Italian Trieste Grilled Meat Rolls | Cevapcici Triestini

Sep 30

11 min read

Cevapcici Triestini (Italian Trieste Grilled Meat Rolls)

Cevapcici Triestini are small skinless rolls of ground beef and pork, salted, rested and grilled hard until the outside is dark and the inside stays wet. In Trieste they are tucked into warm flatbread with raw chopped onion and ajvar, and eaten fast, standing up.

There is no egg and no breadcrumb in the mixture. What holds it together is cold, and the recipe is mostly about keeping it that way.

Yield: 6 servings, about 24 rolls. Prep: 30 minutes. Rest: 2 hours minimum. Cook: 10 minutes. Difficulty: intermediate. Course: main course. Region: Friuli Venezia Giulia, Trieste.

The Story

Trieste has never been only Italian. For centuries it was the sea door of the Habsburg Empire, and the port filled with Serbs, Greeks, Croats, Slovenes, Jews, Armenians and Austrians who traded, prayed and cooked side by side. The Serbian Orthodox community raised the church of San Spiridione beside the Canal Grande in the nineteenth century, and the food of the Balkan grill came into the city with it. Cevapcici belong to that food. The name is a Slavic diminutive of cevap, a word that goes back to the Ottoman kebab, and the dish travelled up from Bosnia and Serbia along the same routes as the people who cooked it.

What began as the cooking of one community became the cooking of the whole city. Trieste eats at counters: the buffets that serve boiled pork with kren and mustard, the small grill houses with a charcoal fire, a short menu and a queue at lunchtime. Cevapcici fit that world perfectly. They cost little, cook in minutes, need no knife and fork, and go into a piece of bread in the hand. Triestines now sell them by the half dozen and defend their own version with the same firmness they bring to their coffee, which they call by different names from the rest of Italy.

The Triestine version is simple. It is usually beef and pork rather than the lamb of the deeper Balkans, seasoned with garlic, paprika and pepper, and served with raw white onion and ajvar, the roasted pepper and eggplant relish of Serbia. Some grills add a spoon of kajmak, a soft salted cream that melts into the hot meat. Nothing on the plate is there to hide anything. The dish is only as good as the meat, the salt and the fire, which is why it is harder to make well than it looks.

There is a practical reason the dish suits the city. Trieste is a port with a long working day, a strong wind called the bora and a habit of eating quickly between shifts, at the docks, in the shipyards and around the markets. A hot roll of grilled meat in bread was ideal food for people on their feet. Today the same habit brings students, office workers and families to the grill houses on Friday evenings, and the smell of charcoal and paprika is part of how the old city announces its own supper.

Ingredients

Quantities make about 24 rolls, enough for 6 people. Buy the meat the day you cook, ask for it ground once, and keep it in the coldest part of the refrigerator until the moment you start. Somun is the soft flatbread sold in the Balkan groceries of Trieste, and a thick pita is a fine substitute.

For the rolls

Ground beef chuck, 20 percent fat, freshly ground, 1 lb (450 g)
Ground pork shoulder, freshly ground, 12 oz (340 g)
Ice cold water, 1/3 cup (80 ml)
Fine sea salt, 2 tsp (12 g)
Garlic, finely grated, 4 cloves
Sweet paprika, 1 tsp (3 g)
Freshly ground black pepper, 1 tsp (2 g)
Hot paprika, optional, 1/4 tsp (1 g)
Neutral oil, for the grates, 1 tbsp (15 ml)

For serving

Somun or thick pita, 6 rounds
Sweet white onion, finely chopped, 1 large, about 8 oz (225 g)
Ajvar, 1/2 cup (120 g)
Kajmak or mascarpone, 1/2 cup (115 g)
Extra virgin olive oil, for brushing the bread, 1 tbsp (15 ml)
Flaky sea salt, to finish
Flat leaf parsley, chopped, 2 tbsp (8 g)
Lemon wedges, 2

For the fire

Lump charcoal, 4 lb (1.8 kg), or a gas grill
Instant read thermometer
Large bowl of ice, for chilling the mixing bowl
Tray and parchment paper, for the rolls

Preparation

Chill the meat, the bowl and the water

Spread the beef and pork on a tray and freeze them for 20 minutes, until stiff at the edges but not solid. Put the mixing bowl in the freezer as well, and stir a few ice cubes into the water. If you grind the meat yourself, pass it twice through the 1/8 inch (3 mm) plate, and clean the grinder head between passes so no warm fat builds up in it.

Knead the meat with the salt and the ice water

Set the cold bowl over a larger bowl of ice. Add the meat, garlic, paprika and pepper. Dissolve the salt in the ice water, discard any unmelted cubes and add it in three parts, kneading each part in with one hand. Work for 4 to 6 minutes, until the mass turns pale, sticky and stringy and clings to your fingers. Then cover the bowl and move it straight to the refrigerator.

Rest the mixture in the refrigerator

Press plastic wrap directly onto the surface, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or up to 24. The mixture firms as it rests, and the flavor of the garlic and paprika spreads through it.

Shape 24 short rolls

Wet your hands with cold water. Take 1 1/2 oz (40 g) of mixture and roll it between your palms into a cylinder about 3 inches (7.5 cm) long and 3/4 inch (2 cm) thick. Do not squeeze it. Lay the rolls on a parchment lined tray, not touching, and chill them for 20 minutes, so they are firm when they meet the heat. If the mixture warms in your hands, put the tray back in the refrigerator for 10 minutes before you go on.

Light the fire and oil the grates

Burn the charcoal until it is covered in gray ash, then bank it to one side to make a hot zone and a cooler zone. The grate over the hot zone should read about 450°F (230°C). On a gas grill, preheat on high for 10 minutes. Scrape the grates clean and wipe them with a folded towel dipped in oil. A clean, oiled, hot grate is the difference between rolls that release easily and rolls that tear.

Grill the rolls, turning every two minutes

Lay the rolls across the grates, and leave them alone for the first 2 minutes so a crust forms and they release. Then turn them a quarter turn every 2 minutes, for 8 to 10 minutes in all, until they are deeply browned with dark edges and reach 160°F (71°C) in the center. If dripping fat flares, slide the rolls to the cooler zone until it calms. Rest them for 3 minutes on a warm plate, loosely covered with foil, while the bread warms.

Warm the bread

Brush the somun lightly with olive oil, and warm it for 30 seconds per side on the cooler zone, until soft and lightly blistered. Open each one along the edge to make a pocket.

No grill? Use cast iron

Heat a heavy cast iron skillet over high heat for 5 minutes, add a thin film of oil and cook the rolls in batches, 3 minutes per side, with the extractor fan on. Do not crowd the pan, or the rolls will steam.

Plating

Serve within 3 minutes of leaving the fire, on warm plates or paper lined boards. Give each person four rolls, either tucked into an opened somun or fanned beside it, with a mound of chopped raw onion at one side and a spoon of ajvar at the other. Add a spoonful of kajmak so it softens against the hot meat, and add a wedge of lemon on the side.

Finish the rolls with a few flakes of salt and a squeeze of lemon. Do not drown them in sauce: the relish and the onion are there to answer the meat, not to cover it. A bowl of extra onion at the table is normal. Scatter the chopped parsley over the onion, not over the meat. Serve extra bread on the side for anyone who prefers to build their own.

Professional Technique

This mixture is bound with very cold water, not egg. Fine sea salt at about 1.5 percent of the meat weight dissolves the myofibrillar proteins, chiefly myosin and actin, out of the muscle fibers. Worked with a little ice water, they turn sticky and form a gel that ties the fibers together, and the heat of the grill sets it. That bond is what keeps a loose, unwrapped roll intact on the grate with no egg and no breadcrumb.

Temperature is the constraint. Keep the meat at or below 41°F (5°C) throughout, and never above 46°F (8°C). Past that point the fat softens, smears and coats the proteins, and the gel can no longer form. The mixture turns greasy and slack, the salt cannot do its work, and the rolls crack or leak fat on the grill. That is why the bowl sits over ice, the water is iced and the kneading is done in short bursts. Check the temperature with a probe halfway through, and if it climbs, stop and freeze the bowl for 10 minutes.

The rest matters as much. Give the mixture at least 2 hours at 34 to 38°F (1 to 3°C), and overnight is better. The gel sets, the mass firms and the rolls shape cleanly.

Check the bond before you shape all 24. Press a walnut sized ball onto your palm and turn your hand over: it should hang there for 5 seconds. Then form one roll and cook it in a hot dry pan for 3 minutes per side. It should hold its shape without cracking or weeping fat. If it crumbles, knead the cold mixture for another minute or two and test again.

Texture and Moisture Control

The juiciness of a cevapcic comes from fat, and 20 percent is the right amount. A lean mixture grills dry and grainy, however carefully it is bound. The fat renders slowly inside the roll and stays in it, provided the outside browns quickly enough to hold it in.

A hot grate does that job. At 450°F (230°C) the surface of a thin roll takes a dark, savory crust from Maillard browning in a few minutes, and the center reaches 160°F (71°C) before the interior dries out. On a fire that is too cool the rolls sit and stew, turn gray and lose fat into the coals. Turning every 2 minutes gives even color without breaking the crust as it forms.

Rest the rolls for 3 minutes before serving so the juices settle. Cut one open and the center should be moist and pale, with no pink.

The bread and the onion complete the texture. A little oil and 30 seconds on the grill make the somun soft and steamy inside, so it takes up the drippings. Raw onion adds crunch and sharpness against the richness of the meat, and cold ajvar against the hot roll gives the contrast that makes the next bite as good as the first.

Professional Mise en Place

Equipment and tools

Large stainless bowl, and a bigger one for ice
Instant read thermometer
Parchment lined trays
Long tongs and a grill brush
Cast iron skillet, as a backup
Small bowl of cold water for wetting your hands
Foil and a warm platter for resting the rolls

Prepared ahead

Mixture kneaded and rested the day before, kept refrigerated
Rolls shaped and chilled up to 6 hours ahead, covered
Onion chopped and refrigerated in a covered bowl
Ajvar and kajmak at cool room temperature, spooned into small bowls
Parsley chopped, lemon cut into wedges, bread wrapped in a towel to stay soft
Charcoal lit 30 minutes before service so it is fully ashed over

Service setup

Fire steady, with a hot zone and a cooler zone
Somun stacked, oil and brush ready
Warm plates and a clean towel
Rolls grilled in two batches for a table of six, the second going on as the first is served
Extra napkins on the table, because this is eaten with the hands

Chef Tips

Ask the butcher for chuck and pork shoulder, and grind them fresh on the day. Ground meat that sat in the case for two days has already lost some of its ability to bind.

Grate the garlic to a paste rather than chopping it, so it disappears into the mixture and does not burn on the grill in dark bitter flecks.

Keep a small bowl of cold water beside the tray. Dip your hands in it before every roll, and the mixture will not stick to them. Wipe your palms dry only when you finish, and keep the tray in the refrigerator while you work in batches.

If you cook on a gas grill, add a handful of soaked hardwood chips in a foil pouch over the flame. It is a small nod to the charcoal of the Trieste grills. Keep the lid open, so the meat browns and does not roast. Salt the mixture only when you begin kneading, not before, because salt draws moisture out of meat left sitting.

Common Mistakes

Using lean meat. Beef at 10 percent fat grills dry and crumbly. Buy chuck and pork shoulder, and accept the fat. It is what keeps the roll juicy through the fire.

Skipping the rest. Rolls formed straight after mixing are soft and slump on the grate. Give them their 2 hours, and if the rolls still feel soft, chill the tray for another 30 minutes.

Squeezing the rolls too hard. Compressed rolls turn dense and rubbery. Roll them gently, only enough to hold a shape.

Moving them too early. A roll lifted before the crust forms tears and sticks to the grate. Wait the full 2 minutes, and the roll will let go of the grate on its own.

Cooking on a weak fire. A grate under 400°F (205°C) steams the rolls gray. Wait for the coals to be covered in ash.

Overcooking to be safe. Past 170°F (77°C) the rolls dry out. Take them off at 160°F (71°C) and let the resting time finish the job.

Wine Pairing

Refosco dal Peduncolo Rosso Friuli DOC: The red of the local hills, dark and dry, with firm tannin and a slight bitter plum finish. The tannin grips the fat of the beef and pork and cleans the palate between bites, and the smoke from the grill sits comfortably beside its dark fruit. It handles the garlic and paprika without going soft, and it is the bottle a Triestine would order first.

Schioppettino Friuli Colli Orientali DOC: A medium bodied red with a clear note of black pepper and wild berries, and lively acidity. The pepper in the glass answers the pepper in the roll, while the acidity cuts through the richness of the kajmak and lifts the sweetness of the ajvar. Serve it slightly cool, at about 60°F (16°C).

Teroldego Rotaliano DOC: Deep in color, with soft tannin, dark cherry and a savory edge. It has enough structure to stand up to a charred crust and enough freshness not to weigh down a plate of grilled meat, and it is more forgiving of the raw onion than heavier reds. Serve it at 61°F (16°C), where its fruit is brightest.

Collio Friulano DOC: A dry white for those who prefer one. It is crisp and firm, with green almond and a faint bitterness, and the salty, fatty meat and sharp raw onion both find their match in that clean acidity. It is a good choice on a hot afternoon, poured well chilled, with the rolls straight from the grill, at about 46°F (8°C).

Storage & Reheating

Raw rolls keep covered in the refrigerator for 24 hours. For the freezer, freeze them on a tray until solid and then bag them, and they keep for 2 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator before grilling, never on the counter.

Grilled rolls keep for 3 days in an airtight container. To reheat, place them on a rack in a 350°F (175°C) oven, covered loosely with foil, for 8 to 10 minutes, or warm them in a skillet with a splash of water under a lid for 4 minutes. Avoid the microwave, which toughens the outside. Ajvar keeps in the refrigerator for two weeks, and the onion should be chopped fresh. Kajmak keeps for 5 days once opened. Cool the grilled rolls within 1 hour of cooking, and never leave them out for more than 2 hours.