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Veal Chickens
Use veal steak cut in pieces size of your hand, free from bones. Chop parsley, mix with butter until smooth. Take a piece of veal, spread with parsley butter, salt, pepper and little flour, roll, with strip of pork in each one, and pin together, with toothpicks. Fry in half lard and butter until brown. Pour over ¾ pint of milk, let simmer until done. 3 lb. knuckle veal
Thin veal cutlets rolled around parsley butter and salt pork, browned, then braised in milk. The technique is that of a paupiette or "bird" — the name here refers to the shape, not to any poultry.
- The milk quantity"34 pint" is a broken three-quarter pint, about 1 1/2 cups. Add enough to come partway up the rolls rather than to cover them; the flour dusted on the veal will thicken it as it reduces.
- Cut and thicknessThe recipe specifies only pieces "the size of your hand," free from bones; it gives no thickness. They must be thin enough to roll and pin, so veal cutlets or top round flattened between plastic wrap will suit; anything thick will not roll neatly.
- Strip of porkThe recipe says only "a strip of pork"; salt pork is the likely intention, cut into batons about the length of the roll. If you use salt pork and it is very salty, blanch it a minute and go easy on the added salt. Thick-cut unsmoked bacon is the closest common substitute.
- Half lard and butterThe lard raises the smoke point so the butter can brown the meat without burning. Any neutral oil does the same job if you have no lard; keep the butter in for flavour.
- ToothpicksWooden toothpicks work but char and can splinter in the pan. Kitchen twine tied in two places is easier to remove, and count the picks going in if you use them.
- Simmer time"Until done" is 30 to 40 minutes at a bare simmer, covered, turning the rolls once. Veal this thin toughens if boiled; the milk should barely tremble. It will look curdled partway through and smooth out as it reduces.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield; its only stated quantity is the trailing "3 lb. knuckle veal." Reckon two rolls per person and scale to the meat you have. Spoon the reduced pan milk over them as a sauce.
Rolled and stuffed cutlets appear across nineteenth-century American church cookbooks under a run of homely names — veal birds, mock birds, veal olives, and as here "veal chickens" — all describing a flat piece of meat wrapped around a filling until it resembles a small trussed fowl. The form is often traced to European paupiettes and roulades, though the line of descent is less direct than it is usually made to sound. Braising in milk rather than stock or wine is likewise a Northern European habit, and it does double duty here: the milk tenderises the lean veal and, reduced with the flour from the dusted rolls, becomes the sauce without a separate step.