A Florentine farewell: Panini di Lampredotto

If someone were to ask me for the most typical Florentine dish, my answer would be simple: panini di lampredotto. Round bread rolls, opened up and filled with steaming hot lampredotto, topped with salsa verde. It is a dish and a tradition only found in the city of Florence.

Lampredotto (the fourth stomach of a cow, technically known as the abomasum in English) is not easily found in other cuisines, but the Florentines have been preparing it for centuries as a quick, cheap and easy meal. It is best loved as a hearty, hot sandwich filling, making this Renaissance fast food a classic of today’s Florentine street food scene.

It is also one of my favourite Florentine comfort foods, so it absolutely was one of the things I wanted to prepare for a farewell lunch we held for all our friends before leaving for Australia. Like any street food, part of the joy of eating it is in the scene of it being prepared in front of you, so one of my husband’s best friends heartily volunteered to be the lampredottaio – the guy you normally see standing in a food van on the corner of a Florentine piazza or intersection, dedicated to the lampredotto tradition – and churned out hot panini, one by one, for thirty people.

If you haven’t tried it, you can’t miss the lampredottai throughout the streets and markets of Florence. Making it at home if you live outside of offal-loving cultures could be tricky too, in this case it might be best to befriend a good quality butcher and ask for it specially. In Florence, the lampredottai will also sell you the already cooked lampredotto by weight to take home, ready to be heated up and eaten as you like.

But preparing it at home is easy and cheap. Contrary to what some people might think, lampredotto (and tripe in general), also makes a healthy and nutritious meal – those watching their waist lines may be interested to know that it even has less calories than a chicken breast.

We prepared them on mini wholegrain bread buns (they are normally served on regular sized white buns with a crunchy crust and soft white inside) with a salsa verde, taken from Pellegrino Artusi’s 1891 cookbook, of course. Dipping the top of the bun into the pot of broth where the lampredotto was cooked is essential for a nice, hot, juicy panino.

Lampredotto panini

1 – 1.5 kg will make about 8 hearty panini or 20 or so mini ones. You don’t often find lampredotto in small portions as it is generally sold whole so if you have leftovers, you can either freeze it or think about some creative use for the lampredotto – one of my favourite restaurants in Florence makes a ravioli filling from lampredotto. Or perhaps try a lampredotto risotto.

For the lampredotto:

  • 1 kg lampredotto (abomasum tripe)
  • 3 litres of water
  • 1 stalk of celery
  • 1 brown onion
  • 1 carrot
  • 1 tomato
  • 4 of 5 whole black peppercorns
  • salt

For the salsa verde:

  • 1-2 anchovy fillets
  • ¼ onion
  • ½ garlic clove
  • large bunch of parsley
  • a handful of basil leaves
  • 2-3 heaped tablespoons of capers, rinsed
  • lemon juice
  • extra virgin olive oil

For the lampredotto:

Prepare a broth by roughly chopping the vegetables and adding them to the water in a large pot with a generous amount of salt and the peppercorns. Bring to the boil and allow to simmer for about 30 minutes. Add the lampredotto, whole, and cook until soft, covered with a lid. The cooking time is really a case of checking and testing, it may take about one hour. Make sure the lampredotto is always submerged under the broth, you can add more water as necessary. Keep the lampredotto warm, in the broth until you are ready to use it.

For the salsa verde:

Chop the anchovies, onion, garlic, capers and herbs together finely (with a knife or a food processor) and add olive oil and lemon juice to bind it into a paste-like consistency. This is the part where you then taste, see and decide what else needs to be added or adjusted. It should be, as it’s name suggests, very green, so you can add plenty of parsley, which is the sauce’s main ingredient. Season with salt and pepper.

Artusi, as usual, is quite vague with his measurements and inevitably, the recipe for salsa verde changes from household to household. My mother in law, for example, adds fine breadcrumbs to thicken and bind it slightly, some like to add hard-boiled egg to the mix, while personally I like to leave out the garlic and put in an extra bit of anchovy.

To assemble the panini:

Part of the joy of eating street food is watching the performance of it being prepared right in front of you. The lampredottai will take out a huge piece of lampredotto from one of his steaming pots, and on a chopping board, will roughly slice and chop enough to generously heap onto the panino. The bread rolls are normally, split open in half and a bit of the bread in the middle is taken out to have more space for the filling.

A heaped spoonful of salsa verde usually goes on top of the lampredotto (though this is to the customer’s taste) and it is seasoned with extra salt and pepper. At the request of the customer, the lampredottaio will dip the top half of the roll in the broth to soak up some juicy goodness (required, if you ask me) and the ready panino di lampredotto is handed over in a paper napkin.

Absolutely delicious.

Comments

  1. I’ve just found your blog and love it. Your photos are stunning. Not being a huge offal lover, I haven’t been able to bring myself to try it whenever we pass the street vans in Florence but you make it look so tasty that, next time, I certainly will. There is nothing like this in Australia. Food vans are becoming very popular in Melbourne. Maybe you could introduce this here!

  2. Kassandra says:

    Enjoy Melbourne Emiko! Thanks for showing me a little taste of florence before you left!

  3. Looks delicious – I’ll definitely try some next time I’m in Florence. Do you have any recommendations for good stalls or are they generally all much the same?

    Have a wonderful time in Australia!

  4. Valeria says:

    Oh Emiko, we will miss these Tuscan images. But I am sure you’ll provise amazing ones from Australia, too. I have never tried the lampredotto. I don’t know why, it just didn’t happen I think. But all these images really make me feel like I need to try it as soon as possible! Dipping it into the cooking liquid…really? that’s food porn! Amazing!

    • Emiko says:

      Thanks Valeria! I’ll still post a lot about Tuscany but every now and then will slip in a few other places, I even have a few Venetian dishes up my sleeve 😉

  5. Kirsteen says:

    Great post, Emiko – I’ve got a rumbling stomach now! Have been wanting to recreate these panini at home for the lampredotto-sceptics for some time now and I’ll definitely be using your salsa verde recipe. You have made my day by telling me that it’s also nutritious/low in fat – Filippo can’t stop me from sticking it in the shopping trolley every week now! You’ll need to let me know if you manage to get your hands on some in Melbourne.
    xxxxxxxxxxxxx
    p.s.) What lovely hands the model in the first picture has! 😉

    • Emiko says:

      I love that you’re a fellow offal-fan! we’ve already begun quizzing the local butchers on how to get our hands on the stuff; it’s looking good – in fact I think we’ve made some friends! haha. xx p.s. I think you should think about going into the hand-modeling industry.

  6. saffronbunny says:

    fab post and pictures – I love that fact that you had ‘the guts’ (!) to do it yourself at home – I will ask my local butcher to see what he can do! My blog post examines how tripe fits into Italian life and not our own (British) despite the new craze for gourmet fast food – tripe panini are the ultimate cheap fast food:
    http://www.saffronbunny.com/2014/03/02/offal-with-style-florentine-tripe/#more-3003

    • Emiko says:

      Thanks, haha. I’d be interested to know if it’s possible to find (even ordering through a butcher) lampredotto outside of Italy as I’ve only made this in Italy. I had a great butcher when I lived in Melbourne who could get us really anything we asked but some things (such as blood) were difficult and even good butchers couldn’t get it for you (eventually I found it!). I thoroughly enjoyed your post by the way – you’re a woman after my own heart!

  7. Arthur says:

    Do you find much difference making this sandwich from the 2nd-chamber stomach tripe? This seems to be the only tripe readily available in markets. As you know, the Lampredotto in Florence is made from the 4th-chamber tripe, which is impossible to find here. I just wonder to what degree the difference between the two tripes would impact the sandwich.
    Thanks.

    • Emiko says:

      Oh yes, a world of difference! Lampredotto is pretty difficult to find anywhere outside of Tuscany, actually. The flavour and texture are entirely different so unfortunately it’s hard to replicate without the real deal. Lampredotto is much more tender (rather like, let’s say, thin sliced mortadella?) than honeycomb tripe (the second chamber tripe), which is a little chewier.

  8. Emily says:

    Hey!
    I have just come back to the UK after a trip to Florence and I loved the lampredotto so much I just made them from this exact recipe.
    It’s a great recipe but I could only source bleached second chamber and unfortunately the flavour was no where near as good!

  9. shonell says:

    Panini di lampredotto, a true Florentine delicacy! 🇮🇹 This traditional street food sounds like a savory delight. It’s wonderful to see how you prepared it at home for your farewell lunch. The combination of lampredotto with salsa verde, served on wholegrain buns, must have been a flavorful treat. You’ve shared a piece of Florentine culinary heritage with us. Thanks for the delicious insight into this local favorite! 🥖🍖🇮🇹 #FlorentineFood #StreetFood #ItalianCuisine

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