Skiing in Abruzzo – snow report
The most popular ski resorts, the updated snow report and useful information on how to find lifts or book accommodation for your winter holiday
The dish
What pecora alla callara is
The shepherds’ boiled stew.
When a ewe no longer gave milk, shepherds cooked it in the callara, the copper cauldron they carried during transhumance. Mature mutton is tasty but tough: that is why it cooks for hours, slowly, with plenty of aromatics.
Every area has its version: in the Marsica and in several villages around L’Aquila it is called «pecora ajo cotturo», and in summer it is the main dish of many village festivals, cooked outdoors in huge cauldrons.
What you need
Ingredients
Serves 6–8.
- 2 kg mutton (shoulder, neck, leg) in large pieces
- 3 onions
- 4 garlic cloves
- 2 celery sticks, 2 carrots
- Rosemary, bay, sage, wild thyme
- 4–5 tomatoes or 500 g passata
- Chilli
- Coarse salt
- Extra virgin olive oil (optional)
Step by step
Method
- Wash the meat well and put it in a large cauldron or stockpot covered with cold water; bring to the boil and skim several times.
- Discard the first water, rinse the meat and return it to the pot with fresh water: this removes the strongest flavour.
- Add the onions in wedges, garlic, celery, carrots, herbs, tomatoes, chilli and salt.
- Cook covered over low heat for 3–4 hours, adding hot water if needed, until the meat comes off the bone.
- For the last three quarters of an hour, uncover the pot so the sauce reduces.
- Serve the meat piping hot with its sauce and country bread.
From our home kitchen
Tips
- The leftover broth is excellent for cooking pasta or potatoes.
- The longer and slower the cooking, the more tender the meat.
- At home, an earthenware or cast-iron pot is fine instead of the cauldron.
Note: mature mutton is different from lamb and from castrato: ask your butcher, preferably for local meat.
Gallery
Photos
Tap a photo to enlarge it.
Photo 1: pecora alla callara, a transhumance dish; photo 2: pecora «ajo cotturo» cooked in Antrosano, in the Marsica; photo 3: the meat in the cauldron. Credits: Cetrone90 (CC BY-SA 4.0); Marica Massaro (CC BY-SA 4.0); Marica Massaro (CC BY-SA 4.0), via Wikimedia Commons, resized; the menu icon is also made from photo 1.
Tradition
History and trivia
Pecora alla callara was born with transhumance: along the drove roads between Abruzzo and Puglia, shepherds cooked the meat of old or injured animals in copper cauldrons, with herbs gathered on the way.
Today it is the dish of many summer festivals in mountain villages, cooked outdoors in enormous cauldrons and eaten by everyone together.
Did you know? in some Marsica villages the «pecora ajo cotturo» festivals draw thousands of people every summer.