Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 2 (97 page)

(*)
AHEAD-OF-TIME NOTE
: If you wish to prepare and refrigerate the veal the day before cooking, chill stuffing before inserting it into the meat, just to be sure and safe.

3)
Browning and braising the veal—2½ hours

Rendered pork fat, goose fat, or cooking oil

A heavy casserole or roaster just large enough to hold veal comfortably (a 10- by 12-inch oval, for example)

½ cup each, roughly sliced carrots and onions

Optional but desirable, if you have no homemade veal stock: a cup or so of chopped veal bones

Salt

A bulb baster

1 cup dry white wine, or ¾ cup dry white French vermouth

2 to 3 cups homemade veal stock, or rich chicken stock, or a combination of canned beef bouillon and chicken broth

½ tsp thyme

1 imported bay leaf

A sheet of fresh pork fat or suet, or aluminum foil

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Film casserole with ⅛ inch of fat or oil; when very hot but not smoking, brown the vegetables and optional bones. Remove to a side dish, add more fat or oil if needed, and brown bottom (former rib side) of veal, lifting carefully from time to time with wooden spoon to be sure meat is not sticking. When browned, in 5 to 6 minutes, baste top with fat and set uncovered in upper-middle level of preheated oven for about 15 minutes, basting with fat in casserole several times, until top and sides of meat have browned nicely. Remove from oven; turn thermostat down to 350 degrees. Salt the meat lightly, strew the browned bones and vegetables around, pour in the wine and enough stock or bouillon to come ⅔ the way up the meat. Add the thyme and bay leaf, and drape the fat or foil over the meat.

Bring to the simmer on top of stove, cover the casserole, and braise in lower-middle level of oven, regulating heat so that liquid in casserole remains at a slow, even simmer. If meat is easy to turn, do so several times during cooking, replacing fat or foil on top; otherwise, baste every 20 minutes or so with the liquids in the casserole. Meat should be done in about 2 hours, when it feels tender if pierced with a fork. It should retain its shape perfectly; in other words, do not let it overcook.

4)
Sauce and serving

A hot platter

A sieve set over a saucepan

Salt and pepper

If needed: 1 Tb cornstarch mixed to a paste with 2 Tb wine or vermouth

2 to 3 Tb soft butter

Parsley, watercress, or whatever vegetable garnish you have chosen

A warm sauce bowl

Remove veal to hot platter. Do not untie or unskewer it yet, but cover with its fat or foil, and set in turned-off oven, door ajar. Strain braising liquid into saucepan,
pressing juices out of vegetables. Skim off surface fat, bring liquid to the simmer, skimming, and boil down rapidly, if necessary, to around 2 cups.

If sauce needs thickening, remove from heat, beat in the cornstarch mixture, and simmer 2 minutes. Carefully correct seasoning. Just before serving, remove from heat and beat in the enrichment butter a half a tablespoon at a time. Remove trussings from veal, spoon a little sauce over to glaze it, and decorate the platter as you wish. Pour remaining sauce into bowl. Serve immediately.

To carve, cut crosswise slices ⅜ to ½ inch thick, as though meat were a loaf of bread. Ring each slice with a spoonful or two of sauce.

(*)
AHEAD-OF-TIME NOTE
: If you are not serving for half an hour or so, finish the sauce except for butter enrichment; return meat and sauce to casserole. Set cover askew and keep anywhere that you can maintain a temperature of 120 degrees. An occasional basting of the meat will keep it moist; if sauce thickens during wait, thin with stock before serving.

Other stuffings

Breast of veal takes kindly to many stuffings. Another combination with chard includes the sausage meat, ham, and bread crumbs used for
paupiette
of beef
, and there is the mushroom
duxelles
and spinach stuffing for
shoulder of lamb Viroflay
. Either the mushroom and kidney stuffing for
boned leg of lamb
, or the kidney and rice stuffing in Volume I, page 337, would be delicious and unusual, as would be the
boudin blanc
and mushrooms mixture in the
chicken section
. Or any of these
stuffing possibilities
.

  
VEAU EN FEUILLETONS

[Sliced and Stuffed Roast of Veal]

Veal wants stuffing, as the British would say, and here is a typically French
grande cuisine farce fine
of pork, veal, truffles,
foie gras
, and Cognac. This is sliced veal marinated in wine and truffles, then tied together in the form of a roast with the stuffing between each slice. Braised with stock and aromatic vegetables, it produces a most heavenly sauce combining all of the luxurious flavors. Very definitely a dish for a select group of friends, it calls for your finest in château-bottled Bordeaux-Médocs, and the best vegetables.
You might surround the meat platter with a fluted border of
mashed potatoes
duchesse
and pass separately something like braised spinach,
chopped broccoli simmered in cream
, braised endives or lettuce, or fresh, buttered peas.

THE VEAL

If you can get it, the top round from a large, pale, prime leg would give you solid scallops with no muscle separations. Otherwise settle either for cuts from the full round that you can separate and regroup, or the thin scallopini available in some markets. These latter you could regroup or spread separately with stuffing. Play it by look and feel, aiming for a re-formed roast about 10 inches long and 5 inches in diameter.

For 10 to 12 people