No. 1490

Blanquette of Breast of Veal a la Jacquart (blanquette de Poitrine de Veau a la Jacquart

Have two pounds of breast of veal cut into half inch pieces; lay them in tepid water for two hours, then drain and fry colorless in butter; moisten with remoistening add salt, a garnished bunch of parsley, one onion, two cloves and pieces of carrots; let all boil for one hour, or until finished cooking; drain, and make a veloute with the stock; after this sauce is well skimmed, thicken it with six egg-yolks, butter, and lemon juice; run it through a tammy. Pare the pieces of meat, put them back into the sauce, also the onions and some turned and channeled mushrooms; stir and toss well together in the saucepan, then dress with braized chestnuts around.

← No. 1489 Breast of Veal au Gastronome Veal No. 1491 Breast of Veal Stewed with Roux →

For the Modern Kitchen

A classic white veal stew from Ranhofer's kitchen, written for cooks who already knew the house stocks and sauces. The technique is sound; the notation is shorthand.

The hinge: the yolk liaisonSix yolks are whisked into the hot velouté off the heat, and the sauce must never return to a boil or it will scramble into grains. Hold it below about 180F, stir constantly, and finish with butter and lemon only at the last moment.
"Moisten with remoistening""Remoistening" is the term used here for the light stock kept for wetting braises and stews. A mild unsalted veal or chicken stock does the job; water alone gives a thin, flat blanquette.
Six yolks is a professional ratioSix yolks suggests a large quantity of sauce — likely a quart or so of velouté, more than two pounds of meat needs at home. For roughly two cups of finished sauce, about three yolks is closer to the mark.
Soaking and blanchingSoaking — The two hours in tepid water draws blood from the meat and trim so the stew stays white. "Fry colorless" means sweat in butter without any browning at all — keep the heat low and cover the pan.
TammyA tammy is a fine worsted cloth through which sauce was forced for absolute smoothness. A chinois lined with a doubled square of muslin gives the same result.
Turned and channeled mushroomsFluted mushroom caps, cut with the tip of a paring knife in a spiral. Purely decorative; whole small caps stewed in butter, lemon and a little water are the same thing without the knife work.
Braized chestnutsPeeled chestnuts simmered gently in stock with butter until tender but whole. Vacuum-packed cooked chestnuts are the practical substitute and need only ten minutes in stock.
Timing and yieldAn hour of gentle simmering suits breast of veal cut in half-inch pieces; test that it yields easily rather than watching the clock. Two pounds of meat, once boned and pared, serves four.

A Little History

Blanquette is a long-established dish of French bourgeois cooking, its name simply from blanc — the whole point is that nothing is allowed to take colour, from the sweating of the meat to the flour-and-stock velouté to the egg-yolk liaison at the end. Breast, a cheap and gelatinous cut, was a traditional choice; the tenderness comes from collagen, not from prime meat. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York and author of The Epicurean (1894), dressed the standard version up with fluted mushrooms and a border of braised chestnuts and attached a name to it, as was the habit of nineteenth-century grande cuisine — such garnish names often honoured a patron, a colleague or an occasion, though the reference behind "Jacquart" is not explained in the book. The recipe's terseness is deliberate: it sits in a chain of breast-of-veal preparations, each assuming the reader will look up the numbered stock and sauce entries elsewhere in the volume.