Iota (also Jota) is always a delight to eat and to talk about with friends, many of them surprised to discover that it is a regional and traditional Italian dish from Trieste, a town in the region of Fruili Venezia Giulia and north of Venice.
The fat content in Iota can be high, but there are ways to make Iota less fatty.
Borlotti beans, soaked overnight and then cooked.
Pork Hock, placed in cold water and simmered until soft and used to make broth. Add potatoes about 30 minutes before the end of cooking. Remove the lean meat and use this for when you assemble the ingredients together. Skim the fat off the pork hock broth.
Use the broth to cook the sauerkraut . When the sauerkraut is cooked, add half the borlotti beans and potatoes. Use a potato masher to mash the contents.
Assemble the Iota by combining all of the different components.
Add the whole beans and the rest of the potatoes (cubed) with the mashed ingredients. Add the pork hock meat and the Wedding Sausage (I prefer to use this type of sausage because it is lean meat).
And there you have it – a lean Iota.
There are other posts for making Iota and these include quantities of ingredients:
IOTA (Recipe, a very thick soup from Trieste) Post 1
IOTA FROM TRIESTE, Italy, made with smoked pork, sauerkraut, borlotti beans – Post 2