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VEAL CUTLETS (a l'Italienne)
Cut a slice of lean veal from the fillet into neat pieces, and beat these with a cutlet-bat. Mince finely a handful of parsley, a sprig of thyme, and a bay-leaf. Fry the herbs in butter, and be careful that they do not acquire any colour. Brush the cutlets with beaten egg, lay the fired herbs upon them, and sprinkle finely-grated bread-crumbs upon these. Let them remain untouched for an hour; then repeat the process. Fry the cutlets in butter over a gentle fire till they are sufficiently cooked and brightly browned. Send to table with them a sauce prepared as follows. Mince a handful of parsley, a sprig of thyme, a bay-leaf, and one shallot. Fry these ingredients in a little salad oil over a gentle fire, and stir briskly to keep them from acquiring any colour. Pour upon them half a pint of brown sauce, and add a wine-glassful of mushroom ketchup, a tea-spoonful of essence of anchovy, and a few fresh mushrooms finely mined, if they are to be had. Let the sauce boil; simmer by the side of the fire till it has thrown up the grease, skim it, and it will be ready for use. A glassful of sherry or Madeira will much improve this sauce. It should, of course, be prepared before the cutlets are fried. Time to fry the cutlets, twelve to fifteen minutes. Probable cost, 1s. to 1s. 2d. per pound.
A Victorian breaded cutlet with a herb-and-mushroom brown sauce. Two things need attention: the sauce must be made first, and the frying time given assumes cutlets thicker than most butchers cut today.
- Fillet of vealIn British usage "fillet" means the leg or top round, not tenderloin. Ask for veal leg cut into escalopes, or use pork loin cut the same way.
- Cutlet-batA meat mallet or the flat of a heavy pan. Pound between sheets of plastic to an even quarter-inch; uneven thickness is the main cause of dry edges.
- Frying timeTwelve to fifteen minutes suits a thick chop. Quarter-inch cutlets are done in three to four minutes a side over medium heat, to an internal 145F with a short rest. Butter alone will brown too fast at that thickness, so add a spoonful of neutral oil.
- The double coatingThis is the hinge of the recipe. Egg, cooled herbs, crumbs, then a full hour undisturbed, then the whole sequence again. The rest lets the crumbs hydrate and bond; skip it and the crust slides off in the pan. Let the fried herbs cool before they touch the egg.
- Half a pintAn imperial half-pint is 10 fl oz, about 1 1/4 cups. Brown sauce here means espagnole or a well-reduced veal stock thickened with a brown roux, not bottled table sauce.
- Wine-glassful of mushroom ketchupAbout 2 fl oz. Strength varies a great deal between bottlings, so start with a tablespoon of a modern one, taste, and add more. The same measure applies to the sherry or Madeira.
- Essence of anchovyAnchovy paste from a tube, or a mashed salted fillet. It should read as depth, not as fish.
- Salad oil and skimmingSalad oil is olive or another mild oil. "Thrown up the grease" means the fat separates at a bare simmer and rises; skim it before serving or the sauce tastes greasy.
- YieldA pound of veal, pounded thin, gives three to four servings, and the sauce quantity suits that number.
À l'italienne in the French classical repertoire means a brown sauce built on chopped mushrooms, shallot and herbs — Escoffier's sauce italienne uses a duxelles with lean ham — and the name travelled into English kitchens as shorthand for that combination rather than for anything actually Italian. What marks this version as British is the mushroom ketchup and the essence of anchovy: two bottled savoury concentrates that Victorian cooks reached for the way a modern cook reaches for soy sauce or Worcestershire, and which recur elsewhere in Cassell's where a sauce is judged to want more body. The costing at the end, a shilling or so a pound, reflects the dictionary's practice of giving a probable cost with each dish, and places veal fillet as a respectable but not extravagant purchase for a late-nineteenth-century middle-class table.