Home › Meats › Breast of Veal Roasted
Breast of Veal Roasted
Make incisions between the ribs and the meat, and fill with a force meat made of fine bread crumbs, bits of pork or ham chopped "exceedingly small," salt, pepper, thyme, sweet marjoram and beaten egg. Thicken the gravy with a little of the force meat. Roast slowly, basting often. Dredge at the last, with flour, and baste well once with butter melted, as with the loin.
A stuffed roast written for cooks who already knew how to handle a veal breast; the modern work is mostly in the butchery and in pinning down the temperature the original never gives.
- The hinge: make a real pocket"Incisions between the ribs and the meat" means separating the rib bones from the outer layer of meat with a boning knife to form a single deep pocket, not slitting the surface. Cut from the thick end, keep the knife flat against the bones, and leave the edges intact so the forcemeat stays in; sew or skewer the opening closed.
- Buying the cutA bone-in veal breast runs 4-7 lb and usually has to be ordered. Ask the butcher to leave the ribs in and to loosen the pocket if you would rather not do it yourself. Plan on serving 5-6 from a 5 lb breast.
- "Roast slowly"Read that as 300-325F. Breast is a collagen-heavy cut and needs roughly 30-35 minutes per pound; it is done at about 165F in the stuffing and when the meat pulls readily from the ribs.
- Forcemeat quantitiesThe original gives none. For a 5 lb breast, about 3 cups fresh fine breadcrumbs, 6-8 oz finely chopped raw pork or ham, 1 teaspoon salt, plenty of pepper, a teaspoon each of chopped thyme and marjoram, and 2 beaten eggs will fill the pocket with a little to spare.
- Ham versus porkHam brings its own salt, so hold back on seasoning if you use it. Modern cured ham is generally wetter than older dry-cured meat; taste a pinch of the mixture cooked in a pan before you commit.
- Thickening the gravySetting aside a spoonful or two of raw forcemeat as a thickener works, but the pork and egg must cook through in the simmering pan juices, so give the gravy a good five minutes at a low boil and whisk it smooth.
- Dredging and the butter basteThe flour dredge in the final 15-20 minutes is what gives the browned crust; the melted-butter baste goes on immediately after so the flour toasts rather than sits raw.
- CarvingRest the roast 15 minutes, then remove the rib bones before slicing so each portion is meat and stuffing in one cut. Slicing between the ribs pushes the forcemeat out.
Veal breast was a thrift cut in the households these books were written for: bony, gelatinous, cheap relative to loin or cutlet, and only good eating if it was stuffed and cooked long and gently. The forcemeat did double duty, stretching a small amount of meat to feed a table and supplying the fat that veal itself lacks, which is why bits of pork or ham appear rather than more veal. Thyme and sweet marjoram were among the roasting herbs commonly carried from English into American cookery, and the closing instruction to dredge with flour and baste with butter "as with the loin" shows how these compilations worked -- techniques were explained once and then cross-referenced, on the assumption that the reader already knew them.