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Veal Cutlets, Made from Cold Cooked Veal
Take a pound and a half of cold veal free from skin or gristle, and half a pound of lean ham or tongue. Mince the meat finely, pound it in a mortar, season with salt, cayenne, and grated nutmeg, and add a tea-spoonful of mustard, a tea-spoonful of anchovy, two table-spoonfuls of strong veal gravy, the grated rind and juice of a small lemon, and a quarter of a pound of clarified butter. Half a cupful of rice boiled in milk till soft, and pounded, may be added if liked, and a little yolk of egg may be used to bind the mixture together. Form the paste into cutlets; dip these into clarified butter, dredge flour upon them, and egg and bread-crumb them twice. Fry them in hot fat, or bake them in a brisk oven, basting them two or three times whilst they are there. Send tartar sauce or any other piquant sauce to table with them. A little good stock thickened with brown thickening, and flavoured with lemon-juice or lemon pickle, will answer the purpose when the ingredients for tartar sauce cannot be procured. Time to fry the cutlets, eight to ten minutes; to bake them, about a quarter of an hour.
A Victorian way of turning the remains of a roast joint into something worth serving again: a seasoned forcemeat shaped into cutlet forms, breaded twice, and fried or baked. The hinge is temperature — the paste must be cold and firm before it is shaped, or the cutlets will slump and split in the fat.
- Chill before shapingWith a quarter pound of clarified butter in the mixture, the paste is soft at room temperature. Refrigerate it for at least an hour, shape the cutlets, then chill them again after the final crumbing so the coating sets.
- Mortar means processorMince the meat, then work it to a paste in a food processor rather than pounding. Pulse rather than run it continuously; the aim is a smooth bindable paste, not a purée.
- "A tea-spoonful of anchovy"Most likely anchovy essence, the bottled Victorian condiment, though anchovy sauce or pounded anchovy were used interchangeably under the same shorthand. Anchovy paste from a tube is the closest substitute, or one mashed salted fillet.
- Brisk ovenRoughly 425F, in the 400-450F range these terms usually cover. At that heat the quarter hour given is about right for cutlets of moderate thickness; brush with more butter two or three times as directed, since there is no fat bath to crisp the crumbs.
- Egg and crumb twiceNot a flourish — the double coat is what holds a soft forcemeat together. Flour, egg, crumb, then egg and crumb again, pressing the crumbs on firmly each time.
- Brown thickeningFlour browned, usually with butter though sometimes dry, and treated in period cookery books as a ready thickener to have prepared. A brown roux made fresh does the same job.
- Lemon pickleA spiced lemon preserve, usually made at home from period recipes, and now effectively gone. Chopped preserved lemon with a little of its brine gives the same sharp-salt note.
- Reheating cooked meatThe veal is already cooked, so frying is only about crust and heating through. Bring the centre to steaming hot — eight to ten minutes in the pan will do it for cutlets of moderate thickness.
- YieldTwo pounds of meat and trimmings gives roughly eight cutlets; four to six servings with a sauce and vegetables.
This is a made dish in the old sense — not a cutlet at all, but cold meat rebuilt into the shape of one, complete with the breadcrumb coat and the piquant sauce a real cutlet would expect. Cassell's belongs to the era of the large joint, when a roast leg of veal fed a household for days and something had to be done with its third appearance. The pounded-meat forcemeat, bound with egg and enriched with clarified butter, is the same technique that produced quenelles and potted meats, and the rice boiled in milk is optional — it may be added if liked, and one can guess it served as a cheap extender. Note the fallback at the end: if the household cannot muster the ingredients for tartar sauce, thickened stock sharpened with lemon will serve. Victorian cookery books wrote for kitchens of very different means, and that sentence is aimed squarely at the smaller one.