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Veal Chops Bavarian
Wipe six loin chops and put in a stewpan with one-half onion, eight slices carrot, two stalks celery, one-half teaspoon peppercorns, four cloves, and two tablespoons butter. Cover with boiling water and cook until tender. Drain, season with salt and pepper, dip in flour, egg, and crumbs, fry in deep fat, and drain on brown paper. Arrange chops on hot serving dish and surround with boiled flat maccaroni to which Soubise Sauce (see p. 267) is added.
A two-stage veal dish: the chops are poached in an aromatic broth, then breaded and deep-fried. The order matters more than the timings.
- The hinge: dry the chops before breadingChops that come straight from the poaching liquid will shed their crumbs in the fat. Drain them, pat them thoroughly dry, and let them cool at least to warm room temperature before flouring — the coating adheres to a dry, firm surface and slides off a wet, hot one.
- Poaching time"Cook until tender" means a bare simmer, not a boil, for roughly 30–40 minutes for loin chops about an inch thick. Boiling squeezes veal tough and stringy. Keep the water at a lazy tremble.
- Save the brothThe recipe discards a well-flavored stock. Strain and reduce it; it makes the base for the Soubise, which otherwise relies on milk or plain white sauce.
- Deep fat temperatureFry hot enough to set the crust quickly, around 375°F. Since the meat is already cooked, you are only setting the crust: two to three minutes, turning once.
- Brown paperUnprinted kraft or butcher paper was the standard draining surface. A wire rack over a sheet pan works better and keeps the underside crisp.
- Flat maccaroniNot elbow macaroni. "Flat maccaroni" appears to mean a flat ribbon pasta rather than a tube; modern fettuccine or mafalde is a reasonable substitute.
- Soubise SauceAn onion-based béchamel: onions cooked soft in butter without coloring, puréed or sieved, and folded into a white sauce. Season it assertively; it is the only thing carrying salt to the pasta.
- YieldSix chops serve four to six, depending on thickness. Veal loin chops are expensive; thick pork loin chops take the same treatment, though they need no more than 25 minutes of poaching.
Veal held a place in American cookbooks of the 1890s that it no longer holds: mild, pale, and endlessly adaptable to French-derived treatments, it was the meat on which a cooking school could teach sauces. Names like Bavarian, Milanese and à la Vienna were shorthand for continental technique rather than a claim of regional authenticity, and this dish is European mainly in that it poaches, breads and fries in the manner of a Wiener Schnitzel while finishing with a French sauce. Soubise is generally traced to the eighteenth-century Prince de Soubise, whose kitchen is credited by tradition with the onion purée that bears the name; whether he had anything to do with it is doubtful, but the attribution stuck.