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Veal piccata

FDL
By
Fine Dining Lovers
Editorial Staff
Difficulty
Intermediate
Total Time
30MIN
Ingredients

All purpose flour: 4.2 oz

Salt: to taste

Vegetable oil: 2 tbsp

Veal cutlets: 2 oz, pounded flat

Chicken stock: 8 oz

Dry sherry: 4 oz

Lemon juice: 1 tbsp

Capers : 2 tbsp

Unsalted butter: 2 tbsp

Italian parsley : 2 tbsp

Lemon slices: for garnish

For a classic Italian American dish, read on for our easy veal piccata recipe below. It’s a tasty dish that’s sure to impress at your next dinner party

How to make a veal piccata recipe
01.

Combine the all-purpose flour and salt on a plate.

02.

Heat the vegetable oil in a pan over medium heat. Whilst the oil is heating, coat the veal cutlets in the flour, and cook individually in the pan for around 3 minutes on each side. 

03.

Once the cutlets are cooked, transfer them to a plate covered with tin foil. Then add the chicken stock, dry sherry, lemon juice, and capers to the pan and scrape off any leftover flavor from the veal cutlets on the bottom of the pan. Bring the liquid to a boil and then reduce the heat to low and leave to simmer for a few minutes to allow the mixture to reduce. 

04.

Remove from the heat and mix in the unsalted butter and Italian parsley. Plate up the cutlets, and cover generously with the sauce. Serve with a wedge of lemon to the side for added lemon juice. 

Tips & tricks

To make sure you get the tastiest veal piccata, you’ll first need to ask yourself the question of what is veal piccata? In its simplest form, it means pounded pan-fried veal cutlets. So to get the most out of this dish, you’ll need to ensure you’ve pounded your cutlets to an even thickness, so they cook at similar rates. This can be quickly achieved at home by pounding your cutlets with a meat mallet between plastic wrap, or using a rolling pin if you don’t have a specific meat pounding tool. 

We’ve featured dry sherry in the recipe above, but you could use a dry white wine if this is more to your liking. Just ensure you don’t use a sweet wine as this will overpower the flavor of the sauce. Some chefs will also vary the citrus element used. In the recipe shared above we’ve used lemon, which is classically found in this recipe, but orange will bring a sweeter taste to your sauce. Grapefruit can bring a hint of bitterness if you’d prefer more complex, sophisticated flavors. The salty element of the dish is found in the capers, but if this is too polarizing for your taste, Italian olives are more widely popular and bring the saltiness needed to balance the sauce. 

Veal can be an expensive cut of beef, so if you want to explore using different cuts for this dish to make it more affordable, we have a useful guide and infographic detailing 60 different beef cuts for you to explore and choose from. 

How to serve it

Veal piccata is at its best when served alongside hearty side dishes of potatoes. From fluffy mashed potatoes, to scalloped varieties, you can’t go wrong with any type of potato matched with a veal piccata. Of course, with its Italian roots, veal piccata is also perfectly at home when paired with a bed of fresh pasta. You can use any variety of pasta shape you like, and the piccata sauce is a delicious coating for the pasta, as well as the veal. 

Storage

You can keep any leftover veal piccata in the fridge for up to three days, in an airtight container. It’s possible to reheat the veal cutlets but make sure you do so on a low heat, and add a little stock to cover the cutlets whilst reheating so they don’t dry out. You can freeze the cutlets if necessary, but it’s better if you haven’t already added the veal piccata sauce to the cutlets before doing so. 

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