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Veal Paupiettes
Cut some thin cutlets from a fillet of veal, and beat them flat and even. Mince a small quantity of veal very fine, mix it with some of the kidney fat chopped very fine, and half a dozen anchovies chopped fine also, adding a little salt, ginger and powdered mace. Place this mixture over the slices of veal and roll them up. Beat up an egg, dip the rolled slices into it, and then into sifted breadcrumbs. Let them stand for fifteen or twenty minutes, then egg them again, roll them in breadcrumbs, and fry to a golden brown in boiling lard or clarified dripping, or stew them in some rich gravy with one-half pint of white wine and a small quantity of walnut pickle. Veal Pie, French Style Trim off the skin from some remains of cold roast veal, and mince the meat as fine as possible with one-third of its quantity of ham. Open and beard two dozen oysters, mix them with the veal, season the mixture with powdered mace, grated lemon peel, salt and pepper and a few drops of mushroom ketchup, and moisten it with the strained liquor of the oysters and a moderate quantity of rich brown gravy. Prepare a nice puff paste, line a buttered pie-dish with it, put in the above mixture, cover with a flat of paste, trim it off neatly round the edges, wet them with a small quantity of water, and pinch both together. Bake the pie for about half an hour, or until the paste is cooked, and then serve.
Two recipes run together here: rolled and breaded veal paupiettes, and a raised-crust veal and oyster pie made from cold roast. Both are Victorian English cookery as served in an American hotel, and both lean on condiments that have largely left the pantry.
- The cut"Thin cutlets from a fillet of veal" means slices cut across a boneless leg or top round, then pounded to about 1/8 inch between plastic wrap. Veal scallopini or escalopes sold ready-cut are the same thing and save the pounding.
- Kidney fatThis is veal or beef suet, the hard fat surrounding the kidneys, and it acts as the binder and moistener in the forcemeat. A butcher will supply suet on request; unsalted butter, well chilled and grated, can stand in, though it renders out faster.
- AnchoviesSix anchovies, not six tins; in period usage this most likely means six whole salt-cured fish, which is about a dozen fillets. They dissolve into the stuffing and read as savoury depth rather than fish, which is exactly the point in period English seasoning.
- Walnut pickle and mushroom ketchupWalnut pickle is the spiced vinegar liquor from pickled green walnuts, dark and sharply salty; mushroom ketchup is a thin, black, fermented mushroom sauce, still made commercially in Britain. Worcestershire sauce covers either at roughly half the quantity, since it is more concentrated.
- Securing the rollsThe recipe never says to tie them. Skewer each roll with a toothpick or tie with kitchen twine before the first egging, or they unwind in the fat. The fifteen- to twenty-minute rest between coatings is not filler: it lets the first crumb layer hydrate and grip.
- FryingThe text says only 'boiling lard'; in modern terms that is fat around 350-365F, deep enough to half-submerge the rolls. Turn once; roughly five to seven minutes should cook a 1-inch roll through. If you take the stewing option instead, keep the wine and gravy at a bare simmer for 30-40 minutes.
- Bearding oystersTo beard is to trim off the dark, tough frill of gill tissue at the edge of the shucked oyster. Save every drop of the liquor: it is the only liquid besides the gravy in the pie filling.
- The pie ovenThe recipe gives no temperature; puff paste generally wants a hot oven, around 400-425F, and half an hour at that heat cooks the crust and is ample for a filling of already-cooked veal and ham with oysters folded through. An egg wash on the top crust is not in the text but does the browning no harm.
- YieldNeither recipe states one. Reckon a pound of veal cutlet for four paupiettes, one or two per person; the pie in a 9-inch dish serves six.
Paupiette is a French kitchen term for any thin slice of meat spread with forcemeat and rolled — the same idea English cooks called a veal olive and Italians a braciola or involtino. That this version is seasoned with anchovies, mace, ginger, walnut pickle and mushroom ketchup marks it as English rather than French in ancestry: such condiments are the backbone of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British savoury cooking. The veal pie that follows belongs to the same tradition and to a habit modern cooks have mostly lost, that of building a second dish out of "some remains of cold roast veal." Oysters in a meat pie look extravagant now; when Oscar Tschirky was compiling his book, oysters were cheap, abundant and used freely as a bulking savoury ingredient in pies, stuffings and steak puddings on both sides of the Atlantic.