Old-style Piedmontese vitello tonnato: eye of round of veal cooked in white wine and served cold with a sauce of tuna, anchovies, capers and hard-boiled egg yolks, without mayonnaise.
Introduction
Vitello tonnato is the festive starter of Piedmont, the one you make the day before and bring to the table cold, in thin slices covered by a hazelnut-coloured sauce. It is a meat dish that tastes of the sea: the meat is a lean cut of veal, the eye of round, cooked slowly in white wine with vegetables and left to cool in its own broth, while the sauce is made of tuna in oil, anchovies and capers, blended with the yolks of hard-boiled eggs and a few spoonfuls of the cooking liquid.
This is the old-style version, the one made in the homes of the Monferrato and the Langhe before mayonnaise arrived: the sauce is bound with hard-boiled yolks and a drizzle of oil, and it is lighter, more savoury and less fatty than the one you often find today. The secret lies entirely in the timing: the meat must cool in its cooking liquid, so that it stays pink and juicy, and the finished dish must rest for a few hours in the fridge, so that the sauce soaks into the slices. Vitello tonnato cannot be improvised at the last minute: it is made calmly, and it is better the next day.
In the glass we put the Monferrato DOC Bianco Tanàche by Tenuta Vallone, a single-variety Arneis from Conzano, mineral and savoury, which the cellar itself recommends with vitello tonnato. To bind the sauce we use the Filtered Veneto del Grappa Extra Virgin Olive Oil, delicately fruity, which binds the yolks without covering the tuna.
The Story of Vitello Tonnato
Vitello tonnato was born in Piedmont, in the middle-class kitchens between Turin and the hills of the Monferrato, and it has a name that has stirred debate. In dialect it is called vitel tonnà, and nineteenth-century cookbooks often wrote it the French way, vitel tonné, as was then the custom for the dishes of the House of Savoy. According to a very widespread explanation, at first «tonnato» did not mean «with tuna» but «cooked like tuna»: the meat was cooked and then preserved in oil, as was done with the fish. The tuna sauce would have come later, but it is with that sauce that the dish entered the books.
The version we know was already written down at the end of the nineteenth century: Pellegrino Artusi published it in La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangiar bene, with boiled eye of round of veal and a sauce of tuna, anchovies, capers, oil and lemon, without a trace of mayonnaise. Mayonnaise arrived in the twentieth century, when the dish left Piedmont and became the festive starter of half of Italy, until it became one of the classics of the Ferragosto lunch in mid-August. In Piedmont it remains a dish for the whole year: it is made for Sundays, for family lunches and for special occasions, and every household has its own measure of capers and anchovies.
Ingredients
For the meat
- eye of round of veal (girello or magatello)800 g
- dry white wine500 ml
- onion1
- carrot1
- celery stalk1
- bay2 leaves
- cloves2
- wateras needed
- salt and peppercornsto taste
For the tuna sauce
- tuna in oil, drained200 g
- anchovy fillets in oil4
- salted capers, desalted1 tablespoon
- hard-boiled eggs (yolks only)3
- Filtered Veneto Extra Virgin Olive Oil del Grappa 500ml3 tablespoons
- lemon juice1 tablespoon
- cooking broth from the meat4-5 tablespoons
To serve
- capersto taste
Equipment Needed
- Tall, narrow saucepan, the size of the meat
- Kitchen string
- Hand blender or food processor
- Long plain-bladed knife or meat slicer
- Large serving platter and cling film
Tip: The meat must be sliced cold, never lukewarm: only when cold can it be cut thinly without shredding. Use a long, very sharp knife with a plain blade and cut against the grain, in a single, decisive movement: the slices should be two or three millimetres thick, almost transparent. If you have a meat slicer, use it: it is the surest way to get even slices.
How to Make Vitello Tonnato — Piedmontese Recipe
The meat
Tie the eye of round with string so that it keeps its shape. In a tall, narrow saucepan, only just larger than the meat, put the onion, the carrot and the celery cut into pieces, the bay leaves, the cloves and a few peppercorns. Lay the meat on top, pour in the white wine and add just enough water to barely cover it. Bring to the boil, add salt, turn the flame down to the minimum and cook with the lid ajar for about an hour: the liquid should shiver, not boil. Meanwhile, hard-boil the eggs in boiling water for 9 minutes and cool them under running water.
Chef's tip: The meat is cooked when, pierced in the centre with a toothpick, it releases a clear, faintly pink juice. Any longer and it turns grey and dry.
The rest
Turn off the heat and leave the meat to cool in its broth, with the lid on, for at least two hours. This is the step that makes the difference: cooling in the liquid, the meat reabsorbs part of its juice and stays tender and pink, instead of drying out in the air. When it is cold, take it out of the broth, remove the string and set aside a ladleful of the strained cooking liquid, which you will need for the sauce.
Chef's tip: This can also be done the day before: meat and broth, well covered, keep in the fridge until the next morning.
The sauce
Put the drained tuna, the anchovy fillets, the desalted capers and the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs into the blender jug. Blend while adding the extra virgin olive oil and the lemon juice in a thin stream, then thin it with the cooking broth one spoonful at a time, until you have a smooth, creamy sauce that is still thick and coats the spoon without running off. Taste before adding salt: tuna, anchovies and capers are already savoury, and almost always none is needed.
Chef's tip: If the sauce is too thick, add another spoonful of broth, not oil: oil makes it heavy, while broth thins it and gives it the flavour of the meat.
Serving
Cut the cold meat into very thin slices, two or three millimetres thick, against the grain. Spread a film of sauce over the bottom of the serving platter, arrange the slices slightly overlapping and cover them with the rest of the sauce, so that no part of the meat is left uncovered. Cover with cling film and leave to rest in the fridge for at least an hour, better a few hours. Before serving, finish with a few whole capers and take the platter out of the fridge ten minutes beforehand, so that it does not reach the table ice-cold.
Chef's tip: The rest is not a detail: it is the time in which the sauce flavours the meat. Made the evening before, vitello tonnato is at its best at lunch.
Wine to Pair with Vitello Tonnato
Vitello tonnato is a meat dish that behaves at the table like a fish dish, and that is where the choice of wine starts. The meat is lean and delicate: eye of round of veal cooked slowly in white wine with vegetables, left to cool and sliced thinly, with almost no fat and a discreet flavour. The character comes entirely from the sauce, which is tuna in oil, anchovies and capers blended with hard-boiled yolks and the cooking liquid, and which brings three things into the mouth at once: the oil of the tuna, a high savouriness and the sharp, salty tip of the caper. Three rules follow. The first: tannin must be kept low, because against the oil of the tuna and the anchovy a firm tannin turns bitter and leaves a metallic aftertaste. The second: acidity is needed, and savouriness is needed, to lift the sauce off the palate and answer the salt instead of suffering it. The third concerns temperature: the dish is served cold, and a wine served warm next to a cold sauce immediately seems heavy and alcoholic. That is why in Piedmont vitello tonnato is drunk with a medium-bodied white with good tension, or with a pale, fresh red, also served cool.
Recommended White Wine
Monferrato DOC Bianco Tanàche — Tenuta Vallone — The **Monferrato DOC Bianco Tanàche by Tenuta Vallone** is a single-variety Arneis grown at Conzano, in the Monferrato Casalese, on marl and limestone soils, and among its pairings the technical sheet names vitello tonnato itself. There are three reasons. The first is savouriness: the sip is mineral and saline, and next to the anchovies and capers of the sauce it is not overwhelmed by the salt but answers it. The second is body: the brief maceration on the skins and the seventeen months in steel give it a full texture for a white, which stands up to the creaminess of the sauce without disappearing, while the absence of wood leaves intact the scents of white flowers, pear and citrus, which on the tuna work like a twist of lemon zest. The third is tannin, which a white does not have: no metallic aftertaste remains on the oil of the tuna. The limit has to be stated, and it is that of the grape: Arneis does not have a cutting acidity, and the sheet describes it as pleasant and balanced, not pronounced. With a light sauce, in the old style, just tuna, hard-boiled yolks and cooking liquid, it is a clean and precise match; with a sauce stretched with plenty of mayonnaise and plenty of oil, the freshness of the wine is used up before the end of the plate. There are 1.764 numbered bottles, at 13% vol: serve it at 10 °C, at the lower limit of the sheet, because next to a cold dish one degree less makes itself felt.
The Territorial Alternative
Grignolino del Monferrato Casalese DOC 'Selezione' — Tenuta Vallone — Same cellar, same commune, and the road many Piedmontese would take first: vitello tonnato with a red, as long as it is the right one. The **Grignolino del Monferrato Casalese 'Selezione' by Tenuta Vallone** is a light ruby red, almost transparent, and it has the two qualities a red must have to sit next to tuna: a lively acidity and a fine tannin, which does not harden against the sauce. It too has vitello tonnato among the pairings written on its technical sheet. Compared with the white it brings something else: a spicy scent with small red fruits, which meets the veal more than the sauce and gives the mouthful a little more depth. The Selezione, after more than a year in steel, spends about ten months in barriques and tonneaux, and this gives it more harmony and a slightly rounder body than the young Grignolino of the vintage. That is exactly where the limit lies: the oak, however discreet, can make itself felt with a sauce very rich in anchovies, and a red served at red-wine temperature next to a cold dish becomes heavy. That is why it should be served cool, at 14 °C, at the lower limit of the sheet: it is the temperature that makes it a wine for vitello tonnato. There are 600 numbered bottles, at 13% vol.
Want to know more about the grape? our guide to Grignolino
Craft Beer as an Alternative
Bold Helles Beer — Norah's Farm — With vitello tonnato the beer has to do what acidity does in a wine, which is to clean the sauce from the mouth, without adding a bitterness that would turn metallic against the tuna and the anchovy. The **Bold Helles by Norah's Farm** is a bottom-fermented blonde in the Bavarian style, with a malt the producer marks at halfway (●●○○) and a barely hinted hop (●○○○): the bitterness stays low, and the slightly dry finish closes the mouthful without leaving sweetness. The main work is done by the carbonation, which mechanically lifts the oil of the tuna and the creaminess of the yolks off the palate with every sip, while the flavour of malted grain stays in the background and lets the sauce speak. At 4,8% vol it is a beer for starters, one that does not weigh down a cold dish, perhaps in summer. The limit is aroma: a Helles has neither the savouriness nor the scents that answer the capers, and next to a very flavourful sauce it acts mostly as a backdrop. Serve it cold, at 6-8 °C, in a tall glass.
Want to know more about the style? pale craft beers
Variations
- With mayonnaise: this is the most common version outside Piedmont. A mayonnaise is made with a raw yolk and seed oil, and it is combined with the tuna, anchovy and caper sauce in place of the hard-boiled yolks. The result is a paler, creamier and fattier sauce: good, but the flavour of the tuna stays more in the background.
- In the oven, with browned meat: instead of poaching the eye of round, you brown it in a casserole with a drizzle of oil and cook it in the oven at 160 °C for about an hour, basting it with the white wine. The meat takes on a light crust and a bolder flavour, and the cooking juices, skimmed of fat, are used to thin the sauce.
- With veal knuckle: instead of the eye of round you can use the knuckle or the topside, slightly more tender and marbled cuts. They cook in the same time and slice well, but the slices are less regular: the eye of round remains the classic cut precisely because it is shaped like a cylinder and has a long, even grain.
- With crunchy celery: in some homes in the Monferrato the dish is served with finely chopped raw celery heart scattered over the sauce, which brings a fresh, crunchy note and lightens the mouthful. It is added at the last moment, because in the fridge it loses its crunch.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best cut for vitello tonnato?
The eye of round, called girello in Italian and magatello in many regions: it is a cut from the leg, lean, cylindrical in shape, with a long, regular grain. It cooks evenly and, when cold, can be sliced very thinly without falling apart. As an alternative, the knuckle or the topside work well, slightly more tender but less regular in shape.
Does traditional vitello tonnato contain mayonnaise?
The oldest Piedmontese version does not: the sauce is bound with the yolks of hard-boiled eggs, a drizzle of oil and a few spoonfuls of the cooking broth, and that is also how it appears in the recipe Pellegrino Artusi published at the end of the nineteenth century. Mayonnaise is a twentieth-century addition, very widespread today. Both versions are legitimate: the old-style one is more savoury and lighter, the one with mayonnaise creamier.
Can vitello tonnato be made the day before?
Yes, in fact it is recommended. The meat can be cooked and left to cool in its broth the evening before, and the finished dish, covered in sauce, also gains from a night in the fridge, well covered with cling film: the sauce flavours the slices and the flavours settle. It keeps in the fridge for two or three days.
Is it served cold or at room temperature?
Cold, but not ice-cold. Keep it in the fridge until shortly before serving, then leave it out for about ten minutes: straight from the fridge the sauce is stiff and the scents of the tuna and capers barely come through. It should not, however, be left at room temperature for long, because it is a dish with meat, eggs and fish.
What wine do you drink with vitello tonnato?
A medium-bodied white with good savouriness and no oak, or a light, fresh red, also served cool. The enemy is tannin: against the oil of the tuna and the anchovies a tannic red turns bitter and leaves a metallic aftertaste. In Piedmont the house choice is an Arneis, or a Grignolino served at around 14 °C.
