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Veal Collops or Olives
INGREDIENTS for entrée for 6 persons. About 1½ lb. of the prime part of the leg of veal, a few slices of bacon, forcemeat, egg and breadcrumbs, any wine to taste, gravy. AVERAGE COST, 3s.
Cut the veal into long thin collops, flatten them, and lay on each a piece of bacon cut thin, of the same size; have ready some forcemeat, which spread over the bacon, sprinkle with cayenne; then roll each piece tightly up. They should not be more than 2 to 3 inches long. Skewer each one firmly, egg-and-bread-crumb them, and fry a nice brown in butter, turning them often and shaking the pan about. When done, place them in a dish before the fire, put a small piece of butter in the pan, dredge in a little flour, add about pint of water, 2 tablespoonfuls of lemon-juice, a seasoning of salt, pepper and pounded VEAL CUTLETS. mace; let the whole boil up, then pour it over the collops.
TIME.-10 to 15 minutes.
SEASONABLE from March to October. - INGREDIENTS. - The remains of cold roast Veal, Curried. (Cold Meat Cookery. veal, 4 onions, 2 apples sliced, 1 tablespoonflour, 1/2 pint of broth or water, 1 tablespoonful ful of curry-powder, 1 dessertspoonful of of lemon-juice. AVERAGE COST, exclusive of the cold meat, 4d.
Slice the onions and apples, and fry them in a little butter; then take them out, cut the meat into neat cutlets, and fry these of a pale brown; add the curry-powder and flour, put in the onions, apples and a little broth or water, and stew gently till quite tender; add the lemon-juice, and serve with an edging of boiled rice. The curry may be ornamented with pickles, capsicums and gherkins, arranged prettily on the top.
TIME. hour.
SEASONABLE from March to October. - INGREDIENTS for Veal Cutlets. dish for 8 persons. -About 3 lbs. of the prime part of the leg of veal, egg and bread-crumbs, 3 tablespoonfuls of minced savoury herbs, salt and pepper to taste, a small piece of butter. AVERAGE COST, 3s. 6d.
Have the veal cut into slices about of an inch in thickness, and, if not cut perfectly even, level the meat with a cutlet-bat rolling-pin. Shape VEAL CUTLETS. and trim the cutlets, and brush them over with egg. Sprinkle with bread-crumbs, with which have been mixed minced herbs and a seasoning of pepper pe and salt, and press the crumbs down. Fry them of a delicate brown in fresh lard or butter, and be careful not to burn them. They should be very thoroughly done, but not dry. If the cutlets be thick, keep the pan covered for a few minutes at a good distance from the fire, after they have acquired a good colour: by this means, the meat will be done through.
Lay the cutlets in a dish, keep them hot and make a gravy in the pan as follows;- Dredge in a little flour, add a piece of butter the size of a walnut, brown it, then pour as much boiling water as is required over it, season with pepper and salt, add a little lemon-juice, give one boil and pour it over the cutlets. They should be garnished with VEAL CUTLETS. slices of broiled bacon, and a few forcemeat ballswill be found a very excellent addition to this dish.
TIME. For cutlets of moderate thickness, about 12 minutes; if very thick, allow more time.
SEASONABLE from March to October.
Note.-Veal cutlets may be merely floured and fried of a nice brown: the gravy and garnishing should be the same as in the preceding recipe. They may also be cut from the loin or neck, as shown in the engraving.
Veal Cutlets, Broiled, à l'Italienne.-INGREDIENTS. -Neck of veal, salt and pepper to taste, the yolk of 1 egg, breadcrumbs, 1/2 pint of Italian sauce. AVERAGE COST, 10d. per lb.
Cut the veal into cutlets, flatten and trim them nicely; powder over them a little salt and pepper; brush them over with the yolk of an egg, dip them into bread-crumbs, then into clarified butter, and, afterwards, in the bread-crumbs again; boil or fry them over a clear fire, that they may acquire a good brown colour. Arrange them in the dish alternately with rashers of broiled ham, and pour the sauce (made by recipe for Italian sauce) in the middle.
TIME.-10 to 15 minutes, according to the thickness of the cutlets.
SEASONABLE from March to October.
Veal Cutlets à la Maintenon. -INGREDIENTS. -2 or 3 lbs. of veal cutlets, cut from the leg, egg and bread-crumbs, 2 tablespoonfuls of minced savoury herbs, salt and pepper to taste, a little grated nutmeg.
AVERAGE COST, 1s. 2d. per lb.
Cut the cutlets about inch in thickness, flatten them and brush them over with the yolk of an egg; dip them into breadcrumbs and minced herbs, season with pepper and salt and grated nutmeg, and Pepper and and grated nutmegt fold each cutlet in a, piece of buttered buttered paper. Broil them, and send them to table with melted butter or a good gravy.
TIME. From 15 to 18 minutes.
SEASONABLE from March to October.
Veal, Fillet of, au Béchamel. (Cold Meat Cookery.) - INGREDIENTS.-A small fillet of veal, 1 pint of béchamel sauce, a few bread-crumbs, clarified butter.
A fillet of veal that has been roasted the preceding day will answer very well for this dish. Cut the middle out rather deep, leaving a good margin round, from which to cut nice slices; and if there should be any cracks in the veal, fill them up with VEAL, FILLET OF. forcemeat. Mince finely the meat that was taken out, mixing with it a little of the forcemeat to flavour, and stir to it sufficient béchamel to make it of a proper consistency. Warm the veal in the oven for about an hour, taking care to baste it well, that it may not be dry; put the mince in the place where the meat was taken out, sprinkle a few bread-crumbs over it, and drop a little clarified butter on the breadcrumbs; put it into the oven for 1/4 hour to brown, and pour béchamel round the sides of the dish.
TIME.-Altogether, 1½ hour.
SEASONABLE from March to October.
The titled recipe is the first of several veal dishes running together on this page; the notes below address the collops themselves, with a word on the cutlet variants that follow.
- What a collop isA collop is a thin slice of meat, here rolled around bacon and forcemeat — the same construction as a French paupiette or a British beef olive. Cut from the top round of the leg, about 1/4 inch thick, then beat between sheets of film to 1/8 inch so the rolls stay tight.
- Quantity and yield1 1/2 lb of leg veal yields roughly a dozen rolls 2 to 3 inches long, an entrée for six by Victorian reckoning; as a modern main course with a starch it will serve four.
- ForcemeatThe recipe names no proportions. Mrs Beeton's standard forcemeat for veal is breadcrumbs, suet, minced herbs including parsley and lemon thyme, grated lemon rind, spice and egg to bind, and something of that kind is presumably intended. A well-seasoned sausage meat with lemon zest and herbs does the same job.
- SkewersWooden cocktail sticks work, but soak them and remember to pull them before serving. Fine butcher's twine is tidier and will not scorch in the pan.
- Crumbing and fryingFlour, then beaten egg, then fine dry crumbs. Shallow-fry in clarified butter or a butter-and-oil mix over medium heat, turning often as directed — plain butter alone will darken before the veal is through.
- The missing liquidThe pan gravy calls for "about pint of water" with no fraction given. Half a pint (imperial, about 10 fl oz) with a rounded teaspoon of flour gives a sauce of roughly the right consistency for 1 1/2 lb of meat; adjust by eye.
- Pounded maceMace is the outer coating of nutmeg, warmer and less sweet. Ground mace from a jar is fine; a pinch is enough, and freshly grated nutmeg is a workable stand-in.
- DonenessTen to fifteen minutes is right for rolls this size at a moderate heat. Veal leg is very lean and turns dry and grey past 145F internal — pull the rolls as soon as the forcemeat is set through.
- "Seasonable March to October"This refers to the old calf-rearing calendar, not to safety. Veal is available year round now and the note can be ignored.
"Collop" is an old northern English and Scots word for a slice of meat, recorded long before Mrs Beeton and surviving in Collop Monday, the day before Shrove Tuesday, when bacon collops were eaten up before Lent. "Olive" is the odder term: a beef or veal olive has nothing to do with the fruit, and its origin is unsettled — one suggestion connects it to alow or aloes, another to an Old French word for lark, as in "veal birds" — with the familiar word arriving later by folk etymology. The rolled construction — a thin slice wrapped around bacon and a seasoned crumb stuffing — is the same idea as the French paupiette and the German Rouladen, and it served Victorian households well because it stretched a small quantity of expensive leg veal into a dish that looked like an entrée. The costings printed with the recipe put it at three shillings for six people.