il blog di Gibbs- zampone

Christmas dinner was a traditional regional dish from Modena called Zampone. This is the Italian word for paw, and the pictures show why it’s called that. A zampone is a sausage made of pork (meat, fat, and skin) that uses the foreleg of a pig as the casing. The bones are all removed from the foreleg and the sausage is stuffed in, then the thing is sewn shut and set to age for a few months. Actually not all of the bones are removed, the knuckles are left in (you need something to hold onto the toenails – which are also left attached). This is not a sausage that you grill (or fry or bake). In order to make the casing tender enough to eat, you have to soak the zampone for twelve hours the night before cooking. The next day you wrap it in oven paper or parchment and boil it for 3 – 5 hours. When it’s all done you slice it, serve it with mashed potatoes and vegetables (preferably something light - like a slaw). Despite the appearance (and the fact that it’s a pig leg) it’s really very tasty, even the skin. Granted this sounds gross and we wouldn’t normally eat a plate of boiled pig skin, but we wouldn’t normally eat a plate of boiled pig intestines either.