Home › The Principles of Cookery › Veal Chop, Stewed with Carrots
Veal Chop, Stewed with Carrots
Take from the neck a large chop, about one pound in weight, saw off the chine-bone, trim the chop neatly, and fry it in a little hot fat for three or four minutes till it is lightly browned on both sides. Take it up, drain it, and put it into a small, clean saucepan with two large carrots cut into thick slices, an onion stuck with two cloves, and a little pepper and salt. Pour over the meat as much boiling stock as will cover it; put the lid on the saucepan, and let its contents simmer gently until the carrot is tender, when the meat also will be sufficiently done. Put the chop on a dish, garnish with the carrots, strain the gravy over all, and serve very hot. Time to simmer the chop, about an hour. Probable cost, veal, 1s. per pound. Sufficient for one person.
A single-portion braise of the plainest kind, and the sort of dish that rewards a slow, barely-moving simmer more than any adjustment of ingredients.
- The chop itselfA neck chop of veal weighing a pound is now unusual; ask a butcher for a thick-cut veal neck or shoulder chop, or substitute two smaller ones. The chine-bone (the spinal section left on when the loin or neck is cut) is normally removed at the counter, so the sawing instruction can be ignored.
- Keep it at a bare simmerThis is the hinge. Veal neck is collagen-rich and turns stringy if the liquid rolls; hold it at 180-190F with the barest movement on the surface. An hour is about right for a one-pound chop, but go by feel: the meat should give easily to a fork.
- Stock"Boiling stock" means real veal or chicken stock, unsalted or lightly salted, added hot so the pan does not drop off the boil. If using commercial stock, dilute it or hold back the salt until the end; the pan is lidded here, so the liquid will not reduce much, but a salty stock will still tell in the finished gravy.
- Onion stuck with clovesA whole peeled onion pierced with two cloves so they can be fished out later. Discard the onion before serving; it will have given everything it has to the gravy.
- The gravyStrained, it is thin by modern taste. Reduce it hard for a few minutes in a wide pan after removing the meat and carrots, or whisk in a small knob of butter off the heat.
- CarrotsCut thick, as directed, or they will disintegrate over the hour. Adding them at the start is deliberate: the recipe uses their doneness as a timer for the meat.
- YieldOne person, as stated. It scales cleanly to a wide pan of four chops so long as they sit in a single layer with the liquid just covering.
Cassell's ran on a system of costed recipes, and this one shows the machinery plainly: a stated weight, a stated price per pound, a stated time and "sufficient for one person." Single-portion entries of this kind would have suited an invalid, a lone diner in lodgings, or anyone cooking for one. Veal at a shilling a pound was a middling meat, cheaper than prime beef but respectable. The method itself is the plainest form of braising: brown for colour, then moist heat at low temperature to break down a tough cut. Cooking the vegetable alongside the meat and using its doneness as a gauge was a common enough approach in kitchens without thermometers.