• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

CooksInfo

  • Home
  • Encyclopaedia
  • Kitchenware
  • Recipes
  • Food Calendar
menu icon
go to homepage
search icon
Homepage link
  • Recipes
  • Encyclopaedia
  • Kitchenware
  • Food Calendar
×
Home » Meat » Sausages » Fresh Sausages » Cotechino

Cotechino

Cotechino is a fresh Italian pork sausage made in the Modena region of Italy.

It is made from pork, fatback, and pork rind. The fatback — fat from under the pig skin — gives the sausage a gluey texture and stickiness.

Most exact recipes are held secret by various makers, though some makers put some sodium nitrate in to keep the meat pink.

The sausage has a mild flavour, and needs cooking.

The sausages can be cooked by slow simmering for around three hours, or slices of them can be grilled. When cooking whole, you will want to pierce the sausages to let some of the fat drain out. This is normally verboten with sausages, of course, but these are relatively fatty sausages.

The sausage has PGI status.

It is traditional to serve Cotechino on New Year’s Day in the Modena area, with polenta, a sauce such as pearà, and either lentils (Cotechino con Lenticchie) or cannellini beans.

Cotechino is often used as an ingredient in bollito misto.

Cotechino di San Leo

This spicier version of Cotechino is made in the “Le Marche” region of Italy.

It is made from pork rind, cheek and shoulder, along with pancetta. The meat is minced, seasoned with cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, pepper and salt.

It is sold cooked but still needs some further cooking. It can be eaten right away, but also benefits from some aging.

It is simmered and cut into slices for serving.

Literature & Lore

The village of San Pietro, 15 km outside of Verona, has a Festa del Cotechino each year. It started in 1988. The number of contestants is limited to ten.

Language Notes

Cotica is pork rind, cotiche is plural.

Sources

Pozzi, Tim. The gentleman of Verona and his incredible sausage. London: The Times. 21 January 2010.

This page first published: Sep 22, 2010 · Updated: Jun 12, 2018.

This web site generates income from affiliated links and ads at no cost to you to fund continued research · Information on this site is Copyright © 2023· Feel free to cite correctly, but copying whole pages for your website is content theft and will be DCMA'd.

Tagged With: Protected Geographic Indication

Primary Sidebar

Search

    Today is

  • Homemade Soup Day
    Soup
  • Sweet rationing ends in the United Kingdom
    Old sweets store
  • Alexis Benoit Soyer’s Birthday
  • Stuffed Mushroom Day
    Cooked stuffed mushrooms

Footer

↑ back to top

About

  • About this site
  • Privacy Policy
  • Copyright enforced!
  • Terms & Conditions

Newsletter

  • Sign Up! for emails and updates

Site

  • Recipes
  • Encyclopaedia
  • Kitchenware
  • Food Calendar

This web site generates income from affiliated links and ads at no cost to you to fund continued research · The text on this site is © Copyright.