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Veal, Loin of, Stewed, Plain
Take the chump end of a moderate-sized loin of veal; put it into a stewpan with a slice of fresh butter, and turn it about until it is lightly and equally browned. Pour over it boiling stock or water to half its depth, and add two sliced carrots, two small onions, and a bunch of sweet herbs. Let it simmer gently for an hour, carefully removing the scum as it rises. Turn it upon the other side, and simmer another hour. Dish the joint. Skim the gravy, pour some of it over the veal, and send the rest to table in a tureen. Ham, bacon, or pickled pork should accompany this dish. Time, two hours. Probable cost, chump end of a loin of veal, 10d. per pound.
A plain braise: brown, half-cover, simmer, skim. The only technical demand is holding the pot below a boil for two hours, and the only real decision is what cut to buy, since the English butchery term no longer maps onto a modern counter.
- The hinge: a bare simmerHalf-covered meat braised at a rolling boil tightens and goes stringy, and the gravy turns cloudy no matter how often you skim. Keep the liquid at a lazy bubble — around 180-190F — with the lid ajar or off, and the surface scum will gather where you can lift it away.
- "Chump end of a loin"The chump is the sirloin end, next to the leg: a bone-in wedge of loin with the hip bone in it. Ask for a bone-in veal sirloin or the leg end of the loin, about 3 to 4 lb. If it is unavailable, a boneless veal shoulder roast of the same weight braises better anyway, being fattier and more forgiving over two hours.
- Veal is leanA loin cut has almost no intramuscular fat and will be dry well before the two hours are up. Modern practice is to pull a loin joint at about 145-150F internal, which on a 3 lb piece may be an hour and a quarter; reserve the full two hours for shoulder or a bone-in cut you intend to serve falling apart.
- Half its depthThe joint is deliberately not submerged, so the part above the liquid cooks in steam rather than stewing; that is likely why the recipe has you turn it at the halfway mark. Use enough stock to come halfway up, no more, or you are poaching.
- A bunch of sweet herbsVictorian shorthand for what we call a bouquet garni: parsley stalks, thyme, a bay leaf, tied or bagged so it can be fished out. "Sweet" here means aromatic rather than sugary.
- The gravy needs workAs written the liquid is thin and unseasoned. Skim off the fat, then boil it down hard by a third to concentrate it, and season at that point; veal stock carries very little salt of its own.
- Why the ham or baconThe salt-cured accompaniment is not a garnish but the seasoning strategy — veal is bland, and a slice of ham or pickled pork alongside supplies the savour. A few lardons browned with the joint at the start do the same job inside the pot.
- Yield and costA 3 to 4 lb bone-in joint serves six. The "10d. per pound" is ten old pence, pre-decimal currency, and dates the book rather than helping you shop.
Cassell's arranges its veal entries by joint, and this one sits in the plainest register the book has: no wine, no forcemeat, no glaze, just butter, root vegetables and herbs. Veal was associated with the dairy trade in nineteenth-century Britain — calves were a by-product of keeping cows in milk — and the loin was among the more expensive parts. The insistence that "ham, bacon, or pickled pork should accompany this dish" reflects a common period verdict on veal: prized for its delicacy and pale colour, and widely thought to want salt and smoke beside it to taste of anything. The technique is what the period called a "stew", closer to a slow braise than to the liquid-heavy dish the word now suggests.