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The Cook's: Tendons
No. 82. Tenerumi alla Piemontese (Tendons of Veal) Ingredients: Tendons of veal, fowl forcemeat, truffles, risotto (No. 190), a cock's comb, tongue.
Tendons of veal are that part of the breast which lies near the ribs, and forms an opaque gristly substance.
Partly braize a fine bit of this joint, and press it between two plates till cold. Cut it up into fillets, and on each spread a thin layer of fowl forcemeat, and decorate with slices of truffle. Put the fillets into a stewpan, cover them with very good stock, and boil till the forcemeat and truffles are quite cooked.
Prepare a risotto all' italiana (No. 190), put it on a dish and decorate it with bits of red tongue cut into shapes, and in the centre put a whole cooked truffle and a white cock's comb, both on a silver skewer. Place the tendons of veal round the dish. Add a good Espagnole sauce (No. 1) and serve.
If you like, leave out the risotto and serve the veal with Espagnole sauce mixed with cooked peas and chopped truffle.
No. 83. Bragiuole di Vitello (Veal Cutlets) Ingredients: Veal, salt, pepper, butter, bacon, carrots, flour, Chablis, water, lemon.
Cut a bit of veal steak into pieces the size of small cutlets, salt and pepper them, and put them in a wide low stewpan. Add two ounces of butter, a cut-up carrot, and some bits of bacon also cut up. When they are browned, add a spoonful of flour, half a glass of Chablis, and half a glass of water, and cook on a slow fire for half an hour, then take out the cutlets, reduce the sauce, and pass it through a sieve. Put it back on the fire and add an ounce of butter and a good squeeze of lemon, and when hot pour it over the cutlets.
No. 84. Costolette alla Monza (Veal Cutlets) Ingredients: Veal cutlets (fowl or turkey cutlets), forcemeat, truffles, mushrooms, tongue, parsley, pasta marinata (No. 17).
Cut a few horizontal lines along your cutlets, and on each put a little veal or fowl forcemeat, to which add in equal quantities chopped truffles, tongue, mushrooms, and a little parsley. Over this put a thin layer of pasta marinata, and fry the cutlets on a slow fire.
No. 85. Vitello alla Pellegrina (Breast of Veal) Ingredients: Breast of veal, butter, onions, sugar, stock, red wine, mushrooms, bacon, salt, flour, bay leaf.
Roast a bit of breast of veal, then glaze over two Spanish onions with butter and a little sugar, and when they are a good colour pour a teacup of stock and a glass of Burgundy over them, and add a few mushrooms, a bay leaf, some salt, and a few bits of bacon. When the mushrooms and onions are cooked, skim off the fat and thicken the sauce with a little flour and butter fried together ; pour it over the veal and put the onions and mushrooms round the dish.
Four Piedmontese and Lombard veal dishes from a book written for cooks who had a stockpot, a larder of garnishes and time. Only the first is genuinely awkward today; the other three are straightforward braises and cutlets.
- What "tendons" actually areThe gristly cartilage of the veal breast, which the book itself defines as "that part of the breast which lies near the ribs, and forms an opaque gristly substance." It must be cooked long and gently until translucent and yielding; underdone it is rubbery, and no amount of forcemeat covers that.
- Braise, press, chillThis is the hinge of No. 82. The partly braised breast is pressed between two plates and left until completely cold, which is what allows it to be cut into clean fillets. Warm cartilage will tear and the forcemeat will not sit on it.
- Cock's combA standard grand-cuisine garnish of the period, blanched, peeled of its outer skin and simmered white in an acidulated blanc. It is not available in ordinary shops now and the dish loses nothing if the skewered whole truffle stands alone.
- "A glass" and "a teacup"The book never defines either measure. A "glass" is variously reckoned anywhere from about 2 to 4 fl oz and a teacup from about 4 to 6 fl oz, so the half-glass each of Chablis and water in No. 83, and the teacup of stock to a glass of Burgundy in No. 85, should be treated as approximate.
- Pasta marinataRecipe No. 17 in the same book, a frying batter rather than a pasta in the modern sense. Any thin fritter batter serves; the point is that it seals the forcemeat topping onto the cutlet while it fries.
- Slow fireFor the fried cutlets of No. 84 this means a gentle heat, hot enough to set and colour the batter but slow enough for the raw forcemeat to cook through before the coating burns.
- EspagnoleThe brown mother sauce of No. 1, a long-reduced veal stock thickened with brown roux and mirepoix. A well-reduced veal or beef jus, finished with butter, stands in for it without embarrassment.
- Roasting the breast in No. 85No temperature is given. A bone-in veal breast wants a moderate oven, 325-350F, until well past medium and pulling from the bone; a fast roast leaves it tough.
The Cook's Decameron (1901) was assembled by Mrs W. G. Waters, who hung a collection of Italian recipes on a Boccaccio-style frame of ten diners telling stories over ten days. These four sit in the Piedmontese and Lombard end of that collection, and the seams show: Piedmont's cooking had long been shaped by the Savoyard court's French chefs, so tenerumi arrives dressed in Espagnole sauce, fowl forcemeat, truffle and a skewered cock's comb, all fittings of the grande cuisine that Carême codified. Cartilage and breast trimmings were cheap; the labour and the garnish were what made them worth serving. Costolette alla Monza takes its name from the town north of Milan, and Bragiuole di Vitello is a form of braciola, a thin slice of meat.