Friuli-Venezia Giulia
The defining soup of Trieste — a dense, sour and smoky potage of fermented sauerkraut (crauti), borlotti beans, potatoes and smoked pork (cotenna or spare ribs). The crauti provides the characteristic sourness; the beans and potato give body; the smoked pork perfumes everything. A 'smorzar' (to extinguish) of lard, garlic and bay leaves is stirred in at the end for the traditional finishing technique.
Sour, smoky, earthy and deeply satisfying; the lard smorzar adds an aromatic finish that cuts through the acidity; a soup that tastes of the Adriatic borderlands
{"Use home-fermented crauti if possible — commercial sauerkraut lacks the depth of slow lacto-fermentation","Cook beans separately until just tender before adding — they need 90 minutes and must not disintegrate into the soup","Add the smorzar (soffritto of lard, garlic, crushed cumin and bay leaf cooked until fragrant) at the very end off heat","The soup must be thick enough that a spoon stood in it barely falls over — add more potato if too thin","Season late — the smoked pork and crauti are already aggressively salty"}
{"The soup is dramatically better on day two — the crauti sourness mellows and the flavours integrate","A drizzle of raw apple cider vinegar at the table lets each person adjust acidity to preference","Replace pork with smoked paprika and smoked tofu for a vegetarian version that retains the smoky character"}
{"Rinsing all the acidity out of the crauti — the sourness is the defining flavour of jota","Adding the smorzar at the start — it must be a final flavour bomb, not a cooked-out base","Under-salting the beans during their separate cook, which means they taste flat in the final dish"}
La Cucina di Trieste — Incontro di Culture al Confine