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Veal Loaf (Pounds chopped veal crackers)
3 pounds chopped veal 4 crackers Butter size of egg 3 eggs 3 tablespoons milk 1 large tablespoon salt 1/2 teaspoon pepper 1 tablespoon sage Mix the veal with the crackers rolled very fine; add the butter, eggs, milk, salt, pepper and sage. Mix all together and form into a loaf. Bake three hours in the cooker, using both radiators.
A fireless-cooker recipe: the loaf goes into an insulated box between two heated soapstone or iron disks and cooks on stored heat alone. The proportions translate directly to a conventional oven, but the doneness test does not.
- What "both radiators" meansA fireless cooker was an insulated well; the "radiators" were metal or soapstone disks heated on the stove until glowing, then set below and above the food. Two of them signals a browning, roasting-type dish rather than a simmer. Nothing in the method corresponds to a modern appliance — a slow cooker starts cold and never approaches the initial heat of a red-hot disk.
- Butter size of eggAbout 2 ounces, or 4 tablespoons.
- Four crackersAlmost certainly soda crackers or New England common crackers, which are much larger than a modern saltine. Aim for roughly 3/4 cup of fine crumbs; the loaf should hold together without being bready.
- SaltOne large tablespoon in 3 pounds of meat works out near 1.3 percent by weight, which is well judged for a loaf meant to be eaten cold in slices. Reduce only if serving it hot with gravy.
- SageA tablespoon of dried rubbed sage. If using ground sage from a modern jar, which is finer and more potent, start with two teaspoons.
- Doneness is a temperature, not a clockGround veal must reach 160F throughout. Three hours in a cooker gave no way to verify this, and a cooker packed loosely or with underheated radiators would coast below the mark. Check the centre with a thermometer regardless of how the loaf is cooked.
- In a conventional ovenA 3-pound loaf in a standard pan takes roughly 1 1/2 hours at 350F to reach 160F at the centre. Rest 15 minutes before slicing.
- Yield and servingTwelve or more portions. Loaves of this size were made to be cooled fully, weighted if desired, and sliced cold through the week for sandwiches and luncheon plates.
Fireless cookery was a genuine movement rather than a novelty: an insulated box, a couple of heated stones or iron disks, and food that finished cooking on stored heat while the stove went out. It saved fuel and, in an era of coal ranges, it saved the kitchen from being unbearable in July — which is why cookbooks of the 1910s so often carry a fireless section alongside the ordinary one. Veal loaf is a characteristic candidate. Veal was, by most accounts, readily available in American markets then, though prices varied by region and season; its mild flesh took kindly to a long gentle bake, and the loaf's real purpose was to be eaten cold: sliced thin for sandwiches, or set out on a platter for a summer supper, so that a household could cook once and eat from it for days. The seasoning here — sage, generous salt, cracker crumbs bound with egg — is the standard American loaf formula of the period, closer in spirit to a farmhouse forcemeat than to the tomato-glazed meatloaf that took over the table a generation later.