Italian Lombard Pork and Cabbage Stew | Cassoeula Lombarda
Cassoeula is the winter dish of Milan and of the Brianza, built almost entirely from the parts of the pig nobody wanted. Rinds, trotters, ears, ribs and small fresh sausages go into one heavy pot with a head of Savoy cabbage and stay there for the best part of three hours. What comes out is one of the deepest braises in the Italian north, thick, glossy and faintly sweet, eaten with yellow polenta.
It is seasonal in a way very few Italian recipes still are, cooked between mid January and the end of February, when the pig was killed and the cabbage has taken a frost. Verza cut before the first freeze is tough and faintly bitter. The same head a week after a hard frost is sweeter and far more willing to break down.
This is the version cooked in the province of Milan and around Monza: pork on the bottom, cabbage added in stages, a spoonful of tomato concentrate, no cream and no roux. The body comes from collagen alone, which is why the cheap cuts are the whole mechanism.
Yield: 6 generous servings. Prep: 45 minutes. Cook: 3 hours. Rest: 20 minutes, or overnight for a better result. Total: about 4 hours. Difficulty: intermediate. Course: secondo piatto with polenta. Region: Lombardy, Milan, Monza and the Brianza.
The Story
Cassoeula belongs to the calendar before it belongs to a kitchen. In rural Lombardy the pig was killed in the cold months, and the work began around the feast of Sant Antonio Abate on 17 January, the saint who protects domestic animals and is painted in Lombard churches with a pig at his feet. The valuable cuts went to salami, coppa, pancetta and lard. What could not be cured had to be eaten within days: rinds, trotters, ears, snout and the smallest ribs. Cassoeula is the meal made from that pile.
The name probably comes from the pot. Cassoeula in Milanese dialect is the casserole itself, though a second explanation points at the cazzuola, the mason trowel, because the mixture is pushed around rather than stirred. A romantic version credits a Spanish soldier of the Milanese garrison, but no document supports it and the dish is better explained by the pig, the cabbage and the cold.
It carried a social meaning that has faded. Cassoeula was the dish of the winter patronal feasts, cooked in quantity in the courtyards of the cascine, and in Milanese osterie it fed a working man for a day. Today it is a Sunday dish, but the cooking has barely changed: the cabbage is still added in stages, the pot is still skimmed, and the sauce is still expected to hold a spoon upright.
Ingredients
For the pork
Pork rinds, cotenne, 10 oz (285 g)
Pork trotters, split lengthwise, 2
Pork ear, halved, 1
Pork spare ribs, cut into single ribs, 2 lb (900 g)
Verzini or small fresh Italian pork sausages, 12 oz (340 g)
Pork snout, optional, 6 oz (170 g)
For the base and the cabbage
Savoy cabbage, verza, taken after the first frost, 3 1/2 lb (1.6 kg)
Yellow onion, finely chopped, 1 large
Celery stalks, finely chopped, 2
Carrots, finely chopped, 2
Unsalted butter, 2 tbsp (28 g)
Extra virgin olive oil, 2 tbsp (30 ml)
Dry white wine, 1 cup (240 ml)
Tomato concentrate, 1 tbsp (16 g)
Light meat broth or water, 2 cups (480 ml), plus more as needed
Fine sea salt, 2 tsp (12 g), divided
Freshly ground black pepper, 1 tsp (2 g)
For the polenta
Coarse yellow polenta, bramata, 2 cups (300 g)
Water, 8 cups (1.9 L)
Fine sea salt, 2 tsp (12 g)
Unsalted butter, 2 tbsp (28 g), optional
Preparation
Step 1
Clean and blanch the tough cuts. Scrape the rinds, trotters and ear and singe off any bristles over a flame. Put them in cold water, bring to the boil, run it hard for 10 minutes, then drain and rinse. This removes the barnyard note these cuts carry along with much of the surface fat. Cut the rinds into strips about 1 inch (2.5 cm) wide.
Step 2
Trim the cabbage in two grades. Discard the bruised outer leaves, quarter the head, cut out the thick white core and dice it small, then cut the green leaf into wide ribbons. Keep the two piles separate. The core needs a long cooking and the leaf a short one. Treating them as one ingredient leaves raw stalk and dissolved leaf in the same spoonful.
Step 3
Build the soffritto. Melt the butter with the oil in a heavy casserole of at least 8 quarts (7.5 L) over medium low heat, add the onion, celery and carrot with a pinch of salt and cook gently for about 12 minutes, until soft and translucent but not coloured. Colour taken here turns sweet and roasted and fights the clean vegetal line the cabbage has to hold.
Step 4
Brown the ribs. Lift out the soffritto, raise the heat to medium high and brown the ribs in batches until firmly golden on every face, roughly 8 minutes a batch. Do not crowd the pan or the ribs steam instead of searing. This is the only Maillard step in the recipe and it supplies the depth the boiled cuts cannot. Return the soffritto and ribs to the pot.
Step 5
Deglaze and add the tough cuts. Pour in the wine, scrape the base and reduce by half, about 4 minutes. Stir in the tomato concentrate and cook it 1 minute so it loses its raw metallic edge, then add the blanched rinds, trotters and ear, the diced cabbage core, the broth, 1 teaspoon of the salt and the pepper. Bring to a bare simmer, cover and cook for 1 hour 30 minutes.
Step 6
Add the sausages. Prick the verzini once or twice and lay them on top of the meat without submerging them. Cover and cook 30 minutes more. They go in late because a fresh sausage cooked for three hours gives up all its fat and finishes dry and hollow, while half an hour cooks it through with its texture intact.
Step 7
Add the cabbage leaf and finish. Pile the ribbons over the surface, put the lid back and let them wilt for about 10 minutes untouched. Fold them in with a flat spoon, pushing rather than stirring so the rib meat does not shred off the bone, and cook uncovered for a final 40 to 50 minutes. The cabbage should melt into the sauce. Add hot broth only if the pot looks tight: cassoeula must never look like soup.
Step 8
Degrease and rest. Off the heat, let the pot stand 20 minutes, then tilt it and skim the clear fat from the surface with a wide shallow spoon. Expect to remove a good half cup. Taste only now and correct with the remaining salt, because rinds and sausages have been releasing salt for three hours and an early correction always overshoots.
Step 9
Cook the polenta. Bring the salted water to the boil, rain in the polenta while whisking, and change to a wooden spoon as soon as it thickens. Cook over low heat for 40 to 45 minutes, stirring often and scraping the bottom and sides. Coarse bramata needs the full time to hydrate its starch and lose its raw corn edge. Beat in the butter and serve it soft.
Plating
Cassoeula is served in a wide shallow bowl and it is served very hot, so heat the bowls first. A cold bowl sets the gelatin within a minute. Spoon a bed of soft polenta slightly off centre and let it settle into its own shape.
Portion the meat deliberately instead of ladling at random. Each serving should carry two or three ribs, one verzino cut in half on the diagonal, a piece of rind and a share of the trotter. Lay them against the polenta rather than on top of it, then spoon the cabbage and the thick sauce over the meat.
Finish with black pepper from the mill and nothing else. Cassoeula takes no cheese, no herb garnish and no oil at the table. The plate should look dark, wet and unfussy, as it does in the osterie of Monza and Milan.
Professional Technique
The technical centre of cassoeula is collagen management. Rinds, trotters and ears are almost pure connective tissue, and between about 160°F (71°C) and 190°F (88°C), held for two to three hours, that tissue converts into gelatin and dissolves into the liquid. That gelatin is the only thickener in the recipe, and it is why a version made with ribs and sausage alone always finishes thin.
The second technique is staged addition, and it exists because the components have completely different cooking times. Rinds and trotters need three hours, ribs two, the cabbage core ninety minutes, the sausages thirty and the cabbage leaf fifty. The order above is not tradition for its own sake, it is a timing chart.
The third is temperature discipline. The pot must sit at a bare simmer with the surface barely trembling. A rolling boil emulsifies the rendered pork fat into the liquid instead of letting it separate and float, and once that emulsion forms it cannot be skimmed away. Low heat leaves the fat where you can remove it.
Texture and Moisture Control
Four textures have to land at once: rib meat that leaves the bone under a fork but still holds together, rind that is soft and gelatinous without being slimy, sausage that is firm and juicy, and cabbage that has surrendered completely. The rind is the one that misbehaves. Undercooked it chews like elastic, and the only remedy is more time at a low simmer.
Moisture is controlled by the lid. The first ninety minutes are covered, so nothing evaporates and the tough cuts poach in their own liquid. The final forty to fifty minutes are uncovered, and that is when the sauce concentrates and the cabbage water drives off. Skip the uncovered phase and no extra time will rescue the pot.
Fat control is texture control here, not a diet question. Rinds and trotters release a great deal of fat, and an undegreased cassoeula tastes cloying after four mouthfuls even when the flavour is correct. Resting the pot 20 minutes lets the fat rise, and a night in the refrigerator sets it into a disc that lifts off whole.
Professional Mise en Place
This dish wants to be made the day before, so most of the organisation is about what is done in advance.
Equipment and tools
Heavy casserole of at least 8 quarts (7.5 L) with a tight lid
Second large pot for blanching the rinds and trotters
Wide shallow skimming spoon and a flat wooden spoon for folding
Heavy bottomed pot and a long spoon for the polenta
Probe thermometer to keep the braise below a simmer
Prepared ahead
The whole cassoeula, cooked 1 or 2 days ahead and refrigerated
Rinds, trotters and ear blanched and cut, up to 1 day ahead
Cabbage trimmed, separated into core and leaf, washed and drained
Soffritto vegetables chopped and held covered in the refrigerator
Service setup
Cassoeula degreased cold, rewarmed slowly and held just below a simmer
Polenta held soft over a bain marie with a film of water on top
Bowls heated properly, since the sauce sets fast on a cold surface
Hot broth in a small pan within reach for loosening the sauce
Chef Tips
Order the cheap cuts from a proper butcher ahead of time. Rinds, trotters and ears are never on display, but any butcher who breaks whole pigs keeps them and sells them for very little. Ask for the rinds already scraped.
Wait for the frost if you can. A Savoy cabbage that has taken a hard night below freezing converts part of its starch into sugar as a defence against ice damage, and the difference is obvious: sweeter, softer, less sulphurous. Failing that, leave the head unwrapped overnight in the coldest part of the refrigerator.
Make it a day ahead as routine, not as a fallback. The gelatin sets and redistributes, the cabbage finishes absorbing the pork, the salt evens out and the fat becomes trivially easy to remove. Rewarm slowly with a splash of broth.
If verzini are unavailable, use the smallest fresh Italian pork sausages you can find and avoid anything fennel heavy or smoked. Fennel seed pulls the dish towards Tuscany and smoke towards Alsace, and neither belongs in a Milanese pot.
Common Mistakes
Skipping the blanching of the rinds and trotters. These cuts carry a strong barnyard smell and a lot of surface fat, and ten minutes in boiling water followed by a rinse removes most of both. Put them straight into the braise and that character stays in the pot for three hours.
Using only ribs and sausage. Leaving out the rinds and trotters is the common modern shortcut and it destroys the dish. Those cuts are the entire source of gelatin, and without them the sauce stays thin however long you reduce it.
Adding the cabbage all at once. The white core and the green leaf are two vegetables with two cooking times. Thrown in together you get leaf dissolved into nothing and core still crunchy. Separate them and add them ninety minutes apart.
Letting the pot boil. A rolling boil emulsifies the rendered fat into the liquid so it can never be skimmed off, and it shreds the rib meat into rags. Hold the surface at a bare tremble.
Failing to degrease, or salting at the start. An unskimmed cassoeula tastes heavy after a few bites, so rest and skim it or refrigerate overnight and lift the set disc off whole. Season lightly at the beginning too, since rinds, sausages and reduction all concentrate salt over three hours.
Wine Pairing
Valtellina Superiore DOCG: The Lombard Nebbiolo from the terraces above Sondrio and the most complete answer to this dish. Its firm acidity and fine grained tannin cut through the rendered pork fat and the gelatin, while the dried rose and tar aromatics give the plate a perfume it does not have alone. Mountain Nebbiolo is leaner than its Piedmontese cousins, and that leanness keeps the pairing from exhausting the palate.
Sforzato di Valtellina DOCG: A fully dry wine made from Nebbiolo dried on racks through the autumn, and the choice for a cassoeula built with the full set of rinds and trotters. The concentration and higher alcohol meet the richest version of the braise head on, and the dried fruit and walnut notes sit well beside the sweetness the frosted cabbage brings.
Buttafuoco dell'Oltrepo Pavese DOC: A dark blend of Croatina, Barbera and the two Uve Rare from the hills south of Pavia, historically the Lombard red for heavy winter pork. Ripe black cherry fruit and a chewy tannic grip, with bright Barbera acidity underneath that stops the pairing turning ponderous next to the fat.
Pinot Nero dell'Oltrepo Pavese DOC: The lighter option and a good one when the braise has been thoroughly degreased. The still red version has red berry fruit, gentle tannin and real acidity. It works with the sausages and the cabbage more than with the rinds, so pour it when the dish leans delicate rather than at its most unctuous.
Barbera d'Asti DOCG: A step across the Piedmont border and the most acid driven wine here, which is its whole argument. Barbera has very low tannin and very high natural acidity, so it scours the palate between mouthfuls of fat pork instead of piling structure on top of it. Serve it at around 61°F (16°C).
Storage & Reheating
Cassoeula is genuinely better after a night in the refrigerator, so plan for leftovers rather than around them. Cool the pot within two hours, transfer it to an airtight container and refrigerate for up to 4 days. The fat sets into a firm pale disc on the surface. Lift it off before reheating.
Reheat slowly in a covered pot over low heat, stirring gently and adding hot broth if it has tightened into a solid mass, which it usually has. Give it 25 to 30 minutes. A microwave heats the sausages and rind unevenly, so keep it for single portions on a low setting.
It freezes well, unusually for a braise with cabbage, because the cabbage is already cooked to collapse. Freeze it degreased in portion sized containers for up to 3 months and thaw overnight in the refrigerator. Polenta does not keep the same way: pour leftovers into a tray, chill until firm, then cut into slabs and grill them the next day.
Nutrition
Per serving, based on 6 servings, cassoeula only, without the polenta:
Calories: 720 kcal
Total Fat: 48 g
Saturated Fat: 17 g
Trans Fat: 0.3 g
Unsaturated Fat: 28 g
Cholesterol: 185 mg
Sodium: 1180 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 14 g
Fiber: 5 g
Total Sugars: 6 g
Added Sugars: 0 g
Protein: 52 g
Lactose: 0.2 g
Principal micronutrients: thiamine, vitamin B12, vitamin K, zinc, iron, selenium, phosphorus
These figures are estimates and move with how thoroughly the dish is degreased. A cassoeula skimmed cold can lose a quarter of the fat shown above. A serving of soft polenta adds roughly 190 calories.
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