Veal Cutlets
Pepper 4 tablespoons drippings or butter Fine bread crumbs 1 egg 1 tablespoon water Wipe meat and cut into pieces for individual serving, removing bone, skin, and tough membranes. Skewer small pieces of meat together with wooden tooth-picks. Beat egg and water, so that white is well broken, but not light. Dip meat in sifted, seasoned bread crumbs; dip in egg, then in crumbs again. Melt fat in frying pan. When hot, brown cutlets quickly on both sides. Pour sauce over cutlets, cover, then cook at low temperature for one hour or until tender, turning occasionally. 2 tablespoons fat cup flour teaspoon salt
A breaded veal cutlet browned and then braised in its own gravy — the American treatment of veal round steak rather than the thin, quickly fried scaloppine most cooks think of now. The ingredient list as printed is incomplete, so a few quantities have to be judged by eye.
- What cut this wantsThe instructions — removing bone, skin and membrane, skewering small pieces together, then an hour of covered cooking — point to a thicker cut such as veal round or shoulder rather than a thin scallop, though no thickness is given. Modern pre-pounded veal scallopini is far thinner and will be dry and stringy long before the hour is up; it needs only a few minutes total.
- Missing quantitiesNo weight of veal is given. Allow about 2 lb for four servings, which suits the 4 tablespoons of fat and one egg. Salt for the crumbs is likewise unstated; roughly a teaspoon per cup of crumbs is right.
- The sauceThe stray line at the end — 2 tablespoons fat, flour, salt — appears to be the ingredients for a roux-based gravy, though the liquid and the exact quantities are missing from the printed text. Cook the flour in the fat, then whisk in stock, milk or water to a pourable consistency before it goes over the browned cutlets.
- DrippingsThe recipe allows either drippings or butter. Butter alone scorches easily at browning heat, so cut it with a spoonful of neutral oil if you use it.
- Crumb, egg, crumbThe recipe crumbs, egg-washes and crumbs again, which gives a heavier coating than a single dip before the cutlets go under cover. Letting the breaded cutlets sit a few minutes before they meet the fat helps the coating set.
- "Low temperature"The pan is covered and turned occasionally on the stovetop, so this means a bare simmer rather than an oven setting. The book gives no oven temperature; if you prefer the oven, a moderate covered oven will do the same job with less attention.
- Test for doneAn hour is a guide; braised veal is ready when a fork goes in with no resistance. Under-braised veal from these cuts is tough rather than merely underdone, so err long.
Cookbooks of the first half of the twentieth century are often said to treat veal cutlets as an everyday supper rather than a luxury, though the picture is less uniform than that suggests. The breaded-and-braised handling here resembles the German and Austrian schnitzel tradition, adapted to a tougher cut sold as "cutlets" — hence the long covered cooking, which a Wiener Schnitzel never gets.