Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well (44 page)

Take a piece of loin of mutton with its fatty underskin weighing 1 kilogram (about 2 pounds). Remove most of the fat, but not all, bone it, and season with salt and pepper. Make the stuffing with the following:

150 grams (about 5-1/4 ounces) of lean milk-fed veal

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

40 grams (about 1-1/3 ounces) of grated Parmesan cheese

1 egg

salt and pepper

Finely chop the veal and prosciutto; add the other ingredients, and spread over the whole inside of the loin. Roll up the meat and sew it up so that the stuffing will not burst out. Now put it on the fire with 50 grams (about 1-2/3 ounces) of butter; when it has browned, moisten with a finger’s worth of Marsala wine. Then toss into the saucepan to simmer with the meat half of a rather small onion cut into two pieces, two or three pieces of celery, two or three pieces of carrot, and some sprigs of parsley. As the last step, strain the sauce, skim the fat, and serve. This dish will serve eight people, and deserves to be recommended.

You already know that to skim the fat from a sauce all you have to do is place a few pieces of absorbent paper on top of it.

The preparation of this dish is not much different from that of recipe 294.

Take a piece of lean leg or rump of beef weighing no less than 1 kilogram (about 2 pounds) and stud it with nice lardoons—as thick as a finger—that you have rolled in salt and pepper. Tie the piece of meat into a nice shape, season generously with salt, and put it in a saucepan to brown with 50 grams (about 1-2/3 ounces) of butter.
Then add the following ingredients: half a foot of a milk-fed calf, or one piece of a large calf’s foot; one whole large onion; two or three whole carrots; one
bouquet garni
of aromatic herbs such as parsley, celery, basil, and the like; several pork rinds; a glassful of water or, better yet, of skimmed broth; and lastly half a glass of white wine or two tablespoons of brandy. Put the pan, tightly covered, on the fire and simmer until the meat is cooked. Since the carrots will be done first, remove them so that they will stay whole. Remove and discard the
bouquet garni
and then strain the sauce, skimming off the fat if necessary. Take care not to overcook the meat and serve it with the calf’s foot, garnishing the dish with the carrots sliced into rounds. If it turns out right, you will taste a delicate, light stew.

Some people stud the onion with cloves, but this spice is not recommended for those with delicate stomachs. In my opinion, shelled beans cooked and then re-heated in the sauce from the meat make a better accompaniment than carrots.

This is what the French call
boeuf braise
. Find a nice piece of lean, tender beef. Take a piece that weighs 500 grams (about 1 pound) without the bone, and stud it with 50 grams (about 1-2/3 ounces) of rather thick, finger-length lardoons, seasoned with salt and pepper.

Chop with a mezzaluna a quarter of a medium-sized onion, half a carrot, and a stalk of celery as long as your palm. Place on the fire with 30 grams (about 1 ounce) of butter and then add your piece of meat, tied and seasoned with salt and pepper.

When the seasonings are almost entirely dissolved, moisten twice with a droplet of cold water. When this too has been totally absorbed and the meat has browned, pour in two ladles of hot water, cover the pan with a double sheet of paper, and simmer until the meat is cooked. Then strain the sauce, skim off the fat, and put it back on the fire with another bit of butter to enhance the flavor of the meat and the sauce. You can use this meat sauce to flavor a side dish of vegetables such as spinach, Brussels sprouts, carrots, or fennel, whichever you prefer.

Would you like a meat dish from Bologna, one of the simplest dishes imaginable? Then make “garetto.”

Garetto is the Bolognese name for top round, which is the boneless cut of beef situated almost at the top of the thigh, between the round and the rump. It can weigh up to around 700 grams (about 1-1/2 pounds), and is the only cut of beef that lends itself to this type of dish. Put the meat on the fire in a saucepan, with no other seasoning than salt and pepper—no water, and no other ingredients. Cover the saucepan with a sheet of paper folded in half several times and kept in place by the lid. Simmer very slowly. You will see that it gives off a copious amount of juice, which it later reabsorbs little by little. When the meat has reabsorbed all the juice, remove it from the saucepan and serve. It is almost better cold than hot. No one can doubt that this is a healthy, nutritious dish; but I am not sure that everyone will like it because it is so simple.

Whoever concocted this dish probably did not know what to call it, so he gave it this strange name. But for that matter, almost all culinary terms are either strange or ridiculous.

After testing the recipe several times, I recommend the following amounts:

700 grams (about 1-1/2 pounds) of lean, boneless beef or veal from the rump, loin, or fillet

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

2 deciliters (about 4/5 of a cup) of heavy cream

2 deciliters (about 4/5 of a cup) of water

1 tablespoon of strong vinegar, or more if the vinegar is weak

Put the meat on the fire with the butter, half an onion cut into four sections, and a carrot cut into small pieces; season with salt and
pepper. When the meat is nicely browned, pour in the vinegar; after a while add the water, and then the cream. Simmer for about three hours, but if the sauce begins to dry up add a little more water.

Slice the meat and serve with its sauce, which you will strain first. As part of a meal of several courses, this should serve five to six people.

I did not know what to call this simple, healthy pot roast, so I gave it the name drowned rump roast.

800 grams (about 1 -3/4 pounds) of lean, boneless rump of beef or veal

80 grams (about 2-2/3 ounces) of fat trimmed from prosciutto

1 large or 2 medium-sized carrots

3 or 4 ribs of celery as long as the palm of your hand

1/2 a glass of dry white wine, or, lacking that, 2 fingers of Marsala wine

Cut the fat from the prosciutto into small pieces, roll in salt and pepper, and lard the meat with it; salt the meat and tie it so that it will stay together.

Cut the carrot and celery into small pieces and place them on the bottom of a rather small saucepan; place the piece of meat on top of this, and cover with water. Simmer in the covered saucepan, and when the meat has absorbed the water, strain the sauce and the vegetables. Then put the sauce back on the fire with the meat and the wine. When the meat is cooked, slice and serve with the sauce poured over it. These amounts should serve six people.

As you have probably noticed in this recipe and in many others in this collection, my cooking tends to be simple and light. I try as much as possible to avoid dishes that are too elaborate and contain a heterogeneous mixture of ingredients, and that, as a result, upset the stomach. Nevertheless, a good friend of mine unjustly slandered my cooking, mistaking it for someone else’s. He had been struck by progressive paralysis, which kept him an invalid for more than three
years. The only consolation he could find in his misfortune was eating well, and when he would ask his daughter to prepare him a meal, he never failed to say: “And make sure not to give me any of Artusi’s swill!”

This young lady, who ran her father’s household, had received her education in a girls’ school in the French part of Switzerland; and while she was in there, she had acquired Madame Roubinet’s treatise on cooking. She wholeheartedly admired this cookbook, and thus paid little or no heed to mine. Thus the “swill” so bemoaned by her father came from this Madame “Faucet,”
⁶⁰
who evidently let her spigot flow with dirty kitchen water, something I would never do.

Why they are called “scaloppine”. I have no idea, nor do I know what they have to do with the city of Livorno. At any rate, take some boneless cutlets from a large piece of meat, pound them well to make them tender, and throw them in a pan with a bit of butter. When the meat has absorbed the butter, finish cooking with a few tablespoons of broth. Season with salt and pepper, bind with a pinch of flour, and add a dash of Marsala wine. Before removing the cutlets from the pan add a pinch of minced parsley as a final flavoring touch.

Take a lean cut of meat from a large animal, remove the tendons and any membranes, and, if you do not have a meat grinder, chop very fine first with a knife and then with a mezzaluna. Season with salt, pepper, and grated Parmesan cheese. Add aromatic herbs if you like, but then you might run the risk of it tasting like a dish made with leftovers. Mix well and form the meat into a ball. Sprinkling the top and bottom with bread crumbs so that it will not stick, flatten the meat out with a rolling pin on a pastry board, moving it often, to form a patty a little thicker than a good-sized coin. Cut the patty into squares the width of the palm of your hand and cook with butter in a frying pan. When the cutlets have browned, moisten them with tomato sauce (recipe 6) or tomato paste diluted with broth or water, then serve. Without using a rolling pin, you can also flatten out the chopped meat with your hands, and form it into heart-shapes for a fancier look.

If you have some leftover stewed meat, you can add it to the raw meat to make these cutlets.

Slice lean veal into cutlets. To prepare 500 grams (about 1 pound) of boneless meat, chop a quarter of a medium-sized onion and put it on the bottom of a saucepan with some olive oil and a bit of butter. Arrange the cutlets in layers on top of the chopped onion, season with salt and pepper, and put on the fire without touching them; in this way they stick to each other and do not shrivel. When the cutlets have browned on the bottom, pour in a teaspoon of flour and after a little while add a pinch of parsley and half a clove of garlic (both chopped), as well as a little less than two fingers of good white wine or, if you do not have that, Marsala wine. Now separate the cutlets from one another, stir, and let them absorb the liquid. Then pour in hot water and a little tomato sauce (recipe 6) or tomato paste. Simmer slowly, but not for too long, until cooked. Serve over slices of toasted bread, with a generous amount of the sauce from the pan. Or if you prefer, serve with a side dish of rice cooked in water until quite firm and seasoned lightly with butter, Parmesan cheese, and the sauce from the cutlets. In fact, rice goes very well with this dish, and everyone will like it this way.

Sour cream is ordinary cream—that is, the cream that rises to the top of milk—when it has naturally soured, a “defect” that does not harm but rather improves this dish, which is very delicate.

Take lean veal or milk-fed veal, cut it into small cutlets, pound, dredge in flour, and put on the fire with an appropriate amount of butter. Season with salt and pepper and cook over a low flame until the cutlets have browned on both sides. Then add the sour cream. If you are using milk-fed veal, add a little water or broth at the end so that the sauce does not turn out too thick and the cutlets cook better.

Serve with lemon wedges on the side.

For four people, use 500 grams (about 1 pound) of boneless, lean veal, 70 grams (about 2-1/3 ounces) of butter, and 2 deciliters (about 4/5 of a cup) of sour cream.

Take 70 grams (about 2-1/3 ounces) of thinly sliced lardoons and 300 grams (about 10-1/2 ounces) of lean, boneless, milk-fed veal, remove the membranes covering it (if any) and cut into very thin slices.