Zalatina Recipe

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Zalatina Recipe




You can make this either from pig's head or with lean pork and veal. The ingredients I give below will do either, provided you use the same amount of meat. My method is the one used mostly in towns, as in the villages they will use the head, bones and a lot of skin to make the brawn set.

Three kg. of lean pork or one kg. of pork and two kg. of veal, as well as six bundles of lambs' feet or trotters. The feet are sold in bundles. Ask the butcher to chop them into three parts for you.

You also need 2-3 cups of bitter orange juice, 2-3 cups of lemon juice and a cup of vinegar. All these if you like it to be sour. You must taste it before using all the juice, remembering that it will not taste so sour when cold.

Spices:

2 cinnamon sticks;

3 red peppers;

8 cloves and some rosemary.

Salt to season.


To make sure that the aspic will set add 8 packets of gelatine, (about 1 packet to 2 glasses of liquid, if you do not use skins, bones, etc). The gelatine may be replaced by boiling the skins and pigs' ears for an hour or two, together with the lambs' feet.
Boil the meat, lambs' feet or trotters together with the spices, except the rosemary and red peppers, until tender. Drain and cut meat into small pieces and clean the meat off the lambs feet; let the liquid boil down to about 24 cups and add the bitter orange and lemon juice, tasting before adding the whole lot. When it boils again add the salt and taste. Bring to the boil again and take off the fire.

With the above amount you can fill about three dishes. First put the meat into dishes and then the juice. Add two sprigs of rosemary and one red pepper to each dish. Let the zalatina set for a day or two in a cool place - or put into the refrigerator and serve the next day. It will keep for weeks. If you want to serve at a party, slightly warm the dish and turn onto a shallow dish; garnish with finely cut lettuce, tomato slices and slices of hard boiled egg.