Veal Scaloppine with Lemon

I've been wanting to make Veal Scaloppine for a long time. It's exotic. It looks easy. Marcella says its all in the cut, and, as you may expect, she says the butchers don't cut it right. Even in Italy. She buys her own hunk of meat and cuts it herself. What chance did I have.

Anyway, I bought some meat from the butcher. Not a hunk. Bits. They were labeled Veal Schnitzel but the butcher swore it was the right cut. I asked him if was cut against the grain, and was from the 'top round'. He said that the way it was done was the way they did it. I asked him again and he looked angry and confused. I bought the veal.

I made some mash to go with it. I was pleased to see I hadn't forgotten how to do it. One benefit of aircon is that you can eat mash in the summer. The recipe for the veal is dead easy, in the 70s Marcella fashion. Butter, lemon and parsley are the holy trinity. That wasn't my worry though, it was cooking the veal. It looked simple enough, but how brown was brown, and how would the meat react to longer cooking?

The meat didn't really brown like golden brown. I didn't want to cook it more than about a minute a side. Unfortunately I don't have anyone to ask about that. Just as I don't have any 'taste memories' to do a sanity check before congratulating myself on any end product.

Anyway, I got it together, and served it with mash. How was the flavour? Lots of lemony goodness, which is nicely Italian and puts smiles on faces. The veal itself wasn't tough, but I'm not as sure as it was as tender as it should have been, again, due to a lack of anyone having ever cooked something like this for me.

Perhaps it should have been browner. I would like to heat the pan more, and use a little less butter. I'm going to look into the browning side of things traditionally for this cut, and cooking times, and also try some quality Italian joints to see how theirs tastes.