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.
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Ingredients:
- Boiled beef (see below for proportions)
- Onions
- Unsalted butter
- Broth
- Lemon Juice
Preparation:
Continuing with the introduction, though boiled meat with sauces is quite good, it's not the sort of thing one would want to eat every day, and many 19th century cookbooks contain recipes to help people deal with it.Now that we have entered the bouillon 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 Italy.
The recipe:
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 unsalted 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. The wine? A light, zesty red, for example a Chianti, or even a dry Lambrusco.
