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VEAL, BREAST OF, COLLARED (another way)
Bone a breast of veal. Lay it on the table, and spread on it a thick layer of nicely-seasoned oyster forcemeat (see OYSTERS, FORCEMEAT OF). Roll the veal as tightly as possible, and bind it with tape. Put it into boiling water, let it boil up once, skim the liquor carefully, draw the saucepan to the side of the fire, and let its contents simmer as gently as possible till the veal is tender. Put the bones into a separate saucepan with a moderate-sized onion, a bunch of sweet herbs, and a little pepper and salt. Let them simmer till the liquor is strong and pleasantly flavoured. Strain it, thicken with white thickening or a little flour and butter, and stir into it two or three table-spoonfuls of thick cream. If milk has to be used instead of cream the yolk of an egg may be beaten up with it. Serve the meat on a hot dish with the sauce poured over. This dish may be garnished with forcemeat balls, and with the sweetbread cut into slices, egged and bread-crumbed, and fried; or a little parsley and sliced lemon may be used instead. The meat is sometimes baked instead of boiled, and then a little weak stock should be put into the pan with it, and it should be basted frequently. If it is preserved in pickle it will keep good for some time. Time to simmer the veal, three to four hours. Probable cost, 1s. per pound.
A boned breast of veal rolled around oyster stuffing, poached and served with a sauce made from its own bones. The technique is sound; the timings and a couple of the asides need adjusting.
- The hinge: bind it tightlyA loosely rolled collar unwinds in the water and the forcemeat leaks out. Roll along the long side as tight as the meat will allow and tie at 1-inch intervals with butcher's twine; the "tape" of the original was narrow cotton tape, and kitchen string does the same job. Wrapping the roll in a double layer of cheesecloth before tying makes it easier to lift out whole.
- Buying the meatBreast of veal is a special order at most counters. Ask for it boned and trimmed, and keep the bones — the recipe depends on them for the sauce. A boned breast runs about 3 to 4 lb and will serve six to eight, sliced across the roll.
- Simmering time and temperatureThree to four hours is more than this cut needs and far more than the oyster forcemeat wants. Hold the water at a bare 180-185F (no visible boil, just movement) and reckon on about 2 to 2.5 hours for a 3-4 lb roll, until the centre of the forcemeat reads 165F and a skewer meets no resistance in the meat.
- Oysters in the stuffingChop the oysters coarsely and fold them in cold. They will cook through as the roll heats; whole oysters at the centre of a long poach turn to rubber. Their liquor is worth adding to the bone stock rather than to the forcemeat, which should stay firm enough to hold its shape.
- "White thickening"Cassell's term for a pale flour-and-butter thickening, made without letting it colour — a white roux or, whisked in raw at the end, beurre manié. Equal weights butter and flour, about 1 oz of each per pint of strained stock, gives roughly the right consistency, though the book leaves the quantity to the cook.
- The egg yolk finishIf you use the milk-and-yolk version in place of cream, temper the yolk with a ladle of hot sauce first and keep the pan below 180F afterwards. Once it boils the yolk sets in threads and the sauce is finished.
- If baking insteadThe recipe gives no oven heat at all, only that the meat is sometimes baked; a moderate oven of around 350F suits it. Set the roll in a covered pan with the "little weak stock" the recipe calls for, baste every 20 minutes, and go by the same 165F reading at the centre.
- Ignore the note on pickleThe closing remark that the meat "will keep good for some time" in pickle assumes a cold larder and a brine strength the recipe never states. Treat the finished roll as ordinary cooked meat: refrigerate promptly, eat within three days.
- Sweetbread garnishVeal sweetbreads now need ordering ahead and want soaking, blanching and pressing before they are sliced, crumbed and fried. The parsley-and-lemon alternative the recipe offers is no disgrace.
To "collar" meat is to bone it, spread it, roll it into a cylinder and bind it; the name is usually traced to the binding that holds the roll, though this is traditional explanation rather than settled etymology. The same verb served for collared beef, collared eel and collared pig's head, all standbys of the English larder from the seventeenth century onward. Breast of veal was a natural candidate: cheap, thin, awkward to carve on the bone, and much improved by a stuffing. Oysters had been cheap and plentiful enough in earlier decades to be used as a bulking and seasoning ingredient in meat dishes rather than as a luxury, though stocks and prices were changing by the time Cassell's was compiled. The quoted price of a shilling a pound was a respectable sum for meat at the time, which may explain the thrifty second saucepan: the bones, an onion and a bunch of sweet herbs are made to yield the sauce rather than a separate stock being drawn from the household pot.