Think of Cassoeula and you immediately feel a languor in your stomach for the enveloping tasty and succulent flavors that recall one of the iconic dishes of the poor traditional cuisine of the Lombardy countryside. Certainly the pleasure of this dish with strong and intense flavors born from the scraps of the pig that the poor peasants recovered from the slaughter of meat for their lords: ear, rind, foot, tail, verzini, musetti, ribs and points (depending on the area) is, in the collective imagination, reduced by thinking of the digestive problems that will follow. A dish for strong stomachs at least in its original form but which had a very specific purpose: give, on cold winter evenings, a good dose of calories and to warm the stomachs and skins of the poor people of the countryside.
But even in times of refined and delicate cuisine, dictated by dietary and healthy principles, cassoeula is survived by adapting to new times. thus remaining strongly rooted in the Lombard gastronomic culture.
One of the most passionate lovers of the meaning and history of Cassoeula is certainly Massimo Mentasti, born in 1983, a Michelin star at the age of 31, with the La Gallina restaurant in Gavi in the province of Alessandria. Gazzadese by birth and culture, now he moved to Puglia for the love of a woman – he married a Salento woman – where he is about to leave for a new adventure with the Belami refined restaurant located in an elegant building in the historic center of Maglie in the heart of Salento .
“When I was young – he recalls – I always waited for the month of November to savor this dish that dad prepared for me for Sunday lunch. And we had to be sure of the quality of the raw material since his father Luigi ran a renowned delicatessen in Gazzada where he made sausages appreciated by the whole district and his grandmother had a delicatessen in via San Martino in Varese.
From an early age Massimo perceives that he will set out without hesitation on the path of quality cuisine but also understands there is a need to get out of the ordinary schemes of a culinary philosophy of conservation. His adventure starts at the age of 14 from the hotel management school in Stresa then moves to Valle D'Aosta to the Mont Blanc of La Salle and from there to the Four Seasons in Milan. At 28 he is the chef of La Gallina at the Villa Sparina Resort and at 31 he pins his Michelin star on his chest.
His cuisine is expressed in the search for cooking techniques and innovation, but the memory of the dishes of his youth is always present. “Of course – she adds – times change as culinary programs arrive and people have a different table culture. But they can remain current with all their load of authentic history of the great heritage of poor Italian cuisine, if you take away the heaviness they originally had by offering clean flavors that allow you to rediscover tastes that have been lost with the passage of time».
For such an important dish as the Cassoeula, I proposed to propose a lighter version but with all the ingredients of the original dish. The pork rib is cooked under vacuum and at a low temperature. Savoy cabbage is offered both creamed and dried. Pork skin becomes popcorn. A dish that is normally soft and fat is presented with the same aromas but with the pleasantness on the palate of crunchy parts”.
In short, with his recipe Mentasti has managed to bring the most refined palates closer to a dish that honestly isn't for everyone.
The Cassoeula recipe
Ingredients for people 4
1 kg of pork ribs
250 g of pork rinds
200 g of Luganega sausage
1 cabbage
Salt and Pepper To Taste.
Extra virgin olive oil
1 sprig of rosemary
Method
It starts with the pork ribs which are vacuum-packed at a low temperature of 80° for 26 hours, then deboned and browned in a pan.
For the cabbage we proceed with two preparations. The outermost leaves, the slightly harder ones, should be blanched and left to cool. Then they are blended with oil, salt and pepper to obtain a cream.
The inner leaves, the more tender ones, are dehydrated by passing them in the oven at 50°C for two days. It's time to think about the pork rind that needs to be blanched to make it lose its fat. It is then frozen and then placed in the oven at 250 degrees so that the moist part of the rind is lost. Then cut it into chunks and put it in a pan with rosemary, salt and pepper. The effect is that the pieces of rind swell as if they were popcorn and become very crunchy. We continue with the Luganega, a typical Varese sausage, which can be replaced with a knife-edged sausage which is shelled and browned in a pan, always accompanied by a sprig of rosemary, seasoned with salt and pepper.
Welcome
Brush the bottom of the serving dish with the cabbage cream. On this we lay the pork rinds, the sausage, the dehydrated cabbage. Then we pour a few scattered drops of the sauce made from the cooking liquid of the sausages and the rind onto the composition to give a uniform flavor to the whole dish.
