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Veal Cutlets, Milanaise
Neatly trim and well flatten six nice veal cutlets. Season all over with a teaspoon salt and half teaspoon white pepper; lightly roll in a little flour, then lightly dip in a beaten-up egg and roll lightly in fresh bread crumbs. Heat well in a frying pan three tablespoons leaf lard, arrange in the pan, one beside another and slowly cook for ten minutes on each side. Have a spaghetti Milanaise in the centre of a hot dish. Dress the cutlets crown-like over the spaghetti and serve.
A straightforward breaded veal cutlet with a pasta garnish, from an era when cutlets were cut thicker and cooked far longer than we would now. Two things need attention: the timing and the meaning of "Milanaise."
- The timing is the hingeTen minutes per side will turn a flattened cutlet grey and dry. A cutlet pounded to about a quarter inch needs two to three minutes a side over medium-high heat, until the crumbs are deep gold and the meat is just firm.
- What cut to buyVeal top round or leg cut into scaloppine, six pieces of 3-4 oz each. Pound between sheets of plastic wrap with a flat mallet until even; "well flatten" is the whole technique, since uneven thickness guarantees some parts overcook.
- Leaf lardLeaf lard is the soft fat from around the kidneys, prized for its clean flavour and high smoke point. Regular lard, clarified butter, or a mix of butter and neutral oil all work; three tablespoons is about right for a 12-inch pan.
- Spaghetti MilanaiseNot a recipe given here. In the French professional kitchen of this book's period, "à la milanaise" meant pasta tossed with tomato sauce and a julienne of cooked ham, tongue, mushrooms and sometimes truffle, finished with grated cheese. Any tomato-dressed spaghetti with ham and mushroom stands in.
- BreadingFlour, egg, crumbs, each layer light, as written. Let the breaded cutlets rest ten minutes before frying so the coating sets and does not slide off in the pan.
- White pepperThe recipe specifies it without saying why; the usual reason in pale crumb coatings is that it leaves no black specks. Black pepper will do, but it does not taste the same, so the swap is not purely cosmetic.
- Yield and platingServes six as written. "Crown-like" means the cutlets leaned against one another in a ring around the mound of spaghetti. A lemon wedge per plate is a period-appropriate addition.
Alexander Filippini spent years in the kitchens of Delmonico's in New York, and his books catalogue the French-trained restaurant repertoire of the late nineteenth century, in which nearly every dish carried a garnish name. "Milanaise" here is doing double duty: the breaded, crumbed cutlet itself echoes the cotoletta alla milanese of Lombardy, whose kinship with Viennese schnitzel is a long-running and unresolved argument, while in the French garnish vocabulary a la milanaise specifically signalled pasta with tomato and a julienne of ham, tongue and mushrooms. A cook of the period would have needed no further explanation of the spaghetti, which is why Filippini gives none. The dish belongs to the moment when Italian ingredients were entering grand hotel cookery through a French filter, arriving with French names and French proportions.