| Stracciatella | |
| Country: | Italy |
| Region: | |
| Course: | Primo (Italian course) |
| Type: | Soup |
| Main Ingredient: | Meat broth, beaten egg |
| No Recipes: | true |
Stracciatella (pronounced as /it/; in Italian, a diminutive derived from the verb ('to shred')), also known as stracciatella alla romana, is an Italian soup consisting of meat broth and small shreds of an egg-based mixture, prepared by drizzling the mixture into boiling broth and stirring. It is popular around the city of Rome, in Lazio. A similar soup, called "zanzarelli", was described by Martino da Como in his 15th century manual The Art of Cooking. Other variants exist.
thumb|Stracciatella soup with spinachTraditionally stracciatella alla romana used to be served at the start of Easter lunches.[1] [2] Stracciatella alla romana is traditionally prepared by beating eggs and mixing in grated Parmesan cheese, salt, pepper, nutmeg, lemon zest, and sometimes semolina; this mixture is then gently drizzled into boiling meat broth, while stirring so as to produce little shreds (stracciatelle) of cooked egg in the soup.[3] The resulting soup can be served in bowls containing a few thin slices of toasted bread, with additional parmesan grated on top.[2]
According to Ada Boni, stracciatella alla romana used also to be scented with marjoram. Other traditional Italian and Italian-American recipes suggest garnishing with chopped parsley.[4] [5] Some American variations of the soup incorporate spinach as a main ingredient.[6] [7]
A recipe for a spicy soup made with eggs and broth that bears similarities to the modern-day stracciatella was recorded as early as the 15th century by Martino da Como in his Libro de Arte Coquinaria (The Art of Cooking) under the name of zanzarelli.[8] The traditional preparation of stracciatella is also rather similar to that of sciusceddu, a rich festive soup from Messina, Sicily, that may be a cousin of the Roman dish.[9]
Stracciatella soup inspired the gelato flavour of the same name, which was created in 1961 by a restaurateur in the northern town of Bergamo, who claimed he had grown tired of stirring eggs into broth to satisfy customers from Rome.[10]