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Roasted Breast of Veal
Remove the tendons from a breast of veal, fasten the sweetbread to the joint with skewers, wrap it up in a sheet of buttered paper, place in a pan and roast it in a hot oven. When the veal is cooked, which will take about an hour and a quarter, or possibly more, according to the size of the joint, remove the paper, place the veal on a hot dish, garnish it with slices of lemon, pour over it a little rich gravy, and serve with a sauceboatful of melted butter.
A plain roast from Oscar Tschirky's kitchen, written for cooks who already knew how to break down a breast of veal. Two things need translating: the paper wrapping and the fact that a sweetbread is being cooked at the same time.
- Oven temperatureA "hot oven" in this period corresponds roughly to 400-450F, though period ranges were not standardised. For a breast of veal, which is a fatty, connective cut, it helps to start hot for 20 minutes and drop to about 325F for the remainder, or the outside will be leathery before the interior gives.
- Buttered paperThe forerunner of foil: a sheet of paper brushed with butter, wrapped and tucked under the joint to keep the surface from scorching. Parchment does the same job today; foil works but reflects more heat, so it browns less.
- The sweetbreadVeal sweetbread is the thymus or pancreas gland. It is sold frozen or by order from a butcher, and modern practice is to soak it in cold water, blanch it briefly and press it before cooking, none of which the recipe mentions.
- SkewersMetal trussing skewers or butcher's twine both work. The point is to hold the sweetbread flat against the joint so it cooks in the veal's own fat rather than curling and drying.
- Timing and donenessAn hour and a quarter suits a small joint of 3-4 lb. Breast of veal is better judged by feel than by clock: it should read 155-160F and the meat should pull cleanly from the rib bones. Larger joints of 6 lb and up can take well over two hours.
- "Rich gravy"Most likely a reduced brown veal stock. Deglazing the roasting pan with a good stock and reducing it gets close.
- Melted butter as sauceNot simply butter in a jug. In period usage the term often meant a butter sauce, sometimes lightly thickened, served from a boat at table rather than an emulsified sauce such as hollandaise.
- YieldA 4 lb breast serves four to six, allowing for the bone. Carve between the ribs.
Oscar Tschirky was never a chef at the Waldorf, he was the maitre d'hotel, and his 1896 book reads like a kitchen's working notes rather than a teaching manual, which is why the instructions assume so much. Breast of veal was a cheap cut given respectable treatment: the bones and gelatinous connective tissue that make it awkward to carve are exactly what make it succulent under long roasting, and the addition of a sweetbread turns an economical joint into something a dining room could charge for. The buttered-paper wrapping is standard nineteenth-century technique, used across French and Anglo-American cookery long before aluminium foil, and the lemon garnish with a boat of melted butter follows the same convention that governed veal and delicate white meats generally in the period.