Vitello Tonnato

1. Start by patting the veal dry. Remove any fat.

2. Peal the onion and half it. Stick a clove in each half. Clean the carrots and the celery and chop in large chunks. Rinse the parsley. Add all of the vegetables, the parsley, the wine, the bay leaves and 1 1/4 of a litre of water into a big pan and bring to a boil.

3. Add the veal to the boiling water. This will close the pores quickly and will keep the meat moist. Then turn the heat all the way down. Leave the meat to simmer with the lid on for 45 minutes. Then pull it off of the heat and allow to cool in the cooking fluids.

4. Measure out 125 ml of the cooking fluid, but leave the meat in the pan in the remaining fluid. Drain the tuna (use a can of about 200 grams) and puree this with the cooking fluid (125 ml). Drain the sardines, add them to a seperate bowl and break them down with a fork and add the egg yolk. Then start adding in the olive oil drop by drop and whisk in. When it starts to look like a mayonnaise you can add the olive oil a little faster.

5. Add the tuna and the lemon juice to the sardine paste and season with salt and pepper. Drain the capers (hold on to some of the fluid) and add these to the mix as well. Combine thoroughly. If you think the sauce is to thick you can add lemon juice or some juice from the capers.

6. Remove the meat from the cooking fluids and slice in thin slices. Add these to a large plate and pour the sardine/tuna sauce over the meat. Add some more capers on top and grind some black pepper over it.
The cooking fluid can be thrown away, the vegetables are used just to flavour the meat.

It takes about two hours in total but when you put that first fork full into your mouth you will know it was worth it.