Veal Steak
This should be cut thin and be done throughout. Broil upon a well greased gridiron over a clear fire, and turn frequently while the steaks are cooking. Season well with melted butter, salt and pepper, or a sauce may be made, one small onion minced fine, a tablespoonful of tomato catsup, one tablespoonful of butter, a little thyme, with a small teacupful of hot water. Let them stew together while the steaks are broiling, thickening before you turn the gravy out, with a teaspoonful of browned flour. A half glass of wine may be added, salt and pepper. Broil up once hard, and when the steaks are dished, with a small bit of butter upon each pour the mixture over and around them.
A broiled veal cutlet with a quick pan sauce built while the meat cooks. The whole thing is a ten-minute job, and the only real risk is overcooking meat that is already lean.
- "Done throughout" — but thinCut the veal about 1/2 inch thick and cook it just to firmness, 3-4 minutes per side over high heat. Veal has almost no intramuscular fat; pushed past well done it turns grey and dry, which is what the older instruction to cook it through tends to produce.
- Gridiron and clear fireA clear fire means coals with no flame or smoke. Use a charcoal grill once the coals have ashed over, or a ridged cast-iron pan preheated until it just smokes; an overhead broiler set high works too. Grease the grate well — veal sticks.
- TeacupfulA Victorian teacup is smaller than a modern measuring cup, usually reckoned at roughly 5 to 6 fl oz. Since the recipe asks for a *small* teacupful, take it as somewhere around 1/2 to 2/3 cup of hot water.
- Browned flourFlour toasted dry in a skillet until the color of sand, stirring constantly. It thickens less powerfully than raw flour, so a teaspoon here gives a light gravy rather than a paste. Cookbooks of the period often advise browning a quantity ahead and keeping it in a jar, though how common the habit actually was is not something we can measure.
- Tomato catsupCatsup of this period was generally thinner, sharper and less sweet than the modern bottle, closer to a spiced tomato sauce, though commercial brands were already trending thicker and sweeter by the turn of the century. For something nearer the original balance, substitute a tablespoon of tomato paste plus a splash of vinegar.
- "Broil up once hard"Most likely this refers to the sauce rather than the meat: after the flour goes in, bring it to a hard boil for a moment to cook out the raw starch, then pull it off. The wording is ambiguous, though. A period wineglass is usually reckoned at about 2 fl oz, so a half glass is roughly 1 fl oz; red or dry sherry both suit it.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantity of meat. The sauce as written makes only a small amount, plausibly enough for two or three steaks; scale it up if you are feeding four.
Veal was far more common on American tables around 1900 than it is now, a by-product of a dairy industry that had no use for bull calves, and cookbooks of the period give it pages of its own. This treatment — broiled meat with a small brown sauce of onion, catsup, herb and a thickening of browned flour, finished with a bit of wine — is of a kind often associated with dressing up a plain grilled cut in cookery of this sort. Browned flour and bottled catsup were both pantry staples that let a cook produce something sauce-like in the time it took the steaks to cook, without a stockpot.