Cima alla Genovese
Liguria · antipasto · serves 8 · 300 min total · hard
Genoa's celebration meat — a magic-trick of a dish. Plain veal breast, baroque filling, slowly poached, flattened overnight, sliced like a mosaic.
Ingredients
- 1500 g veal breast, pocket cut
- 200 g sweetbreads, blanched
- 300 g ground veal
- 150 g fresh peas
- 4 eggs eggs
- 80 g Parmigiano Reggiano
- 60 g pine nuts
- 1 bunch marjoram
- 2 cloves garlic
- 80 g crustless white bread, soaked in milk
- 1 pinch nutmeg
- 3 L light beef broth
Method
- Have the butcher cut a pocket in the veal breast.
- Filling: chop sweetbreads, mix with ground veal, peas, beaten eggs, Parmigiano, pine nuts, chopped marjoram, mashed garlic, soaked squeezed bread, nutmeg, salt.
- Stuff the veal pocket loosely (the filling expands). Sew the opening shut with kitchen twine.
- Wrap the cima in muslin cloth. Tie tight.
- Submerge in barely simmering broth. Cook 2.5 hours.
- Lift out. Press under a weighted board overnight in the fridge to flatten and set.
- Unwrap, slice thin. Serve at room temperature on a bed of rocket.