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Veal Cake
Mince very finely three pounds of raw veal and one-fourth pound of pork. It is better to do this at home than to have it done at the butcher's. Put two slices of bread to soak in milk, add two yolks of eggs and the whites, pepper and salt. Mix it well, working it for ten minutes. Then let it rest for half-an-hour. Put it in a small stewpan, add a lump of butter the size of a pigeon's egg, and put it in the oven. It will be ready to serve when the juice has ceased to run out.
A plain baked veal loaf, written for cooks who already knew what a meat loaf should look like. Two things are left unsaid: the oven temperature and any reliable test for doneness.
- Oven temperatureNo heat is given. Bake at 350F, which suits a dense loaf of this size without drying the surface before the centre sets.
- Doneness, not juices"When the juice has ceased to run out" will leave you with a dry loaf. Cook to 160F at the centre on an instant-read thermometer; a 3 1/4 lb loaf takes roughly 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours.
- A pigeon's egg of butterRoughly 1/2 to 1 oz (1 to 2 tablespoons); period equivalences for this measure vary. The recipe says only to add it to the pan, so putting it on top of the loaf, where it bastes as it melts, is one reasonable reading.
- The stewpanA "small stewpan" here means a heavy metal pan that can go into the oven; the recipe does not say whether it is covered or not. Any loaf pan or small cast-iron dish works; pack the meat in firmly so it holds together when sliced.
- The bread and milkThis is a panade, and it is what keeps the loaf tender. Use two thick slices of stale white bread, soak until saturated, then squeeze out the excess milk before mixing or the loaf will be loose and wet.
- Grinding at homeThe instruction to mince it yourself is most likely about controlling the fat and the texture, and about what trimmings went into a butcher's grinder. Ask for veal shoulder and unsmoked pork belly or fatty shoulder, and grind once through a coarse plate; the 1/4 lb of pork is there for fat, so lean loin is a poor substitute.
- The ten minutes of workingExtended mixing develops the meat proteins so the loaf slices cleanly rather than crumbling. The half-hour rest lets the panade hydrate fully and the salt penetrate.
- YieldThree and a quarter pounds of meat serves eight to ten. It slices better cold the next day, and such loaves were commonly served cold as well as hot.
The Belgian Cook Book was assembled in 1915 from recipes contributed by Belgian refugees who had fled to Britain after the German invasion, and it is often said to have been published to raise money for relief work; the domestic, thrifty character of much of the book reflects both the households the recipes came from and the war conditions under which it appeared. A "veal cake" here is not a cake in any sweet sense but a loaf of finely minced meat bound with a bread-and-milk panade and eggs, of a kind that resembles, in a general way, the minced-meat loaves found across Belgian cookery. The insistence on mincing the meat at home rather than trusting the butcher may reflect a period in which a customer could not see what fat or trimmings went into the grinder. Such loaves earned their place in a household repertoire because they stretched a modest quantity of meat, needed no watching once in the oven, and were as good cold as hot.