Tag: cotechino

Recipe Lentil gnocchi with soft and crunchy cotechino – Italian Cuisine

Ingredients For the gnocchi

400 g boiled lentils
100 g 00 flour
100 g re-milled durum wheat semolina
2 pcs yolks
salt

Ingredients For the meat sauce and chips

1 pc boiled cotechino
200 g of stock broth
30 g diced onion
30 g diced carrot
20 g diced celery
20 g triple sec
zest of 1 orange
extra virgin olive oil
salt
pepper

Duration: 1 h 30 min

Level: Medium

Doses: 4 people

For the recipe of the lentil gnocchi with soft and crunchy cotechino, sift the lentils and mix them with the flour, semolina, egg yolks and a pinch of salt until the mixture is soft. Divide it into loaves (diam. 2 cm), cut them into 2 cm chunks and line them on the fork tines.
For the meat sauce and cotechino chips: Blanch the orange zest three times, always changing the water. At the end add a couple of tablespoons of sugar, leave to infuse for 15-20 minutes, then drain and dry them gently with kitchen paper. Obtain a dozen thin slices from the cotechino, roast them until crispy like chips and set aside. Cut the rest of the cotechino into cubes. Brown the vegetables in a veil of oil for a few minutes, then add the diced cotechino, flavored with the triple sec and a few fillets of orange peel. Sprinkle with the broth, cook for a few minutes and season with salt. Boil the gnocchi, let them come to the surface and after 1-2 minutes of cooking drain them directly into the pan with the sauce. Skip everything for less than 1 minute and distribute on plates. Complete with the cotechino chips, the cooking juices and the remaining orange peel.
Recipe by Andrea Sangiuliano

Cotechino and lentils: all the secrets of a ritual dish – Italian Cuisine

Lentils are one of the oldest foods while cotechino was born during the siege of Mirandola in the 16th century. History, meaning, secrets and recipes of a must for New Year's Eve: a wish for a 2021 full of hope

This year, for everyone, the rite will be celebrated at home: cotechino (or zampone) with lentils as a first course of the new year. It is a greedy ritual, which combines the abundance of a very Italian salami – as far as possible from the light concept (semel in year licet insanire, we agree, given that it is the dinner par excellence) – the imposing meaning of first legume grown in history. There are testimonies of harvests carried out five thousand years ago, not to mention the social aspect, including the religious one: it is easy to think of the episode of the lentil dish between Esau and Jacob, one of the most cited in the Old Testament.

Castelluccio, the IGP lentils

The permanent presence of lentils after midnight on December 31st is due to the Romans that beyond the pleasure of taste, considered the legume as an investment for the months to come and gave it a full pouch – the leather bag to keep tied to the belt – on the last day of the year. The hope is that they would turn into sound coins, but badly they ended up in the pot. And for the less well-off, a real wealth remained, given the high nutritional value. Italy abounds in excellent lentils, starting from the two PGIs that touch Castelluccio of Norcia (on the border between Marche and Umbria) and the Apulian Altamura: the important thing is that before cooking them over low heat – they must be soft, but not undone – should be soaked in the night between 30 and 31.

Pico's (culinary) genius

As for the beloved cooked salami, it will not boast the spirituality of the legume, but it has medieval and noble origins, due (apparently) to the genius of Pico della Mirandola, in 1511: he advised the Mirandolesi, besieged by papal troops, to slaughter the few pigs left in the stables by putting the meat inside the legs and rind of the poor pigs, with lots of spices. Twist: the product was very good, perhaps fatter than those we will eat on New Year's Day but they were under siege and had other problems … Cotechino is zampone – so different in appearance – they still have the same filling: lean and fat pork, coarsely minced, combined with the animal's rind, very finely chopped. All flavored with pepper, nutmeg, cloves, depending on the secret hand of the butcher, also some artisan producers add cinnamon and even wine.

Cotechino and zampone

But then the difference? It is the casing: the pig's leg, strictly the front one, for the zampone; the natural or artificial casing for cotechino. The first is a little more consistent in terms of calories, because the rind of the leg releases fat during cooking, but the second also doesn't mess with calories. The content varies from norcino to norcino, but the skilfully spiced dough tends to include 60% of fresh lean meats (shoulder, leg, neck and shank pulp), 20% tender rind and 20% throat, bacon and bacon.

A Bottura passion

Where is it at the top? It cannot be said that far from Modena they are of poor quality, but the history and the only Italian IGP – for both – make the city of Ghirlandina and Massimo Bottura (who is crazy about it, he says so serenely) the Italian capital. Last question: better fresh or pre-cooked? It depends on the time available. In the first case, cotechino or zampone should be pricked, wrapped in a cloth or in aluminum foil, placed in a pot with cold water and left to boil for at least a couple of hours. In the second, however, 20/30 minutes in boiling water are enough. With the same producer, there is no match: the first wins …

Ever tried goose cotechino? – Italian Cuisine

Pure goose cotechino does not exist. Or rather, there is only one, the Jovial, the only pure goose cotechino. In this period the cotechino cannot be missing: it is the symbol of our Christmas tradition and is always particularly appreciated. But lifestyles change and you would like to surprise your guests with a different cotechino: just search the web to find a goose cotechino where, however, the percentage of goose meat is really low and pork is instead predominant, but 20% goose is certainly not enough to transform a pork cotechino into a goose. Cotechini in which the lightness and elegance typical of goose meat is not found because the pig is too aggressive and completely destroys the unique characteristics of the goose.

The name cotechino derives from the use of pork rinds in the dough. We therefore refer to the cuts used in production. And one of these, the rinds, characterized the product and also gave it its name. And then in a dough of pure goose as in which there is no pork and therefore there are no rinds, why call it cotechino? To recall a soft and gelatinous product of this period studied for five years by a craftsman from Oca Sforzesca, a specialized company in the Vigevano area: if there are no rinds, how can we obtain the cotechino structure? By combining different goose cuts with different cooking techniques.

Thus was born the Gioviale, a pure goose without pork, 100% Made in Italy, traditional in respect of the best recipes of Vigevano and without swallowing (gavage). Light and fragrant thanks to the use of only goose meat, soft and basically gelatinous thanks to the special vacuum cooking, it is ready for use in a comfortable vacuum-sealed aluminum bag to be easily taken in a water bath.