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Veal, Breast of, Stewed with Green Peas
Take two pounds of the breast of veal. Cut it into pieces convenient for serving, dredge them with flour, and sprinkle upon them a little pepper, salt, and white sugar. Fry them in hot fat till they are lightly browned. Drain them, and put them into a saucepan with as much boiling stock, made from bones, as will barely cover them. Let them simmer very gently till done enough. Baste the meat frequently with the gravy, and skim this well to clear it from fat. About a quarter of an hour before the veal is to be served, throw into the liquor about a quart of freshly-shelled young peas. Let them simmer until tender. Serve very hot. Time to simmer the veal, two hours. Probable cost, about 3s. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A straightforward braise that depends on a cheap, gelatinous cut and a well-skimmed pan of stock. Two details need adjusting: the cut itself and the peas.
- The cutBreast of veal is the belly section — layered meat, fat and cartilage over rib bones — and is rarely on display at supermarkets, though butchers will order it. Bone-in riblets or a boneless rolled breast both work; two pounds is roughly 900 g, which is a modest amount once bone is accounted for.
- "Till done enough"Two hours at a bare simmer is right for this cut. The connective tissue needs that time to soften; pushed to a rolling boil it will tighten and go stringy instead. Keep the liquid trembling, not bubbling.
- Basting in a saucepanThe instruction to baste assumes an uncovered or loosely covered pan with the meat only barely submerged. Either baste often, as written, or cover and turn the pieces occasionally — but if you cover it, skim harder at the end, since less fat will have been lifted off during cooking.
- SkimmingBreast is a fatty cut and the sauce is the whole point of the dish. Skim through the cooking and again before the peas go in; a chilled spoon dragged over the surface picks up the last film.
- The peasA quarter of an hour is the time the recipe allows, though it already specifies young peas. Modern garden peas are often sweeter and younger still — five to eight minutes may be plenty, and frozen peas need two or three. Overcooked they turn khaki and lose the sweetness the dish is built around. A quart shelled is roughly 500–600 g, or about 1 lb frozen.
- The sugarThe pinch of white sugar in the dredge may help the flour brown and echo the sweetness of the peas. Whatever the reason, it is not an error; keep it, but a pinch means a pinch.
- Stock"Stock made from bones" means an unseasoned veal or chicken stock. Commercial stock is usually salted, so hold back on the salt in the dredge if you are using it.
- Yield and servingFour to five as written, which is generous for 2 lb of a bony cut; treat it as three or four modern portions. Serve in shallow bowls with the pan liquid spooned over, and bread or plain boiled potatoes to take up the gravy. The 3s. costing is Victorian and of historical interest only.
Breast of veal was one of the cheap cuts of Victorian butchery — bony, fatty, and sold at a fraction of the price of cutlets or fillet — which is why Cassell's, a household dictionary aimed at middle-class kitchens with an eye on the weekly books, gives it attention at all. The pairing with green peas is often said to be seasonal logic rather than invention: veal, though sold year round, was associated with spring and early summer, and the first shelled peas arrived at the same moment. The same instinct produces the French veau aux petits pois and the older English stews in which peas are thrown into the pot at the last, and this recipe's method — flour, a light fry, then a long gentle braise in bone stock — is one of the common white-meat braises of the period, browned just enough for colour but never allowed to catch. Cassell's habit of quoting a probable cost and a number served, as here, marks it as a book written for a household running to a budget rather than for a professional kitchen.