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Fricandeau of Veal with Sorrel
Procure a three-pound round of tender veal, detach the skin from around, then with the aid of a small larding needle lard the surface with small strips of pork. Season with a teaspoon salt and a half teaspoon white pepper. Heat one and a half tablespoons melted butter in a saucepan, add the veal and fry it for ten minutes on each side on the range and place the veal on a dish. Place a mirepoix at the bottom of the pan, add two tablespoons flour and brown on the fire for five minutes. Moisten with a gill claret, a half pint water, half gill tomato sauce and three-quarters gill demi-glace. Mix well and as soon as it comes to a boil add the veal, the larded side upward, and boil for five minutes. Cover the pan, place in a moderate oven for one hour, remove and dress the veal on a hot dish. Dress a puree of sorrel around the veal, skim the fat from the surface of the sauce, strain a little of the gravy over the veal, the balance into a saucebowl, and send to the table separately.
A classic French braise written for a professional kitchen that already had stock, demi-glace and tomato sauce on hand. The measurements are pre-1920 American, and two of the ingredients need substitution before you start.
- Gills and pintsA gill is 1/2 cup (4 fl oz). So: 1/2 cup claret, 1 cup water, 1/4 cup tomato sauce, 6 tablespoons demi-glace.
- Moderate oven350F. A tightly covered pan at that temperature for an hour will cook a 3 lb larded round through; if a fork still meets resistance, give it another 20-30 minutes rather than raising the heat.
- The cutA "round of veal" here is a thick single piece from the leg, top round, not a thin cutlet. Veal leg is very lean, which is the entire reason for the larding.
- LardingThe strips are fresh pork fatback or unsmoked salt pork, cut into thin lardons and chilled firm so they feed through the needle. Without a larding needle, tie a thin sheet of fatback or unsmoked bacon over the top surface instead; the barded version bastes almost as well, though it will not marble the meat.
- MirepoixRoughly diced onion, carrot and celery, often with a little diced pork fat or ham. Roughly 1 to 1 1/2 cups total for this size of joint.
- Demi-glace and tomato sauceBoth were made in bulk in the original kitchen: tomato sauce is one of the classic mother sauces, and demi-glace a reduction derived from espagnole. Substitute 6 tablespoons of well-reduced brown veal or beef stock, and 1/4 cup of plain reduced tomato passata rather than a seasoned pasta sauce.
- ClaretA dry red Bordeaux or any dry, unoaked red. Nothing sweet.
- Sorrel pureeSorrel collapses in two or three minutes over heat and turns from green to olive drab, which is normal. Wilt the washed leaves in butter, puree, and season; cook it in stainless or enamel, since its oxalic acid will pick up a metallic taste from bare cast iron or aluminium. Allow about 1 lb of leaves for four people.
- YieldServes four to six. Rest the veal ten minutes before slicing, and slice across the lardons so each piece shows the pattern.
Fricandeau is a long-established term in French butchery cookery: a thick piece of veal leg, larded with pork fat, browned and then braised slowly in a well-flavoured liquid until it can be cut with a spoon. It appears in French kitchen manuals as early as La Varenne in the mid-seventeenth century and passed intact into the Anglo-American professional repertoire, which is why it turns up in a compendium like this one, written for cooks who already had demi-glace, tomato sauce and mirepoix standing ready. The sorrel is not decoration but the point of the pairing: veal leg is bland and lean, and sorrel's sharp oxalic acidity does the work that a squeeze of lemon or a mustard sauce would do for a richer cut. Veau a l'oseille in various forms was standard French home and restaurant cooking, and sorrel was a common kitchen-garden green in both France and America, though it is generally said to have given ground to spinach over the twentieth century.