Recipes with cotechino: how to cook the New Year’s king in a rustic or gourmet version
One of the most common products on New Year’s tables: the cotechino. True Italian excellence, especially from the Modena region, the cotechino is a real staple of Christmas celebrations: it is a very old tradition, born of legend, as often happens with food. What if we were tired of always cooking cotechino the same way? Don’t worry, for your New Year’s Eve we have selected some creative ideas, without departing too much from tradition, to offer a different cotechino: here are some rustic or gourmet recipes to bring your New Year’s cotechino to the table.
If you bought a fresh cotechino, boil it for at least 90 minutes (better if 120) adding a carrot and a stem celery. To be sure it’s cooked through, do the toothpick test, just like you do with cakes: if the toothpick goes in easily without encountering excessive resistance, it’s time to turn off the heat. Pre-cooked cotechino, on the other hand, should be boiled following the instructions on the package, inside its silver envelope for about 25 to 30 minutes.
Either way, remember remove the skin before serving it in slices or using it in your recipes.
Rustic recipes with cotechino
For those who love recipes different from usual but let them still be warm and particularly delicious we offer different options, from legumes to polenta. The most classic New Year’s cotechino recipe, the one with lentils, can be made a little differently from the usual by cooking the cotechino with other legumes, for example beans, even in the spicy variant, if your guests l like.
Another very valid option is to bake the cotechino in a puff pastry crust: in this way you will make the classic cotechino a little more refined. Cotechino also lends itself to being served with savory creams, such as classic mashed potatoes, mashed cauliflower or even a seasonal velouté, with a delicate flavor that is not opposed to cotechino: cotechino is perfect pumpkin, or even a potato soup. Another interesting combination is with cabbage, stewed. For those who really want to impress their guests, here’s how to use cotechino in a first lesson: make a very tasty cotechino sauce. Finally, a great classic that never serves: lentil and cotechino risotto.
Gourmet recipes with cotechino
Contrary to what many think, it is possible to transform with a pinch of imagination the cotechino in a product to be used in a gourmet dish. It doesn’t have to be sumptuous or visually impactful dishes: it’s enough to create gods mini cotechino burgers, for example, which can be used for a buffet or a festive aperitif; the important thing is match the cotechinoproduced by the push of a big note, to something fresh and sourlike a salad marinated in vinegar or lemon.
If you want to present the trio of cotechino, lentils and polenta in a creative way, you can create delicious appetizers by placing polenta discs on the plate and on top of the lentils and slices of cotechino. You can turn it into a mousse a bit like we do with ham mousse, to put it on slices of bread, croutons, or serve it in a small bowl accompany it with breadsticks or create delicious meatballs to accompany the sauces most appreciated by your guests. An interesting alternative is to present it as an aperitifby obtaining typical Christmas shapes with a cookie cutter, such as small stars for example, then arranging them on a cream, a hummus or simply by associating them with a strong but delicate sauce such as aioli.
