Veal Collops
Cracker-crums
2 pounds veal
Salt and pepper
Egg
Cut the veal in pieces the size of an oyster, dip in beaten egg, salt and pepper. Fry in roll in cracker-crums and season with salt and pepper. Fry in deep fat.
The text is garbled in the original printing — "Fry in roll in cracker-crums" is a compositor's error, and the sequence should read: cut, season, dip in egg, roll in crumbs, fry. The method is straightforward breaded and deep-fried veal.
- Corrected order of workCut the veal, season it, dip in beaten egg, coat in cracker crumbs, then fry. Season the crumbs as well as the meat; a single seasoning of the raw veal will not carry through a crust.
- What a collop isA collop is simply a small slice or scrap of meat. Here it means bite-size pieces rather than the thin flat cutlets the word often implies.
- Cut of vealUse veal cutlet from the leg, or shoulder if you want something more forgiving. Two pounds trimmed of sinew is enough for four to six as a main course.
- "Size of an oyster"Roughly 1 to 1½ inches across and about half an inch thick — a piece that cooks through in the time the crumbs take to brown. Cut them evenly or the batch will finish at different moments.
- Cracker crumbsPeriod cracker crumbs meant crushed plain soda or water crackers, drier and finer than modern panko and slightly salty. Saltines crushed to a coarse sand are the closest match; reduce the added salt accordingly.
- Fat temperatureThe original gives none. Deep fat at 350–365F browns the crumbs in about two to three minutes, by which time thin veal is done. Hotter than that and the crust colors before the center loses its rawness.
- Quantities the recipe omitsTwo eggs, beaten with a spoonful of milk or water, and about 1½ cups of crumbs will coat two pounds of veal with a little to spare.
- ServingDrain on paper, salt while hot, and send out with lemon wedges. Tomato sauce or a plain brown gravy appear as accompaniments in other books of this period.
Collop is an old English kitchen word, in use since at least the fourteenth century for a slice or small piece of meat, and it survived in cookbooks long after it had largely dropped out of everyday speech. Veal suited such treatment: mild enough to want the flavor of browned crumbs, and lean enough to dry out if roasted. Cracker crumbs were a common coating in American households of this period — factory-made soda crackers were reliably on hand, stayed dry in the barrel, and could be rolled fine with a bottle in a moment. The recipe's extreme brevity, and the printing error that duplicates the word "fry," are consistent with the compressed, telegraphic style these mass-market household compendiums used to fit many recipes into a small volume.