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VEAL, LOIN OF (au Bechamel)
Take a loin of veal, and have it boned entirely by the butcher. Take out the kidney, remove some of the fat, and put the kidney back in its place. Sprinkle a little pepper and salt over the veal, roll in and skewer the flap to give the joint a good shape, and put a buttered paper round the meat. Roast before a clear fire, and baste liberally. Ten minutes before taking up the meat remove the paper, sprinkle a little salt upon the meat, and let it brown. Send bechamel sauce to table in a tureen. Serve boiled ham or bacon on a separate dish. Time to roast the loin, two hours to two hours and a half, or twenty-five minutes to the pound. Probable cost, 11d. per pound. VEAL, LOIN OF (au Bechamel), Cold Meat Cookery.
Take the remains of a cooked loin of veal. Cut off some of the meat, mince finely, and season with salt, cayenne, and grated lemon-rind. Wrap the loin in oiled paper, place it in the oven, and heat throughout. Moisten the mince with bechamel, and make it quite hot. Dish it, put the loin over it, pour about a quarter of a pint of bechamel upon it, and serve immediately. Fried or boiled bacon should be sent to table with this dish. Time, about one hour and a half to heat the joint.
Two recipes in one entry: a boned loin of veal roasted before the fire with bechamel served apart, and a next-day version that reheats the cold joint over a seasoned mince. Both are straightforward; the only real problem is the timing, which belongs to an era before meat thermometers.
- Cook to temperature, not to the clockTwenty-five minutes to the pound at roasting heat will take a boned veal loin far past the point of juiciness. Roast at 325F and pull the joint at 145F internal; the recipe's own timing implies a joint of about five to six pounds, which will usually reach that point well inside the stated two hours. Rest 15 minutes.
- "Before a clear fire"This is spit roasting in front of open flame, with a dripping pan beneath and frequent basting. An oven substitutes cleanly: roast on a rack, baste with the pan drippings, and raise the heat to 425F for the final 10 minutes in place of the paper coming off.
- Buttered paperA sheet of parchment brushed with butter, tied round the joint, standing in for foil. It shields the surface while the interior cooks; removing it at the end is what gets the browning. Foil works but traps more steam, so blot the joint dry before the final blast of heat.
- Boning and rollingAsk for the loin boned with the flap left on, and keep the bones for stock. Modern practice is butcher's twine at 1-inch intervals rather than skewers, which is tidier and holds the shape better through basting.
- The kidneyVeal kidney sold in the joint is now unusual; you will generally have to order it. It is entirely optional here, and if you leave it out the roast loses nothing but the traditional slice through the centre.
- Bechamel quantityA quarter of a pint in the second recipe is about 5 fl oz, or a generous half cup in American measure. Allow roughly a pint of sauce in total if you are also moistening the mince and sending some to table in a tureen.
- Reheating the cold jointAn hour and a half at oven heat will dry a cooked loin out. Wrap it well, use a low oven around 300F, and stop when the centre reaches 165F, which takes far less time on a joint that is already cooked.
- Yield and accompanimentA boned loin of the size the timing implies will serve eight or so. The boiled ham or bacon sent on a separate dish is not garnish but a deliberate salt counterweight to lean veal and mild sauce.
- The cost lineEleven pence a pound is the retail price current when the book was compiled and is included as a housekeeping note, not an instruction. It has no modern equivalent worth converting.
Bechamel is the plainest of the French mother sauces, and its pairing with veal is a matter of logic as much as tradition: veal is lean, pale and mild, and a milk-based sauce flatters it where a dark gravy would swamp it. The sauce is generally traced to the household of Louis XIV's steward Louis de Bechameil, though the attribution is traditional and the technique of thickening milk with a flour-and-butter roux is older than the name. What makes this entry characteristic of Cassell's is the second half. Nineteenth-century English cookery books devoted whole categories to "Cold Meat Cookery," on the assumption that a large joint would appear at table more than once, and the skill being taught is presentation: mince the trimmings, season them sharply with cayenne and lemon rind, and set the reheated joint on top so that what is plainly a leftover arrives looking like a made dish. The instruction to serve bacon or ham alongside reflects the same economy, since a cured cut supplied the salt that a twice-served roast had lost.