Home › Minced Veal › Minced Veal
Minced Veal
549. Cut cold veal as fine as possible, but do not chop it; put to it a very little lemon-peel shred, two grates of nutmeg, some salt, and four or five spoonfuls of either weak broth, milk, or water; simmer these gently with the meat, but take care not to let it boil, and add a bit of butter rubbed in flour. Put sippets of thin toasted bread, cut into a three-cornered shape round the dish. Or, mince as above, and serve with rolled bacon toasted before the fire, and one or two poached eggs arranged on the surface.
A dish built on yesterday's roast joint, and one that goes wrong in only one way. The instruction not to let it boil is the whole recipe.
- Never let it boilVeal that is already cooked will tighten and turn stringy the moment the liquid bubbles. Keep it at a bare tremble, well below a boil, just long enough to heat through — three or four minutes.
- Cut, do not chopThe point of "as fine as possible, but do not chop" is texture: slice the cold meat thin with a sharp knife, then across into fine shreds. A food processor turns it to paste and the dish becomes a paste too.
- QuantitiesNone are given, as was normal for a leftovers dish. For about 1 lb of cold veal, four or five spoonfuls of liquid is roughly a quarter to a third of a cup — barely enough to moisten, which is correct. Serves two or three.
- Butter rubbed in flourThis is beurre mani", workedto a paste in equal weight — about 2 teaspoons each for this quantity. Drop it in small pieces at the end and swirl until the liquid coats a spoon; do not add it early or it will need boiling to thicken.
- Lemon-peel and nutmeg"Shred" the peel means pared zest cut into fine threads, no white pith. Two grates of nutmeg is little more than a pinch, perhaps 1/16 to 1/8 teaspoon from a whole nut; pre-ground is flatter and you will want a little more.
- SippetsTriangles of thin toast, arranged around the rim. They are structural as much as decorative — the mince is loose, and the toast is how it gets lifted.
- Rolled bacon toasted before the fireThin rashers rolled into cylinders and cooked on a fork at the open hearth. A hot oven at 400F on a rack, or a skewer through each roll under a broiler, gives the same crisp result in 10-12 minutes.
- The poached eggsSet them on the mince at the last moment, whites just firm and yolks running, so the yolk enriches the sauce as it is broken into.