Beef & Veal: Braciole, Involtini, Steaks, Etc.

How Dario Cecchini, Panzano's Master Butcher, prepares Braciole

Italians have been enjoying burgers since long before the arrival of the Double Arches, and have a great many ways of preparing them. Here we have them with tomatoes and eggplant, and while the recipe will work well with a griddle over the stove, it will be even nicer if you do it outside, over the coals.

Americans are for some reason put off by anchovies -- when I was in college I often ordered anchovy pizza and none of my friends ever wanted to partake. Their loss, because anchovies have the delightful freshness of the sea, and are very tasty in these burgers.

American-style fast food has become quite popular in Italy, and it's only natural that Italians should begin making hamburgers at home too. This clearly derives from some of the burgers one gets from the takeout window, but builds nicely upon the concept.

Carne alla pizzaiola, cutlets cooked in a tomato sauce of the sort that goes over pizza, is one of Naples's signature dishes. It is only natural to do the same to a hamburger. And don't omit the anchovies, because they add a very fine savory touch, with the freshness of the sea.

The cotoletta alla Milanese, a breaded fried cutlet, is one of the quickest and easiest (and most popular) meat dishes in Italy. It's just a step further to fry up a burger, but here we have an added twist: it's stuffed with cheese and ham that melt delightfully. Very tasty at lunch, especially with a tossed salad.

A Svizzera is a pan-cooked Milanese hamburger. In this case the ground beef is combined with ground ham and chopped spinach, and will be a nice alternative to more standard burgers. In addition to pan-frying them per the recipe, you could grill them.

A Svizzera is a pan-cooked Milanese hamburger, and they are generally served with a sauce of one kind or another. In this case a creamy sauce with some mustard, and they will be quite nice in the spring.

Oranges are tremendously popular, but primarily as fruit. They don't get used as often as they might in the kitchen, and this is a pity because they work wonderfully with other ingredients, in this case veal. The recipe calls for fillet. You could also use veal medallions, and I think it would work with chicken too.

This collection of veal and cabbage involtini, scaloppine and cabbage leaves rolled up around a variety of fillings, isn't the sort of thing you'll want to make every day, but it will surprise and delight your friends when you invite them to dinner.

This collection of veal and cabbage involtini, scaloppine and cabbage leaves rolled up around a variety of fillings, isn't the sort of thing you'll want to make every day, but it will surprise and delight your friends when you invite them to dinner.

Filetto, what the French call filet mignon, is one of the most voluptuous of all beef cuts, and because its popularity there are a great many recipes for it. Here is a zesty Italian way of preparing filet mignon.

These beef and lamb spiedini gain a vaguely middle-Eastern feel from the herbs used to season them, and are quite refreshing in summer, thanks to a cool yogurt sauce. As you might guess, the recipe is a modern Italian recipe.

Florence's braciole fritte are thin slices of beef, breaded, fried, and recooked in tomato sauce: this is a traditional family dish, one prepared to satisfy the hunger of those at the table, and the sauce is just as important as the meat, as it gives the diners something to dip their bread into.

Florence's braciole fritte are thin slices of beef, breaded, fried, and recooked in tomato sauce: this is a traditional family dish, one prepared to satisfy the hunger of those at the table, and the sauce is just as important as the meat, as it gives the diners something to dip their bread into.

Florence's braciole fritte are thin slices of beef, breaded, fried, and recooked in tomato sauce: this is a traditional family dish, one prepared to satisfy the hunger of those at the table, and the sauce is just as important as the meat, as it gives the diners something to dip their bread into.

Oranges work quite nicely with veal scallops, while the anchovies add a pleasant salty accent, but nothing fishy.

The combination of raisins and pine nuts is one of the fixtures of south Italian cooking, and they work very well with veal scallops.

Olives, capers, oregano, and tomatoes are a simple, zesty addition to a pan of veal scallops.

Fumè means smoked, and these veal scallops have a more woodland feel, with bacon and scamorza affumicata, a smoked Italian cheese which is firm enough to slice, and that melts quite well. In its absence, use another mild flavored, moderately smoked cheese.

Livorno, one of Tuscan's major ports, is known for triglie alla livornese, reef mullet cooked in a zesty tomato sauce. To simply cook braciole in tomato sauce would be drab, no matter how zesty the sauce, and livornesi are not drab. However, if you first bread the cutlets and fry them before finishing them up in the tomato sauce, things are much more interesting. And you have Braciole alla Livornese.

The combination of dried fruit and meat was much more common in the past than it is now in Italy. But this doesn't make it any less tasty, and the combination of prunes and beef is frankly libidinous.

There's something lusty about the combination of beef and shrimp, and these surf and turf kebabs will be perfect for a romantic occasion. Nice at other times too...

The word braciola means different things in different parts of Italy. In the north it's generally a cutlet -- veal or beef -- cooked flat, either with a sauce or over the grill. In the south, on the other hand, the word braciola can also refer to a slice of meat rolled up around a filling -- what's called an involtino further north. A braciolone is a big braciola, and this is a festive dish from Trapani.

Though one can put all sorts of things on steaks, the bottled sauces one finds in the US really haven't caught on in Italy. What one does often encounter is this simple sauce made with pickled green peppercorns.

As I have said before, mustard is relatively rare in Italian cooking. However, here it does a fine job of balancing the sweetness of the figs that accompany the filet. A voluptuous dish that will do nicely in a romantic situation (though you'll want to halve the ingredients).

Kyle's Burgers: These aren't exactly Italian, but all my Italian in-laws, even those who normally recoil from Svizzere, as hamburgers are known in Italy, ask for more of these.

Marinated Grilled Filet, or Filetto Marinato alla Griglia:Italian grilling tends to be fairly simple: in many cases one simply sets the meat over the coals and seasons it with salt and pepper as it cooks. However, there are exceptions to the rule, and this one is tasty.

This is a simple, zesty dish that obviously draws from the Neapolitan carne alla pizzaiola, though it is a little quicker to do and also has peppers.

Primavera sauce is incredibly variable; some people like some vegetables, and some vegetables do better in one vegetable patch as opposed to another, so no two recipes are alike, though they all do share the freshness of spring. This sauce will work quite nicely over scaloppini, and preparing a tasty meal with it will take minutes.

Beef Fillet with Truffles and Apples, or Filetto Con Tartufi e Mele: There aren't that many Italian dishes that feature fruit, but they do occur. Because of the sweetness of the apples and the mustard, I'd be tempted to serve it with a full bodied white wine, say a Sauvignon from Friuli's Collio.

Cutlets Stuffed with Provolone, or Cotolette Farcite di Provolone: Among the most popular -- at least to judge from television advertising -- prepared foods in Italy are something called Sofficini, which are cheesy croquets that generally have something else within the breading, be it ham or chicken or whatever. These cutlets are similar, but will taste much better because the ingredients are fresh. The recipe will also work nicely with caciocavallo.

Every trattoria in rome offers veal or chicken scallops cooked in a Marsala sauce.

Milanese Veal Involtini, or Involtini di Vitello alla Milanese: According to Adriano De Carlo, the general population of Lomabrdia has enjoyed meat for centuries, and this is, he says, a mark of civilization, not mere ostentation of wealth. To be frank I have my doubts; the poor of Lombardia, like those of the rest of the North, survived mainly on Polenta until well into this century. I do agree with him, however, when he says...

An Italian Style Beef and Sausage Barbecue

Torino-Style or Steaks, Bistecche alla Torinese: Steak works very well with beans, as this Piemontese recipe shows. To serve 6:

Scaloppine with Tuscan Pecorino, or Scaloppine al Pecorino Toscano: This is a simple, tasty recipe from the people who oversee the production of pecorino Toscano DOP. It will be quite tasty, and were I to decide to vary it the most I'd add is a dash of lemon juice. In terms of a wine, a Bianco di Pitigliano, which is light and crisp.

How Done Is That Meat? With the arrival of spring, it's time to fire up the grill. One of the most difficult things for inexperienced grillers is judging the doneness of the meats they're cooking, and it may come as a surprise to some that one of the best ways of judging is touch.

Involtini Messicani: A recipe for Valentine's Day. If you and your significant other happen to be hungry and like polenta, Livio Cerrini di Castegnate suggests these involtini, which he rather whimsically calls Messicani in his A Tavola Per Amare.

Mention the word "steak" and you'll likely think of a grill with glowing coals, and that's what I usually think of too. However, unless you have a hearth in your home you may want to consider other techniques during the winter months. Roasting a steak in salt gives surprisingly tasty results.

Veal Uccelletto Style, or Vitello all'Uccelletto: In Tuscany uccelletto generally refers to cranberry beans cooked with a little tomato sauce, and perhaps sausages. Vitello all'uccelletto is instead Ligurian home cooking, one of those quick, easy things that's ideal for contrasting the lack of appetite one often finds among children or the elderly. If you're making it for children, you may want to omit the wine.

Beef Fillet, Bismarck Style, Filetto alla Bismarck: This may strike some as a rather odd erotic dish, and Livio Cerini di Castegnate doubts the Iron Chancellor would be too excited to discover that it's one of his major claims to fame, but it will add a special touch, especially during a (late) breakfast designed to get the juices going again.

Stuffed Beef Filets, or Filetti di Bue Farciti: Usually one thinks of white truffles as something to go over a dish. Here they're in it, and work very well.

Sicilian Grilled Involtini, or Involtini Arrostiti: This is a delightfully refreshing recipe. To serve 6 you'll need:

Palermo-Style Cutlets, or Arrosto Palermitano: Simple Sicilian grilled beef cutlets, and refreshing too.

Veal Cutlets with Peppers, or Costolette di Vitello coi Peperoni: This is Calabrian recipe, and ideally the peppers should have some bite. If need be, however, you can use sweet bell peppers instead.

Val D'Aosta-Style Cutlets, or Costolette alla Valdostana: The Val D'Aosta is famed for its dairy products, so the use of butter and cheese here come as no surprise. The recipe is, however, a relatively new development, thought up to please tourists who visit the region.

Contadina-Style Veal Chops, or Costolette alla Contadina: This is a simple, hearty recipe from Lombardia that makes pleasing use of beans as well. The use of cloves is somewhat unusual, as Italian dentists still used clove oil on cavities until recently, and some cooks will omit them.

Beef Cutlets Palermo-Style, or Bracioline alla Palermitana: The use of pine nuts and raisins dates to the time that Sicily was an Arab province, almost a thousand years ago. These are grilled, and will serve six.

The Wine-Maker's Veal Cutlets, or Braciole del Vinaio: This Tuscan recipe is simpler than the ingredient list might make you think, and will be quite refreshing on a crisp fall day.

Veal Involtini with Asparagus Tips, or Involtini di Vitello con Asparagi: These are quick to do and tasty too.

Carpaccio: On the forum there was a request for Carpaccio; Don posted this reply and kindly allowed me to pass it on: Carpaccio, named after a painter in 15th century, is a celebrated dish at Harry's Bar at Venice. The dish is created in favour of customer whose the doctor advise him only to eat raw meat. There are many variations of the dish, including the one in which beef fillet is coated with peppercorns and sliced paper thin, but here is my favourite.

Cutlets in Orange Sauce, or Filettini all'Arancia: This recipe, like chicken in orange sauce, is relatively recent, as is shown by the inclusion of Worcestershire sauce.

Veal Cutlets with Pomagranite Sauce, or Fettine alla Melagrana: This rather unusual fall recipe will take about a half hour to prepare, and will serve 4.

Pinzette are floured ground veal patties, sauteed in a Marsala sauce, and are an Italian Jewish dish. Giuliana Ascoli Vitali-Norsa suggests they be served for Yom Kippur, though they will be good at any time of year, and are also quick to prepare.

Simple, quick, and tasty too. Do go easy on the garlic, however.

Many in the English-speaking world would call this a Porterhouse and wonder what the fuss is about. And they'd be right in most cases; though fiorentine are featured prominently on the menus of almost all the restaurants in Florence, finding a good one isn't at all easy. But when you do it's heaven on earth, delightfully rich, flavorful rare meat so tender it can be cut with a spoon. Much of the secret is the breed of cattle, Chianina beef...

Involtini are braciole, or cutlets, rolled up arouand a filling. In this case made primarily from Parmigiano, and the results are very nice.

This is a Lombard recipe. The combination of meat and fish may strike you as strange, but is common in Lombard cooking -- vitello tonnato comes to mind -- and extremely nice in the summer months.

Artichokes work very well with veal, and these involtini are one of our standard winter dishes.

Ada Boni presents a tremendous variety of recipes in the Talismano della Felicità, which grew out of her experiences teaching cookery in Rome in the 1920s. Here's a tasty way to prepare veal.

Bell peppers go nicely with all sorts of things, and are perfect with veal chops.

Steak with a tasty pizzaiola sauce, which Don kindly posted to the Italian cuisine forum.

Veal is quite versatile, and a thinly sliced cutlet can be folded over and sown shut to make a packet, which can in turn be filled with porcini or similar wild mushrooms. In short, a great delight.

Sicily boasts glorious olives and capers, and they work quite nicely as a filling in these rolled up braciole. They're best grilled over the coals, though you can roast them in the oven if need be. For 6 you will need:

Depending upon where you are in Italy braciole can be either flat cutlets or rolled up scallops. In this case they're rolled up, and the filling is spread over them prior to the rolling. Tasty!

No collection of cutlet and scaloppini recipes would be complete without Carne alla pizzaiola: "It's so humble and so simple it has no history -- nobody knows who invented it or when, though the name suggests its cradle may have been a pizza oven, and its father the pizzaiolo. But does it matter? Let's just enjoy it as it deserves (Caròla Francesconi, La Cucina Napoletana, p. 433)."

Thoughts of sage bring to mind Saltimbocca, one of the most classic Roman dishes. The name literally translates as hopinthemouth and is singularly appropriate -- you can never have too many of these cutlets.

There are a great many recipes for veal with Marsala. This is from Artusi, who also includes some sage.

This is another recipe from Artusi; it's a bit more rustic than some, and includes both olives and capers in the rub coating the meat. In short, zesty.

Bartola's Cutlets: A tasty variation on stewed cutlets or scallops from Pellegrino Artusi.

This lemony egg sauce works perfectly with veal cutlets, therichness of the eggs providing body and the lemon deftness.

Older Italian cookbooks assume you know what you're familiar enough with the recipe to get the proportions right if you know what the ingredients are. For those who prefer quantities, here is a more modern recipe for Cotolette alla Bolognese, known in the English Speaking world as Veal Parmigiana:

Artusi liked living in style, and for him truffles were a natural way to jazz up something humdrum like a veal cutlet. And they are good, though the more moderate in means among us might find his prosciutto variation, which closely resembles veal Parmigiana, better suited to our pockets.

This is Artusi's variation on that perennial Milanese favorite, the breaded veal cutlet.

A tournedos is a thick slice of beef filet, and is very tasty grilled. In this case it's topped with red radicchio from Treviso, whose bitterness nicely complements the meat and the cheese.

Piccata is a Milanese specialty. The term derives from picchiare, to hit or pound, and refers to the pounding of thin slices of meat to further flatten them out. The meat traditionally used in preparing piccata is veal scallops, while the liquid traditionally added at the end of the cooking just before serving the meat, is Marsala. There are many variations; here we have veal with slivered ham, and a variation with capers and parsley too.

Surfing the net the other night, I came across a recipe for Wienerschnitzel and realized how closely it resembles the Cotoletta alla Milanese: Both are breaded veal cutlets; the Viennese bone theirs and dredge them in both flour and bread crumbs, whereas the Milanese just use bread crumbs, and the Viennese fry in lard whereas the Milanese use butter. To prepare this you should use veal, though you can, if you prefer, substitute thinly sliced beef.

Leonard Bibbo uses veal rib chops for his saltimbooca, and completes them with a tasty wine sauce.

"Anyone can make a veal cutlet," says Artusi, who proposes a tasty variation.

A breaded veal cutlet, graced with cheese and truffles.

An extremely tasty filet!

Meat & Potatoes, Piemontese style.

Caught short one day, Leonard developed another saltimbocca variation, with a red wine and tomato based sauce.

Veal Scaloppini in a tasty, creamy zucchini-based primavera sauce.

Steak, with zucchini, in a balsamic vinegar sauce; a tasty looking recipe from the Artisan.

I've never seen this in Italy, but it does look good.

A grilled version of the Neapolitan classic, with the meat cut into strips after ti comes off the grill and simmered in the sauce, which can also work with pasta.

He uses strip steak, and marinates it (lightly) in lemon juice.

About.Com's Barbecue guide suggests things I would never have thought of, including spaghetti.

Beef involtini filled with a bread, olive and anchovy stuffing, to go into pasta sauce as it simmers on the stove. From the folks at the Artisan.

A delightful tribute to the late Elizabeth Giandomenico, with an explanation of how she made braciole (involtini) for her family, and several recipes to choose from. Quite nice. From la Lama Family Secrets.

Cured beef, a wonderful north Italian specialty that's perfect on a hot day. From the folks at The Artisan.

"...Whoever said ‘money can’t buy happiness’ didn’t know where to shop..." A truffle-laced burger; the language of the site is not for the easily offended.

Brandy and Gorgonzola work pleasing magic here. From La Lama Family Secrets.

Cutlets with prosciutto, eggplant and mozzarella done in a marinara sauce (with some other things added).

Portafogli are similar to involtini -- both are made using cutlets, veal in this case -- but whereas the involtino is a cutlet or scallop spread with a filling and rolled up, the portafoglio is simply folded over the filling, making a wallet. These will be a nice variation in a family meal, and could also -- if you halve the recipe -- be nice...

Fillet with a green peppercorn sauce was extremely popular a few years ago, and though now those who follow food fashion find it somewhat passé, I still enjoy it. Here we have a variation in the theme, which also calls for mustard, a condiment that isn't that popular in Italy, but that I don't often see people refuse.