Veal Stew
Boil two and a half pounds of the breast of veal one hour in water enough to cover, add a dozen potatoes, and cook half an hour; before taking off the stove, add one pint of milk and flour enough to thicken; season to taste. If preferred, make a crust as for chicken-pie, bake in two pie-pans, place one of the crusts on the platter, pour over the stew, and place the other on top. - Kate Thompson, Millersburg, Ky.
A plain white veal stew of the sort that filled out a Sunday table cheaply. Two things need attention: the cut, and the way the milk goes in at the end.
- Breast of vealThis is the rib-and-cartilage plate from the underside, sold today mostly at butcher counters and often bone-in. Two and a half pounds bone-in yields modest meat; boneless veal shoulder or shank meat in the same weight behaves similarly and gives more on the plate.
- "A dozen potatoes"Likely small boiling potatoes rather than large modern bakers; reckon roughly 2 lb, halved if larger. A dozen modern baking potatoes would swamp the pot.
- The milk is the hingeA pint of cold milk poured into hot stock with dry flour will lump, and the milk can catch or break. Whisk the flour into the milk first, off the heat, then stir it in and bring back only to a bare simmer for a few minutes to cook out the raw taste.
- Thickening quantity"Flour enough to thicken" is left to judgement; about 3 tablespoons to a pint of milk gives a gravy that coats without turning to paste.
- Cooking timeThe recipe gives the meat about 90 minutes in all: an hour alone, then half an hour once the potatoes go in. A steady low simmer rather than a hard boil suits veal breast, which is ready when the meat pulls from the bone.
- Skim and seasonVeal breast throws a good deal of grey scum in the first ten minutes; lift it off or the finished gravy will be cloudy. The recipe leaves seasoning open: salt and pepper, with perhaps a little grated nutmeg or parsley, would suit a white stew.
- The crust variationThe recipe gives no oven temperature. Bake the two pastry rounds in pie pans in a hot oven until dry and browned, then assemble as directed, one round under the stew and one on top. Baked separately they stay crisp.
- YieldServes four to five as a main course, or six with the pastry.
Veal breast was among the cheapest meat a nineteenth-century household could buy, being bony and gelatinous rather than lean, and stewing was the way to make it worth eating. The finish with milk and flour rather than a brown roux marks this as a white stew in the older English and American manner, close to what earlier books called a fricassee. The pastry variation is a tidy piece of domestic economy: instead of building a pie and risking a soggy bottom, the crust is baked flat in pie pans and used as a lid and base at serving time. The Dixie Cook-Book, like its sibling volumes from the same publisher, was assembled from contributions signed with a name and a town, and this one carries the credit of Millersburg, Kentucky.