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Fricandeau of Veal
This is a thick piece of lean meat cut from the top of the leg. It is always trimmed high in the center, and thin at the outside, making really a little mound of meat. Lard the top, and braise it in a braising pan the same as braised beef. When done, dish the meat, slightly thicken the juices in the bottom of the pan, strain, and turn the gravy over the fricandeau.
ROLLED VEAL (Loin) - About six or eight pounds of veal is the proper quantity for this dish. Have the kidney end of the loin cut into a long shape like a flap, and carefully boned. Line it with slices of boiled ham and two sliced hard boiled eggs. Remove all the skin and fat from the kidney, chop fine and mix with two handfuls of fine bread crumbs, a small quantity of finely chopped thyme and parsley, the grated rind of a lemon, pepper, salt and a little mace. Bind together with an egg and spread it over the veal on top of the sliced ham and eggs. Roll the piece and fasten tightly with skewers or in any convenient way. Roast in a moderate oven for one hour or so, basting with plenty of fat or dripping to prevent its drying. Then put some good stock in the pan with the veal (a couple of inches in depth) cover the pan and allow the veal to stew gently two or three hours. Serve with a rich brown gravy or sauce. Rolled veal is also good cold.
Two dishes in one entry: a larded, braised veal cushion and a boned, stuffed loin. Both assume a cook who already knows how to braise, so the useful work here is filling in what the book leaves unsaid.
- The cutThe fricandeau is a thick piece from the top of the leg (what butchers call the cushion or top round), trimmed so the center stands higher than the edges, as the recipe describes. A veal top round roast of about 2-3 lb will do; the shaping matters less than even thickness.
- LardingLarding means threading strips of chilled pork fatback through the surface with a larding needle, and it is the whole point of the dish: veal round has no internal fat and dries out. Without a larding needle, tie a sheet of fatback or thin-sliced unsmoked bacon over the top and remove it for the last half hour.
- "Braise it the same as braised beef"The book gives no temperature or time. Brown the meat, set it on a bed of chopped onion, carrot and celery, add stock to come no more than a third of the way up, and cover tightly; the braising pan can go on the stovetop over low heat or in the oven at around 325F, and will want roughly 2 to 2 1/2 hours until a fork slides out easily. Uncover toward the end and baste to glaze the larded top.
- Thickening the juices"Slightly thicken" means a light nappe, not a floury gravy. Strain, skim the fat, reduce hard, and finish with a small beurre manie if it still runs thin.
- Moderate oven350F for the first hour of the rolled loin, then reduce to about 325F once the stock goes in and the pan is covered.
- The rolled loin, in practiceSix to eight pounds of loin boned into a flap is a special order; a boned veal breast or a large boneless shoulder does the same job. Two handfuls of breadcrumbs is roughly 2 cups. Skewers work, but butcher's twine at 1-inch intervals holds the ham, egg and forcemeat in place far better.
- Total cooking timeOne hour roasting plus two or three hours of covered stewing gives meat well past medium. That is intentional for a rolled, stuffed joint sliced cold, but if you want it pink, take it to 145F internal and rest it; you will lose the sliceable, terrine-like set the recipe is aiming for.
- Mace and lemon rindMace is the lacy outer covering of the nutmeg seed, warmer and less sharp than the nutmeg itself; about 1/4 teaspoon ground is enough for this quantity. With the lemon zest and thyme it reads as an English stuffing of the period rather than a French one.
- YieldThe fricandeau serves 4 to 6. The rolled loin, at six to eight pounds before boning, serves 10 to 12 hot, and the recipe notes it is also good cold, so expect a second appearance sliced.
Fricandeau is a French term long established in English-language cookbooks, and it refers to a specific operation rather than a flavor: a thick slice of veal from the leg, larded with pork fat, braised in a little stock and then glazed with its own reduced juices. Escoffier-era kitchens treated it as a set piece, often served with sorrel, spinach or a puree, and the Butterick book can tell its readers simply to "braise it the same as braised beef." Veal itself was far commoner on American tables then than now, a byproduct of the dairy herd and cheap enough to justify a six- to eight-pound loin. The rolled loin that follows is the English side of the same tradition: bone a joint flat, line it with ham and hard-boiled egg, spread a bread-and-herb forcemeat over it, roll and tie. Sliced cold, it gives the mosaic cross-section that the period admired in a galantine, and the closing note that it "is also good cold" is a reminder that a household with no reliable refrigeration planned for the second and third appearance of a large joint before it ever went into the oven.