Bollito Misto with Pearà — Veronese Recipe

Introduction

In Verona the bollito is not a dish but an afternoon. The pot goes on after breakfast, one meat is added at a time according to the time it needs, and meanwhile in an earthenware pot alongside it the pearà cooks slowly: beef marrow, grated stale bread, stock and a quantity of black pepper you would not see in any other Veneto recipe. The name comes from exactly that: «pearà» in dialect means peppered, and it is the sauce that gives the dish its title, not the meats.

It is a recipe with only two difficulties, and neither of them is technical. The first is time: the pearà cannot be made in twenty minutes, because the bread has to drink the stock slowly and the marrow has to melt without frying; under an hour and a half it stays a grainy mush, beyond two hours it becomes a cream you can cut with a spoon. The second is patience with the meats, which do not all go in together: the beef wants three hours, the boiling fowl an hour and a half, the cotechino cooks on its own in another pot because its fat would spoil the stock for everything else. Respect those two things and the dish always works, and it is one of the few that gets better the more people there are at the table.

In the glass we put the Amarone della Valpolicella D.O.C.G. 2013 by Tenuta Trabucchi, which is made at Illasi, on the same hills where this dish is the festive lunch. Alongside the meats, the Cren by SoloTreviso: with boiled meats it is the sauce the Veronese have always set beside the pearà.

The Story of Bollito Misto with Pearà

The pearà was born of the opposite problem to today's: not what to serve with the boiled meats, but what to do with them once the flavour has ended up in the stock. Three hours of simmering take away most of what the meat had, and the result is a nourishing and insipid dish. The Veronese answer was a sauce made with whatever was left in the kitchen — the previous day's bread, the marrow the butcher gave away with the bone, a ladle of that same stock — plus the one expensive thing on the list, the pepper. In Verona, which for centuries lay on the spice road to the north, that pepper was the sign that this was a feast day: the pearà is poor in its ingredients and lordly in its intention, and that is why it has always been made at Christmas, on Santa Lucia and for weddings.

The city also tells a legend, and it is worth taking it for what it is. It has the sauce born in the sixth century at the Lombard court of Alboin, who had his seat in Verona and was murdered in that city: queen Rosamund, a prisoner and in despair, is said to have refused food until a cook made her a sauce of marrow, bread and pepper to bring her round. No document confirms it, and the recipe as we know it is far more recent. The story survives because it says something true about the dish: the pearà is a restorative before it is a condiment, and that is the reason it is served piping hot and in small amounts, a spoonful at a time on the meat. Bollito misto, on the other hand, belongs to the whole Po plain — the Piedmontese trolley of boiled meats, the Lombard lesso, the lesso and cren of the border country — and each area sets itself apart by the sauce, not by the meat.

Ingredients

For the bollito misto

beef brisket or short rib800 g
feather blade or shoulder shin600 g
half a boiling fowl (or a small capon)about 800 g
veal tongue700 g
cotechino or musetto1 of 500 g
carrot2
celery2 sticks
onion studded with 2 cloves1
bay leaf1 leaf
black peppercorns8
coarse saltto taste

For the pearà

beef marrow, already removed from the bone150 g
grated stale bread, without dark crust250 g
stock from the bollito, boiling hot1,5 l
butter50 g
grated Grana60 g
freshly ground black pepper2 heaped tablespoons
saltto taste

To serve

Cren horseradish root1 jar
Pear mostardato taste
coarse salt crystalsto taste

Equipment Needed

Tall, roomy pot of at least 8 litres
A second pot for the cotechino
Earthenware pot or heavy-based casserole
Slotted spoon
Wooden spoon and grater
Sharp knife and chopping board

Tip: The pearà wants a vessel with a thick base, earthenware or cast iron: two hours of cooking on a thin base make the bread catch before it has finished drinking the stock, and the burnt taste comes through in the whole sauce. If you do not have one, set the casserole on a heat diffuser.

How to Make Bollito Misto with Pearà — Veronese Recipe

The stock and the beef

In a large pot bring 5 litres of water to the boil with the carrots, the celery, the onion studded with the cloves, the bay leaf, the peppercorns and a handful of coarse salt. When it is really boiling, lower in the brisket and the feather blade: the water must be boiling, not cold, because the heat closes the surface of the meat at once and holds the juices inside instead of giving them all up to the stock. Bring back to the boil, skim carefully the first time, then turn the heat right down, half cover and leave to simmer for three hours. Cook the cotechino separately in its own pot, in barely simmering water, for the time given on the packet.

Chef's tip: The grey foam of the first ten minutes must all be taken off: it is coagulated albumin, and if it stays it crumbles into the stock and makes it cloudy and slightly bitter. After the first skimming there is no need to keep watching.

The other meats

An hour and a half before the end, lower the boiling fowl into the same pot: that much time is enough for it, and kept longer it falls into fibres and leaves too much fat on the surface. The tongue, instead, cooks in a pot of its own with water, a carrot and a stick of celery for two and a half hours; as soon as it is done, drain it piping hot and skin it straight away with a small knife, because once cold the skin will not come off any more. Keep all the meats in their liquid until you go to the table, off the heat and covered: out of the stock they dry out in a few minutes.

Chef's tip: Strain off a litre and a half of stock for the pearà when the beef has been in the pot for an hour: by then it is already flavourful but not yet concentrated, and the sauce runs no risk of turning salty as it reduces.

The pearà

Melt the marrow with the butter in the earthenware pot over the lowest heat, without letting it fry: it must turn liquid and stay pale. Add all the breadcrumbs and stir for two or three minutes, just enough for them to take up the fat. Begin to moisten with the boiling stock, a ladle at a time, stirring and waiting for it to be absorbed before adding more — like a risotto, but without hurrying. Grind in the pepper, almost all of it at the start because it needs time to open up, and let it go for at least two hours over a barely perceptible heat, stirring every ten minutes. At the end of cooking turn it off, add the Grana and adjust the salt and the pepper.

Chef's tip: The stock must be added boiling hot. A lukewarm ladle lowers the temperature of the already greased bread and makes it tighten into lumps that will never dissolve again: it is the number one reason for grainy pearà.

At the table

Bring the pearà to the table in its own pot, piping hot, and keep it warm: as it cools it sets and loses the scent of the pepper. Lift the meats out one at a time and slice them there and then, on a warm board — the tongue in thin slices on the diagonal, the beef a centimetre thick across the grain, the boiling fowl in pieces, the cotechino thick. Serve two or three pieces per plate with a generous spoonful of pearà beside them, not on top, and next to it the cren, the mostarda and a small bowl of coarse salt.

Chef's tip: Do not slice everything in advance to make a good impression: boiled meat dries out five minutes after it is cut. You bring the board to the table and slice as you go, which is how the dish came about in the first place.

Wine to Pair with Bollito Misto and Pearà

Here the wine is not paired with the bollito: it is paired with the pearà. The boiled meats on their own are an almost lean and delicate dish — the fat and much of the flavour went off into the stock during three hours of simmering, and what is left is a gentle savouriness that a big red would put out in one sip. The sauce changes everything: beef marrow, butter, bread and a quantity of black pepper you would not see in any other Veneto recipe. Two different problems come out of that. The first is the fat of the marrow, which does not grease so much as coat, and which asks for acidity to be lifted away. The second is the pepper, and it needs understanding because it is counter-intuitive: piperine and alcohol amplify one another, so the more degrees there are in the glass the more burning the sauce becomes, and the other way round. A powerful wine here is not automatically the right wine — it becomes so only if the power is made of softness and extract, with tannin already polished and a real backbone of acidity underneath. That is exactly why in Verona this dish has always been drunk with the reds of the Valpolicella, and not with something more cantankerous.

The Red We Recommend

Amarone della Valpolicella D.O.C.G. 2013 — Tenuta Trabucchi — The **Amarone della Valpolicella D.O.C.G. 2013 by Tenuta Trabucchi** is the house wine of this dish: it is made at Illasi, in the eastern Valpolicella, on the same hills where bollito with pearà is the festive lunch. Corvina, Corvinone, Rondinella and Oseleta dry in the drying lofts from September to November, losing half their weight, and from that concentration comes what is needed here: an extract of 43,1 g/l, that is a density that stands level with the sauce instead of slipping underneath it, and a tannin that the months in French oak barriques have made round, with no edges to set against the pepper. The figure that decides the match, though, is a different one, and it is not the power: 5,58 g/l of total acidity, high for the denomination, with barely 3,2 g/l of residual sugar. It means that under the 17% vol there is a blade that cuts the marrow, and that the wine stays dry — a soft, sweetish Amarone on the pearà would turn cloying by the third mouthful. The limit has to be stated in full, because it is a big one: seventeen degrees next to a peppered sauce is a balance on a knife edge, and this wine sits beautifully on the beef and on the pearà but rides straight over the boiling fowl and the tongue, which are the delicate mouthfuls of the dish. If your bollito is mostly white meats, the right bottle is the other one. At 60 € it is a wine for a laid table, not for a Wednesday evening: open it an hour ahead, serve it at 18-20 °C in wide glasses, and do not leave it near the stove, because above twenty degrees the alcohol comes out into the open and the pepper doubles it.

Want to know more about the grape? our guide to Amarone della Valpolicella

The Territorial Alternative

Valpolicella Superiore D.O.C. 'Galante' — Tenuta Trabucchi — Same cellar, same commune, half the weight and a quarter of the price: the **Valpolicella Superiore 'Galante'** comes from the San Colombano and Castello di Illasi plots, at 220 metres, and for many tables it is the better match of the two. The grapes go through a short drying, ten to fifteen days and a 15% loss, just enough to give it body without taking it where the Amarone goes: 14% vol, medium body, fine tannin, 4,8 g/l of acidity and a fruit of sour cherry and plum that stays juicy after twelve months in barrique. Then there is a rhyme that looks like a detail off a technical sheet and at the table can be tasted: among the descriptors of this wine are graphite, liquorice and black pepper — the sauce and the glass say the same word instead of arguing. And above all it crushes nothing: the boiling fowl, the tongue and the calf's head stay legible, which is not what happens next to an Amarone. The limit mirrors that of the wine above: if the pearà is pulled very thick, if the marrow is generous and the pepper heavy, the Galante holds its own in the comparison but does not win it, and the finish shortens. Rule of thumb: with a bollito of red meats only and a dark sauce, choose the Amarone; with a complete bollito, where there is capon or tongue too, choose this one. Serve it at 16-18 °C, slightly cooler than usual: it gains drive and cleans better.

Want to know more about the grape? our guide to Valpolicella

Craft Beer as an Alternative

Witty Weizen Beer — Norah's Farm — The beer here is not trying to stand level with the pearà: it does the opposite job, it carries it away. The **Witty Weizen by Norah's Farm** is a top-fermented wheat beer, cloudy, with a dense head and a carbonation that works on the fat of the marrow like a brush — every sip puts the mouth back to zero, which is exactly what a dish this dense needs halfway through. The aromas then fall into place nicely: the bread crust of the wheat malt goes with the breadcrumbs of the sauce, and the clove of the finish belongs to the same spice family as the pepper, so it accompanies it instead of challenging it. And there is an advantage neither of the two wines can have: 5,3% vol. With a third of the alcohol of an Amarone the piperine has nothing to amplify, and anyone who already finds the pearà pungent enough is safe here. Two limits, because the choice is less obvious than the others. It is a beer built for fresh dishes — the producer themselves suggest it with fish, salads and white meats — and on a complete bollito, faced with a musetto or a cotechino, its light body reaches its boundary. And it must be served at 6-8 °C: ice-cold it loses banana and clove and only the tartness is left, which does not help with the pepper. A tall, bellied glass, poured leaving the head on.

Want to know more about the style? wheat beers, Weizen and Blanche

Serve It With

With boiled meats the sauces are not a side dish but the way the plate is read: every mouthful changes according to what you set beside it, and that is why they all go to the table together, in separate little bowls. Next to the pearà, which works on heat, on fat and on pepper, you need at least one that works on acidity. The Cren horseradish root from SoloTreviso is the right one: finely grated horseradish, vinegar and salt, nothing else. Its heat is volatile — it rises to the nose and is gone at once — so it cleans without staying in the mouth, and the producer themselves suggest it with boiled meats and musetto, which is exactly this dish.

The third little bowl is sweet, and it is there for the tongue and for the cotechino, where the fat is more present. The Pear mostarda from SoloTreviso works better than the more aggressive mostarde because the pear stays delicate and does not cover white meat: a teaspoon beside it, never on top. Anyone who wants to complete the picture should add a bowl of coarse salt crystals, which looks like a detail from an osteria and is in fact the oldest seasoning of the bollito — a pinch on the beef just sliced, before any sauce at all, to understand how the meat has turned out.

Variations

With salsa verde: chop parsley, an anchovy, a tablespoon of capers, the crumb of a bread roll soaked in vinegar and a clove of garlic, then whisk in extra virgin olive oil. It is the cold sauce that in Verona stands beside the pearà, not in its place: one works on heat and on pepper, the other on acidity and freshness.
Without marrow: if you cannot find any, it is made with 120 g of butter in place of the marrow and the butter. It is not the same thing — the marrow gives a roundness the butter does not have and a meaty flavour the sauce would otherwise not contain — but it is an honest pearà and the texture is identical.
The next day: leftover pearà sets in the fridge and is reheated by loosening it with hot stock, stirring until it is creamy again. Leftover meats are cut into cubes and become a boiled beef salad with onion, cren and oil, which in Verona is the lunch of Saint Stephen's Day.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which meats do you really need for a bollito misto?

The classic bollito calls for seven, but at home three or four are enough and the dish loses nothing. The sensible minimum is a cut of beef for boiling — brisket, short rib, feather blade — plus a white meat, boiling fowl or capon, which gives sweetness to the stock. Tongue and cotechino are the two that make the difference at the table because they bring different textures. What stays out are the lean, noble cuts, which turn stringy when boiled.

Do you start from cold water or from boiling water?

It depends on what you want to obtain, and it is the only technical choice in the recipe. Boiling water for the bollito: the meat stays flavourful and the stock comes out lighter. Cold water for the stock: the meat gives up everything and the stock becomes rich, but the boiled meat comes out washed out. Here you want the first, with one exception — if your aim is also a great stock for tortellini, put in an extra piece of stewing beef from cold, just for that.

Where do I find beef marrow?

From the butcher, who sells stock bones cut into lengths of six or seven centimetres: from a kilo of bones you get about 150 g of marrow, the amount in this recipe. You push it out of the bone at room temperature with the handle of a teaspoon, or you put the whole bones in the stock for ten minutes and then press out the softened marrow. Ask for it a day in advance: it is not a cut the counters always keep ready.

Why did my pearà turn out grainy or bitter?

Grainy almost always for two reasons: stock added when it was not boiling, which makes the bread tighten into lumps, or too much stock all at once at the start. Bitter, instead, is a problem of bread or of heat: industrial breadcrumbs often contain dark toasted crust, and the base that catches during two hours of cooking leaves an aftertaste of burning. Use crumb from stale bread grated by you and a vessel with a thick base.

Can it be made in advance?

The meats yes, and it is actually convenient: cook them the day before and let them cool inside their own stock, in the fridge. The next day they are reheated immersed in the stock over a low heat, never letting it boil. The pearà can technically be reheated by loosening it with stock, but it loses a great deal: freshly ground pepper is the part that fades first, and a pearà from the day before must always be revived with a fresh grinding before serving.

Bollito Misto with Pearà — Veronese Recipe

Introduction

The Story of Bollito Misto with Pearà