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Parsley and Spice
Two pounds of Veal. One Onion. Half ounce of Butter. One pint of White Stock. Half pint of Allemande or Velouté Sauce.
Cauliflower. Carrot. Turnip. Green Peas and French Beans. Cut six or more thin slices from the cushion part of veal, flatten them well and spread veal forcemeat on one side of each. Roll the slices so as to give each the shape of a cork. Tie round each of these a thin slice of fat bacon, put them in a buttered sauté-pan, season with pepper and salt and a little aromatic spice; add a sliced onion, a small bunch of parsley, and a pint of white stock. Allow this to boil up quickly over the fire, cover with a buttered paper, and cook in the oven for about half an hour. Baste occasionally.
When cooked, drain the paupiettes, remove the string and bacon fat, and trim them a little.
Have ready a mixture of cooked buds of cauliflower, carrot and turnip, scooped out à la jardinière, also some green peas and French beans. Toss them lightly in a little butter over the fire.
Have ready a mixture consisting of the rest of the forcemeat and three ounces of mashed potatoes, baked in a border mould for fifteen minutes; turn on to a dish, dish the paupiettes in the form of a pyramid on same, sauce over with the sauce well reduced. Surround with heaps of jardinière on each side, sprinkle the top with a few drops of dissolved meat glaze, and serve.
An Edwardian-style braise dressed up for the table: rolled veal cutlets on a piped potato-and-forcemeat border, ringed with cut vegetables. The recipe assumes you already keep stock, forcemeat and glaze on hand, so most of the modernising is a matter of filling in what the author took for granted.
- The hinge: keep the rolls tight and moistThe paupiettes hold their cork shape only if the veal is beaten genuinely thin, the forcemeat spread in a thin even layer, and the string snug. The buttered paper laid directly on top is a cartouche, not a lid substitute — it keeps the exposed tops from drying while the stock reduces around them.
- Oven heatBring the pan to a boil on the stove, then finish in the oven; the recipe gives no temperature, but a moderate oven of roughly 325-350F suits. Half an hour is right for thin slices; with a raw forcemeat inside, cook until the centre reads about 160F, and stop before the veal tightens.
- MeasuresHalf a pint of sauce is one cup (British half pint, 10 fl oz, is a shade more). A pint of white stock is 2 to 2 1/2 cups — enough to come partway up the rolls, not to submerge them.
- Cushion of vealThe cushion is the inner muscle of the leg, sold now as veal top round. Ask for it cut into thin scallops, or buy veal cutlets and pound them between plastic wrap to about 1/8 inch.
- Veal forcemeatNo quantity is given. Reckon on about 8 oz for six paupiettes plus the 3 oz needed for the border: lean veal ground fine with an egg white, a little cream, salt and pepper works, and it should be firm enough to spread without running.
- Aromatic spiceA period house blend, typically mace or nutmeg with cloves, allspice and pepper ground together, though the exact mixture varied from kitchen to kitchen. A pinch of mace and a scrape of nutmeg gets you the same effect.
- Allemande and veloutéVelouté is a white stock thickened with blond roux; allemande is velouté finished with an egg-yolk and cream liaison. Once the liaison is in, do not let it boil or the yolks will curdle the sauce. Reduce the braising liquid separately and add it to the sauce.
- Jardinière and the border mouldJardinière here means carrot and turnip scooped into small balls or cut in short batons, cauliflower in florets, all cooked separately to keep their colour. For the border, use a ring mould — a plain metal ring cake pan will do — buttered, and turn out carefully; it is fragile.
- Meat glazeGlace de viande is stock reduced to a syrup that sets firm. Commercial demi-glace concentrate, loosened with a spoonful of hot water, gives the same gloss.
- YieldSix paupiettes serve three to six depending on the rest of the menu; the recipe's own 'six or more' suggests roughly one per guest.
Paupiette is the French term for a thin slice of meat spread with stuffing and rolled — cousin to the Italian involtini and the German Rouladen. Dishes of this kind were the backbone of late-Victorian and Edwardian "high class" cookery, which took its vocabulary and its structure wholesale from the French professional kitchen: a braised centrepiece, a mother sauce refined into a derivative, a vegetable garnish given a name (jardinière, the gardener's assortment), and a starch border to raise the whole thing into a pyramid for service. The elaborate plating reflects a kitchen with staff. Note too that the page is headed "Parsley and Spice" — a reminder that these compilations were often assembled from working notes, and that section headings in them are not always to be trusted.