Piedmont: Vitello Tonnato

Serves 4

1 kg Veal kidney
300 g tuna in oil
30 g pickled capers
6 salted anchovies
4 hard-boiled eggs
1 lemon
1 carrot and 1 celery stalk
White wine to taste
Aromatic herbs (juniper, laurel, cloves, parsley)
White wine vinegar, Salt, Pepper

Piedmont: Vitello Tonnato. Marinate the rump with the herbs, a little black pepper, white wine and vinegar, turning the piece of meat occasionally. The marinating should last at least 12 hours. Remove the meat from the marinade and place it in a pot with the celery and carrot. Strain the marinade, pour it into the pot with the meat adding water until the rump is completely covered, adjust the salt and cook for one hour. When cooked, remove the meat and allow the cooking liquid to thicken. Clean the anchovies well, desalinate the capers, squeeze the lemon, drain the tuna, clean the hard-boiled eggs, chop the parsley and blend all the ingredients together with the thickened meat stock until a smooth sauce is obtained. Cut the cooled meat into thin slices and arrange them on a serving dish. Cover everything with the tuna sauce, adding capers or fresh parsley and a few lemon slices as decoration. The dish in its traditional recipe is nowadays revisited by starred chefs reworking ingredients, textures and flavours. The origin of the dish, however, is at least 200 years old. Tuna was certainly not an easy food to find in Piedmont at that time. However, thanks to the trade in anchovies (widely used in this region), smugglers hid the tuna in the bottom of anchovy barrels. They thus acquired the typical flavour of today’s sauce that accompanies thin slices of veal. The ideal accompaniment for Vitello Tonnato is a white wine with a good alcohol content such as a Chardonnay.