Vitello tonnato recipe

<p>Vitello tonnato sounds like a mistake: cold poached veal, sliced thin as ham, cloaked in a sauce built on tinned tuna and anchovies. Meat and fish, together, served cold. Then you taste it and the argument ends. The sauce is savoury, lemon-sharp and impossibly silky; the veal is mild and tender; the capers snap through the richness. It is the dish I make when I want to look as though I have gone to enormous trouble, because most of the work is poaching and waiting, and all of it happens the day before.</p> <div class="recipe-card" id="recipe"> <div class="recipe-card-head"><p class="recipe-card-title">Vitello tonnato recipe</p> <div class="recipe-card-actions"><a class="recipe-pin" href="https://www.pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?description%3dVitello%2btonnato%2brecipe%26media%3dhttps%253A%252F%252Fmedia.vo.rs%252Ftunavitello.jpg%26url%3dhttps%253A%252F%252Fvo.rs%252Fstory%252Fvitello-tonnato-recipe%252F" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener" aria-label="Save to Pinterest"><i class="fab fa-pinterest-p fa-fw"></i>&nbsp;Save</a><button type="button" class="recipe-print" onclick="window.print()" aria-label="Print recipe"><i class="fas fa-print fa-fw"></i>&nbsp;Print</button> </div> </div> <div class="recipe-meta"><span class="recipe-meta-item"><span class="recipe-meta-label">Serves</span>6 servings</span><span class="recipe-meta-item"><span class="recipe-meta-label">Prep</span>630 min</span><span class="recipe-meta-item"><span class="recipe-meta-label">Cook</span>90 min</span><span class="recipe-meta-item"><span class="recipe-meta-label">Cuisine</span>Italian</span><span class="recipe-meta-item"><span class="recipe-meta-label">Course</span>Starter</span></div> <div class="recipe-cols"> <div class="recipe-ingredients"> <h3>Ingredients</h3> <ul><li>800g topside of veal, in one piece</li><li>1 celery stalk</li><li>2 carrots</li><li>1 onion</li><li>2 bay leaves</li><li>400ml dry white wine</li><li>3 egg yolks</li><li>1 tbsp Dijon mustard</li><li>250ml mild olive oil</li><li>1½ tins tuna in oil (about 240g drained)</li><li>4 anchovy fillets in oil</li><li>2 tbsp capers, plus a spoonful to garnish</li><li>Juice of 1 lemon</li><li>1 tsp white wine vinegar</li><li>Salt and black pepper</li></ul> </div> <div class="recipe-method"> <h3>Method</h3> <ol><li>Chop the celery, carrots and onion. Put them in a pot with the veal, bay leaves and 400ml white wine, then add cold water to just cover the meat. Cover and refrigerate for 10 hours or overnight.</li><li>Add 1 tsp salt, bring slowly to a bare simmer and poach gently for 1½ hours, keeping the water trembling rather than bubbling. Leave the veal to cool completely in its liquid.</li><li>Lift out the cooled veal and slice it as thinly as you can with a sharp knife, about 2mm.</li><li>For the sauce, whisk 3 egg yolks with 1 tbsp Dijon and a pinch of salt, then trickle in 250ml olive oil, drop by drop at first, whisking to a thick mayonnaise.</li><li>Blend the drained tuna, anchovies, 2 tbsp capers, lemon juice and 1 tsp vinegar to a purée, then fold it into the mayonnaise. Loosen with a spoonful of the poaching liquid to a pourable, single-cream consistency. Season.</li><li>Layer the veal slices on a platter, spooning sauce between each layer and over the top so every slice is cloaked. Cover and chill for at least 30 minutes, ideally 2 hours.</li><li>Bring to cool room temperature, scatter with capers and a little black pepper, and serve.</li></ol> </div> </div> </div><h2 id="a-piedmontese-classic-older-than-it-looks">A Piedmontese classic, older than it looks</h2><div class="ad-unit ad-in-article" aria-label="Advertisement"> <span class="ad-label">Advertisement</span> <ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block;text-align:center" data-ad-client="ca-pub-3726833845844946" data-ad-slot="3291553914" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true"></ins> <script>(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});</script> </div> <p>Vitello tonnato belongs to Piedmont, in Italy&rsquo;s north-west, where it has been a fixture of the summer table for well over a century. The pairing of veal with a tuna-and-anchovy sauce reflects the region&rsquo;s long trade in salted fish carried up from the Ligurian coast: preserved anchovies and tuna were pantry staples far inland, and cooks used them the way others used salt, to season and deepen. Pellegrino Artusi included a version in his 1891 book <em>La scienza in cucina e l&rsquo;arte di mangiar bene</em>, the volume that did more than any other to codify Italian home cooking, though his sauce leaned on capers and lemon and only later drifted toward the mayonnaise-enriched version most of us make now.</p> <p>That shift matters. The older, Artusi-style sauce is thinner and sharper, essentially pounded tuna, anchovy, capers and oil. The modern version folds that purée into a homemade mayonnaise, which is what gives the dish its pale, mousse-like coat. I make the mayonnaise version here because it clings to the veal properly and reads as luxurious, but if you want something closer to the nineteenth-century original, skip the egg yolks and simply blend the tuna, anchovy, capers, lemon and oil into a looser dressing.</p> <p>The cut is the other decision. Topside or a lean, single-muscle piece of veal is traditional because it slices cleanly into wide, thin sheets once cold. Poached gently and cooled in its own liquid, it stays moist; boiled hard, it turns to grey string. This is the whole reason the dish is a make-ahead: veal needs to be properly cold before it will slice thin, and the sauce needs time to settle into it.</p> <h2 id="what-you-need">What you need</h2> <p>The ingredient list splits neatly into the veal, its poaching aromatics, and the sauce.</p> <p>For the veal: 800g topside of veal in one piece, 1 celery stalk, 2 carrots, 1 onion, 2 bay leaves, 400ml dry white wine, and 1 tsp salt.</p> <p>For the sauce: 3 egg yolks, 1 tbsp Dijon mustard, 250ml mild olive oil (not extra-virgin, which turns bitter when blended), 1½ tins of tuna in oil (about 240g drained), 4 anchovy fillets, 2 tbsp capers, the juice of 1 lemon, and 1 tsp white wine vinegar. Keep a further spoonful of capers back for the top.</p> <p>You will need a pot large enough to hold the veal covered in liquid, a very sharp knife, and either a stick blender or small food processor for the sauce.</p> <h2 id="method">Method</h2><div class="ad-unit ad-in-article" aria-label="Advertisement"> <span class="ad-label">Advertisement</span> <ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block;text-align:center" data-ad-client="ca-pub-3726833845844946" data-ad-slot="3291553914" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true"></ins> <script>(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});</script> </div> <p>Start the night before. Chop the celery, carrots and onion roughly and put them in a pot with the veal, the bay leaves and the white wine. Add cold water until the meat is just covered, put the lid on and refrigerate for 10 hours or overnight. This slow, cold soak is not strictly essential, but it seasons the meat and gives you a head start.</p> <p>The next day, add 1 tsp salt and bring the pot slowly up to heat. You want the barest simmer, the surface trembling rather than rolling; a hard boil is what makes veal tough. Poach for 1½ hours, then take the pot off the heat and leave the veal to cool completely in its own liquid. Do not rush this. Warm veal tears when you slice it, and you have gone to too much trouble to hack it into rags. Once cold, lift it out (save the liquid) and slice it as thinly as your knife allows, aiming for about 2mm. If your knife skills are shaky, chill the veal hard, almost to freezing, and slice against the grain.</p> <p>Now the sauce. Whisk the 3 egg yolks with the Dijon and a pinch of salt in a bowl, then start adding the 250ml oil literally drop by drop, whisking constantly, until the mixture thickens and seizes into mayonnaise; once it has taken, you can add the oil in a thin, steady stream. This is the step people fear, but the rule is simple: go slowly at the start and keep whisking. In a separate bowl or the processor, blend the drained tuna, anchovies, 2 tbsp capers, lemon juice and vinegar to a smooth purée, then fold that into the mayonnaise. It will look thick; loosen it with a spoonful or two of the reserved poaching liquid until it pours like single cream. Taste and adjust with salt, pepper and lemon.</p> <p>To assemble, lay the veal slices over a platter, spooning sauce generously between the layers and over the top so no meat is left bare. Cover and chill for at least 30 minutes, and up to a couple of hours, so the sauce sinks in. Bring it back to cool room temperature before serving, scatter with the reserved capers and a grind of black pepper.</p> <h2 id="why-it-works-and-what-goes-wrong">Why it works, and what goes wrong</h2> <p>The two failure points are both about temperature. Poach too hard and the veal seizes and dries; the trembling simmer keeps it succulent. Slice it warm and it shreds; slice it properly cold and it comes away in clean sheets. Everything else is forgiving.</p> <p>Why poach in wine and water rather than a stock? Because the point of the liquid is to cook the veal gently and season it lightly, not to overwhelm it; the veal&rsquo;s own flavour is mild by design, a canvas for the sauce. The reserved poaching liquid then does double duty as the thing you use to loosen the sauce, tying the two halves of the dish together. Do not discard it: what you do not use in the sauce makes a light broth, or the base of a risotto, the next day.</p> <p>The anchovies deserve a word, because people who think they dislike them almost always love this sauce. Blended into the tuna and mayonnaise they dissolve completely, contributing no fishy hit at all, only a deep savoury undertow, the same umami trick that makes a good Caesar dressing work. Do not leave them out. Four fillets in a whole batch is not enough to taste as anchovy; it is exactly enough to make everything else taste more of itself.</p> <p>If your mayonnaise splits, do not throw it out. Put a fresh yolk in a clean bowl and whisk the broken mixture into it a spoonful at a time; it will come back together. The usual cause of a split is adding the oil too fast at the start, before the emulsion has taken, or using oil straight from a cold cupboard; room-temperature ingredients behave best. And if you would rather sidestep raw egg entirely, start with 200g of good shop-bought mayonnaise and blend the tuna purée straight into that. It is not quite as light, but nobody at the table will file a complaint.</p> <h2 id="substitutions-storage-and-serving">Substitutions, storage and serving</h2> <p>Veal is the classic, but not the only option. Poached, thinly sliced turkey breast or a lean pork loin both take the sauce well and cost far less; the technique is identical. Whatever the meat, keep the slices thin so they drink up the sauce.</p> <p>Assembled and covered, vitello tonnato keeps in the fridge for two days and, if anything, improves overnight as the flavours settle. The sauce alone keeps for three days and is worth making in excess: it is superb on cold roast chicken, boiled new potatoes, or a hard-boiled egg. Serve the dish cool but not fridge-cold, as a starter or a light summer main, with bread and a sharp green salad. It sits happily on an antipasto spread, and any leftover meat and sauce make a genuinely excellent sandwich the next day.</p> <p>This is a dish that fits a certain kind of hosting perfectly. Because every element is made ahead and served cold, there is nothing to time and nothing to plate at the last minute; you arrange it on a platter hours before your guests arrive, cover it, and forget about it. That makes it my go-to opener for a summer lunch, where a hot starter would be a nuisance in a warm kitchen. Present it as the Italians do: a wide platter of overlapping slices, the sauce spooned in generous ribbons, capers scattered over the top, and a few lemon wedges on the side for anyone who wants an extra squeeze. A cold glass of a crisp white such as Gavi or Arneis, both from the same corner of Piedmont, is the natural drink alongside.</p> <p>One last thought on scale. The recipe makes enough for six as a starter, but it halves and doubles cleanly, and the sauce quantities are forgiving. If you are cooking for a crowd, poach a larger piece of veal and make a big bowl of sauce; leftovers keep, and the dish is arguably better on its second day than its first.</p> <p>If you like this kind of anchovy-backed, umami-rich cooking, the same salty depth drives my <a href="/story/caesar-salad/">lighter Caesar salad</a>, where anchovy carries the whole dressing. And for a completely different but equally punchy make-ahead condiment to keep in the fridge, try a batch of <a href="/story/recipe-for-harissa/">harissa</a>.</p>