Kevin72

Coincidentally, today is the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assissi. I've been searching for recipes and traditional food for this day but no luck. Guess maybe it's fitting for the patron saint of animals . . .

I'll admit off the bat that I haven't probed too deeply into the chocolate eggplant recipes, but I am curious: if you're using the fried slices, how do you get around the seeds issue? That's the part of this combo that gives me pause.

Coincidentally, Judith is actually taking a turn at doing a foodblog this week: Carpe Diem. So, she may be a little busy and distracted this week, but we'll forgive her, won't we? And, hey, it's an even more in depth look at life in Umbria!

Great news. Really looking forward to this one. A whole week in Italy!

Yeah, brush the top with olive oil and it gets crispy there, at least.

Spectacular, Elie! I've made that same crust before and I agree: too sandy and fragile and not worth the effort. I use phyllo now and it's perfect because it doesn't distract from the filling and absorb all the sauce. And that's so cool you quoted Godfather: that scene is responsible for starting my entire cooking hobby. First time I watched it, I grilled my mom about how to cook and made that sauce the next night for dinner. NYC Mike even has a quote from it in his sig.

Well, here we are in Umbria. I’ll leave the formal intro to Judith, which I’m looking forward to a lot. All I’ll say is that it’s a somewhat sparse, robust cooking “elevated” at times by its use of cream, butter, and of course the native black truffle shaved over anything. Lots of game, particularly fowl and rabbit, as well as an abundance of freshwater fish (being one of the only regions in Italy not touching the sea). Whoops, I’m already drifting into giving an intro and taking away from Judith. So, without further ado, the books available for this region, based on an Amazon booksearch for “Umbria”: Umbria: Regional Recipes from the Heartland of Italy by John Rizzo and Julia della Croce Italian Country Cooking: Recipes from Umbria & Apulia by Susanna Gelmetti and Robert Budwig Ciao Italia in Umbria: Recipes and Reflections from the Heart of Italy by Mary Ann Esposito I only have the della Croce book. She appears to be undertaking the admirable task of doing book for each region of Italy. However, they are woefully short. Though she does give a good idea of the cuisine in her intro and you do definitely feel more knowledgeable of the region after you finish. Waverly Root’s chapter on Umbria in The Food of Italy is one of the standouts. Ada Boni combines Umbria and Le Marche into one chapter (hmmm . . . ) and Roden’s Umbria chapter has just two pages of recipes to it. Still, with our weather getting steadily cooler and more autumnal, I'm looking forward to the simple cooking style that yields big flavors that comes with Umbrian cooking.

People, people, people. They're fried in olive oil and olive oil's good for you. No worries. Right? >gains weight<

One of the many appealing parts of Schwartz's book is the space he devotes to writing rhapsodically about the wealth of lard-enriched pastries found in Campania. I gave one of them, tortano, a spin for lunch. Tortano is a yeast dough, eniriched with some lard, left to rise, then rolled out and flattened. You then spread more lard over it, along with cubed salami, provolone, and pecorino: You then roll it up. I went with my own method here and then curled the roll in on itself: Into the oven for an hour, then another hour to cool (so it was a late lunch!): Perfect with a nice tart salad on the side to cut the richness: Didn't your say your husband didn't like this, Franci? I'm at a loss. You're very brave to work past such an obstacle. A sort of summer's last stand meal, then for our last meal in Campania. We started, then, with Insalata Caprese: Our Central Market has a guy out making mozzarella in view of the customers on weekends. I don't know how it compares to the real deal in Campania, but if it's that much better I don't think I'd be able to take it. As it is, though, freshly made and still warm, it's buttery, oozes whey when you cut into it, and rich. Even just the day's difference from when I bought it to when I served it really dulled the taste. It was still good but lacked that softness and liquidity in the center. Continued with spiritosa, pickled vegetables. Carrots are traditional, but I threw in fennel as well: You make a reduction of vinegar, water, chilies, garlic, and oregano. Meanwhile, boil the vegetables to just the soft in the center stage and drain. Douse them with the reduction and leave to sit at least 24 hours. The oregano really delivered and impregnated the whole with its vaguely floral aroma. For the main, it was the same lemon chicken Foodman made a couple pages back. I marinated the chicken in lemon juice, salt, olive oil, garlic, chilies, and oregano again overnight, drained them, browned them on one side in a hot pan, flipped them, poured the marinade over, and slapped them into a hot oven for half an hour: Dessert was the "mythic orange tart of Anacapri" from de Blasi's book. Much as I bag on her prose, I must say she really has influenced my style of cooking alot and everytime I thumb through one of her books for inspiration, I wind up getting lost in the recipes (in a good way). That finishes Campania for me. See everyone in Umbria. I'll try and start the thread today, but it may have to wait til tomorrow.

>sniffle!< A thing of beauty. Great job, Shaya.

I do. Get a couple packets of those arbol chilies (long, skinny, dried kind), break them in half. Submerge them in 2 cups olive oil in a saucepan. Add a good dusting of paprika (maybe even pimenton?). Place over low heat and bring up slowly, until you see the chilies moving around in there but it's not simmering or anything. Turn off the heat and let steep for 24 hours. Strain, pour into a squeeze bottle or jar. Even without the smoked paprika, the oil has a smokey flavor to it that I like. And, only a couple drops will do it. I sometimes add garlic but I know there's paranoia about botulism. Since the garlic would be removed, though would that still be a problem? I've never had an issue with it.

Wow, Shaya and Weinoo, both look incredible! Great pictures! And frying all that eggplant AND stuffing it into pasta . . . ! Bravo again.

Deep fry in olive oil.

Now it's my turn:

No offense meant. I figured two pizza loving Philly boys would be naturals for it, is all. And I know bigjas was taken by it last year, and he likes greens, so . . .

That's the one. He must've mentioned frying it when I saw it on the show and then I tried it that way.

ok wait then, do you have a recipe? is this an on-line or a book recipe? oh the possibilities. deep fried wonderment. ← It's a Mario recipe; available both on the FTV site and for sure in his Holiday Cooking book. But briefly: saute a head of escarole or chicory with garlic, anchovies, and chilies. Mix with ricotta, olives, capers, and pine nuts. Make a simple pizza dough with 3 cups flour, 1 cup water, packet of yeast, etc. Divide in half, roll each into a circle, spoon the filling onto it, fold it up and seal it good, toss it into ample oil and brown it on both sides. Take a bite and behold the glory of the angels.

Anchovies, currants, pine nuts, pecorino, bread crumbs. And, just to keep beating this drum, the fried calzone I'm promoting? Has greens in it.

And, people, the month's almost up and no one has tried the deep-fried calzone recipe yet. I let Puglia slide without someone besides me trying 'ncapriatta, but this will not stand. Bigjas, Andrew, step up!

Saturday night, I made the dish Schwartz describes as a "mess o' beans": chickpeas and beans with sausage. "Ah, franks-n-beans!" My wife said when I served it . . . A bout of unexpectedly cooler weather has re-awoken my desire for braised meat, so I did decide to have a "Sunday Ragu" type meal, brasatto al nero from Marlena de Blasi's book on Southern Italian cooking. Pork shoulder is braised with an equal measure of pureed tomatoes and red wine and a battuto of pancetta, garlic, sage, and chilies. While the pork braised away, filling the house with an incredible smell that had me ravenous, I made myself a little snack, described so vividly my Arthur Schwartz in his cookbook: alice al burro, anchovies and butter: " . . . a piece of toast slathered with sweet cream butter and topped with a single, shimmering anchovy fillet." Is it heresy that these anchovies were the salt packed kind, not fresh or marinated? This being the South, all that sauce from the braise is, of course, used to top pasta for the first course: My picture taking got pretty sloppy and my camera wasn't cooperating very well, so no appealing pictures of the meat, but then, we've noted how hard it is to get braised meat to look good before. The contorno was stuffed escarole? chicory? I can never tell the difference. Finally, for lunches this week, I made an immense pot of minestra maritata, the famous Campanian soup packed with leafy greens, as my wife requested a vegetable soup. No pics of that, though, either.

Where's your timballo?

Isn't it also sometimes soaked in limoncello?

Welcome Nina, great effort! I loved that ep of MM! And the caprese salad in there is totally Campanian.

Yeah, particularly with beef braises, the longer the better. When I made the brasato al vino rosso from Piemonte last winter, that bad boy was in the oven at the lowest possible temp for 24 hours and it was the best version I'd ever made. Not even remotely dry, my normal issue with beef braises.

Or Friday night, then rewarm it Sunday . . . it'll only improve in the process.