Veal gone kid

God, but I was so excited: I’d finally found somewhere in the North that sells veal.

Now, before everyone goes off the head giving out stink that I’m a monster who’s eating baby cows, I should pose the question: Is eating veal any really different to eating lamb? Not in my world, it’s not. Controversial!

PAUSE

If you’re not a fan of veal or if you consider that eating veal is a monstrous crime, look away now.

CONTINUE

For a while there, I had begun to understand how JR Hartley had felt, that aul fella from the Yellow Pages ad who rang around a million bookshops trying to find a copy of his old tome. Whilst I hadn’t been ringing butchers, I had made a point of asking about veal any time I visited. My success was minimal, which is to say, nil. Some butchers were happy to talk about the olden days when veal was more popular whilst others just said, “not a hope.”

“To the internet!” I announced to myself after the latest failure to even have veal ordered through a local butchers.

Ten minutes later, I had discovered Broughgammon Farm, an ‘award winning sustainable farm located conveniently between the Giant’s Causeway and Ballintoy Harbour’.

“Hardly friggen convenient to me,” I lamented. “That’s a three-day camel ride away.”

Then I discovered that Broughgammon Farm has an online shop and what was more, they’d be willing to deliver to my neck of the proverbials.

IGNORANCE

Many moons ago, I used to eat a dish called, ‘escalope a la crème’ at a Corsican restaurant. It was so delicious, I couldn’t look at anything else on the menu and I reckon I ate it once a week for several months. All the while, though, the thick Paddy thought the ‘escalope’ element of the dish was a tenderised pork fillet; I could never understand why I couldn’t replicate dish at home with anything near the succulence or flavour. Duh!

REVELATIONS

It was only years later (YEARS! dear reader), that a Corsican friend informed me that what I had been eating all along was veal.

The thing is: I took a wile notion for veal after a recent holiday to Portugal (or Portigil, if you’re reading this in a rural area). In that case it was that Roman classic, saltimbocca, veal wrapped in prosciutto and sage leaves and doused in Marsala. Mighty gear, it was and I resolved to find some veal upon my return to my own rural area at home. Alas, my searches bore no fruit (nor veal) and thus I turned to the world wide web.

EXCITMENT

You might therefore imagine my continuing excitement when the delivery man delivered my package of veal escalopes from Broughgammon Farm. There were eight in all, four of which immediately went into the freezer for another time, the remaining four going into the fridge.

Almost frothing at the mouth, I was, waiting on tenterhooks until evening swung around and I could get my hands on some succulent, tender cuts of veal.

Forgoing the idea of escalope a la crème (I couldn’t find a proper recipe and besides, I wanted to make sure the little humans gave it a try), I eventually settled on that Austrian classic, veal schnitzel – veal in breadcrumbs and fried.

“I’ll use panko breadcrumbs for maximum effect,” I told myself. “I’ll make a nice Teutonic potato salad with pickles, with maybe a squeeze of lemon for balancing acidity.”

As you might also imagine, I was bigging up my veal dish with the little humans, not just because I was so excited myself but also, I wanted them to eat it.

DISASTER

Having never cooked veal at home before, I had a goodly dig around to find out how long to cook the escalopes; like pork, veal is a meat which cannot be pink in the middle – it has to be cooked through.

Not wanting to poison the family, I therefore decided that the breadcrumbed fillets would require two minutes on either side. In reality and with hindsight, one minute on either side would have been more than enough.

You know how you can blow a balloon up and then let it go and it flies around the room as it deflates? That was me as I slowly chewed the first forkful of schnitzel: It was overdone. Not wishing to perturb the little humans, I held my moaning and wailing inside.

God, but I was disappointed. I had waited so long for some veal to cook at the home and then at the first opportunity, I’d made a hames of the whole thing.

Make no mistake, dear reader, every diner at the table cleared their plate, which shows the veal wasn’t that badly overdone. Personally though, I was inconsolable.

“Serves you right for eating baby calf!”

Maybe so, maybe not, we shall see.

Also, I’ve another four steaks in the freezer!