Vitello Tonnato Recipe: How to Make Vitello Tonnato

Vitello tonnato, or vitel tonne, is a dish of chilled veal that's sliced and served in a creamy sauce made of tuna and capers. It's one of the rare European dishes that combines meat and fish, which have been traditionally treated as separate courses. This dish comes from the mountainous Piedmont district in the north of Italy.

Vitello tonnato is traditionally served during warm summer months, and it serves as the centerpiece for the celebration of Assumption Day, especially at the annual Ferragosto dinners held in Milan each August 15. The dish is also traditionally served at Christmas feasts in Argentina, where it's typically called vitel thoné.

Vitello tonnato takes multiple days to prepare, but much of that is waiting, as the dish itself is not difficult to make. The dish consists of thin slices of veal that are cut from a veal rump and marinated overnight. Traditionally, it's made with homemade mayonnaise prepared from scratch, though modern cooks sometimes substitute store-bought mayo. In the same way, home cooks often use canned tuna in the sauce, which typically also contains capers and anchovies. However, fresh tuna is ideal, with the dish chilling in a refrigerator for up to five days to help the flavor develop.

Serve vitello tonnato on a platter either chilled or at room temperature, with the tuna sauce completely covering the thin slices of veal. Chefs often create designs out of the capers, parsley, and lemon slices served with the dish to make it especially appealing. While it's typically served as a refreshing cold entrée in the summertime, vitello tonnato also makes an appearance as an antipasto dish at elegant dinners.

Vitello tonnato dates back to the mid-nineteenth century, when tuna’s similarities to veal led to its increased use in cooking.

• Combining meat and fish: While meat (considered a "fat" food dating back to the Middle Ages) has traditionally been kept separate from fish (a "lean" food), a few types of fish have crossed that invisible border for several centuries. Anchovies, which make an appearance in vitello tonnato, began to be used in Piedmontese cooking in the mid-eighteenth century.
• Similarities between tuna and veal: In that era, tuna was not considered particularly palatable, but Italian chef and cookbook author of that period Francesco Leonardi suggested that, if properly marinated, tuna was somewhat similar to veal. The similarity was also noted by French chef M. Burnet, and other chefs suggested combining tuna and veal in the mid-1800s.
• First vitello recipes: In 1862, Angelo Dubini, a Milanese physician and chef, published a cookbook of recipes for those with sensitive digestive systems. Among the recipes were three versions of vitello tonnato—the first time the recipe was outlined and given that name.
• In the twentieth century: The ability to can tuna let the recipe spread, as home cooks no longer had to rely on the availability of fresh tuna. Vitello tonnato continued to show up in cookbooks into the late 1960s. A 1950 recipe in the cookbook The Silver Spoon was the first to add mayonnaise, turning vitello tonnato into the dish most commonly served today.