No. 1498

Veal Cutlets a la Zingara or Singara

Cotelettes de Veau a la Zingara ou Singara

Prepare the cutlets exactly as for the plain ones; lay them in a sautéing dish with some butter, and cook them quickly, adding a garnished bunch of parsley and half a pint of white wine; reduce this to a glaze, moisten once more with a pint of stock and let smother for fifteen minutes; turn them over and finish cooking taking from fifteen to twenty minutes longer. Cut some Westphalia ham in slices, pare them like half hearts, and just when ready to serve fry them in butter and lay one between each cutlet when dressed; detach the ham glaze in the pan with some white wine and add to it the half-glaze of the cutlets, also a pinch of cayenne and lemon juice; strain the sauce and pour it over the cutlets and ham.

← No. 1497 Veal Cutlets a la Seymour Veal No. 1499 Veal Cutlets, half-Glaze →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes you have already read his entry for plain veal cutlets, and that "cutlet" means a rib chop rather than a thin scallop. The dish is a braise finished with a pan sauce, and the thickness of the meat decides whether it works.

Use thick chops, not scallopiniRoughly 35 minutes of moist cooking will ruin a quarter-inch veal cutlet. Use bone-in rib or loin chops about 1 to 1 1/4 inches thick, or thick cuts from the leg; check for tenderness at the shorter end of his range.
The measuresHalf a pint of white wine is 1 cup; the later pint of stock is 2 cups. Use a light veal or chicken stock, unsalted, since it will be reduced twice and the ham adds salt.
"Reduce this to a glaze"Cook the wine down until it barely films the bottom of the pan and the butter and juices look syrupy. This is the step that gives the finished sauce its body; hurrying it leaves the sauce thin and winey.
"Let smother"Cover the pan and hold the liquid at a bare simmer on the stovetop, as the sautéing dish implies. A hard boil will squeeze the veal and cloud the braising liquid.
Garnished bunch of parsleyRanhofer's shorthand for a tied bundle of parsley stems with thyme and a bay leaf. Tie it so you can lift it out before making the sauce.
Westphalia hamA dry-cured, juniper-smoked German ham, sliced thin and eaten raw or barely warmed. Speck, prosciutto or a good country ham stands in; cut the half-heart shapes and give them only seconds per side in butter, since these hams turn hard and salty if properly fried.
"Half-glaze" and the finishHere 'the half-glaze of the cutlets' most plausibly means the cutlets' own braising liquid reduced down, though Ranhofer uses 'half-glaze' elsewhere in the book for a made sauce. Deglaze the ham pan with a splash of wine, combine with the cutlet liquid, add the cayenne and lemon juice, then strain and pour over.
Yield and serviceOne chop per person, with a ham heart set between each on the platter, sauce poured over at the last moment. Rice, buttered spinach or a potato purée absorbs the sauce well.

A Little History

Zingara is Italian for "gypsy woman," and by the late nineteenth century à la zingara had settled in French professional kitchens as a formula built on cured ham, tongue or tomato with a sharp, cayenne- or paprika-spiked sauce — the escalope zingara of later cookbooks is the same idea in shorter form. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a working record of that restaurant repertoire, which is why the entry is written telegraphically and points back to a neighbouring recipe rather than repeating it: the reader was expected to be a cook with the whole book at the elbow. Westphalia ham was among the imported European charcuterie a Manhattan kitchen of the 1890s could draw on, and the double reduction here — wine to a glaze, then stock to a half-glaze — builds the sauce from the same pan that cooked the meat.