This is the sixth scaloppine recipe. Rather than discuss how tasty the dish was – and it was very tasty – I though I’d discuss the process of turning a piece of veal top round into respectable scaloppine.

Thanks to Marcella’s very careful instructions on page 38 and the expanded comments she made on Cindy’s post a few days ago, I was successful in producing beautiful pieces of scaloppine.
I began with a chunk of top round weighing about a pound, cutting it in 3/8″ thick slices. When I made Irene’s recipe yesterday, I ended up with pounded pieces the size of dinner plates. This time I cut the slices in half before pounding. That worked beautifully for me.

Now to the actual pounding. This photo shows the only tool I own. It is far from ideal. The head is only about 1 1/2″ in diameter. That makes it much harder to stretch the meat as Marcella instructs without tearing. Next time I go to the kitchen store, I’m coming home with a proper pounder – the kind with at least a 3″ head and a vertical handle instead of the hammer type, for more control.

This recipe calls for ham, capers, grappa, heavy whipping cream, and anchovies. I’ve already made my devotion to anchovies clear. I LOVE them. So, I was happy to have the opportunity to use them yet again.
In her instructions, Marcella gives us an interesting mini-lesson in grappa. Like wine, grappa comes from different types of grape. Some of the cheaper grappas are made with a blend of varietals, but the brand I buy is Lorenzo Inga . They pride themselves in their single varietals. I won’t pretend to be connoisseur enough to really discuss the difference between Barolo, Chardonnay, Dolcetto, Moscato, etc. Or to suggest which would have been better for this dish. I chose the Borolo grappa. Basically, because I like Borolo wine. (I’ve linked the company name to their website here so you can check them out.)
Marcella, I’d be interested in finding out what you and Victor think of my choice. Was Borola a good selection, or would you have chosen one of the others for this dish?
In contemplating what to serve with scaloppine, I settled on spaghetti as a side dish. I wanted to use the left over sauce from the pan to dress the spaghetti. So, once the meat had been returned to the pan then transferred to the serving platter, I added a small amount of butter and little of the pasta water to the leftover sauce. Then I tossed the spaghetti with that. We also had the peas from page 517 which I’ll report on when we get to the vegetable chapter. There was one bottle left from the half-case of 2004 Veglio Barolo we had purchased on sale for less than $20.00 a bottle. This seemed to be a fine time to drink it.