One of the classics of Italian food, this dishfrom Piedmont is a wonderful old-fashioned feast. A proper big bollito feedsabout 18 and includes tongue and sometimes veal. It seems a pity only to cookit when you have hordes to feed, so this is a reduced version. Buy good brisketfrom an excellent butcher – one from the supermarket won’t do – and cook itreally gently, or the meat will be tough. You can find cotechino and mostarda di frutta in Italian delis or online.
Little (ish) bollito misto
One of the classics of Italian food, this dishfrom Piedmont is a wonderful old-fashioned feast. A proper big bollito feedsabout 18 and includes tongue and sometimes veal. It seems a pity only to cookit when you have hordes to feed, so this is a reduced version. Buy good brisketfrom an excellent butcher – one from the supermarket won’t do – and cook itreally gently, or the meat will be tough. You can find cotechino and mostarda di frutta in Italian delis or online.
Ingredients
FOR THE BOLLITO MISTO
- 500 g 1lb 2oz beef bones
- 3 carrots
- 3 celery sticks
- 2 leeks cleaned, trimmed and halved
- 1 large onion peeled, halved, each half stuck with 1 clove
- generous handful of parsley stalks
- 10 black peppercorns
- 1 kg 2lb 4oz beef brisket
- sea salt flakes
- 1 small chicken
- 1 cotechino
FOR THE SALSA VERDE
- 100 g 3½ oz flat-leaf parsley sprigs
- 25 g scant 1oz mint leaves 2 garlic cloves, chopped
- 2 tbsp capers rinsed
- 4 anchovies rinsed, dried and chopped
- ½ tsp Dijon mustard
- juice of ½ lemon
- freshly ground black pepper
- 150 ml 5fl oz extra virgin olive oil
Instructions
- Put the beef bones, carrots, celery, leeks, onion, parsley stalks and peppercorns into a very large saucepan (it needs to hold the beef and the chicken at the same time).
- Add cold water to cover and bring to the boil.
- Skim the surface, reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for 1½ hours.
- Add the brisket, return to just under the boil, then reduce to a gentle simmer.
- Skim the surface and add salt.
- Cover and cook very, very gently for 1 hour 15 minutes.
- Add the chicken and cook for another 45 minutes.
- The chicken should be cooked through (the juices that run from between the leg and the body should be clear, with no trace of pink).
- Make sure the cooking is gentle the whole time.
- To make the salsa verde, chop the herbs, then pound in a mortar and pestle with the other ingredients, gradually adding the oil (you can make this in the food processor, but it is nicer made by hand: it has a better, rougher texture).
- Some cooks add the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs, to enrich and soften the salsa.
- Heat the cotechino in a saucepan of boiling water in the pouch in which it came (it’s already cooked; you just need to heat it through, then remove it from its pouch).
- Keep the beef and chicken in the pot covered with the cooking liquid until you want to serve, then slice the beef, cotechino and chicken, removing the chicken skin.
- Either serve the meats in soup plates with broth spooned over (that’s what I do) or take them to the table on a platter and bring the broth in a tureen.
- The important thing is not to have the meats out of the broth for longer than necessary, as they must stay moist.
- Serve with the salsa verde and mostarda di frutta – a sweet and hot Italian condiment – on the side, and whole or halved carrots, quartered onions and celery sticks (simmered separately in stock).
- Something starchy – white beans or Umbrian lentils – is usually served as well.