Baked Veal Parmigiana

After spending three days learning all about the American Milk-fed Veal Industry,  I wanted to incorporate some veal into my family’s meals. First, I tried Veal Parmigiana, a classic Italian recipe that is actually very easy to prepare. We eat plenty of fried food in my house, so I decided to put a healthy spin on Veal Parmigiana and prepare a baked version.

I began by researching recipes for chicken and pork parmigiana, both baked and fried, but eventually decided to start with this veal recipe from Catelli Brothers. Their recipe fries the cutlets in oil, but I found that it worked well as a baked dish. I visited their processing plant on my tour, and Mr. Catelli sent me the veal cutlets that I used in the dish.

Season, flour, egg, and bread crumbs.
Its really too easy.

First, season the cutlets with a little salt and pepper, then coat them in flour and an egg wash. Mix Parmesan cheese with Italian-seasoned panko bread crumbs for the final coating. I like to use paper plates for the flour and bread crumbs because it’s just so easy to throw away the egg and raw meat soaked flour and bread crumbs when you are done and not worry about cross contamination. I sprinkled a little olive oil on both sides of the breaded cutlets.

I placed the cutlets on a baking rack in the oven, preheated to 425°F, and cooked them until they reached at least 150°F internally. If you don’t have a cooking rack, you can place them in a baking dish and turn them after about 4-5 minutes. Veal cutlets are typically sliced very thin, so they cook quickly. In my convection oven, they were done after about 8 minutes. A conventional oven will take a little longer.

Bake and top with sauce and cheese.

After they reach temperature, I topped the cutlets with a few spoonfuls of marinara sauce from a jar, a mixture of mozzarella and parmesan cheeses, and a little parsley. I baked them for a couple more minutes, until the cheese was melted, and served them over pasta with more marinara.

In addition to its ease of preparation, this is also a fairly inexpensive dish. Veal cutlets will cost about $10, but I purchased all the remaining ingredients for about $20. Most cooks will already have olive oil, flour, pasta, and the cheeses in their kitchen. It easily made 5 servings for $5-6 per serving. I practiced this dish at my office and served it to two students who had never tried veal. They were both very impressed.

This is an easy veal dish that would be a great way to introduce your family to a new protein.

Baked Veal Parmigiana

4-5 veal cutlets

1 c flour

2 eggs whisked with 1 tbsp water

1 ½ cup Italian seasoned Panko bread crumbs

Shredded parmesan cheese

Shredded mozzarella cheese

Spaghetti sauce

Olive oil

Salt, pepper, parsley

Season cutlets with salt and pepper. Coat cutlets in flour, dip in egg bath, and coat in mixture of bread crumbs and parmesan cheese. Place on baking rack and sprinkle both sides of cutlets with olive oil. Bake in oven at 425°F until cutlets reach 150°F. Top cutlets with marinara and blend of parmesan and mozzarella cheese and parsley. Bake until cheese is melted.

Serve with pasta and marinara sauce.

Grannie Annie’s Pozole

I don’t often do recipe posts. Honestly, I don’t often cook. But my friend Sarah Shotts is working on an awesome new adventure, Project STIR. She wants to create videos of families cooking together and passing down recipes and kitchen secrets.

Her project really hit home for me as I lost my Mother in August and my Dad’s Mom last October. What I wouldn’t give for a few more hours in the kitchen with either one of them.

So many of the things that make a dish delicious can’t be found on the recipe card. I hope Sarah’s project helps to preserve dishes for other families and cultures.

I decided to share my Grannie Annie’s Pozole.

Like most grandmas, Grannie Annie was happiest with a
 baby in her lap. That's Vallie at about 3 months.

I grew up in Texas, but my Dad’s family lived for several years in New Mexico. In those years, my Grandmother picked up several culinary traits from the Hispanic and Native American cultures in the Jemez Mountains. She made homemade tortillas and sopapillas and put green chilies in everything.

Pozole is a prehispanic soup traditionally made with pork and hominy. According to Dad (and verified by Wikipedia), the word pozole actually translates to simply ‘hominy’ in the native Aztec language.

Our family always ate Pozole on New Year’s Day, but I wanted to share it because it’s one of the most unique dishes we eat.

Bonus! It’s super easy and can be made in the crock pot!

I had to call my Dad for a recipe. Turns out there’s not one written down, so he recalled the recipe from memory.

POZOLE

3 big cans hominy (drained)

2 cans of Green Chili Enchilada sauce

1 can for chopped green chili

Jar of chopped pimentos

Pork or chicken cut to bite size

Salt and pepper

You may need to add a little water to cover all of the ingredients in the crock pot.

It takes 3 to 4 hours for the meat to cook and it is ready to eat.

He said Grandma used to make it with dried hominy that she soaked overnight, but it was just as good with canned hominy.  Grandma was very particular about how her dishes looked in the bowl, so she would buy some yellow and some white and then add pimento to make it look pretty.

We fixed the Pozole late morning and let it cook for most of the afternoon.

We made ours with chicken, but pork works just as well. I wanted to take a picture of the cut-up chicken, but I was chasing kids while Dad was doing the work.

Even the kids enjoyed it.

I love a good crock-pot recipe.
So easy and great for this time of year.

We topped it with shredded cheese and ate it
with flour tortillas. Dad warmed the tortillas in the
skillet to take the ‘store-bought’ taste out of them.