Ingredients
- 200 gr of pork liver
- 200 gr of pork thigh
- two eggs
- salt
- pepper
- two tablespoons of bread crumbs
- a handful of grated parmesan cheese
- half nutmeg
- twenty juniper berries
- pork cauls (risela)
- butter
- oil
What to prepare
- a baking-pan with a lid
- a fork
- a knife
Procedure
Take 200 gr of liver and 200 gr of lean meat, both must be pork, mince all and add two eggs, salt ed and pepper, two tablespoons of bread crumbs, a handful of grated parmesan cheese and add, half grated nutmeg and 20 crushed juniper berries. Wrap all after having blended the pork cauls in small bundles, and place in a covered pan, with lots of butter and oil and let cook gradually for about an hour.
Curiosities
They are not birds even if the name reminds them. They are small bundles in which pork cauls -risèla – is a filling of pork liver and thigh mixed with other ingredients, where the tastiest aroma comes from juniper berries, which contribute reproducing the typical taste of the mocking-bird of the Langa region, the griva, which eats these berries absorbing this flavor in its meat.
This dish can be considered a typical product of the Langhe region cuisine of the seventeenth century, an époque characterized by great poverty in our countryside; it is evident that is a recovered dish, which substituted the one rich people used to eat, in a game that can be considered the fake “griva” against the true “griva”, colored with irony rather than jealousy. Naturally this so tasty bundle has become richer and spicier as time went by. Ercole Olivieri from Cortemilia won with this dish the “Piatto d’oro” in 1962.
About Nonna Genia
