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Veal Cutlets, a La Fried Oysters
Mrs. A. M. Gibbs.
Cut the veal in small pieces three or four inches square; dry with a towel; season to taste; have ready a beaten egg and crackers rolled fine, each on separate dishes; dip each piece of the cutlet in the egg, then in the rolled cracker; have enough lard or butter hot in your spider so that it will nearly cover the cutlets when you put them in. A rich gravy can be made after the meat is done by adding a little boiling water.
A plain breaded cutlet, treated the way a nineteenth-century cook treated oysters: egg, cracker crumbs, and enough hot fat to come most of the way up the food. A few of the words and quantities need translating.
- SpiderA spider is a heavy cast-iron frying pan, originally with legs to stand over coals. Any wide, heavy skillet works; depth matters more than material here, since the fat needs to come nearly to the top of the meat.
- Rolled crackersPlain soda or water crackers crushed fine with a rolling pin. Unsalted saltines or plain matzo crackers give the closest texture; they brown faster and stay crisper than modern breadcrumbs, so watch the colour.
- Fat and temperatureThe original calls for lard or butter deep enough to nearly cover the cutlets. Butter alone will brown and burn at frying depth; lard, or lard with a spoonful of butter added near the end, holds up. Aim for about 350F, and let the fat recover between batches.
- Cut and thicknessThe recipe says only 'small pieces three or four inches square' and does not name a cut; veal cutlet in this period usually came from the leg. It also gives no instruction to pound, but pounding to roughly a quarter inch will help the meat cook through before the cracker coating darkens.
- DonenessVeal is safe at 145F with a short rest, and pieces this thin reach it in two to three minutes a side. The recipe gives no frying time; longer cooking than this will only dry the meat.
- The gravy"Adding a little boiling water" means deglazing. Pour off most of the fat, leave the browned crumbs and drippings, add a small quantity of boiling water or stock and scrape. For anything thicker, whisk a tablespoon of flour into the retained fat first.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantities; about 1 1/2 lb of veal, or six to eight cutlets, would serve four. "Season to taste" here most likely means salt and pepper.
The title is the point: this is not a recipe for oysters but for veal cooked a la fried oysters, meaning dipped in egg, rolled in cracker crumbs, and dropped into deep hot fat. Cracker-crumbed fried oysters were among the most widely eaten American dishes of the second half of the nineteenth century, cheap and familiar wherever the barrel trade and the railroads reached, and the coating was applied to other foods as well, veal among them. The Home Cook Book (first published in Chicago in the mid-1870s and reprinted for decades, including in Canada) was compiled from contributed recipes signed by their donors, which is why this one carries Mrs. A. M. Gibbs's name and her own shorthand: no quantities and no times.