Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking - Marcella Hazan [176]
7. Transfer the roll to a warm platter. Snip off and remove the kitchen twine. Cut the roll into thin slices, pour over it the juices from the pot, and serve at once.
Ahead-of-time note You can complete the recipe up to this point several hours in advance. Before proceeding, reheat gently, adding 1 tablespoon water if needed. Do not refrigerate at any time or the spinach will acquire a sour taste.
Sautéed Breaded Veal Chops, Milanese Style
SOME ITALIAN DISHES are so closely associated with their place of origin that they have appropriated its name for their own. To Italians a fiorentina means “T-bone steak,” and a breaded veal chop is una milanese: No other description is required. It can be debated whether ossobuco or the veal chop milanese is Milan’s best-known gastronomic export. The latter has certainly been appropriated by many other cuisines, most notably in Austria, where it was taken off the bone to become the national dish, wiener schnitzel.
The classic Milanese chop is a single-rib chop that has been pounded very thin, with the rib trimmed entirely clean to give the bone the appearance of a handle. (Do not discard the trimmings from the bone. Add them to the assortment of meats for homemade broth, or if you have enough of them, grind them and make meatballs.) Before pounding the chop flat, a Milanese butcher will knock off the corner where the rib meets the bone. Your own butcher can do this easily, but so can you: Use a meat cleaver to crop the corner, then pound the chop’s eye thin, following the method for flattening scaloppine.
When the chop is taken from a large animal, there may be too much meat on a single rib to flatten. Before pounding it, it should be sliced horizontally into two chops, one attached to the rib, the other not.
For 6 servings
2 eggs
6 veal chops, with either 6 or 3 ribs, depending on the size, the bones trimmed clean and the meat flattened (see explanatory remarks above)
1½ cups fine, dry, unflavored bread crumbs spread on a plate
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
Salt
1. Lightly beat the eggs in a deep dish, using a fork or a whisk.
2. Dip each chop in the egg, coating both sides and letting excess egg flow back into the plate as you pull the chop away. Turn the meat in the bread crumbs as follows: Press the chop firmly against the crumbs, using the palm of your hand. Tap it 2 or 3 times, then turn it and repeat the procedure. Your palm should come away dry, which means the crumbs are adhering to the meat.
3. Choose a saute pan that can subsequently accommodate the chops without overlapping. If you don’t have a large enough pan, you can use a smaller one, and do the chops in 2 or even 3 batches. Put in the butter and oil, turn on the heat to medium high, and when the butter foam begins to subside, slip in the chops. Cook until a dark golden crust forms on one side, then turn them and do the other side, altogether about 5 minutes, depending on the thickness of the chops. Transfer to a warm platter and sprinkle with salt. Serve promptly when all the chops are done.
Variation in the Sicilian Style, with Garlic and Rosemary
To the ingredients in the above recipe for Sautéed Breaded Veal Chops, Milanese Style, add the following:
Rosemary leaves, chopped very fine, 1 tablespoon if fresh, 2 teaspoons if dried
4 garlic cloves, lightly mashed with a knife handle and peeled
Use the basic recipe, varying it as follows:
1. Sprinkle the chops with chopped rosemary after dipping them into the egg, but before coating them with bread crumbs.
2. Put the garlic into the pan at the same time with the butter and oil and remove it as soon as it becomes colored a light nut brown, either before or after you have begun sautéing the chops.
Adapting the Milanese Style to Veal and Other Cutlets
THE ITALIAN for cutlet, cotoletta, describes not the type of meat, but the method by which it is cooked. The method is the one described above in Sautéed Breaded Veal Chops, Milanese Style. To make cotolette—or cutlets—follow