Brodetto Pasquale is the classic beginning to a Roman Easter dinner.
Prep Time: 45 minutes
Cook Time: 2 hours
Total Time: 2 hours, 45 minutes
Ingredients:
- 1 1/4 pounds (500 g) beef
- 1 1/4 pounds (500 g) breast of lamb
- Herbs for broth (a small onion, a carrot, a stalk of celery and several sprigs of parsley)
- 6 egg yolks
- The juice of half a lemon
- Minced marjoram (fresh, about 1 teaspoon)
- White pepper
- Thin slices of toasted Italian bread
- Grated Parmigiano
Preparation:
This was the starting point for Easter dinner in days of old, whose preparation requires equal amounts of beef and lamb, and which Belli mentions it in his sonnet, La Santa Pasqua. And elsewhere; in defining the word brodetto he says: "A soup made with bread and broth, thickened with egg." Brief and to the point. Brodetto is a custom lost in the mists of time.
Because if this it also figures in popular expressions, for example "It's older than brodetto." Or, because of the happy preparation of the dish, "Annà in brodetto," which roughly translates as to be high on the hog.
Set the beef and the herbs to heat in 2 quarts of cold water, and when the pot reaches a boil skim off the scum. Reduce the heat to a slow boil and simmer for about an hour and a half, then add the lamb and cook another hour and a half. Once the broth is cooked, degrease it and strain it, then heat it until it is hot but not boiling.
Toast several slices of Italian bread and line your soup bowls with them.
Lightly beat the yolks in your tureen together with the lemon juice and grated Parmigiano to taste. Slowly pour the hot broth into the tureen, stirring gently with a wooden spoon, so that the broth thickens but the eggs do not curdle the way they do when you make stracciatella. Once you have finished stirring in the broth add the marjoram, then ladle the soup into the bowls and serve, with more grated Parmigiano for those who want it.
Serve the meat as a second course, with a vegetable (sautéed spinach or chicory will work well) and mayonnaise, mustard, or salsa verde.
The wine? I'd go with a light, zesty white, for example a Colli Albani.
Because if this it also figures in popular expressions, for example "It's older than brodetto." Or, because of the happy preparation of the dish, "Annà in brodetto," which roughly translates as to be high on the hog.
Set the beef and the herbs to heat in 2 quarts of cold water, and when the pot reaches a boil skim off the scum. Reduce the heat to a slow boil and simmer for about an hour and a half, then add the lamb and cook another hour and a half. Once the broth is cooked, degrease it and strain it, then heat it until it is hot but not boiling.
Toast several slices of Italian bread and line your soup bowls with them.
Lightly beat the yolks in your tureen together with the lemon juice and grated Parmigiano to taste. Slowly pour the hot broth into the tureen, stirring gently with a wooden spoon, so that the broth thickens but the eggs do not curdle the way they do when you make stracciatella. Once you have finished stirring in the broth add the marjoram, then ladle the soup into the bowls and serve, with more grated Parmigiano for those who want it.
Serve the meat as a second course, with a vegetable (sautéed spinach or chicory will work well) and mayonnaise, mustard, or salsa verde.
The wine? I'd go with a light, zesty white, for example a Colli Albani.
