De.Co.
recipes
Three dishes from Riparbella’s culinary memory, set down in writing by the Pro Loco and put forward for entry in the Municipal Register: the wild boar of the sagra, the zonzellona fried to order and the layered soup made by the local cooks.
of the town
Three dishes set down in writing by Pro Loco Riparbella APS and put forward for entry in the Municipal Register of Municipal Denominations.
The culinary memory of the town, handed down in the kitchens of its festivals: peasant cooking, local ingredients, timeless recipes.
The three dishes.
Ingredients, quantities and method exactly as the Pro Loco set them down, with notes on how each dish keeps.
Riparbella-style wild boar
(original recipe “di Pelo”)
The official recipe of Riparbella’s Sagra del Cinghiale, set down by “Pelo”, a local cook who fixed the method during the festival’s early editions — today it is considered the sagra’s official dish. Its distinctive feature is the absence of any marinade , so that the flavour of the meat can be tasted without being masked by other ways of preserving or seasoning it.
Ingredients
- Mixed wild boar meat (lean cuts and ribs on the bone) 3 kg
- Medium red onions 2
- Garlic cloves 4–5
- Sprigs of rosemary 3–4
- Bay leaves 2
- Tomato purée ½ tbsp
- Good red wine 2½ glasses
- Extra virgin olive oil to taste
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Water (to be added during cooking) to taste
Method
- Cut the wild boar into cubes, not too small.
- Wash them and put them in a pan, filling it no more than halfway.
- Add plenty of extra virgin olive oil, the chopped onion and garlic, finely chopped rosemary, the bay leaves, salt and pepper.
- Cook over a high heat, with no lid , stirring often.
- Once the meat has released its liquid and starts to brown, deglaze with the red wine and let it reduce, stirring constantly so the meat does not catch on the bottom.
- When the wine has reduced, add the tomato purée and enough water to cover, stirring often.
- When the water too has reduced, check how tender the meat is: better to take it off the heat slightly underdone, or it will fall apart.
- Plate up and serve, if you like, with polenta. Variation: add black olives during cooking.
Keeping: a fresh dish cooked to order; it is not meant to be kept beyond a few days’ blast chilling.
The Zonzellona alla Riparbellina
A soft dough of flour, water and yeast, fried to order and served filled with hand-cut Riparbella-style wild boar. Introduced in 2022, it has its roots in the Tuscan country tradition of fried breads and is today one of the symbols of street food at the town’s summer festivals.
Ingredients
- Type 0 flour to taste
- Water to taste
- Fresh brewer’s yeast to taste
- Salt to taste
- Extra virgin olive oil (for the dough) a drizzle
- Vegetable oil (for frying) plenty
- Riparbella-style wild boar (for the filling) to taste
Method
- Make a soft dough with flour, water, yeast, salt and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.
- Leave it to rise, then divide the dough and roll it out into elongated oval shapes.
- Fry the zonzellone to order in plenty of hot vegetable oil until golden: they should puff up, dry outside and soft inside.
- Serve them filled with Riparbella-style wild boar, cut by hand after cooking.
Keeping: made to order in the kitchen; it is not meant to be kept or packaged.
Riparbella-style soup
The local version of Tuscan ribollita: seasonal vegetables, two kinds of beans and stale home-made bread, arranged in layers in the pan. Handed down for 28 years by the Pro Loco’s long-standing cooks and by the families of the town, it is the most authentic expression of the peasant cooking of the Riparbella countryside.
Ingredients
- Savoy cabbage to taste
- Cannellini beans to taste
- Borlotti beans (already cooked) to taste
- Courgettes to taste
- Green beans (in summer only) to taste
- Carrots to taste
- Potatoes to taste
- Red onions to taste
- Celery to taste
- Stale home-made bread to taste
- Tomato purée ½ tbsp
- Salt and pepper to taste
Method
- Fry red onion and celery gently in extra virgin olive oil.
- Add the tomato purée, stir well and mix in a little puréed cannellini beans.
- Add the vegetables in order of firmness, so that each cooks for the right time: first the savoy cabbage, then the green beans, then carrots, potatoes, courgettes and finally the already cooked borlotti beans.
- As it cooks, loosen with vegetable stock and puréed cannellini beans until you reach the consistency you want, stirring often.
- Once cooked, slice the stale bread thinly and layer the soup in the pan, alternating bread and vegetables.
- Leave it to rest and serve hot, with a drizzle of raw extra virgin olive oil.
Keeping: a fresh dish cooked to order; it is not meant to be kept beyond a few days’ blast chilling.
Recipes put forward by Pro Loco Riparbella APS for entry in the De.Co. Municipal Register of the Municipality of Riparbella.
