Agnoli in brodo
No occasion for celebration in Mantua is possible without this rich and substantial dish … For Mantua cuisine, the traditional mid-day meal, on remote winter feast days, consisted of sliced salami with grilled polenta, agnolini in brodo (broth), mixed boiled meats, and cake, probably the “sbrisolona” (a crumbly almond shortcake).
… As for every version of stuffed pasta, there is some controversy over its cultural and territorial origins which have been lost over the ages, thus determining an infinite variety of tastes and just as many definitions … so, although certain important elements such as the pasta and meat stuffing are common to all, the specific recipe for this dish varies practically from one family to another (and even more so from one region to another), protecting the culinary rites, the history and the local patrimony of knowledge.
… “Agnolini” are probably of noble origin (young meat being a prerogative of the rich) and in effect, they have preserved the solemn air conferred with the dignity of being a princely dish on Mantuan tables at Christmastime and Easter, to celebrate an important family event or to enrich a local feast.
… Each family has its own recipe for agnolini … Even the restaurants involved in our survey, situated as they are in different provincial localities and therefore the custodians of different gastronomic cultures, present small elements that diversify and precisely identify the stuffing and type of pasta while remaining within the canons dictated by Mantuan tradition.
At the Il Pescatore restaurant, for example. they add fruit mustard and macaroons to the mixed meat stuffing; at the Bersagliere, they add breadcrumbs, steeped in the juices of the roast meats, to flavour the filling. Even the methods used for cooking meat differ between the areas we explored: city tradition wants meat braised for hours in red wine; at the Ambasciata, instead, they use a pressure cooker to cook the meat thoroughly, similarly to Parma districts (but then, we are close) where agnolini are filled only with the very dense meat juices obtained after being cooked for days in a special earthenware pot. Other times, restaurants adopt alternatives to make preparation easier according to modern necessities: for example, the meat, instead of being braised for hours, is only lightly roasted or boiled to maintain its aroma and flavour and to make the dish “lighter”. Again, there are many versions of broth: particularly the Ambasciata uses capon broth which has a creamier taste than that of hen. The preparation of the broth for agnolini is very important: it must be tasty but light so that it does not cover the flavour of the pasta.
The main variant to the recipe concerns the addition of Lambrusco wine to the broth: this particular case is called bevrin vin. Sorbir d’agnoli signifies a small cup of broth, enriched by five or six agnolini. To drink the broth with the addition of wine is a country habit that can be found in various regions of Italy: Piedmont, Lombardy, Friuli and Veneto. Tradition has it that the farm workers upon their return from the land would taste a basin of broth (boiling hot and with a generous dash of red wine) while standing before the fireplace (as if to distinguish it from the true and proper meal) and this habit, especially in the version of sorbir d’agnoli, has remained the only original “starter” in Mantuan cuisine. (Tessari, 1964:261).
Recipe for Agnoli in brodo
