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Veal, Neck of, Stewed
Take the best end of a neck of veal. Lard it, or if this cannot be conveniently done, cover with a thin slice of fat bacon, and roast it for one hour. Put it into a stewpan, pour over it a quart of stock made from bones, and add a bunch of parsley, a sprig of thyme, a bay-leaf, two onions thinly sliced, half a dozen mushrooms, half a tea-spoonful of whole pepper, and four ounces of picked and washed rice. Let the liquor boil, then draw the saucepan to the side, and let its contents simmer as gently as possible till the meat is tender. Put the veal on a dish, strain part of the gravy over it, and send the rest to table in a tureen. Garnish with the boiled rice. Time, altogether, two hours. Probable cost, veal, 11d. or 1s. per pound. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A two-stage dish: the veal is browned in the oven, then finished as a gentle braise with rice cooking in the same liquid. The hinge is the rice, which is added at the start of a long simmer and will be well past al dente by the time the meat gives way.
- The cutThe "best end of the neck" is the rib section, sold today as a rack of veal or veal rib roast; ask for it bone-in and untrimmed of its fat cap. Veal neck proper, or a boned shoulder, works as well and is far cheaper, though it wants longer in the pot.
- Larding, or notLarding means threading strips of pork fat through the lean with a larding needle, a piece of equipment few kitchens keep. The bacon bard the recipe offers as an alternative does the same job: tie a thin sheet of unsmoked fatback or streaky bacon over the top with kitchen string.
- Roasting temperatureNo temperature is given. A moderate oven, around 350F, will serve for the first hour; the point is colour and rendered fat, not doneness.
- A quart of stockAn imperial quart is 40 imperial fl oz, about 1.14 litres, or just under five US cups. It should be a light veal or chicken stock made from bones, unsalted, since it later becomes the sauce.
- The riceFour ounces of long-grain rice simmered for an hour will collapse into the gravy and thicken it heavily. If you want the separate grains the garnish instruction implies, add the rice for the last 20 to 25 minutes, or cook it apart in some of the strained braising liquor.
- Doneness"Till the meat is tender" is the real instruction: a rib roast will be sliceable at around 145F internal, but a neck or shoulder needs to go well past that, to 190F or so, before the connective tissue softens. Keep the liquid at a bare shiver, never a boil, or the outside of the joint shreds while the centre is still tight.
- Whole pepperHalf a teaspoon of whole peppercorns, left loose in the pot, are meant to be caught by the strainer. Tie them with the parsley, thyme and bay into a bundle if you would rather not fish for them.
- YieldFive or six as written. The recipe's total of two hours suits the rib end; a shoulder or neck would need longer.
Cassell's puts this among the neck-of-veal preparations because the neck was, by most accounts, among the hardest-worked cuts of the veal carcass in a Victorian kitchen — cheap enough at eleven pence a pound to feed a household, but lean and sinewy enough to need help. Hence the larding and the bacon bard: veal, being young meat, carries almost no intramuscular fat, and English cookery of the period dealt with that by adding pork fat rather than by long moist cooking alone. The rice is cooked in the braising liquor rather than served separately, so that the starch thickens the gravy and stretches the dish at the same time.