Archive for the 'Veal' Category

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Spaghetti & Fontina-Stuffed Veal Meatballs

Lately, my pasta dishes have kind of obviously been focused on comfort-food, and this is no different. Today, we have another classic dish, with a little twist to make it something special: spaghetti and fontina-stuffed veal meatballs.

Spaghetti & Fontina-Stuffed Veal Meatballs

I decided to make my own tomato sauce, but I struggled with it. When I say struggled, I don’t mean that making the sauce was hard–far from it! The real difficulty was resisting my temptation to over-complicate things and throw in all sorts of herbs and spices. I decided for once to give the classic Italian cooking mantras a chance and to let the tomatoes speak for themselves, hoping they wouldn’t let me down. As it turns out, the tomatoes heard my prayers and they came through! I didn’t have any great fresh tomatoes, but I did try a recommendation for a better brand of canned San Marzano tomatoes, which was certainly a bit pricier than other canned tomatoes I was used to, but…
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Posted by mike on March 21st, 2008 under Italian, Main course, Mediterranean, Pasta, Sauce, Veal | 30 Comments »

Lasagna Bolognese

I love pasta, but there’s a special place in my heart for lasagna. This is one of those pasta dishes that takes time and effort, but the end result is amazing and definitely up there among the best of pasta-centric comfort-foods. With a little extra attention paid to the noodles, the sauce, and the cheese, lasagna is a force to be reckoned with.

Lasagna Bolognese

I approached this dish more with the intent of clearing out leftovers. You know, something simple that would come out reasonably well with little effort while freeing up space in the fridge and leaving no waste. But then I thought, well, I’d still like to play with my pasta maker, so maybe I could make my own noodles? And then, well, if I have these nice veal leftovers, I shouldn’t just use some jarred sauce, since that just doesn’t seem right. And how would it look on the web site? And after a series of little tweaks…
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Posted by mike on March 6th, 2008 under Italian, Main course, Pasta, Pork, Veal | 18 Comments »

Osso Bucco

I love veal, and if I could eat veal all the time, I would. Unfortunately, its one of those foods that caught something of a reputation that it doesn’t entirely deserve. This makes enjoying it all the more difficult though since not everybody you’re cooking for will approach or even consider veal quite the same way as you (a veal lover, of course). I however, couldn’t hold back the craving any longer and I went right for the veal dish that is one of my all-time favorites: osso bucco.

Osso Bucco plated atop some mascarpone polenta

If you’ve never had osso bucco before, you really have to try it. This is one of those dishes that, I think, always leads to full bellies, happy guests, and clean plates. Why? Osso bucco is a beautiful, Italian preparation of veal that really shows off the unique flavor and tender qualities of the meat with the culinary sensibilities of Italian cuisine.

You start with a thick, tough cut of meat…
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Posted by mike on February 20th, 2008 under Italian, Main course, Mediterranean, Sauce, Veal | 26 Comments »

Trio of Ravioli–veal, mushrooms, and goat cheese

I was very excited about making pasta from scratch and had grand visions for making ravioli. But what kind of filling should I make? Beef? Chicken? Veal? Cheese? I kept tossing ideas around and decided to be reasonable and just choose: I’d make three different fillings (veal & olive, mascarpone mushroom, and herb & lemon goat cheese). Decisiveness is one of my strong points.

Ravioli

So knowing that the fillings would be the slow part, I hurried to work, preparing far too much of each, telling myself no problem, I’ll just freeze the excess ravioli and have an easy back-up dinner for weeks to come. I was in a good mood and in no real hurry at all–I was hungry, but the fillings were coming along great and making/stuffing the pasta would be a really quick process. There was nothing to worry about. I could just snap my fingers, and dinner would be ready. So I casually pour the flour in…
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Posted by mike on January 19th, 2008 under Italian, Main course, Mediterranean, Pasta, Veal | 18 Comments »

Chicken Saltimbocca

If I have sage on hand, this is one of my favorite dishes to put it to good use: chicken saltimbocca.

Chicken Saltimbocca

Saltimbocca is Italian for “jumps in the mouth” as all of the core flavors to this dish are really vibrant when they come together. Surprisingly though, there are countless variantions on saltimbocca as it is apparently popular in Switzerland, Italy, Spain and Greece where the featured meat, sauce, and garnish can all differ greatly (e.g. chicken, veal, pork, wine, salt water, oil, etc). The one commonality across all of these interpretations of the dish though: roulades stuffed with that mentholy, peppery flavor of sage and the richness of prosciutto. In this version, I stuffed chicken breast roulades with fresh sage, basil, goat cheese, and prosciutto and then top it off with some Marsala and mushrooms. This dish is also my entry for this week’s Weekend Herb Blogging, hosted by Kalyn from Kalyn’s Kitchen. My regular readers might notice that…
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Posted by mike on November 3rd, 2007 under Chicken, Italian, Main course, Mediterranean, Veal | 9 Comments »

Chicken Parmesan

Chicken Parmesan, next to lasagna, is to me, the quintessential Italian comfort food. Its not too heavy, not too unhealthy, and can work as a nice dinner or even as a hero/sub/hoagie/whatever you call it in your part of the world.

Chicken parmesan

I had my doubts in writing this post that Chicken/Veal Parmesan was in any way, actually Italian. Surprisingly, it seems that yes, at one point, there was an authentically Italian version…it just had no cheese, tomato, or anything that would look familiar to us today beyond the meat. But history aside, this is still delicious and is another household favorite of mine that can surprise a lot of people, because, like burgers, I feel that most people are accustomed to subpar versions of this dish. I suppose that’s the price you pay for popularity.

For me, the key is to use a really flavorful breading on the meat, frying it as little as possible in both butter and a tasty…
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Posted by mike on October 1st, 2007 under Chicken, Italian, Main course, Veal | 4 Comments »
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