No. 1537

Loin of Veal with Gravy

Longe de Veau au Jus

The veal should be white and fat. Remove all fat and kidneys from a loin, detach the minion fillets entirely; separate half the meat from the bones beginning at the spinal bone, then give one cut of the saw on each bone joint remaining against the sirloin; bone the flat bone and the ends of a few of the ribs which must be cut off to give it a good appearance; prick the flap or flank with the tip of a knife to extract the air which swells it up, and relay the minion fillets on the opposite side they were originally taken from, also a slice of meat removed from the flat bone so that the loin be of an equal size throughout; then roll the flap over and tie the meat with twelve rounds of string; wrap it in sheets of buttered paper and tie this up with ten rounds of string; lay the loin on a baking pan on top of a grate, set one inch above the bottom; sprinkle with good fat and leave it to cook in the oven for two to two and a half hours. Fifteen minutes before serving the loin, untie and lay it on another baking pan to leave in the oven to become a fine golden color; dress, glaze with a light glaze and serve with clear gravy (No. 404) thickened with half-glaze sauce (No. 413).

← No. 1536 Loin of Veal a la Saintonge Veal No. 1538 Neck of Veal au Blanc →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a butcher's counter in the same building and a cook who can bone a loin without being told twice. The cooking itself is simple: a long, gentle roast under buttered paper, unwrapped at the end to take colour.

Ask the butcherThe whole operation of boning the loin, removing the chine and rib ends, and tying it is standard work for any butcher. Ask for a boned and rolled veal loin with the flank left on, roughly 5-7 lb tied, and keep the bones for the gravy.
Minion filletsFilets mignons here means the two small tenderloins lying under the loin, not steaks. They are removed so the loin can be flattened and boned, then laid back on the opposite side to even out the thickness before rolling.
Buttered paperThe paper is a barding substitute: it keeps the lean surface from drying and colouring too early. Buttered parchment tied with string does the same job; foil traps steam and gives a paler, wetter surface, so parchment is closer to the intent.
Oven temperatureRanhofer gives none. A loin of this size wrapped in paper wants a steady 325F, with the last fifteen minutes uncovered at 425F to take the golden colour he describes.
Cook to temperature, not to two and a half hoursTwo to two and a half hours will take a modern veal loin well past dry. Roast to an internal 145F at the thickest point and rest 15-20 minutes; on a 5-6 lb tied loin that is closer to 1 1/2 hours at 325F.
The rackThe grate set an inch above the pan bottom keeps the meat out of its own drippings so the underside roasts rather than stews. Any low rack in a shallow roasting pan does this.
The sauceNo. 404 is a clear veal gravy and No. 413 a half-glaze (demi-glace). Without those two recipes, deglaze the pan with white wine and stock, reduce hard, and finish with a spoonful of demi-glace; the "light glaze" brushed on the meat is reduced stock, not a sugar glaze.
YieldA boned loin of this size serves 8 to 10 as a main course, more if it is one of several removes in the sort of menu this book was written for.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this entry shows the book's habits plainly: a French title, a terse number-cross-referenced sauce system, and the assumption that a brigade with a saw and a supply of string is standing by. Veal was among the prestige roasting meats of the nineteenth-century restaurant kitchen, prized for pale flesh, and Ranhofer's insistence that it be "white and fat" most likely refers to milk-fed animals, a distinction that still figures in veal grading today. The elaborate boning, replacing of the tenderloins and wrapping in buttered paper all serve one end: an evenly shaped roast that carves into uniform slices, which mattered in a dining room where service was a la russe.