Verzolini are a typical winter dish in the Piacenza area, but are prepared throughout northern Italy. If you have grandparents who live in Lombardy, you will surely have tasted them because they’re one of those recipes from the past that are handed down in families, with many variations. There has always been one rule: for Savoy cabbage to be soft and wrap the rolls at its best, it needs to be picked after the first frost. Low temperatures are needed for the perfect verzolini, and it can’t be otherwise seeing as how the richness of the filling is meant to satisfy the palate when it’s cold outside.
Recipe for verzolini
Ingredients
1 Savoy cabbage not too large, 1 lb of minced meat (it can be boiled, left over, simply minced, or even pork, loin fried then chopped very fine), 4 oz of mortadella, butter, half an onion, 1 egg, 3 tbsp of breadcrumbs, 3 tbsp of Parmigiano Reggiano, nutmeg (as much as you like), salt and pepper to taste, extra-virgin olive oil, butter, broth, 1 jar of tomato purée, cooking string
Method
If you don’t use boiled meat, fry the pork loin in a pan with butter and finely chopped onions sautéed previously. Chop the loin once cooked. Chop the mortadella separately. Put the meat, mortadella, breadcrumbs, Parmigiano Reggiano, nutmeg and egg in a bowl and season with salt and pepper. Separately, boil the cabbage leaves, choosing the innermost ones, which are the softest (but be careful that they are not too small because they will have to wrap the verzolini, which will be half the size of a fist). Blanch them just enough to make them easier to handle.
Lay all the cabbage leaves out and place a little bit of the mixture in the center of each leaf. Then close the leaves as if they were many packets and, with the help of the string, seal the cabbage so that the filling doesn’t fall out. You can cook them either in the oven or in a pan. To do it in the pan, put a tablespoon of oil and a knob of butter, let them fry slowly and put the verzolini in position. Then add the tomato sauce (it’s not necessary to cover them, but only to spread a little on each roll). Let it cook for a half an hour. If they dry out, add a little broth.