Vitello Tonnato (Sous-vide)

This is one of the tastiest and easiest Italian dishes. You can make it easy on yourself by using veal fricandeau that has been chopped by the butcher, but I prefer to cut the veal yourself and cook it Sous-vide first. Because I use a piece of veal and cut it by hand, the slices of meat are slightly thicker. I use fresh tuna, this is not necessary. This dish is inspired by a dish I ate at Da Adriano.

Ingredients (4 persons)

400 gr. veal loin
250 gr. tuna (fresh)
3 canned anchovy fillets
1 can of tuna
5 tbsp. mayonnaise
3 tbsp. capers (small and large)
splash of olive oil
Sun dried tomatoes
baguette (for garnish)
arugula lettuce (for garnish)

Prepare

Pat the meat dry and sprinkle with some salt and let it rest for at least 30 minutes. Then pat the meat dry again and pull the meat vacuum.

Bring the sous vide water to 57℃. When the water is at the right temperature, place the meat in the water and cook the meat for about 4 hours.

Cut the tuna into rectangular blocks, so that you can later cut nice slices of tuna. Do not throw away the cutting waste, you can eat it straight away or you can process it through the tonnato (we do this in this recipe). Wrap the tuna in plastic and refrigerate until needed again.

Drain the canned tuna and the canned anchovies. Puree the tuna, and anchovies, and capers, mayonnaise and a little olive oil into a smooth, firmer sauce. I also add the trimmed waste from the raw tuna to this, so that it becomes a bit firmer.

Remove the meat from the sous vide and cool it in an ice bath. Make sure you cool the meat quickly and immediately. Place the meat in the refrigerator.

Cut the baguette into wafer-thin slices and let it dry. This can be done in the oven or at room temperature. The bread should be crispy.

Serve

Sprinkle the tuna with some pepper and fry in a frying pan with olive oil over high heat for about 30 seconds per side. The outside should be seared, the inside should remain raw. The tuna should therefore only discolour on the outside.

Cut the sun-dried tomatoes into small cubes, remove the bottom from 8 large capers, so that the capers can stand. Leave the stem on the capers. Place a few small capers in a container until needed.

Cut thin slices of the veal loin and place them on a plate in an overlapping manner.

Cut the tuna into thin slices.

Put the tonnato (tuna sauce) in a piping bag and pipe the tuna sauce over the veal loin. You can also do traditional and spread the tuna sauce over the veal loin, but I like it better when it is sprayed over the veal loin.

Place the tuna slices on top of the tonnato, sprinkle over some arugula, sun-dried tomatoes and the small capers. Place the large capers next to the dish and put the crusty baguette in the tonnato.