VEAL
Roast leg of veal
Wipe a leg of veal with a damp cloth and place it in a covered roaster. Dash a cupful of boiling water over the meat, cover it closely and cook at the rate of twenty minutes to the pound. Half an hour before the meat is taken from the oven remove the cover from the roaster, baste the meat with the gravy in the pan, and brown.
Shoulder of veal
This may be roasted, like the leg, but is better for having the bone removed, and the cavity thus left filled with a forcemeat made of bread-crumbs and chopped ham, seasoned to taste.
Veal cutlets
Wipe the cutlets with a damp cloth, dip them, first, in beaten egg, then in cracker dust, and set in a cold place for an hour. Fry in dripping to a rich brown. Cook slowly that they may be thoroughly done. Lay for a moment on brown paper to drain free of grease, and put on a hot platter. Serve with tomato sauce.
Veal steaks with mushroom sauce
Broil the steaks slowly over a clear fire, turning often that they may not scorch. When done, keep the meat hot on a platter in the oven while you make the following sauce:
Drain the liquor from a can of mushrooms and cut the mushrooms in halves. Cook together a tablespoonful of butter and one of browned flour until they are dark brown in color. Pour upon them the mushroom liquor and a cupful of beef stock. Stir to a smooth sauce, season with a dash of Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper, and add the halved mushrooms. Cook for two minutes, stirring constantly, then pour over and around the veal steaks.
Breast of veal á la jardiniére
Lard with strips of fat salt pork, and sprinkle with paprika. Dredge with flour and lay upon the grating of your covered roaster, add enough boiling water to cover it barely, and roast for an hour, basting with the gravy every ten or fifteen minutes. Then turn on the other side and spread over the roast a pint of tomatoes peeled and sliced, two onions, chopped fine, two sprigs of parsley, chopped fine, and two chopped peppers. Baste for another hour every ten minutes. When the meat is removed keep hot while you take up the vegetables with a split spoon, and keep them hot also. Strain the gravy, thicken with browned flour, and put into a boat. Lay the vegetables about the meat upon a metal or fire-proof dish, dredge this last with browned crumbs, and dot with softened butter. Set upon the top grating of the oven for five minutes to brown and send to table in the dish.
Stuffed roast fillet of veal
Take out the central bone and skewer the fillet into a neat round. Make a forcemeat of crumbs, minced pork, onion juice, parsley and half a can of mushrooms, minced. Wet with a few spoonfuls of stock or gravy; fill the bone-hole and ram the stuffing into the folds of the meat from both sides. Lay on your covered roaster, cover with very thin slices of fat salt pork, and dash a cupful of boiling water over top and sides. Roast, covered, twelve minutes to the pound. Fifteen minutes before you draw it from the oven remove the pork, wash with butter and dredge with browned flour. Then brown, uncovered.
The fillet should be basted four times while roasting. After the fourth basting draw off a cupful of gravy from the dripping-pan, set on ice, or in cold water until the fat rises, skim, add four tablespoonfuls of strained tomato juice, thicken with browned flour, and cook three minutes before pouring into a gravy-boat.
Roast breast of veal
Cook as you would the fillet, running a sharp knife between ribs and meat to make space for the stuffing.
Serve spinach with it.
Breaded veal cutlets
Roll the cutlets in fine crumbs, salted and peppered; dip into beaten egg, then again in crumbs. Set on ice for an hour to get firm, and fry in deep fat, turning three times, carefully. Cook slowly after the first five minutes. Underdone veal is unwholesome and unpalatable.
Drain off the fat, and serve in a heated dish. Send around horseradish or tomato sauce with them, and accompany with spinach.
Mock squabs
Have six or eight slices cut from a loin of veal, half an inch thick, about seven inches long and four wide. Make a forcemeat of crumbs, fat pork, and minced mushrooms seasoned with paprika, onion juice and a little lemon juice with a suspicion of grated lemon-peel. Moisten with a beaten egg and cover with this each slice of meat nearly to the edge, roll up tightly and tie with twine, or fasten with wooden skewers. Dredge with salt, pepper and flour, roast them as previously directed, golden-brown. Be very careful that they do not brown or become too highly colored. When nearly done add cream to almost cover and let them simmer about fifteen minutes or until quite tender. Remove the strings, arrange the “squabs” on toast, garnish with water-cress, and pour a little of the strained cream over each. Serve with asparagus or spinach.
Larded veal
Have a solid piece cut from the thickest part of the shoulder. Lard at short intervals with strips of fat salt pork and put into your covered roaster with sliced carrot, onion, bits of celery and a few sprigs of parsley; over all pour a large cupful of good stock, cover and cook slowly for about three hours. You should baste frequently while cooking, and a short time before it is done remove the cover, to cook the larding thoroughly and give a good color to the veal.
Just before taking up pour out a cupful of gravy, skim off the fat and thicken with browned flour, add a great spoonful of tomato catsup, and simmer until you are ready to dish the meat. Pour then into a boat.
Roast calves’ hearts
You will need two hearts for a dish of moderate size. Wash them thoroughly, leaving in salt and water for an hour, to draw out the blood. Run a slender, keen knife from the large end of each heart straight to the center, turning it around several times to make a central hole for the forcemeat stuffing. Make this of cracker crumbs highly seasoned with onion juice, salt and pepper, thyme or marjoram. Moisten with melted butter, or use hot water and a little fat pork or bacon finely chopped. Sew the opening together, and thrust in several lardoons of salt pork. Dredge with salt, pepper and flour. Fry one sliced onion in dripping in a frying-pan. Put in the heart and brown it lightly all over. Pour in stock to cover it—barely—add a bay leaf, two slices of carrot and one teaspoonful of salt. Cover the pan and cook in a moderate oven about two hours, or until very tender.
VEAL AND BEEF
ROAST BEEF
VEAL CHOPS AND SPINACH
MOCK PIGEONS
BOILED CALF’S HEAD
When done remove the strings, put the hearts upon a hot dish, and thicken the gravy with browned flour. Add lemon juice and other seasoning if needed. Strain over the hearts. Garnish with Parisian potatoes alternately with small tomatoes, pared and baked. Pour melted butter and minced parsley over potatoes and tomatoes.
Larded liver
Wash a calf’s or lamb’s liver, lard it with narrow strips of salt pork, and put it into a covered roaster. Pour over the liver a pint of cold beef stock and cover the pan closely. Set in a moderate oven and cook an hour and a half. Transfer the liver to a deep dish and put the pan containing the gravy on the top of the range. Thicken the gravy with a heaping tablespoonful of browned flour and add to it a cupful of strained tomato liquor, a teaspoonful of onion juice, salt and pepper to taste. Boil up once and pour over the liver.
Salmi of liver
Boil a calf’s liver for one hour in slightly salted water, and let it get cold. Cut into dice of uniform size, and for each cupful allow one tablespoonful of butter, one cupful of stock, one teaspoonful of tomato sauce, and two tablespoonfuls of chopped olives. Brown the butter, add one tablespoonful of flour and brown again; add gradually the stock, and stir until smooth and thick. Put in the catsup, olives and liver dice, season to taste, and simmer for fifteen minutes. Serve hot.
A delightful and not inelegant entrée.
Roast sweetbreads
Parboil two pairs of sweetbreads and blanch by throwing them into cold water. Drain, pierce three or four holes in each and press into these holes narrow strips of fat salt pork, allowing the strips to project a half-inch on each side. Lay the sweetbreads in a roasting-pan, pour a cupful of weak veal stock over them and rub them with melted butter. Cover and bake for twenty-five minutes; remove from the pan, sprinkle with salt and pepper, put a spoonful of the thickened and seasoned gravy upon each, and send to the table.
Baked calf’s head
The head should be cleaned with the skin left on, also the ears, and split down the under side, leaving the top unbroken. Remove the tongue and brains, parboil and set them on ice. Put the head on in plenty of cold water, boil quickly and for one minute after the boiling point is reached. Take the head off and lay in ice-cold water. Change this for colder in ten minutes, and leave in this for several hours.
Then put over the fire in boiling water, to which a tablespoonful of vinegar has been added, and a tablespoonful of salt. Cook gently until you can slip out the bones easily.
Do this, drawing the teeth, cheek-bones and skull, taking care not to break the upper skin. Put into a bake-dish, restoring the shape as well as you can. Cut the tongue into slices and lay close against the cheeks; wash plentifully with butter rubbed to a cream with lemon juice, sift dry crumbs all over it and bake, covered, half an hour. Then brown.
To make the gravy, rub the brains to a soft paste; pepper and salt, season with tomato catsup and onion juice, add enough of the liquor in which the head was boiled to make a boatful of gravy, thicken with butter rolled in flour, simmer five minutes and serve.
There is no more savory preparation of calf’s head than this. It goes to table in the bake-dish. The liquor from the pot in which it had the second boiling makes excellent soup stock.
Boiled calf’s head
Boil as directed in last recipe, but do not blanch or bone. When it has been cooked tender, dish, with the tongue (which should have been boiled with it), sliced and laid against the cheeks, and pour over it a brain gravy, made as for the baked head, with the addition of a great spoonful of minced olives.
Mock turtle
Boil and blanch a calf’s head, take out the bones and let the meat and tongue get cold in the liquor. Do not let it remain long enough to jelly. As soon as the meat is firm take it from the stock, wipe dry, and cut with the tongue into neat dice an inch long, and half as wide. Make a gravy of a large cupful of the pot liquor, thickened with butter rolled in browned flour and seasoned with lemon and onion juice, a teaspoonful of kitchen bouquet, a little salt and paprika. Put in the meat, and simmer fifteen minutes.
Have ready a sauce made by heating a cupful of cream (adding a pinch of soda) and pour it, stirring all the time, upon the beaten yolks of three eggs. Stir and beat for one minute, and add to the meat and gravy. Now add a glass of sherry and pour all into a deep dish, in which you have laid a pile of turtle eggs made by rubbing together the yolks of three hard-boiled eggs and the boiled brains of the calf, binding them with a raw egg and a little browned flour. They should be made into little marbles with floured hands and cooked in boiling butter for two minutes, then fished out and drained in a colander.
A delicious entrée!
Calf’s liver á la jardiniére
Lard a large liver with strips of fat salt pork. Cover the bottom of a large saucepan with a carrot and a young turnip (all cut into dice), six very small onions, a handful of green peas and the same of string beans cut into short lengths. Lay the liver upon these, pepper it and pour in a cupful of stock, or a cupful of hot water in which a tablespoonful of butter has been melted. Cover closely and cook an hour and a half without opening. In a bake-pan cook four peeled tomatoes of medium size. Take up the liver and the vegetables, the latter with a split spoon. Lay the liver upon a hot dish, group the vegetables (the tomatoes included), each of a kind together, about it; keep hot in the oven while you strain the gravy into a saucepan, add a great spoonful of catsup and a tablespoonful of browned flour wet with cold water, and cook for one minute. Pour a few spoonfuls over liver and vegetables, the rest into a boat.
Casserole of calf’s liver
Wash and wipe a calf’s liver perfectly dry. Fry a few slices of fat bacon in a pan until the fat is all fried out. Strain and return the fat to the pan, lay in the liver and fry two minutes on each side, and then put into the casserole; add one pint of rich brown sauce, a cupful of button onions that have been browned in butter and three tablespoonfuls of lemon juice. Fasten on the cover with a flour and water paste, put in a moderate, steady oven, and cook for two hours. Then remove the paste from the cover, put in potato balls that have been fried in hot fat, and send to the table in the casserole.
Fried brains for garnishing
Soak the brains in cold water for an hour, cover with fresh, cold water and bring to a boil. Cook for three minutes; drain, and set in a cold place for an hour. Cut in thick slices, sprinkle with salt and white pepper; dip in beaten egg, roll in cracker dust and set in a cold place long enough for the coating to stiffen. Fry in deep cottolene or other fat.
Scallop of calf’s brain
Soak brains in cold water for an hour, then boil for ten minutes. Drop into iced water, and when very cold cut into tiny dice. Butter a pudding dish, put in a layer of the brains, sprinkle with pepper, bits of butter and a few drops of onion juice; then put in a thin layer of minced ham. Add more brains, and proceed in this way until the dish is full. Sprinkle the top with buttered crumbs, pour a cupful of veal stock over all, and bake for twenty minutes.
Brain croquettes for garnishing
Prepare the brains as in the preceding recipe, chop and add to them butter, salt and pepper to taste. Into each cupful of the mixture stir a tablespoonful of crumbs and moisten all with cream. Heat in a double boiler, and when the boiling point is reached whip in slowly a beaten egg, and remove the mixture from the fire. Turn upon a dish to cool and stiffen before forming into small croquettes. Crumb these and set on the ice for two hours. Fry in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat.
Any dish of liver or calf’s head—in fact of veal in any form—is made elegant by a garnish of brains, fried as croquettes, or in slices.