Pork Escallops for Tea
There are various things that I class as comfort food. Soup is an obvious one, a fondue is another. But one dish that always got my attention as a child was Veal Milanese from our local Italian trattoria. Not a complicated dish this, just veal in breadcrumbs and pasta with tomato sauce, essentially.
These days getting good veal is difficult and expensive, and many people are less than happy with the idea of it in the first place. (I will leave the arguments about dairy herds and the culling of male calves for another day.) But to be honest, if you like pork, and many of us do, it makes a wonderful substitute. To be honest, it can be a bit hard to tell the difference. So, here is what I am serving up tonight.I will leave the pasta and tomato sauce aside, I am pretty sure you can work that out or use my recipe, and concentrate on the pork.
Ingredients:
- Pork steaks
- Lemon juice
- breadcrumbs, dried
- Plain flour
- Eggs
- salt and pepper
Try and avoid buying breadcrumbs. I am never certain what is in them, and to be honest they are very simple to make at home. For this to work, they need to be dried breadcrumbs. You can make up a batch and they will keep for ages in a sealed bag.
Collect together a pile of stale bread and bung it in the oven at a very low heat, say 100C, till it goes hard. Break it up into a food processor and blast it till it turns into fine crumbs. Put back in the oven on a tray and let it brown ever so slightly – you may need to stir it round a bit to keep it even . Take out, cool and store till required.
Take your pork steaks (or any lean lumps of pork) and trim off ALL the fat. Now, lay them on a chopping board and cover with cling film. Using a heavy rolling pin, bash them till they are thin and flat. Rolling pins are much better than steak hammers for this! Put the fattened pork escallops onto a tray and squeeze over fresh lemon. Please don’t use that Jif lemon or other bottled monsters! Buy a lemon. Leave for 30 minutes or so.
Once you are ready to cook, salt and pepper the escallops, then flour them, egg them, and coat them in bread crumbs.
Shallow fry the escallops in ordinary olive or sunflower oil (not extra virgin – too heavy) till nicely crisp. Careful not to over do them or the pork may get a little dry!
Serve them up over pasta and a nice dark green salad.
Curses. I am hungry now!
Related posts:
- Swedish Meatballs
- Bolognese
- Eggplant Heaven – Imam Bayildi
- Oh, but I Love Porchetta!
- Hot Lentil and Roasted Squash – The Soup Diet
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