When it isn't what you expected

Today, I'm writing about a situation that confronts us in the kitchen from time to time, and how important it is to be flexible. (Maybe even "think outside of the box"). And I'm going to be writing about veal, so for those of you who are absolutists on this - and you know who you are - move on. But give me a minute of time if you can, to talk about the issue of veal.

I am aware of all of the issues around cruelty in raising veal food animals. I'm someone who can't even eat an animal cracker because they look too much like critters. So believe me, no one is more sensitive to the issue of animal cruelty than I am. But you know what? Pigs are raised under inhumane conditions. So are cows. So are chickens. Chickens in particular. I've seen film of workers in poultry houses picking up the birds by their feet, and literally spinning them in circles until they die. Nice. So what do you do, become a vegetarian? Well, think about the people who pick those vegetables. They're underpaid, they work in squalid conditions, with serious toxic doses of pesticides and fertilizers, with no insurance, no doctors on the presence, nothing. So what do you do?

Know your sources. Investigate. Find out how the animals are raised. You can't do this if you only shop at a supermarket- organic does NOT mean well treated. ASK. Ask to see pictures of the farm. Make intelligent choices.

And about veal in particular, well, let me give you some unfortunately, brutal facts. It will make common sense when I say this: half of all baby steers are females, and half are males. DUH, right? Well, the females become the milk and meet animals for food. What happens to the boys?

Do you really want to know? Let's assume that you only need one bull for every ten cows - which is probably low on the number of cows that a bull "services." So nine of those bulls are useless.

Pet food. Fodder for fish. And for some of them, veal. That's just a fact, boys and girls. It's the same thing for all the other feed animals we know. The facts are difficult, but they are what they are. Think about it. I'm not suggesting we all become vegetarians, I'm just saying that it's really important to know what you're cooking, know what you're eating, and then act as you feel is right. For some of us, it means vegetarianism, for some of us, it means looking into the farms, and for others, it's a shrug of the shoulders and an "oh well." This is not a blog about moralizing. Whatever your choice is, is the right one for you. Just make a choice. Don't cook and eat blindly.

Ok, now to the title of this blog. I had planned, last night, to make some veal milanese. This is a wonderful dish where veal chops are pounded thin, breaded, fried in oil and butter and served with arugula and tomatoes. I had bought the veal on line, and opened up the two chops. Oi. One weighed 9 ounces. The other weighed 22 ounces.

Fred and Wilma, maybe? But not us.

But I was confronted with some expensive, ready to cook veal. So what to do?

This is where knowing your ingredients helps. Veal chops come from a part of the animal that is not "worked" very much, so they are tender, soft and very toothsome. So I decided that a really quick cook, with a pan sauce, would be the way to go. I cut the meat off of the chops, getting as much of it as I could. Then I cubed it, as best I could, to make them even. I thought a breading would be nice, but flour wasn't working for me. Nor were breadcrumbs. CORNSTARCH. I remembered my own blog. So I pulled out the cornstarch, put some in a bag with salt and pepper, and shook the cubes to cover them. I always dump this stuff into a colander, in order to get the extra starch away.

Then I took equal amounts of butter and olive oil, and when the butter had melted, put in the meat. It sizzled nicely, and when it went from sizzle to crackle, I stirred, to get everything nice and brown (I COULD have added the bones to add more flavor. I just forgot). When they were almost done, I added wine. A LOT of wine. And just let it cook off, until I got a nice, little buttery white wine pan sauce.

We were having pasta with pesto from the summer freezer, so that was the starch, but this could have very easily been put over noodles, or plain pasta, or rice, and been just as good. Carrots , just steamed, with a little salt, completed the plate.

So, there it is. Ingredients will throw curves at you, and learning how to deal with them is part of our job as cooks. I hope your curves are easy to deal with. Try this one, if you feel flush enough to get some veal. I think you'll be happy.