The walls of Melbourne restaurant Tipico are decked with contemporary illustrations that serve as visual accompaniment to the clever twists on classic Italian dishes coming out of the kitchen – like this golden, crisp veal cotoletta. The twist comes in the form of a robust grissini (breadstick) crumb, finished with aromatic herbs. Serve it up with some giardiniera (lightly pickled vegetables) to cut through the hot olive oil.
"Veal cotoletta is a traditional Milanese dish. Born and raised in Milano, it's a dish I grew up with and a beautiful recipe I want to continue to cook," says Tipico head chef Daniele Colombo.
"We kept the cotoletta idea but instead of using the normal breadcrumb, we are using some smashed grissini to give a unique texture and flavour to the cotoletta."
Start this recipe a day ahead for best results.
Crumbed veal cotoletta
Serves 1–2
Ingredients:
Cotoletta
2 x 350g veal cutlets (ask your butcher to trim off any sinew and flatten the meat)
200g grissini (breadsticks)
100g plain white flour
2 eggs, beaten
100g grated parmesan cheese
Fresh parsley (slightly chopped)
Finely grated zest of 2 lemons
Fine sea salt
Canola or light olive oil for shallow frying
Fresh rosemary
Fresh thyme
Giardiniera
1 brown onion
1 red capsicum
1 yellow capsicum
1 cauliflower
1 broccoli
2 carrots
250ml water
25g salt
1L white wine
500ml white wine vinegar
125g caster sugar
Parsley (optional)
Mint (optional)
Method:
Cotoletta
Prepare the cotoletta crumbs by roughly smashing the grissini.
Mix together the parmesan, grissini crumbs and parsley. Lightly season each chop with salt and pepper and dip in flour, then into the beaten egg. Press the chops into the crumb mix, ensuring an even coating.
In a wide-based pan, heat enough olive oil to cover the base (it needs to cover almost half of a chop). Once hot, add the chops (they can be cooked in batches if your pan is not big enough to hold them all at once).
Cook over medium heat until golden brown on both sides. When flipping the cotoletta, add some fresh herbs to infuse the oil for extra flavour.
When done, transfer the pan with the cotoletta to a preheated oven at 200 degrees and cook for four to five minutes to keep the meat medium-rare.
Remove from the oven and let the meat rest for a few minutes in a warm place so the cotoletta can get a uniformed temperature.
Flash the cotoletta back in the oven for 1 minute before serving.
Serve with fresh rosemary, extra virgin olive oil and salt flakes.
Giardiniera
Clean the vegetables (red capsicum, yellow capsicum, onion, cauliflower, broccoli, carrots). Cut the carrots into long squares, fine-slice the capsicum and cut the rest of the vegetables into small wedges.
Add the vegetables into a jar.
In a pot, mix the white wine, white wine vinegar, salt, sugar and water, and bring to a boil.
Pour the hot boiling liquid into the jar and close so the vegetables can cook a little bit with the steam, but still remain fresh and crunchy. Leave the vegetables to cool down in the jar for at least 24 hours for best results.
Before serving, drain the pickled vegetables from the liquid and dress with salt flakes, extra virgin olive oil, black pepper, fresh parsley and mint.
Serve the vegetables in a bowl next to the cotoletta on a carving board.
