The Cassoeula in Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

, sometimes Italianized Cazzuola (italian word for trowel

Trowel

A trowel is one of several similar hand tools used for digging, smoothing, or otherwise moving around small amounts of viscous or particulate material.-Hand tools:...

) or bottaggio (probably derived from the French word potage) is a typical winter dish popular in Northern Italy, mostly in Lombardy

Lombardy

Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...

. Many variations of this dish exist across the territory, but all of them share the use of cabbage

Cabbage

Cabbage is a popular cultivar of the species Brassica oleracea Linne of the Family Brassicaceae and is a leafy green vegetable...

, or verza in Italian.

The meat used in the dish includes mainly pork

Pork

Pork is the culinary name for meat from the domestic pig , which is eaten in many countries. It is one of the most commonly consumed meats worldwide, with evidence of pig husbandry dating back to 5000 BC....

 meat (usually least valuable parts like ribs

Pork ribs

Pork ribs are a cut of pork popular in North American and Asian cuisines. The ribcage of a domestic pig, meat and bones together, is cut into usable pieces, prepared by smoking, grilling, or baking – usually with a sauce, often barbecue – and then served....

, rind

Pork rind

Pork rind , is the fried or roasted skin of a pig. Frying melts most of the fat from the pork rind...

, head or trotters) and less frequently other meats like chicken

Chicken

The chicken is a domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the Red Junglefowl. As one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, and with a population of more than 24 billion in 2003, there are more chickens in the world than any other species of bird...

 and goose

Goose

The word goose is the English name for a group of waterfowl, belonging to the family Anatidae. This family also includes swans, most of which are larger than true geese, and ducks, which are smaller....

.

Usually, cassoeula is served with polenta

Polenta

Polenta is a dish made from boiled cornmeal. The word "polenta" is borrowed from Italian.-Description:Polenta is made with ground yellow or white cornmeal , which can be ground coarsely or finely depending on the region and the texture desired.As it is known today, polenta derives from earlier...

and a strong red wine. It is tradition for this dish to be eaten starting after the first stagional frost, to let the cabbage be softer and tastier.