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Veal Cold
One pound of veal chopped fine; one egg, pepper and salt, summer savory. Bake in bars and slice when cool.
A veal loaf baked in narrow strips so it slices cleanly for sandwiches. The recipe is barely three lines, so almost everything practical has to be supplied.
- "Bake in bars"The recipe gives no dimensions. Shaping the mixture into narrow loaves roughly 2 inches wide and 1.5 inches deep, or pressing it into small loaf pans or a bar-shaped mould, will give a slice about the width of a sandwich.
- Oven and timeThe recipe specifies neither. A moderate oven, around 350F, for roughly 40 to 50 minutes suits a bar of this size. Ground veal should reach 160F on a thermometer, which is the only reliable test here since the loaf is small and easy to overbake into dryness.
- The binding is thinOne egg per pound of finely chopped meat is very little binder. Many comparable period loaf recipes add a few spoonfuls of fine breadcrumbs or cracker crumbs and a little milk or stock; without something of the kind the bar may crumble under the knife.
- Chopped, not ground"chopped fine" here means hand-chopped or run through a hand mincer, which gives a coarser, more open texture than a modern fine grind. Ask for a coarse grind or pulse cubed shoulder briefly in a food processor.
- Summer savoryA peppery, thyme-like annual herb that has largely dropped out of supermarkets. About a teaspoon dried per pound is right; thyme, with a pinch of sage, is a workable substitute.
- Cool completely before slicingA warm veal bar tears. Chill it several hours, ideally overnight under light weight, and slice thin with a sharp knife.
- YieldOne pound of meat gives a bar that fills about six to eight sandwiches. It keeps three or four days refrigerated.
Cold sliced meat loaves of this kind were a mainstay of the American sandwich before commercial luncheon meats: a cook made a veal or chicken "loaf" or "bar", chilled it, and sliced it through the week for lunch pails, picnics and afternoon teas. Veal suits the treatment because it is pale, mild and gelatinous enough to set firm when cold. Cookbooks of the turn of the century increasingly gave sandwiches a section of their own rather than burying them among the cold meats.