In the summer you need to cook at least once vitello tonnato (vitello tonnato)- a classic Italian appetizer from Piedmont! It is cold - namely, this is the kind of food you want to eat in the heat - and quite satisfying, which cannot be said about most summer meals. Make it for dinner, pour a glass of white wine and I promise you will have a great evening!

Italians cook vitello tonnato with veal, capers and canned tuna. At first glance, a ridiculous, if not wrong, combination of ingredients - meat and canned fish! But wait to draw conclusions! For our herring under a fur coat, they also take not the most expressive products, but I have not yet met people who would claim that they do not like her and would refuse the supplement.

By the way, a hundred years ago, fish and meat were sent to the same pan more boldly. Recently, I found a recipe for soufflé in Sofya Tolstaya's notebook, in which veal and herring must be rubbed through a sieve, mixed with whipped egg whites and baked. Such a soufflé was served quite often in Yasnaya Polyana.

We need a piece of good veal, without fat and bones, weighing about a kilogram. You won’t find veal, it’s okay, lean beef will do. The main trick is to make the meat have a somewhat neutral taste and soft, tender flesh. It should chew well.

See that the veal is a delicate pink color. A bright red dark color is a sign that the cow is already in years and has been grazing in the meadow for more than one year. The meat should smell fresh and, of course, no green tints!

1. Boil the veal. In addition to the meat, put the onion, celery, carrot, peeled garlic, bay leaf, black peppercorns and a tablespoon of salt into the pan.

You can add parsley stalks or a half-sized piece of ginger to the broth walnut- all these flavors will be transferred to the meat.

Veal is cooked over medium heat for about an hour and a half. I determine the readiness by eye - the piece should have boiled fibers, but if you are just learning to cook, buy a cooking thermometer - you will not regret it!

This is a great investment - with it you will fry elastic cutlets and bake juicy chickens. Just insert the device in the very middle of the meat, it should show 75 degrees.

I usually cook meat the day before, in the morning while I'm getting ready for work, or in the evening. And the next day I collect vitello tonnato in just 10 minutes! This is a very convenient meal, it cooks quickly, and it keeps in the refrigerator for almost a week. And every day it only gets better!

The most interesting thing in our dish is the tuna sauce. In Italy, this fish is caught off the coast of Sardinia, Sicily and Liguria and rolled into cans. Piedmont, the region where vitello tonnato was invented, borders Liguria, and tuna has always been abundant here, which is why it became the basis of the sauce.

2. We take a large can of canned tuna (about 350 grams) and transfer the fish to a sieve to drain excess oil.

We also need capers, lemon juice and anchovy fillets. Anchovies are tiny fish that are also caught off Italian coasts and then preserved in large amounts of salt. They are not cheap, but you need literally 3-4 fillets, so a small jar will last you a long time. You can buy any anchovies - in oil or in salt.

The Italians make anchovy paste in tubes like toothpaste: squeeze out as much as you need and store in the refrigerator for several months. It is very comfortable!

The vitello tonnato recipe appeared in cookbooks in the 19th century. At first, the sauce was prepared with olive oil, and at the beginning of the 20th century, mayonnaise was added. And it tastes even better with mayonnaise! The sauce appears creamy, round and silky. You can make mayonnaise yourself, and if there is no time, then take it ready from the store.

3. We put the fish and capers in the food processor, pour over lemon juice, pepper and turn into a puree. At the end, add mayonnaise - it is more convenient to control the density of the sauce.

Products can be crushed with an immersion blender, and even in an ordinary mortar. The sauce should have the consistency of fermented baked milk. If you see that it is getting too thick, add some broth. And keep in mind - the sauce will thicken in the refrigerator!

4. Cut the cooled veal into thin slices (across the fibers so that it is easier to chew). Place on a platter and drizzle generously with sauce. Cover with cling film and send to the refrigerator for several hours - the meat will absorb the flavors of the sauce and lightly marinate.

In general, this sauce harmonizes well with any tender meat. In Sicily, for example, they eat chicken with it. The bird is suitable even boiled, even baked on a grill. Only after grilling, you need to remove the skin from it so that the smells of spices do not fight with the aromas of tuna. I sometimes take boiled instead of veal beef tongue and it turns out very, very tasty too!

5. Before dinner, we decorate the vitello tonnato with herbs, capers and pickled cucumbers. Serve with good white bread!

RIA News. Anna Ludkovskaya

There are only a few ingredients in Vitello Tonnato, but what a taste they create! Slightly tart due to pickled capers, salty due to anchovies, with the aroma of the Mediterranean Sea and an idle Italian mood. Eat and it seems that the vacation has already begun, this dish has such an expressive character!

By the way, the leftovers of Vitello Tonnato can be taken to work the next day: put on a thin Armenian pita bread, add fresh cucumber or parsley and roll up.

Summer italian veal appetizer

Time:

active - 20 minutes

passive - 2 hours

Ingredients(for 6 servings):

veal - 1 kg

carrots - 1 pc.

celery - 2 stalks

onion- 1 head

garlic - 1 clove

bay leaf - 3 pcs

black peppercorns - 5-7 pcs

parsley - 1 bunch

canned tuna in oil - 1 can (350 g)

anchovies - 3-4 fillets

capers - 2 tbsp. spoons

lemon juice - 3 tbsp. spoons

mayonnaise - 2/3 cup

salt - 1 tbsp. spoon

freshly ground black pepper

Cooking:

1. Put the meat, onion, celery, carrot, peeled garlic, parsley stalks, bay leaf and black peppercorns into the pan. Pour in water, salt and boil.

2. Prepare the sauce. Put the tuna on a sieve to drain excess oil. Then send to the food processor along with the capers, anchovies and lemon juice. Season with pepper and grind to a puree consistency. Add Mayo. Punch again.

3. Cut the veal into thin slices, put in one layer on a dish and pour over the sauce. Cover with cling film and refrigerate for at least a few hours.

4. Before serving, decorate the dish with lemon slices, capers, pickled cucumbers or olives.

When it comes to preparing festive meat appetizers, veal is one of the most common options. This tender meat is perfect for preparing snacks that many people like. So, we are preparing delicious holiday snacks from veal.

There are many options for preparing snacks from meat such as veal: meat rolls, pate, canapes and sandwiches, stuffed vegetables and fruits. And all of them are quite simple, since veal is a meat that does not require any special culinary skills: cooking it is simple and fast.

Snacks are made from minced veal, fried, boiled, baked and marinated veal. To achieve readiness, veal is enough when frying (medium-sized pieces) - 10 minutes, when cooking - 1 hour, when marinating - 12 hours, when baking - 1 hour.

Recipe One: Baked Veal Pate

You will need: 700g of veal pulp, 300g of fresh champignons, 80g of walnuts, 2 eggs, 1 sweet red pepper, 1 onion, 1 tbsp. breadcrumbs, black ground pepper, butter, salt.

How to cook veal pate. Twist the chopped veal in pieces in a meat grinder twice. Cut the mushrooms into slices, setting aside 10 pieces. Fry all the mushrooms in butter in a frying pan - whole and chopped. Remove the skin from the blanched pepper and cut it into medium-sized cubes, add to the minced meat. Drive eggs into minced meat and mix it, pepper and salt, put chopped mushrooms, mix everything. Put the minced meat in a rectangular shape (as for muffins), greased with butter, sprinkling it first breadcrumbs, make a shallow groove on the surface of the minced meat, put whole mushrooms into it and level the surface. Cover the form with foil, put on a baking sheet, pour water into it, bake in an oven preheated to 200 degrees for about 90 minutes until cooked, removing the foil 10 minutes before the end of cooking to brown the top. Before serving, cut the cooled pate into slices.

Recipe two: Veal rolls with prunes

You will need: 400 g of veal fillet, 150 g of salted lard and prunes, 300 ml of 10% cream, ½ cup of dry white wine, black pepper, salt, butter for frying.

How to cook veal rolls with prunes. Cut the meat across the fibers into rectangular pieces 1 cm thick, cut the fat very thinly into pieces of the same length and less width than the meat. Rinse prunes. Carefully beat off the pieces of meat, put lard closer to one edge of the meat, prunes on top (3 pieces in a row for each piece of meat), roll the meat into a roll, moving from the edge where the products are laid to the empty edge, fasten the edges of the rolls with toothpicks. Put the rolls in a pan with hot butter, fry on all sides, reduce heat and fry for another 5 minutes until cooked. Pour the juice obtained by frying the rolls into a saucepan, pour in the cream and wine, stirring the mixture, boil over low heat until thick. Put the cooked rolls in the sauce and warm for 3-4 minutes over low heat, put on a plate, pour the sauce over the rolls when serving.

Recipe Three: Veal Stuffed Eggplants

Photo: offline.by

You will need: 1 kg of eggplant, 500 g of veal and tomatoes, 250 g of celery, 100 g of chopped parsley, 1-2 onions, ¼ tsp. ground black pepper, salt.

How to cook eggplant stuffed with veal. Saute chopped onion in oil until browned. Twist the meat in a meat grinder, mix with onion, parsley, pepper and salt. Cut the eggplants in half lengthwise, cut out the core, fry the eggplants in vegetable oil, stuff them with meat, wrap them in celery leaves and put in a saucepan, add 200 ml of water and grated tomatoes, simmer everything over low heat until the liquid evaporates. Serve the eggplant chilled, sprinkled with parsley, as an appetizer.

Recipe Four: Veal Stuffed Apples

You will need: 10-12 apples, 500g veal, 1 onion, 5-6 tbsp. vegetable oil, ½ tsp ground cinnamon, ground black pepper, salt.

How to cook veal stuffed apples. Cut off the tops of the apples and cut out the seeds so that you can stuff the apples through the hole at the top. Twist the meat 2 times through a meat grinder, then fry together with chopped onion, salt and season with cinnamon. Put the minced meat in apples, cover them with cut tops. Put the apples in a pan, pour hot water on a third of the height of the apples and boil over low heat until the meat is ready.

Recipe Five: Pickled Veal Appetizer

Photo: luckylunch.ru

You will need: 400-500g of veal, 50-60ml each soy sauce and red dry wine, 40-50 ml of wine vinegar, 50 g olive oil, 1 lemon and onion, parsley and dill, olives and olives, ground black pepper, paprika, salt.

How to cook a marinated veal appetizer. Cut the meat into very thin, almost transparent pieces, pepper and salt, put in a marinade of vinegar, lemon juice, wine and soy sauce, put in the refrigerator for a day. Put half of the marinated meat in a salad bowl, pour over with oil, sprinkle with onion, cut into half rings and chopped herbs, put the remaining veal on top, sprinkle with herbs and onions in the same way. Decorate with olives before serving.

This appetizer is interesting in that the meat is not subjected to heat treatment - it is only marinated.

Any veal snacks offered in this selection can be prepared both for everyday and for holiday table. They are sure to please those who try them, bon appetit!

Cold appetizer of fried veal with apple and lingonberry sauce

For cold appetizer preparing first. Wash and peel the veal meat, then rub with salt and put in melted fat to brown on both sides over a fire.

Then put the meat on a baking sheet and pour over the fat in which it was fried and send it to a well-heated oven, often pour over the juice from the meat.

Cut the prepared veal into thin slices and pour over the remaining juice. Veal is served cold, and it is served with apple and cranberry or lingonberry sauce.

Ingredients For cold appetizer of roast veal with apple and lingonberry sauce :

1. veal - (1 ham from the back leg),
2. oil - 1 tablespoon,
3. cranberries or lingonberries - 1 kg,
4. apples - 1.5 kg,
5. salt to taste
6. sugar - 1 kg

First of all, flatten the kidneys, cut out the veins, the ureter. Insist water on star anise and rinse the kidneys several times. Cut into large pieces and put in a net in boiling water with bay leaf or star anise for no more than 10 seconds. Then rinse again with chilled boiled water, transfer to a sieve and let dry for a while.

Melt pork fat in a frying pan, put crushed garlic in it. Remove the garlic from the pan as soon as it starts to fry, and put the kidney pieces into the fat, add water, vegetable oil and salt. Fry until fully cooked and cool. Use the kidneys as a cold appetizer.