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Cannelon of Veal
Mince fine two pounds or so of cold roasted veal and one pound of ham; mix well among it one tablespoonful of chopped parsley, one teaspoonful of powdered mace, one bare teaspoonful of finely-chopped lemon peel and salt and pepper to taste. Then stir in the beaten yolks of three eggs, one-fourth pint of good gravy and four ounces of sifted breadcrumbs; shape this into a rather short thick roll with the floured hands. Flour the inside and put it in a well-greased bakingpan; place a cover on it and place it in the oven until it is smoking hot; then remove the cover from the tin and let the cannelon brown; draw it to the door of the oven and brush it over with the beaten white of egg; push it in again and shut the door for a minute to let it glaze. Place the cannelon carefully on a hot dish, garnish with croutons of fried potato croquettes and quarters of lemon, pour over a rich brown gravy, and serve.
A leftover dish dressed for the dining room: cooked veal and ham bound with egg and crumbs, baked as a loaf and glazed. The instructions assume you already have roast veal and a pot of brown gravy on hand.
- The hinge: it is a reheating, not a cookingThe hinge: it is largely a reheating, not a cooking -- the veal and ham are already cooked, so the oven's main job is to set the raw-egg binder and heat the roll through. Bake covered at 350F until the centre reaches 165F, roughly 45 minutes for a loaf of this size, then uncover to brown. Overbaking dries it into a brick.
- One-fourth pint of gravyHalf a cup. It should be a thick, well-reduced brown gravy, not thin stock, or the mixture will not hold its shape when rolled.
- "Flour the inside"Garbled in the original. What is meant is flouring the pan or the loaf itself; the floured hands mentioned just before do the same work. Dust the greased pan lightly and set the roll in it.
- Oven heatOscar gives none. Covered at 350F to heat through, then 425F uncovered for 10-15 minutes to brown. The egg-white glaze needs only a minute or two at that heat before it dulls.
- MaceThe dried aril of nutmeg, warmer and lighter than nutmeg itself. A full teaspoon in three pounds of meat is assertive but plausible for the period; half that suits most modern palates. Ground nutmeg can stand in, using rather less.
- Cold roasted vealVeal roasts are no longer a common household leftover. Cooked pork loin or dark roast turkey behaves the same way in the mince; avoid anything that was braised wet, as the extra moisture slackens the binder.
- The minceHand-chopped or pulsed in a food processor, not ground to paste. The dish depends on distinguishable flecks of ham against the paler veal.
- Garnish"Croutons of fried potato croquettes" means small croquettes cut or shaped to sit around the platter, not bread croutons. Lemon quarters and a rich brown gravy poured over at the table complete it.
- YieldThree pounds of meat plus binder feeds eight generously as a main course, more if it is one of several dishes.
Cannelon is generally taken from the French for a little tube or roll, and by the late nineteenth century the word was applied to forcemeat shaped into a cylinder and baked or braised. Oscar Tschirky presided over the Waldorf's dining rooms from the 1890s onward, an era when veal was a more ordinary meat in American cities than it is now. A dish of this kind makes good use of yesterday's roast, and the egg-white glaze brushed on at the oven door gives a reheated loaf something of the lacquered look of a fresh roast.