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Grenadins of Veal
Cut your veal into fairly thick cutlets, lard them with fat bacon, and braise them in the oven, with salt, pepper and butter. Dish up, and rinse the pot with a little stock, and pour it on the meat ready to serve.
A four-line professional shorthand: the technique is French braising, and everything the recipe leaves out is assumed knowledge. Here is what to supply.
- What a grenadin isA grenadin is a thick medallion cut from the veal cushion (top round) or loin, larded and braised — essentially a scaled-down fricandeau. Cut 1 to 1 1/2 inches thick; thin escalopes will dry out before the larding does any good.
- Larding without a needleTraditionally strips of chilled fatback or bacon are threaded through the surface with a larding needle. Without one, cut narrow slits with a paring knife and push in cold bacon batons, or simply lay bacon over the tops and tie it on. The point is fat basting the lean meat from within, not decoration.
- Braise means covered, and lowUse a heavy lidded pot; a modern oven at around 325F suits this. "Braise them in the oven, with salt, pepper and butter" implies a tight lid and the meat's own steam — no liquid is added, so the seal matters more than usual. As a rough guide, allow 1 to 1 1/2 hours for round, less for loin; the book specifies neither temperature nor time.
- Brown firstThe recipe does not mention it, but colouring the grenadins in the butter on the stovetop before the lid goes on is usual in this style of braise, and gives the final deglazing more to dissolve.
- "Rinse the pot"This is deglazing: a few tablespoons of veal or chicken stock swirled in the hot pot over heat to lift the browned glaze, then poured over. Reduce it slightly and whisk in a knob of cold butter if you want it to cling.
- Bacon has changedThe "fat bacon" intended here is a very fat cured pork for larding rather than modern breakfast rashers. Modern streaky bacon is generally cured sweeter and often smoked, and will flavour the dish noticeably; unsmoked pancetta or plain fatback is closer to the likely intent.
- DonenessVeal round braises to tenderness rather than to a pink centre; it is ready when a skewer slides out without resistance. Loin grenadins, by contrast, are best pulled at 145F and rested.
- YieldThe book gives no yield. Figure one 5-6 oz grenadin per person, so roughly 1 1/2 lb of veal for four, a little more to allow for trimming. Classically served with braised endive, spinach or a puree that will take the pan juices.
The Belgian Cook Book was compiled during the First World War from recipes gathered from Belgian refugees who had fled to Britain after the invasion of 1914, and sold in aid of relief work — which explains its terseness. These are not developed test-kitchen recipes but dictated household memories, written down by people who assumed the reader already knew what braising looked like. The dish itself is straightforwardly French in technique: grenadin is a diminutive used in French professional cookery for a small larded cut of veal, and the larding of lean veal with pork fat was standard practice in any kitchen working with an animal that carries almost no intramuscular fat of its own. Belgian cooking of the period sat comfortably inside the French repertoire while leaning harder on butter and on braising in a closed pot, and this recipe — butter, a lid, and a splash of stock to catch what stuck — is that habit in miniature.