No. 1545

Saddle of Veal and Chopped Lettuce-Larded

Selle de Veau Piquee aux Laitues Hachees

To prepare this dish choose a fine saddle not too fat; pare by removing the skin from the large fillet or loin; shorten the flap and suppress the minion fillets. Lard the large fillet or loin with larding pork (No. 2, Fig. 52) and lay it in a deep baking pan, the bottom covered with pork and veal fat; besprinkle the saddle plentifully with butter, cover it with a buttered paper and place it in a moderate oven to cook for an hour and a quarter to an hour and a half, basting it frequently with the fat from the pan; should this fat threaten to burn, add to it a few spoonfuls of good veal blond (No. 423). When the meat is of a fine color and well seized, drain, pare the edges and dress it on a long dish; dissolve the glaze in the pan with a little water or stock, let it boil for two minutes, then strain; free it from fat and reduce once more to a glaze. Surround the saddle with a garnishing composed of croustades garnished with chopped lettuce and cream (No. 2751), pour over it a part of the reduced sauce, serving the remainder separately.

← No. 1544 Round Bottom of Veal, Minced, Sicilian Veal No. 1546 Shoulder of Veal a la Bourguignotte →

For the Modern Kitchen

A whole roast saddle of veal from Delmonico's kitchen. Nothing here is difficult, but the cut has to be ordered and the timing needs a thermometer rather than a clock.

The cutA saddle is the unsplit double loin, both sides still joined at the backbone, running from the last rib to the hip. Expect roughly 8 to 12 lb bone-in and order it from a butcher in advance; supermarket veal loin usually comes split into single strip loins, and two of those roasted separately give the same meat but not the same presentation.
Minion fillets and flapThe filets mignons are the two tenderloins running under the backbone; "suppress" them means remove them and cook them separately, as they will overshoot long before the loins are done. The flap is the thin belly extension, trimmed back so it does not blacken.
LardingLarding pork is fatback cut into long strips and threaded through the meat with a larding needle. If you have no needle, bard instead: tie sheets of fatback or caul fat over the top surface. Veal loin has almost no intramuscular fat and will dry out unbarded.
Moderate ovenRoughly 325-350F in modern terms. No lid, but the roast is shielded with buttered paper as the recipe directs, which lets it brown slowly while the pan fat bastes it.
Timing, and why to ignore itAn hour and a quarter to an hour and a half is the book's own window. Roast instead to 140-145F at the thickest part of the loin and rest 20 minutes; on a large saddle that may well fall inside the original window, but the thermometer decides, not the clock.
Veal blondRanhofer's No. 423 is a light unbrowned veal stock. Any good unsalted veal or light chicken stock does the job here, since its only role is to keep the pan drippings from scorching.
The glaze"Dissolve the glaze in the pan" is a deglaze: the browned drippings are loosened with stock, boiled briefly, strained, defatted, then reduced again until syrupy. Salt only at the end, after reduction, or it will turn harsh.
The garnishCroustades are hollowed fried bread or baked pastry cases. No. 2751 is the chopped lettuce and cream preparation that fills them. Cook the lettuce briefly; long stewing turns it grey.
YieldA saddle of this size serves roughly 10 to 14 as a main course.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and the cross-references to numbered stocks, garnishes and cuts of larding pork show that it was written for a brigade with a stockpot always going, not for a home cook. A saddle was a display roast: carried whole to the table, carved in the room, and surrounded with a garnish that gave the dish its name — here croustades of creamed lettuce, a treatment often said to be common in nineteenth-century kitchens, where lettuce was braised as often as it was dressed raw. Veal held a particular place in that cooking, and it is generally suggested that its mildness and pale color made it a natural canvas for a reduced glaze. Larding, the threading of pork fat through lean meat, was routine work then and is often said to have receded from professional practice as faster roasting and fattier animals made it less necessary.