Guest Post: Paupiettes de Veau with Mushrooms and Fennel

Carole from The Yum Yum Factor here with a great recipe for an old school French classic and one of my all-time favourites, Paupiettes de Veau. In France, most people don’t make their own paupiettes anymore because most kitchens are the size of a shoe box and, besides, every butcher worth his or her salt sells them, pre-made, and French just cook them with some white wine and mushrooms at home but here in Canada, I am forced to make my own paupiettes from scratch.

Le sigh.

These are traditionally made with veal escalope’s – the same thinly pounded veal used for veal parmigiana and usually referred to as cutlets here, but if you have a problem with veal, it is easy to find thinly pounded pork at most meat counters. If you must, you can pound boneless pork loin chops until they are quite thin, but do try to find the escalope’s and make your life easier. Both meats work beautifully.

To lighten them up a bit and add more mushroomy goodness, I have used equal amounts of pork sausage and ground mushrooms for the filling, a la Blend and Extend and substituted evaporated milk for creme fraiche.

 

Makes 8 paupiettes

Prep time: 30 minutes – a bit longer if you start with loin chops

Cook time: 45 minutes

Ingredients

9 veal cutlets (really thinly sliced) OR pork cutlets OR boneless pork loin chops, Kosher salt and black pepper

Filling

• 1 tbls olive oil
• 1/2 leek, finely chopped
• 2/3 cup finely diced fennel bulb
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 200 grams button mushrooms, pulsed in food processor until roughly ground
• 1 tbls fresh thyme leaves
• 1 tsp kosher salt or to taste
• 200 grams mild Italian Sausage

Sauce

• 1 tbls olive oil
• 1/2 leek, thinly sliced
• 1/2 bulb fennel, sliced thinly
• 200 grams button mushrooms, sliced thinly
• 1 cup white wine
• 1 cup chicken stock
• 5 or 6 sprigs of fresh thyme
• 1/2 cup evaporated milk
• 1 tbls grainy mustard
• A handful of fresh Italian Parsley, roughly chopped
• Kosher salt
• *kitchen twine

Directions

Filling

1. Pour in 1 tbls of olive oil in a hot frying pan over med-high and throw in the leek and fennel and sauté until softened, about 3 or 4 minutes. Add in the ground mushrooms, the garlic and fresh thyme and sauté for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the salt and scrape out of the pan into a bowl to let cool to room temperature. You can test for seasoning by frying a small pinch in the hot pan until it’s cooked and taste, adding more salt if needed.
2. When the filing has cooled, remove the casings from your sausage and add the meat to the mushroom mixture in the bowl and mix well until its thoroughly combined.
3. Taking a slice of meat, add 2-3 tbls of mushroom/sausage filing and roll into a ball and place that ball onto the upper third of the meat. Roll the meat up over the filling until it’s encased. Take some string and tie the bundle up like gift box. and set aside. Keep doing this until you have eight bundles. Don’t worry about technique, just make sure that they are secure and that the filling is contained.
4. You can prepare the paupiettes up to a day ahead and keep them in the fridge until you are ready to cook them.

To Finish

1. Heat a deep pan with a lid or a dutch oven and heat the oil and brown the paupiettes on all sides and remove to a plate. Throw the fennel and leek into the same pan and sauté until they are softened, about 3-5 minutes, before pushing them to the side and adding in the sliced mushrooms and a good pinch of kosher salt, about 1 tsp. Sauté the mushrooms for a few minutes before you mix it all together and add the paupiettes, nestling them down into the vegetables.
2. Pour in 1 cup of white wine, 1 cup of chicken stock so that they are about 3/4 submerged in the liquid and lay some thyme sprigs over the whole thing. Bring to a light boil, put on the lid and turn the heat down to med low and gently simmer for about 30 minutes.
3. After 30 minutes, remove the paupiettes, pour in the evaporated milk and add the mustard and give a good stir. Let that barely simmer for a few minutes.
4. Serve the paupiettes (remove the twine with scissors), two per person if they are small, with a good spoonful of the vegetables and sauce and finish with some parsley.
5. Serve with rice, mashed potatoes or, if you are feeling adventurous, potatoes roasted in duck fat.

 

Note: The easiest route is to use pork or veal cutlets but if you can’t find that, you can pound boneless pork loin chops between two sheets of plastic wrap with a mallet, a rolling pin or a flat-bottomed pan until they are very thin. You want them to be no more than 1/4” thick and nice and pliable.

 

Be sure to follow along with Carole at The Yum Yum Factor and on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest!

 

This project was funded in part through the Canadian Agricultural Partnership (the Partnership), a federal-provincial-territorial initiative. The Agricultural Adaptation Council assists in the delivery of the Partnership in Ontario.