In short. Horse meat browned with onion and stewed for at least four hours in tomato sauce with carrot, celery, bay and diavolicchio chilli, in a terracotta pot by the fire. In Puglia this is an ordinary dish, and a beloved one.
Horse meat has a long history in southern Italy and is still eaten regularly here — you will find butchers dedicated to it. If it is unfamiliar where you are, the same method works with beef, though the meat behaves differently.
Ingredients
- horse meat, cut into cubes
- 1 litre of tomato sauce per kilo of meat
- onion, carrots, celery, parsley
- 2 bay leaves
- diavolicchio chilli — as much as you like, and the more the better
- extra virgin olive oil, Salento DOP if you have it
Method
1. Browning. Brown the cubed meat in a pan with some onion until it takes on flavour.
2. The sauce. Add a litre of tomato sauce for every kilo of meat, together with the carrots, parsley, celery and two bay leaves bruised in the olive oil, and the chilli.
3. The long cook. Cook over a very low heat, in a terracotta pot set by the fire. Skim the foam off at the beginning, then let it go very slowly for at least four hours.
4. Serving. Serve in small dishes, with bread.
Diavolicchio. The small, fierce chilli of southern Italy. The recipe as handed down is unusually direct about the quantity: the more you put in, the better it is.
More on the second courses page.
