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Veal, Breast of, Ragout Of
Take off the underbone, and put the veal into a stewpan with as much boiling stock as will cover it. Let the liquor boil up, then add a large carrot sliced, three onions, a blade of mace, a bunch of sweet herbs, the thin rind of a lemon, and a little pepper and salt. Skim the gravy, and simmer it gently until the veal is quite tender. Thicken the gravy till it is of the consistency of sauce, and stir into it the strained juice of a small lemon and a glassful of sherry or Madeira. Put the veal into a dish, pour the gravy over it, and garnish with savoury forcemeat balls and cut lemon. Time to simmer the meat, about two hours. Probable cost, veal, 9d. to 10d. per pound.
A straightforward white stew of a cheap, gelatinous cut. The main adjustments are the butcher's language and the fact that the recipe assumes you know how to thicken a gravy without being told.
- The cut and the "underbone"Breast of veal is the belly section, with rib bones and cartilage. "Take off the underbone" is generally understood to mean removing the breastbone and the cartilaginous rib tips so the piece lies flat and carves cleanly; ask the butcher to do it and to keep the bones for the stock pot. A boned breast of about 3-4 lb will serve four to six.
- Stock quantity"As much boiling stock as will cover it" is roughly 6-8 cups for a piece that size in a snug pan. Veal or light chicken stock; a wide pan needs more liquid, so choose one that just holds the meat.
- A blade of maceMace is the outer covering of nutmeg. One blade is a single dried piece, about a quarter teaspoon of ground mace if that is all you have — add ground mace at the end rather than at the start, since it turns dusty over two hours.
- Bunch of sweet herbsCommonly parsley stalks and thyme, often with a bay leaf, tied with string; the mixture varied from book to book. Tie the lemon rind in with it so both come out in one pull, and pare the rind thin, with none of the white pith.
- ThickeningThe book says only "thicken the gravy" and leaves the method to the cook. Lift the meat, strain the liquor, reduce it if it tastes thin, then whisk in butter kneaded with an equal weight of flour — about 1 oz of each per 2 cups of liquid — and simmer a couple of minutes to cook out the flour.
- Lemon and wine go in lastThe recipe adds both after the gravy is thickened; keeping the pan off a hard boil at that point is a modern precaution rather than an instruction here. A "glassful" in this period means a wine glass, conventionally around 1/4 cup. Dry sherry or Madeira, not sweet cream sherry.
- TimingTwo hours at a bare simmer is right for breast, and the cut is forgiving — go to two and a half hours if a skewer still meets resistance. It is collagen-rich, so undercooking reads as rubbery rather than tough.
- Forcemeat ballsNo recipe is given on this page. A typical savoury forcemeat of the kind is minced veal or pork with breadcrumbs, suet, lemon zest, herbs and egg, rolled small and poached in the gravy or fried separately. They are the garnish that turns a plain stew into a ragout.
A "ragout" in an English cookery book of this date means a stew of pieces in a made sauce, taken from the French ragoût — the sherry, mace and lemon are the standard Anglo-French seasoning of a white stew rather than anything specifically Parisian. Breast of veal was among the cheaper cuts on the board, which is presumably why the book quotes a price of 9d. to 10d. a pound. The cut fell out of British favour in the twentieth century as veal itself did, and it survives more visibly in Italian and Central European cooking, stuffed and rolled, or in the Jewish kitchen where the breast is braised whole. The lemon finish here works on something like the logic of blanquette de veau, where acidity lifts a long-cooked, gently flavoured meat that would otherwise taste flat.