Pearà

A Veronese sauce of breadcrumbs and marrow simmered for hours, eaten with boiled meat.

Beef. Not vegetarian — contains Grana Padano made with calf rennet, beef.

Ingredients

• 250 g fine dry breadcrumbs
• 150 g beef marrow, scooped from the bones
• 1.5 litres strong beef broth, hot
• 2 tablespoons coarsely ground black pepper
• 60 g grana padano, grated
• 1.5 teaspoons salt

Method

1. Melt the marrow very gently in a heavy pan until it is liquid and clear. Do not let it brown.
2. Add the breadcrumbs and stir them in the fat for 3 minutes until they have taken it all up.
3. Pour in the hot broth, stir, and bring it to the barest simmer.
4. COOK IT THREE HOURS ON THE LOWEST HEAT YOU HAVE, stirring every twenty minutes, adding broth as it thickens. There is no shortcut: the time is what turns breadcrumbs in stock into something smooth and glossy, and at one hour it is still obviously wet bread.
5. ADD THE PEPPER IN TWO GOES — half at the start and half in the last ten minutes. The long-cooked half goes round and warm, the late half stays sharp, and the dish is named for the pepper so this is not a detail.
6. Beat in the cheese at the end and check the salt.
7. THIS IS A SAUCE, NOT A SOUP. It should fall thickly from a spoon and sit on a slice of boiled beef without running off it.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Italy · All recipes