Petto di Pollo con Speck, Asiago e Mele (Italian Speck and Asiago Chicken Breast) This is a chicken breast built the way the Alto Adige builds everything it eats: smoke, mountain cheese and orchard fruit, arranged so none of the three shouts over the other two. A breast is salted, opened, filled with a little Asiago and thyme, wrapped in thin sheets of speck and browned until the fat has crisped onto the meat. Apples brown separately in the same pan, and the white wine jus bu

Stinco di Maiale allo Speck (Italian South Tyrolean Pork Shank with Speck) This is the pork shank as it is cooked in Alto Adige, where the meat is studded and wrapped with speck before it meets the oven. Speck is neither prosciutto nor bacon. It is boned pork leg, lightly salted, rubbed with juniper, bay, pepper and garlic, cold smoked over beech at a temperature that never cooks it, then matured for months in mountain air. What it gives the shank comes from that double treat

Speck Bread Dumplings in Beef Broth | Canederli allo Speck in Brodo Canederli allo speck in brodo are the plainest thing the Alpine kitchen of Trentino Alto Adige does well, and the hardest to do well. Stale bread, milk, eggs, a little flour and diced speck become a dumpling the size of a small apple, dropped into clear beef broth and served with a scattering of chives. There is nothing in it to hide behind. A canederlo that is right is tender at the edge and open inside; one