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Curried Tendons of Veal
Cut the tendons into equal-sized pieces, and braise them. When cooked, drain the tendons and press them between two plates till nearly cold. Strain the cooking liquor into another saucepan. Mix two tablespoonfuls of curry powder with two tablespoonfuls of flour, mixing them to a paste with a little water, then pour it in the strained liquor, and stir well over the fire until boiling. Trim the tendons neatly, put them in the curry, and boil gently for fifteen minutes. Put some slices of fat bacon on a dish, put the tendons on them, pour over the curry, and serve with a dish of plain boiled rice.
A late-Victorian hotel dish built on a cut most butchers no longer sell over the counter. The recipe assumes you have already read the book's braising instructions and know what a veal tendon is; both need filling in.
- What the tendons areThese are the cartilaginous strips from the breast of veal, not sinew in the tough sense but collagen that turns translucent and gelatinous with long moist cooking. Ask a butcher for veal breast cartilage; you may have to order it, and it is often sold still attached to the breast meat.
- The braise is the whole dish"Braise them" hides several hours in stock at a bare simmer, with aromatics and a covered pan. Under-braised tendon is rubbery and inedible; it is done when a knife tip meets no resistance and the pieces are jelly-clear at the edges.
- Pressing between two platesThe warm gelatinous pieces are laid flat, covered with a second plate and a light weight, and left until nearly cold so they set into even slabs that can be trimmed square.
- Quantities are missingNo weight of tendon is given, but two tablespoonfuls each of curry powder and flour will season and lightly thicken something on the order of a pint of braising liquor; judge the quantity of tendons against the sauce you have.
- Degrease the liquorVeal breast throws a good deal of fat. Strain the cooking liquor and let it settle, then lift the fat off before thickening, or the curry will break into a greasy film.
- Curry powder and raw flourSlaking the curry and flour with cold water and stirring the paste into the liquor as it comes to the boil stands in for a roux, and it wants the full fifteen minutes of gentle boiling the recipe specifies to cook out the raw taste of both. Add it gradually and stir hard to avoid lumps. Period curry powders leaned on turmeric and coriander; taste and adjust.
- The fat baconThe slices are a serving bed, not a garnish. The recipe does not say to cook them, but grill or fry them lightly before the tendons go on top. Streaky bacon or thin slices of salt pork stand in.
- Season at the endBraising liquor reduces and bacon is salty, so hold back on salt until the curry has boiled its fifteen minutes. A squeeze of lemon at the finish lifts a sauce that is otherwise all flour and spice.
Oscar Tschirky, maître d'hôtel at the Waldorf and later the Waldorf-Astoria, published his enormous Cook Book in 1896, and its veal chapter reflects the French kitchen brigade's habit of using every part of the animal — tendons, sweetbreads, brains, ears — as distinct menu items rather than trimmings. Tendons de veau are often said to have been familiar hotel fare in the escoffier era, usually braised and glazed or served with peas; curried tendons show the other pressure on the American grand-hotel menu of the 1890s, the long-established British-Indian curry, which by then had long been present in English and American cookbooks in something like this form: commercial curry powder, a flour thickening, and a separate dish of plain boiled rice. The combination is less exotic than it looks — it is a French braise finished by an Anglo-Indian sauce, applied to a gelatinous cut that rewards long cooking.