When I was a kid, my mom would sometimes pick up a pack of veal patties from the freezer case at the market and serve them for dinner, pan fried and maybe served with a tomato sauce – though not often, because, my dad did not do spices beyond salt, pepper, and perhaps a bay leaf.
These veal patties are worlds’ apart from those veal patties. In the first part, these a fresh from the butcher’s case, prepared by a local Chicago company and really very, very tasty.
Secondly, these are pan fried, in butter and olive oil, but with the addition of sliced sweet onion and hot pickled cherry peppers.
Thirdly, in place of the more usual marinara sauce, I go with Catalina French salad dressing.
*!*
Yep. The good folk at Kraft have changed their salad dressings ingredients to get rid of the corn sweeteners and artificial flavors and such.
Don’t get me wrong, sugar is still the first ingredient on the list for a bottle of Catalina, but I look at this as a treat supper, so why not live a little?
If you cannot stomach the idea of all of that sugar, though, I do happen to have a very good, all real ingredients and way less sugar substitute Catalina recipe, here.
INGREDIENTS
•4 veal patties (Chiappetti’s, if you can)
•1 tbsp unsalted butter
•1 tbsp olive oil
•1 sweet onion, sliced
•Sliced hot cherry peppers
•Catalina dressing
•Cheese – we like Swiss or Provolone
Melt the butter with the olive oil over medium high heat in a large (12″ to fit all four patties at once, or, do two at a time and keep warm) skillet.
Add the veal patties, cherry pepper slices, and onion and cook until the veal is browned on the bottom, four or five minutes should do it.
Flip the veal, stir the onion and peppers around in the pan and cook until browned on the bottom, another four or five minutes.
Drizzle the veal patties with the Catalina dressing – I tend to cover each patty – and flip so that the dressing side wil get a bit caramelized and extra will flow into the onion and peppers.
Cover each patty with a slice of cheese, turn off the heat, and cover the pan.
Finish putting the rest of dinner together while the cheese melts.
These make most excellent sammiches on toasted sourdough bread, but are also fine on their own, perhaps with a nice couscous salad on the side.