Saltimbocca (Page 456)

• Date: Wednesday, September 20, 2006 - 8pm
• Location: Somerville, MA
• Kitchen: My Apartment
• Fellow Chefs: Matt H, Ana, Craig, Peter, and Marco
  
• Recipe Rating: A-

Ana picked this recipe for dinner on Wednesday. This dish was quite good. Some people gave it lower grades, but mainly that was due to the fact that the meat was not quite cooked enough for the dish to be just right. That isn't the fault of the recipe though. We started with veal cutlets that were thicker than indicated, and although we pounded them, I think they were still a bit too thick. We should have cooked the scaloppine another 30 seconds and they would have been perfect! The recipe was extremely good though. The classical veal-prosciutto-sage combination is always wonderful, and the sauce was great (Ana wanted to grade the sauce separately just so she could give it an A+).

Making this dish was also a good group activity! Matt and Ana beautifully layered and secured the veal, sage, and prosciutto. Then Peter helped by carefully timing the 45 seconds on one side and 15 seconds on the other side that the meat cooked. Matt and Ana were the brave ones to get close enough to the spitting oil to flip the meat. Here's a picture of Peter telling Matt it's time to flip! Meanwhile, Craig was trying to melt chocolate on the back burner for the chocolate souffle. We were a little worried that so much olive oil was spitting that the souffle would be slightly veal flavored. It came out well though, so Craig must have done a good job of protecting the chocolate!

I discovered tonight that the most peaceful way to do all the administrative type things that go along with job applications is to drink one mini-size Corona, turn off all overhead lighting, turn on some very comforting music (recommendation: Nickel Creek), and work by the glow of the desk lamp and the computer screen.