Veal Cake
Take one and a half pounds veal, and half a pound of bacon, stew together with very little water, a little salt and pepper, thyme and parsley. When the veal is tender, cut into small square pieces, as also the bacon. Boil four eggs hard and slice them up, and chop some raw parsley fine. Take a mould or small bowl, lay the slices of egg in a kind of pattern prettily at the bottom of it. Sprinkle the parsley between the slices. Add veal, bacon, and more egg alternately, pepper and salt to taste, and a little grated lemon-peel, also some more parsley, and so on until the bowl is nearly full. Fill up with the gravy the veal was boiled in, which ought to be very rich. Let it stand until quite cold, then turn out on a flat dish. The slices cut firmer and more solid when the cake is made the day beforehand, which it is best to do if the weather permits.--Mrs. R. P.
This is a jellied veal loaf, set by the gelatin in the cooking liquid rather than by any added agent. Everything else in the recipe follows from that.
- The hinge: the stock must gelThe whole dish depends on the veal liquor setting firm on its own, so use bone-in veal shoulder or shank, or add a split veal knuckle to the pot, and keep the water barely to cover. If the cooled liquid does not wobble stiffly on a chilled spoon, dissolve about 1 teaspoon powdered gelatin per cup of stock before filling the mould.
- Cooking time"Until the veal is tender" is roughly 1 to 1 1/2 hours at a bare simmer for shoulder, longer for shank. Do not let it boil hard; a rolling boil clouds the stock and the finished cake will look muddy rather than clear.
- The baconNineteenth-century Virginia bacon was generally home-cured side meat, saltier than today's thin-sliced product and often smoked. Use a slab of streaky bacon in one piece so it can be cut into cubes, and taste the stock before adding any salt at all.
- "If the weather permits"This is a pre-refrigeration instruction meaning a cold larder in cool months. Chill the filled mould in the refrigerator for at least 6 hours, preferably overnight, and keep the finished cake refrigerated; a jellied meat loaf left at room temperature is exactly the wrong thing to do.
- Mould and unmouldingA 1 to 1 1/2 quart bowl or loaf pan suits this quantity. Rinse it with cold water before packing, and to turn out, dip the outside in hot water for a few seconds and invert onto a chilled platter.
- Filling with gravyPour the stock in slowly and tap the mould so it works down between the layers; air pockets are what make slices crumble. Strain the liquid first to remove the thyme stalks and any scum.
- Yield and servingAbout 6 to 8 servings as a cold first course or lunch dish. Cut with a thin knife wiped between slices, and serve with mustard, pickles or a sharp salad.
Veal cake belongs to the long English tradition of potted and jellied meats, the same family as potted beef, brawn and the raised veal-and-ham pie, all of which used the abundant natural gelatin in veal bones to bind cold meat into something sliceable. It appears in Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879), Marion Cabell Tyree's compilation of contributions from Southern housekeepers. The decorative ring of hard-boiled egg slices laid in the bottom of the bowl, so that it becomes the top when turned out, is a standard aspic flourish of the period, and the attribution to "Mrs. R. P." is typical of the book's habit of crediting recipes by initials alone.