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Veal, Fricassee Of
Take two pounds, or more if required, of lean veal free from skin and bone. Cut this into small thick pieces convenient for serving, and fry them in hot butter until the flesh is firm without having acquired any colour. Dredge a table-spoonful of flour upon them, add a small strip of thin lemon-rind, and gradually as much boiling white stock as will cover the meat. Let it simmer very gently till tender. Take out the lemon-rind, flavour the gravy with salt, cayenne, and pounded mace, and mix with it a quarter of a pint of boiling cream. Beat the yolks of two eggs in a bowl, add gradually a little of the sauce (first allowing it to cool for a minute or two), then this thickening carefully to the remainder of the sauce. Let the pan remain near the fire for three or four minutes, add the strained juice of half a lemon, and serve immediately. A few fried rashers of bacon should be served with this dish. A pint of stewed mushrooms may be served with it or not. The remains of cooked veal may be served in this way. Time, about half an hour to simmer the veal. Probable cost, veal, 1s. 1d. per pound. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A classic white fricassee: veal stewed pale in stock, finished with a cream-and-egg liaison. Everything hinges on the last five minutes.
- The liaison must not boilOnce the egg yolks go in, the sauce must stay below a simmer — around 180F is the limit. "Let the pan remain near the fire" means gentle residual heat, not the burner on. Boiling scrambles the yolks and the sauce breaks into grainy threads that will not come back.
- Fry without colourThe whole point of a fricassee is a white stew. Use butter over medium-low heat and stop as soon as the veal firms and turns opaque. Any browning, and you have a brown ragout with cream in it.
- Imperial measuresA quarter of a pint of cream is 5 fl oz in imperial measure, near enough two-thirds of a US cup. The pint of stewed mushrooms is 20 fl oz by volume.
- White stockAn unroasted veal or chicken stock, pale and unsalted. A light chicken stock is the practical substitute; avoid anything dark or heavily reduced, and season only at the end since the reduction concentrates salt.
- Pounded maceBlade mace crushed in a mortar — the outer covering of nutmeg, warmer and less sweet. Ground mace from a jar works; about a quarter teaspoon for this quantity. Nutmeg in a smaller amount is the closest stand-in.
- Simmering timeHalf an hour suits small pieces of prime cut veal. Shoulder or breast, cut into 1-inch dice, wants 45 minutes to an hour before it gives. Test rather than trust the clock.
- The lemon at the endAcid added to a hot egg-and-cream sauce will curdle it if the pan is too hot. Take the pan off the heat first, then stir the strained juice in. Add it last, as written — early lemon juice in cream is asking for trouble.
- YieldFive or six as written, though two pounds of veal serves four generously as a main course with rice or plain boiled potatoes to take the sauce.
Fricassee comes into English from the French fricassée, a term generally traced to the fifteenth century for meat cut up and cooked in its own sauce rather than roasted whole — distinct from a brown ragout in that it is deliberately kept pale. Veal was the classic subject, and the near-identical French dish, veal simmered in white stock and finished with egg yolks and cream, is the blanquette de veau. In Cassell's it appears as an alphabetical dictionary entry, "Veal, Fricassee Of," and the technique it teaches is the liaison of yolks and cream stirred into a hot sauce off the boil, transferable to chicken, rabbit and fish. The note that "the remains of cooked veal may be served in this way" is characteristic of the book's era: a household that had roasted a joint on Sunday was expected to have a repertoire for what followed, and a cream sauce with mace and lemon covered a good deal of cold meat.