Two Condiments for Meat

Except for pasta sauces, Italians usually don’t make sauces separately. When they cook meat they prefer to let the cooking juices form a small amount of natural sauce. Among the few departures from this practice are a variety of condiments, as I prefer to call them, that are intended for warm or cold boiled meats or for cold cuts.

A platter of mixed boiled meats, when carefully made, has long and rightly been considered a triumph of the table. But an Italian cook rarely boils just enough meat for one meal, unless she or he is feeding a very large family. The objective is to obtain from the making of boiled meat a lot of good broth that can be used for soups and risottos. What meat is left over is delicious and can be served on one or more subsequent occasions.