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Veal Broth, Brown
Slice one or two onions, and fry them in hot fat till they are browned but not at all burnt. Cut into slices a pound of veal, and break the bone belonging to it into small pieces. Take up the onions with a slicer, and brown the meat in the same fat. Pour three pints of stock or water upon the meat; add the bones with any others and remains of cold roast beef or poultry that may be at hand. Let it boil up, skim carefully, and simmer quickly until the gravy is sufficiently strong. Flavouring vegetables may be stewed with it or not, and a spoonful of ketchup may be added if liked. Time to simmer the stock, about two hours.
A brown stock in miniature: the browning of onions and meat is the whole point, and everything else is a matter of patience and skimming.
- Brown, not burntThe colour of the finished broth comes entirely from the fond on the onions and veal. Take the onions out while they are deep gold and use a wide pan so the veal slices sear rather than steam; scorched sugars turn the broth bitter and no amount of simmering will lift it.
- Three pintsAn imperial pint is 20 fl oz, so three pints is 60 fl oz, about 7 1/4 US cups or 1.7 litres. How much you are left with depends on how hard and how openly it simmers; the recipe gives no yield.
- "Simmer quickly"A contradiction to modern ears, but it means a lively simmer rather than a rolling boil, which is what reduces the liquid and concentrates it. Skim before you cover or reduce, or the fat and scum will emulsify back into the broth and cloud it.
- Veal and its boneA pound of veal shoulder or shin with the bone gives both gelatine and flavour; ask a butcher to saw the bone rather than breaking it yourself. Veal is now a special order in many places, and a mix of beef shin and a split marrow bone gives a comparable, if less delicate, result.
- KetchupProbably not the tomato condiment: in Victorian usage ketchup most often meant mushroom or walnut ketchup, a thin dark salty liquid, though tomato ketchup was also known by this date. A dash of mushroom ketchup, where you can find it, is the likely intended note.
- Flavouring vegetablesNot defined here; the phrase generally covers the ordinary roots and herbs -- carrot, celery, turnip, leek, parsley, thyme, bay. Adding them later in the simmer keeps them from going to mush and muddying the liquid.
- Cold roast remainsLeftover roast beef or poultry, bones included, is sound practice and adds body. Use scraps that have been properly refrigerated, and give them the full simmer rather than adding them at the end.
- Yield and finishingThe recipe gives no yield; use it as a clear broth or as the base for a sauce or soup. Chill it and lift the set fat off the top before reheating; salt only at that stage, once you know how far it has reduced.
A brown veal broth is a building block: it is the domestic, single-pound version of the professional estouffade or brown stock that French kitchens made by the bucket. Veal was prized for stock precisely because it is mild and rich in gelatine, giving body without asserting a flavour of its own, so the same pot could go on to become gravy, a brown sauce, or a soup. The instruction to throw in "remains of cold roast beef or poultry that may be at hand" marks it as a household rather than a restaurant formula, from a period when a joint was expected to be eaten hot, then cold, then rendered into stock. Mushroom and walnut ketchups, the seasoning offered here, were the standard English bottled savouries of the nineteenth century and long predate the tomato version that took the name.