CHAPTER IX.
VEAL CUTLETS, BREADED.
When Molly reached home it was nearly six. Marta had followed directions fairly well, but Molly had taken the precaution to do everything she could before leaving home. She had herself cut half the veal cutlets into neat pieces, the size of a large oyster, leaving the rest for her pie, pounded each, squeezed on it a few drops of lemon juice, and piled one upon the other, and told Marta to leave them so an hour or two, then bread them exactly as she had done the lamb chops. She had also cut some thin slices of breakfast bacon, taken off the rind and dark inner skin very thinly; and now, having let the frying-pan get quite hot, she put the bacon in it. As soon as it looked clear she turned it; it curled up, and when it had been in the pan about three minutes she took it out and laid in the cutlets; the half a dozen pieces left room to turn them about comfortably.
“You see, Marta, I don’t drop these into deep fat, because veal is a meat that requires long cooking, and is one of the few things I think better fried, or rather ‘sauté,’ in this way, with only enough fat to cook them, but it is much more trouble to do than the frying in boiling fat.”
The cutlets took nearly ten minutes to fry a nice brown on one side, because, although the pan was kept at a good heat, she had to guard against burning. Then each piece was turned, and, when quite brown (it took nearly ten minutes more to get so), taken up and put on the dish, and the bacon round it. Molly took the pan to the table, poured off the fat, which was dark, and put in the pan a dessert-spoonful of butter and a scant one of flour, set them on the stove and let them melt and brown a little; then she drew the pan aside, and poured a small cup of the hot soup they were going to have for dinner into it, and stirred till smooth, mashing all the brown clinging gravy with the back of her spoon. She explained to Marta that, if the soup had not been at hand, water and pepper and salt would have been used; or, if there was oyster liquor in the house, she should have used that and water in equal parts.
“Now take in the soup, Marta,—and while that is on the table, let this gravy boil a few seconds, then pour it through the strainer into the dish with the cutlets; don’t let it boil longer, or it will get too thick.”
After dinner, Harry told Molly that one of the gentlemen on the cars, a friend of the Winfields’, had spoken to him about joining a dramatic reading-club, of which he was president, and said his wife was coming to invite Molly. “But I don’t think we can afford it, dear.”
“Would you like it?” asked Molly quickly.
“Oh, I don’t know! Yes, I think it might brighten the winter a bit.”