vitello tonnato
Vitello Tonnato (using butt tenderloin)
Ingredients
2 lbs. butt tenderloin (1kg)
3 cups white wine
1 celery stalk
1 carrot
1 small onion
2 cloves
7 oz. tuna in oil
6 anchovy fillets
2 egg yolks, hard-boiled
2 lemons, 1 squeezed, 1 thinly sliced
2 cup oil
2 tablespoons capers
1 tablespoon white vinegar
Directions
Let the meat marinate in the wine, celery, carrot, chopped onion and cloves for one day.
Remove the meat from the marinade, wrap and tie tightly in a cheesecloth and place in an oval pan just large enough to hold it together.
Put back in the marinade and cook slowly for about one hour.
Remove from heat and let the meat cool in its cooking juice.
De-grease and filter the cooking liquid.
Blend the liquid in a food mill with the tuna, anchovies, 1 tbs. capers and egg yolks.
Dilute the sauce with lemon juice, and vinegar, and whisk in the oil in a steady stream till you get a velvety sauce similar to mayonnaise.
Slice the veal and arrange in a serving platter in the following manner: Spread a few tablespoons of the sauce on the platter.
Add the veal a layer at a time, with sauce covering each layer.
Sprinkle capers over and decorate the rim of the platter with the sliced lemon. Serve.
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Tags: liquid blend, cheese, how to roast a veal butt tenderloin?, lemon, oval pan, cups white wine
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Vitello Tonnato (using boneless veal topside)
servings 8
Ingredients
2 lb 12 oz (1.25 kg) thick piece boneless veal topside
1 small onion
a few cloves
2 bay leaves
2 celery sticks, halved
1 small carrot, peeled
6 black peppercorns
5 fl oz (150 ml) dry white wine
For the sauce
2 large eggs
1 fat clove garlic, peeled
10 fl oz (275 ml) groundnut or other flavourless oil
2 dessertspoons white wine vinegar
3 oz (75 g) best-quality tuna fish in a tin or jar, drained
2 tinned anchovy fillets, drained
1½ tablespoons salted capers, rinsed and drained
1 tablespoon lemon juice (or more, to taste)
salt and freshly milled black pepper
To garnish
a few extra capers
2 tinned anchovy fillets, drained and very thinly sliced
½ lemon, sliced
Directions
Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 4, 350°F (180°C).
Begin by putting the veal in a medium roasting tin.
Stud the onion with the cloves and add this to the tin, along with the bay leaves, celery, carrot, peppercorns and wine.
Then, roast the veal in the pre-heated oven for 1¼ hours.
For the sauce, you need to start by making a mayonnaise.
So, break the whole eggs straight into the goblet of a blender or food processor, add the garlic clove and 1 teaspoon salt.
Then measure the oil into a jug and switch the machine on.
To blend everything thoroughly, pour the oil in a thin, very steady trickle with the motor running. You must be very careful here – too much oil in too soon means the sauce will curdle.
When all the oil is in, add the white wine vinegar and blend.
Then add the tuna, anchovy fillets and capers, and whiz again till smooth.
Now do a bit of tasting and season with lemon juice and pepper.
The sauce can be made well ahead and kept in the fridge till needed.
When the veal is ready, take it out of the oven and leave everything to get cold.
After that, take the veal out of the tin – you can discard the vegetables, bay leaves, peppercorns and any remaining wine now.
Slice the meat very thinly and arrange it in a large, shallow serving dish.
Spoon the sauce over the meat.
Now arrange the anchovy slices in a zig zag pattern on top.
Scatter over a few extra capers and garnish with the lemon slices
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Tags: topside of veal, black peppercorn, shallow serving dish, celery, tuna fishVitello Tonnato (using rump cut)
servings 6-8
Ingredients
2¼ pounds(1kb) boned veal, cut from the rump.
¾ pound (320 g) tuna packed in oil
3 eggs
6 salted anchovies (the canned variety, sold by delicatessens)
A handful of pickled capers
½ cup (approx.) olive oil
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
a bottle of dry white wine
juice of a lemon
a rib of celery, thinly sliced crosswise
a few leaves of sage
2 bay leaves
3 cloves (some people omit these)
salt
a few more perfect capers, some lemon slices, and sprigs of parsley for garnishing.
Directions
Put the meat in a bowl with the bay leaves, cloves, sage and celery, and pour the wine over it. Cover and marinate in the refrigerator for 24 hours, turning the meat occasionally.
The next day place the meat in a Dutch oven.
Strain the wine and add it to the meat, then add enough water to cover.
Lightly salt the pot and simmer the meat for an hour. In the meantime, wash, scale and bone the anchovies.
When the hour is up add them to the pot and continue boiling for another half hour; the liquid should be reduced by half.
Hard boil the eggs, run them under cold water, peel them, and extract the yolks (you can discard or fill the whites as you prefer).
Rinse, squeeze dry, and mince the capers.
When the meat is fork-tender remove it from the pot and strain the broth into a bowl.
Transfer the fish filets to a clean strainer and press them through it, together with the tuna and the yolks, into another bowl.
Stir in the minced capers, the vinegar, the lemon juice and the olive oil, and then dilute the sauce to your taste with some of the reserved broth.
When the veal has cooled slice it finely and lay the slices out on one or more platters (you want just one layer).
Spread the sauce over the meat, garnish the platters with the lemon slices, capers and parsley. Cover them with plastic wrap and chill them in the refrigerator before serving.
A wine? A Valcalepio Bianco would be nice, as would a Lugana.
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Tags: lemon slices, rib of celery, white wine, cold water, vealVitello Tonnato – the history
In the 19th century, when Vitello Tonnato first began appearing in cook books, Piedmont was allied with coastal Liguria, where tuna was canned. Along with the tuna trade, oil, lemons and capers — the other elements of tonnato sauce — also made their way into Piedmont. The tuna was treated just like these other elements, as a condiment.
What Vitello Tonnato did not have back then was mayonnaise. That is certainly a 20th-century addition. Before, the tuna would likely have been pounded with the capers and herbs and oil to give it a creaminess. Mayonnaise, in a way, is cheating. But cheating with delicious results.
People who cook Vitello Tonnato are often proprietary about their method, much in the same way French cooks are about coq au vin. Just looking at the photos here, you will appreciate the differences even in the look of the final dishes interpreted by a variety of chefs.
Below are a few examples of the varieties of opinions:
- Some begin by browning a veal roast in olive oil, then simmer it with carrot, celery, onion, white wine and bay leaf. The meat is cut thickly and sauces it with a tuna mayonnaise made with vegetable oil.
- Some chefs insist on braising the veal in pure, unsalted water with vegetables.
- Some make the sauce with olive oil and is dense with tuna (canned, packed in oil). then layer the veal and sauce so that the veal is completely indistinguishable from the sauce.
- Often chefs serve the dish with the sliced veal prettily fanned out and a little mound of sauce on the side. This defeats the very purpose of the dish, which is to give the tuna sauce time to infiltrate the veal so that the flavours of one and the delicate texture of the other become fully integrated.
Vitello Tonnato (using eye of round)
servings 8
Ingredients
2 lb boneless lean veal, preferably eye of round (1kg)
2 carrots, coarsely chopped
1 stalk celery, coarsely chopped
1 onion, coarsely chopped
5 Sprigs Italian parsley, coarsely chopped
1 can (3½oz) oil-packed tuna, well drained (110g)
3 tablespoons capers, drained
2 small sweet pickles, drained and coarsely chopped
3 anchovy fillets, coarsely chopped
¼ cup mayonnaise
1/3 cup lemon juice
Black pepper and salt to taste
¼ cup each olive oil and corn oil
Italian parsley
lemon slices
capers
Directions
Put veal, carrots, celery, onion and parsley in a large saucepan and cover veal with cold water.
Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 1½ hours.
Cool veal completely.
Meanwhile, puree tuna, capers, pickles and anchovies together in a food processor or blender.
Add mayonnaise, lemon juice and oils; mix until well blended.
Add pepper, taste, and add salt if necessary.
Slice veal into very thin slices.
Arrange on a platter and spoon tuna sauce over.
Veal should be completely smothered in sauce.
Serve any leftover sauce on the side.
Garnish with Italian parsley, lemon slices and capers.
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Tags: lemon slices capers, Black pepper, cold water
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