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Trippa e zampa di vitello in guazzetto "compensato"

  • A)
  • 400 grams of tripe and 400 grams of veal leg, already prepared, that means parboiled like the ones sold by the Florentine dealers of tripe, cut in stripes
  • 1 big onion split in 4 segments, but not divided, "fenced" with 4 or 5 cloves
  • 2 celery ribs
  • 1 meat stock cube
  • B)
  • a chopped mixture composed by:
    one onion
    2 celery ribs
    1 carrot
    2 garlic cloves
    a small bunch of parsley
  • ½ kg of tomato purée
  • 50 grams of butter
  • 5-6 spoons of olive oil
  • salt and pepper
  • Parmesan cheese
Take a pot and fill it with water, put what indicated at point A) and boil very slowly, covering the pot with a lid, for 30 minutes. In the meanwhile brown very well, simmering very slowly, the chopped vegetables indicated at point B) together with the olive oil, until you reach a hazelnut colour, then add the tomato purée. After 3 minutes from the beginning of the boiling stuff, remove all the vegetables in the pot, drain tripe and leg and put them in the baking tin with the chopped vegetables, increasing the heat a little bit and turning sometimes as to have a good mixing. Let cook for 20 minutes, turning sometimes and using a lid to cover the tin. At the right time, taste and add some salt if necessary (please taking into account that afterwards you have to add the Parmesan cheese), pepper at your pleasure, then put the butter and let it melt, always mixing with a ladle, then take out from the heat and serve very hot covered with the Parmesan cheese.
This is a delicious and refined poor recipe, perfectly integrated (the gelatinous leg which compensates with the leanness of the tripe) which demonstrates how the popular wisdom can succeed whereas a certain haughty science cannot. Let's make an example: Mr. Artusi, a person deserving all our respect, did not appreciate this link, because he was a well-off person, therefore extraneous to the popular sensibility [Artusi, 1891]. On the contrary Prof. Luigi Firpo was an enthusiastic appraiser of this recipe, he was a very refined intellectual person, a member of the high class but he was a real, great and unforgettable gourmet.

A Giuseppe Alessi recipe
Translated by Gianna Toni


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