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Veal Cutlets, Neapolitan
Trim and neatly flatten six veal cutlets and place on a plate. Season with a teaspoon salt and half teaspoon white pepper; spread a very little melted butter on both sides of the cutlets, then roll nicely in two ounces grated Parmesan cheese. Heat two tablespoons melted lard in a large frying pan, place the cutlets, one beside another, in the pan and fry gently for eight minutes on each side; then keep warm on a corner of the range. Plunge half pound macaroni into two quarts boiling water with a tablespoon salt and boil for forty minutes. Thoroughly drain on a sieve, place them in a sautoire with two gills hot tomato sauce, gently mix with a fork and cook for five minutes. Add two ounces grated Parmesan cheese and toss well for one minute. Dress on a hot dish, arrange the cutlets over the macaroni and serve. N. B. The macaroni should be prepared before the cutlets.
A straightforward Parmesan-crusted veal cutlet over dressed macaroni. Two things in the original need adjusting: the pasta time and the frying time.
- Macaroni for forty minutesPeriod cookbooks often gave long boiling times for imported dried macaroni, though forty minutes is at the long end even for the time. Modern dried macaroni needs 8-10 minutes, or a minute less if it is going on to cook five more in the sauce.
- Two gillsA gill is half a cup, so two gills is one cup of hot tomato sauce for half a pound of macaroni. That is a light dressing rather than a smothering, which is the intent here.
- Cutlet thickness and timeEight minutes a side assumes cutlets flattened but still fairly thick. A veal cutlet pounded to a quarter-inch, as commonly sold now, needs two to three minutes a side; longer and the Parmesan crust burns before the meat is done cooking dry.
- LardTwo tablespoons of lard is fine and gives the cleanest browning, but clarified butter or a neutral oil works. Whole butter alone will scorch at the heat needed to set the cheese crust.
- Cheese as coatingGrated Parmesan applied to buttered meat with no flour or egg is a fragile crust. Press it on firmly, let the cutlets sit a few minutes before frying, and turn them once only.
- SautoireA sautoire is a straight-sided shallow pan, essentially a modern saute pan or a wide skillet. Any pan broad enough to toss the macaroni will do.
- Keeping warm"A corner of the range" was the cool end of a coal stove. A low oven at 200F, uncovered so the crust stays crisp, is the equivalent.
- YieldSix cutlets with half a pound of macaroni serves six modestly, four generously.
This is the sort of entry that gives The International Cook Book its title: a plain veal cutlet made "Neapolitan" by the two things Anglo-American cooks of the period most firmly associated with Naples, tomato sauce and Parmesan. In the professional kitchen tradition this book draws on, dishes labeled napolitaine generally meant macaroni dressed with tomato and cheese, and the garnish name traveled far from any actual Neapolitan practice. Dried pasta was still an unfamiliar item in many English-language kitchens at this date, and cookbooks of the period often spelled out that it needed salted boiling water and a long boil. The instruction to serve the cutlets arranged over the macaroni, rather than the pasta as a separate course, is in keeping with the French-influenced service of the professional kitchens the author came from.