Virtù

Serves for 6 persons:

Dried legumes (beans, chickpeas, lentils), fresh vegetables (peas and beans), various vegetables (carrots, zucchini, potatoes, beets, envy, escarole, lettuce, coavolfiore, turnips, borrace, chicory, spinach, fennel, "Mercy" , garlic, onion, "annit" sort of wild fennel odor acute and indispensable for the preparation of this dish, marjoram, sage, "pipirella", sort of thyme found in secondary Teramo, celery, parsley, artichokes), eggs, ham , oil, butter, rind, beef, nutmeg, pepper, cloves, bacon, parmesan cheese, flour, durum wheat pasta of varying quality, and, if desired, tortellini and ravioli.

Preparation: The night before, soak the dried vegetables separately, the pork rind in hot water with a ham bone to pieces (only if in excellent condition) and peel vegetables. The next day, boil separately the various pulses and rind, cut into squares and divided among the vegetables themselves. Prepare, with minced meat and mixed a bit of salt, pepper and nutmeg, very small meatballs. Gild and frying artichokes and zucchini. Finely chop all the vegetables. In a large pot put together oil, butter, diced ham and lard. Join potatoes, carrots, zucchini, diced, meatballs, garlic and onion finely chopped, cloves, nutmeg, a teaspoon of pepper, "annit", broad beans, peas shelled, the "pipirella", parsley and a rib of celery, doing the whole season lots, until the sauce is not absorbed. Add vegetables and wait for about 15 minutes. Dilute all with a tomato and simmer for 5-10 minutes. Combine the vegetables with all the cooking water (but leave some part to comb and to merge, then, at all). Cook for about 10 minutes. Prepare a pastry yellow (with eggs), a green (with spinach), a red (with tomato) and cut them in various ways (large square, rotondini, noodles, bows ...). Boil water in two pots. Throw down (if you want) before some agnolotto and tortellini, then, shortly after, the durum wheat pasta, little and big, and, in part, that kneaded, just long enough to get her back to the surface. Drain, stopping the cooking with cold water. Assemble everything into the pot of beans, mix well and remove from heat. Add a generous sprinkling of Parmesan cheese, artichokes and zucchini fried and gilded, stirring occasionally. Serve after about 2 hours the mixture, which should be fairly compact. Given the huge amount of ingredients, it is very difficult to establish what should be the dose. However, understanding that will be the experience, skills and the glance of the cook to do so, for general guidance only give some indication of the maximum, valid for the number of 6 people: 250g of minced meat, 250g of ham raw, 100g of bacon, 50g butter, 1 cup of olive oil, 1 nutmeg, 4 cloves, a handful of Parmesan cheese, 4 eggs, 250g of durum wheat pasta and, wanting a handful of tortellini and agnolotti, 1/2 bottle of tomato (or a box of tomatoes).