Cooking 4 2: Veal Marsala with Fettuccine

Veal Marsala is a very simple dish with few, but high quality ingredients. In fact, it’s often prepared table-side. This variation produces a sauce for some fettuccine to accompany the veal. The addition of some onion, mushrooms, stock and a little tomato paste creates enough volume of sauce to do that job. The dish remains relatively quick to prepare, just have everything prepped and ready because it goes from raw ingredients to finished in just a few minutes!

Now for the wine: This is sort of a mild tasting meal so I thought a Vouvray would be ideal. The 2009 Vouvray Sec of Christophe Thorigny is about as sec as a Vouvray gets but, of course, that means not very. Actually it is a beautifully balanced wine and has a lovely soft feel to it.

The Marsala I’m using is a Fine and Dry, which means it is fairly young. You’ll want to add a little sugar to the sauce. If you use a sweeter Marsala, then skip the sugar. You can wait until you taste the sauce near the end to decide how to correct the sweetness and seasoning.

Ingredients

½ lb. Veal cutlet, thinly sliced

most of the ingredients

Dusting Flour

4 Tbs Butter

1 Tbs Olive Oil

¼ cup Onion, chopped fine

¼ lb. Mushrooms, sliced

2 Tbs Tomato Paste

½ cup Marsala Wine

1 cup Chicken Stock, simmering

Salt and freshly ground Pepper

1 tsp Sugar (depends on taste)

¼ lb. Fettuccine

Fresh Basil leaves, torn into small pieces

Freshly grated Pecorino Romano Cheese

Method

Pound the veal very, very thin.

pounding veal

Prepare all other ingredients: thinly slice Onion and chop into fine dice, Slice Mushrooms ¼ inch thick, tear Basil leaves into small pieces and grate about ¼ cup Pecorino Romano cheese. Heat the stock. Prepare a plate with foil and an extra piece of foil for covering the Veal to keep it warm. Bring a pan of water to the boil and take careful note of the cooking time for the Fettuccine. You will want to add the pasta so that it is finished exactly when you are ready for it.

ingredients prepped

everything ready, water up

You will probably have two batches of Veal for ½ pound. Melt the Butter and a little Oil in a fry pan. Bring to high heat and immediately add the first batch of Veal. Brown one minute on each side, no more! Remove to foil lined plate and brown next batch.

browning veal

When Veal is finished, cover tightly with foil and reserve. Add the Onion and Mushrooms to the pan, reduce heat and toss well (you may want to add a splash more oil). Add the Fettuccine to the boiling water now. Back to the sauce: sprinkle on a little Salt and freshly ground Pepper and let sauté for about 5 minutes.

Add Tomato Paste and stir in well. Let this simmer for a few minutes.