Tuna Fillet Coated with Bread and Pepper

Sorry for being away from the blog a bit but this month work (also photographic) and flu left me very little spare time to spend cooking, beside I'm more a photographer than a cook, but my financial status doesn't permit me to hire a proper food stylist, so you have to bear with me!
Begging your pardon today I present sea food that could be appreciated also by people who doesn't like fish. Tuna fillet is very "meat like" and this recipe makes it even more so.


Ingredients for approximately 4 persons: 4 steaks of tuna fillet, 4 medium sized shallots, grated bread, grinded pepper, white wine, parsley, olive oil, salt.

Preparation: wet the tuna with white wine then coat it with the bread, pepper and a pinch of salt, being careful to create an uniform coat. Wet a baking tin with some oil then put the tuna steaks over it. Put the tin in the oven making it grill until the coat will be well browned. In the meanwhile prepare the dishes finely cutting the shallots over them. Place the hot steaks over them and serve with some parsley garnishes.

Veal Fricassea

This week I'm presenting a classic recipe from the Artusi's book: the fricassea. Until some days ago I didn't know that Pellegrino Artusi wasn't of tuscan origin, he was born instead in Romagna, in the city of Forlimpopoli, and he lived in his young days in Bologna to study there. Here's the reason why he knew very well so many recipes of my region, that usually are a bit snobbed by tuscan cooks.
You should pay visit to this fantastic site dedicated to Artusi by his native town administration. But if you can, visit also Forlimpopoli, it's a very nice town and you could easily have a good meal there!

I'm trying to translate the original recipe, but if you can you should buy the book "Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well", you won't get disappointed. The only note I have to add is that I used some veal muscle meat, not the chest.


"The fricassea can be made with chest or muscle of veal, or lamb or chicken. We use the former as an example, the veal chest, and with the same proportions it could be used for the other kind of meat.

Veal Chest 1,1 lbs.
Butter, 1.8 ozs.
Flour, 0.2 oz, a scarce spoonful.
Warm, not hot water, 0.4 pint.
Two egg yolks.
Half lemon.
Some herbs.

Chop up the chest leaving the bones. Put a a pan on the fire with half of the butter and, when it begins to melt, pour into the flour stirring until this has taken a hazel color. Then begin to pour into some water little by little and then a bunch that you can compose with some strips of onion and carrot and threads of parsley, celery and basil, excluding the leaves because they could be melt and make the fricassea look ugly, instead its quality is to have a beautiful homogeneous straw color.
When the water starts to boil, throw into the meat and the rest of the butter, flavoring with salt and white pepper, which is the flower of the common pepper. Cover the pan with a sheet held firm by the lid and let the pan boil slowly. At two thirds party of the cooking timetake out the bunch of herbs and, if it were the season of fresh mushrooms, you can make the recipe more appreciating with 3 -4 ozs. of these cut to thin slices; otherwise, a bit of dried mushrooms.
When you are ready to serve it in table withdrawn the pan from the fire and pour into little by little, stirring, the egg yolks whipped together with the lemon juice.
If the fricassea were made with chicken, cut it to pieces in the joints, excluding the head, neck and claws; for the rest do it in the same way.
The fricassea made in this way is a healthy and delicate plate that appeals especially to whom does not have its palate accostumed to strong and spicy tastes.