Roast Veal
Take a piece of loin, rib, or breast, not less than 5 or 6 pounds. It is not well to roast a smaller piece; it is likely to be dry and tasteless, since veal must be well done to be wholesome. And having less nutritive quality and flavor than almost any other meat, it requires especial care in cooking and seasoning to make it palatable or of much value as food. If a small quantity only is wanted, it is better to cook it in some other way, and there are many ways of using cold roast. It may be made into stews, ragouts, baked in pies, or served as entrees in croquettes, casseroles, timbales, etc.
Wipe the piece to be roasted with a damp cloth, trim off any skin or objectionable edges, rub well with salt and pepper and a little powdered mixed sweet herbs, and dredge with flour. Put it in the roasting-pan and lay over the top thin scales of fat salt pork, skewering them in place, if necessary, with wooden toothpicks. The pork will flavor and baste the meat while cooking, but it is better to baste several times while cooking with the liquor in the pan. Pour half a cup of hot water in the pan and add just sufficient water, as it evaporates, to keep the bottom of the pan covered and prevent the flour and fat from burning.
Allow twenty minutes to a pound for roasting, with the oven at a quick heat, covering the top with buttered paper if it burns. When done take out on a hot platter, and make a gravy by adding hot water to the liquor in the pan, if necessary adding first a little more flour and stirring it until smooth. Salt more, if needed, and add a little Worcestershire sauce or a teaspoonful of horseradish.
A straightforward barded roast from the era when veal was assumed to need cooking through. The heat and the timing are the two things worth revisiting.
- Oven heatA "quick" oven is usually read as somewhere around 400-450F, though the book gives no figure and period equivalences vary. Modern practice is to sear briefly at high heat, then drop to about 325F for the remainder, which gives a more even result on a large, lean cut.
- Cook to temperature, not to the clockTwenty minutes to the pound at a quick heat will overshoot badly on a 6 lb roast. Use a thermometer: 145F in the thickest part with a 3-minute rest for a whole cut of veal, up to about 160F if you want it firm and traditional.
- Why the book insists on well doneThe warning that "veal must be well done to be wholesome" reflects a general period distrust of underdone veal; the book does not say what it feared. With inspected veal, whole muscle cuts are safe at 145F; ground veal still needs 160F.
- Fat salt porkThe "thin scales" are thin sheets of barding fat. Streaky salt pork or unsmoked fatback works; blanch it a minute in boiling water if it is heavily salted, since the roast is already seasoned.
- Mixed sweet herbsA dried blend of the period, typically thyme, marjoram, savory and parsley, sometimes with a little sage. Roughly a teaspoon of dried herbs for a 5-6 lb roast.
- Buttered paperParchment is the direct substitute. Loosely tented foil does the same job of shielding the surface once it has coloured.
- Cold roast "casseroles"In cookery of this period a casserole entree commonly meant a moulded rice border filled with a hash of cold meat rather than a baked dish in a ceramic pot; timbales were a similar idea in individual moulds. The recipe only lists the terms, so this is the likely sense rather than a certainty.
- YieldA 5-6 lb bone-in loin, rib or breast serves roughly six to eight, with some left for the made dishes the recipe recommends.