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Veal Cutlets and Bacon
Trim neatly about two pounds of cutlets, egg and bread-crumb them, adding to the crumbs a little minced parsley and dried herbs, and fry in hot fat slowly for about half an hour. Put them on a hot dish; make a good rich gravy in the frying-pan, add to it a squeeze of lemon, and pour it over the cutlets. Fry some rolls of bacon in another pan, and put them round the dish as a garnish, together with some cut lemons. Probable cost, 1s. to 1s. 2d. per pound.
A straightforward egg-and-crumb fry, but the timing assumes a thicker cut than most butchers sell today. Judge by thickness, not by the clock.
- What the cutlets areA Victorian veal cutlet was generally a thicker cut than the paper-thin escalope sold today, likely somewhere around half an inch or more, though the recipe does not say. Two pounds would reasonably serve about four; if all you can get is thin scallopini, they will cook through in three or four minutes a side.
- The half hourThirty minutes of slow frying suits a genuinely thick cutlet and gives the crumb time to colour without scorching. Anything under half an inch will be dry and stringy long before then. Veal is done at 145F internal with a short rest.
- Egg and bread-crumbFlour the cutlets first, then egg, then the herbed crumbs, pressing them on firmly. Dry crumbs from stale bread cling better than fresh soft ones, and resting the coated cutlets ten minutes stops it sliding off in the pan.
- Hot fat, slowlyThe two instructions are not in conflict: get the fat properly hot to set the crumb, then drop the heat to medium-low for the rest. Clarified butter, lard or a neutral oil all work; whole butter will burn over that span.
- The gravy in the panPour off most of the fat, then deglaze the browned crumb and fond with stock or a splash of wine and reduce. "Rich" may simply invite a little butter or a spoon of cream whisked in at the end, off the heat.
- Rolls of baconStreaky rashers, rind removed, rolled tight and held with a cocktail stick, then fried until crisp. Nineteenth-century bacon was saltier and drier than most supermarket bacon; modern rashers release water and will need a moment longer to crisp.
- Probable costOne shilling to one and twopence per pound places veal among the more expensive butcher's meats of the period, when beef and mutton commonly sold for less.
Veal dressed with bacon and lemon is the English kitchen's version of a pattern found all over Europe — a lean, mild cut protected by a crumb coating and partnered with something salty and something sharp, since veal has little fat and less flavour of its own than beef or mutton. The bacon rolls and cut lemons around the rim are typical of late Victorian service, where a dish was expected to arrive garnished and self-contained rather than accompanied by separate side plates; the lemon in particular does the work a sauce would in a French kitchen, cutting the richness of the fried crumb.