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Jellied Veal
Soak one tablespoonful of granulated gelatin in quarter of a cup of cold water, and dissolve in a cup of boiling water, add the juice of half a lemon, salt, pepper and celery salt, to taste. When beginning to jell, add to this two cups of finely ground cold veal or other meat. Pour into a mold and chill. Turn out on a platter and surround the form with cress.
A cold-larder loaf of the simplest kind: one measure of gelatin, a little seasoned liquid, and whatever cooked meat is on hand. Two details decide whether it succeeds — the temperature at which you add the meat, and how firmly you season.
- The gelatin measureOne tablespoonful of granulated gelatin is a little more than one modern envelope (1/4 oz, about 2 1/4 teaspoons), and an envelope sets roughly 2 cups of liquid. Here the gelatin has only about 1 1/4 cups plus the moisture in the meat to set, so expect a firm loaf that slices cleanly rather than a trembling aspic.
- Soften, then dissolveLet the gelatin stand in the cold water about 5 minutes until it swells and looks granular-opaque, then stir it into the boiling water off the heat until no grains remain on the back of the spoon. Undissolved granules show up as gritty specks in the finished mold.
- "When beginning to jell"This is the hinge. Chill the seasoned liquid until it is the consistency of raw egg white — thick but still pourable, about 20 to 30 minutes in the refrigerator — before folding in the meat. Add the meat to warm liquid and it sinks to one end; wait too long and it will not fold in evenly.
- The meatCooked veal, cold, put through a grinder or pulsed in a food processor to a coarse mince, not a paste. Leftover roast chicken, turkey, ham or tongue all work; 2 cups is roughly 10 to 12 oz. Nothing in this recipe cooks the meat, so it must already be fully cooked and refrigerator-cold going in.
- Season past the point that seems rightCold blunts salt and acid noticeably. Taste the liquid before the meat goes in and push the salt, pepper, lemon and celery salt further than you would for a hot dish. Celery salt is still sold as such and is doing the work that celery seed and salt do together.
- Mold and unmoldingRinse the mold with cold water or wipe it with a film of neutral oil. A loaf pan or a 3-cup bowl is right. Chill at least 4 hours, preferably overnight; to turn out, dip the mold briefly in hot water, run a thin knife round the edge, and invert onto a chilled platter.
- CressThe book means watercress or garden cress — a peppery green, not parsley. Dress it lightly with lemon and oil so it does not wilt against the cold loaf.
- Yield and keepingFour servings as a light main course, six as a first course. Keep it refrigerated and eat within two days; a cold set meat loaf sits at room temperature very badly on a summer table.
Jellied veal belongs to a long line of pressed and potted cold meats that predate refrigeration, when the collagen in a calf's foot or knuckle was simmered down to make its own setting liquor and the resulting loaf kept better than plain roast meat. Veal was a common choice partly because young joints are so rich in that collagen, and partly for its pale colour and mild flavour; the old method "7 long boiling, straining, clarifying "7 took the better part of a day. Packaged granulated gelatin, on the American market from the late nineteenth century, collapsed the whole operation into the four lines printed here, and cookbooks of the 1920s and 1930s seized on it. That is why the dish sits in a book called Cook and Be Cool: it uses meat already cooked, needs no oven, and does its own work overnight in the refrigerator. The instruction to "surround the form with cress" is the period's whole aesthetic in one phrase "7 the molded shape turned out whole and framed with green, a piece of table architecture as much as a lunch.