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Veal Cutlets with Cream Gravy
2 pounds veal cutlets
Drippings
1 cup milk or cream
Salt and pepper
1 tablespoon flour
Egg
Bread or cracker-crums
Wipe the cutlets, sprinkle with salt and pepper, dip them first or cracker-crums, and sauté in beaten egg and then in fine bread or cracker-crums, and sauté they may be cut into in drippings until brown. If preferred, they may be cut into with a rolling-pin until small pieces of similar size and pounded with a rolling-pin until thickness and then egged little more than a quarter of an inch in thickness and then egged should be thoroughly and crummed and sautéd. The cutlets should be thoroughly platter, add cream to browned on both sides. Place them on a platter, add cream to flour rubbed to a the gravy in the pan, and thicken slightly with flour rubbed to a may be served with smooth paste with a little cold water. They may be served with used instead of milk sauce slices of bacon. Tomato sauce may be used instead of milk sauce. .
A straightforward breaded cutlet with a pan gravy built in the same skillet. The instructions run in the usual order: season, egg, crumb, fry, then deglaze with milk or cream.
- DrippingsRendered fat saved from roasting beef, pork or bacon. Any neutral oil with a knob of butter works; enough to film the pan is all sautéing needs.
- ThicknessIf the cutlets are cut small and pounded, as the recipe offers as an alternative, they go to a little more than 1/4 inch. At that thickness they should cook through in about the time it takes to brown both sides; the recipe gives no times, so judge by colour.
- Breading orderSeason the dry meat, dip in beaten egg, then press into fine crumbs. Cracker crumbs can brown faster than bread crumbs, so watch the pan if you use them.
- Crumbs"Cracker-crums" means plain soda or water crackers crushed fine, not sweetened or seasoned crackers. Fine dry bread crumbs are the direct equivalent.
- The gravyPour off any excess fat but keep the browned bits, add the cup of milk or cream, and thicken with the tablespoon of flour slaked in cold water. One tablespoon to a cup gives a thin gravy by design; use two if you want it to coat.
- Cream"Cream" in this period usually meant something near modern heavy or whipping cream. Whole milk works but will taste noticeably leaner and needs the full flour.
- YieldTwo pounds of cutlets serves four generously, six if the pieces are cut small as suggested.
- DonenessModern practice cooks veal cutlets to 145F. Pounded thin, they pass that point almost as soon as the second side colours, so pull them promptly rather than holding them in the pan while you make the gravy.
Veal cutlets breaded and fried, then finished with a milk or cream gravy, are often said to sit at the meeting point of two traditions in American cookbooks of this era: the Central European schnitzel brought by German and Austrian immigrants, and the older English-American habit of dressing pan-fried meat with a flour-thickened milk sauce — a common association rather than a documented line of descent for this particular recipe. Butterick, a pattern and magazine publisher, aimed its household books at the middle-class housekeeper working with a limited range of cuts, and veal cutlet was a reliably tender, quick-cooking choice that stretched with breading and gravy. The alternative endings offered here, bacon slices or tomato sauce in place of the milk, are typical of the period's compact recipe style, which packed two or three dishes into one paragraph and left the cook to choose.