Vitello Tonnato

Veal Tonne

When it starts to get hot outside many people turn away from eating meat dishes. Still love meat, but hoping to find a dish that's not so heavy for the summer months? Why not try Vitello Tonnato, calf meat seasoned with tuna sauce, which is a perfect meat recipe for those hot summer days.

This recipe mixes traditional agricultural and marine cultures and was created in the northern part of Italy, most likely in Lombardy or Piedmont. Pellegrino Artusi quotes this recipe in the very first edition of La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangiar bene, published in 1891 and it was a very popular summer dish up until the 1950s and 1960s.

The name Veal Tonne has French influences, but the dish itself is truly Italian. This dish has many variants and the one described below is simple, easy and most importantly very tasty:

Ingredients (Serves 4)

700g of calf hindquarters (in some regions it is called magatello)

150 g of tuna in oil

A bottle of dry white wine

25 g of pickled capers

Some lemon peel

Carrot, celery and onion, chopped

1 Clove of garlic

1 Laurel leaf

1 Garlic slice

1/4 Liter of mayonnaise

Some raisins, salt and pepper

Preparation

Detail of Veal Tonne

Fill an oval pot with white wine and enough water to cover the meat while it cooks.

Clean, wash and cut up the carrot, celery and the onion. Add them to the wine, together with the whole garlic, the clove, the laurel leaf, the lemon peel and the raisin stalks (its leaves will be used as decoration).

Let the mixture boil and plunge the meat into the pot. Season with salt and pepper and let it cook over medium heat for an hour and a half.

Let the meat cool in the broth.

Prepare the tuna sauce by grinding the tuna and the capers carefully and then whirring them; add some spoonfuls of mayonnaise and mix carefully so as to obtain a homogeneous compound.

Slice the cooled meat, put it on a plate and cover it with the sauce you have just made. Decorate it with some lemon slices and some raisin leaves, cover it with an aluminium sheet and store it in a cool place for about half an hour in order to let the flavours deepen.

Famed cook Alfredo Russo has produced lighter, revolutionised versions of traditional recipes, such as his own vitello tonnato. "It is a classic Piedmontese recipe," he explains. "All restaurants propose it, from the most aristocratic to the simplest ones. I could not help working on it." Russo's version has a less aggressive acid taste, which is achieved by adding lemon caramel.

Alfredo Russo's Vitello Tonnato Tips

As to the calf hindquarters, I usually powder it with some salt and pepper and put it on the grill of the preheated oven at 200 °C. I roast it for 10 minutes. Then I lower the temperature to 82 °C and keep on cooking until the temperature reaches 54 °C (estimated with a special thermometer). I then let it cool.

For the tuna sauce I grind the boiled eggs together with the washed capers, the tuna bacon well dripped of oil, a little vinegar and a trickle of oil. The sauce should result in a thick cream.

As to the lemon caramel: I let some sugar candy in a thick steel pan on a low heat. I add the lemon juice and keep on cooking on a low heat so as to obtain a syrupy consistence.

Finally I slice bred into thin portions and let them dry in the oven at 120 °C. I slice the meat very in equally thin slices by using a slicer, put a teaspoon of tuna cream on each slice and I fold it up. I then season some salad with very little oil and salt. I spread the salad on the plates, layer with some slices of stuffed meat and I add some caper flowers and the bread toasts. I top with the lemon caramel and then serve the dish.