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Roasted Round of Veal
Cut a slice of veal out of the largest part of the leg, remove the center bone, and fill the cavity with bread stuffing. Wrap the meat in a sheet of buttered paper, arrange it in the pan and roast it in a hot oven, basting it frequently. Half an hour before the fillet is done, remove the paper, sprinkle a little salt over it, and allow it to brown nicely. When cooked, remove the meat from the oven, glaze it, place it on a hot dish, pour a little brown gravy over, and serve with a separate dish of vegetables.
A stuffed veal round roasted under a paper wrapper — the 1896 equivalent of tenting with foil. The recipe assumes a cook who already knows what bread stuffing and brown gravy are, so most of the work is filling in the omissions.
- The cut"Round of veal" here is a thick cross-cut slice from the leg, bone in, which the butcher then bones out to leave a central cavity. Ask for a boneless veal leg roast or a rolled leg roast of 4-5 lb; if you want the cavity, ask for the round cut thick, about 3 inches, and the bone removed.
- "Hot oven"In period usage that is usually taken as somewhere around 400-450F. For a lean stuffed veal roast, a practical modern approach is a hot start to set the surface and then a drop to 325-350F for the remainder, or the outside dries long before the center is done.
- Buttered paperA sheet of parchment or plain kitchen paper rubbed with softened butter, laid over and tucked around the meat. It is a barding substitute — veal has almost no fat and scorches easily. Buttered parchment still works; foil traps more steam and browns less.
- DonenessVeal leg is cooked to 145-150F at the thickest part, and the stuffing must reach 165F. Since the stuffing is the slower of the two, check it separately. Figure about 25 minutes per pound at the lower temperature, but the thermometer decides.
- The stuffingThe recipe leaves it undefined. A bread stuffing of the period would be stale white crumbs, butter, onion, parsley, thyme, salt and pepper, bound with egg. Pack it loosely — tight stuffing heats slowly and pushes the roast open as it swells.
- GlazingTo glaze means to brush with reduced, syrupy meat stock (glace de viande) in the last minutes so the surface takes on a shine. A few spoonfuls of veal or beef stock boiled down until it coats a spoon will do it.
- Brown gravyThe house sauce would have been a proper espagnole or the pan drippings deglazed and thickened with a brown roux. Deglaze the roasting pan with stock, reduce, and strain.
- Resting and yieldRest the roast 15-20 minutes before carving or the stuffing and juices run out with the first slice. A 4-5 lb stuffed leg serves eight to ten.
Oscar Tschirky ran the Waldorf's dining rooms rather than its stoves, but the 1896 Cook Book collects the kitchen's working repertoire. Note what the recipe does not say: no temperature, no time, no quantity of stuffing. Books of this kind were written for cooks who had served an apprenticeship, and the gaps are not oversights but assumptions about who was reading.