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Veal Collops En Casserole
2 pounds veal (from leg) 2 bits of salt pork 4 tablespoons pork fat 1 onion 4 cloves Salt to taste 2 sprigs parsley Water 1 green pepper, chopped 1 tablespoon butter 3 tomatoes Have the veal cut in slices about three-fourths of an inch in thickness; cut these in pieces for serving, and into each draw a bit of salt pork. Cook hot pork fat until nicely browned; remove to the casserole and add an onion into which four cloves have been pressed, parsley, and stock or boiling water nearly to cover the veal. Sauté a green pepper, chopped fine, in a tablespoon of butter, and add this, with the tomatoes cut in pieces, also salt to season; cover the dish, and let cook in a moderate oven about an hour and a half. If desired the liquid may be thickened with flour mixed with cold water to a thin paste. Remove the onion and parsley before serving.
A straightforward braise of larded veal slices, written for a covered earthenware pot rather than the modern baked-pasta sense of "casserole." The hinge is the larding: lean leg veal has almost no internal fat, and the strips of salt pork are what keep it from drying through ninety minutes of oven time.
- CollopsAn old English word for slices of meat cut for frying or braising, here three-quarters of an inch thick and then cut again into serving portions. A boneless veal top round or leg roast sliced thick gives the same thing.
- "Draw a bit of salt pork"This is larding: a strip of salt pork is threaded through each piece with a larding needle. Without a needle, cut a deep slit with a paring knife and push the pork in with the handle of a spoon.
- The casseroleHere the word means the vessel: a lidded earthenware or heavy metal pot that goes on the fire and into the oven, not the baked dish. A Dutch oven or any tight-lidded braiser is the direct equivalent.
- Moderate ovenRoughly 325-375F in period usage; 350F is a safe reading. At that temperature an hour and a half brings leg veal to the point where the connective tissue has softened but the meat has not gone stringy.
- Browning stepThe veal is browned in the hot pork fat before it goes into the pot. Do it in batches in a wide pan so the pieces sear rather than steam, and deglaze with a little of the stock so nothing is left behind.
- Liquid"Nearly to cover" means a braise, not a stew, so keep the level short of the top of the meat. Unsalted veal or chicken stock is better than water; salt only after the salt pork has had time to give up its own.
- Onion and clovesAn onion studded with whole cloves is an aromatic to be fished out, not eaten. Four cloves is plenty for two pounds of meat; more and the dish turns medicinal.
- ThickeningThe flour-and-cold-water slurry works but can taste raw. Whisk it in and let the sauce bubble two or three minutes on the stovetop before serving, or simply reduce the liquid uncovered instead.
- YieldTwo pounds of veal serves four to six. It reheats well and is better the second day, once the tomato and pepper have settled into the sauce.
Veal collops belong to a long line of English braises in which lean meat is cut thin, larded, and cooked slowly in its own liquor; recipe books were printing "scotch collops" and "collops of veal" well before 1800. The tomato and the green pepper sauteed in butter suggest a later, likely American version, tomatoes and peppers appearing more freely in northern cookbooks around the turn of the twentieth century. The larding needle is taken for granted here, as it appears to be in other books of the period, and its disappearance from home kitchens is much of the reason a dish like this reads as more laborious now than it did then.