Veal and Ham
These are often dressed together. Heat the frying-pan hot, and fry the ham, using no fat unless the meat is unusually lean. When the ham is cooked, place it on the serving dish, and cook the veal in the juices left from the ham, frying without covering until it is a deep brown. After the veal is done, add a little water to the gravy, season with pepper and salt if needed, and pour it without thickening over the meat.
A pan-fry and a deglaze, written for cooks who knew what cut they had in hand. The 1900 kitchen assumed thin veal cutlets and salt-cured ham slices cut off a whole ham.
- The hinge: cook the ham first, uncoveredHam renders its own fat and salt into the pan, and that fat is the frying medium and the seasoning for the veal. Covering the pan traps steam, and the veal greys instead of browning, which loses the whole point of the dish.
- What "ham" means hereA dry-cured or country-style ham slice, quite salty and fatty at the edge, not modern wet-cured deli ham. A thick slice of country ham or a gammon steak behaves closest. Supermarket sandwich ham releases water rather than fat and will not build a fond.
- Veal cut and thicknessThe recipe names neither. Cutlets or scallops about a quarter inch thick suit the method; at that thickness a couple of minutes a side is usually enough for the "deep brown" wanted. Thicker chops need a lower heat after browning or the outside blackens before the centre is done.
- DonenessVeal is now cooked to 145F internal with a short rest; ground veal to 160F. Thin cutlets pass through that range almost immediately, so judge by colour at the cut edge rather than by minutes.
- Season with restraintThe instruction "if needed" is doing real work. Cured ham can leave the pan juices salty enough that no further salt belongs in the gravy. Taste before adding any.
- The unthickened gravyTwo or three tablespoons of water into the hot pan, scraped while it bubbles, is a deglaze rather than a sauce. It will be thin and dark and should be poured over at once; it does not hold or reheat well. Stock or a splash of dry white wine works in place of water.
- Fat controlIf the ham renders a great deal of fat, pour off all but a thin film before the veal goes in, or the meat fries rather than sears and the gravy turns greasy.
- YieldFigure a slice of ham and a cutlet per person, roughly 5 to 6 oz of meat total, and cook in batches rather than crowding one pan.
Pairing veal with cured pork is old practical cookery: veal is lean and mild, and ham supplies the salt, fat and savour it lacks, which is the same logic behind veal-and-ham pies, saltimbocca and larded veal roasts. Both were common market meats in American households of the period, ham bought by the slice or cut from a cured whole ham, and veal often cheapest in spring. The Butterick book, published by the pattern company for a broad readership of home cooks, favours exactly this kind of terse one-pan method: no thickened sauce, no separate stock, nothing that demands a second pot or an ingredient not already on hand.