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Roast Veal
426. Veal, in order to look and eat well, should be thoroughly done at a strong fire, and browned very evenly, with a certain amount of coating caused by the dredging with flour, or with flour and breadcrumb mixed. It must be constantly basted with lard, dripping, or butter, as its own fat is not sufficient for the purpose. It is usual to stuff the fillet with forcemeat (par. 333), either filling with it the place where the bone was taken out, or else the flap where the fat lies, or by many it is preferred in both situations. For gravy, either make it from the dripping-pan (see par. 44), or else use any gravy at hand made from other sources, and mix with melted butter. It is served with slices of lemon. The time for roasting is as follows:-A fillet, stuffed, weighing nine pounds, two hours and a half; a shoulder of eight pounds, an hour and three-quarters; a breast of six pounds, one hour and a quarter; loin, an hour and a quarter to two hours, according to size; and for these joints, when either larger or smaller, add or subtract a quarter of an hour per lb.
This is a method note rather than a list of ingredients, written for a joint turning on a spit before an open fire. The core adjustments are the heat source and the cooking times.
- "A strong fire"In an oven, a modern equivalent is to start the joint at about 425F for 20 minutes to set the flour coating and colour, then drop to 350F for the remainder; these figures are an adaptation, not the book's. The original assumes radiant heat from a fire on one side, which is why constant basting and even browning are stressed.
- Roasting timesThe stuffed fillet works out at roughly 17 minutes per pound, the shoulder and breast nearer 13, which by modern standards will take veal well past dry. Cook instead to an internal temperature of 145F at the thickest point, away from bone, then rest 15 minutes; this will generally mean noticeably less time than the table allows.
- Basting is not optionalVeal genuinely lacks fat, as the text says. Baste every 15 to 20 minutes with lard, dripping or butter, or lay a sheet of caul fat or thin bacon over the joint and remove it for the last 20 minutes to let the surface colour.
- DredgingThe text calls for flour, or flour mixed with breadcrumbs, to form a coating on the joint. It does not say when or how often; dredging and basting in alternation rather than flouring all at once keeps the coating from turning pasty.
- The cutsA fillet of veal in British usage is the leg, boned out, not the small tenderloin sold under that name in beef. A nine-pound fillet is far more than most households now want; a 3 to 4 lb boned and rolled leg or shoulder serves six to eight and follows the same method.
- Forcemeat and the cross-referencePar. 333 is the book's forcemeat; forcemeats of this period were commonly breadcrumbs, suet or butter, lemon peel, herbs and egg to bind, though the paragraph itself is not reproduced here. Any bread-and-herb stuffing works; pack it loosely and make sure the centre of the stuffing is fully cooked through -- 165F if it contains raw egg or meat -- not merely the 145F used for the veal itself.
- Gravy from the dripping-panPour off the fat, deglaze the pan with stock, and reduce. The instruction to mix it with melted butter means the book's melted-butter sauce, a flour-thickened butter sauce closer to a modern white roux sauce than to plain drawn butter.
- ServingLemon slices are the traditional accompaniment and do real work against the richness of the basting fat. Bacon rolls and a plain green vegetable suit it.