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Haricot of Veal
Select four or five pounds of the best end of a neck of veal, cut or chop the bones short but do not cut up the veal, put it into a stewpan, cover it with brown gravy and let it simmer. Stew in another saucepan in some good stock six small cucumbers peeled and sliced, two cabbage lettuces well washed and cut in quarters, and one pint of green peas. When these are cooked and the veal nearly done put them into the stewpan with the veal and let all simmer together for ten minutes. Place the veal on a hot dish, arrange the eight pieces of lettuce and a few forcemeat balls round it, pour the gravy and the rest of the vegetables over, and serve.
A late-Victorian braise built on the assumption that a pot of brown sauce is already sitting on the stove. Everything else follows from that.
- "Brown gravy" means brown sauceIn a book of this date a made sauce rather than pan drippings: a brown stock, usually thickened with roux and reduced, in the espagnole family. Covering a 4-5 lb piece will take something on the order of two quarts. A well-reduced veal stock thickened lightly with a brown roux does the job.
- The cutThe "best end of neck" is the rack end, the rib chops still joined in one piece. Ask for a bone-in veal rack or, failing that, a boneless shoulder roast tied. Chopping the bones short simply lets the joint sit flat and fit the pan; the meat stays whole so it can be carved at table.
- Simmer, and give it timeNo time is stated. Four to five pounds of bone-in veal needs about 2 to 2 1/2 hours at a bare shiver, never a rolling boil, which tightens the meat and clouds the sauce. The joint is done when a skewer meets no resistance at the bone.
- Cook the vegetables apart, and brieflyThe separate saucepan is the point of the method. Cucumbers want 5-8 minutes, quartered lettuce 5 minutes, peas 3-5 minutes; they finish in the veal pan for the final ten only to marry the flavours. Cooked through with the veal they would collapse entirely.
- Cabbage lettuceNot cabbage. "Cabbage lettuce" is the heading type, a butterhead or a firm iceberg-style head. Two heads quartered give the eight pieces the recipe arranges round the dish. Braised lettuce is a period standard and holds shape better than loose-leaf.
- Forcemeat ballsAssumed knowledge in this book: a seasoned veal or veal-and-pork farce bound with egg and breadcrumb, rolled small and poached or fried. Make them separately and add at plating so they do not break up in the braise.
- CucumbersThe recipe asks only for peeled and sliced. If you want them to hold up, halve lengthwise, scrape out the seeds and slice thick; older cucumber varieties are often said to have been seedier and more bitter than modern ones, and salting the slices for twenty minutes and patting dry keeps them from watering the sauce.
- YieldSix to eight as a main course. It carves better after ten minutes' rest under foil, with the sauce and vegetables kept hot separately and poured over at the last moment.
The name has nothing to do with beans. Haricot here descends from the older French hericot or harigot de mouton, a ragout of cut-up meat, and is generally traced to the verb harigoter, to cut in pieces; the coincidence with haricot, the bean, came later and has confused English cooks ever since. Haricot of mutton and haricot of veal ran through English and American cookery books from the eighteenth century onward, and by the end of the nineteenth century the dish had commonly settled into this shape: a large joint braised in brown sauce, with a garnish of spring vegetables cooked apart and arranged around it. The arrangement suits a style of service in which a dish came to the table whole and was carved in the room, the eight lettuce quarters and the forcemeat balls set round the meat for the look of the platter as much as for the eating.