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Veal Cutlets
Cut slices of veal in pieces for serving, sprinkle with salt and pepper, dip in flour, egg and crumbs and fry slowly, until well browned, in salt pork fat or butter.
Pour over one and a half cups of brown sauce, and cook slowly on the back of the range until tender. Arrange on hot platter and strain sauce around cutlets; garnish with parsley.
Brown Sauce: Brown three tablespoons of butter, add three tablespoons of flour and stir until well browned. Add gradually one and a half cups of brown stock or water. Season with salt, pepper, lemon juice and kitchen bouquet. The trimmings and bones from the cutlets may be put on with one and a half cups of cold water, allowed to boil slowly, strained and used for stock in the sauce. -Miss Stella A. Downing.
A breaded-and-braised veal cutlet in the American style, closer to a smothered chop than a Wiener schnitzel. The sequence matters: brown first, then braise gently in the sauce until the meat gives way.
- The hinge: low and slow after browningThe cutlets are fried only to colour, then finished in the sauce. The recipe gives no time, only "until tender"; keep it at a bare simmer, probably covered, for something like 45 minutes to an hour. A hard boil will loosen the crumb coating and tighten the veal.
- "The back of the range"On a coal or wood range, the rear of the top plate was the coolest zone, used for long unattended simmering. Today that is the lowest burner setting with a heat diffuser, or a covered pan in a 300F oven.
- Which cut"Slices of veal" is unspecified here, but a braise of this length suits a slice about half an inch thick from the leg or shoulder rather than the paper-thin scaloppine sold now. Thin scallops will overcook long before the meat is tender.
- Kitchen bouquetA browning and seasoning liquid of caramel and vegetable extracts, still sold under that name. A teaspoon deepens colour without much flavour; a splash of soy sauce or a little more browned roux does the same work.
- Salt pork fatRendered from diced salt pork, a common enough larder item in this period. Butter, or half butter and half neutral oil, browns the crumbs without scorching as readily.
- Brown sauce quantityA cup and a half is enough to moisten, not submerge, a single layer of cutlets. If the pan is wide the sauce reduces fast, so check partway and add stock or water.
- The bone stockThe trimmings and bones simmered in the cup and a half of cold water give a thin but useful stock; expect to lose some to evaporation, so top up if you want the full quantity for the sauce. Start it before you bread the cutlets.
- YieldNot stated; the sauce quantity suits a single layer of cutlets, so roughly four servings. Rice, mashed potato or noodles are the usual partners for the strained sauce.
Veal was a staple of American middle-class cookery in the early twentieth century, when dairy herds meant a steady supply of young male calves and the meat was often said to be cheaper than beef. The method here ” breading, browning, then braising in a flour-thickened brown sauce ” shows the influence of the Boston Cooking School approach that dominated the period: a mother sauce learned once and applied to everything, built on equal parts butter and flour cooked to colour. Many magazines of the day filled their cookbooks with reader-contributed recipes credited by name, which is why Miss Stella A. Downing's signature sits at the bottom; the practice both flattered subscribers and gave the collection an air of tested domestic authority.