Lesso

Literally means Boiled and in Tuscany is a word that identifies boiled beef. I would not define this a simple dish.... it is a whole world. It is a preparation that allows a cooking maid to have a first course (soup) a main dish, and also clearly reusable leftovers. I will talk of all these possibilites in this post, but first let me provide some background information on this dish.It is a very poor dish, it employes the bad quality meat, the one that needs long boiling in order to get minimally tender to be eaten. But don't get me wrong here, this does not mean that it is not delicious. I just mean that in the past, the working class could not affords the nice beef cuts that you can braise and roast and get tasty Sunday lunches. The only beef that you could afford was only edible when boiled, and that's why this is a “poor” dish. However, today's hectic life, makes this dish a real speciality as only few people have the patience and time necessary for its preparation. To give you an idea on the importance of “Lesso” for a maid in the past, I have to go back to my grandma. In fact for her any sum of money is measured by the amount of “Lesso” meat that you can buy with it. I still remember when my teenage uncle came back home having spent 50.000 Lire (around 25€) for a pair of stone washed 501 Levi's. Apart from the fact that she could not understand how you wanted to buy a pair of trousers that looked old and worn out, but what could not get out of her mind for days after this happened, is that she could have bought 10 Kgs of “Lesso” for the same sum!
Having said that, let's go to the golden rule for boiled beef preparation: you want a nice soup? Place the meat before the water boils. You want a tasty meat dish? Put the meat in the boiling water. Probably because I am Italian, but I like to go round this rule by preparing Lesso with different meat cuts. I usually buy a small piece of low quality cut (usually from the leg, the rule is that it must come with some bone) to prepare the broth and put it in the cold water. And then I add a nicer cut to the boing water. I know that the cuts of meat differ from country (and in Italy from city to city) so I would suggest that you speak to your butcher for best advice. However a good … for a nice “Lesso” is that you must have some bone, some fat, and a decent quantity of lean meat to eat. For a cut of around 1 kg of meat I would use around 2 liters of water, 2 carrots, 1 large onions, one bunch of parsley (I usually add the stems in the broth and use the leaves for other preparations), two sticks of celery. Clean the vegetable and place in the cold water together with the meat and bring to boil. At this moment adjust the salt and put down the heat so that it slightly bubbles. Leave boiling for at least 2 hours. Be carefull to adjust the salt before the broth is starting to take consistency, as it is very tricky to do afterwards.
Soup:
What we call minestra is a broth soup where some pasta is cooked in the broth. The pasta is usually of small format and of egg dough. You can also cook tiny egg noodles in the soup or tortellini. Be careful that the tortellini have to be small (around 10 euro cents coin) and have a meaty filling (ham or meat). Once you have prepared your Lesso filter the broth with a colander and consider 3 xxx of broth per person. Bring to boil and add the pasta (around 30-40 grams per person or 50 g of tortellini). Serve with grated parmesan once the pasta is cooked. Do not add herbs, cream or any other thing to this dish.
For a healthier alternative, leave the broth to cool down before filtering. This will enable the fat to solidify on the top, so that it is easily removed once filtered. You can also freeze the broth for future use.
Meat:
You will love me for this... I am finally providing some recipes for sauces. Yes, we use sauces, but only on Lesso.
The queen of Lesso sauces in Tuscany is salsa verde, which literally means green sauce. Salsa verde is based on parsley, and you need a generous handful of parsley leaves. You remember what I said before? Put the stems and leave the leaves. Lesso is a “poor” dish which optimizes the usage of all ingredients.
Let's try to do this in a structured way:
1 handful of parsley leaves, washed
1 boiled egg
2 spoons of mixed vegetables in vinegar
In case you have... 1 slice of left over tuscan bread. Do not use other types of bread as it will not work.
2 fillets of anchovies in olive oil.

In case you use the bread soak it in water and then squeeze out the water. Finely cut (you might want to use a food processor for this) the egg, the vegetables and the anchovies and add to the bread. Adjust the salt and pepper and cover with oil. It can last for one week in your fridge. Serve with Lesso meat. It is delicious.

Vitello tonnato:

In case you have a nice cut of lesso, that can be sliced in nice round bits, prepare the vitello tonnato, or beef with tuna fish. This is a cold dish, perfect in summer. Cut the beef in thin slides and adjust them in a serving dish.

For the sauce:

1 can (150g) of tuna in oil
2 fillets of anchovies
1 spoonful of capers in salt
100 g of ready mayonnaise (the plain one, not that that contains mustards or other additives)

Wash the capers to remove the sald and finely chop them with the anchovies and the tuna. Add this mixture to the mayonnaise and cover the meat with this sauce. It is great!

The leftovers

There are always leftovers of meat from a Lesso prepartion. Put them in a food processor with a clove garlic and some parsley. Add the same amount of smashed boiled potatoes and an egg and work this mixture (dough) until uniform. Form some balls around 2 cm in diameter and flatten them. Cover them in breadcrumbs and fry. You have just prepared polpette (I think this word has the same root as pulp, which resembles the fact that they come from a pulp of different things), however the translation into meat balls does not satisfy me. These are just polpette. Best served once cold. You can prepare polpette also with minced meat, however it does not have the same fascination as when prepared with leftovers.

Following the same procedure as above, you can prepare a polpettone, the Italian version for meat loaf. However once the meat is processed with the garlic and the parsley, you add bradcrumbs and eggs. Work until uniform and then form a loaf. You can wrap it in aluminium foil (remember to spread it with olive oil to avoid it sticking to the polpettone!) and boil, or you can braise in a tomato sauce prepared by slightly cooking a can of chopped tomatoes with some garlic. In this case make sure that it does not stick to the pan during the cooking, that can require one hour.
In both cases cut into thick slices and serve!

So as you can see I have presented you not only a recipe, but a whole world.