Kevin72

Yeah, I'm really proud of that shot. I used a Bosc pear (the most photogenic, I think) and nothing special on the red wine. Merlot, I believe. Add sugar and cloves to it as it bakes and reduces.

Sunday night’s primo: Papardelle with mushroom ragu. I used shitake mushrooms and dried porcini, then simmered them with red wine, chilies, and a dash of tomato sauce. I’ve really picked up a liking for shitake mushrooms: they have this nearly garlick-y flavor to them and they really stand up well to robust cooking methods. I’ve only relatively recently learned that Tuscans and Emilia-Romangnans(?) regard using cheese with a mushroom pasta almost on the same level as cheese on a pasta and seafood dish: it masks the subtle flavors of the condimento. So we tried it without and it wasn’t missed. The secondo was roasted game hens with vin santo (actually Marsala, again) from Pamela Sheldon Johns’ Italian Food Artisans book. And, keeping with my bad luck streak, here is the botched item for the night: the flavor of the marsala, cooked with lemon zest, didn’t carry through at all after being reduced away to nothing in the very hot oven (not part of the recipe, but that’s how I cook my birds), so it’s a good thing I didn’t stick to tradition and splurge for vin santo, which wouldn’t have been tasted at all. The contorno were stewed beans and tomatoes. Dessert was baked pears with wine syrup and honey. I love this dish; one of the most evocative of autumn. The pear takes on an almost custard-like texture after baking and the wine, honey, and shards of parmigiano over it create such a perfect blend of flavors.

For Sunday morning’s brunch, I made pane forte, the heavily spiced “cake” of Tuscany and especially Sienna. Raisins, prunes, orange and lemon zest, cocoa powder, cinnamon, coriander, ginger, clove, black pepper, and a little bit of flour are mixed together, then boiling honey/sugar are poured in and mixed together as well. Pat this mixture into a baking pan and let it bake in a relatively low oven. Grrrr. I’m really hitting a run of bad luck here after Saturday’s meal. You’re supposed to bring the honey/sugar mix to 240F and pour it in. In the time it took for me to get it off the heat, lift the mixer head on my KitchenAid, and pour it in, it had gone from 240F to 268F, so some of it seized along the sides of the mixing bowl. The cake came out very dark brown and got harder and harder as it sat, to when we finally sat down you had to dunk it in coffee or risk losing some teeth.

Cooler weather at last! Opened up the windows Saturday, turned off the A/C, and aired out the house. Time for some real autumn fare. For an antipasto, I made one of my wife’s favorites: bruschetta with Tuscan kale. Braise kale with garlic, olive oil, and a spot of water or white wine until nearly melting. Top some slices of grilled bread, then shards of pecorino Toscano, and a generous jot of olive oil. That glorious bread I made last week is, alas, not holding up well and fell apart trying to cut it. The main were grilled spiedini of quail and pancetta over sage polenta. The quail were a little undercooked and flabby in parts, and the pancetta, normally one of the best parts of this dish, was tough and fibrous, damned near inedible. And I didn’t season the polenta right so it was pretty bland. Dessert was a made-up item using leftover ricotta filling from the torta della nonna from last weekend. I mixed it with flour, yeast, and shot of warm milk, then let it rise. Grated a couple of apples into the mix, punched it down, and let it rise again, then put spoonfuls of it into hot oil and deep-fried it. Pretty tasty.

Friday night’s meal: Tortino di carciofi; artichoke frittata. Sciacciatta di uve, pane di uve: Flatbread with grapes. A harvest/vendemmia tradition. Some recipes really play up the sweet angle and make it more like a dessert, I just used a standard bread recipe, mixed with aniseseeds and topped with grapes. In retrospect, though, I probably would’ve liked a little more sweetness in there.

Nice pics. So how does this fit in with your observations on Elgin sausage on the other thread? Is there something inherently "bland" about the recipe?

I'd go with two, just because you never know. That way you can let those dishes pile up on one side and leave the other spic and span for washing out spinach, rinsing raw poultry, or other food-handling needs. Not that you're one to let dishes pile up or that I do it either, of course. Of course.

Yeah, that really does the trick. And I know it's frowned on in Tuscany, but with some soups it's really good to do oil and parm on top. They meld together in the heat and oh my it's good . . .

Wow, wow, wow. And that was just the morning? What's ragusano cheese like? It looks like the tuna wasn't cooked all the way through, the way you've noted is traditional. Do you think tuna cooked more rare is coming into vogue now? What was the weather like? Did you have a lot of problems with the seasonal closings?

Both casual observation and a number of ccokbook authors note that Tuscans, particularly Florentines, are more enamored of soup as a primo than they are of pasta. I'm not sure why that is, shall we blame the Etruscans again? And there are a wealth of soups to chose from, most of them emphasizing simple seasonal ingredients, water, and, quite often, their bread, either as fett'unta at the base of the bowl, or even directly cooked into the soup to make it more of a porridge. Pappa al'Pomodoro is a prime example. It makes use of the abundance of end-of-summer tomatoes, cooked with garlic or onion, aromatics, and water until collapsing, then pureed or passed through a food mill and torn up bread is added along with basil. Top with olive oil, that most Tuscan condiment.

I would agree. CM has it over WF Flagship all the way. I was fairly underwhelmed when I went there. In fact it's amazing how spoiled Central has made me. I went to a Balducci's in Alexandria last Christmas and walked out also thinking that Central did it better.

True, I'd hate to tinker with a good thing. But I do salt chickens rather heavily, smear 'em with oil, and then toss 'em in the fridge overnight. Never seem to dry out. Totally off the wall theorizing here, but maybe with the oil added into the mix the meat absorbs some of it in exchange for the juices and keeps its moisture? I'm sure I'll get smacked down on this idea though.

Have you talked to the butchers at the Hong Kong market to see if they have fat to sell you? Seems if they cut to order they'd be bound to have that stuff sitting around . . .

Absolutely correct, and thanks for putting a finer point on what I was trying to say. But isn't it even debatable if salt on something that thick would have such a bad effect even after 24 hours? Glad we agree on the prep method (another Batali recipe!); I think the way the rosemary cooks off on the hot grill just adds this incredible smokiness to the meat.

Mince it up and use as a base with aromatics (i.e., carrot, celery, onion, etc). In fact your fallback idea is probably the best one: use it in a bean soup, particularly if the trimmings you got include skin.

It certainly looks promising. Edit: Doesn't look like it's available in the U.S. yet. I'm amazed at how many books he's had now that I'm looking deeper into him yet I don't think I've run across his books here before. Is he a big deal in Europe? Did he have a cooking show? If so, and if it ran on PBS, then he's where I first learned about Sardinian maggot cheese . . .

Is it traditional in Neapolitan doughs to let them ripen or age for so long, or do they pretty much make and bake the same day? Is there any part of Italy where such a long ripening is traditional, if not in Naples?

I'm a Christmas nerd, so that is my favorite time of the year. January, on the other hand, is a little too bleak, too much of a comedown after the holidays. I did indeed. Kids, this is why you need to drink your coffee before posting. I guess I was just dizzy from looking at all those wines that I just grabbed the first "Monta--" in my price range. That would make sense about the Etruscan thing, since the Umbrians, also of Etruscan descent, make saltless bread as well. We always do the olive oil and pinch of salt on the bread, even right out of the toaster. No butter here!

Big dinner party last night. To start, bruschetta, aka fett'unta with your choice of topping: chopped tomatoes and basil, pan-seared portabello mushrooms with rosemary, or stewed cannellini beans. The primo was cavatapi (sp?) with kale and sausage, from the older versions of Mario Batali's cooking shows. The secondo was roast chicken with "tritto" and roasted potatoes with rosemary. Of all the cookbooks I have, only one (Italian Trattoria Cooking by John Varnom) mentions or makes use of tritto, a mixture of aromatics used as a rub for roasted or grilled meats or a base for braises. Finely chop carrots, onions, celery, galic, rosemary, and sage together, preferably using a food processor. Transfer to a jar, top off with olive oil, bam, you're done. Let it set a couple of days in the fridge to develop flavors, then smear it on a chicken and toss it in the oven. One of the very best smells to fill the house with. Maybe no other cookbooks use it because it's a botulism time bomb? I've never had a problem, but I do wonder about the garlic and olive oil combo, a supposed no-no for preserving things. I should note that the garlic is my addition and not Varnom's. The dessert was Torta Della Nonna, a tart filled with sweetened ricotta and egg yolks, then baked. Topped with honey and powdered sugar.

This is a thread for you to post about your favorite local butcher. Pics, stories, memorable meals, whatever. I go with Rudolf’s, in downtown Dallas. I happened across them completely by accident shortly after I moved here, and have been a loyal fan ever since. You get a warm greeting every time you go in. I went there yesterday to by a Porterhouse for a fiorentina (see link in my sig) cookout. They also sell three varieties of Italian sausage: sweet, hot, and just “Italian” which I think is the best. All are sold in one long coil as opposed to separate links. Fourth of July just wouldn’t be Fourth of July without Rudolf’s hot dogs, done in the old school fashion and attached to each other: More Rudolf’s goodness: So what’s your favorite local butcher?

La Fiorentina. The steak beyond steaks. This is a massive, center-cut T-bone (aka Porterhouse), the thicker and weightier the better. This isn’t that cellophane-wrapped T-Bone on a styrofoam tray that you can get at the local grocery store. You need an actual (gasp!) butcher that cuts their own meat for this meal. I use one in downtown Dallas, a special, once-a-year treat. Normally I do this for friends and get it cut into a 4 lb. piece, but with just my wife and I eating it, we backed it down to a mere 2 ½ lbs (about a kilo). Here is a previous and excellent thread on eGullet about La Fiorentina, and as you can see, opinions greatly differ on how to prepare what would seem to be a very simple dish. This is no different in the cookbook world: I don’t think there is a single same recipe in all the books I have. Some authors say to just grill it as-is, then add seasoning and oil afterwards, some say season it first but no oil, some say oil first but no seasoning . . . I do it still as I said on the linked thread: smear it with oil, season it liberally with salt, pepper, and rosemary, and let it sit for a few hours. A cut of meat that thick will not loose its juices with the salt on there (a myth anyways). I just can’t bring myself to try other methods, particularly when this one is so damned good. Then I toss it over a high heat on the grill to sear it, reduce the heat and let it cook through. While it’s cooking, let’s enjoy my favorite cocktail, the Manhattan: On the other thread, I mentioned that I also toss some rosemary on the fire to give it a good smoky flavor. It was pointed out that in Tuscany, they use only grape vine trimmings. When we moved in to this place, we were surprised to find a wild grape bush growing in our back yard. As we were trimming the dead parts away, I suddenly remembered this tradition and saved the dead vines for just such an occasion. Once off the grill, you let it sit for as long as you can bear, then carve it in thick slices, drizzle top-quality olive oil over it, squeeze some lemon juice on it, and sprinkle coarse sea salt over the whole thing. I serve it with a mixture of mushrooms and spinach. I actually had this in Florence at dai Benchi (not that they are famous for this item) and was thoroughly unimpressed. Tasted like all the other thousand bland backyard steaks you’ve had before. They gave me a funny look when I requested lemon with the meat, something I thought was de rigueur for the recipe. So it’s finally starting to slightly cool off here. It was muggy all day but a nice breeze kicked up at night, so we were able to sit on the patio and have this meal, then (sort of) enjoy a splurged-for-but-not-worth-the-expense bottle of Montalcino. (Gah! It was Montalcino di’Abruzzo! Not Brunello!) This is as good as life gets, isn't it?

Pane Toscano, aka Pane Sciocco, the saltless Tuscan bread, is much doted upon and fiercely defended by the locals, but obviously takes much getting used to if you’re an outsider. The common origin of this bread is that in times when salt was taxed, the frugal Tuscans (and Umbrians, who have a similar bread) stopped salting their bread. In the intervening years when salt could be put back in, they clung to it out of tradition. This in turn has lead to many more full-flavored salumi, cheeses, and robust soups to augment the bread’s lack of flavor. While many cookbook authors argue that Tuscan bread is an acquired taste, they also urge you to try to make it at least once to get a better understanding of the cuisine. So off I went, using Carol Field’s book The Italian Baker as a guide. In her recipe, she does use just a trace amount of salt, only to activate the base flavors as part of the baking process. This starts with making the biga, the sponge. While not traditionally part of the recipe, I have cultivated a “master sponge” of several old bread doughs going back a few years now that I use as a flavor base for my bigas (1/2 cup master sponge, 1 ½ cups regular flour, pinch of yeast, and water to get everything mixed). The master sponge: So you begin with the biga two days before you bake the bread. Mix it up, let it sit overnight, then “feed” it with more flour and let it sit that whole day. That night, you make up the bread dough itself, adding just a teaspoon more yeast, and let it sit overnight to rise fully. I’m not sure if it was the presence of the older sponge in the biga, but this is the hungriest dough I’ve ever made. Meaning, it rose very quickly; it had doubled in volume after just forty minutes! I punched it down, but it came right back. Another punch down and this time I put it in the fridge to retard the growth. It still was out of control, so a third punch down and back in the fridge. This time it behaved itself and made it most of the night. I got up early Saturday, took it out, and shaped it into two loaves to sit while the oven preheated. It positively exploded when it hit the heat of the oven. As you can see, they came out in almost perfectly circular shape. Tasted some at dinner to mop up the ample sauces. It is, indeed, saltless. Fantastic texture, look at those pores! This is some of the best bread I’ve ever made. The saltless thing, though, is another matter . . .

October is here, and with it arrive my favorite three months of the year. The days get shorter, the weather does finally cool off, and it’s time to break out full-bodied wines, roasts, braises, and other home-y food to fill the house with their welcoming aromas. To go with these three favorite months, I’m doing three of my favorite regions. This month kicks it off, then, with the rustic, hearty cuisine of Tuscany. An intimidating region, to be sure. First off, there’s Adam Ballic’s excellent Tuscan Food Diary from last winter. Then, there’s the fact that a number of eG’ers live or have lived there, notably Divina, who also hosts a cooking school in Florence! Faith Willinger lurks here from time to time. I keep imagining the lot of them chartering a plane to fly out here and kick my ass at the slightest misstep or liberty taken with a traditional dish . . . We actually have visited there, two years ago this month for our honeymoon, and I have to make my first controversial statement: it was a major misstep. We went to Florence on the weekend, and it was packed with tourists. We’d walk blocks and hear only English spoken, and in both of the restaurants we went to, the only Italians there were the staff. Ate at Osteria dai Benchi and Trattoria Cibreo. Dai Benchi was roundly disappointing, Cibreo a little less so but still not too much memorable: our secondi were both served cold, not something you necessarily crave on a blustery, rainy night in late October. I know, I know, should’ve done the ristorante instead, but just coming out of Venice, we were on a little bit of a budget shock. San Gimagnano was much better, actually heaven on earth, to be more precise. But again, a regret: we ate at out hotel, Bel Sogiorno, and had a truly wonderful, ten-course meal. But it wasn’t Tuscan. It was Tuscan ingredients, sure, but it was elevated and laden with cream and butter and all sorts of “Continental” tricks. Again, a great meal in and of itself, but in the intervening years I keep thinking back on walking around town that night before dinner and looking at the menus of various trattorie and seeing these rustic, arch-Tuscan dishes: papardelle with hare, roasted boar, grilled venison with chocolate . . . and I didn’t get a real taste of that. But it’s not like I hold this against Tuscany or am dismissive of it. I just made a lot of mistakes in my planning. In fact my current return-to-Italy trip plans (won’t be happening anytime soon, though) are to do a Tuscan/Umbrian extensive stay. That said, though, I’m greatly enamored, as many seem to be, with the rustic, straightforward cooking style. It’s one of my “default” cuisines that whenever I’m just winging a dish, there’s definite Tuscan overtones. Grilling, roasting, (hopefully) some forays into game all lay ahead. Here’s where I probably will get into trouble: I am, or think I am, so familiar with Tuscan “style” cooking that a lot of the items I’ll be making this month aren’t necessarily from a specific recipe or part of the traditions, but I’ve somehow convinced myself that in their simplicity and straightforward style, they are Tuscan. As Italy’s best-known region in the U.S., there are naturally a host of cookbooks on Tuscany. A few references I’ll be using this month: A Tuscan In The Kitchen by Pino Luonogo. I had really forgotten what a great cookbook this is. I re-read it in researching this month and it knocks out all the standard classic recipes of the region, along with many personal tales of growing up poor in Tuscany. A favorite account: he was watching a farmer forage for fresh porcini mushrooms (they get a whole chapter!) one day when he was a child. One of the dangers of mushroom-hunting in Tuscany is that this is also a season when poisonous snakes burrow into the leaves, and one of these bit the farmer. Without hesitating, the farmer grabbed and axe and lopped off the fingers he had been bitten on to avoid quick death. Furthermore, he approaches the recipes as a quintessential Italian: he lists only ingredients for the dish but not measurements: e.g., “garlic”, instead of “two cloves of garlic, thinly sliced”, or “a fistful of rice per person” when making risotto. Williams-Sonoma’s Florence cookbook. Surprisingly good and in-depth exploration of traditional Florentine dishes, how they vary from the Tuscan countryside, and notable eateries around the city. Excellent introduction exploring Florence’s most beloved foods. Italian Food Artisans by Pamela Sheldon Johns. Anyone who is a fan of the Slow Food Movement (and really, if you post on eGullet, aren’t you?) should pick this book up, profiling a number of artisans that craft their foodstuffs in the old fashioned, hands-on methods. She draws from all over Italy for products, but a few are based out of Tuscany, and when I read it last month, it was the perfect mood-setter for the coming months of cooking. The Foods of Tuscany by Giuliano Bugiali. I know he’s quite a luminary in the cookbook field but this book, for some reason, leaves me cold. Just couldn’t get into it, and I can’t put my finger on it. He even explores the regions of Tuscany, special dishes, etc., things I’d normally dig. Sorry. But that doesn’t even scratch the surface of what’s out there. Nancy Harmon Jenkins has a Tuscany cookbook similar to her book on Puglia that I’d like to get someday. Seems like every time I go to the bookstore there’s a new Tuscan cookbook to get.

"Hey, get outta here with that camera!!!!" "Grrrrr!" That's a similar principle to mozarella we follow here in the U.S.! Except it's in weeks, not hours.

Already been suggested by Divina, and will definitely be done. Course, I could just repost that pic of my cookbook library, hmm . . .