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Veal, Minced and Scalloped
To prepare this dish two or three scallop-shells are wanted, though small dishes or saucers may be used instead. Cleanse the shells, and butter them thickly. Mince the veal, and season in the usual way, then moisten and simmer it for three or four minutes in some good gravy drawn from the bones. Put a heaped table-spoonful of the mince into each shell. Cover it with seasoned bread-crumbs, lay little pieces of butter here and there on the top, and brown the surface in a Dutch oven before a clear fire. Serve the preparation in the shells, which should be neatly placed on a hot dish covered with a folded napkin.
A Victorian way of using up the remains of a roast or braised joint of veal, dressed up in scallop shells for the table. Everything hinges on the meat already being cooked — the shells only need long enough to brown the crumbs.
- The shellsReal scallop shells were kept and reused as small bakers; deep ceramic ramekins or shallow gratin dishes of about 1/2 cup capacity do the same job. Butter them heavily, as the recipe insists, or the mince sticks.
- "Season in the usual way"For veal this generally means salt, white pepper, a scrape of nutmeg or mace, and sometimes a little grated lemon rind; the recipe itself does not specify. A spoonful of cream or a few drops of lemon juice in the gravy would be in keeping.
- Gravy from the bonesThe recipe assumes you have the roast's bones and trimmings to hand. Simmer them with an onion and a bay leaf for an hour, or substitute a well-reduced light stock; about 1/4 cup of gravy is enough to moisten a cup of mince without making it soupy.
- Three or four minutes, no moreThe veal is already cooked. The simmer is only to warm it through and marry it with the gravy — longer and minced cooked veal turns dry and grainy.
- Seasoned bread-crumbsFresh soft crumbs mixed with salt, pepper and a little chopped parsley or thyme. Dried commercial crumbs brown before the filling is hot; if that is all you have, keep the layer thin.
- The Dutch ovenHere this means a tin reflector screen set on the hearth to throw fire heat at the food from one side, not a cast-iron pot. A broiler element does the same work: 4 to 6 inches from the heat for 3 to 5 minutes, until the crumbs are gold and the butter has run. A hot oven will brown the tops too, though more slowly; the recipe gives no temperature.
- Reheating cooked meatCold cooked veal that has been stored should be brought properly hot right through in the gravy before it goes into the shells; the brief browning at the top will not heat the interior.
- YieldThe recipe calls for two or three shells with a heaped tablespoonful of mince in each; it does not say how many it serves. A shell apiece as a light luncheon or supper course is as plausible as all two or three going to one person. Reckon roughly 1 cup of cooked veal for two or three shells.
- The napkinBesides the look of it, a folded napkin would also help keep the rounded shells from sliding on the hot dish as it is carried in.
Scalloped dishes take their name from the shell they were baked and served in, and by the nineteenth century "scalloped" had drifted to mean almost anything minced, sauced, crumbed and browned. The dish sits among the veal entries as a way of using up a cold joint: veal roasts were large and expensive, and a well-run household was expected to make something of the remains. The Dutch oven before a clear fire places the entry in the era of hearth cookery and reflected heat rather than a closed compartment, and the shells themselves were kitchen equipment worth washing and keeping or yyesterday's joint looked considerably better arrayed in shells on a napkin than heaped on a plate.