Anguilla alla bisentina

One of the best kept culinary secrets in Italy is the cuisine of northern Lazio in and around the city of Viterbo, an area known as the Tuscia. The style of cooking in this area is a kind of fusion between the lusty cooking of Roman to its south with the simple rusticity of Tuscany to the north.

One of the main geographical features of the area is a large volcanic lake called Lago di Bolsena, very close to the border with Tuscany. The abundant eel from the lake is famous, and has given birth to a local saying that «Vino de Montefiascone e anguilla de Bolsena, nun c'e' mejo cena» or "There is no better dinner than wine from Montefiascone with eels from Bolsena." The inhabitants of the Tuscia have developed several  ways for preparing the local eel, but by far the most famous is this braised dish named after the picturesque island of Bisentina in the middle of the lake. 

Ingredients: eel (about 250g or 1/2 lb. per person), vinegar, 1-2 cloves of garlic,  a sprig of  fresh rosemary, a handful of fresh sage leaves, a small bay leaf, olive oil, salt, pepper, hot pepper flakes, pureed canned tomato.

Preparation: Eel needs to be skinned, trimmed of its head and tail, and cut into shortish sections of 3 or 4 inches. In Italy, the center bone of the eel is usually left on. The skinning can be quite a job, so ask your fish monger to do it. The eel I got was both skinned and (unfortunately) filleted as well, so I had only to cut the fillets into sections.

The method for making this dish is rather unusual, as it inverts the usual sequence of dry followed by wet cooking. You being with a good glassful of vinegar in a skillet, which you bring to a simmer. Then place your eel pieces into the vinegar together with one or two cloves of garlic and a mixture of rosemary, sage and bay leaf, minced very finely, almost to a powder. (A spice grinder is especially useful here.) As the pieces simmer in this aromatic mixture, the flesh will begin to stiffen. Turn the pieces so they are evenly coated with the herbs and absorb the vinegar. Fairly soon, the vinegar will evaporate, at which point you should pour in a generous amount of olive oil, season the eel with salt, pepper and some red pepper flakes. Then add tomato purée, together with a bit of water, cover the skillet and allow the whole to simmer until the eel is tender, about 15-20 minutes. Serve immediately with some crusty bread to 'fare la scarpetta' with that delicious pan sauce.

NOTES: If you get a whole eel and need to prep it yourself, check out this explanation from eHow. It's a rather tricky operation and eels should actually be (quite literally) skinned alive—the longer you wait after they've been done in, the more slippery and difficult the skinning process will be—so hopefully your friendly local fish monger can do the job for you. Ask him, however, only to skin the eel and cut it into sections, and not to fillet it. The bone actually adds a lot of flavor. It can be hard to find eel in your average supermarket, but Italian or Asian fish markets are a good bet.

Eel is unusual for a 'fish', since it actually needs a fairly long braising period. The flesh tightens up when heated, and it needs a bit of time to relax again and become tender, so before serving, test a small piece. If it is still a bit 'chewy', give it a few more minutes.

Viterbo, by the way, is a lovely little town, under appreciated by tourists, that is well worth a visit. I went there fairly often when I was living in Rome. Whenever the stress of city living became too much, I would check into the nearby Terme dei Papi, a hot spring resort, and saunter around the slow paced town. There is much to see: the walls, the towers, the fountains and the historic palazzi built in the local volcanic stone called peperino. The town was once the seat of the Popes, and boasts a medieval Papal palace (1261) as well as several ancient churches. It was from an incident here that the word 'conclave' comes from. After Clement VI died in 1268, the assembled cardinals were taking so long to decide on the new pope that the local population locked them in 'cum clave' ('with a key') to encourage them to make up their minds. They quickly did so, electing Gregory XI after an amazing two years and ten months of deliberation.

The medieval quarter of Viterbo

While once in Viterbo, I picked up a charming little cookbook called Tuscia in tavola. It has all sorts of local recipes, including several ways to prepare the famous local eels. I doubt that the book has been translated, but the official website of the province of Viterbo has a page on the local cuisine. It is also in Italian, but you can translate it with the Google toolbar or some other online translation tool. Among other things, you will find a recipe for making this dish, going by its alternative name of anguilla alla pescatora.

The lovely Isola Bisentina

Pizzoccheri alla valtellinese

Nothing says 'winter' to me like this Alpine buckwheat pasta dish oozing with melted cheese and winter vegetables, a typical dish of the Valtellina in the uppermost stretches of Lombardia, a fairly narrow valley region running northeast from the Lago di Como along the border with Switzerland.

You make the pizzoccheri as you would any fresh pasta, but using 2 parts of buckwheat flour to one part regular wheat flour. (Buckwheat flour lacks gluten and needs some help to form a workable dough. Some recipes call for less regular flour, but the 2:1 ratio works well for me.) I use egg (and a bit of water) to bind the dough, but the original recipe (see below) calls for water only. You roll out the pasta rather thicker than other kinds of fresh pasta (I use setting "3" on my KitchenAid pasta roller) and let the rolled pasta sheets dry on a towel. Once dry enough, cut the sheets into strips, as wide as fettuccine or tagliatelle, say about 1 to 1.5cm (1/2 inch) wide and about 5-7 cm (2-3 in) long. Allow these little strips to dry out further while you prepare the rest of the dish (see photo above).

While your pizzoccheri are drying, prepare the vegetables that will accompany them, typically potato and a leafy winter vegetable, most often Savoy cabbage. Slice or cube the potato, as you prefer (I like them sliced) and immerse them in cold water. Shred your cabbage and add it, too, to the water. Instead of Savoy cabbage, you can also use spinach, swiss chard leaves or—as I did this time when I couldn't find Savoy cabbage at the market—coste, or the stalks of swiss chard, trimmed of their leaves and cut into lengths about the same size as the pizzoccheri. Precise proportions are not critical in this kind of dish, but I like to use about one smallish potato and say 100g (4oz.) of leafy vegetable per serving. Bring a large pot of water to the boil, salt generously, and add your vegetables.

While the vegetables are cooking, melt a nice big piece of butter—at least 50g/2oz. per serving to which you add a clove or two of garlic and a sprig of fresh sage. Allow the garlic and sage to simmer very gently in the melted butter until the butter is infused with their flavors. Do not allow the butter to brown; the garlic should brown, if at all, only slightly. Remove the garlic and sage when you're done.

While the butter is simmering, either slice or shred some mild, semi-soft cheese, the most classic choices being the local cheeses bitto or Valtellina Casera. But since these cheeses are hard to find, even in Italy, outside their zone of production, fontina is often substituted. And if you can't find fontina, I'd recommend staying in the Alps and using either Gruyère or Emmenthal. Grate about half that amount of parmesan cheese or grana padano. I like to use a lot of cheese as well, say 50g/2 oz. per serving, although you can use much less if you prefer a lighter dish.

After the vegetables have been boiling for about 5 minutes, add your pizzoccheri and lower the heat a bit and continue cooking for another 5-7 minutes. Pizzoccheri take surprisingly long to cook for a fresh pasta—if you taste after about 5 minutes, you may see that although the pasta is already al dente, there is a raw quality to it, due to the particular qualities of buckwheat.

While the pizzoccheri are cooking, warm a serving bowl in the oven. When you are ready to serve, take your serving bowl out of the oven and, fishing them out of the water with a large slotted spoon, add a layer of well drained pizzoccheri and vegetables, then top with some of the cheeses, seasoning if you like with salt and pepper:

Working quickly, repeat until you have used up the ingredients, then pour over all the melted butter (which should be hot). This will partially melt the top layer of cheese. Then toss to mix the ingredients (don't overdo it) and serve immediately, while the pasta is still hot.  

NOTES: There are various theories about the origin of the rather odd name of this pasta. According to some, 'pizzoccheri' comes from the local dialect word piz, meaning a 'little bit'. Others say it comes from the verb 'pinzare' or to pinch, others from the dialect word bizzo, meaning a mouthful. Buckwheat, by the way is called grano saraceno—Saracen grain—in Italian. It was introduced into the Valtellina in the early 1600s, it would seem (judging from the name) having come from the Ottomans, although the historical record is apparently very sparse. These days, local production has practically disappeared and most buckwheat in Italy is imported from China. Russia and the US are also major producers.  Besides pizzoccheri, buckwheat is used to make another typical dish of the Valtellina called sciatt, a kind of fritter.

The Valtellina is these days a popular tourist destination, known for its excellent skiing and other snow sports but also for thermal spas. (I rather like the idea of soaking in a hot spring surrounded by snow-peaked mountains!) Pizzoccheri are said to come from one of the larger towns in the valley called Teglio, where they have established an academy dedicated to this dish. The Academy has established an 'official' recipe, which you can read here, which is a bit different in some details from the recipe given above. In particular, the Accademia recipe calls for cutting the pizzoccheri much thinner (the recipe says 5mm, although I wonder if that isn't a typo; perhaps 50mm or half a centimeter was meant.) In addition, 'real' pizzoccheri are made only with flour and water, no egg. The addition of egg is a common modern heresy, however, as it makes the pasta easier to work with and improves the texture. Some modern recipes also call for a bit of milk, rather than water, to round out the dough. Marcella Hazan, in her Essentials of Italian Cooking, has a recipe for pizzocheri that calls for a short baking period just before serving to warm the pasta and melt the cheese. It's not a technique that I've found from any other source, but not a bad idea. The result is a bit more 'solid', if I can use the term, than the traditional method outlined above.

Although originally a very local specialty, pizzoccheri have become popular all over Italy, and can be bought in a box like any other pasta, which make them very easy to make. (Here's a video of them being made in a factory.) I have not found them sold commercially outside Italy, so you'll have to make your own. Not such a terrible sacrifice, however, as they are actually quite easy to make. But the dough does take a bit of getting used to, as it is not nearly as pliable as normal pasta dough, even with a fair amount of wheat flour. Knead the dough especially well to bring out the maximum amount of gluten.

Although I haven't done so, you might want to experiment with other winter vegetables. Kale, for example, could make for a nice (if unorthodox) change, regular cabbage strikes me as too tough for this dish, but might be work a try. If you use swiss chard stalks, don't throw out the leaves whatever you do! They can be used like spinach in any number of dishes—among my favorites, in padella (sautéed in olive oil) as a side dish, combined with ricotta as a stuffing for ravioli, crespelle or cannelloni, or as a dressing for pasta.

The town of Teglio, where 

pizzocheri originated.

Agnello e patate al forno

Lamb and potatoes have a natural affinity, as we saw in the elegant côtes d'agneau Champvallon. Here is a more rustic dish, made with seasoned chunks of lamb and potatoes baked in the oven until nicely browned on top. Simple, hearty and satisfying.

Take some thickly cut shoulder lamb chops, one or two per person depending on whether you are serving other courses and the appetite of your dinner companions. Bone and trim the chops of excess fat. (NB: Don't try to remove all the fat, just the really thick swaths of it. You want some fat to moisturize the meat during its rather long cooking time.) Cut the meat into cubes and add to a large mixing bowl. Then add a healthy splash of white wine, a pour of olive oil, one medium sliced onion, fresh rosemary, salt and pepper, and mix the ingredients well. If you have the time, allow the meat to marinate in this mixture for at least an hour and up to a day ahead.

When you are ready to cook, add chunks of potato, about the same size of the lamb cubes. Use as much potato as you like; I find that a 1:1 ratio of potato to lamb meat by weight produces a fine result. Mix the potatoes and lamb meat, then pour the entire mixture into a baking dish large enough to hold it all without it coming, say, any more than 5cm (3 in) up the sides of the dish.

Bake in a hot oven (200°C, 400°F) for about a half an hour covered, then remove the cover, raise the heat a bit and allow the casserole to continue cooking until the lamb and potatoes are tender and nicely browned, about 30 minutes more. The lamb will have shed quite a bit of water in the first half of cooking; the liquid should evaporate, but not quite completely, by the time it is done. Mix the lamb and potatoes from time to time to baste and allow the pieces to cook evenly, but leave the dish alone for the last 15 minutes or so, so a nice brown crust forms on top. If you find that the lamb has given off a lot of grease, you can skim the excess off with a spoon but, once again, do not skim all of the fat off, as it provides both moisture and flavor.

When the dish is done, remove it from the oven and allow it to cool and settle for a few minutes before eating. It can be made ahead and re-heated as well, and only improves if you do so.

NOTES: If you don't want to take the trouble to bone lamb shoulder chops, you can, of course, simply buy pre-cut lamb 'stew meat' (about 250g or 1/2lb. of meat per person should do) but try to ascertain whether the meat is shoulder or leg. Shoulder has more marbling and is far better for long cooking. Leg of lamb tends to be too lean for stewing, in my opinion, and is best roasted. And it costs more as well. The potatoes need to be the firm fleshed 'waxy' kind, or all-purpose. Avoid baking potatoes, which will fall apart in the cooking and turn to mush.

Otherwise, the recipe is just about foolproof. The dish is usually served as a secondo but is hearty enough to serve as a piatto unico, rounded out with just a salad and a piece of fruit. This dish was a great hit at a recent dinner at our place--even some finicky kids and adults who usually don't like lamb, loved this dish!

Angelina made a similar lamb and potato dish, but using shoulder chops with the bone still on, mixed with a bit of tomato and pecorino cheese—and omitting the white wine or rosemary. Cut up chicken is wonderful made the same way.

Post-scriptum: For yet another wonderful lamb and potato dish, check out this Lancashire Hotpot from Gourmet Traveller. It's a thing of beauty!

Fazzoletti di crespelle

It may come as something of a surprise to some, but Italians also make crepes, which are called crespelle in Italian (even if many Italians just call them by their French name, as we do in English). The most common use for crepes in Italian cookery is not as dessert, but as stuffed pasta. They can take the place of egg pasta to make cannelloni, or you can use them to make fazzoletti della nonna, "grandma's handkerchiefs", or fazzoletti di crespelle, or "crepe handkerchiefs": stuff them with a filling of your choice, then fold them into triangles that are said to look like handkerchiefs--hence the name--cover them with béchamel and grated cheese and bake them in the oven until golden brown on top.

For the filling: The filling I used this time was ricotta and swiss chard, which is almost identical to the more familiar ricotta and spinach filling. Taking a whole bunch of swiss chard, you trim the leaves from the stalks and blanch the leaves only in abundant vigorously boiling water for just 2-3 minutes. Drain and refresh immediately in cold water, squeeze out the water with your hands and chop the leaves finely. Then sauté the chopped leaves in butter to remove any lingering liquid and allowing the leaves to absorb the butter. Transfer the chard to a mixing bowl, and mix gently with a healthy dollop of ricotta cheese, a handful of grated parmesan cheese, a pinch of grated nutmeg, salt and pepper.(You can add an egg yolk if you like for a richer and stiffer stuffing.

To make crespelle: Crespelle are, as mentioned, basically are crepes. But they are rather smaller than the average crepe—only around 10 cm or so wide. You make a very thin batter (the thinner the batter, the thinner the resulting crespella) from 1 cup (250ml) of milk, into which you whisk 3/4 cup (125g) of flour, 2 whole eggs and a pinch of salt. (You can also add melted butter to the batter, which eliminates the need to melt butter in the pan.) You heat a small non-stick skillet over moderately hot heat, you drop a sliver of butter and allow it to melt, swirling it around to cover the bottom of the pan. Pour 1/4 cup of batter into the center of the skillet, immediately raise the skillet off the burner and swirl the batter around until it covers the bottom of the pan. (If it doesn't cover the entire bottom, you can always add a bit more batter to the bare spots—it will 'merge' with the rest.) Allow the crespella to form a solid disk that will slide around the skillet, then flip it over and continue to cook until the other side is lightly spottled. Remove to a plate and repeat until you've used up all the batter. (Don't worry if your crespelle are not perfectly round, it will not be noticeable in the finished dish.)

To make bechamel sauce: One of the mother sauces of French cuisine, bechamel is also used in northern Italian cooking in all sorts of baked pasta dishes, including the classic lasagne alla bolognese. See my post of that dish (Step 3 of the recipe) for details.

Then stuff the crespelle with your filling, spreading a fairly thin layer on the 'underside' of each crespella, leaving a small margin around the edge of the disk. You then fold the disk into a triangle so as to resemble a handkerchief, and place 'pointy' side up, in a well-greased gratin dish. You continue placing the crespelle, slightly overlapping as if they were roof tiles, until you have filled the gratin pan (or run out of crespelle or filling!) Nap with bechamel sauce, grate over copious amounts of parmesan cheese, dot with butter, and you're ready to bake.

Bake in a hot oven (400 F, 200 C) for about 10-15 minutes. If the top is not nicely browned, pass the dish under a broiler until the surface is nicely spottled but not uniformly browned. Let the dish settle for 5 minutes or so and serve.

NOTES: Crespelle can be stuffed in an infinite variety of fillings, including with meat, fish and poultry—any filling you can use for stuffed pasta, you can use for crespelle. Instead of triangular fazzoletti, as mentioned, they can be rolled up like cannelloni if you prefer, and for 'chunkier' fillings, this is the preferable way to make them.

Swiss chard has large green ribbed leaves, with stems that can be either red or white, with a taste similar to but more delicate than spinach. Mature chard have stems that are rather more like stalks, which can be cooked separately in various ways. For this filling, the stems or stalks need to be removed. It can be used instead of spinach in just about any recipes that calls for spinach, in salads when young, sautéed or gratinéed when mature.

You can prepare this dish ahead through the arrangement on a baking dish. Just leave it and pop it in the oven when you're ready to eat.  (If you make it the day before and have refrigerated it, take it out of the fridge and let it return to room temperature before baking it.) Unlike pasta, the crespelle will not absorb the filling or topping very readily, so you can assemble it and have it ready for the oven hours (or even a day) ahead. It's a nice choice for a dinner where you want to impress your guests with something elegant.

NB: Fazzoletti are also a kind of pasta, so be careful when Googling for more recipes!

Salsicce alla romana coi broccoletti

Is there any meat more satisfying than sausages? If there is, I haven't found it. And, in this typically Roman dish, sausages marry particularly well with broccoletti, the cruciferous vegetable known in English as 'broccoli rabe'. The slight bitterness of the broccoletti sets off the savory richness of the sausage perfectly.

You begin by browning some sausages—one or two per person—in lard (or olive oil, if you prefer) along with a clove or two of slightly crushed garlic and one or two dried chili peppers (peperoncini) in a braising pan until the sausages have nicely browned on all sides. In the meanwhile, blanch a bunch of broccoletti in a large pot of vigorously boiling salted water for no more than 3 minutes. When the sausages have browned, remove them to a plate and transfer the broccoletti with a slotted spoon to the braiser, mixing them well with the seasoned fat and seasoning them to taste. Now return the sausages to the pan, laying them on top of the greens, lower the heat and cover. Let the broccoletti and sausages braise until the greens are tender, the sausages cooked through and any liquid in the pan has evaporated.

NOTES: If the broccoletti are young and tender, you can eliminate the initial blanching and simply add them raw to the braising pan, but I find that the blanching cuts the cooking time down considerably and 'sets' the color of the greens. When transferring the greens from blanching pot to braising pan, there is no need to drain the greens perfectly—a bit of water will help them cook—but do not 'water log' them. If you do find that the greens are tender and the sausage is done before the liquid in the pan has fully evaporated, then remove the lid and raise the heat to high to cook off the excess liquid.

Just about any type of fresh pork sausage would work with this dish, but so-called 'sweet' Italian sausages (ie, not spicy) are the most typical choice. Just be sure that the sausages are not too lean (a common fault these days, at least here in the US) because they will inevitably dry out during the braising process.

Unusually for a classic, there are relative few variations on the recipe. A few recipes call for adding wine (in the typical Italian manner, after the sausages are brown, allowing the wine to evaporate before adding the greens) and some call for black pepper in addition to, or instead of, the peperoncino.

In Pugliese cuisine, broccoletti are often paired with orecchiette, and if you cut up the sausages, you could use this dish as a condimento for pasta, something fairly common in Italian-American cooking. You can also find Italian recipes along these lines. as well as with polenta or even as a topping for pizza, but in Rome the dish, at least in my experience, is invariably served  separately as a secondo.

Carpaccio di salmone affumicato

Here's an elegant yet very quick and easy starter that suits just about any menu: a 'carpaccio' of smoked salmon, dressed simply with oil and lemon.

All you need to do is arrange thin slices of smoked salmon on a plate (this is a dish that is best prepared individually for each diner) and spoon over them a citronette that you will have prepared beforehand by processing together a good pour of olive oil (about 1 dl/half a cup), the juice of half a lemon, a few sprigs of parsley, salt and just a smidgen of garlic (say, half a clove) until the lemon and oil have emulsified and the parsley and garlic have been finely minced. Allow to macerate for just 5 minutes or so, and serve with some crusty bread.

NOTES: As many readers will know, the original carpaccio, as invented by Giuseppe Cipriani in 1950 for his renowned Venice bar, was made with very thinly sliced beef fillets, dressed with a creamy mayonnaise. According to some sauces, the sauce was flavored with a bit of curry and chopped chives. Other sources say that the mayonnaise was tempered with lemon juice, Worchestershire sauce and a bit of milk. Either way, the contrasting red and white of the dish reminded Giuseppe of the paintings of Vittore Carpaccio, the 15^th Century Venetian painter whose works were known for their prominent use of these colors.

These days, the term applies to a multitude of dishes featuring thinly sliced or pounded meat or fish, including most commonly not just beef, but veal, venison, tuna, swordfish or salmon, usually dressed with oil and lemon seasoned with salt, pepper and aromatic herbs. The charm of using smoked salmon, of course, is that you can buy it pre-sliced, which eliminates an awful lot of work. And the resulting contrast of orange and green, while perhaps not true to Carpaccio's style, is lovely to behold all the same.

Carpaccio, Pilgrims Meet the Pope (1491-93), Accademia, Venice.

Cotechino con lenticchie

No Italian New Year's celebration would be complete without this dish of a delicious pork sausage served with lentils. New Year's Eve for Italians—like so many other holidays—is marked by a large, festive meal, often an elegant seafood dinner, called the cenone di San Silvestro or cenone di Capodanno, the word 'cenone' being Italian for 'big supper'. Midnight, however, is the time to break out this hearty dish, as Italian custom has it that if you start the New Year by eating coin-shaped lentils, it will bring you prosperity. And the more lentils you eat, the richer you will be—or, at least, that is the theory...

Most people (and I do the same) buy pre-cooked cotechino that is sold in a large vacuum-packed pouch. You just simmer the cotechino, still in its pouch, in enough water to cover for a minimum of about 20-30 minutes to reheat it. The sausage is quite fatty and it needs to be hot enough to start melting that fat, which gives it a wonderfully unctuous texture and flavor. For a large cotechino, I find that a fish poacher is ideal; an oval Dutch oven also works for smaller ones. You can keep the cotechino warm almost indefinitely until you are ready to eat. (For notes on preparing an uncooked cotechino or an American cotechino, see the Notes below.)

In the meanwhile, prepare the lentils. There are various ways to do this, but my personal favorite is the simplest: simmer the lentils in water with a sprig of thyme or sage or another aromatic herb and a clove of garlic until just barely tender, even a bit underdone. In a separate pot, make a simple soffritto of onion (and if you like, some finely minced prosciutto or pancetta) in olive oil and butter until quite tender. Strain and add your just cooked lentils to the soffritto, allowing them to insaporire for a few minutes, then add a ladleful or two of rich broth or the lentil cooking liquid or, best of all, the juice from the cotechino (see next paragraph). Simmer long enough for the flavors to meld and the lentils to become entirely tender. Do not overcook the lentils, however, or they will become rather stodgy.

When the lentils are just about done, carefully remove the cotechino from its pouch by cutting open up one side and allowing its contents—the cotechino itself and a fair amount of fatty juice—into a deep serving dish, preferably oval in shape to accommodate the cotechino comfortably. That juice has wonderful flavor: I like to add a ladleful or so to the lentils and let them absorb that flavor.

To serve, remove the cotechino to a cutting board and slice it thickly. Then lay out of 'bed' of the lentils in a large serving platter, then the cotechino slices in a pleasant arrangement on top of the lentils. You can, if you like—and I do—add a bit more of the juice on top of the lentils for even more lovely flavor and unctuousness.

NOTES: The cotechino is originally from Emilia-Romagna, specifically from the city of Modena. It is made from pork, fatback and pork rind, along with various spices. Some producers add wine as well as other flavorings and preservatives. Cotechino has TGI status, so one made outside its designated area is not a real cotechino. Although originally a local specialty, thanks to modern industrial production and marketing, in modern times cotechino (like panettone, originally from Milan) has become a national holiday tradition.

Preparing an uncooked cotechino (which are available, or used to be back in the day, in Italian areas of New York) is a bit more elaborate: you prick the sausage all over with a pin. (Don't use a fork as it creates holes that are too big; the skin may rupture and the stuffing, which is rather soft, may start to ooze out.) You then wrap the cotechino up in cheesecloth and tie it up with some cooking twine. The cotechino is then simmered in water for 2 hours for a big cotechino, 45 minutes for a small one. The resulting 'broth' can be added to the lentils as indicated above. (By the way, some recipes will tell you to degrease the broth before adding it to the lentils—but why throw away all that lusciousness? After all, it's the holidays.)

In the US, Beretta markets a domestic pre-cooked cotechino that is not half bad. It is a rather leaner rather smaller than a real cotechino, and comes 'dry' wrapped in clear plastic. You remove the plastic and simmer it for only 10-20 minutes. You will not have that luscious juice, however, to use. They can be found in Italian delis and are available online.

Of course, if you don't have a cotechino on hand, you can always use 'regular' Italian sausages, sautéed gently in some olive oil until golden brown and well cooked. When they are done, deglaze the pan with broth, some wine or just water, and add the sucs to the lentils.

As mentioned, there are various ways to make the lentils. In particular, some people prefer to use the classic soffritto italiano of onion, celery and carrot rather than just onion. But I personally find that the addition of carrot and celery for some reason gives the lentils an 'off' taste. Some recipes call for adding tomato which, to my mind, denatures the taste even more. For some recommendations on choosing and cooking lentils, see the post on Ham and Lentil Casserole. Obviously, this is not an everyday dish, but both cotechino and zampone can be eaten on occasions other than New Year's Eve. In fact, I actually prefer to eat this dish for lunch on New Year's Day. For one thing, after a large cenone, there is not much room for yet another dish—and a very rich one at that—and, an added plus, all the fat in the dish is great if you happen to have been' over-served' the night before...

While lentils are obligatory on New Years, cotechino is also very nice served with mashed potatoes or other kinds of legumes such as cannellini beans.

New Year's Eve is known in Italian as San Silvestro, after Pope Sylvester I (reign 314-335) who was buried on December 31. After Sylvester was canonized, the date became the liturgical feast of Saint Sylvester. Like others, Italians like to drink sparkling wine on New Years and enjoy firework displays. One old tradition, especially in Naples, was to throw out something old from your window at midnight to say 'goodbye' to the ending year. And it is also said that wearing red underwear will bring good luck in the coming year, although this is one tradition I have never followed!

By the way, cotechino is not the only kind of sausage eaten on New Years. Personally, I rather prefer the zampone, which is a pig's trotter stuffed with the same mixture. The presentation is much more dramatic and the pig's skin adds even more lusciousness to the final dish.

Though not associated with New Years as far as I am aware, there is a similar sausage from Ferrara called the salama da sugo. It has a more accentuated flavor, being more heavily spiced (usually with nutmeg but sometimes also with cloves or cinnamon) and personally I find it even more delicious than the other two. The salama is typically eaten with mashed potatoes or a purée of zucca (Italian pumpkin)—the flavor is just too intense to eat on its own. (See this article for a description in English.) Unfortunately, it is little known outside Italy and, as far as I know, unavailable in the US. I have found this online source for those in the UK.

Post-scriptum: Just in time for the New Year, Memorie di Angelina has reached yet another milestone, its 100,000th visit! A staggering number, at least to me, and a wonderful way to begin 2010. Happy New Years to all you gentle readers out there!