By Gabrielle Hamilton
Updated Oct. 11, 2023
- Total Time
- 30 minutes, plus 10-12 hours roasting
- Prep Time
- 30 minutes
- Cook Time
- 10 hours
- Rating
- 4(72)
- Notes
- Read community notes
A whole breast of veal is a succulent, fatty, tender magnificence to enjoy, at any time, but especially so when you have holiday turkey and ham fatigue. It doesn’t make immediate sense that I consider the veal — with its fat and cartilage and bone and sinew and silver skin — a light meal, but in my experience, the few bites of sticky tender meat you end up with are so outrageously succulent and hit the spot so hard you don’t need more. The long, slow, low overnight cooking is perfect for both the meat and your schedule if you are trying to pull off a real, civilian party — and sit down at it.
Featured in: Feast in New York City
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Ingredients
Yield:Serves 10-20
- Whole breast of veal — approximately 15 pounds
- Salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- Ground juniper
- Ground allspice
- Fresh thyme
- Olive oil
- 4Yukon Gold potatoes
- 1large yellow onion
- Dry white wine
Preparation
Step
1
Vaguely trim breast — just the fat globs on the rib cage and any especially skan*y skin, if it even exists. If the blue U.S.D.A. ink stamp on the flesh offends you, remove it.
Step
2
Place breast in a deep roasting pan large enough to accommodate it, and season meat thoroughly and assertively with salt, all over, turning the breast ribs-side up as well, seasoning with salt all over. Do the same thing, less assertively by half, with ground black pepper. Set breast back in pan ribs-side down, and season the flesh side extremely conservatively with both ground juniper and ground allspice. A light hand here, please. Strip a few pinches of fresh thyme leaves from their stems, and scatter over the veal. Drizzle generously with the oil, allowing some to pool in roasting pan.
Step
3
Let the veal sit at room temperature to shake the chill from the refrigerator while you prepare the potatoes.
Step
4
Peel and cut into wedges 4 Yukon Gold potatoes, and scatter around in pan. Peel and halve the onion, and slice into ⅓-inch-thick half-moons. Scatter onion around in pan on top of potatoes. Keep potato and onion under the meat, not on top of it, so that breast can fully brown and get a crisp skin.
Step
5
Fill roasting pan 2 inches deep with water and white wine, in equal parts. Set in 275-degree oven, and let roast for up to 12 hours, depending on weight. Remove when it is deeply golden brown and soft and tender. You don’t want it falling off the bone, but you should be able to see how loose and relaxed it has become in the layers. You may need to tent the pan with foil for the first or the last 45 minutes of roasting to give it a little braise time for the deepest interior, recalcitrant parts. Conversely, you may want to turn up the oven and give it a 30-minute finish in a hot oven to get better color.
Step
6
Pick out vertebrae. Slice off ribs. Then portion as you wish, using a sharp knife big enough for the job. Include the potatoes and onions and the liquid from the pan when you serve.
Ratings
4
out of 5
72
user ratings
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Cooking Notes
Andrea
How would you half this recipe and what would be the cooking time?
Claudia
I have never seen a veal breast this large.
Here in California I use an old Patrini's recipe.
Lunardi's butchers tunnel through the top of the veal breast.
Then, I stuff it with a combo of sausage, bread crumbs, onion and garlic, and spinach.
When it is sliced you have stuffing, a rib, yum....
Esther
This is a fabulous recipe- we have absolutely no leftovers. I used a 6 pound veal breast and cooked it for about 7 hours. Also- I used only wine- not a mix of wine and water. I used salt, pepper, and thyme, and the smallesnamount of allspice. Skipped the juniper. Can't wait to make this again.
Vanessa
I used only white wine, and substituted rosemary and crushed garlic as seasonings. It was so amazing that people ask me to make it for them.
angela mathes
can i make this recipe with a rack of veal?
Steven
A “light meal” indeed. But only because there were about three bites of meat amid all the fat. I made this because Gabrielle Hamilton’s recipes are usually winners. And the house smelled glorious all afternoon. But this is a huge disappointment. I really don’t know what this cut of meat is good for. It’s all fat, and not in a good sticky-yummy pork shoulder kind of way. That said, the braised potatoes and onions were good.
Louisanova
Daunting at first, but reading through the notes steadied me. Just for the joy of it , I made Claudia’s version, stuffed the pocket that the kosher butcher had made. There are many fine details in Gabrielle Hamilton’s recipe. Except for the pocket, I did all the steps as written; skipped the juniper-none in the pantry. I’ll write a follow-up after it’s served this evening to our son, a chef. Thanks to all the good-spirited folks who contribute notes!
Esther
This is a fabulous recipe- we have absolutely no leftovers. I used a 6 pound veal breast and cooked it for about 7 hours. Also- I used only wine- not a mix of wine and water. I used salt, pepper, and thyme, and the smallesnamount of allspice. Skipped the juniper. Can't wait to make this again.
byrne
Put rub on just now night before cooking, Realized recipe says to do it just before cooking. Will this be too long for rub to be on meat before cooking, ? Too strong seasoning for cut of meat.
Never cooked this cut before. Thanks
Claudia
I have never seen a veal breast this large.
Here in California I use an old Patrini's recipe.
Lunardi's butchers tunnel through the top of the veal breast.
Then, I stuff it with a combo of sausage, bread crumbs, onion and garlic, and spinach.
When it is sliced you have stuffing, a rib, yum....
Anne
The recipe says it will feed 10 to 20 people - depending on what? How much does the breast weigh after removing the bones and ribs? I would like to cook this over the holidays, but would like a better idea of how much this is or isn't.
Esther
I used 6 pounds for 6 adult portions.
Andrea
How would you half this recipe and what would be the cooking time?
Esther
Recipe says up to 12 hours. I used same amount of potatoes and onions. Wine- 2 inches, and cooked by sight. Stopped when it was golden brown. But you have some leeway- if meat has nice amount of fat it will only get softer and edges get this wonderful kind of carmelized.
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