Veal with Fiddlehead & Shiitake Sauce

This dish lives and dies by timing. Veal cutlets cook in a blink, about three minutes a side, which means every other component needs to be prepped and parked before the pan gets hot.

Start by rendering the pancetta slowly so the fat releases and the dice turns crackly. That rendered fat is your cooking medium for the veal, it’s seasoned, nutty, and a crime to waste.

Fiddleheads are the fleeting star here, those tightly coiled spring fern shoots with a flavour between asparagus and green beans. They must be cleaned well, pull off the brown papery scales and rinse in several changes of water. Raw fiddleheads can cause illness, so the five-minute cook in the pan after deglazing is not optional, cook them through.

The sherry deglaze lifts the fond from searing the veal and ties the shiitake and fiddleheads together with a nutty, slightly sweet backbone.

Pro Tips

• Pound the cutlets to an even thickness before dusting with flour, uneven meat cooks unevenly and turns tough.
• Shake excess flour off the veal before searing, it burns in the hot pan and muddies the sauce.
• Don’t skimp on cleaning fiddleheads, grit ruins the dish and the papery coating tastes bitter.
• Use a dry sherry (fino or amontillado), cream sherry will throw the balance too sweet.

Variations

• Swap veal for thin-pounded pork loin or chicken breast if veal isn’t in the budget.
• Out of fiddleheads? Sub asparagus tips or wild ramps for a similar spring vibe.
• Finish with a squeeze of lemon and chopped parsley for brightness.