To be had strictly with Barbera wine.
The Meat
Put in a pressure pot:
1 pc beef biancostato (ribs with enough white matter)
1 pc beef collo (chuck), coscia (round), or stinco (shank)
1 pc beef lingua (tongue)
1 pc soup chicken (any bony pieces will do – feet, wing, drumstick – no breast)
2 white onions
1 stem celery
1 carrot
1 potato
salt
pepper
a bit of olive oil
Cover the vegetables with water and bring to a boil. Add the meat. Close, wait for the whistle, and then let cook for 45 minutes (60 if beef tongue is present).
Note: In principle, you should add the chicken only after 20 minutes. To do so depressurize, add the chicken, repressurize and cook for another 25 minutes. What happens if you don’t do that is that the chicken will kind of melt. I know, that doesn’t sound like a bad thing.
Salsina verde (the little green sauce)
Make two hard-boiled eggs: Boil some water in a saucepan, when boiling add two eggs, turn off the fire and wait 12 minutes and 23 seconds. While you wait, go to the next step.
Blend the following:
1 medium bunch of Italian parsley, just leaves, no stems
3 anchovies
a bunch of olive oil (enough to lube the blender)
2 cloves of garlic
Ideally, you’d want to use an immersion blender (the kind you hold in your hand).
Take 2 slices of bread (American size slices, or 3 Italian size slices). Remove the crust. Cut it into small cubes. Put it in a bowl and drench it with white vinegar (ideally, white wine vinegar). Add little vinegar, mix, let it soak, then add some more. Don’t add too much overall (if using rice vinegar, use even less).
Squeeze the bread cubes with your hand and put them in the blender together with the hard-boiled egg yolks (what of the egg whites? Not my problem). Blend some more. Add olive oil until you reach the desired consistency.
Note: It’s hard to explain exactly how much vinegar you need, but the good news is, you are going to dip fat beef in it, so it can afford to be a little too tart. If it does get too tart, add raw onion and milk to the blender until the tartness has been balanced.
Other sauces and garnishings
If done properly, bollito is very tasty but nonetheless it is typically served with a selection of dips. You can serve whatever sauces you want, but here is a list of traditional dips (beside the salsina verde):
- Mayo
- Spicy sauce (any)
- Salt melted in olive oil
- Just salt (warning: only for real men)
We, untraditionally, have also used habanero honey mustard and ketchup. Now that you have the dips, it’s also nice to serve some raw celery sticks for extra dipping.
Finally, you can and should use the broth to make a risotto! The broth is so tasty that all you’ll need is butter, onion and rice.
