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Rouelle of Veal En Fricandeau
Procure a three-pound piece of veal from round and lard surface with a few thin strips larding pork, and season all around with a teaspoon salt and half teaspoon pepper. Thoroughly heat in a round braising pan three tablespoons melted lard, place the rouelle in, cook on fire for ten minutes on each side, lift up and place on a plate until required.
Place a mirepoix in the pan, brown for ten minutes, stirring once in a while, add veal to vegetables, pour in a half gill white wine, then let reduce on fire to a glaze and cover veal with white broth or water. Cover pan, set to roast in oven for fifty-five minutes, remove and dress veal on a large dish. Skim fat off surface and let gravy reduce to a third of the quantity, strain gravy over veal and serve.
A classic French braise written in kitchen shorthand: the veal is browned, set on aromatics, glazed with wine, then cooked covered in stock. Nothing here is difficult, but several terms and one temperature are missing.
- RouelleA thick round slice cut straight across the veal leg, bone in the centre. Ask a butcher for a cross-cut veal round steak; a boneless piece from the top round will braise the same way but yields less body in the gravy.
- Larding porkFirm back fat cut into strips and drawn through the meat with a larding needle. Salt pork rinsed of excess salt, or thick unsmoked bacon, works; if you have no needle, pierce the meat with a thin knife and push the strips in with the handle of a spoon.
- Half gillA gill is half a cup, so half a gill is 4 tablespoons, about 60 ml of dry white wine. It is meant to reduce almost to nothing before the stock goes in.
- MirepoixDiced onion, carrot and celery, generally with a little of the same larding pork or a bay leaf and thyme. For a 3 lb piece figure on about 2 cups total, cut large enough that it does not dissolve into the gravy.
- White brothUnbrowned veal or chicken stock. Enough to cover the meat, which in a snug braising pan is less than it sounds; a wide pan will drink far more liquid and give a thin gravy.
- Oven temperatureThe book says only "set to roast in oven" while covered, which is a braise. A moderate oven, around 325F, suits it; higher and the exterior fibres tighten and dry before the connective tissue in the round gives way.
- TimingFifty-five minutes will cook a 3 lb rouelle through but may not make it tender. Veal round has enough collagen that it usually wants 1½ to 2 hours at 325F, tested by a skewer sliding out with no resistance rather than by the clock.
- The gravySkimming before reducing is the instruction that matters. Reduce first and you concentrate the fat along with the stock, and the sauce will taste greasy rather than glazed. Reduce by two-thirds, then strain.
- YieldServes four to six, sliced across the grain. Spinach or a puree of sorrel are the classic accompaniments to a fricandeau.
Fricandeau is one of the older surviving terms of French cookery: a piece of veal taken from the leg, larded with pork fat, braised in a little liquid and finished by reducing that liquid over the meat until it glazes. The name is attested in French printed sources as early as the sixteenth century and its origin is disputed; what is not disputed is that eighteenth- and nineteenth-century French kitchens treated it as the standard demonstration of how to make a lean, dry cut eat richly. Rouelle means a small wheel, and describes the round cross-cut slice from the leg, bone at the centre. The recipe reflects a professional brigade's habits rather than a home cook's: a mirepoix assumed to need no explanation, a measurement in gills, and a braise described as "roasting" because it went into the oven.