With an historic relationship with France, it’s not surprising that this delicious dish comes from France via Piemonte. It originated in the 18th century and has had a few changes – it continues to evolve today, hence the three variations. It is a wonderful summer dish that can easily be eaten as an entree or a main meal with salad. It can require a little care in the preparation but when you get it right, the flavours are wonderful.
On a wine trip to Piemonte, it seems every Cantina I stopped at, I was served this dish. There are slight differences between the variations depending upon the cook. I thank them all for their recipes.
Preparing the sauce a day ahead will allow the flavours to amalgamate. Some people like to spoon the sauce on the meat the day before but I prefer to leave it to the last minute.
Vitello Tonnato
Each recipe provided will serve six people.
Instructions for the meat:
- 1 nut or topside of veal around 800 gram
- 1 carrot
- 1 onion
- 1 celery stick
- 1 tablespoon white-wine vinegar
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- salt
- Using kitchen twine, tie the veal into a nice even roll. Bring a pan of salted water to the boil and add the veal, carrot, onion, celery, vinegar and olive oil. Cover and simmer over a low heat for 2 hours, or until the meat is tender. Remove the pan from the heat and leave the veal to cool in the stock. (reserve some of the liquid if using Recipe 1 or 2)
Recipe 1 for the sauce
- 200 gm tinned tuna in oil, drained
- 3 anchovy fillets in oil, drained
- 2 tblspns capers, rinsed and drained
- 3 tblspns olive oil
- 2 hard-boiled egg yolks
- Juice of 1 lemon, strained
- A little stock, saved from the liquid the meat was cooked in.
- Place the tuna, anchovy fillets, capers and egg yolks in a food processor. Blitz and then stir in the olive oil, 2-3 tablespoons of the stock and the lemon juice.
- Spoon the sauce over the slices and leave for a few hours for the flavours to mingle before serving.
- 300 gm tinned tuna in oil, drained
- 6 anchovy fillets
- 30 gms capers
- 1 handful of parsley, roughly shredded
- 100 gms mayonnaise
- A little stock, saved from the liquid the meat was cooked in.
- Salt and Pepper
- Process the Tuna with the anchovies, half of the capers and some parsley, 50 ml of reserved liquid from the meat, mayonnaise, salt and pepper. If the sauce is too thick, add a small amount of reserved liquid. Spoon over meat and use the rest of the ingredients as a garnish.
- 150 gm tinned tuna in oil, drained
- 150 gm mayonnaise
- 2 tblspns capers
- juice of I Iemon
- 4 tblspns olive oil
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Place the drained tuna, mayonnaise, capers, lemon juice, oil, salt, and pepper in a food processor and blitz for several seconds until mixed. Spoon over the meat.
Glynis Macri - Glynis Macri has been visiting Italy for the past 20 years absorbing all that the country has to offer in the way of food and wine ...
