L'Italo-Americano

www.italoamericano.org 28 L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2020 LA BUONA TAVOLA RECIPES COOKING TIPS SEASONAL DISHES Continued form page 26 were cooking brisket, tongue and a chicken, you would start with the brisket, start the tongue an hour later and then the chicken an hour after and cook for an hour or hour and a half more. Start the water off at a brisk boil, but after that maintain a steady but gentle simmer, skim- ming off any scum that comes to the surface as you need to and topping the pot up with more water if too much cooks off. If one cut is tender before another is done, just remove it from the pot into a bowl, moisten it with some broth from the pot, and cover it loosely; add it back to the pot at the end to reheat. Once cooked, the meats can stay off heat (or on minimal heat) almost indefinitely, until you are ready to serve. (NB: if cooking veal or ox tongue, you will need to remove it when it's done and skin it. Then return the tongue to broth to re-heat before serving). While the meats are simmer- ing, they need little attention, and you can get on with the business of preparing sauces and sides. When you are ready to serve, lay out the meats on a large, pre- heated platter. Ladle over some of the broth to moisten the meats. Bring the platter to the table, along with the sauces and sides, and slice the meats at the table for each of your guests. Sauces and Condiments Italian boiled meat is always served with a variety of sauces and condiments. The most com- mon of them include: Salsa verde (Green sauce). This, to me, is the indispensable accompaniment to the Gran Bollito Misto or, for that matter, any boiled meat dish. Take a big bunch of fresh parsley, stems removed, together with a few anchovy fillets, a handful of capers, a few cornichons (if you like) and a clove or two of garlic. In a food processor, whiz every- thing together with a splash of vinegar and a good pour of olive oil until almost (but not quite) smooth. Some folks like to add some bread, crusts removed and soaked in vinegar, to thicken the sauce, but I don't usually. There is also a "rich" version of this sauce, which calls for the yolk of a hard-boiled egg, which thickens the sauce. Salsa rossa (Red sauce). A sweet and sour tomato sauce, which can be made like any basic tomato sauce, to which you add a splash of vinegar and a big pinch of sugar. In some recipes, the sauce is spiked with red pepper. Whisk in some extra olive oil, off heat, once the sauce is done. Mostarda. The name is a false friend—this is not mustard, but rather candied fruits laced with mustard seed oil. The most famous type is from the town of Cremona in Lombardia. You can make it at home (one day I hope to feature the recipe) but you can find imported mostarda in better Italian delis and even some fancy supermarkets. Salsa al cren (Horseradish sauce). Horseradish is not a com- mon ingredient in Italian cook- ing, and you won't find it in a Gran Bollito Misto in Piemonte. You will find it, however, in some other places in northern Italy, especially those with a Germanic influence. This raw sauce made by peeling and grat- ing horseradish root into a bowl and mixing with olive oil and vinegar, and seasoning with salt to taste. You can make an easy version of the sauce using store- bought horseradish, pre-grated and bottled in vinegar, commonly found in the US but not in Italy; just whisk it with ample olive oil and a pinch of salt if it needs it. Pearà (Black Pepper Sauce). This delicious but unusual sauce from the Veneto is made with bone marrow, finely minced and sautéed in butter, to which you add a fistful of breadcrumbs. You sauté the breadcrumbs until are well-impregnated with the mar- row and butter and nicely toasted, then you add some of the broth from the bollito pot, adding more ladlefuls as the crumbs absorb the liquid, until you obtain a smooth, sauce-like consistency. Season with lots of freshly ground black pepper (from which this sauce gets its name) and a pinch of salt if it needs it. Side Dishes Although meat—and lots of it—is very much the focus of the Gran Bollito Misto, the dish would not be complete without an array of vegetable side dishes. Among the most common are boiled or mashed potatoes, boiled carrots, beets and turnips, onions braised in agrodolce or pickled, spinach sautéed in butter, boiled Savoy cabbage, fennel braised in butter and funghi trifolati (sau- téed mushrooms). The boiled side dishes should be made more or less at the last minute, say about 30 minutes before you're done, preferably using the broth from the pot, which should be quite tasty and lend a wonderful flavor to the veggies. Notes It is critical to keep your meats warm and moist. If your guests have healthy appetites, and are likely to want seconds or thirds, it's probably best to return the meats to the pot to keep warm while your guests are eating their first "round" of meats. Or, even better, if you have a chafing dish, you can keep everything toasty on a side board. One ingenious, if unconventional idea from the great Allan Bay, in his Cuochi si Diventa: bring the meats to the table still in their pots, immersed in hot broth. Fish out the meats and carve them, on a board, at table. As a slightly more elegant option, I'm thinking you could transfer all the meats to an attrac- tive soup tureen and fill it with hot broth. The cotechino is a special sausage from Emilia-Romagna, most iconically associated with New Year's but eaten throughout the winter months. Zampone is essentially the same sausage using a de-boned pigs trotter as a casing. Cotechino can be hard to find outside Italy, and zampone even more so. Here in the US, you can sometimes find cotechi- no in Italian delis around the hol- iday season, but it often disap- pears quickly. It does make a wonderful addition to a bollito misto, however, and is well worth trying to find. Imported cotechini come vacu- um-packed. You simply boil the packet for 20-30 minutes. Fresh cotechini take longer. Calf's head is something I've never come across in the US (outside a French bistro in New York I ate at many years ago) but you might try asking a good butcher if s/he carries tête de veau or could order it. As mentioned above, you are unlikely to find some of the more unusual cuts of meat, too, in your local supermarket. You can always stick to the more com- monly found cuts, say a brisket, a chuck roast and a chicken, and you'll have a fine dish just with those cuts. Occasionally, I've seen things like oxtail or tongue in the frozen meat section of supermarkets. And, if you want to go the extra mile, seek out a local Asian, Latino or other eth- nic supermarket. These commu- nities still enjoy these kinds of cuts. And if you're lucky enough to still have an independent butcher in your area, he or she can probably help you; if they don't have it on hand, they can often special order unusual cuts of meat. Experts suggest that each diner season the meat slices on their plate by sprinkling them with coarse sea salt, remember- ing that the cook should go easy on the salt. When you're ready to take a bite, then just scrape off the excess salt. And they also counsel ending your meal with a cup of the broth from the pot, laced with a few drops of red wine (in Piemonte, it's typically Barbera) or perhaps with some grated Parmesan cheese. In Emilia-Romagna, the Gran Bollito Misto is preceded by a first course of tortellini in brodo, using of course, the broth you've just made with all those boiled meat. For more information about the Gran Bollito Misto, there are two authoritative websites: one of the Confraternita del Bollito Misto and one dedicated specifi- cally to the Gran Bollito alla Piemontese. Both websites are in Italian. Bollito misto is usually served with many sauces including salsa verde, salsa rossa and mostarda (Copyright: Depositphotos)

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