Veal Loaf
Three pounds uncooked veal, ¾ pound salt pork chopped fine, 1 cup rolled crackers, 2 eggs well beaten, 2 teaspoons salt, 1 teaspoon pepper. Make into a loaf and bake 2 hours in a moderate oven.
A plain ground-veal loaf of the sort that appeared on cold supper tables as often as hot ones. It needs almost no translation, but a few points make the difference between a moist loaf and a dry one.
- Moderate ovenRead that as 350F. At three pounds of meat plus pork the loaf will take most of the stated two hours, though start checking at 90 minutes.
- Cook to temperature, not clockVeal is lean and overcooks into sawdust. Pull the loaf at 160F on an instant-read thermometer in the centre; the salt pork keeps it from drying before that point.
- The pork is not optionalVeal has very little fat of its own. The chopped salt pork is the entire fat content of the loaf, and cutting it back gives a crumbly, dry result. Unsmoked fatback or fresh side pork is closest to what was meant.
- Rolled crackersCommon soda crackers crushed with a rolling pin. A cup of cracker crumbs is roughly 3 oz; unsalted saltines or plain water biscuits work, but reduce the added salt slightly since most crackers are already salted.
- Uncooked vealAsk the butcher to grind shoulder, or buy ground veal. Many period meat loaves were made from cooked leftover roast, so the word "uncooked" may simply be distinguishing this one from those; the recipe itself says nothing about how the meat is to be chopped.
- Seasoning is spareTwo teaspoons salt and one of pepper for nearly four pounds of meat looks light by modern measure, though the three-quarter pound of salt pork adds a good deal of salt of its own. Fry a teaspoon of the mixture to check before shaping the loaf.
- Shape and pan"Make into a loaf" means free-form on a shallow baking pan, which browns all sides. A standard 9x5 loaf tin works but steams the sides; if you use one, drain off fat partway through.
- Yield and servingServes eight to ten hot. Veal loaf was also commonly eaten cold, chilled under a weight and sliced thin for sandwiches or a supper plate with pickles.
Veal loaf belongs to a large family of pressed and baked meat loaves that filled American cookbooks from the 1870s onward, a period when hand-cranked meat grinders became cheap enough for ordinary kitchens and cooks could turn tough cuts into something sliceable. Veal was a usual choice because its mild flavour and gelatin content were said to set firmly when cold, giving a loaf that generally held together under the knife without any added aspic. Compilations such as this one, assembled from contributed household recipes, favoured dishes that could be made in quantity on one day and eaten across several; the cold sliced loaf, kept in the cellar or icebox, was the working answer to that problem long before the sandwich loaf of pressed luncheon meat took its place.