No. 2527

Kernel of Veal with Mayonnaise Tomatoed Sauce

Noix de Veau a la Sauce Mayonnaise Tomatee

Lard thoroughly a kernel of veal with ham and fat pork, cover it with slices of udder, and then braise. Have a dome-shaped terrine or mold; put the kernel in; strain in the stock, add to it a little gelatine if not consistent enough, and when cold turn it on a dish. Remold into another mold of similar shape, but an inch larger in diameter, decorated with cuts of vegetables; fill with jelly and when cold dress it on a carved rice socle and garnish around with balls of turnips and carrots, blanched and cooked in stock (No. 194a) with a little sugar, and glazed; dress a butter border (No. 2444) or one of vegetables (No. 2443) on the edge of the dish, and serve apart a mayonnaise (No. 606) with some tomato puree (No. 730) added.

← No. 2526 Miscellaneous Cold Hatelets, Bellevue Vegeta Garnishings for Cold Dishes No. 2528 Kingfish Fillets a la Valencay →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a cold buffet centerpiece from Ranhofer's Delmonico's kitchen, built in two stages: a braised, larded veal cushion set in its own clarified stock, then re-set inside a larger decorated jelly. The braise and the jelly are the real work; the rice socle and vegetable border are display.

What a "kernel of veal" isNoix de veau is the cushion of the leg, corresponding roughly to veal top round — a solid, close-grained muscle. Ask a butcher for veal top round or the eye of the leg in one piece; the recipe specifies no weight, and a whole piece of this kind is sized for a cold table rather than a family dinner.
Udder has no substitute worth chasingVeal or cow udder (tétine) was sold cooked and pressed in nineteenth-century markets and is effectively unobtainable now. Its job here is to bard the meat and keep the surface moist; sheets of pork fatback or a lattice of caul fat do the same thing.
LardingLarding needles are still made, but strips of ham and fat pork can also be inserted with a thin boning knife along the grain. Freeze the pork fat briefly so the strips stay rigid going in.
The braiseCover barely halfway with veal stock and braise covered at 300F until an instant-read thermometer at the center reads 145-150F, usually 2 to 2 1/2 hours. Veal top round dries out fast past that; the aspic will not rescue it.
Getting the jelly to setStrain and degrease the braising liquid, then test a chilled spoonful. Modern stock rarely sets firmly on its own — a standard packet of powdered gelatine (1/4 oz, about 2 1/4 tsp) sets 2 cups to a soft jelly, so expect to need rather more than that for a jelly firm enough to slice and unmold, and less if the stock is already tacky. Clarify with egg white if you want the decorated layer to read clearly.
The two moldingsFirst set the veal in a dome mold with just enough jelly to fix it. Unmold, then center that block in a dome one inch wider, line the outer mold with a thin set layer of jelly and the vegetable cutouts, and fill the gap. Chill each stage until fully firm — several hours, not minutes — or the layers slump when turned out.
Glazed root vegetable ballsTurnip and carrot balls, blanched then simmered in stock with a little sugar until the liquid reduces to a glaze. Cook them separately; turnip bleeds bitterness into carrot.
Socle and bordersA rice socle is a stiff cooked-rice paste molded and carved as a pedestal, purely structural and not eaten. A plain chilled platter or a shallow bowl of crushed ice is the sensible modern stand-in.
The sauceMayonnaise loosened with reduced, cooled tomato purée — a pink, tomato-tinted mayonnaise, nothing to do with ketchup. Reduce the purée first so the mayonnaise does not break from the added water.

A Little History

The recipe comes from The Epicurean (1894), Charles Ranhofer's exhaustive record of his years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it belongs to a genre that barely survives: the cold set piece for a buffet or ball supper, meant to sit on a sideboard under lamplight and be looked at as much as eaten. The cross-references to numbered stocks, borders and socles show how the book worked — a professional system in which no dish stood alone. Larding and barding with ham, fat pork and udder were ordinary insurance against dry meat, and udder in particular was a cheap, gelatinous market item that is said to have become increasingly rare at American butchers' counters over the twentieth century. The aspic-within-aspic construction reflects the same logic as the chaud-froid work of the era: gelatine was the medium that let a kitchen prepare, decorate and hold an elaborate dish hours before service.