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Veal Collops, Made with Fresh Meat
No. 1.--Veal collops should be taken from the shoulder or the fillet. Cut the meat in slices half an inch thick, three inches long, and two broad. Flatten them with a cutlet-bat, and dredge them well with flour. Take as many rashers of bacon a quarter of an inch thick as there are slices of veal. Fry these in a sautepan. Take them up, put them on a dish, and fry the veal in the fat which has come from the bacon. When it is nicely browned on both sides, place it neatly on a dish, and arrange the bacon round it. Pour the fat out of the pan, and dissolve a small slice of butter in it. Mix a little flour smoothly with this, and moisten gradually with a little stock or water. Let it boil till smooth, add salt and pepper, and pour it round the veal in the dish. Serve very hot. Time to fry the meat, about twenty minutes. No. 2.--Cut the collops as before. Rub them quickly over with a freshly-cut shallot, and sprinkle a little salt, pepper, and grated nutmeg upon them. Dip them in egg and breadcrumbs, or in flour, and fry them in hot fat till they are lightly and equally browned on both sides. Drain them, and put them in a saucepan, pour over them as much stock as will cover them, add a small roll of lemon-rind, a blade of mace, half a dozen peppercorns, and an onion, and let them simmer gently till done enough. Put them on a hot dish, strain the gravy upon them, and serve. Time to simmer the veal, half an hour. No. 3.--Divide the veal into slices as before, and take an equal number of thin rashers, of bacon of the same shape and size. Lay the bacon on the veal, cover with a thin layer of veal forcemeat, sprinkle a little cayenne upon this, and roll up the collops tightly. Skewer each one firmly. Melt a little butter in a stewpan, put in the rolls and turn them about till they are equally and lightly browned. Put them on a hot dish before the fire. Pour off the fat in which they were fried, and dissolve a slice of fresh butter in the pan. Mix a little flour smoothly with it, and add as much stock or water as will make the sauce of the consistency of cream, together with a little salt, pepper, pounded mace, and a small piece of lemon-rind for seasoning. Simmer the rolls gently in the sauce for an hour and a half. When serving, garnish with sprigs of cauliflower. Probable cost, veal, 1s. per pound.
Three treatments of the same cut: a quick fry with bacon, a fry-then-braise, and stuffed rolls. The main thing to correct is the timing, which is generous even by Victorian standards.
- What a collop isA collop is simply a small flat slice of meat, here cut half an inch thick, three inches by two. Modern veal cutlets or escalopes from the leg work directly; the "fillet" of the original means the leg or round, not tenderloin.
- Cutlet-batA heavy flat mallet for flattening meat. A meat mallet, rolling pin or the base of a small heavy pan does the same job between two sheets of plastic wrap.
- SautepanA shallow frying pan; the book does not define the term. Any wide heavy skillet is right, and the width matters, since the collops should lie in one layer rather than crowd and steam.
- Twenty minutes is far too longHalf-inch veal slices, floured and fried in bacon fat, are done in about three to four minutes a side. Twenty minutes gives grey, tight meat. Take them out when the flour crust is browned and the centre is just firm.
- No. 3's hour and a halfAn hour and a half is long for rolls of half-inch veal; 40 to 50 minutes of gentle simmering will usually be enough, and the sauce will otherwise reduce well past the "consistency of cream" the recipe asks for.
- Veal forcemeatAn assumed preparation elsewhere in the book: minced veal or veal trimmings with breadcrumbs, suet or butter, lemon rind, herbs and egg to bind. Any fine sausage-meat or a pork-and-herb stuffing substitutes without harm.
- Blade of mace and lemon-rindA blade of mace is one piece of the dried aril of nutmeg; a quarter-teaspoon of ground mace is a fair swap. Pare the lemon rind thinly with no white pith, and lift it out before serving.
- The shallot rubIn No. 2 the cut face of a shallot is wiped over the raw meat for a trace of flavour under the egg and crumbs. It is a light touch, not a substitute for seasoning, so keep the salt and pepper.
- YieldAllow two or three collops a head, so roughly 1 to 1 1/2 lb of veal for four with the bacon and sauce.
Collop is an old word for a slice of meat, recorded long before this book and surviving in Scots usage for a dish of thin beef slices in gravy; in its earlier sense it often meant a rasher of bacon, and the Monday before Shrove Tuesday was once called Collop Monday, when bacon and eggs were eaten before the fast. Veal at the quoted shilling a pound was not a cheap meat by the standards of the day. The instruction to keep the fried collops "on a hot dish before the fire" while the sauce is made suggests a kitchen working at an open fire or range, and sits with the book's insistence that the dish be served very hot.