No. 1514

Fillet of Veal Sliced with Pelerine Potatoes

Tranches de Filet de Veau aux Pommes Pelerine

Slices of veal should bear no resemblance either to cutlets or minions. Slices of veal breaded and fried are often called cutlets which is an error, the name of cutlets should only be applied to a piece of meat cut from the rack having a rib bone ("cote," from which it derives its name) attached to it; sometimes the word is used for imitation cutlets, but as veal, mutton, or lamb the name should not be given to any part excepting to one containing a rib. They must be thin and pared oval-shaped; nor are they to be taken from the fillet or kernel, but from the large part of the minion fillet. Trim the meat, cutting it transversely into three-eighths of an inch thick slices; beat them well with a moistened cleaver to flatten, pare in ovals and season. Pour some clarified butter into a large sautoir, and cook the sliced meat in this over a good fire, turning them when done on one side; drain on a napkin, and glaze with a brush; dress them one overlapping the other on a long dish in one straight row, and surround with Pelerine potatoes. Serve a sauce-boatful of a tomato sauce (No. 549) and half-glaze sauce (No. 413) mixed, at the same time.

Pelerine Potatoes.-Have one-third of pate-a-chou (No. 132), and two-thirds of potato puree (No. 725); mix thoroughly together and form into balls three quarters of an inch in diameter; roll in flour, dip in eggs, roll once more in cracker-dust, then fry in hot fat to a fine color.

← No. 1513 Schnitzel, Vienna Style Veal No. 1515 Calf's Head a la Renaissance →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer opens with a lecture on nomenclature, but the cooking itself is quick: thin veal slices sautéed in clarified butter, brushed with meat glaze, and ringed with fried potato-and-choux balls. The fritters are the part that needs planning, since they want to be made before the veal goes in the pan.

Which cutThe "minion fillet" is the strip of tenderloin running along the veal loin; Ranhofer wants the thick end of it, and he expressly rules out the leg fillet or "kernel." Veal loin slices and pounds well; top round will behave similarly in the pan but is the leg cut he excludes. Cut across the grain at 3/8 inch, pound thin between plastic wrap, and trim to ovals.
Sautoir and clarified butterA sautoir is a straight-sided sauté pan; any wide heavy skillet works. Clarified butter matters here because the milk solids in whole butter will scorch at the heat needed to color thin veal in under two minutes a side.
"Glaze with a brush"This means painting the cooked slices with glace de viande, reduced veal or beef stock thickened to a syrup. A few tablespoons of stock reduced hard in the pan after the meat comes out will do the same job.
The hinge: do not overcookSlices this thin are done in roughly 60 to 90 seconds per side over a brisk fire. Left longer they turn dry and papery, and no amount of glaze recovers them. Cook in batches rather than crowding the pan.
Pelerine potatoesOne part pâte à choux to two parts stiff potato purée is the standard pommes dauphine mixture; what distinguishes these here is that the balls are floured, egged, rolled in cracker-dust and then fried. Keep the purée dry, ideally from baked or riced boiled potatoes drained well, or the balls slacken.
Cracker-dustRanhofer's cracker dust is finely rolled dry soda or water crackers. Fine dry breadcrumbs are the nearest substitute; panko is coarser and gives a different, spikier crust.
Frying temperature"Hot fat" for these fritters means 350 to 375F. Below that they absorb grease and may burst; much above it the crumb browns before the choux interior has puffed and set.
The sauceTomato sauce and half-glaze (demi-glace) mixed, in unstated proportions, served separately in a boat. A good jarred or homemade tomato sauce loosened with reduced veal stock approximates it without building Ranhofer's full sauce chapter.
YieldRanhofer gives no yield. Two to three trimmed slices per person and four or five potato balls each is a reasonable estimate, which would make this a dish for six to eight.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty years' cooking at Delmonico's in New York, and this entry shows the book at its most characteristic: a plain dish of sautéed veal prefaced by a firm ruling on what may and may not be called a cutlet. The insistence that côtelette belongs only to a piece carrying a rib bone reflects French professional usage, which Ranhofer was defending against the looser American habit of calling any breaded veal slice a cutlet. The garnish is a variation on pommes dauphine, the mixture of potato purée and choux paste that appears throughout nineteenth-century French kitchen writing; coating and frying it in crumbs was one of a long series of named potato garnishes whose distinctions, like the cutlet's, were expected to be observed exactly. Names of this kind were the working vocabulary of a brigade writing menus in French for diners who read them as such.