At the store today, I saw a whole veal breast for $6 US...

Never take advice from Veeky Forums

We make a dish that translates loosely as "baker's veal" which is made with veal breast.

Here's a general guideline on the process:

Set oven to highest temp setting.
Make cross-cut slashes in the veal breast's fat then rub all over with salt.
Sprinkle with dried rosemary leaves and freshly ground peppercorn.
Thinly slice an average-sized onion.
Thinly slice two average-sized AP, white or Yukon potatoes.
Toss potato and onions slices with salt, rosemary and peppercorn and place into a baking dish.
Top potato/onion mixture with veal breast.
Place into oven and lower the temp to 120°C/250°F.
Cook in this manner for 3-5 hours, then remove the breast to rest for 10-20 minutes, leaving the potatoes and onions behind.
Up the heat to its highest setting to roast the potatoes until brown and crunchy on top. If you want, drain excess veal fat and jus from the potatoes first, but I never do.
Slice and serve the breast and consume with the potatoes and a side of eggy peas.

I think it depends on your country. Where I'm from, there is one, large flat bone and the meat sits on top of that. I live in the US now. Veal breast is boneless here.

I figured I would make something along the lines of this. I didn't know whether a roast or a braise would be the right approach.

BTW what are eggy peas?

You're thinking of tri-tip.

This sounds delicious although I don't know what "eggy peas" are.

not OP but this sounds fantastic, I love this simple type of cooking.

that is an appallingly wasteful use for a whole veal breast nigga

Where I'm from, all meats cooked in the oven are served with eggy peas. Because oven roasting is kinda rare for us, we also call them 'Easter peas' since Easter is the only day where we're guaranteed to roast meat in the oven (either a lamb's leg or a kid's).

Here's the recipe:
bacon, streaky kind, finely chopped, 2-4 slices
>fattier is better here; we use cured-and-smoked pork cheeks, but in most of the rest of the world, streaky bacon is a decent enough substitute
onion, diced, 1 medium/medium-large
salt, as needed
peas, from a tin, 800g drained
>traditional is to use fresh peas, but fuck shelling them all then boiling them enough to be mushy; tinned peas are already shelled and plenty mushy, so that's what i use now
egg, room temperature, 1-2

Put bacon into a cold pan with the onions, salt generously and set to high heat.
When sizzling audibly, lower the heat and stir about to both cook evenly and render more grease from the bacon.
When no more grease seems to render up the heat and cook until the onions start to brown at the edges and/or the bacon starts to crisp.
Quickly add the peas and stir throughout, whipping to mash them up a bit.
Beat the egg/s to uniform yellow then add a little of the hot peas to the bowl at a time, whipping them with the eggs until about half the peas have been added.
Off the heat and pour in the egg mixture, whipping to mix evenly throughout, thicken and get some volume.
Serve with a roast meat of some kind (veal breast in this example).

thanks for sharing this, will do (not op)

>4 dollar piece of meat
>appallingly wasteful

Why am I not surprised that Veeky Forums doesn't know the culinary gold that is veal stock/demi-glace.

Sounds fucking great user

>Implying the price matters and not the cut of meat

Ah, another dumb American that doesn't know veal breast has tons of bones/cartilage.
youtube.com/watch?v=pmNmFTaX47s

>If you can not find veal bones for the veal stock, see if you can find a veal breast, which has a great mix of bone, cartilage and meat

ruhlman.com/2009/01/veal-stock-and-remouillage/

Good meme bro, too bad im not the guy calling it wasteful
My issue is that you considered the price to be the determining factor of what you're wasting, rather than making something else delicious

Or how you prepare it. That pretentious fuck can go fuck himself.

>tries to make a point
>links to website that advises you to use veal BONES, only mentioning veal breast at the end as a last resort if bones are unavailable

also, it's almost as if americans and europeans have different names for different cuts of meat

I think I'll pass on the "eggy peas," but as I said, everything else looks good. Thanks for the detailed explanation of those things though. Perhaps I'll run across a reference to it in a Robert Burns poem somewhere.

Kek

Unless you live near a farm, veal bones in America are stripped bare at the wholesaler. They don't have enough meat to flavor the stock, so you end up buying veal meat anyway. Some even put in pig trotters to add more meat flavor.

>americans and europeans have different names for different cuts of meat

You think? Christ almighty man, that's relatively elementary, oops, I just realized you were being sarcastic. Cancel.

i know about veal stock you dumb nigger. i used to tend a giant fucking pot of it every day where i worked. the veal breast is good meat you dingus. you don't just chuck decent braising cuts into stock.

>you don't just chuck decent braising cuts into stock
When you are talking about the home cook, of course you can.

even less in that case.

no. That's now how it works.

if the home cook wants to waste perfectly good pieces of meat to expensively crowd the stock pot, fine, but that's bad advice.

>6 dollars
>expensive
Spot the poorfag.

How would you do it cheaper? American veal bones are stripped of meat.

I'm not the guy you're replying to, but when I make veal stock I do one of two things:

-buy the stripped veal bones, then make up for the lack of meaty bits by adding some ground veal

-tell the butcher to save me some veal bones when they break down the animals in-house, and to leave some meaty bits on them.

use waste and trimmings. a whole veal breast is neither.

>then make up for the lack of meaty bits by adding some ground veal

This is somehow cheaper than 6 dollar veal breast?

When you get a whole veal breast for $6 that's about the same price/value as trimmings.

>This is somehow cheaper than 6 dollar veal breast?
I have no idea. I didn't budget, and I didn't mean to imply that "my method" was any cheaper. I was just sharing how I make veal stock so the various anons here might get some ideas.

Clearly the exact cost is going to vary from shop to shop so everyone would have to do their own budgeting.

It's also a matter of what people are willing to pay. It's typical for a restaurant to use scraps because (a) they have them from doing onsite butchery, and (b) they try and minimize their food waste. That may not be relevant for a home cook. Home cooks aren't breaking down whole sides of veal for easy access to trimmings. Home cooks might be OK with splurging on their stock ingredients every once in a while.

>When you get a whole veal breast for $6 that's about the same price/value as trimmings.

no it isn't. even if it were you're not factoring the opportunity cost of the veal itself. it's a good piece of meat that is not perfectly suited to making a stock, more of a braising liquor.

I was talking purely about the raw cost. $ per pound.

Everything else is subjective. I agree with you that personally, I wouldn't use breast to make stock with. I'd rather cook it and serve it for it's meat value. But other anons might have different preferances.

Example: I often buy whole ducks for the sole point of making stock. I throw the meat away afterwards. I'm sure other people would think that is sacrilege and would rather roast it. But I value it's stock more than I value it's meat. None of this stuff is absolute.....

>opportunity cost
Community college dropout? You either make one meal or you can make an ingredient that will incredibly enhance eight other meals. You'd know this if you've ever made veal stock.

>that is not perfectly suited to making a stock
Has meat, bone and cartilage. So you suck at economics and cooking.

> you can make an ingredient that will incredibly enhance eight other meals

not in a high enough quantity nigga.

>Has meat, bone and cartilage

it has all three, but so does a porterhouse. the ratios are somewhat off, and again, where you have a good yield of uninterrupted muscle you want to fucking COOK AND EAT IT

> I agree with you that personally, I wouldn't use breast to make stock with

good enough for me. the fact is that the standard practice of going to a butcher, buying some meat and asking for trimmings/bones is always the best way IMO

>I often buy whole ducks for the sole point of making stock. I throw the meat away afterwards.

>not in a high enough quantity nigga.
Home cooks generally do not have 20qt stock pots. It's a reasonable quantity to expect to get 8 frozen cubes and thus meals out of if you freeze it.

>>the ratios are somewhat off
The other option is to use wholesale bones and add meat, which is far to much effort when you can go to the local grocery store and buy a veal breast.

if you're getting much more than a litre or two of stock from a single breast, your stock sucks.

>The other option is to use wholesale bones and add meat, which is far to much effort

i'm not talking about effort, i'm talking about waste.

you'll learn mate, don't worry. i used to buy huge amounts of chicken thighs to make triple stocks. i learned.

You're daft. I specifically said 8 frozen cubes.

8 frozen cubes of stock from a single veal breast is deeply wasteful, i'm sorry but it's true. a single veal breast yields 8 portions of good food. not true of 8 frozen cubes of stock.

It's not wasteful to make good stock.
You'll learn this once you become a good cook.

>to expect to get 8 frozen cubes and thus meals out of if you freeze it.

What the heck are you going to use a measly 8 cubes of stock for? That's not enough to braise anything in. I suppose it might be enough to reduce for a single (small) serving of sauce?

>if you're getting much more than a litre or two of stock from a single breast, your stock sucks.
This, 100%. The standard rule you see in pretty much any cookbook is 2 lbs of meat yields 1 quart of stock. In my personal opinion that makes for a very light stock.

>You're daft. I specifically said 8 frozen cubes.
Yes, we read that. 8 frozen cubes isn't very much.

it is if you're using up good meat to do it. you'll learn this once you've been making stock for more than like half a year or you've worked in a restaurant.

>It's not wasteful to make good stock.

The problem is how much you get. 8 cubes of frozen stock is nothing. What are you going get with that? A single (small) serving of soup? Enough sauce for a single dish? Going to make coffee-mug sized portion of stew?

Stock is fantastic, the problem is the volume yield.

8 cubes is a joke. Make a gallon--then we're talking something that can be used for a few (modest) dishes. And that takes a lot more than just one breast of veal.

>What the heck are you going to use a measly 8 cubes of stock for?
Why do you insist on posting if you don't know what do with stock? You don't belong here.

You idiots do not understand that to make a large quantity of stock that you'll need a 20qt stock pot; which is not found in most home kitchens.

A veal breast (3.5 pounds) should yield at least a quart of stock. This gives you 8 4oz frozen cubes. Where is the fucking waste? You're getting a quart of veal stock for 6 bucks or less. Something you can't buy in stores.

>Where is the fucking waste?

in the good meat you used to make it you nigger

>I make stock without meat.

Your stock sucks.

Restaurants have economies of scale that do not translate to home cooks.

>You idiots do not understand that to make a large quantity of stock that you'll need a 20qt stock pot.

No shit. I've got one. Got a 32 as well.

x 4oz cubes
And as we keep saying, that's not very much stock. Maybe if you're cooking for one person, sure. But a single dish of reasonable size could use that up. I would use that much stock to make a SINGLE serving of sauce to feed 4 people.

See: >8 cubes is a joke. Make a gallon--then we're talking something that can be used for a few (modest) dishes. And that takes a lot more than just one breast of veal.

>Another thing about stock generally: don’t think that stock making must be a huge undertaking. I got an email the other day from a home cook saying she didn’t have the right pots to make stock. Please, listen to me: YOU DO NOT HAVE TO MAKE ENORMOUS QUANTITIES AND MONOPOLIZE YOUR KITCHEN FOR AN ENTIRE WEEKEND IN ORDER TO HAVE STOCK.

ruhlman.com/2009/01/veal-stock-and-remouillage/

Learn from people smarter than you.

>SINGLE serving of sauce to feed 4 people.

Sorry, I'm an idiot. That should read a single BATCH of sauce to feed 4 people. 1 meal of 4 servings.

TRIMMINGS

or just meat you're not gonna use.

point being, you should be using veal breast.

>ruhlman.com/2009/01/veal-stock-and-remouillage/

do you see him recommending you use veal breast?

Same fucking article.

SAME FUCKING ARTICLE!
>If you can not find veal bones for the veal stock, see if you can find a veal breast, which has a great mix of bone, cartilage and meat

I can tell I'm being trolled now. So goodbye thread.

fuck.

he's an asshole and you're an asshole. maybe i'm an asshole too.

fuck.

still that's if you CAN NOT find bones.

Who said anything about a "huge undertaking" user? Making stock is the same process whether you make a cup or you make five gallons. Takes the same amount of time. Takes the same effort. Why bother making some tiny-ass batch only good for one dish when you can make a batch that will last you for several dishes?

Owning a big stockpot is no big deal. You can get them anywhere, they're cheap. They work just like a normal pot, only they're bigger. You don't need a license or special training to use one.

I use the classic French recipe. Same thing you see in Julia Child, Escoffier, Ramsay, Pepin, and yes, even Ruhlman. 2lbs meaty bones yields 1 quart. Since it's the same effort to make, say 4 or 8 quarts rather than 1 quart, why even bother with a small batch?

You're missing the point.
Nobody is arguing that veal breast won't make decent stock.

The point is that a single veal breast dones't make enough stock to be worth your time.

The point is: Which would you rather have: a piece of meat that yields several servings? Or a very small quantity of stock?