Scalloped Veal
Chop some cold veal very fine (roast or stewed veal), put a layer in the bottom of a pudding dish well buttered, and season with pepper and salt. Next have a layer of finely powdered crackers or fine bread crumbs. Strew some bits of butter upon it and wet with a little milk; then more veal seasoned as before, and another round of crumbs with butter and milk. When the dish is full, wet well with broth warm. Spread over all a thick layer of crumbs seasoned with salt, wet into a paste with milk and bound with a beaten egg or two if the dish is large. Stick butter bits thickly over it, cover with a tin pan inverted so as to cover all and keep in the steam, and bake; if small, half an hour, three-quarters will suffice for a large dish. Remove the cover ten minutes before it is served, and brown. Try it and do not get it too dry.
A leftover dish, built like a gratin: layers of cooked veal and buttered crumbs moistened with milk and broth. The whole thing succeeds or fails on how wet you keep it.
- Oven temperatureThe original gives none. A moderate oven, around 350F, for the stated half hour (small dish) to three-quarters of an hour (large) suits it, then uncovered at a hotter setting for the final ten minutes to brown the top.
- Moisture is the hingeThe closing line — "do not get it too dry" — is the whole instruction. Cold cooked veal has already given up its juices, so each layer needs milk and the finished dish needs to be wetted well with warm broth, as directed. Underdo this and you get seasoned sawdust.
- "Pudding dish"A deep round or oval baking dish, roughly 1 1/2 to 2 quarts. Anything ovenproof of similar depth works; depth matters more than shape because the layers need to steam.
- The inverted tin panA cake tin or pie plate set upside down over the dish to trap steam. Foil or a lid does the same job, and should be removed for the last ten minutes as directed.
- BrothVeal or chicken stock, warmed so it does not chill the dish. If you have the pan juices or gravy from the original roast, use those thinned with stock.
- Crackers"Finely powdered crackers" means plain unsalted soda or water crackers, crushed to crumbs. Modern saltines work but are salty, so cut back on the added salt in the layers and topping.
- The bound toppingThe top layer is crumbs mixed to a paste with milk and one or two beaten eggs — closer to a soft crust than a sprinkle. Dot it generously with butter or it will set pale and leathery rather than browning.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantities; enough chopped cooked veal to fill the dish in layers is the only measure offered. It is best served hot from the oven, as the recipe implies.
Scallops of this kind were the standard nineteenth-century answer to cold roast meat: chop it, layer it with buttered crumbs and something liquid, bake it covered, and serve it as a second dinner in a form nobody could mistake for yesterday's joint. The verb "scallop" here has nothing to do with the shellfish; the usual explanation traces it to the shell-shaped dishes such mixtures were once baked and served in, and by the time of this book it simply meant meat or fish baked in layers with crumbs and milk. Veal was a common household meat in American kitchens of the period, cheaper and more available than it is now, and a roast or stewed piece was expected to yield at least two meals. The frank instruction to invert a tin pan over the dish, rather than to use a fitted lid, is a good indication of the mixed batterie de cuisine of an ordinary kitchen of the period.