggs in a bowl, stir a spoonful of sauce into them, and add them gradually to the rest. Shake the sauce over the fire for a minute, but do not let it boil, or it will curdle. Add a table-spoonful of lemon-juice, and serve. If liked, the blanquette may be piled in the center of a dish with a border of pastry round it. Time to simmer the mushrooms, ten to fifteen minutes.
A made dish for leftover roast or boiled veal, thickened at the last minute with egg yolk. Everything hinges on the finish: once the eggs go in the sauce must never reach a simmer.
- The egg liaisonTempering a spoonful of hot sauce into the beaten eggs before returning them to the pan is the whole technique, and it is still correct. After that, keep the pan between 160 and 175F — visible steam, no bubbles. One bubble and you have scrambled egg in thin broth.
- "White thickening"The book's term for butter and flour worked together in equal weights and used to thicken a sauce without browning it. About 1 tablespoon of each will thicken a cup of stock to coating consistency.
- ProportionsThe book gives none. For four people, figure 1 lb cooked veal, 4 oz button mushrooms (the stated quarter of the bulk), a scant cup of veal stock, 2 egg yolks rather than whole eggs for a smoother sauce, and 1 tablespoon lemon juice.
- Cleaning the mushroomsFlannel and salt were the standard period way of rubbing buttons clean. Cultivated mushrooms need only a dry brush or a damp cloth; do not soak them, and go easy on the salt at this stage since the stock will carry plenty.
- Mushroom timingTen to fifteen minutes of gentle buttered simmering is longer than modern practice, but here it is deliberate — the mushrooms give up liquid that goes into the sauce and the flesh stays firm rather than browning. Keep the heat low enough that the butter never colors.
- Reheating cooked vealThe meat is already cooked, so it is only being warmed through. Bring it up in the sauce slowly; a hard boil at this stage will squeeze it dry and stringy whatever you do afterwards.
- Lemon at the endAcid added before the eggs increases the risk of curdling. Add it off the heat once the sauce has thickened, and taste — cold-cooked veal and unsalted stock together often need more salt than expected.
- The pastry borderThe book does not say what kind. A ring of baked pastry set around the edge of the dish, put on dry and at the last moment, or it turns to paste.
Blanquette comes from the French blanc, white: a stew deliberately kept pale, with no browning of meat or flour and a finish of egg yolk, cream or both. The classic version starts with raw veal poached from cold water, but Victorian household books like Cassell's routinely reworked it as a way of using up a cold joint, which is why this entry begins with meat already cooked. Recipes of this kind — rechauff s, as the period called them — occupy an enormous share of nineteenth-century English cookery writing, since a large roast served hot on Sunday had to reappear in some more flattering shape for the rest of the week. Button mushrooms were the natural partner because they add flavor without adding color.