I’m a big believer of the motto that a little bit of meat goes a long way. Is that a motto? If it’s not, it should be. Although I’m by no means a vegetarian, I do believe that a large portion of vegetables or grains paired with a very small portion of meat can make for a great meal. Pancetta is the obvious choice and lends its porky taste to traditional pasta dishes like carbonara and amatriciana. I also like to throw cured meats like prosciutto or salami into salads or even drape them atop veggies before running them under the broiler.
But one of my favorite cuts of meat is one you probably wouldn’t think of using: pork rind. I too was a slow convert. Although I’d eaten my share of cotiche con fagioli in restaurants it wasn’t until last summer, when I was testing my own bean recipe for my next book, that I started cooking with it.
As far as getting the most bang for your meat buck, cotiche is huge. In fact, so far, whenever I’ve gone to my local butcher and asked for cotiche, he’s thrown it in for free. It’s literally a part of the animal that most often gets throw away.
I’m here to tell you that you should be putting it in your soup. The following is a recipe for bean and zucchini soup but you can just as easily put it in your next batch of minestrone. To use pork rind, it has to be blanched first. Once you’ve done that, and cut it into strips or cubes, you can freeze some in a small bag and have it handy to throw into your next pot of soup.
Although you can follow any number of recipes for fagioli con le cotiche that you can find easily online (and I will have one in my next book, The Italian Table) here is my recipe for a soup that is a tad lighter, since it includes zucchini. The magic happens when you add the cotiche which not only adds a depth of porky taste, but the thickens the soup, with its natural gelatin, and makes it silky and even unctuous. It’s even better the next day when the soup has a chance to thicken up over night.
The reason I was cooking up a hearty soup in the middle of what should be a hot summer night is because it was Ferragosto. And like clockwork, every year, on August 15 the weather turns. So rather than have grilled meats under the pergola outside, I decided to set a more formal table and make this soup, as well as one of my favorite hearty main dishes: Marcella’s Pork Chops
Menu
Aperitivi
Truffle studded boar sausage and taralli
Primo
Bean and Zucchini Soup with Cotiche (recipe below)
Secondo
Marcellas Pork Chops with Tomatoes and Sage
Contorno
Baked Eggplants (I made this recipe, minus the tomato topping. Instead I just covered the cooked eggplants with mixed herbs – parsley, mint and basil – that I’d dressed with a bit of olive oil and lemon juice)
Dolce
Watermelon and Alison Roman’s Salted Chocolate Chip Cookies
Setting the Table
Plates: The dishes are the pattern Siena and were made by FIMA in Deruta. I’ve been coveting this pattern for about 20 years, ever since I first saw it while writing my first book on ceramics. While I have other brightly colored dishes I use daily outside in the summer, I save these for special occasions in our dining room.
Tablecloth: The gorgeous linen table cloth I bought at Pardi, which I only managed to stain just a little.
Candelabras: my father calls these my Libarace moment. I think that is because he probably finds them tacky. I find them irresistable which is why I bought them over 25 years ago at a flea market. I LOVE them.
Centerpiece: I love a good raised platter. This fruit dish from Ikea is maybe my favorite. It looks like absolutely nothing on its own (which is the point) but it is exactly the right shape and height for filling with seasonal fruit or vegetables. (I don’t think they make it any more, but in general Ikea is a pretty good resource for anonymous centerpieces to fill up)In this case I walked outside and picked the first clusters of grapes form our vines, as well as a few unripe apples.
What to drink
It was nice enough outside, and had stopped raining long enough that we could sit on the terrace. I opened a bottle of sparkling rose from Madonna del Latte. For our main course full of Umbrian pork only a Sagrantino, from Adanti one of my favorite producers, would do.
bean soup with zucchini and pork rind
Ingredients
- 2cups of dried cannellini beans
- 1 medium onion, peeled and cut in half
- 2 bay leaves2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 3 oz of pork rind (cotiche)
- 1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 2 stalks celery, diced
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon or more of red pepper flakes
- 3 medium zucchini, sliced into 1/4 inch rounds
- 1 medium tomato, diced
Instructions
Put the beans in a bowl to soak overnight or at least for 6 hours. Drain the beans and place them in a heavy bottomed pot and cover with cool water by 2 inches. Bring to a simmer and remove the foam that floats tot he top. When the foam stops forming add the onion, bay leaves and salt. Simmer, partly covered, until the beans are very tender. (This can take anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half depending on your beans. Let the beans sit in the cooking water until ready to use. If you cook the beans the day before, you can store them in the fridge.
In the meantime bring a small pot of water to boil and add the pork rind. Cook for 20 minutes and then remove to let cool. When it is cool enough to handle chop into small, bite size pieces.
Pour the olive oil into a large, heavy bottomed pot and add the onion, celery, red pepper flakes, pork rind and salt. Cook for about 7 to 10 minutes until the onion and celery are softened. Add the zucchini and cook for another 10 minutes or so. Add the chopped tomatoes, and cook until they break down. Now add the beans and their cooking water.It should be pretty soupy at this point, but if there wasn't enough liquid from the beans you can add a cup or so of water.
Let the soup simmer for another 45 minutes. At this point I usually use an immersible blender to blend the soup a bit, to thicken up the broth. You don't want the whole thing to turn into a puree, but more of a chunky thick soup. You can certainly eat it right away, but it's even better the next day, once the gelatin from the pork rind has a chance to do its magic and thicken it all up.
This soup does not need grated cheese on top, but I do serve it with either red pepper flakes at the table or some sort of hot chili oil which I love.
Hungry for more menus and recipes from Italy? Stay tuned for my upcoming book: The Italian Table: Creating Festive Meals for Family and Friends. It will be published by Rizzoli on March 19, but you can already pre-order it here.
Oooh, we love that Rosario (actually a bottle of it is chilling in the fridge), and about everything they do at Madonna del Latte. Please say hi to Leon the next time you are there!
Love your blog! I’m ready to make your bean soup. Did I miss how many it would serve? Four places set at your beautiful table, so I’m guessing four. Thank you for sharing your talent and beauty!!
AlegrÃa
Sorry! It will serve 6 generously.
I’m trying to source pork skin from my local butcher, but I suspect it will need to be prepared somehow in order to be equivalent to cotiche. It looks like what you are working with has the very outer skin layer removed.
Am I correct? If yes, how do I convert the skin-on version to what you are using?
Cotica is called pork rind at a butcher and you shouldn’t have to do anything to it.