Boiled meat with peara & San Fermo

Lesso con la pearà & San Fermo

Today’s dish can be found in the recipe books of all the grandmothers of Verona: the traditional boiled meat locally known as “lesso” with pearà.  A traditional dish that we will all find on our tables on a cold Sunday in the winter, and a dish that goes perfectly well with our just bottled San Fermo wine.

The preparation is a little time consuming but it is however, very simple with the use of ingredients that are easy to find, the variations are however numerous with every family having their own.  Here is our version of pearà, the typical puree made with breadcrumbs and pepper.

Ingredients (for 4 persons)

  • 500 gm of breadcrumbs
  • 100 gm of beef marrow
  • 1 litre of meat broth
  • oil or butter
  • salt and pepper

How to prepare the pearà

Prepare the boiled meats by placing the pieces of your favourite meat (chicken, beef, guinea fowl) in a pan with abundant salted water together with onion, celery and carrot.  In this way you will not only have the boiled meat but also the broth needed to make the pearà. Bring to the boil and cook for about 2 hours (1 hour if you have a pressure cooker). Boil the bones with the bone marrow, therefore, take the contents of the bones out (with a teaspoon) that will then be browned in a pan with the oil or butter.

Traditions says that it should be cooked in a terracotta pan, however, if you don’t have one then  a small steel pan will do. Toast the breadcrumbs for a few minutes and add the broth that you made earlier: remember to filter it when it is still hot to prevent any residue from ending up in the sauce.

Stir until you get a creamy consistency, adding a little broth at a time. The sauce should be liquid but not soupy. Bring to the boil and then lower the flame to minimum and cook for an hour or two. When cooked, adjust the salt and add pepper: the traditional recipe recommends a considerable amount of pepper, you can however, put as much or as little as you like in order to satisfy your tastebuds or those of your guests.

Serve the pearà very hot and accompany it with the boiled meats and a nice glass of our IGP San Fermo red wine, produced with Corvina and Merlot grapes. The wine is full bodied and has an intense flavour and is bottled at a cold temperature after an ageing period of 16-18 months in oak barrels. The aromas of the precious woods used to make the barrels, give it a fragrant and slightly ethereal fragrance.

Pop by our winery in Lazise to purchase our San Fermo wine. You can taste this and other wines in a unique sensorial experience.

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