What Is Veal and How Can I Use It?

Veal cutlets are thin, pale, boneless slices cut from the leg or loin of veal. They are the quick-cooking cut, valued for tenderness and a mild, delicate flavor that takes a sauce beautifully. For everything else about the meat itself, see veal.

A true cutlet (or scallop) is sliced thin against the grain, often from the top round. Pounded thinner still, the same slice becomes the scaloppine of Italian kitchens and the schnitzel of German and Austrian ones.

Because the meat comes from a young animal, it carries very little fat or connective tissue. That is why it cooks in minutes and why it punishes a heavy hand.

Ground veal is veal, the meat of a young calf, run through the grinder. It's paler and finer than ground beef, with a mild, almost milky flavor and little of the strong mineral taste beef carries. Cooked, it stays tender and light.

Cooks reach for it mostly as one third of a blend. The classic Italian American meatball is equal parts veal, pork, and beef: the veal brings tenderness, the pork brings fat and sweetness, the beef brings backbone.

On its own veal is lean and gentle, which is exactly why it rarely works solo.

Veal bones are the raw material behind the great kitchen stocks. They come from a young calf, so they carry far more collagen and far less assertive flavor than mature beef bones.

That combination is exactly what a stock-maker wants. You get a base with a clean, neutral taste and enough natural gelatin to give real body.

Knuckle and shin bones are the cuts cooks reach for, with neck bones close behind, because they hold so much cartilage and connective tissue. As they simmer for hours, that collagen breaks down into gelatin, the substance that lets a finished stock cool into a wobbly, set jelly.

That gel is the whole point.

A veal chop is a thick, bone-in cut from the rib or loin of a young calf, the veal equivalent of a pork chop or a bone-in ribeye.

Loin chops have a T-bone shape with meat on both sides; rib chops carry a single eye of meat on a long bone, often frenched for looks.

This is a premium steakhouse cut: tender, pale, and delicately flavored, with far less fat than beef.

Where thin veal scaloppine cook in a minute, a chop is a thick piece of meat you cook to a juicy medium and serve as the centerpiece.

Veal scaloppine are thin, boneless slices of veal, pounded until they are about ¼ inch (6 mm) thick so they cook in a minute or two. The name is Italian (scaloppine means little escalopes), and the cut is the backbone of restaurant veal dishes from Marsala to piccata to saltimbocca.

The best scaloppine come from the leg, especially the top round, cut across the grain and flattened. Veal's pale, fine-grained, mild meat takes a light dredge and a quick sear, then leans almost entirely on its pan sauce for flavor.

Veal shanks are the cross-cut lower leg of the calf, sawed through the bone into thick rounds about 1½ inches (4 cm) deep. Each round shows a ring of meat wrapped around a center of bone, and in that bone sits the marrow that defines the cut.

This is the meat for osso buco, the Milanese braise whose name literally means "bone with a hole." The shank is full of connective tissue and collagen, which makes it tough when cooked fast and silky when cooked slow.

Buy one round per person. They look small on the plate, but a single shank carries enough rich meat, plus the marrow, to satisfy.

Veal shoulder is the cut taken from the front leg and upper foreleg of a young calf. It is one of the hardest-working muscle groups on the animal.

That work makes it a tougher, more sinewy cut than the loin or leg.

That working muscle is exactly why cooks reach for it. Shoulder is shot through with connective tissue and a little fat, so given gentle, moist heat it turns meltingly tender while staying juicy, where leaner veal cuts would dry out.

The flavor is classic veal: mild, delicate, and faintly sweet, with none of the mineral punch of beef. It takes on the flavors around it, which is why it anchors so many cream and wine braises.

Veal breast is the cut from the lower chest of a calf, the veal answer to beef brisket. It is a fatty, collagen-rich cut laced with connective tissue and a layer of cartilage.

That structure makes it inexpensive and full of flavor, but it demands slow, moist cooking to turn tender.

Its signature feature is the pocket. Butchers can cut a natural cavity between the ribs and the meat, and that pocket is what makes veal breast a classic candidate for stuffing.

Veal steak is a thin, boneless slice of veal, the meat of a young calf, cut from the leg or loin and sold ready for a quick sear or a breading. It is paler and finer-grained than beef, with a mild flavor and almost no marbling.

That lack of marbling is the whole story: it cooks fast and dries out faster. Because the muscle has done little work, the meat is tender to start with. The trade-off is fat. There is very little of it, so the cook has to add richness and watch the heat.