A traditional Milanese recipe to fight food waste

What would happen if we gave a bunch of pots, knives, cutting boards and ladles to a group of people used to work in the digital field? The answer might surprise you!

Last month Food for Soul launched a Call to Action to the Milanese start-up Foorban, the first Italian digital restaurant able to control the entire production and delivery process, sharing several values with Food for Soul, including a deep respect for each ingredient, attention for a healthy lifestyle and care for the planet. The team responded with a team-building activity with a creative kitchen challenge at its core. The result? 12 zero-waste recipes, each realized by unique members of their team. At the end, four exceptional judges tasted the dishes and assigned the first prize to the dish that best shone light on the invisible potential of often wasted ingredients.

From the “drunk citrus risotto”, made with leftovers olives, cherry tomatoes and Moscow mule from the night before, to the “Emancipation plate, rescue edition”, created as a gesture of emancipation from the packaged hamburgers sold at the supermarket… Some of them gave value to the emotional, such as “Even the stones smell like pork cheek”, created from the nostalgic memory of the smell of roasted pork cheek that spread among the stony Amatrice before the Earthquake.

But the first prize went to “Traditional Mondeghili”, traditional milanese meatballs made to recover leftover beef. Enrico and his partner Giorgia, described their concept: “We use the leftovers from a rich dinner we had the day before, with roast pork or veal and few other simple ingredients. This is not a light recipe, you just need to eat two of them to have your stomach full. My grandmother usually prepared them on Sunday using the leftover roast.”

The dish was then reworked by Foorban’s chef and the final product was a balanced mashup between tradition, flavor and simplicity, perfect for a lunch break at the office or university.

Traditional Mondeghili Recipe:

Ingredients

• 300 g of cooked veal
• 80 g mortadella
• Milk
• Butter
• Salt
• Pepper
• Soft inside of bread
• Parsley
• Grated Parmigiano Reggiano
• Breadcrumbs
• Savoy cabbage

Procedure:

Soak the bread with milk. In a separate bowl mix the chopped cooked meat with mortadella. Add the breadcrumbs, grated cheese, salt, pepper, parsley and mix. Form meatballs, coat them with oil and butter and then coat them in breadcrumbs. Bake the meatballs at 200° for 5/8 minutes until lightly browned. Chop the cabbage into strips. Season with oil, salt and pepper. Bake at 180° for 20 minutes.

This recipe safeguards the value of most humble ingredients and traditions by giving them value in a modern setting. The partnership between Foorban and Food for Soul was driven by the aim of promoting the transformation of food surplus, creating more awareness around the issue of global food waste. The proceeds from the sale of this dish will be entirely donated to Food for Soul, supporting the recovery of food surplus and social inclusion.