Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well (45 page)

Melt a little butter in an appropriately sized saucepan and line it with the lardoons, on top of which you will arrange a first layer of cutlets seasoned with salt, pepper, a hint of spices, grated Parmesan cheese, and chopped parsley. Then add another layer of cutlets seasoned in the same way, and so forth until you have used all up all the veal. Scatter several pieces of butter over the last layer of veal, and cook with embers all around, but with the fire below stronger than the fire above, until the veal is almost dry and the lardoons have browned. Pour the contents of the saucepan over a bed of spinach cooked in butter and send to the table. These amounts serve four people.

300 grams (about 10-112 ounces) of thin veal cutlets

70 grams (about 2-1/3 ounces) of lean veal or milk-fed veal

40 grams (about 1-1/3 ounces) of rather lean prosciutto

30 grams (about 1 ounce) of veal marrow

30 grams (about 1 ounce) of grated Parmesan cheese

legg

You should get 6 or 7 cutlets if you cut them the width of the palm of your hand. Pound very well with a meat mallet or the handle of a knife dipped frequently in water to flatten them out. Then finely chop the prosciutto with the other 70 grams (about 2-1/3 ounces) of meat; add the Parmesan cheese and the bone marrow, which you have first turned into a paste with the blade of a knife. Lastly, add the egg to bind the mixture, and a dash of pepper (it is not necessary to add salt because of the prosciutto and the Parmesan cheese). Spread out the chops and cover half of each with this mixture; then roll them up and tie with twine.

Now that the cutlets have the proper shape, chop a bit of onion, a small piece of white celery, a small piece of carrot, and 20 grams (about 2/3 of an ounce) of bacon; put on the fire in a saucepan with the cutlets and 20 grams (about 2/3 of an ounce) of butter. Season with salt and pepper, and, when the chops have browned, pour in some tomato sauce (recipe 6) or tomato paste and finish cooking with water. You can also add a little of white wine if you like. Before serving, remove the twine you used to tie them.

The best cut of beef or veal for this dish is the fillet or top of the round, but you can also use the rump or the thigh.

500 grams (about 1 pound) net weight of boneless beef or veal

50 grams (about 1-2/3 ounces) of untrimmed prosciutto

1 small clove of garlic

1 small section of onion

1 stalk of celery as long as the palm of your hand

1 good-sized piece of carrot

a pinch of parsley

Cut the meat into slices almost as thick as your finger to obtain no more than 7 or 8 cutlets, which you should try to shape nicely. Pound with the back of a knife blade. Chop the prosciutto and the other ingredients described above very finely. Pour six tablespoons of oil into a skillet or a copper pan. Put the cutlets in the oil, still cold, and
spread a little of the chopped mixture on top of each cutlet. Season with a little salt, pepper, and the flower from four or five cloves. Brown the bottom of the cutlets over a high flame. Then turn one by one and brown the other side with the bit of soffritto, and when this has browned sufficiently turn the cutlets again so that the soffritto is on top again; scrape off whatever has stuck to the bottom of the pan. Now moisten the cutlets with tomato sauce (recipe 6) or tomato paste diluted with water, cover, and simmer for almost two hours. A half hour before you intend to serve them, cook in this sauce a large peeled potato, cut into ten or twelve pieces, arranging the pieces of potato in the spaces between the cutlets.

It is best to serve this dish directly from the pan in which it is cooked; but if this seems improper, layer the cutlets on a platter with the potatoes all around. These amounts should serve four or five people. This is not a dish to be sneered at, because it is not hard on the stomach.

These are not to my taste, so I would just as soon let the peasants eat them. But since some people may like them, I will describe them to you.

Form the cutlets from lean, well-pounded veal. Rub with olive oil and season with a little salt and pepper. Finely chop some pickled olives, capers drained of brine, and an anchovy. You may leave the mixture simple, as I have described it, or you can also add one egg yolk and a pinch of grated Parmesan cheese. Stuff the cutlets with this mixture, tie them, and cook with butter and tomato sauce (recipe 6), or else in a little fried onion.

Here is a typically Florentine dish for you. The “scamerita” is the part of a butchered pig where the loin ends and the leg begins. This cut is marbled with fat, enough to please without turning the stomach.

Place the cutlets in a pan with very little oil and two or three slightly crushed, unpeeled cloves of garlic, and season with salt and pepper. When they have browned on both sides, pour in two or three fingers of red wine, and simmer until the liquid is reduced by half. Remove the cutlets from the liquid and set aside, keeping them warm. Use the sauce to reheat some boiled red cabbage which you have squeezed dry, chopped not too fine, and also seasoned with salt and pepper. Serve the cutlets on top of the cabbage.

After you have brushed the cutlets with egg yolk and sauteed them as in recipes 312 and 313, spread over them a sauce made of egg yolk, butter, and lemon juice. Keep on the fire a little longer, then serve. For seven or eight cutlets, you need three egg yolks, 30 grams (about 1 ounce) of butter, and the juice of half a lemon. Beat these ingredients together in a little saucepan before adding them to the meat.

The best cut of veal for this dish is the
sous-noix
or lower part of the thigh, but you can also use the lean part of the rest of the thigh or rump. Cut the meat into thin slices the size of the palm of your hand. Pound the cutlets and give them a rounded, elegant shape such as, for example, a heart shape—that is, wide on top and narrow at the bottom. This is easier to do if you mince the meat first with a mezzaluna. Then arrange the cutlets on a plate and season them with lemon juice, pepper, salt, and very little grated Parmesan cheese. After they have been sitting in this infusion for an hour or two, soak the cutlets in beaten egg for the same amount of time. Then roll in fine bread crumbs, and saute them in butter in a copper skillet. When they begin to brown on one side, turn them over and
lay on top first the sliced truffles and then slices of Parmesan or Gruyère cheese. Whichever cheese you use, slice it as thin as possible. Once this is done, finish cooking with heat above and below, adding broth or brown stock. Then remove them one by one and arrange on a platter, accompanying them with their sauce and squeezing on top the juice of one lemon, or half a lemon if you have just a few cutlets.

Lamb chops can be cooked in the same way, after having stripped the rib bones.

Prepare these cutlets like the ones in the preceding recipe and dip in beaten egg with a very thin slice of untrimmed prosciutto about the same size as the cutlet itself. Roll in bread crumbs with the prosciutto, salt lightly, and brown in butter on the side without the prosciutto. On top of the prosciutto lay very thin slices of Parmesan or Gruyère cheese rather than truffles. Finish cooking in the oven with embers all around, and serve with brown stock and lemon juice, or with tomato sauce.

Do not think for a moment that I would be so pretentious as to tell you how to make meatballs. This is a dish that everyone knows how to make, beginning with the jackass, which was perhaps the first to provide the model for the meatball for the human race. My sole intention is to tell you how to prepare them when you have leftover boiled meat. Should you wish to make them more simply, or with raw meat, you will not need as much seasoning.

Chop the boiled meat with a mezzaluna; separately, mince a slice of untrimmed prosciutto and add to the chopped meat. Season with grated Parmesan cheese, salt, pepper, a dash of spices, raisins, pine nuts, and a few tablespoons of a mash made with crustless bread cooked in broth or milk. Bind this mixture with an egg or two, depending on the amount. Shape the meat into balls the size of
an egg, “flattened at the ends like the terrestrial globe,” roll in bread crumbs, and fry in oil or lard. Then, transfer them to a baking dish with some chopped garlic and parsley, which you have fried in the grease left in the pan, garnishing with a sauce made with an egg and lemon juice.

If your stomach cannot tolerate soffritti, put the meatballs in the baking pan with a bit of butter, but I assure you that a soffritto, when done right, does not irritate but rather stimulates the stomach to digest better. I remember the time I was at lunch with some ladies in a fashionable restaurant which had pretensions of cooking food in the French style—too French indeed!—where we were served a dish of sweetbreads and peas. Both were fresh and of the highest quality, but they had been cooked with butter alone, with no soffritto, not even a nice broth, and no herbs of any kind. They could have made for a excellent, tasty dish, but instead we could feel that it was not agreeing with our stomachs, and everybody had trouble digesting it.

Dear Mr. Meat Loaf, please come forward, do not be shy. I want to introduce you to my readers.

I know that you are modest and humble, because, given your background, you feel inferior to many others. But take heart and do not doubt that with a few words in your favor you shall find someone who wants to taste you and who might even reward you with a smile.

This meat loaf is made with leftover boiled meat, and, though simple, it is an agreeable dish. Remove the fat from the meat and chop the rest with a mezzaluna. Season with an appropriate amount of salt, pepper, grated Parmesan cheese, one or two eggs, and two or three tablespoons of a mash made with crustless bread cooked in milk, broth, or simply in water, and flavored with a little butter. Mix everything together, shape into an oblong loaf, and sprinkle with flour. Then fry it in lard or oil, and you will see that soft as it was before, it will become firm and will acquire a delicate crust on the surface. Remove from the pan, and saute on both sides in a skillet with butter. When you are about to serve it, coat it with two beaten eggs, a
pinch of salt, and the juice of half a lemon. Make this sauce separately in a small saucepan, treating it as you would a cream sauce, and pour it over the meat loaf, which you have placed on a platter.

If the meat loaf is large, turn it over in the pan using a plate or a copper lid, as you would for a frittata; this ensures that you will not spoil it.

Take 1/2 a kilogram (about 1 pound) of boneless lean veal. Remove the membranes and the gristle, and then chop finely, together with a slice of untrimmed prosciutto, first with a knife and then with a mezzaluna. Season with a little salt, pepper, and spices; add an egg, mix well. Wet your hands before shaping the meat into a ball, which you will then roll in flour.

Chop a little bit of onion (about the size of a walnut), some parsley, celery, and carrot, and put on the fire with a bit of butter. When this begins to brown, toss in the meat loaf. Brown all over and then pour in a generous half glass of water in which you have dissolved one tablespoon of flour. Cover and simmer very slowly, making sure that it does not stick. Serve it with its dense sauce all around it, squeezing half a lemon over it.

If you want to prepare meat loaf in the Piedmontese style, all you have to do is to place a peeled, hard-cooked egg in the center of the ball of meat when you shape it; this gives the meat loaf a more attractive appearance when it is sliced. This is not a dish to be sneered at.