Il bollito: cooking meat for Christmas

Parties, official or private, are always (not to say mainly) a culinary experience in Italy. This certainly applies to Christmas, which is traditionally celebrated in the family with a Holle Bolle Gijs-like enthusiasm.

That is why we stay at home and the children come over with their partners to enjoy the food of yesteryear with us. Because it is important that tradition is maintained and that means that you cannot just put everything on the table.

As a well-integrated foreigner, I adhere to that and that means that with us at Christmas vegetarians little to enjoy. After all, everyone in this country knows that Christmas Eve is reserved for fish, while Christmas lunch, in which guests can also participate, is all about the pleasures of the flesh (well). And of course everything is prepared at home as much as possible, so that the kitchen is in use almost all day.

Christmas Eve: fish

On the evening of the 24^e abolishes the pot as appetizer raw salmon fillet that has been in a marinade of white wine, lemon, thyme, rosemary, garlic and pink pepper for 2 days. (The recipe comes from the Harry's Bar cookbook in Venice, which the proprietor, Arrigo Cipriani, once gifted to me.)

Then follows one first course of short pasta, for example penne, with mussels, calamari (squid) and shrimps, refreshed with garlic, a few fresh mini tomatoes and a Spanish pepper.

Finally, as a main course fried anchovies. I keep the batter for this thin, tempura-like, so as not to make things too heavy. That is also allowed, because there is also a herring salad with, among other things, potato, onion, apple, egg and crème fraiche.

An Italian recipe always calls for a matching wine, but almost any white wine that is not too sweet is good to drink with it. I like a ribolla gialla from Friuli and a Roman bellona.

First Christmas Day: the boiled meat

On Christmas Day in Italy it is better not to have breakfast, because in the afternoon a war of attrition follows at the table. After a starter - my wife makes it every Christmas semolina dumpling (semolina gnocchi) with melted butter and parmesan – here's the pièce de résistance: the boiled meat.

Translated as cooking meat, that doesn't seem so special, but it is. It is a collection of different types of meat that only become tender after a long time of cooking and are therefore not so highly regarded, but that together and accompanied by the right sauces form a beautiful gastronomic complex.

Ingredients for the bollito

In its most luxurious form, the bollito consists of 7 types of meat with 7 different sauces. We do it simpler with only 5 meats and sauces, but that is also more than enough.

You need a large pan and for 10 commensals the following ingredients:

• 2 kilo whitish (ribs) in one piece
• 1 kilogram of lean beef
• 1 soup chicken
• 1 whole beef tongue
• 1 cotechino (fresh, seasoned Northern Italian cooked sausage) of approximately 1 kilo
• 2 whole white onions, cleaned and pierced with a total of 10 cloves
• 1 bunch fresh parsley, thyme and rosemary
• 6-8 bay leaves
• 3 or 4 large carrots, peeled and cut into large chunks
• 4 stalks of celery, without greens and cut into large pieces
• salt and peppercorns at will
• 8 liters of water

Preparation of the bollito

1. Bring the water to a boil with the spices and salt. Then add the meat, except tongue and sausage, and when the water boils again, the vegetables. Remove foam with a slotted spoon.
2. Then let the meat cook on a low heat for about 3 hours. Tongue and sausage should cook separately for about an hour and a half. Remove everything from the pan, remove the coating from the tongue and slice everything about 1 cm thick and place on a large dish, garnished with the vegetables and accompanied by the sauces.
3. For those who want to keep it simple: freshly pressed olive oil with salt (e.g. smoked Maldon salt) and pepper or lemon.

• Pink sauce of mayonnaise, Greek yogurt, ketchup and Worcestershire sauce (possibly with a dash of cognac).
• salsa bianca, or (homemade) mayonnaise.
• Mustard from Cremona: Lobby pickled fruits and vegetables, sweet with a typical sharp taste of mustard seed essence. Available everywhere in northern Italy, also on the market, in Rome only in glass jars. Delicious on the meat, but making it yourself this year was a bridge too far.
• Salsa verde: the bollito sauce par excellence, based on (lots of) fresh parsley, anchovy fillets, yolks of hard-boiled eggs, breadcrumbs, black pepper, garlic, wine vinegar, capers, olive oil and salt. Put everything in the blender and just turn. You can find a good recipe on a cooking site Saffron Yellow.

Such a main dish has not been elaborated in depth boundary (side dish) required. We stick to a simple salad of raw fennel (fennel), Sicilian oranges (nice and tart at this time of year) and black olives.

For dessert, of course, there is the classic Panettone: a classic Italian Dolce. But then a traditional version, with lots of candied fruits and nuts. A German friend also takes another one Weihnachtsstollen so we don't miss anything.

Boxing Day

In the strong broth of the bollito on Boxing Day, when everyone needs to recover, tortellini in bread cooked. After that there are liters left that, frozen in the following weeks, form a nice basis for a good risotto.

Finally the wines. Well, the kids are bringing Barolo and Amarone, which we don't drink often because of the price, but all the more at Christmas. The offspring will get their money's worth in the days that follow with national specialties such as hutspot (with Unox smoked sausage) and chowder (with smoked bacon and crabs) that are a worthy change after the Italian culinary violence at Christmas.

Merry Christmas!