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Veal Consomme, for Making White Sauces
Rub the inside of a bright saucepan with a coarse towel briskly for a minute or two. Heat it a little, and rub it with butter. Lay in it two or three slices of lean ham or bacon, then add two pounds of the neck or knuckle of veal cut into pieces about four inches square. Pour in half a pint of stock made from bones. Place the veal on a brisk fire for about twenty minutes, or till it is very lightly browned. Probe it in several places with the point of a knife till the juice flows freely. Put it again on the fire till the gravy begins to thicken without being at all coloured. Turn the meat over once or twice, pour upon it boiling stock made from bones in the proportion of a pint and a half of stock to a pound of meat. Let the liquor boil, throw in a little salt, and skim it well, then draw the saucepan to the side, and simmer the gravy very gently for about two hours. Strain it into a bowl, and when cold remove the fat from the surface. An onion, a carrot, a bunch of sweet herbs, two or three sticks of celery, half a tea-spoonful of peppercorns, and a blade of mace should be simmered with the gravy to flavour it. A few button mushrooms will greatly improve it, but they may be omitted. The bones of poultry may, if liked, be substituted for a portion of the veal. Time to simmer the gravy, about two hours. Probable cost, knuckle of veal, 5d. to 7d. per pound.
This is a white veal stock in the French manner, built by sweating the meat to a pale glaze before the liquid goes in. Everything in it serves one end: flavour without colour.
- Keep it colourlessThe whole point of this consomme is that it goes into white sauces, so nothing may take on more than the faintest blush. Use medium heat rather than a "brisk fire" and stop the moment the meat and ham turn pale gold. The recipe brings the liquor to the boil once so the scum can be raised and skimmed; after that keep it at the barest simmer, since a rolling boil clouds the stock.
- The pricking stepProbing the meat with a knife point draws the juices out to reduce on the pan bottom into a light glaze; when the stock goes in, that glaze dissolves back. It reads as a flavour step rather than a doneness test. By this point the initial half-pint has largely cooked away, so prick before the main quantity of boiling stock is added, not after.
- Scouring the panThe brisk rub with a coarse towel suits a "bright" pan of the period, most likely tin-lined copper, whose tarnish could plausibly tint a white sauce. Stainless steel or a lined pan needs nothing but cleaning; skip the towel and go straight to buttering it.
- Imperial measuresCassell's pints are imperial, 20 fl oz. The initial half pint is about 1 1/4 US cups, and "a pint and a half to a pound of meat" for 2 lb of veal means roughly 3 imperial pints, near 7 1/2 US cups. Have a little extra hot stock ready to top up as it reduces.
- Cuts and substitutesKnuckle is the shank, sold now as veal shank or osso buco -- bone, marrow and gelatine, which is exactly what gives the body here. Neck works too. "Lean" refers to the fat rather than the cure, but unsmoked ham or bacon is the safer choice here, since smoked will dominate and colour the liquid.
- AromaticsAdd the onion, carrot, celery, herb bunch, peppercorns and mace once the liquid is in and skimmed, not during the browning, or they will catch and darken. A blade of mace is one thin shard of nutmeg husk; a small pinch of ground mace stands in, added at the end of the simmer.
- Skim and chillSkim as soon as the surface breaks into scum, then keep the pan at the side of the heat so only one edge trembles. Chilling overnight lets you lift the fat off in a sheet and reveals whether you have the light jelly you want.
- Yield and keepingExpect about a quart of finished consomme from 2 lb of veal, enough for several batches of velouté. It keeps four days refrigerated and freezes well; frozen in an ice-cube tray it is convenient for enriching a sauce a spoonful at a time.
This is a foundation, not a dish: the *fond blanc* on which velouté, allemande and the whole family of white sauces in nineteenth-century English kitchens depended. Veal was the standard base precisely because it is bland and gelatinous, contributing body and gloss without the assertive flavour of beef, and the compiler's note on price — five to sevenpence a pound for knuckle — shows it was a cheap, unglamorous cut that a careful household could keep on hand. The insistence on pale colour reflects a period in which sauces were graded and named by shade, and a white sauce that had gone dun betrayed the cook. Poultry bones are offered as a partial substitute: whatever the larder had, simmered slowly and kept clear.