Ciao tutti,
I’m now a master at cooking cotoletta alla milanese. The thing is that for the last few years I’ve been trying to recreate a recipe which left me nice memories from my childhood.
An italian friend of the family (we’re from France, that was in the late 80’s. Getting actual Italian ingredients from Italy back then was probably less easy) used to make us what he called *escalope à la bolognaise* (cutlet bolognese, cotoletta alla bolognese).
His name was Saggatto (RIP).
The thing is that he was from Apulia. Not a bolognese by any stretch and he was cooking in a foreign country, back in a time when importing actual italian food was not that common.
What I remember is a well executed *cotoletta alla milanese*, topped with well executed *ragù alla bolognese* (the real one), topped with some ham and cheese. It was not mozzarella. Some sort of cheese with a nearby rubbery texture yet, not mozzarella (I tried, it didn’t work out).
Obviously, the cotoletta alla milanese got topped with ham and cheese then went to the grill and before serving he’d add some ragù.
So we ended up with a frankenstein recipe. *Mi spiace* italian friends. As a frenchman I understand what it is to see a local recipe being butchered overseas because of lack of decent ingredients|ignorance|local taste.
The ham was actual parisian ham ([https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jambon\_de\_Paris](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jambon_de_Paris) ) but the cheese. Well it was very likely italian. From my memories, shitty mozarella ersatz were not a thing in Europe back then (like Galbani [https://www.carrefour.fr/p/mozzarella-galbani-8000430138719](https://www.carrefour.fr/p/mozzarella-galbani-8000430138719)), this sort of crap appeared by the mid 90’s.
But the cheese. Not Parmegiano. Not ricotta. It left filaments when you’ll slice the cotoletta. But I can find it. Me thinks it has to be cheese from Puglia since he used to bring back so stuff from his familiy from time to time.
Help me find that italian cheese. Thank you.
by A_parisian