I posted this in 2008, but it popped up as I was cleaning my office this week, and it made my mouth water. Hope you enjoy.

Last weekend, Joan Borysenko and I re-created a dish that her mother and my grandmother used to make. In our memories, it tasted like heaven, but we hadn’t eaten it in more than 30 years and were filled with nostalgic longing. Her mother in Boston called it a “veal pocket,” and my mother in Los Angeles called it “stuffed breast of veal.” The recipe had been carried here from the shtetls—Jewish villages in Eastern Europe—and used ingredients that other folks discarded: the ribs of the calf and stale bread.

Stuffed breast of veal

We decided to make one for the holidays. But here was the rub: Joan’s son, Andrei, and his wife, Nadia, were coming to visit. Nadia, an artist in California, doesn’t eat red meat, and Andrei told me he doesn’t use a microwave because it sucks the nutrients out of food.

Joan and I felt embarrassed and guilty about making a veal dish. But there was no way around it. You can’t buy vegetarian fake veal, to my knowledge. So we ordered the veal breast from Whole Foods, assured that the animal would have ranged free and never been given hormones or antibiotics. And we cooked it with love. At the last moment, we decided to present it as “shtetl food,” and not mention the v-word. When questioned, we said it was the ribs of the calf, which was true.

This was all probably unnecessary. We should have said: We know it doesn’t feel humane or ecologically correct to eat veal, but this is an homage to our beloved foremothers and on this one night, we’d like to make an exception. I’m sure Andrei and Nadia would have understood.

As an alternative food choice, Joan was making stuffed shrimp, which she’d served her kids at every Christmas time. Shrimp, of course, was forbidden in the kitchens of our grandmothers, who were raised kosher, but by the time we came of age, Jews were serving shrimp at their weddings.

But here was the problem with the shrimp dish. The two staples in Joan’s mother’s kitchen were butter and Ritz crackers. She used Ritz crackers in all her stuffings and in a stupefying array of other dishes. The crackers were filler—a precursor of Hamburger Helper—and added salty, sweet, and buttery flavors all at once.

BUT, today, a Ritz cracker is looked on as poison by our organically-conscious kids. A Ritz cracker is loaded, like a fatal dart, with trans fat, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, sugar, and high fructose corn syrup. Fortunately, Joan found “Golden round crackers” in Whole Foods, with a picture of what looks exactly like a Ritz cracker on the box. The healthy version contains organic palm oil. Um, is that better?

Back to the veal. When I showed up at Whole Foods, the butcher brought out a veal breast in which the bones had been removed and a giant flap, not a pocket, had been cut, open on the top and bottom. “You roll it,” he said.

“No, we don’t roll it,” I said. “We stuff it and sew the top closed. It should look like a pita pocket.”

“We never done nothin’ like that before,” he said. Grumpily, he disappeared behind swinging doors, then returned with a newly cut, gorgeous, pale-pink natural veal breast with a perfect pita pocket. I was ecstatic.

My grandmother, for her stuffing, used not Ritz crackers but stale challa, or egg bread. So I bought a fresh challa and spread the pieces on my countertops the night before, so they’d get hard and stale by morning. Then, as my grandmother did, I soaked them in hot water till soft and soggy. I squeezed them into balls and fried them with onions, celery and lots of butter. Then you add eggs, fresh parsley, salt and pepper and it’s divine! I’ve always wondered, though, why we had to dry out the bread and then rehydrate it. Some day, I’ll try making the stuffing with fresh bread, but on this occasion, I didn’t want to veer one inch from my grandmother’s protocol.

Bearing the raw stuffing and meat, I shlepped up to Joan’s house on the side of a mountain. We packed the stuffing in the veal pocket and Joan, who used to teach at Harvard Medical School, sutured it closed with an upholstery needle. We roasted it till golden brown, then her son carved it. Each slice had a ring of veal around the luscious, cake-like stuffing, with natural veal juices permeating it all. As Joan and I tasted our first bites in 30 years, I asked, “Is it as good as you remember?”

She was silent, then smiled. “Better.”

The shrimp was great too.

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For those who dare, here’s the RECIPE. The stuffing is also terrific with turkey, chicken, tofurkey or anything you can imagine. Thanksgiving?

GRANDMA RAE’S STUFFED BREAST OF VEAL

First, see if you can find a butcher who’ll get you a breast of veal and cut a pocket in it. We tried six in a 50-mile radius, and only one was willing. If you get lucky, a four-pound breast without bones will serve 6-8 people.

By a large loaf of challa (egg bread), sliced, and spread it around the ktichen the night before so it dries out. The next morning, saute two sliced onions and 5 stalks of celery in one cube of butter till the onions are silver. Fill a large bowl with hot water; soak the bread slices until soft, then squeeze out the water so you end up with soggy balls. Drop balls into the pan with onions and keep turning about ten minutes. Place in a chopping bowl, add 2 eggs, salt, pepper, and fresh parsley. Mix and chop well. Fill the veal pocket and sew closed with thread.(or use clips) Put in a roaster and cook at 350 for about an hour and a half. Baste and check to see when veal is cooked—juices should run clear. Then bake uncovered 5 minutes to brown. Slice across the breast and serve.

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I love your comments. Let me know if you have the chutzpah to try making this dish, and how it comes out.  Or if you enjoyed it vicariously.                   I’d also love to hear about any ancestor’s recipe you love.