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Broiled Veal Chops
Cut off a number of chops, trim off the fat, and beat them till quite tender. Put them into a pan, pour over enough boiling water to cover, place the lid on, and stand the pan at the side of the fire where the chops can be allowed to simmer gently until done. When about three-fourths cooked, sprinkle over a small quantity each of pepper and salt. When done, remove them from the pan, dry them in a cloth, spread a little butter over them, brush them over with egg, and then sprinkle over some bread or cracker crumbs. Place them on a baking-sheet in the oven, and when they are nicely browned arrange them on a dish round a pile of mashed potatoes, and serve.
Despite the title, nothing here is broiled: the chops are gently simmered, then egged, crumbed and browned in the oven. The hinge is the simmer — it must stay below a rolling boil or the meat tightens and the crumb coating slides off wet meat.
- "At the side of the fire"On a coal range this meant the cooler edge of the top plate, a bare simmer. Use the lowest burner setting, or hold the covered pan in a 300F oven, so the surface barely trembles.
- Simmering timeThe original gives none. Rib or loin chops about 1 inch thick need roughly 20 to 30 minutes covered; shoulder chops, being tougher, want 40 to 50. They are done when a fork slips in without resistance.
- Beating the chops"Beat them till quite tender" means pounding with the flat of a cleaver or a mallet, not cutlet-thin — just enough to break the fibers. Modern veal is generally milk-fed and tender, so a few firm taps are plenty.
- Browning temperatureOscar assumes you know the oven. Use 425F on a baking sheet, upper third, for 10 to 15 minutes until the crumbs are gold. A lower oven leaves the coating pale and greasy.
- Dry them in a clothThis is not fussiness. Egg wash will not grip a wet, warm chop, and steam trapped under the crumbs makes them soggy. Blot thoroughly and let the chops cool a few minutes before coating.
- Crumbs"Cracker crumbs" means plain soda or water crackers crushed fine, coarser and lighter than dried breadcrumbs. Either works; panko gives a crisper result than the period intended.
- YieldFigure one thick chop or two thin ones per person; the original gives no yield, only "a number of chops."
Oscar Tschirky's Cook Book (1896) was a working manual for a large hotel kitchen, and the method here — chops simmered first, then egged, crumbed and finished in the oven — resembles a French-trained cook's côtelette panée. Whether the Waldorf poached them ahead in bulk and finished them to order is not stated in the recipe. The title's "broiled" does not match the method described. Veal was cheap and plentiful in a dairy economy that produced far more bull calves than it needed, and the pale, mild meat took kindly to a crumb crust that gave it color and crunch. Serving the chops circled around a mound of mashed potato is period plating, an en couronne arrangement.