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Minced Veal With Poached Eggs
Chop cold veal very fine. Season well, add to each pint 1 cupful of thick brown sauce and 1/2 of a cupful of cream, heat and simmer until considerable of the sauce is absorbed. Serve on a hot platter surrounded with toast points and place a number of neatly trimmed poached eggs on top.
A leftovers dish built on cold roast veal and a made-ahead brown sauce. The whole thing takes about fifteen minutes if the sauce already exists, and rather longer if it does not.
- The hinge is the sauce"thick brown sauce" in a book of this period means a brown roux-based sauce, thick enough to cling; something on the order of an espagnole would suit it, but the recipe does not specify. A cup of that sauce plus half a cup of cream to a pint of minced meat is the whole flavour of the dish; if the sauce is thin the mince will be soupy and will never absorb it.
- A pint of minceThat is by volume, not weight: very roughly 10 to 12 oz of chopped cooked veal, or about what a pound of raw meat yields roasted. The recipe gives no yield and only asks for "a number" of eggs, so portions are for the cook to judge.
- Chop, do not grind"Chop very fine" with a knife gives distinct grains that hold sauce. A food processor turns cooked veal to paste, and the dish loses its texture entirely.
- Simmer timeThe recipe's cue is that considerable of the sauce be absorbed, which need not take long over low heat. Cooked veal reheated hard goes dry and stringy, so stop while the mixture still moves in the pan.
- Season well means seasonCold roast veal is bland, and the recipe leaves the seasoning entirely to the cook. Salt and pepper at least; nutmeg, a little lemon juice or sherry are options rather than anything the recipe calls for.
- Poached eggs"Neatly trimmed" refers to cutting away the ragged whites with scissors or a knife once the eggs are lifted out. Poach them in advance, hold them in warm water, then drain on a cloth before setting them on the mince; a wet egg slides off.
- Toast pointsCrustless bread toasted and cut corner to corner into triangles, arranged around the rim of the platter. Fry them in butter instead if you want them to stand up to the sauce.
- Veal availabilityThe recipe specifies only cold veal, with no cut named; any cold roast veal will do. Cooked chicken or turkey is a workable substitute.
Minced meat under or beside a poached egg was one of the standard ways American and English cookbooks of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries turned yesterday's roast into today's breakfast or luncheon dish, and it belongs to the same family as creamed chicken on toast and the various hashes. The recipe assumes a roast has already been served once at its best and that what remains must be stretched with sauce, cream, eggs and bread. The technique of enriching a small quantity of chopped meat with a brown sauce is French in origin, and the eggs on top do the work of making a scant portion look like a composed dish on a platter.