Stuffed lettuce ''Lattughe ripiene''

Liguria

Cooking time: 50 minutes Difficulty: Ingredients, amounts for 6 people: veal sweetbreads and brain: 7 oz meat broth/stock: 1 ¾ pints butter: 2 oz carrots: 1 heads of romaine lettuce: 6 onion: ½ toasted canapes: grated Parmesan cheese: 1 ½ oz soft inside of bread after crust has been removed/breadcrumbs: nutmeg: lean veal: 11 oz parsley: 1 salt: celery: 1 stalk eggs: 3

Preparation: Clean the lettuce of the external leaves, take out the heart of the lettuce and keep apart. Scald for a minutes in boiling water the remaining lettuce heads. Chop the onion, carrot, celery and parsley. In a casserole brown the vegetables with the butter for 5 minutes. Add all the chopped pieces of meat and the hearts of the lettuce, add salt to taste and flavour with the nutmeg and cook for ten minutes, then add the hot stock. Leave to cook for about thirty minutes. Mashall the meat mixture and put into a pan. Add the soft part of the bread soaked in milk and well squeezed, the eggs and parmesan cheese and mix well. Distribute the stuffing onto the centre of the heads of lettuce and roll to cover the stuffing. Tie the lettuce with string, to prevent the stuffing from leaking out during cooking. Place the lettuces in a pyrex dish and cover with boiling stock; leave to cook for ten or fifteen minutes, over a moderate heat. Serve hot with the pieces of toasted bread.