Minced Veal
Cut some slices of cold veal into small bits or dice; take the cold gravy and add to it a half-pint of boiling water, one teaspoonful tomato or walnut catsup, the grated peel of one lemon, pepper and salt. Simmer it with the meat slowly for half an hour; then add half a teaspoonful flour made into a thin batter and pour it into the gravy, stirring it rapidly. Boil for ten minutes; turn in one-half cupful cream, or same quantity of milk with a small piece of butter; let it boil up. Serve on a hot platter garnished with sippets of fried bread.--Mrs. P.
A leftovers dish from the era when a Sunday roast was expected to reappear twice. The whole thing hangs on not overcooking already-cooked veal.
- The hinge: cooked meat does not want half an hourCold roast veal simmered thirty minutes turns stringy. Build and reduce the sauce first, then add the diced veal for the last five minutes just to heat through.
- Half a pintOne cup. Combined with whatever cold gravy you have, expect a scant pint of sauce; the recipe never states a quantity of veal, so scale the meat to the sauce you end up with.
- Cold gravyThe recipe assumes a jellied pan gravy left from the roast. Without it, use a cup of strong veal or chicken stock and accept a lighter result; a spoonful of the roasting-pan scrapings makes up much of the difference.
- Walnut catsupA dark, salty, spiced condiment made from green walnuts, common in nineteenth-century larders and now sold only by specialists. Mushroom ketchup is the closest survivor; Worcestershire in smaller quantity works as a stand-in. Tomato catsup gives a sweeter, quite different sauce.
- Grated lemon peelA whole lemon's zest is assertive against a cup of sauce. Zest only the yellow, and consider starting with half if your gravy is delicate.
- Flour batterHalf a teaspoon of flour slaked in cold water is a very light thickening — this is meant to be a sauce, not a stew. Stir it in off the boil to avoid lumps, then let it cook a few minutes to lose the raw taste; ten minutes is longer than needed.
- The creamAdd it at the end and bring it barely to a boil, as written — no more. Half a cup of cream will not split, but milk thinned into an acidic tomato-catsup sauce may curdle, so keep the heat low.
- SippetsSmall triangles or fingers of bread fried in butter, arranged around the edge of the dish. Cut them from day-old bread and fry them last so they stay crisp.
- YieldAbout four servings as a light main course, over rice, toast, or with plain potatoes.
Minced or hashed meats occupy a large share of Victorian and post-bellum American cookbooks because a joint of meat was a serious investment and a household was judged on what it did with the second and third appearances. Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879), compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by named Virginia housewives — hence the "Mrs. P." signature — is full of these thrifty reworkings sitting beside far grander dishes. Veal was especially common in this role: mild, pale, and unassertive on its own, it took well to the sharp, dark bottled condiments of the period, of which walnut catsup was among the oldest, appearing in English recipe books well before tomato ketchup became the default. The finishing cream and the ring of fried sippets are what lift a bowl of yesterday's roast into something presentable at table, and they show how much nineteenth-century economy cooking depended on presentation to do its work.