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Jellied Veal
When ordering a roast of veal have some bones sent home with it. Wash these well, cover with cold water, add one cup of diced vegetables-carrot, turnip, celery, onion, and one bay leaf-and let simmer for three or four hours. Strain the stock, let it cool, cover, and set in the ice-box.
This will keep for several days. When ready to use skim off any fat on top, and to each cup of stock add one-quarter teaspoonful of salt, oneeighth teaspoonful of pepper, one-half teaspoonful of lemon-juice, and a very little paprika. Cut any remaining veal in thin slivers-there should be an equal quantity of meat and stock and simmer together until the veal is moist and tender. If the meat falls short, use two or three "hard-boiled " eggs cut in neat slices and mixed with the meat after it is removed from the fire. Mold in a breadpan and serve cold. Creamed Veal on Hot Biscuits Season two cups of chopped veal with one teaspoonful of finely chopped capers, one teaspoonful of lemon-juice, salt, pepper, and a slight grating of nutmeg, if desired. Melt one tablespoonful of butter, stir in one-half tablespoonful of flour, onequarter teaspoonful of salt, and add slowly onehalf cup of cream or rich milk, and cook until sauce thickens. Mix one egg yolk with one teaspoonful cold water and add to sauce, together with the seasoned veal. Remove from the fire as soon as meat is heated, and serve on hot biscuits.
Two ways with cooked veal from a wartime-era thrift book: a cold jellied loaf set by nothing but the gelatin in the bones, and a quick creamed dish for hot biscuits. The first depends entirely on the strength of the stock.
- The hinge: test the setNothing thickens the loaf but collagen from the bones, so the stock must gel on its own. Chill a spoonful in the freezer for five minutes; if it does not wobble firmly, reduce the strained stock further, or stir in about 1 teaspoon of powdered unflavoured gelatin per cup while it is hot.
- Getting gelatin from the bonesAsk the butcher for veal knuckle and shank bones, which are richest in collagen. Keep the pot at a bare shiver for the full three to four hours; a rolling boil emulsifies fat into the liquid and gives a cloudy, greasy jelly instead of a clear one.
- "Set in the ice-box"An insulated cabinet cooled by a block of ice, colder than a larder but warmer and less steady than a modern refrigerator. Cool the strained stock quickly, in a shallow pan or an ice bath, before it goes in. Treat "several days" cautiously: three to four days refrigerated, or freeze it.
- The proportionsEqual volumes of meat and stock, seasoned at a quarter teaspoon salt, an eighth of pepper and half a teaspoon of lemon juice per cup of stock. Taste the liquid warm and season slightly assertively, since cold dulls salt and acid noticeably.
- Simmering the vealThe meat is already cooked, so it needs only long enough to heat through and take up seasoning; the recipe's test is that it be "moist and tender". Overdoing it shreds the slivers and the slices fall apart when carved.
- Molding and unmoldingA standard 8 or 9 inch loaf pan works. Press the meat down so the stock covers it, chill at least six hours or overnight, then dip the pan briefly in hot water and invert. Cut thick slices with a thin, wet knife.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantities, since it depends on what is left of the roast. Equal volumes of meat and stock, say two cups of each, will part-fill a small loaf pan and serve about four as a cold lunch with mustard, pickles or a sharp salad.
- The creamed vealOne tablespoon butter to half a tablespoon flour is a thin roux, so the sauce is meant to be loose. Temper the yolk by whisking a little hot sauce into it first, then return it off direct heat; boiling after the yolk goes in will curdle it.
Jellied veal belongs to a long European family of cold set meats -- Sulze and Sulzkotelett in the German-speaking lands, kalvsylta in Sweden -- all built on the fact that veal bones and feet are exceptionally rich in collagen and will set a stock without any added gelatin. Before commercial powdered gelatin was cheap and universal, that natural set was the whole point, and a cook who wanted a cold moulded dish had to plan for it at the butcher's counter, which is exactly what the opening line here does. The recipe's place in a book of left-overs is telling: it exists to stretch the tag ends of a roast, and the instruction to eke out short meat with sliced hard-boiled egg is pure household economy of the period.