No. 1499

Veal Cutlets, half-Glaze

Cotelettes de Veau, Demi-glace

After preparing six cutlets as for maitre d'hotel without any larding, put them into a heavily buttered sautéing pan with a garnished bunch of parsley, a quarter of a pint of Madeira wine and half a pint of good veal blond stock. Let come to a boil, then place it in a slow oven; at the end of fifteen minutes turn them over so that they do not cook too rapidly, and after another fifteen minutes they should be sufficiently glazed. Dress them on a dish; strain and skim the fat from the stock adding to it a spoonful of half-glaze; pour this over the cutlets and garnish them with paper frills; then serve.

← No. 1498 Veal Cutlets a la Zingara or Singara Veal No. 1500 Veal Cutlets with Chicory—Larded →

For the Modern Kitchen

A shallow braise that finishes as a glaze: the small amount of liquid reduces around the meat in an uncovered pan, so the cutlets end up coated rather than stewed. Everything else follows from that.

The hinge: an uncovered panThe hinge: how much the liquid reduces -- Ranhofer does not say whether the sautoire is covered, but the small quantity of Madeira and stock is meant to reduce to a syrup that clings to the meat; a tightly covered pan would give poached veal in thin gravy instead. Turn the cutlets at the halfway mark as directed.
MeasuresRanhofer's quarter pint of Madeira is 1/2 cup, and half a pint of stock is 1 cup. A "spoonful" of half-glaze is unspecified; a tablespoon is a reasonable reading.
Slow ovenRead that as roughly 300-325F. The low heat lets the liquid reduce at about the rate the veal cooks; too hot an oven risks the glaze catching before the meat is done.
Veal blond stockBlond de veau is veal stock made from unroasted bones, so it stays pale and neutral. A light unsalted veal or chicken stock will do; brown stock makes the finished glaze muddy and too assertive against the Madeira.
Half-glazeDemi-glace: brown sauce reduced with stock until it coats a spoon. A tablespoon of a good commercial demi-glace concentrate, or your own reduced brown veal stock, serves the same purpose — it is there for body and gloss, not for volume.
Timing against modern vealThirty minutes suits a thick bone-in rib chop. Today's milk-fed cutlets are often cut thinner and will be dry well before that; work to an internal 145F and rest them, then reduce the pan liquid separately on the stovetop if it has not thickened.
MadeiraUse a dry to medium Sercial or Verdelho rather than a sweet Bual or Malmsey, which will make the glaze cloying once reduced by two-thirds.
Yield and frillsSix cutlets, one per person. The paper frills are cosmetic — cuffs of folded paper slipped over the exposed rib bone — and can be left off without loss.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer wrote The Epicurean (1894) out of some three decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and the book's veal chapter is essentially a catalogue of one cut treated dozens of ways — larded, breaded, with chicory, a la Zingara — each entry assuming the reader has already read the neighboring ones, which is why this recipe opens by referring back to the maitre d'hotel cutlets. Demi-glace, literally "half-glaze," is the intermediate stage between a brown sauce and a full glace de viande reduced to a jelly, and in the classical French kitchen it was a standing preparation spooned into pan juices exactly as it is here. The paper frill on the rib bone was ubiquitous in nineteenth-century American hotel dining.