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Veal Cutlets and Celery
Divide the best end of a neck of veal into neat cutlets. Trim these in the usual way, and beat them with a cutlet-bat. Wash four heads of celery, and cut them into neat pieces. Put them into a saucepan, cover with boiling water slightly salted, add a blade of mace, let them boil quickly for ten minutes, then drain them. Lay the celery at the bottom of a saucepan, add the cutlets, and a little salt and pepper, and pour over them as much veal stock made from the bones and trimmings of the cutlets as will barely cover them. Let them simmer gently till tender. Take up the cutlets, and mix with the celery--now reduced to pulp--a quarter of a pint of milk or cream and a thickening of flour and butter. Stir the sauce over the fire for ten minutes, pour it over the cutlets, and serve immediately. A little stewed onion may be put with the celery if liked, but this is a matter of taste. Garnish the dish with veal, forcemeat balls, and sliced lemon. Time to stew the cutlets, about three quarters of an hour.
A braise disguised as a cutlet dish: the celery is cooked to collapse and becomes the sauce. The hinge is keeping the liquid at a bare simmer, since veal cutlets in a rolling boil tighten and dry within minutes.
- The cut"Best end of neck" is the rib section, sold today as a veal rack or rib chops; loin chops work as well. Ask for the bones and trimmings, since the recipe expects you to make the cooking stock from them.
- Cutlet-batA heavy flat mallet used to even out thickness rather than to flatten. A meat mallet's smooth face, or the base of a small pan, does the same job; aim for an even 1/2 inch, not paper-thin.
- Four heads of celeryA "head" here is one whole bunch. Period celery was generally blanched, and the varieties grown were probably slimmer than a modern bunch, so around three modern bunches of the pale inner ribs is a reasonable equivalent; the tough outer stalks can go into the stock.
- Blade of maceA shard of the lacy covering of the nutmeg, still sold whole in some spice shops. A pinch of ground mace, or a scant grating of nutmeg, substitutes; add it late so it does not turn bitter.
- A quarter of a pintAn imperial quarter-pint is 5 fl oz, so a generous half cup of milk or cream.
- Thickening of flour and butterEqual weights of soft butter and flour worked to a paste, what is now called beurre manié, whisked into the simmering sauce in small pieces. The ten minutes of stirring is there to cook out the raw flour taste, not to reduce.
- Timing and heatThree quarters of an hour is right for bone-in cutlets held at a bare shiver, with the liquid barely covering them. If the surface breaks into a boil the meat will be stringy well before the celery has broken down.
- Forcemeat ballsThe garnish assumes a separate veal forcemeat, poached or fried, of the kind such books usually give under a separate heading. Both garnishes are directed here; the lemon is worth keeping, as the sauce is rich and wants an acid note.
- YieldA best end will usually give six or so cutlets depending on the number of ribs, enough for about four with potatoes or plain rice to take the sauce. The recipe itself states no yield.
Veal with celery is a familiar pairing in nineteenth-century English cookery, and the seasonal logic is clear enough: celery came into the market in late autumn and winter, trenched and earthed up to blanch it. The dish belongs to the family of plain white braises alongside veal with peas or with cucumber, all built on a pale stock made from the bones of the very joint being cooked, which is why the recipe is casual about a stock it assumes you have to hand. The finish with cream and a butter-and-flour thickening is a domestic simplification of the blanquette idea, for a cook working without a standing pot of veloute. The direction to let the celery reduce to pulp looks deliberate rather than careless: it is how body and sweetness get into a white sauce without eggs.