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Veal, Roast Fillet of
INGREDI- - Veal, forcemeat, melted butter.
AVERAGE COST, 1s. per lb.
ENTS.
Have the fillet cut according to the size required; take out the bone, and after raising the skin from the meat, put under the flap a nice forcemeat. Prepare sufficient of this, as there should be some left to eat cold, and to season and flavour a mince if required. Skewer and bind the veal up in a round form; dredge well with flour, put it down at some distance from the fire at first, and baste continually .
FILLET OF VEAL.
About 1/2 hour before serving, draw it nearer the fire, that it may acquire more colour, as the outside should be of a rich brown, but not burnt. Dish it, remove the skewers, which replace by a silver one; pour over the joint some good melted butter, and serve with either boiled ham, bacon, or pickled pork. Never omit to send a cut lemon to table with roast veal.
TIME.-A fillet of veal weighing 12 lbs., about 4 hours.
SEASONABLE from March to October.
This is a spit-roasted joint written for an open fire, and almost every instruction assumes radiant heat from one side. The translation to an oven is straightforward, but two of Beeton's terms mean something other than what they look like.
- "Melted butter" is a sauceIn Beeton, melted butter means a thickened white sauce — butter worked with flour and water or stock until it coats. Plain liquid butter poured over the joint is not what is intended and will simply run off onto the dish.
- The fillet is the legA fillet of veal is the cut across the top of the hind leg, boned out — the equivalent of a beef topside. Ask a butcher for a boned leg of veal; you will not see it labelled "fillet" today, and it has nothing to do with tenderloin.
- Fire to oven"Down at some distance from the fire" then drawn nearer is a two-stage roast: gentle heat throughout, then browning at the end. In an oven, roast at 325F and raise to 425F for the last 20 to 30 minutes.
- Time and temperatureFour hours for a 12 lb joint is about 20 minutes per pound, which is in the right region for a fire but long for a modern oven on a lean cut. Cook to an internal temperature of 145 to 150F at the thickest point and rest 20 minutes; veal beyond 160F goes dry and grainy, and the flour dredge will not save it.
- The forcemeatBeeton's standard veal forcemeat is breadcrumbs, chopped suet or bacon fat, lemon rind, parsley, thyme and egg to bind. Stuffed under the flap and skewered inside a rolled joint, it needs to reach 165F itself, so check the stuffing as well as the meat — this is the point at which the timing usually has to give.
- Basting is not optionalVeal leg has almost no fat. "Baste continually" is the hinge of the recipe: without it the flour dredge scorches and the outside dries before the centre is done. Bard the joint with bacon or a sheet of pork fat if you would rather not open the oven every 15 minutes.
- The salt pork accompanimentHam, bacon or pickled pork alongside is doing real work — it supplies salt and fat that the veal lacks. So does the cut lemon, which is why Beeton says never to omit it.
- Yield and seasonA 12 lb joint serves 15 or more, and the recipe openly expects leftovers for cold meat and mince. "Seasonable March to October" is a note on supply rather than on any quality of the cooked dish, and most likely reflects when calves came to market.
Roast fillet of veal was a set-piece joint of the Victorian middle-class dinner table: large, pale, mild, and at a shilling a pound dearer than Beeton's roasting beef and mutton, which she prices in the eightpences. Bull calves were a by-product of dairying, and cookery books of the period devote long sections to veal that read oddly now that British veal is a specialist purchase. The forcemeat, the boiled ham beside it and the cut lemon all address the same problem — veal's leanness and want of flavour — and the instruction to prepare extra stuffing so that some remains for cold meat and mince is characteristic of Beeton, whose book is as much a manual of household economy as of cooking. The silver skewer swapped in at the table is presentation: the working skewers that held the joint together were not meant to be seen in the dining room.