NODINI DI VITELLO

From the Lombardia cookbook I received for Christmas, last night I cooked these veal chops slowly with cubed pancetta, rosemary and white wine. It was my idea to add the capers.

Then, from the same book - and you can tell we are moving northwards in our cookery because of the use of butter in both recipes - I tried these stuffed courgettes. "How can you mix sweet and savoury ingredients?" cried a student the other day whilst we were discussing British breakfasts; yet Italian cookery contains many recipes in which this happens, such as the "sweet" ravioli of Sicily, Sicilian sweet & sour rabbit [though admittedly, this denotes only a little honey added to a sauce primarily consisting of vinegar] and even the addition of chocolate to some Sicilian meat dishes. In this recipe de-pulped courgettes are cut in half lengthwise and blanched, then stuffed with a mixture of the pulp, more chopped courgettes, crushed amaretti biscuits, pinenuts, raisins [which I can't get, so I used sultanas] brown sugar and breadcrumbs. Butter is dotted over before placing the courgettes in the oven. The recipe states that any "roast leftovers" [by which they mean any cooked meat that has not been fried] can be minced and added to the mixture, so I minced up the meat from another of the cooked chops.

It all turned out much better than I expected!