Il Lesso Rifatto

THOUGH FEW MIGHT REALIZE IT, boiled dinner was once the commonest meat dish in Italy. Not the sumptuous bollito misto alla piemontese, a meal fit for a king, but simpler fare -- in part because boiled meat, usually cheaper cuts of elderly beef, was all many could afford for their Sunday dinners. More importantly, however, boiled meat is a byproduct of making broth, which was used almost daily in middle and upper class households, both as an ingredient in other dishes, and as a base for soups. Though boiled meat with sauces is quite good, it's not the sort of thing one would want to eat every day, and many 19^th century cookbooks contain recipes to help people deal with it.

Now that we have entered the bullion era and people are better off, boiled meats are less common than they once were. However, lesso rifatto, recooked boiled meat, is still popular, and you will find it on the menus of trattorie in working class neighborhoods throughout northern Italy (haven't been into this sort of restaurant in the south, but wouldn't be surprised to find it there, too).

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Chop an onion and gently sauté it in a pot with olive oil and a few coarsely chopped tomatoes. Let the mixture cook over a low flame for about a half hour, stirring occasionally. In the mean slice your boiled meat. Add it to the sauce, heat everything through for a few more minutes, and serve hot.

This and the other recipes except for Artusi's are from Il Re Dei Cuochi (The King of Cooks), an anonymously authored book published by Salani in 1885 (translations mine). Here the author doesn't give proportions. You will want a medium-sized onion, a quarter cup or so of oil, a half pound of ripe tomatoes (if the skins bother you blanch and peel them) and a pound of meat, cut into 1/4-inch slices. Will serve 4.

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If you have, let's say, 2 1/4 pounds of boiled meat with the bone (brisket or other soup meat), chop 3/4 pound of small onions and sauté them in a pot with 1/2 cup sweet butter. Meanwhile, slice the beef. Once the onions have become translucent, add the sliced beef and a crushed clove of garlic; season to taste with salt and pepper, and sprinkle a ladle of broth over the pot. Cook for a few minutes, adding a little more broth if that in the pot cooks down too much (you don't want everything to dry out). Before serving, sprinkle the meat with the juice of a half a lemon, and garnish it with freshly minced parsley.

(Will serve 6-8 at one sitting, but also keeps quite well for a day.)

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To serve 4 you will need 1 1/4 pounds of boiled beef; remove it from the stockpot before it's completely cooked and place it whole in a pot in which you have already placed a minced mixture consisting of about 2 ounces of minced pancetta, a half of a small onion, and somewhat smaller volumes of carrot, and celery, dotted with a little sweet butter. Season with salt and pepper to taste as well, and set the pot on the fire. Once the onion has become translucent, sprinkle the meat with tomato sauce or some tomato paste diluted with broth, and continue cooking it until it's done. While the meat is cooking, steep a few dried mushrooms in boiling water. When the meat is done transfer it to a platter. Blend the sauce, add the soaked mushrooms to it, cut the meat into 1/4-inch slices, spoon the sauce over them, and serve.

(Serves 4.)

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Cookery could also be called the art of giving dishes strange and arbitrary names. This boiled meat is called Toad in the Hole, which translates to rospo nella tana; as you will note from the recipe and discover upon trying it, it may not be superb, but does not deserve to be called a toad.

In Florence, a half pound of meat for boiling, which will be sufficient for three people, will weigh about 3/4 of a pound before the bone is removed and the gristle trimmed away. For this amount of meat, whip an egg in a pot with 2 tablespoons of flour and 7/8 of a cup of milk. Cut the meat into thin slices. Melt 1/4 cup of butter in a pot elegant enough to double as a serving dish, lay the meat slices over it, and season them with salt, pepper, and a touch of ground spices, if you like them. Turn the meat so as to brown it on both sides, then sprinkle it with a heaping tablespoon of grated Parmigiano and pour the milk mixture over it. Simmer till the liquid has thickened, and serve.

The method of this recipe, from Pellegrino Artusi's Scienza in Cucina e L'Arte di Mangiar Bene, closely follows that given for Lesso alla Straniera, Foreign Style Recooked Boiled Meat, in Salani's anonymously authored cookbook of 1885 -- Artusi may well have lifted it.

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WHAT TO SERVE WITH YOUR LESSO RIFATTO? Boiled vegetables will work nicely, especially potatoes or carrots. So will fresh peas, and celery. This recipe is from Artusi:

Use the white part of the ribs of celery, cutting them into pieces about an inch long. Boil them for five minutes in salted water, and then sauté them in butter till done. Serve the celery a béchamel sauce, making it fairly thick, and flavoring it with about a tablespoon of grated Parmigiano.

(Base the volume of celery on the number of people eating. Assuming about four, you will want a cup of milk, a tablespoon each of butter and flour, and salt and pepper to taste for the béchamel sauce. Melt the butter, without letting it brown, stir in the flour, and continue stirring; when the mixture turns light brown begin to add the milk in a slow stream. It will boil up. Stir vigorously to eliminate the lumps and continue adding the milk slowly, stirring all the while (if need be stop adding milk, remove the pot from the heat, and stir out the lumps before adding more milk). Once all the milk is added, stir gently over a low flame until the sauce thickens somewhat, season to taste, and it's done. This is according to my taste; if you want it thicker use a little more flour at the beginning.)

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To close on a very different note, Ligurian cooking and wines are enjoying a well-deserved wave of popularity. I recently drove up to the Province of Imperia (almost to France), where I tasted the wines produced by Tenuta Giuncheo and Riccardo Bruna, all of which are worth seeking out (for those living in the US, they're imported by Weinkontor and Vinissimo Estate Selections, who will be able to tell you where to find them).

Tenuta Giuncheo's 1996 Vigneto Le Palme Vermentino Riviera Ligure di Ponente, a single-vineyard cru, is a pretty pale greenish yellow with greenish highlights. Its bouquet is delicate, with floral notes and clover that bring to mind a summer day, laced with the bitterness typical of Vermentino and a delicate touch of oak. On the palate it is rich and full, with excellent fruit nicely balanced by wood; the finish has the pleasing bitter notes characteristic of the grape and is very clean. This will go well with greens, delicately prepared crustaceans, and mildly flavored oriental dishes.

Unlike the cru, Tenuta Giuncheo's normal 1996 Vermentino doesn't see any wood -- just steel. The wine is a slightly less intense pale yellow, with no green, and has an elegant bouquet, with nice fruit, including apricot and strawberry, laced with licorice. On the palate the wine is full, pleasantly dry, and has a clean finish that ends with citrus notes. It's a more robust wine than the cru, and will go nicely with cream sauce-based fish dishes, white meats, hearty vegetable soups, and the home style recooked boiled beef featured above if the onions are sweet enough.

Tenuta Giuncheo's 1996 Rossese di Dolceacqua was an exciting discovery; the wine is a pale cherry red with pinkish highlights. The bouquet is spicy, laced with the heather and nettles of an Italian field, and also has hints of freshly sawed cedar mixed with rose jam and lots of fruit (grasping at straws here, but it's quite nice). On the palate the wine has rich marasca cherry fruit and is medium bodied, with smooth, light, well rounded tannins, and a clean, slightly sour finish that derives from the fruit. This wine will go quite well with rich foods, slow-cooked game, and the lessi rifatti listed above.

Tenuta Giuncheo's 1996 Rossese di Dolceacqua Pian del Vescovo, a cru, is even more interesting. It's a more intense red, with reddish orange highlights, and has a clean, crisp bouquet with nice fruit laced with sage and rosemary, and hints of oak. On the palate it is quite elegant, well balanced, and very smooth, with nice fruit and well rounded dusty tannins (in part from the oak). The finish is quite clean, with marasca cherry notes. It is a rich wine, which will go nicely with stews, roasts (poultry), and elegant rich vegetarian dishes, for example ravioli with walnut sauce.

Riccardo Bruna's 1996 Pigato Le Russeghine was declared the primo inter pares (the first among equals) among the Pigati by this year’s "Vini d’Italia," the influential wine guide published by Gambero Rosso. It's a pale yellow with faint green highlights, and has a pleasingly complex bouquet with heather and sage overlain by strong floral overtones that blossom in the glass. On the palate the wine is medium bodied, with an initial burst of sweetness that gives way to pleasant bitter spicy notes. The finish is quite clean, with the bitterness giving way to licorice. It will of course go well with Ligurian cuisine, especially ravioli, buridda (a Ligurian fish stew), grilled seafood, or crustaceans. It will also go nicely with white meats, and Creole-style fish.

Riccardo Bruna's 1996 Pigato Villa Torrachetta is somewhat more delicate than Le Russeghine. It's a pale white with reddish highlights, and has a clean, elegant bouquet whose floral notes are laced with hints of strawberry. On the palate it is medium bodied, with nice fruit and pleasing bitter notes that give way to licorice and hints of eucalyptus on the finish. An elegant wine, it would go nicely with delicate steamed fish, mild crustaceans, and vegetable dishes and soups.

Though it is perhaps soon to be thinking about Valentine's Day, either the Tenuta Giuncheo le Palme or Le Russeghine would do nicely if you choose to forgo bubbly and like fruity, lightly or non-oaked white wines.

Good Food & Drink,
Kyle Phillips

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Text & Photos © Kyle Phillips, recipes drawn from La Scienza in Cucina and Il Re dei Cuochi, translations Phillips.

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