Veal Milanese Original Recipe | Cotoletta alla Milanese

Veal Milanese (Cotoletta alla Milanese) is one of the most famous dishes of Italian traditional cuisine. Like Saffron Risotto recipe, it was born in Lombardy, a region in northern Italy.

Veal Milanese is a meat recipe original from the city of Milan. Very quick and easy to make, it has very ancient origins. Cutlets appear for the first time in Milan in a menu prepared for the monks of St. Ambrogio in 1134 under the name “lompolos cum panito”. 

You have to bread the veal with eggs and breadcrumbs and then fry into butter. A few simple steps for an incredible result. And children love this recipe, that’s a bonus!

The real milanese cutlet is cooked in clarified butter, which is obtained by extracting water and proteins from the butter to leave only the fat part. You can make home-made clarified butter or buy it in the most prestigious Italian cooking shops. Veal Milanese is fried in clarified butter since it has a very high smoke point and therefore does not burn the meat, but makes it more tasty and crispy (you’ll find how to make it at the end of this recipe).

Meat used in Veal Milanese recipe is calf loin, with bone approximately 2/3 cm high (about 1 inch). The traditional recipe calls for a cutlet of veal with “bone-in” but modern variations tend to be prepared with a boneless veal cutlet. 

Rich and flavorful, I’m going to show you how to cook the famous Milanese Veal Cutlet: “La Cotoletta alla Milanese”

Veal Milanese Original Recipe

Ingredients

Directions
The first important thing necessary to cook Milanese Veal Cutlet, is the choice of meat: veal cutlet with bone-in (1). You don’t have to beat the meat but only remove small bones and excess fat at the edges. IMPORTANT: cut the edges in 2/3 points to make sure that the meat does not bend during cooking. Place the veal cutlets in the flour. Now whisk the eggs in a bowl with a fork and then dip the cutlets one by one (2). Bread the meat, pressing down with your hands so the breadcrumbs don’t come off during the cooking (3).

Melt the clarified butter in a frying pan. The secret to the perfect veal milanese is to fry the meat at high temperatures (169° or 336F maximum, not over the smoke point) so it becomes very crunchy outside but inside it remains tender and rosy. Fry the cutlets about 5 minutes on each side, one by one (4). Then remove the excess butter on paper towels and add salt (5). Taste Veal Milanese hot with salad, cherry tomatoes and a few drops of lemon juice (6).

How to make homemade clarified butter

The process of clarifying butter is very important for heat resistance. In fact, traditional butter does not last long in cooking, as when it comes to 130°C (266F) it burns; instead the clarified butter has a much higher smoke point, up to 170°C (338), allowing a much safer frying. If you are willing to prepare the authentic Veal Milanese, it will be essential to prepare the clarified butter.

So then melt the butter in a bain-marie. After a few minutes you will notice the formation of a surface foam that you will eliminate with a slotted spoon. After about 20 minutes, the milk proteins will be deposited on the bottom of the pot containing the melted butter and will form a white layer. At this point, pour the melted butter into a container by filtering it with a colander and be careful not to move the bottom that will be removed. Here you have obtained the clarified butter, ready to fry your Cotoletta alla Milanese!