Italian Friulian Risotto with Pitina and Montasio | Risotto alla Pitina e Montasio
Pitina is a smoked meatball from three narrow valleys in the mountains above Pordenone, and it is one of the few Italian cured products that was never stuffed into a casing. Meat was minced, packed into a sphere, rolled in cornmeal and hung in the smoke of the open hearth. Sliced thin it eats like a rough salami with a bonfire behind it.
Put into a risotto it does something no salami can. The smoke is carried in the fat, so the moment the pitina meets a warm pan that fat runs and takes the whole dish with it. Montasio holds the other end of the rope: an aged mountain cheese with enough salt and nut character to stand beside smoked mutton.
The method here splits the pitina in two. Part of it goes in early, rendered slowly so its fat becomes the cooking medium for the rice. The rest is fried hard at the end and scattered over the plate, so there is a crisp smoky element that twenty minutes in broth has not softened.
Yield: 4 servings. Prep: 20 minutes. Cook: 40 minutes. Total: about 1 hour. Difficulty: intermediate. Course: primo. Region: Friuli Venezia Giulia, the Val Tramontina and the Valcellina.
The Story
Pitina comes from the Val Tramontina, the Valcellina and the Val Colvera, three poor valleys in the Dolomiti Friulane where winters were long and the nearest butcher a day away. There were no pigs to spare and therefore no casings, so whatever meat there was, usually chamois, roe deer, mutton or goat, was chopped with lard and salt, pressed into a ball by hand and rolled in cornmeal to seal it.
The ball went up into the fogher, the open hearth, and hung in the smoke of beech and juniper for days. Smoke, salt and the cornmeal crust together did the work a cellar does elsewhere. The names change from valley to valley: pitina in the Tramontina, peta around Andreis, petuccia at Barcis and Claut, with size and spicing shifting at each turn of the road.
It very nearly disappeared. A Slow Food Presidium in the 1990s pulled it back from a handful of ageing producers, and in 2018 it took the protected geographical indication that carries its name. Traditionally it is eaten raw in thin slices when well cured, or poached in water sharpened with vinegar and served on polenta. Putting it in a risotto is a modern move, but it uses the product as the valleys always did, as a seasoning rather than a main ingredient.
Ingredients
For the risotto
Carnaroli or Vialone Nano rice, 1 1/2 cups (320 g)
Pitina, cornmeal crust scraped off, 7 oz (200 g)
Yellow onion, very finely diced, 1/2 cup (70 g)
Refosco or other dry red wine, 1/2 cup (120 ml)
Extra virgin olive oil, 1 tbsp (15 ml)
Juniper berries, lightly crushed, 3
Bay leaf, 1
Fine sea salt, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
For the broth
Light beef or chicken broth, unsalted, 7 cups (1.7 litres)
Yellow onion, halved, 1
Celery stalk, 1
Black peppercorns, 6
Bay leaf, 1
For the mantecatura
Montasio DOP stagionato, aged 12 months, finely grated, 1 cup (100 g)
Unsalted butter, cold, cubed, 3 tbsp (45 g)
For finishing
Pitina, finely diced, 2 oz (55 g), reserved from the 7 oz above
Flat leaf parsley, finely chopped, 1 tbsp
Montasio DOP stagionato, shaved, 2 tbsp
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Preparation
Trim the pitina and divide it into two portions
Scrape the cornmeal crust off the outside of the pitina with the back of a knife, since it is a coating rather than something to eat and turns gritty in a sauce. Cut off 2 oz (55 g) and dice it very finely for the garnish. Chop the rest coarsely for rendering, and keep the two piles apart.
Warm the broth and keep it unsalted
Bring the broth to a simmer with the onion, celery, peppercorns and bay leaf, then strain it and hold it just below a simmer. Leave it unsalted. Pitina is cured meat and Montasio is an aged cheese, and between them they carry more than enough salt for the dish. You correct the seasoning at the very end, never at the beginning.
Render the coarse pitina slowly in a cold pan
Put the coarsely chopped pitina into a wide heavy pan with the olive oil, set it over low heat and let it come up slowly for 6 to 8 minutes. Starting cold matters: the fat has time to run out before the meat seizes, and that fat is the smoky medium the rice will toast in. Lift the solids out with a slotted spoon.
Sweat the onion in the smoked fat
Add the diced onion, the crushed juniper and the bay leaf to the fat left in the pan and cook gently for 6 to 8 minutes until the onion is soft and translucent. Juniper wood is part of the smoking, so the berries echo what is already in the meat rather than adding a new flavour. Take out the bay leaf before the rice goes in.
Toast the rice in the fat until it turns glassy
Raise the heat to medium, add the rice and stir for 2 to 3 minutes until the grains are hot and glassy at the edge with a white core still showing. Toasting in rendered pitina fat rather than butter is the point of the whole recipe, because every grain picks up smoke at the outside before it takes on a drop of liquid.
Deglaze with the red wine and return the meat
Pour in the red wine and let it reduce until the pan is almost dry, about 2 minutes. Red rather than white is deliberate: the tannin and darker fruit stand up to smoked meat where a white would be swamped. Return the rendered solids to the pan now, so they soften and release the rest of their flavour into the rice.
Add the broth in stages and cook for 17 to 18 minutes
Add the hot broth a ladle at a time, just covering the rice, stirring steadily and waiting for each addition to be nearly absorbed before the next. Keep the pan at a lively simmer with bubbles across the whole surface. Start tasting at 16 minutes and stop while there is still a thread of firm starch in the centre of the grain.
Crisp the reserved pitina while the rice finishes
In a small dry pan over medium high heat, fry the finely diced reserved pitina for 2 to 3 minutes until the edges are crisp and dark. It needs no fat of its own. Tip it onto absorbent paper straight away and keep it there until the moment of plating, because held in its own fat it goes soft within a minute.
Rest off the heat, then mantecare with butter and Montasio
Pull the pan off the stove and wait a full minute. Beat in the cold butter, then the grated Montasio, working hard with a wooden spoon until the risotto is glossy and loose. Now taste for salt, and only now. Grind in black pepper, cover and rest one more minute so the starch relaxes into the wave called all'onda.
Plating
Use warm plates and shallow wide bowls. The risotto has to spread into a thin even layer, and a deep bowl piles it up where the crisp pitina on top sinks into the rice and goes soft before it reaches the table.
Spoon the rice into the centre and knock the base of the plate once against your hand so it settles into an even circle with a wave at the edge. Scatter the crisp pitina across the surface at the last second rather than stirring it in: the contrast between soft smoky rice and dry crunch is most of the pleasure of the dish.
Finish with a few shavings of Montasio, a little chopped parsley and a turn of black pepper. No olive oil at the table, since there is already rendered fat, butter and cheese in the bowl. Send it out while the pitina is still audible under a fork.
Professional Technique
The governing technique is splitting one ingredient between two temperatures. Smoke compounds sit in the fat, and fat behaves differently depending on how it is treated. Rendered slowly from cold, the pitina releases its fat intact and that fat becomes a cooking medium that carries smoke into every grain. Fried hard and fast, the same meat keeps its smoke inside a crisp shell instead of giving it up. Doing both gives you background and foreground.
The second is the deliberate absence of salt until the last minute. Pitina is a cured product and Montasio aged twelve months is a salty cheese, and in a risotto that reduces by evaporation for eighteen minutes both concentrate. Seasoning the broth or the soffritto the way a normal risotto is seasoned puts the dish past saving. An unsalted broth and one correction after the mantecatura is the only safe order.
The third is scraping off the cornmeal. That crust exists because the valleys had no casings, and it did its job during curing and drying. It is not seasoning. Left on and chopped into the pan it hydrates into small gritty lumps of raw polenta that never dissolve and sit unpleasantly against the smooth rice.
Texture and Moisture Control
This risotto runs a risk of greasiness that a cheese risotto does not, because pitina fat joins the butter and the Montasio in the final emulsion. The control is in the quantity you render rather than in skimming later. Seven ounces gives roughly the right amount of fat for four portions, and with a particularly fatty pitina, pour off a spoonful before the onion goes in.
Starch does the binding, as always. Carnaroli releases it steadily and holds shape; Vialone Nano, which is what the eastern Veneto and Friuli use more often, releases it faster and gives a slightly softer, wetter risotto in less time. Either works, but with Vialone Nano start tasting at 14 minutes rather than 16.
The crisp garnish is a separate problem with a separate answer. Fried pitina holds its crunch for about two minutes on absorbent paper and about twenty seconds once it touches hot rice. Fry it last, drain it hard, and put it on the plate rather than into the pan.
Professional Mise en Place
The broth is the only thing that can be made in advance. From the toasting of the rice onwards this is one continuous eighteen minute job.
Equipment and tools
Wide heavy based pan, about 11 inches (28 cm), with low sides
Small dry pan for crisping the garnish, kept separate
Saucepan holding the broth just below a simmer, with a ladle in it
Slotted spoon for lifting the rendered meat out of the fat
Box grater, absorbent paper, flat wooden spoon
Prepared ahead
Broth made up to 2 days ahead, strained and kept unsalted
Pitina crust scraped, meat divided and both portions cut on the day
Montasio grated fine and shavings cut, kept covered
Butter cubed and returned to the refrigerator
Onion diced very fine, juniper crushed, wine measured out
Service setup
Rendered pitina solids and their fat held separately in the pan
Broth hot and deliberately unseasoned
Salt at the pass, for one correction after the mantecatura
Garnish fried in the last two minutes and drained on paper
Plates warm, parsley and pepper mill within reach
Chef Tips
Buy pitina from a presidium producer if you can, and ask how long it has been smoked. A young one is mild and works well here; a heavily cured one can dominate a whole pan, in which case drop to 5 oz (140 g) and make up the difference with a little more butter at the end.
If pitina is unavailable, the honest substitute is good smoked mutton or a coarse smoked sausage with no fennel or paprika in it. Speck is too sweet and too pork forward, and it turns the dish into something from Alto Adige rather than the Pordenone valleys.
Taste the rendered fat before the onion goes in. It tells you how smoky the finished risotto will be, because everything that follows only dilutes it. If it tastes acrid rather than warm, the pan was too hot, and you are better off wiping it out and rendering again.
Keep the wine and the cheese in proportion. Half a cup of red gives structure without staining the rice grey, and 1 cup of grated Montasio is the ceiling before the smoke gets buried.
Common Mistakes
Leaving the cornmeal crust on the pitina. It is a curing coat, not seasoning, and it hydrates into gritty lumps of raw polenta that never dissolve into the rice. Scrape it off with the back of a knife before you chop the meat.
Rendering the meat in a hot pan. Dropped into a pan already at temperature, the pitina seizes and browns before its fat has run, so you lose the smoky cooking medium the recipe is built on. Start it cold and bring it up slowly.
Salting the broth. Between the cured meat and the aged cheese there is already a great deal of salt, and eighteen minutes of reduction concentrates all of it. Keep the broth unsalted and correct once, after the mantecatura.
Stirring the crisp garnish into the pan. It softens in seconds and the dish loses the only crunch it has. Fry it last, drain it on paper and scatter it over the plate at the moment of service.
Adding the Montasio while the pan is still on the heat. The aged cheese splits above roughly 175°F (80°C), turning stringy and leaving an oily film, which on a risotto that already carries rendered fat is twice as obvious. Rest the pan a full minute first.
Wine Pairing
Refosco dal Peduncolo Rosso Friuli DOC: The Friulian red that belongs on this table and the wine to deglaze with as well. Its dark plum fruit has a sour cherry lift behind it, and that acidity is what carries the rendered fat off the palate. The tannin is firm without being coarse, which suits smoked mutton better than a softer red would.
Schioppettino Friuli Colli Orientali DOC: The most interesting match of the five. Schioppettino is naturally peppery, with a black pepper and crushed herb note that comes from the grape rather than from oak, and it lands directly on the pepper and juniper in the pitina. Medium bodied and high in acidity, it lifts the dish instead of weighing it down.
Pignolo Friuli Colli Orientali DOC: The serious bottle, rare and firmly tannic, from a variety that almost died out in the Colli Orientali. Its grip needs fat to soften it and this risotto supplies plenty, while the dried fruit and tobacco depth sits comfortably with smoke. Open it an hour ahead.
Teroldego Rotaliano DOC: From the gravel plain of the Campo Rotaliano in Trentino, deeply coloured and built on dark berry fruit with a savoury almond finish. It has more flesh than the Friulian reds and less tannin than Pignolo, which makes it the easiest of these to drink alongside a rich rice dish.
Alto Adige Santa Maddalena DOC: The lightest choice here, Schiava from the slopes above Bolzano, pale and scented with violet and wild strawberry. Serve it cool at 57°F (14°C) and its low tannin and bright acidity cut the fat without competing with the smoke, which is useful when the pitina is a strongly cured one.
Storage & Reheating
Risotto is a dish for the moment it leaves the pan. If there are leftovers, spread them thin on a cold tray so they cool fast, then refrigerate in a sealed container for up to 2 days. The smoke intensifies overnight, so expect a stronger dish on the second day.
Reheat in a wide pan with 3 to 4 tablespoons of hot broth or water per portion, covered, over low heat for 4 to 5 minutes. Finish off the heat with a knob of butter and a pinch of grated Montasio to rebuild the emulsion. Crisp a little fresh pitina for the top, since the original garnish will have gone soft.
Do not freeze the finished risotto. Whole pitina keeps far better than the dish: wrapped in paper rather than plastic, it holds in the refrigerator for several weeks and freezes for up to 3 months, though freezing makes it harder to dice cleanly.
Nutrition
Per serving, based on 4 portions:
Calories: 700 kcal
Total Fat: 33 g
Saturated Fat: 16 g
Trans Fat: 0.8 g
Unsaturated Fat: 15 g
Cholesterol: 95 mg
Sodium: 1150 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 67 g
Fiber: 2 g
Total Sugars: 2 g
Added Sugars: 0 g
Protein: 29 g
Lactose: 0.3 g
Principal micronutrients: iron, zinc, calcium, phosphorus, vitamin B12, niacin
These figures are estimates. Sodium is high because both the cured meat and the aged cheese carry salt, and it will vary considerably with the producer of the pitina.
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