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Fricandeau of Veal
3 lbs. veal 1 carrot sliced 1 onion sliced A bouquet of seasonings 1 tablespoon salt 1/4 teaspoon pepper 2 cups white broth Trim and wipe a 3 pound piece of veal from the leg. Remove the sinews and lard the top with small strips of salt pork. Brown it lightly in frying-pan and place in braising pan with vegetables, seasonings and broth, and cook for two hours, basting occasionally. Serve with 1/2 pint puree of spinach for a garnish.
A braised larded veal round, dressed in the classic French manner. The instructions assume a cook who knows how to lard and who has stock on hand.
- The cut"A 3 pound piece of veal from the leg" means the round, cut as a solid slab across the grain — what a butcher will call veal top round or cushion. Ask for it in one piece, at least 2 inches thick, and have the silverskin removed.
- LardingLarding means threading strips of salt pork through the meat with a larding needle, not laying them on top. Veal leg is very lean and this is what keeps it from drying over two hours. If you have no needle, cut deep slits with a thin knife and push the pork in, or drape the top with thin sheets of fatback and tie it.
- White brothA light unbrowned stock — veal or chicken, unsalted or lightly salted. Two cups will not cover the meat, which is correct: this is a braise, and the exposed top browns and glazes while the base simmers.
- Bouquet of seasoningsThe period bouquet garni: parsley stems, a bay leaf, a sprig of thyme, sometimes a bit of celery top, tied with string or bundled in a leek leaf.
- SaltA full tablespoon is heavy by modern taste, especially with salt pork in the meat and salted broth. Two teaspoons for three pounds is closer to current practice; taste the liquid before it reduces.
- Temperature and timeThe recipe gives no temperature: cook at a bare simmer on the stovetop, or in a moderate oven, for which around 325F is the usual modern equivalent. Two hours suits a thick piece of leg; it is done when a skewer slides out with no resistance. Baste every 20 minutes or so, which is what builds the glaze on top.
- The sauceThe recipe does not say what to do with the braising liquid, but the usual treatment is to strain it, skim the fat, and reduce it until it coats a spoon, then spoon it over the sliced meat.
- Yield and servingSix servings. Carve across the grain in thin slices. Half a pint of spinach purée is about a cup — cooked spinach squeezed dry, puréed with butter, spread on the platter under or beside the meat.
Fricandeau is one of the older terms in French butchery, generally traced to at least the seventeenth century, though the early sense — small larded pieces of veal — is not quite the later one of a thick slice of veal leg, larded and braised so that it slices firm and moist rather than falling apart. It was often served at nineteenth-century tables, and it had long been at home in English-language cookbooks — Glasse, Leslie, Rorer and, in 1896, Fannie Farmer all carry a version. Its presence in a flour company's promotional cookbook says something about what such books were expected to do: not merely sell flour, but signal that the household using it could produce a dish with a French name and a proper garnish. The pairing with spinach purée is practical as much as aesthetic — the green cuts the richness of the larded meat and the reduced braising glaze.