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Cream of Veal
(Germany.) Chop and pound 1 pound of veal tenderloin, add as much bread-crumbs, moistened with milk, the yolk of an egg and the beaten whites of two, and enough milk to make into a paste. Stir and season and pour into a buttered mould. Steam it like a custard for an hour, and serve with a sauce.
A steamed veal mousseline in the German Kalbsfleischpudding mould — closer to a fine quenelle forcemeat than to a meatloaf. The whole dish rests on keeping the mixture cold and the heat gentle.
- "As much bread-crumbs" is ambiguousRead literally this is a pound of crumbs to a pound of veal, which would give a bread pudding with veal in it. Forcemeat recipes of the period more often imply an equal bulk of soft crumbs soaked in milk and squeezed — roughly 2 cups fresh crumbs, about 3–4 oz. Start there and add more only if the paste will not hold shape.
- Chop and pound, or use the processorA food processor does in two minutes what the mortar did in twenty. Work the veal cold, in short pulses, and chill the bowl and blade; if the mixture is allowed to warm the paste can break and the pudding weeps in the mould.
- The egg whites go in lastBeat them to soft peaks and fold them in after the paste is seasoned and smooth. They are the only lift the dish has, and stirring them in will collapse it.
- "Steam it like a custard"Most likely a covered mould standing in a pan of hot water rather than a blast of steam. Water at a bare shiver, never boiling — a rolling bath overcooks the outer half and puts holes through the middle.
- An hour, but check the centreA 1 lb pudding in a deep mould will take about an hour; a shallow one considerably less. Veal is done at 160F on an instant-read thermometer, and a farce this lean turns dry and grainy if it goes much past that.
- SeasoningThe original says only "season." Salt this generously — about 1 tsp per pound of meat — plus white pepper and grated nutmeg, a common seasoning in German veal forcemeats. Fry a teaspoon of the raw mixture to taste it before it goes in the mould.
- The sauce is not optionalNothing here browns and there is almost no fat, so the pudding is bland alone. A veal or chicken velouté, a caper or lemon sauce, or plain browned butter with parsley are the period-appropriate choices.
- YieldServes four as a light entree, six as a first course. Rest it in the mould 10 minutes before turning out or it will crack.
With a Saucepan Over the Sea (Adelaide Keen, 1902) is a collection of household recipes gathered under national headings, aimed at American cooks curious about what was eaten abroad, and this entry is headed simply "(Germany.)" and "Cream of Veal." The technique is the same one that produces French quenelles: lean white meat pounded to a paste with a soaked bread panade, bound with egg, and set by gentle moist heat rather than roasting. Veal suited it because it is pale, mild and gelatinous enough to hold together without added fat, and steamed puddings of this kind were valued as invalid and nursery food as much as dinner-party fare, being soft, unbrowned and easy to digest by the standards of the day. The brevity of Keen's instructions — no mould size, no quantity of crumbs, no sauce named — is typical of the period's assumption that a cook already knew how a forcemeat should feel in the hand.