Veal and Cheese

Last night I cooked veal cutlets that I had purchased from Bobolink Farm (www.cowsoutside.com).  The calves get to spend their short lives in comfort with their mothers, and the meat is rosy and delicious.  I used a Mario Batali recipe for veal pockets in the style of the Valle d'Aosta, an area of Italy Craig and I visited on our honeymoon.  The cutlets are wrapped around Emmentaler cheese and prosciutto and pan-fried, then the pan is used to make a sauce with white wine, butter, and sage.  I would have put sage inside the veal as well, and perhaps used a stronger cheese, but this was really good.  

I served it with braised baby bok choy and atop a pasta we brought back from Italy, angel hair with truffles, that I tossed in truffle butter.  The whole meal was quite easy and very nice.  We drank a wine Dave gave us, a David Coffaro 2006 unfiltered Escuro.  We both enjoyed the wine and liked the unfilteredness of it.

Henry and Marion gave us a gift certificate to an AMAZING gourmet shop in Cambridge, Formaggio Kitchen (www.formaggiokitchen.com) for our wedding gift.  Their website is great, but the shop in person is a little overwhelming, until you talk to the staff.  All I had to do was mention Craig's passion for blues and I was given a sample of Stichelton, an unpasteurized Stilton.  When I asked for help choosing two milder cheeses to offset the Stichelton, my new best friend had me try Brebis Pardou, a very mild almost sweet cheese from Aquitaine, France, with a texure similar to Gruyere, and then Meg's Big Sunshine, from Carlisle, MA, a wonderful grassy goat cheese that made me jump up and down, I loved it so much.  It's named really appropriately--it tastes like sunshine.  The cheese is built like a good Brie, getting progressively softer toward the middle.  We accompanied the cheeses with the rose petal preserves and a new condiment I got at Fromaggio Kitchen, a fig and grappa compote made somewhere in a German speaking country--the whole label's in German.  That was just perfect with the Brebis Pardou.

The Stichelton is front and center, the Brebis Pardou to the left, and Meg's Big Sunshine to the right.  I even still have some gift certificate left!  Thank you so much, Henry and Marion!