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Meat Omelette
(Polpettone) Take one pound of veal, without bones, clean it well taking away all skins and tendons and then chop it together with a slice of ham. Season moderately with salt pepper and spices, add one whole egg then with moistened hands make a ball of the chopped meat and sprinkle with flour.
Make a hash with two or three slices of onion (not more) parsley, celery, and carrot, put it on the fire with a piece of butter and when it is browned throw in the Polpettone. Brown well on all sides and then pour in the saucepan half a tumbler of water in which half a tablespoonful of flour has been previously diluted. Cover and make it simmer on a very low fire, seeing that it doesn't burn. When you serve with the gravy squeeze the juice of half a lemon over it.
If desired a hard boiled egg can be put shelled in the center of the meat ball, so that it gives it a better appearance when sliced. 78
A braised veal loaf, not an omelette at all — the translator was reaching for a word. It cooks entirely on the stovetop, and the whole success of it lies in browning the loaf hard before any liquid goes in.
- The namePolpettone is the augmentative of polpetta, a meatball: a large meatball, i.e. a meat loaf or roll. Nothing in the method involves eggs beaten and set, so ignore the English title.
- Chopping the meat"Chop" here means hand-chopped or ground. A single grind through a coarse plate, or a few pulses in a food processor, gives the texture intended; a fine paste will turn dense and rubbery.
- "Spices"In Italian cookery of this period this often meant a pinch of grated nutmeg, sometimes with a trace of cinnamon or clove. Nutmeg, kept faint, is a safe reading.
- A tumblerA drinking tumbler is conventionally taken as about 8 fl oz, though the book does not define it; on that reading half a tumbler is roughly 1/2 cup of water with 1/2 tablespoon flour whisked in. Add more water in small amounts if the pan threatens to dry out over the long simmer.
- The hash of vegetablesThis is a battuto — onion, parsley, celery and carrot chopped fine and cooked in butter until fragrant and lightly coloured. The instruction not to exceed two or three slices of onion is deliberate; too much and it dominates the veal.
- Binder and handlingOne egg and a dusting of flour are all that hold a pound of veal together. Moisten your hands as directed, compact the loaf firmly, and turn it with two spoons or tongs rather than a fork so it does not split in the pan.
- Timing and donenessNo time is given. A one-pound loaf, browned then covered and simmered on the lowest heat, needs roughly 45 minutes to an hour; cook to 160F at the centre. Ground veal should not be served pink.
- The buried eggIf you use the hard-boiled egg, peel it, centre it lengthwise and pack the meat around it with no air gaps, or the loaf will crack along the seam as it cooks.
- Yield and servingServes three to four. Rest the loaf five minutes before slicing thick, spoon over the pan gravy, and add the lemon juice only at the table — squeezed in earlier it goes flat.
This comes from Maria Gentile's The Italian Cook Book (1919), one of a run of English-language books aimed at American households curious about the food of a large and recent immigrant population, and much of it reads as a loose translation of Italian domestic cookery of the period — including the occasional wobble, like calling a meat loaf an omelette. Polpettone is a thrift dish in origin: a way of turning a modest quantity of meat, stretched with egg and often with bread, into something that slices and serves several. The whole egg set in the middle so that each slice shows a yellow eye is a very old trick, common across Italian regional cooking and often said to be as much about showing well on the table as about flavour. The dish is braised rather than roasted.