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Minced Veal in Shape of a Fillet
553. Mince the lean of a cold fillet of veal as fine as possible, mix with it a quarter of a pound of fat cold ham chopped small, add a teacupful of grated bread-crumbs, a grated nutmeg, some powdered mace, grated rind of a lemon, and two beaten eggs. Season with salt and cayenne, mix well together, and make it the shape of a small fillet; then glaze over with yolk of egg, and strew the surface over with bread raspings, set it in a Dutch oven, and bake till hot through, adding a veal gravy made from the trimmings, and thickened after the meat is taken out with beaten yolk of egg. Serve with the gravy poured round. Fillet of chicken or turkey may be made in the same manner.
This is a made dish for the day after a roast: cold veal reworked into a loaf that mimics the joint it came from. The one thing to watch is the finishing of the gravy, which will curdle if it is allowed to boil after the egg yolk goes in.
- The egg-thickened gravyTake the pan off the heat, whisk a little of the hot gravy into the beaten yolk, then return the mixture to the pan and keep it below a simmer, stirring, until it coats a spoon. Any boil at all and it will scramble into threads.
- Dutch ovenIn this period a Dutch oven is usually a tin reflector stood open-side to the fire rather than a lidded cast-iron pot. The book gives no temperature; a moderate oven, around 350F, will do the same job. The meat is already cooked, so the aim is only to heat it through: allow roughly 30 to 40 minutes for a loaf of this size, and 165F at the centre is a safe point to stop.
- QuantitiesA quarter pound of ham is 4 oz. A teacupful of crumbs is roughly three-quarters of a cup, loosely packed. The recipe gives no weight for the veal; something in the region of 1 1/2 to 2 lb of cooked meat suits the other quantities, and the binder can be scaled down if you have less.
- A whole grated nutmegA full nutmeg for this amount of meat is heavy by current taste, and the mace is on top of it. A quarter to a half nutmeg plus a pinch of mace reads as Victorian without overwhelming the veal.
- Bread raspingsRaspings are the dried crusts of stale bread grated to a coarse powder. Dry unseasoned breadcrumbs, or crusts dried in a low oven and crushed, give the same sandy crust over the yolk glaze.
- Veal and its substitutesFillet of veal is the cut from the leg, sold now mainly as rose veal escalopes. Cooked pork loin, chicken or turkey all work, and the recipe itself offers the poultry version.
- The trimmings gravyWith no bones to hand, a strong light stock reduced with a shallot and a strip of lemon peel stands in. It wants to be well flavoured, since it is the only sauce.
- YieldEnough for four to six as a main course with potatoes and a green vegetable. It slices better after ten minutes' rest.
Dishes like this belong to the Victorian art of the r"chauff", handled with enough seriousness that cookery books often gave them their own chapters. A cold fillet of veal was a large, bland, expensive thing that arrived at the table twice or three times, and one common way to disguise the second appearance was to mince it, season it far more assertively than the roast had been, and mould it back into the silhouette of the joint — an honest economy dressed as a fresh dish. The seasonings here are the standard English forcemeat set of the period: ham for fat and salt, nutmeg and mace, lemon rind for lift, egg to bind. Thickening the accompanying gravy with yolk rather than flour is the older, richer treatment, and it is the reason the dish demands attention at the last minute. The note that chicken or turkey may be treated the same way is typical of such compilations, which tended to give one method and then list the meats it would carry.