Cotechino with lentils, the New Year's Eve recipe: fresh cotechino cooked gently for three hours and lentils stewed with a soffritto. Serves 4.
Introduction
Cotechino with lentils is the dish of New Year's Eve across almost all of Northern Italy, but its home is Modena, where cotechino has been made for centuries and since 1999 has had its own Protected Geographical Indication. It is a sausage for cooking made of pork meat, fat and rind minced together and spiced with pepper and nutmeg: it is the rind itself that, with long cooking, turns soft and gelatinous and gives it that tender slice you can cut with a spoon. The lentils sit alongside because they do the opposite job: dry, earthy, faintly sweet, they gather up the fat that runs out of the slice and make the dish enjoyable down to the last mouthful.
The recipe has only one rule, and it is patience. Fresh cotechino wants three hours in barely simmering water, never at a full boil: violent cooking splits the casing, all the fat runs out into the water and the slice ends up dry and stringy. The lentils, on the other hand, are quick and forgive almost everything, as long as they too are cooked gently, so that they stay whole. Our version uses fresh cotechino, the traditional kind; the pre-cooked one in a pouch, more common at the supermarket, heats through in twenty minutes and you will find how to do it in the variations.
In the glass we put the Cabernet DOC by La Caneva dei Biasio, a Cabernet Sauvignon made in stainless steel whose tannin cleans the pork fat from the mouth. For those after something lightly sparkling, like the Lambrusco that goes with the dish in Emilia, there is the Raboso Vivace from the same cellar. Alongside, a teaspoon of Horseradish and apple mostarda by SoloTreviso.
The Story of Cotechino with Lentils
Cotechino was born of a very simple peasant idea: waste nothing of the pig. In the Emilian countryside pigs were slaughtered in winter, and the less noble parts, the rind above all, were minced and stuffed into casings to last until spring. The name comes from exactly there, from *cotica*, the rind. In Modena there is also a legend about its birth: during the siege of Mirandola in 1511, the troops of Pope Julius II are said to have threatened to take the town's pigs, and the inhabitants to have slaughtered them and stuffed them into casings to preserve the meat. No document confirms it, but from then on Mirandola and Modena have remained the capitals of cotechino and of its close relative, zampone, stuffed into the skin of the trotter.
The lentils come into the dish for another reason, and it is a wish. Small, round and many, they look like coins, and eating them on New Year's Eve means, according to tradition, wishing yourself a year of money: the more you eat, the more you will have. It is said that the Romans already gave a purse of lentils at the start of the year with the same meaning. The cotechino, fatty and rich, adds its own wish for plenty, and the dish is served at midnight or just after, when the table has already been full for hours. During the rest of the year you find it beside the bollito misto, or with mashed potatoes and polenta.
Ingredients
For the cotechino
- fresh cotechino (ideally Cotechino Modena IGP)500 g
- bay leaf1 leaf
For the lentils
- small dried lentils300 g
- onion1
- carrot1
- celery1 stick
- extra virgin olive oil3 tablespoons
- tomato paste1 tablespoon
- hot vegetable stock1 l
- bay leaf1 leaf
- salt and black pepperto taste
To serve
- Horseradish and apple mostardato taste
Nutritional Values per Serving
Values calculated from the recipe's ingredients using the CREA food composition tables, and from the labels of our products where available. They are an estimate per serving, not a laboratory analysis.
Equipment Needed
- Tall, narrow pot that keeps the cotechino covered with water
- Heavy-based casserole for the lentils
- Toothpick or kitchen needle
- Clean cotton cloth or muslin (optional)
- Sharp knife and chopping board
Tip: For the cotechino you need a pot that is taller than it is wide: it must always stay covered with water, and in a shallow pot you have to top up often, and every cold top-up interrupts the cooking. Anyone who wants a firmer slice wraps it tightly in a cotton cloth tied at both ends, as they do in Modena: it keeps its shape even if the casing gives way.
How to Make Cotechino with Lentils — Traditional Recipe
The cotechino
Prick the cotechino in four or five places with a toothpick, without pushing in deep, so that the steam that forms inside can escape without splitting the casing. Put it in a tall pot, cover it generously with cold water, add the bay leaf and bring it over a medium heat to the first shiver. Turn the heat right down at once: the water must barely simmer, with a few small bubbles on the surface, never boil. Leave it to cook like this for about three hours, or for the time given by the producer, adding boiling water if the level drops.
Chef's tip: Starting from cold water matters: a cotechino dropped into boiling water takes the jump in temperature all at once, the skin contracts and bursts open. If the casing is very dry and hard, first leave it to soak in cold water for a couple of hours.
The soffritto
When the cotechino has an hour to go, rinse the lentils under running water and pick out any small stones. Finely chop the onion, carrot and celery and soften them over a gentle heat in the casserole with the oil, for about ten minutes, until the onion is translucent and soft without taking on colour. Add the tomato paste and let it melt into the soffritto for a minute, stirring.
Chef's tip: Small lentils do not need soaking. Larger ones do, from two to four hours in cold water: without it they cook unevenly and some stay hard while the others fall apart.
The lentils
Add the lentils and let them take on flavour in the soffritto for a couple of minutes, then cover with the hot stock and add the bay leaf. Bring to the boil, lower the heat and cook covered for 35-45 minutes, until they are tender but still whole, adding a little stock if they dry out too much. Salt only at the end: salt added at the start toughens the skins and lengthens the cooking. They should stay soft and a little moist, not soupy.
Chef's tip: If you want creamier lentils, crush a ladleful against the sides of the casserole in the last few minutes and stir: the starch that comes out binds the liquid with no need for anything else.
At the table
Drain the cotechino, let it rest for five minutes, then slit the casing lengthways and remove it: while it is hot it slips off easily. Cut it into slices at least a centimetre thick, because thinner ones crumble. Spoon the hot lentils onto the plate, lay two or three slices of cotechino on top and finish with a drizzle of raw oil and a grinding of pepper. Alongside, a teaspoon of mostarda.
Chef's tip: Slice the cotechino only when you are ready to serve, and keep the slices warm on the lentils: out of the water the fat sets within a few minutes and the slice loses its softness.
Wine to Pair with Cotechino and Lentils
Cotechino is one of the fattiest dishes in Italian cooking, and the fat it brings is not that of a roast: it is pork fat minced together with the rind, that is collagen which with long cooking turns to gelatine and leaves on the lips that sticky feeling anyone who has eaten it on New Year's Eve knows well. On top there is the spicing of the mixture — pepper, nutmeg, sometimes clove and cinnamon — and underneath there are the lentils, which do the opposite job: earthy, faintly sweet, dry, they soak up the juices and lighten every forkful. So two things are asked of the wine. The first is to lift the fat from the mouth, and there are three tools for doing it: acidity, tannin and bubbles. The second is not to quarrel with the spices, so no excess alcohol and no intrusive oak. In Emilia, where the dish was born, the answer is Lambrusco, a sparkling, acidic red that uses two tools out of three. From our cellar we propose two routes that get there from different directions: a still red that works with tannin, and a lightly sparkling red from the Veneto that does exactly what Lambrusco does.
The Red We Recommend
Cabernet DOC — La Caneva dei Biasio — The **Cabernet DOC by La Caneva dei Biasio** is pure Cabernet Sauvignon, made in stainless steel with an extended maceration on the skins and aged in bottle, with no time in wood. On this dish both cellar choices count. The long maceration gives it its tannin, and tannin is the tool that works hardest here: it binds to the proteins and to the gelatinous fat of the rind and carries them away, leaving the mouth dry and ready for the next forkful. The steel, for its part, keeps it clean: no vanilla and no toast to pile onto the nutmeg and cloves of the mixture, and the fruit stays in the foreground. That fruit, ripe blackberry and raspberry, sits well beside the earthy sweetness of the lentils, and the 13% vol does not set the pepper alight. The limit has to be said: it is a still red, and on cotechino it lacks the bubbles that Lambrusco uses to cut the fat; the acidity is there but it is not its strongest trait, so with a very fatty cotechino or with a generous spoonful of mostarda alongside you feel the need for an extra sip. At 11,50 € it is an everyday table bottle that also holds up well at a holiday dinner. Serve it at 18 °C, the lowest of the temperatures the producer gives: any warmer and it loses drive against the pork fat.
Want to know more about the grape? our guide to Cabernet
The Lightly Sparkling Alternative
Raboso Vivace I.G.T. — La Caneva dei Biasio — Same cellar, the other route: the **Raboso Vivace by La Caneva dei Biasio** is the Veneto's answer to Lambrusco, and on cotechino it does the same job with the same tools. Raboso is the most acidic red of the Veneto, and here that acidity is exactly the virtue that is needed: it cuts through the gelatine of the rind instead of sliding over it. The light, fine and persistent bubbles add the brush that the Cabernet does not have, and clean the palate with every sip. The ruby colour with violet glints and the scent of forest fruits speak of a young wine, at 12,5% vol: little alcohol, so the spices of the mixture stay where they are. It is no accident that the producer themselves suggest it with the rich dishes of the winter tradition and name cotechino specifically. The limit is the flip side of the virtue: it is a simple, convivial wine, and on the lentils, which ask for a little body, it says less than the Cabernet. Rule of thumb: if the star of the table is the cotechino, choose this one; if the lentils are plentiful and full of flavour, choose the Cabernet. Serve it cool, at 12-14 °C, like a frizzante.
Want to explore the grape variety? our guide to Raboso del Piave
Craft Beer as an Alternative
Reckless Bock Beer — Norah's Farm — If you prefer beer to wine, you need a strong, double-malt one: a light blonde on cotechino disappears at the first mouthful. The **Reckless Bock by Norah's Farm** is a bottom-fermented Dunkel Bock, deep copper in colour, with notes of caramel and dried fruit and a bitterness that supports the malt without sticking out. The toasted malt leans on the earthy sweetness of the lentils, the caramel goes along with the nutmeg and clove of the mixture, and the carbonation with its creamy head does on the fat the job that bubbles do in wine. The hops are low, and that is an advantage: a pushy bitterness on the pepper of the mixture would turn harsh. The limit is the 7% vol and the sweet finish: with the mostarda alongside, the whole thing risks becoming cloying, and on a dish already this full a beer of this body is best drunk in a small glass. Serve it at 8-10 °C, not ice-cold, in a tulip glass.
Want to explore the style? dark and doppelbock beers
Serve It With
Cotechino is fatty and a little sweet, and on the plate it needs something with a bite. In Emilia that task falls to fruit mostarda, and alongside we put the Horseradish and apple mostarda from SoloTreviso: horseradish, apple, sugar and vinegar. The horseradish brings a heat that rises to the nose and is gone at once, so it cleans the fat from the mouth without lingering; the apple and the vinegar give that sweet-and-sour contrast that makes even the richest slice seem lighter. A teaspoon beside the cotechino is enough, never on top of the lentils.
If there is bread on the table too, a toasted slice of country bread is best, to mop up the juices of the lentils. For anyone who wants a vegetable, a bitter seasonal salad is enough, radicchio or puntarelle, dressed only with oil and a drop of vinegar: its gentle bitterness refreshes after every slice.
Variations
- With pre-cooked cotechino: it is the quickest way. Immerse the sealed pouch in cold water, bring it to the boil and leave it to cook for 20-30 minutes, following the instructions on the packet; then cut open the pouch and drain off the liquid. The lentils stay the same.
- With zampone: the close relative of cotechino, with the same mixture stuffed into the skin of the pig's front trotter. It is cooked the same way but for longer, about four hours if fresh, and it is the version for larger tables.
- With mashed potatoes: in Emilia, beside or instead of the lentils, a soft mash with butter and Parmigiano Reggiano is often served. It is more delicate and less savoury, and it works well for anyone who finds lentils too rustic.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is fresh or pre-cooked cotechino better?
Fresh is the traditional one and has a softer, more gelatinous texture, but it needs three hours of cooking. Pre-cooked is already cooked in its pouch and heats through in twenty or thirty minutes: it is convenient and honest, and the difference lies mostly in the slice, which is a little firmer. If you have the time, fresh is worth choosing.
Why did my cotechino split while cooking?
Almost always because the heat was too high. A full boil makes the fat and the steam expand inside the casing, which at some point gives way. The other two causes are water that is already boiling at the start and a casing that has not been pricked. To avoid it, start from cold water, prick the skin with a toothpick and keep the water at the barest shiver for the whole of the cooking.
Do the lentils need soaking?
Small ones do not: they cook in 35-45 minutes straight from the bag, you only need to rinse them. Large ones, on the other hand, benefit from soaking for two to four hours in cold water, which makes the cooking more even. In any case the salt goes in at the end.
Can you use tinned lentils?
Yes, if you are in a hurry: drain them, rinse them and heat them in the soffritto with a ladle of stock for ten minutes. They are softer and less flavourful than dried ones, and absorb the seasoning less, so it pays not to skimp on the soffritto.
Can it be made in advance?
The lentils yes, and they get better: cook them the day before and reheat them with a drop of stock. Fresh cotechino can be cooked in advance and left to cool in its water, then reheated in hot water for half an hour without letting it boil. Slice it only at the last moment, when it is hot again.
