Home & Garden|CONCOCTING CHEAPER SUBSTITUTES FOR VEAL
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By Robert Farrar Capon
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May 9, 1984
,
Section C, Page
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WITH the price of veal cutlets ranging from $6.99 to $8.99 - and more - a pound, cooks tend to think twice before planning a meal of scaloppine or schnitzel. Yet what a pity that is. Cutlets not only represent short-order cooking at its best; they also lend themselves to an almost endless variety of presentations.
Once they have been sauteed, it is just a matter of tossing into the pan a mere two or three of the hundreds of graces that come to mind. Vegetables, for example: shallots, garlic, capers, mushrooms, lemon or fruit. Spirits: Cognac, Calvados or even Scotch. Wines: white, red or fortified. And of course, stock or, better still, glace de viande (meat juice).
The mind's mouth fairly waters at the prospect, but the mind's cost- counting faculty goes on red alert at the expense. Cutlets, yes; but isn't there some less costly way for cooks to invite them back into the repertory as ordinary fare?
Fortunately, there is. All the cook need do is think pork, chicken or turkey instead. With no more equipment than a sharp knife and a suitable pounding tool, one and a half pounds of meat from a pork loin, fresh ham or even shoulder, or some boneless, skinless chicken or turkey breast, can be turned into an entirely acceptable replacement. Indeed, if the resultant cutlets are given a sufficiently aggressive saucing, only the most refined palates will be any the wiser.
As to cutting, the eye of the pork loin makes the best cutlets: sliced into inch-thick pieces and then pounded out to a thickness of a quarter of an inch or less, it produces generous-size scaloppine that shrink only minimally in the cooking (in the case of leg or shoulder meat the preliminary slices should be a good deal thinner).
Chicken breasts can be pounded to twice their size and turkey breast can be cut before pounding into quarter- inch to half-inch slices, depending on the cutlet size desired. Obviously, dimensions can also be increased by slicing meat on the slant to enlarge the initial surface area of the pieces.
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