Ossocollo and melon

When the heat comes, melon comes to the table, and next to the melon there's usually prosciutto. Try a different salume: with thinly sliced ossocollo the dish stays fresh, but it has a flavour all its own. This isn't a traditional recipe, nor one of the shop's: it's an idea to try.

Sweet and savoury

Melon is sweet, juicy and cold. Ossocollo is savoury, soft, fragrant with spices and marbled with fat: in the mouth the fat melts and holds the two flavours together. Its taste is bold, which is why one slice per wedge is enough.

What you need

For four people:

• a ripe melon, with orange flesh;
• twelve thin slices of ossocollo;
• a few mint leaves;
• black pepper and, if you like, half a lime.

Step by step

1. The melon, cold: a ripe melon is fragrant even when whole, near the stem, and feels heavy in your hand. Keep it in the fridge for a few hours, then cut it in half, scoop out the seeds with a spoon and divide it into wedges. Run the knife between the flesh and the rind, but leave each wedge resting on its rind: it's easier to pick up and eat.
2. The ossocollo, not cold: take it out of the fridge a quarter of an hour beforehand. Straight out of the fridge it has little flavour; at room temperature the fat softens and gives off its aroma.
3. The slices, thin: ossocollo is sliced very thin. If you take it home whole, use a long, very sharp knife, and cut it as thin as you can.
4. Together: one slice on each wedge, laid on loosely, with a few folds, without spreading it flat. Or wrap it around the wedge.
5. At the last moment: a grind of pepper, a few torn mint leaves and, if you like, a few drops of lime on the melon. To the table at once, while the melon is cold.

For an aperitivo

Cut the melon into cubes, fold a slice of ossocollo into a fan and thread it all onto a cocktail stick. The melon can be cut beforehand and kept in the fridge; the ossocollo goes on at the last moment, because in contact with the melon it gets wet.

When the melon is over

At the end of summer the figs arrive, and they go well with sopressa: sopressa and figs. And how ossocollo is made, we've told you here: ossocollo, twenty days under salt.

Ossocollo cures whole, and we make only a few pieces at a time. To find out whether it's in, look at “In the shop today” on the home page. If it isn't, leave your mobile number with “Notify me” on the ossocollo page: we'll message you when it's back.