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June 30
Menu: Breaded Veal Cutlets; Potatoes; Egg Plant; Cress, Whipped Cream Dressing; Cottage Pudding, Strawberry Sauce; Coffee Breaded Veal Cutlets-1½ pounds fillet or neck of veal, Crisco for frying, 1/2 teaspoon chopped parsley, 14 teaspoon grated lemon rind, salt and pepper, egg and breadcrumbs. Cut meat into thin slices, which afterwards trim into neat fillets. Beat egg, mix with it parsley, lemon rind, good seasoning of salt and pepper. Brush cutlets over with this preparation, coat them carefully with breadcrumbs, fry quickly and lightly in hot Crisco. Serve with either tomato or piquante sauce, or, when gravy is preferred, brown little flour in Crisco in frying pan, add little salt and pepper, pour in 1/4 of a pint of hot water, boil up, and strain.
A straightforward breaded cutlet, notable mainly for the lemon-and-parsley egg wash rather than a plain dip. The whole dish takes about fifteen minutes once the meat is trimmed.
- The hinge: thin and fastVeal cutlets this thin cook through in two to three minutes a side. Pound the slices to an even 1/4 inch and get the fat properly hot before they go in, or the crumbs soak and the meat toughens while you wait for colour.
- CriscoCrisco was the hydrogenated vegetable shortening this book was written to promote. Any neutral high-smoke-point fat works the same way; a shallow layer, 1/4 inch or so, is enough for cutlets.
- Fillet or neckFillet of veal here means the leg cut sold today as cutlet or scallopini. Neck is cheaper and more sinewy, and will need firmer pounding to break down the connective tissue.
- Seasoning in the eggThe parsley and grated lemon rind go into the beaten egg rather than the crumbs, which keeps the herbs from scorching in the fat. The recipe calls for 1/2 teaspoon parsley and a small measure of lemon rind (the printed '14 teaspoon' is almost certainly 1/4); that is a scant pinch of zest, well under half a lemon's worth.
- A pint is a pintA quarter of a pint of hot water for the pan gravy is 1/2 cup in American measure. If working from a British edition of the text, an imperial quarter-pint is closer to 2/3 cup.
- Piquante sauceIn period usage this is a brown sauce sharpened with vinegar, shallot and chopped gherkin or capers. If you are not making one, the flour-and-water pan gravy described at the end is the intended plain alternative.
- YieldA pound and a half of veal serves four generously, three if the cutlets are the only substantial thing on the plate.
The Story of Crisco (1913) was published by Procter & Gamble to teach cooks what to do with a fat that had no culinary tradition behind it, and a dated menu for each day of the year -- the source of the "July 1" tag on this recipe -- is a feature of P&G's Crisco cookery publishing, the companion volume being titled A Calendar of Dinners. Breaded veal cutlets were a safe choice for that purpose: egg-washing and crumbing thin escalopes was a familiar technique in American kitchens with German and Austrian roots, and frying in shortening rather than butter or lard was the main change being proposed. The lemon rind in the egg wash may be a quiet nod toward the same tradition that puts a lemon wedge beside a schnitzel.