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Veal, Italian
Take half a pound of uncooked veal perfectly free from skin and fat, pound it in a mortar with a quarter of a pound of fat previously boiled, or as much fat bacon, also boiled. Boil in milk a French roll with an onion, a bay-leaf, a small pinch of cayenne, white pepper, and salt. Drain off the milk, remove the bay-leaf, and beat the pounded veal and bread through a coarse sieve. Mix in a beaten egg, and make into rolls with a little flour. Boil these in separate floured cloths, and serve turned out on a dish, with gravy, white or brown, and a little lemon-juice. Time, ten or twelve minutes to boil. Probable cost, about 1s.
This is a veal forcemeat — essentially a large quenelle poached in a cloth — and it stands or falls on the texture of the pounded meat. A food processor does in two minutes what the mortar did in twenty.
- The hinge: keep everything coldVeal and fat emulsify properly only when chilled; if the mixture warms while you work it, the fat separates and the rolls turn grainy and weep in the water. Chill the meat, the boiled fat and the bowl, and pulse rather than run the machine.
- QuantitiesHalf a pound of veal (225 g) with a quarter pound (115 g) of fat gives roughly a 2:1 ratio — generous by modern taste but what makes the forcemeat tender. The rolls serve two as a main course or four as a course in a longer meal.
- "Fat previously boiled"Pork back fat or fresh pork belly fat, simmered until soft and then cooled. Boiled fat bacon is the alternative given, and it will make the result noticeably salty, so ease back on the added salt if you use it.
- A French rollA small crusty white bread roll, stale rather than fresh. Simmer it in milk with the onion and seasonings as directed, then drain it well — a wet panade slackens the mixture and the rolls will not hold shape.
- The floured clothsScald squares of cotton or muslin, flour them heavily, roll each portion into a cylinder and tie both ends, leaving a little slack for expansion. Buttered parchment inside a foil sleeve, or tight cling film for poaching, does the same job with less fuss.
- Timing and temperatureTen to twelve minutes suits rolls no thicker than a large sausage, and the water should be at a bare shiver, not a rolling boil, or the forcemeat bursts its skin. Anything thicker needs longer: cook to 160F (71C) at the centre, since this is ground raw veal.
- ServingUnwrap, slice thickly, and sauce generously — the forcemeat is deliberately plain and dries out. A velouté or a light brown gravy sharpened with lemon, as directed, is the point of the dish rather than an afterthought.
- The cost note"About 1s." is one shilling in Victorian money. Treat it as a guide to nothing but the period's economics.
Cassell's assigns national labels loosely, and "Italian" here signals a manner rather than a provenance: a pounded veal-and-fat forcemeat, bound with bread soaked in milk and egg, poached in a cloth and sliced. The technique belongs to the wider European family of quenelles, polpettone and boiled veal loaves, all of which turn a small amount of pale meat into something that carves and stretches, and all of which depend on the same emulsion of lean flesh with soft fat. Boiling in a floured cloth was a common English method for anything too soft to roast or bake before moulds and bains-marie became ordinary kitchen furniture; the flour is said to set on contact with the water and form a skin that holds the shape. Veal was then a familiar butcher's meat in Britain rather than a luxury, and was valued for the blandness that made it a vehicle for sauce.