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Veal Cutlets with Bacon
Neatly trim the cutlets so that they will be of one size and shape and then beat them with the rolling-pin until they are a little more than a quarter of an inch in thickness. Dip each cutlet into beaten egg and then into fine dry bread crumbs seasoned with salt and pepper. Place them in a pan, well greased. Fry gently until done on one side; turn and fry the other side. When done serve with slices of bacon.
A plain breaded cutlet from a period when veal was a butcher's staple and "fry" meant pan-fry in a greased skillet rather than deep fat. The recipe assumes a cook who already knows what a cutlet looks like, so the useful work is in the details it leaves out.
- What a cutlet meantA veal cutlet here is most likely a boneless slice from the leg rather than a rib chop; the instruction to trim them to one shape and beat them to a quarter inch points that way, though books of the period use the word for both. Modern equivalents are veal scallopini or cutlets sold ready-sliced; escalopes of pork or turkey breast behave the same way under the rolling pin.
- PoundingPut the slices between sheets of plastic or parchment before beating them, or the pin will tear the meat. A quarter inch is the target; much thinner and the breading cooks before the meat has any texture left.
- Season the meat, not just the crumbsThe recipe salts the crumbs only. Salt and pepper the veal itself before the egg wash as well, otherwise the interior tastes flat.
- "Well greased" panThis means a film of fat in the skillet, not deep frying. Clarified butter, lard or a neutral oil over moderate heat -- the recipe says "fry gently" -- gives an even brown crust; butter alone over high heat will blacken the crumbs before the center is done.
- TimingAt a quarter inch, roughly two to three minutes per side. Veal at this thickness is done as soon as it is opaque through; further cooking dries it into leather. Cook to 145F if checking with a thermometer.
- Turn onceSet the crust before moving the cutlet. Repeated flipping loosens the breading and it slides off in the pan.
- The baconCook the bacon first in the same pan and use a little of the rendered fat for frying, then hold the slices warm. Lean veal has almost no fat of its own, which may be part of why the two are served together.
- YieldFigure one to two cutlets per person, around 5 to 6 oz of veal each, with two rashers of bacon alongside.
The Butterick Cook Book (1911) came from the pattern and magazine publisher Butterick, and its meat chapter is pitched accordingly: short entries, familiar cuts, nothing that needs a brigade. Breaded veal in this form belongs to a family of European cutlet dishes that reached American tables through German and Austrian immigrant cooking, where the same egg-and-crumb treatment is the basis of Wiener schnitzel; the anchovy garnish, often associated with breaded veal generally, belongs specifically to schnitzel Holstein. Veal was widely available in the era of small dairy herds, since bull calves were a byproduct of milk production, which is why cookbooks of the 1900s give it far more space than modern ones do.