Cutturiddu (also Cutturidd', Cutturiddi) is the shepherd's stew of Basilicata: pieces of mutton or older lamb simmered slowly in plenty of water with onion, tomato, potatoes and wild herbs until the broth turns rich and the tough meat falls from the bone. It is deliberately soupy and brothy rather than a sealed-pot roast, the liquid spooned up like a soup or poured over bread. Wild fennel and mint carry the aroma, and where they are in season the local wild onions called lampascioni and the cardoncello mushroom of the Murgia go in too. The dish is tied to the pastoral highlands around Potenza and the Pollino, traditionally cooked outdoors over a wood fire in a terracotta pot.
Cutturiddu belongs to Basilicata's pastoral cucina povera and is documented as one of the region's oldest shepherd dishes, the name shared with the terracotta cooking pot, the pignata, and with the alternative names pastorale and pignata itself. Its origins are tied to transhumance, the seasonal droving of flocks between the Lucanian highlands and lowland pasture: a shepherd would slaughter a sheep, joint it and leave it to simmer for hours in a pot set among the embers of an open fire while the work of the day went on. Because the meat was old ewe or wether rather than tender spring lamb, long moist cooking was a necessity, not a refinement. The stew is associated with the province of Potenza, the Pollino massif and the Murgia borderland with Apulia, and survives as a festive dish, eaten in many villages around Easter.
The broth is the point: thin-looking but deeply savoury, gelatinous on the lips, smelling of wild fennel and woodsmoke. The mutton is soft enough to pull apart with a spoon, faintly gamey in a way spring lamb is not, the potatoes half-collapsed and saturated with the cooking liquid. A whole bowl eats in two registers — first the herby, peppery broth, then the meat and vegetables beneath. Where lampascioni are added they bring a clean bitterness that cuts the richness of the fat.
Slow, gentle simmering in abundant water is what turns a tough cut into a brothy stew. Sheep meat is dense with connective tissue, and its collagen only unwinds and dissolves into gelatin when held for hours at a bare simmer around 85 to 95°C; pushed to a hard boil the muscle fibres instead clench and squeeze out their moisture, going stringy and dry. The long hold also draws gelatin, fat and savoury compounds out of the bones into the liquid, which is why the broth thickens and coats the spoon without any flour or thickener. Cooking uncovered or barely covered keeps the meat submerged in a soup rather than steaming it dry, and the wild fennel and mint, added so their volatile aromatics are not all boiled off, perfume the fat near the end.
Variations
Recipes vary village to village. The leanest, oldest versions are little more than sheep, water, onion and wild herbs; richer ones build in tomato, potato, lampascioni, cardoncello mushrooms, celery or a dried chilli. Some cooks soak the meat briefly in water and vinegar first to temper the strong flavour of old mutton. Younger lamb is used where it is available, shortening the cooking. The closely related pignata and pastorale of the Murgia borderland are essentially the same dish under different names, and across the line in Apulia a comparable shepherd's mutton stew is cooked the same slow way.
On the Palate
Where Cutturiddu sits in the Italian flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 6
How it's made
6 steps · 30 min
- 125 min
Joint about 1.5 kg of mutton or older lamb (shoulder, leg and a few bones for the broth) into large pieces; if the meat is strong, soak it 15 to 20 minutes in cold water with a splash of vinegar, then drain.
- 215 min
Put the meat in a heavy pot or terracotta pignata with a sliced onion, cover generously with cold water and bring slowly to a bare simmer, skimming off the grey foam that rises.
Watch outBring it slowly to a bare simmer and skim off the grey foam — the gentle heat draws gelatin and savor from the bones without clouding, and skimming keeps the broth clean.
- 3110 min
Add salt, a few peeled tomatoes and any aromatics (a dried chilli, a bay leaf, celery), then keep at the gentlest simmer, partly covered, for about 1.5 to 2 hours until the meat begins to soften.
Watch outHold it at the gentlest simmer for hours, never a hard boil — around a whisper the mutton's collagen melts to gelatin and the meat goes tender; a rolling boil clenches the fibers stringy and dry.
- 435 min
Add chunked potatoes and, if using, cleaned lampascioni and cardoncello mushrooms; simmer another 30 to 40 minutes until the potatoes are tender and the broth has thickened.
- 510 min
Stir in a generous handful of chopped wild fennel and mint in the last 10 minutes so the aroma stays bright; taste and adjust the salt.
- 65 min
Rest off the heat a few minutes, then ladle the stew with plenty of its broth into bowls, traditionally over bread.
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