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Veal Cutlets with Rice
559. Pound some cold veal or chicken, and separately, an equal quantity of lean cooked ham, or tongue, then pound a teacupful of rice which has been previously boiled in milk until quite tender; mix the whole with yolk of egg, and make them into small cutlets. Before frying these cutlets they must be rubbed over with yolk of egg. Serve with a good well-flavoured brown gravy, and pickled lemons or mushrooms.
This is a Victorian way of using up cold roast meat: a bound forcemeat shaped into little cutlets, not a slice of veal at all. The mixture must be stiff and cold before shaping or the cutlets slump in the pan.
- What a "cutlet" means hereThe word describes the shape, not the cut — the paste is moulded into small chop-like ovals; period cooks sometimes pushed in a short piece of macaroni to imitate the bone. These are what a later cookbook would call croquettes or rissoles.
- PoundingA mortar was the original tool; a food processor does it in seconds. Pulse rather than run the machine, and stop while there is still a little texture, or the meat turns to paste.
- The teacupful of riceA Victorian teacupful is usually reckoned at roughly a quarter-pint, say 5–6 fl oz, though the term was never standardised. It is not clear whether the rice is measured before or after boiling; measuring it cooked, about 3/4 cup, is a reasonable reading, and add it gradually — the rice is the binder and too much makes the cutlets bland and pasty.
- Rice boiled in milkSimmer the rice in milk until it collapses and the grains break down, more like a savoury rice pudding than a pilaf. That starchy softness is what holds the meat together.
- SaltHam or tongue in equal weight to the veal brings plenty of salt with it. Season only after tasting a spoonful of the raw mixture cooked off in a pan.
- Chill, then shapeSpread the mixture on a plate and refrigerate at least an hour before forming the cutlets. Warm forcemeat will not hold an edge.
- FryingEgg yolk alone gives a thin, quickly-coloured coat, so keep the fat at a steady medium — around 350F if you are shallow-frying in clarified butter or oil. For a sturdier crust, egg then fine dry breadcrumbs, which was common practice in the same period.
- Pickled lemonsSalt-pickled lemons of the sort sold as preserved lemons are the closest thing on shelves now. Rinse and slice thinly; a little goes a long way against the rich brown gravy.
- YieldAbout eight small cutlets from a pound of cooked meat in total, enough for four as a light main course with the gravy and a green vegetable.
Dishes like this one are the practical heart of a mid-Victorian household book: a joint of veal or a boiled fowl was expected to reappear at a second and third meal, and the cook's skill lay in disguising it convincingly. Shaping minced leftovers into a "cutlet" borrowed the prestige of a fresh chop, and the rice boiled in milk is the cheap binder standing in for the panada or thick béchamel of a grander kitchen. The suggested garnish of pickled lemons points to the long English taste for sharp bottled pickles alongside fried and reheated meats — a habit generally traced back to the eighteenth-century store cupboard, when lemons were salted down to keep through the year.