Veal Chops
First beat until tender, then lay the chops in a pan, pour in just enough boiling water to barely cover them. Cover closely and simmer till tender, sprinkling over after they are nearly done, with a little pepper and salt. Lift from the pan, dry with a clean towel, butter them, then cover with beaten egg, and sift on cracker crumbs. Lay on a baking dish or pan and set in the stove to brown. Garnish and serve.--Mrs. S. T.
A two-stage method: the chops are braised in water until tender, then egged, crumbed and browned in the oven. The hinge is drying them thoroughly before the coating goes on.
- "Beat until tender"This means pounding with the flat of a mallet or the back of a heavy knife, not whisking. Cutlets from the leg benefit most; rib or loin chops are already tender and need only a light flattening to even their thickness.
- Simmer, do not boilBarely cover with boiling water, then hold the pan at a bare tremble. Veal at a rolling boil tightens and goes stringy. Rib chops are tender in about 25 to 35 minutes; thicker leg cutlets may want 45.
- Salt late, as writtenThe recipe adds pepper and salt only near the end; seasoning at that point stays on the meat rather than leaching into the cooking water. Keep that water: it is a light veal broth worth reducing for a sauce or gravy.
- Drying is the step that mattersEgg will not cling to a wet, just-simmered chop, and the crumbs will slide off in the oven. Pat completely dry with a towel and let the surface cool a minute before buttering and coating.
- Cracker crumbsPeriod cracker crumbs came from plain soda or water crackers, crushed fine. Unsalted saltines or plain water biscuits give the right sandy texture; commercial dried breadcrumbs are coarser and brown faster.
- "Set in the stove to brown"A hot oven. The original gives no temperature; in a modern oven, roughly 425 to 450F for 10 to 15 minutes, or until the crumbs are deep gold, answers to it. The meat is already cooked, so this stage is purely about colour; longer will dry it out.
- Yield and servingFigure one chop per person. The recipe says only "Garnish and serve"; the reduced cooking liquid, thickened with a spoonful of butter and flour, suits the dish better than anything richer.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879), compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by named Virginia housekeepers, is full of recipes signed with initials like this one, and the format tells you as much as the method: these were kitchen practices traded among households, not tested formulas. The technique here, simmering meat in water and then crumbing and browning it, is a thrifty resolution of veal's chief problem. Veal is lean, so it dries in a skillet and has little fat of its own to fry in; poaching keeps it moist while the egg-and-crumb crust supplies the crispness and richness the meat lacks. Cracker crumbs in place of bread were common in American cookbooks of the period, since soda and water crackers kept far better than good stale bread, which did not always come to hand.