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Stuffed Cutlet
(Braciuoline ripiene) Slice from a piece of veal (about one pound) seven or eight cutlets and beat them well with a knife blade to flatten them. Then chop some tender veal meat and one or two slices of ham and add a small quantity of marrow bone (of veal) and grated cheese. The marrow and the grated cheese must be reduced to a paste with the blade of a knife. One egg is then added to tie up the hash and a pinch of pepper, but no salt on account of the ham and the cheese that already contain it. Spread the cutlets and put the hash in the middle, then roll them up and tie them with strong thread.
Now prepare a small hash with a little onion, a piece of celery a piece of carrot and a small quantity of corned beef and put it in the fire in a saucepan with a small piece of butter, at the same time that you put the cutlets. Season with salt and pepper and when they begin to brown pour some tomato sauce and complete the cooking with Before serving, remove the thread with water. which the cutlets have been tied. 77
A straightforward veal braise — Italian braciuoline ripiene, small rolled and stuffed cutlets. The text as printed has a typesetting scramble near the end; read it as "complete the cooking with water. Before serving, remove the thread with which the cutlets have been tied."
- The hinge: pound thin, roll tightThe cutlets need to be well flattened, or they will not roll without splitting and the filling escapes into the sauce. A pound of veal cut into seven or eight slices means each is already fairly thin; the recipe says to beat them with a knife blade, though a flat mallet between sheets of plastic or parchment is easier to control.
- MarrowVeal marrow bone means the soft fat scraped from the center of a cut leg bone; it adds richness and helps the filling stay moist. Ask a butcher for split marrow bones, or substitute an equal amount of finely chopped beef suet or good pork fatback. Do not use butter here — it melts out.
- "Corned beef"Almost certainly a translation artifact for some Italian salted or cured meat rather than tinned corned beef; pancetta or a piece of prosciutto end serves the purpose in the soffritto.
- Grated cheeseRead as an aged grating cheese, Parmigiano or grana rather than a mild table cheese. The recipe gives no quantity; something on the order of 1/4 cup for a pound of veal is in scale.
- No salt in the fillingThe instruction is deliberate and worth keeping. The ham and the aged cheese carry enough; salt goes only into the vegetable base and sauce.
- TyingStrong thread means plain cotton butcher's twine. Toothpicks work but tend to tear thin veal; twine holds the roll's shape through browning and is easy to snip away at the table stage.
- Timing and liquidBrown the rolls with the chopped onion, celery, carrot and cured meat, add tomato sauce, then loosen with water as it reduces. Small rolls of thin veal need roughly 30 to 45 minutes at a bare simmer, covered — long enough to soften, not long enough to dry out. Add water in small amounts rather than drowning them.
- YieldSeven or eight rolls from one pound of veal serves three or four as a main course, more if the sauce is stretched to dress pasta.
Braciuoline ripiene belongs to a large family of Italian stuffed rolls — involtini, braciole, uccelletti — built on the same logic: a thin slice of meat wrapped around a richer filling, browned, then braised in tomato so the sauce and the meat feed each other. The name comes from braciola, originally a chop or cutlet grilled over coals (brace), with the diminutive marking these as small. This is thrift cooking dressed up: one pound of veal is stretched with scraps, a little cured pork, cheese and marrow, and the braising liquid becomes a second dish. Maria Gentile's The Italian Cook Book, published in New York in 1919, was aimed at American households, and Pellegrino Artusi's 1891 La scienza in cucina carries closely related recipes. The awkward English and the odd "corned beef" both point to fairly direct translation from an Italian source.