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1
Heat the Corsican olive oil in the tianu over a medium-high flame. Brown the veal pieces in batches, turning to colour all surfaces evenly. The veal is ready to turn when each face releases cleanly from the vessel and carries a deep amber crust.
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2
Reduce to medium heat. Add the shallots and garlic to the fat remaining in the tianu and soften without colouring. Pour in the Vermentino di Corse and scrape the base of the vessel. The deglazing is complete when the sharp alcohol smell has given way to a rounded wine note and the liquid is reduced by half.
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3
Return the veal to the tianu. Scatter the pitted Corsican Sabine olives around and over the meat. Nestle the nepita-and-rosemary bundle among the pieces. Seal the tianu tightly with its lid — or with foil pressed firm beneath the lid — and transfer to an oven at 150 °C. Braise for two hours undisturbed. This is where the dish lives or dies: the sealed vessel traps the olive oil released by the Sabine olives, which self-bastes the veal continuously; breaking the seal early dissipates this accumulation and yields a thin, unintegrated sauce.
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4
After two hours, lift the lid and add the cédrat zest only at this point — no earlier, so that the floral volatile compounds are preserved. Re-seal and return to the oven for a further thirty minutes. The dish is ready when the veal is falling-tender and the sauce is olive-oil-enriched and slightly thickened, with the broken-down olives dispersed through it.
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5
Remove and discard the herb bundle. Scatter the reserved twelve whole Sabine olives across the surface of the tianu. Taste the sauce: it should carry veal sweetness, a bitter-resinous olive richness, and a floral cédrat lift on the finish, with maquis herbs throughout. A one-dimensional olive-oil flavour without complexity indicates the wrong olive variety was used.
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6
Serve directly from the tianu over white rice or alongside chestnut bread. The whole olives on top provide textural contrast against the broken-down olives in the sauce.