Lee's Veal Parmigiana

Memories of the Casa Bianca can be euorphic

Fond memories of growing up at the Casa Bianca are ever present in my mind. Sure the great food was a part of what made it special but the guests who came through our doors both the front and the kitchen were just that, guests to my mother and more like family than customers. Being in our living room manifested this euphoria and sense of belonging. For years our guests would beg us not to advertize as to keep the Casa thier little secret.This is why those who remember the Casa and share the loving memory of Mama Lee maintain an indelible lasting experience, one that I have never felt in any other restaurant but only there in the living room of my home.

Over and over I hear our former guests talk about Lee and Mary and the effect they had on them and in many cases the children of so many who grew up finding a special place at the Casa's tables. Today as I travel and dine all over the country I suppose I judge all comers against that  experience that was the Casa Bianca. There is plenty of great food out there and a plethora of talented chefs. However, it is almost impossible to find that something that existed at the Casa. The thing that set it apart and made it home to so many. Unless you were there I'm sorry you won't get it. Those of you who were are now the Casa's fraternity knowing that we will never add another member.

I hope that we are building that same legacy here at Proctor Gas the propane people where you feel like a guest in our showroom and part of the Proctor Gas fraternity.

Here is the Casa' biggest seller over those 40 years. And just for fun the menu from August 12th 1984...were you there?

Appetizers
My black bean soup w/ spicy tomato salsa                                                              

Baked stuffed clams                                                                                                          

Chilled Idaho trout sun dried tomatoes, olives and basil                                           

Mussels w/scallions, garlic tomatoes and extra virgin live oil                                 

Tortolini w/ snails in a light tomato pesto sauce                                                                   

 

Entrées

Veal Cutlet Parmigiana                                                                                                 

Veal Piccata , lemon white wine and capers                                                                  
Veal cutlet Maria, w/ proscuitto,  eggplant and fresh mozzarella                             
Jumbo shrimp scampi, Genoa style on pasta                                                                
Grilled chicken breast w homemade  lobster artichoke ravioli red pepper aioli           

Braciole                                                                                                                                

Jambalya, Naples style, shrimp chicken and Italian sausage                                     
Double Cut Pork chops, braised red cabbage and warm house-made applesauce   
Roasted rack of lamb Italian style                                                                                               
Grilled or blackened Mahi Mahi w/ pesto hollandaise                                               

Fresh pasta pescatore, shrimp , mussels, calamari                                                       

 

Desserts

Frozen honey vanilla Mousse, w blackberry sauce                                                       

Peaches in hot wine strawberries and cream                                                                

Lee's famous hot fudge on ice cream                                                                              

Homemade Italian cheesecake                                                                                        
assorted Italian ice creams                                                                                                           

 

For those who really want a walk down memory lane check this out!

The Casa 1958 the year I was born, The original sign read Italian Restaurant Steaks and Chops! But there was not a chop on the menu and only one steak!

Phone # ...Prospect 3-8068 as listed on the menus

Price of entree included a Complete dinner:

antipasto
soup
spaghetti
green salad
entree of your choice
dessert
coffee or espresso

The most expensive entree, with 7 courses STUFFING MENU was the  veal cutlet Parm dinner for $3.50... but! if you wanted extra sauce you had to get up another..extra sauce .25 cents...if the 6 extra courses was too expensive for $1.50, you could get the veal parm for:

veal cutlet ala carte $1.90

or

Linguini and clams $1.25

 

Undesrstand this was not a 7 course tasting menu as you might see today instead all were full portions. You wewre not allowed to leave the table unless you were stuffed and having trouble moving.

Here is Lee's Veal Parmigiana you can sub chicken or pork

Veal Parm

Have your butcher cut your cutlets from the top with the cap removed.  Just tell him that and he will know. Pound them thin but not too thin about a 4 to 5 ounce piece being careful not to tear the meat.

Serves six

6 5 oz pieces of veal pounded

bread crumbs
8 eggs beaten in a flat bottom pan large enough to dredge the cutlet in
3 cloves garlic chopped small
3 tablespoons chopped parsley
1/2 cup grated Romano cheese
black pepper
6 large or 12 small slices of fresh mozzarella cheese
pinch of salt as the cheese will make it salty

oil for pan frying

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

 

In the flat bottom pan with the eggs add the ingredients...garlic, parsley cheese and pepper beat together until well incorporated. Have the bread crumbs on a dish where you can dredge in the crumbs then into the egg mixture.

Have the cooking oil on the stove in a heavy skillet large enough to hold two of the cutlets at once. About a 1/2 inch of oil in the pan. Make sure the oil is hot before you put the cutlet in or it will not stay together. Test your oil by dropping a touch of the egg mixture in the oil. If it fry's up immediately then you are ready otherwise wait for this temperature to occur.

Dredge the cutlet in the bread crumbs pressing them to the meat, you can bread the cutlets all at once and set aside. Test your oil to make sure it is hot enough. Then one at a time put the cutlets in the egg mixture and get well coated then go right to the hot oil with one smooth quick motion. Just don't splash the oil. Use a pair of tongs for this. The egg should sear quickly and leave for about 2 minutes on each side.

Remove to a plate with a paper towel under the cutlet and let them rest for 3 minutes, letting the paper towel extract any extra oil. Then transfer to a flat 1/2 size sheet pan or something like that and place cheese on top, put in the hot oven. When the cheese is melted they are done. Serve with pasta and sauce.

Of course there are many options to how to do a cutlet and you would never find it done this way in Italy but my mother did it this way. In Italy it would most likely be crispy (bread crumbs on the outside) with a slice of lemon no sauce no cheese.

A Mrs. Tom side note:

My  mother fried all the veal parms  in a iron skillet that is in my kitchen today. She used a fork that cost about .99 cents and was duck taped together. One of those designed for cooking on the outdoor grill. It was about 18 inches long and was in the kitchen for more years than I could remember. After Anna passed away the fork stayed and was still in use when my mother passed some 12 years later. We should have framed it! Anna was my mother's cook for 25 years and had a special hand roll down to a science that got the cutlet from the egg batter to the hot oil in one smooth back of the hand roll. Those of you who entered the Casa through the kitchen and had to slide past Pauline Anna's sister (on the dish station for 15 years) will remember this.

 

Veal or Chicken Maria

Cooking with Propane

"There is something about Mary"

The Casa Bianca where I grew up was a wonderful place if you liked great food, lots of aunts, uncles and cousins and plenty of drama! It was reality TV without the TV. It was truly extended family living in-house, as a result, there was always somebody in crisis. Growing up in our house there was Uncle Peter, Uncle Gigi, Aunt Esther, Aunt Teresa, Mama Lee, my brother and me. Then there was the staff at the restaurant; Anna and Pauline two polish sisters  who worked in the kitchen for twenty plus years with my mother. They were like family but then there was Mary.

Well that group was truly old school; they saw the world different, they ate different, they didn't value their time, it was their gift to everyone. We were the first group of children to really protest the old ways. I was relieved when we broke from the tradition of waking the recently passed in the living room of our home.  The Italian women were professional mourners it was epic when we said goodbye.

Mother was a tough cookie with a mind of her own, it is well documented her distrust for almost everybody; doctors, lawyers, bankers even the catholic priests that frequently dined with her. She was translucent about her feelings.. I find myself from time to time invoking the same skepticism, distrust fostered by our mother. Is it inherited? I catch myself and think that's Mom talking. The very same response from her used to make my skin crawl.

That being said Lee had a heart of gold, if you were hungry she would feed you, her true passion in life, if you needed a room because you may have had one too many she put many guests to bed in our 10 upstairs bedrooms over the years. Her life was built from the sacrifice she made for her children, her brother and her sister. She was what is all good in people.

Mother was stubborn, I hear the story that the night I was born mother was on the stove cooking when her water broke. Her cousin and OBGYN Dr. Bove was just finishing dinner in the dining room and he was alerted of the situation. He got up and went to the kitchen. Lets go Lee, "Doc you just sit yourself down until I put out the rest of these dinners"! He had no choice. My mother only left the building under duress or to go to the hair dresser. My brother would have to take her and pick her up she hardly ever drove but claimed she was an accomplished wheel woman. My brother was late picking her up one day and she hated to spend any more time than necessary listening to the women at the parlor. Angry with Peter the next day she bought a car, maybe she drove it twice.

Lee was kind, and loving but mean as a junk yard dog when she was riled. She was plum impossible to reason with if she had made up her mind. Thankfully there was Mary she subscribed to a whole different perspective about most everything. She would say Lee "let them be" Lee was a control freak. Mary somehow could see into the future, she was like having our own palm reader. For instance she would always maintain that she could tell when a girl who my brother brought to dinner was crazy about him. Oh yah I can tell she would say "she's crazy about him". Generally she was wrong on this account!

Mary was always there to be the voice of reason and was about the only person who could tell my mother to chill! Mary worked at the restaurant full time from her late twenties and on into her sixties. She spent a lifetime with us. I think her 5 children gave her a better view into the real world and she at least left her house!

Mary had a way with the guests at the restaurant all those years, many people thought she owned the place. We didn't advertise so all of our business was word of mouth, Mary was social media old school style, she communicated with our guests face to face. If you were sent to the Casa via word of mouth, it was normal for people to show up at the front door on their first visit and ask for Mary. They would say 'so and so sent me' and Mary in one smooth movement would acknowledge the sender and give them a hug at the door and sit them on the stairs to wait for a table. She owned them right out of the gate even if she had no idea who the people might have been who sent them.  

It was rare that we didn't sit at the round table in the back room at some point each night and discuss the overall problems of the group. (The table now in my kitchen) Mary had five children and they are, each of them extremely diverse. It seems like she had one of each, kind of her own Gilligan's Island. The oldest was somewhat like Thurston a business man, then a jet setting movie star type, beautiful, sultry and a hand full like Ginger, there is the professor, ethereal, musical, clever and quietly a real ladies man, the little sister like Maryann beautiful but more reserve and a bit less precocious no flying about, a bit more grounded than her older sister. Then came the restaurant guy who would if allowed have been the "Skipper" he inherited his mothers engaging personality.

There was always an issue with one of them, or the favorite topic, my brother. Somehow the madness of it all gave Mary a sense of decorum and just made her stronger. Mary could shift through the BS of most situations and leave you with an answer that would satisfy the group. As a result her children are all fiercely dedicated to her, she is still the glue that holds them all together.

People still like to talk about the Casa Bianca, fond memories for most. I always hear "I loved your mother" and then they ask me about Mary. We talk once in a while... not enough, she is still putting out the fires alongside her children, still the rock she always was. I just answer "There is something about Mary"

This is a dish my brother named after Mary at the Casa in 1982. It became our best seller and was on the menu until the end. Use the stove or your new Saber Grill from Proctor Gas.

Veal or Chicken Maria

Serves 4

4 chicken breast

4 paper thin slices prosciutto
4 slices  eggplant cut lengthwise/ brush with olive oil and S&P grill on both sides
8 thin slices of fresh mozzarella
flour for dusting the chicken
4 tablespoons good basil pesto
1 cup marinara sauce
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 cup chicken stock
1/2 stick cold butter cut in small pieces
olive oil to pan sear the chicken

 Dredge the chicken lightly in the flour shake off any excess. Pour olive oil in a saute pan and heat. Place the chicken into the hot oil and brown on both sides lower the heat. Deglaze the pan with the wine and let the wine cook out. Add the chicken stock and marinara sauce let it simmer covered until the chicken is tender and cooked through about 15 minutes depending on the thickness of the breast.

Take the cover off and build the chicken breast:

spread a spoon full of pesto sauce over the top of the chicken
place a slice of prosciutto over that
place the grilled eggplant on top of the breast
place the two pieces of cheese on top

Place the lid back on the pan and let it simmer just to get hot and melt the cheese. Remove the chicken from the pan, dish it up...turn the heat to medium and add the cold butter to the sauce and simmer together, pour over the chicken

Mrs. Tom's Secret

I like to use my gas grill to cook this. It does take a pan on the grill but you use the grill same as a stove and the grill lid acts as a cover, just close it. Also be aware for your guests, that there are no nut allergies in the group. The little spoon of pesto to the wrong person can be a real bummer for all. Serve with a nice wild mushroom risotto.