Home › The Principles of Cookery › VEAL CUTLETS, ROASTED (a la Maintenon)
VEAL CUTLETS, ROASTED (a la Maintenon)
Take a cutlet of veal from the fillet. Cut it into neat pieces, and flatten these with a cutlet-bat. Spread upon them a little good veal forcemeat, cover with thin slices of fat bacon, and put them on a skewer. Cover them evenly with oiled paper, and roast before a clear fire. Send piquant sauce to table with them.
A spit-roasting recipe written for an open fire, with no times, temperatures or quantities. The technique is barding and paper-wrapping to keep lean veal from drying, and that is what has to be reproduced in a modern kitchen.
- "A cutlet of veal from the fillet"In Victorian British butchery the fillet is the leg, not the tenderloin. Ask for boneless leg or top round of veal, cut into slices about half an inch thick before flattening.
- Cutlet-batA flat weighted mallet or the side of a heavy cleaver. Beat to a scant quarter-inch, working from the centre out, with the meat between sheets of plastic or parchment.
- Veal forcemeatTypically minced veal, or veal and suet, bound with breadcrumbs, egg, lemon zest, parsley and mace. A fine pork-and-veal farce or a plain sausage meat seasoned with lemon and herbs stands in without complaint.
- Fat baconNot streaky rashers. This means barding fat -- thin sheets of pork back fat or fatback, or the fattest unsmoked pancetta you can find, cut thin enough to drape and melt over the meat.
- Oiled paperPaper brushed with oil or clarified butter, the same family of technique as cooking en papillote. Buttered parchment does the same job; it shields the surface from radiant heat while the fat bastes underneath.
- Roasting without a spit"A clear fire" means a fire burned down past smoke and flame, the meat turning in front of it. A rotisserie attachment is the direct equivalent; otherwise roast on a rack at 400F, or grill the wrapped parcels over settled coals, turning once.
- TimingThe original gives none because the cook judged by eye. Flattened veal of this thickness, wrapped and barded, wants roughly 12 to 18 minutes and should come off at 145-150F internal. Veal at this thinness goes dry and stringy within a couple of minutes of overcooking.
- Piquant sauceGenerally a brown sauce sharpened with vinegar or white wine and finished with shallot, gherkin and sometimes capers. Serve it separately, as directed.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantities. Figure roughly two small cutlets per person as a main course, with the sauce, potatoes and a green vegetable.
The name points to Françoise d'Aubigné, Marquise de Maintenon, the second wife of Louis XIV, and by the nineteenth century à la Maintenon had settled in the professional repertoire to mean a cutlet spread with a forcemeat or thick seasoned puree, wrapped in paper, and cooked in the wrapping -- the attribution to her kitchen is traditional rather than documented, and the dish is usually said to have been named in her honour rather than invented for her. The method demonstrates two things at once: barding, the practice of covering lean meat with sheets of fat so that it self-bastes, and paper cookery, which protects a delicate surface from the ferocious direct heat of a roasting fire. Veal from the leg is almost without internal fat and was a classic test case for both techniques. The instruction to send the sauce to table separately is of its period too: the roast arrived in its own right, and the sharp, vinegary sauce piquante was there to cut fat that had been deliberately added.