No. 1489

Breast of Veal au Gastronome

Poitrine de Veau au Gastronome

Select a fine breast of veal as long and wide as possible; remove the red bones covering the gristle, prick the skin with a needle, and lay a towel over the meat, then with a cleaver strike the top with a few blows so as to expel the air; slip the blade of a knife between the skin and ribs, as far as the gristle and the ends, and fill the space in with a veal quenelle forcemeat to which has been added very finely chopped chives and red beef tongue; sew up the skin quite close to the rib bones to give it its original shape. Butter the bottom of a roasting pan; cover it with minced carrots and onions and a garnished bunch of parsley, lay the breast on top, spread it over with good fat and pour in a pint of stock or water. Two and a half hours before serving put the breast into a moderate oven, baste it occasionally, glaze it of a fine color and serve it with the half-glaze poured over and gastronome potatoes around.

← No. 1488 Breast of Veal a la Mondoux Veal No. 1490 Blanquette of Breast of Veal a la Jacquart ( →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a butcher's counter and a cook who has already made quenelle forcemeat. The dish is a stuffed, roast-braised breast of veal, and almost everything difficult about it happens before it reaches the oven.

The hinge: the pocketWork the knife blade between the outer skin and the rib bones in slow, flat strokes, keeping the point pressed toward the bone rather than the skin. A tear will let the forcemeat escape as it expands and the shape slump; if you nick the skin, stitch the hole before filling.
Getting the cutA whole bone-in breast of veal runs roughly 6 to 8 lb and may need to be ordered ahead. The "red bones covering the gristle" appear to be the short rib ends over the cartilage — ask the butcher to remove them and to leave the outer membrane intact, since that membrane is the pocket.
Quenelle forcemeatVeal quenelle forcemeat of this period is generally lean veal pounded with panada and butter or cream, seasoned and worked smooth; a food processor does it in a minute, kept cold. Reckon on roughly 1 to 1.5 lb of forcemeat for a whole breast, plus the chopped chives and tongue.
Red beef tongueThis means cooked, brine-cured tongue, sold ready-cooked at delicatessens and pink-red from the cure. It is there for colour as much as flavour; cooked ham or a dice of good mortadella stands in acceptably.
Oven temperatureA "moderate oven" is usually taken as somewhere around 325-350F. With only a pint of liquid in an uncovered pan for two and a half hours the pan may well run dry — check at the halfway point and top up with stock so the vegetables do not scorch and the basting liquid survives to become sauce.
Doneness, not just timeThe stuffing is raw ground veal, so cook to temperature rather than the clock: 160F at the centre of the forcemeat. On a large breast that may take longer than the stated two and a half hours.
Glazing and half-glazeTo "glaze it of a fine color" means basting repeatedly in the last half hour until the surface takes a lacquered brown. "Half-glaze" is the book's term for demi-glace, a prepared reduced brown sauce; the strained, degreased and reduced pan juices, or a reduced veal or brown chicken stock, will stand in.
Gastronome potatoesThe garnish is not described on this page. Small waxy potatoes turned or trimmed, browned in butter and rolled in a spoonful of the reduced pan sauce, give a plausible version of the intended effect.
Yield and carvingA whole stuffed breast serves 8 to 10. Rest it 20 minutes, snip and pull the trussing thread, then carve across the ribs so each slice shows a band of forcemeat.

A Little History

Breast of veal was the thrifty end of an expensive animal — bony, gelatinous, cheap by the pound — and the classic French treatment was to bone or pocket it, fill it with forcemeat, and turn a hard cut into a centrepiece. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York for most of the second half of the nineteenth century, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a working compendium of that kitchen: it was written for cooks who had the rest of the book at their elbow. The tag au gastronome is a nineteenth-century flourish of the same order as à la financière or à la royale — not a place or a person but a promise of richness, here delivered by the tongue in the stuffing and the glaze on the outside. The pot-roasting method, on a bed of minced carrot and onion with a bundle of parsley and a little liquid, is of a piece with the way Ranhofer handles most of his large joints, and it explains why the pan juices are treated as the sauce base rather than discarded.