The married soup is also known as pignato grasso (pork cooked in a clay pot, precisely the pignatta) and it is one of the oldest dishes of the Neapolitan tradition made of humble ingredients, and can never be missing on important occasions, such as Christmas and Easter.
▶It’s called so because the vegetables “marry” with the meat, originally scraps or offal.
▶It seems that its official arrival in Naples happened in 1300 with the Spanish, due to its similarity with the medieval soup “olla podrida”, from which the Lombard cassoeula would later also derive.
▶It’s difficult to define a single recipe, among the indispensable ingredients: chicory, small escaroles (scarulelle), savoy cabbage, and borage or chard.
The typical meat used is less prized pork, with ribs, sausages (typical was the so-called nnoglia), and other cuts like cheek and ear.
▶In the oldest tradition, instead of toasted bread, scagliuozzi were used at the bottom of the plate.
SPECIAL: Guide to the best slow cookers.
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Economical
- Preparation time: 20 Minutes
- Portions: 4 people
- Cooking methods: Boiling
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Christmas
Ingredients
- 1.1 lbs pork cheek
- 1 pork ear
- 0.88 lbs pork ribs
- 2 sausage
- 3.5 oz lard (cut into one piece)
- 1 onion
- 1 carrot
- 1 stalk celery
- as needed parsley
- 1.1 lbs savoy cabbage
- 1.1 lbs chard
- 1.1 lbs escarole (endive)
- 1.1 lbs chicory
- 2 parmesan crusts
- 3.5 oz caciocavallo
- as needed salt
Steps
Boil the meats in a pot (preferably clay) with onion, carrot, celery, lard, and parsley for 4 hours.
Set aside the cooking broth.
Cut the meat.
Blanch the vegetables in salted water, add them to the broth, add the cheese crusts and caciocavallo, finally the meat. Adjust salt.
Cook for a few more minutes and serve hot.
Alternatively, to the clay pot you can cook the meats in a Crockpot, electric slow cooker with the choice of HIGH (2 hours) or SLOW (4 hours) mode by placing the ingredients and broth directly in the ceramic pot.
Alternatively, to the clay pot you can cook the meats in a Crockpot, electric slow cooker with the choice of HIGH (2 hours) or SLOW (4 hours) mode by placing the ingredients and broth directly in the ceramic pot.
