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Veal Broth
Place four or five pounds of knuckle of veal in a saucepan with three quarts of water, two blades of mace, one onion, a little parsley, and a head of celery cut into pieces, seasoning with salt and pepper. When boiling, move the saucepan a trifle to the side, and keep the water simmering until it is reduced one-third. Strain the broth, stir in with it a little well boiled rice or vermicelli, and serve.
A plain restaurant stock-soup, and the instructions are complete except for the timings and the vessel language, which assume a coal range.
- Knuckle of vealThis is the shank, sold now as veal osso buco or as sawn shank bones. Ask for it cut into two- or three-inch lengths so the marrow and collagen come out; four to five pounds of bone-in shank is the right weight, not four pounds of trimmed meat.
- "Move the saucepan a trifle to the side"On a coal range, sliding the pot off the hottest plate dropped it from a boil to a bare simmer. On a gas or electric hob, this means the lowest setting that keeps the surface barely trembling. A hard boil emulsifies the fat and clouds the broth.
- Blades of maceMace is the lacy outer covering of the nutmeg, and blades are the whole dried pieces. If only ground mace is available, use a scant quarter teaspoon for the two blades, and expect a slightly muddier broth.
- A head of celeryIn 1896 this meant the whole bunch, not a single rib. Half a bunch, leaves included, is a reasonable modern amount; the leaves and tops carry a good deal of the flavour.
- Time to reduce by a thirdThree quarts down to two quarts at a true simmer takes roughly two and a half to three hours, uncovered or with the lid ajar. Skim the grey foam off during the first fifteen minutes and it will not have to be strained out later.
- Season at the endSalt added at the start concentrates along with the liquid. Add a token pinch now and correct the seasoning after straining.
- Chill and lift the fatVeal shank throws a good deal of fat. Refrigerating the strained broth lets it set into a cap that lifts off in one piece, and the broth beneath should set to a soft jelly, which is the sign the collagen was properly extracted.
- The rice or vermicelliCook it separately in water and add it to the hot broth at the last moment. Cooked in the broth itself, starch will cloud what should be a clear soup.
- YieldAbout two quarts, enough for six to eight cups as a first course.
Veal broth of this kind was less a dish than a foundation: knuckle bones were the cheapest source of gelatin in a professional kitchen, and the same pot underlay clear soups, invalid cookery, and the aspics that stiffened Gilded Age buffets. Oscar Tschirky ran the dining rooms of the Waldorf from 1893 and put his name to this collection in 1896, and the book is said to carry a great many plain stocks and broths for exactly this reason — a household that could master the simmering pot could produce a dozen other things. The instruction to slide the pan sideways rather than turn down a flame points to a solid-topped coal or wood range, where temperature was a matter of geography rather than a dial, though such ranges remained in domestic and professional use long after 1896. Veal broth also had a medical career in this period, prescribed for convalescents and the elderly as something nourishing that made no demands on the digestion, which is why so many nineteenth-century cookbooks file it near the invalid recipes.