Tuesday 18 March 2014

Still Italian - Saltimbocca alla Romana with Roasted Vegs

I am still in the mood for Italy or was it Italian food? I would right away do a food trip to Italy, if I could. However, as there is no room for thinking about that at the moment I have some more Italian food: Saltimbocca. It may be strangely, but that was something popping into my mind when thinking further about Italian food. I wanted to make it for some time now. The only problem so far was, to come across some nice veal escalopes.
A few days then, it was the case, so I started searching for some ideas and found something from the Jamie Oliver magazine: Saltimbocca alla Romana.


That sounded perfectly good for me ... eh ... almost good for me. I just made a tiny bit of adjustment.
First of all, I concentrated on what to have with my saltimbocca. The original idea was to have some rosemary potatoes. Instead I went for a bit more colour. So, feel free to use any kind of vegetables you love to have or want to use up.
I used potato, courgette, carrot and celery. I simple chopped up the vegetables in different shapes, seasoned them with some dried rosemary and salt and dripped enough olive oil on top of them.


Because that wasn't good enough for me, I tossed in some whole garlic cloves, which to squeeze over the vegs after roasting them for about 30 minutes at 200 °C in the oven.

Just before the roasted vegetables are ready, you can prepare the saltimbocca.

Ingredients (for 1 person):
1 veal escalope (about 100 g)
Black pepper
Some sage leaves
2 slices of Parma ham
A splash of olive oil
2 knobs of butter
A splash of sweet white wine

Method:
I started my saltimbocca with flattening it out. Sometimes I need to make some noise, so the neighbours know I am still alive.


Then I went on seasoning the meat with some black pepper. After that I placed a few of the tiny sage leaves I still had left from the bunch of sage I had bought a few weeks ago.
Just a few stems had survived them. I had put them in a glass with some water. One of the stems had developed some roots now. So I planted that one into a pot and used the leaves from the other stem.
Over the sage leaves then, the two slices of Parma ham were placed.


Time to heat up the pan with some olive oil and a knob of butter. From here on, things go quite fast. The saltimbocca needs two minutes on each side. Then you remove it from the pan, cover it with aluminium foil and leave it to rest until you are finished with the sauce.
In order to do that, you add another knob of butter and a splash of sweet white wine to the pan you have still on the heat. Add some more sage leaves to the pan and quickly reduce the sauce, because I am hungry.


Plate up the Saltimbocca alla Romana with some of the roasted vegetables and enjoy a very delicious meal. Now I remember, why I always wanted to make saltimbocca, because it tastes so great - that is, if you have used good quality ingredients.

Before I come to end here I like to add this post to some challenges.
First of all to Javelin Warrior's Made with Love Mondays. I didn't see anything wrong in the ingredients I used. It's all from scratch here.

JWsMadeWLuvMondays

The herbs in that dish are obvious. You can even see them on the photos, the rosemary and the sage. So I even used herbs according to this month's Cooking with Herbs, which is managed by Karen from Lavender & Lovage.

March Challenge for Cooking with Herbs

Now it's just time to continue thinking of Italy. I don't know whether reading Romeo & Juliet will help ... or some Italian wine is necessary ... who knows!?

15 comments:

  1. Sounds like a lovley dinner! And, I agree, herbs make everything so much better! :)

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    1. Along that line I hope I will be able to get that sage going. I should get some rosemary for my windowsill, too.

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  2. I don't make a lot of recipes with veal, but I do love the flavor and texture. This is particularly easy to make and love the pairing with roasted vegetables...

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    1. Let me think for a while, I think that was the first time I used veal. Since that one tasted so luvly I will keep my eyes open for when I see veal on offer somewhere.

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  3. I've got a few saltimbocca recipes on my blog but none using veal! I believe this is the most traditional meat for this dish and I'm interested in giving it a shot :) Yours looks delicious!

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    1. You really should give it a shot. It's worth it.

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  4. A lovely dinner - I hope you did enjoy some wine with it!

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    1. Oh, you are right, a nice glass of Chianti would have been lovely.

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  5. Love saltimbocca, though I mostly do it as a chicken dish. So flavourful!

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    1. It's really great, I have to check it with chicken next time and see which one works best for me.

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  6. As usual Chris, your use of herbs is impeccable and I LOVE this classic Italian recipe! JUST lovely! Karen

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    1. I'm glad you like it, Karen, thank you! Without herbs it simply wouldn't work. Good we have a lot of herbs.

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