Cotechino, a popular Italian cured meat made from pork sausages boiled with a combination of ground fat, rind, and butt, is traditionally eaten with lentils for New Year’s celebrations. Different regions of Italy have their own unique recipes for the meat, with variations in spice and proportions. The meat is minced, seasoned with salt and other curing agents, and stuffed into casings to make sausages that can be air-dried for several weeks before being boiled and eaten. Cotechino is often used in lentil stews and is considered one of the most appetizing Italian cold cuts.
For New Year’s celebrations, many Italians traditionally eat a salami of cotechino with lentils or cotechino with lentils. One of the country’s most popular prepared meats, cotechino is made from pork sausages boiled with a precise combination of ground fat, rind, and butt. Like salami, this cured meat is preserved with various curing agents such as nitrites and then flavored with a range of ingredients that vary by region – from cinnamon, nutmeg and wine to cloves, garlic and thyme.
Derived from cotica, which is the Italian word for skin, or rind, cotechino could be written in other ways such as coteghino or cotecchino. According to its modern makers, it dates back to the Italian village of Gavello in the early 16th century. Different regions of Italy, particularly in the north, have popularized versions of the meat, with distinctive changes in spice and proportions. The city of Modena and other cities in the regions of Modena, Zampone, Lombardia, Veneto and others all have unique recipes.
The proportions of meat and spice vary, but not much. A recipe for 6 lbs. (about 2.7 kg) of links, supplied by chef Len Poli of Sonoma Mountain Sausages, use only 0.33 lb (about 149 g) of fat and 1.5 lb (about 680 g) of rind per 3.75 lb (about 1,700 g) of pork culatello. The meat is minced and then seasoned with salt and other healing agents such as dextrose and amespho.
What makes the links unique are the exact combinations of spices the chefs will add to the meat. Typical constituents include white wine, cinnamon, garlic powder, salt, pepper, marjoram, nutmeg, cloves and thyme. After being finely mixed and refrigerated for a day, the meat is stuffed into cow-sized casings to make fat, hand-length sausages. These can be hung on a hanger to air dry – sometimes for several weeks. A simple boil makes them ready to be cut and eaten.
Perhaps the most traditional way to eat cotechino is to make it the star of a lentil stew. Italian chef Mario Batali’s recipe, available at his Ristorante Santa in Enoteca, Italy, places sliced cotechino discs on a bed of black lentils flavored with garlic, sage, salt, pepper, olive oil and wine vinegar red. Cotechino is perhaps among the most appetizing Italian cold cuts for using parts of minor pigs. Another legendary sausage called salama da sugo uses spare parts and spiced organs, from the tongue to the lungs, which must be boiled for five hours before they are ready for consumption.
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