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Veal Olives
Cut from an uncooked fillet of veal half a dozen slices half an inch thick, seven inches long, and four inches broad. Flatten these with a chopper, and brush them over with beaten yolk of egg. Lay upon each a thin slice of fat bacon the same size as the veal, brush this also with yolk of egg, and spread a layer of good veal forcemeat over it. Roll each piece up tightly, and bind it with twine. Flour the olives, or, if preferred, brush them with egg, and roll them in bread-crumbs. Melt a little dripping in a frying-pan, put in the olives, and turn them about till they are lightly browned all over. Drain, and place them closely side by side in a saucepan just large enough to hold them. Pour over them as much boiling gravy as will cover them, and let them simmer very gently till done enough. Lift them on to a dish, strain the gravy over, and garnish with slices of lemon and sprigs of parsley. Send fried bacon to table on a separate dish. The gravy in which the olives are to be stewed may be made as follows. Take the bones and trimmings of the veal with any bones of poultry there may be; break them into small pieces, and put them in a stewpan with a slice of butter or dripping, two sliced onions, a handful of parsley, a blade of mace, four cloves, and six or eight peppercorns. Shake the saucepan over the fire till the ingredients become slightly browned, then pour in gradually a quart of hot water. Let this boil, and thicken with a lump of brown thickening. Failing this, mix a table-spoonful of flour smoothly with a little cold water in a basin. Stir a portion of the boiling liquor with this, and add it to the rest. Add also a table-spoonful of ketchup and as much sugar browning as will make the gravy a good colour. Cover the saucepan closely, and let its contents simmer gently till the gravy is strong and pleasantly flavoured. Strain the sauce, let it cool a short time, clear it from fat, stir in some salt, let it boil, and it will be ready for use. If there are no bones from the veal, one pennyworth of fresh bones or half a pound of lean beef or veal may be used instead. Time, one hour and a half to simmer the bones, two hours to stew the olives. Probable cost, veal, 1s. 1d. per pound. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A straightforward veal roulade braised in its own bone gravy. The main thing to reconsider is the stewing time, and the two Victorian shortcuts — brown thickening and sugar browning — that no longer sit in anyone's larder.
- Cut the stewing timeTwo hours of simmering will leave thin fillet slices dry and stringy, however gentle the heat. Rolled and browned veal escalopes of this size are done in 45 minutes to an hour at a bare simmer; test one by piercing to the centre of the forcemeat, which should be firm and hot through.
- "Olives" are not olivesThe word here refers to the shape, a small stuffed roll, and the dish is a cousin to beef olives and paupiettes. The origin of the term is disputed: one common suggestion links it to French bird-shaped roll names (oiseau/alouette), another simply to the rolls' olive-like shape. Either way, nothing in the dish comes from an olive tree.
- Brown thickeningA stored roux of flour cooked in fat until deep brown, kept in a jar or in lumps for exactly this purpose. The recipe already gives the substitute: a tablespoon of flour slaked in cold water, tempered with hot liquor. A dark roux made fresh from equal weights butter and flour works better and tastes less pasty.
- Sugar browningCaramel colouring, made by cooking sugar to a very dark stage and letting it down with water. Its job is colour, not sweetness. A teaspoon of dark caramel or a little gravy browning does the same; over-adding gives a burnt edge to the sauce.
- KetchupIn a book of this date this means mushroom or walnut ketchup — thin, dark, salty, no tomato and no sugar. Tomato ketchup will sweeten the gravy and push it in the wrong direction. Use a spoonful of mushroom ketchup, Worcestershire sauce or a dash of soy for the same savoury depth.
- Veal forcemeatThe book assumes you have some to hand and gives no composition here; a standard veal forcemeat of the period is minced veal, or a veal-and-pork mix, bound with breadcrumbs, suet or butter and egg, with lemon zest, parsley and mace. Spread it thinly — a thick layer swells and splits the roll.
- Binding and browningButcher's twine still works, but tie loosely; the forcemeat expands. Cotton thread or two cocktail sticks per olive are easier to remove at the table. Dripping is beef or pork fat, interchangeable here with clarified butter or a neutral oil.
- Yield and servingSix olives, stated as five or six portions, so one each with the fried bacon served alongside. Reduce the strained gravy hard before spooning it over; a quart of stock thickened with only a tablespoon of flour is a thin sauce by modern taste.
Veal olives belong to a long English line of stuffed, rolled and braised meats — beef olives, the French paupiette — in which a lean slice is beaten thin, layered with fat and forcemeat, and cooked slowly so the stuffing carries the flavour the meat lacks. The name is generally traced not to the fruit but to older cookery terms for small bird-shaped rolls, the same logic that gives us the French alouettes sans têtes, "larks without heads". The gravy instructions are as long as the dish itself, which is the real signature of Cassell's: a household book written for a kitchen where stock came from the day's own bones and trimmings, where brown thickening and sugar browning sat ready in jars, and where the cost per pound of veal was quoted so a cook could answer to the mistress of the house. The alternative offered — a pennyworth of fresh bones from the butcher — puts the intended reader squarely in the middle-class household of the 1870s to 1890s, ambitious enough for forcemeat, careful enough to count the pence.