Kevin72

Seasonality absolutely plays into how I cook, or at least plan to cook. That's why in spring and at the height of artichoke season I chose to cook from Rome, where they do artichokes best. Or in the depths of winter I went to Friuli with its ribsticking fare. Abruzzo's hard because you've got the mountains mediating the climate there. I'm probably way off base but I try imagine it being alot like Denver: hot during the day, but cools off rapidly at night. The challenge is trying to convey a "sense" of the cuisine while playing along with seasonality at the same time. So while I'm sure the Abruzzese are much more likely right now to be tucking into a plate of pasta with simple tomatoes, or just a piece of grilled fish, than, say, a eleven-layer crepe timbale followed by a stuffed duck, I want to show off the more unique, interesting sounding dishes that to me capture what that certain cuisine is all about. It's not that the Abruzzese don't lack for lighter dishes, and Callen's book abounds with them, but , some of these more unique dishes, like polenta and clams, or the soup Le Virtu, just work better in the cooler months. I was absolutely planning to doing le virtu but I just can't, in all this heat, bring myself to make a heavy, bean-laden, porky soup that requires six separate pots. But I feel there have been some dishes that do match well with the weather: the panarda feast, the heels with ricotta sauce come to mind.

Those are porcini, you lucky, lucky >mutters<. Grill them or pan sear them over very high heat and toss with arugula, lemon juice, and shaved parmigiano or young pecorino cheese. Edit: They're quite flavorful, so treat them simply. If you have enough, I'd toss them with fresh pasta and butter, after sauteing them in olive oi and garlic.

Dried porcini, which I use most, take about 40 minutes, tops. Anything more than that and they're too soft, nearly falling apart, and flavorless.

Against my own better judgment and the advice of well, any practicing doctor, I did a two-fer of Kreuz's and Smitty's Saturday. Didn't realized they closed so early on Saturdays: 6:30 for those planning a trip of their own sometime. I had brisket and ribs at both; my friend had the sausage and brisket and Kreuz's and sat out Smitty's. They were out of the fatty brisket at Kreuz's so I had to settle for the leaner cut of brisket. Still very flavorful but dry. And the ribs are indeed stellar. Smoky, peppery, pull-apart tender . . . oh man. I, too didn't care for the sausage. I like the texture, I was just surprised at how bland they taste. Like Robyn, I liked Smitty's atmosphere more. You walk in and are hit with a wave of heat from their smoke pit which is right by the door. They still had the fatty brisket here, and it was indeed much more moist, but didn't have that good flavor that Kreuz's had. And the ribs had a thin layer of sticky-sweet sauce on them! So Kreuz wins in the food department, hands-down. I limped to the car and pitched the seat way back. We drove past Black's and I was going to joke about stopping there, too, but all I could manage was a gurgly whimper.

The kind of Scamorza we get here in Dallas is smoked, so I've come to, rightly or wrongly, associate scamorza as being a smoked mozzarella. I actually posted about this topic last weekend: look here.

Thanks for these great writeups, Robyn. You really seemed to research your trip here well and hit alot of Texas highlights (though obviously this particular restaurant wasn't the case). You should give Houston a shot next time!

Wednesday night, I made pizza e fuie. In this case, the “pizza” was simply an unleavened dough of cornmeal and flour that was rolled out into smaller discs, then grilled. The “fuie” are bitter greens, traditionally an assortment of wild greens that are gathered from the mountainsides, but I used broccoli rabe and escarole. They are braised with onion, olive oil, and chilies. The scamorza isn’t called for but I like how it interacts with the bitter greens. Besides, how can I make something called ”pizza” and not put cheese on top of it?

Tuesday night I made a few more Abruzzese seaside dishes. First up was polenta with clams and chickpeas. For some reason this dish really fascinated me from the start. It seems to typify the whole "forte e gentile" aspect that is Abruzzo, marrying a robust, ribsticking mountain staple (polenta) with seafood, normally a light, delicate affair. Steam open some clams in tomato paste, chilies, and white wine, almost like you would for a pasta sauce, but then use it to top polenta. I combined it with another recipe for polenta and chickpeas. Three earthy, base flavors mingled well and made it an unusual but instantly comforting and satisfying dish. Now if only it had been about 40 degrees cooler when I served it . . . Followed with braised calamari with artichokes. Pretty simple, straightforward stuff. It was finished with lemon juice and zest and basil. Kind of reminded me of when I was cooking from Liguria. Edited for clarification.

um, err . . . guilty. We missed the big market in Locorotondo, which was supposed to be pretty impressive.

Glad you liked due Corti. I loved the academic vibe there. Was the host this big tall guy that had to stoop under the doorway? I sympathized with him, being 6'4" myself. I had that same long pasta name you got; kudos for writing it down! Although I wasn't as enamored of the sauce. One of my biggest regrets of that trip is not catching any of the butcher/grill scene you wrote about. Guess it was still too cold for it. That's one of the things that really attracted me to Puglia after reading a couple vivid descriptions in my cookbooks about how they sell the meat and then cook it for you outside if you want. Reminds me of some of the great barbecue places here in Texas. You really captured alot of what's great about Puglia. Sorry you had a less than stellar second meal in Ostuni; I was blown away by the range of places to eat there. And, yeah, I need to rub in your face how you missed out on the great antipasti at Tempo Perso . But we only got nine, not fifteen! Are there more entries coming? I want to hear more about the Alberobello market. It was totally dead when we went and nothing but aggressive souveneir shop owners physically trying to drag us into their place.

Hate to tell you this ladyyoung but Rudy's is a chain . . . from Austin. I think Dallas holds its own in Tex-Mex and taquerias (unless we're throwing San Antonio into the mix), but barbecue, well . . . Ft. Worth has Angelo's and Railhead's pretty good. I continuously hear good things about Peggy Sue's but have yet to confirm it myself. As for Austin barbecue, I mean, c'mon, they've got all the Central TX temples right there! Who can stand a chance against that?

Forgot to add: certainly, any experiences with touring Texas wineries, opinions on Texas wines or the Texas wine scene, are welcome to be discussed here.

Callen does explore a number of different origins of the dish along the similar lines you state, Alberto. She quotes Waverly Root who also attributes it to the "virtue" of the woman who can make it through the winter with enough left over to make this soup. There's also a folk legend she cites of seven virtuous sisters, each contributing one ingredient to the pot. Finally, she surmises that it might be called le virtu because it involves six separate cooking methods to assemble!

Sunday night I did a recreation of only a fraction of the dishes you might get at the famous Abruzzese feast, la panarda. As usual with writing on Italian cooking traditions and customs, you’re hard pressed to find two authors who agree on origins. Marlena di Blasi gives the quite plausible explanation that la panarda has its origins in the slaughter of the village pig, when all would come by to contribute to helping butcher the pig and put it up for the winter. As a sort of communal rite of passage, the villagers would smear a piece of bread (pane) with some of the rendered pig fat (lardo) for a simple snack to mark the occasion. Thus the fusion of the two terms, pane e lardo, to eventually through the ages become panarda. Then of course, Anna Teresa Callen, in her all-too-brief-for-an-Abruzzese description of the event, specifically dismisses this history. Regardless of its humble roots, la panarda has over the years become a Herculean feast still observed (but less and less frequently) in the small mountain towns of Abruzzo to mark major celebrations: a birth, a wedding, a family reunion, anything. The typical number of courses for a panarda starts at 30, usually averaging out at 40. And you have to at least try them all, or you risk severe insult to whichever family that made the dish you refused. Family feuds lasting generations have begun this way. So, I did only the briefest, smallest panarda (panardina?!) Sunday with five dishes. We started with a simple dish that some authors tout as the height of the refinement Abruzzese cuisine is capable of: screpelle ‘mbusse, crepes in a broth. The remaining dishes were just laid out to take as you please: clockwise from the upper left are marinated mushrooms, sautéed swiss chard with ham, grilled lamb rosticini, and an escarole frittata. The mushrooms are seared, then glazed with white wine. Finally, a paste of olive oil, shallots, vinegar, and capers is poured over them and they are placed in the fridge to steep for a few hours. The swiss chard is blanched, chopped, then sautéed in butter with ham, and finally a ladle of broth is added then cooked completely off to give it an added richness. The lamb rositicini are skewers of slices of leg that had been marinated over night in a warmed bath of olive oil, chilies, rosemary, and fennel seeds. Finally, the frittata was made of sautéed escarole and scamorza cheese, which played well off the bitterness of the vegetable. One dish that I didn’t make, and probably won’t get to make this month, that is often served at la panarda, or even becomes its own feast all by itself, is le virtu, a soup made on or near the start of May. The idea, according to di Blasi, is to clean out one’s larders from the winter and combine all the dried beans and bits of salumi left over with the first crops of spring. Callen and Batali both give much more elaborate recipes in their respective treatments of Abruzzo, making it into a multi-pot cooking affair. With temperatures here already nearing or topping 100 F daily, I just don’t have it in me to make such a rich, robust soup, But I felt I’d be remiss to not at least mention and recommend tracking down this towering achievement in Abruzzese cooking.

I’ve really been giving Abruzzese desserts a raw deal so far this month. For Sunday brunch I made anise-scented ciambelline from Marlena di Blasi's book to dunk in the morning cappuccino. Pretty much followed di Blasi’s recipe to the letter except I glazed them with some apricot preserves right out of the oven. Seems like they needed a little something extra.

Saturday night’s meal: Antipasto: Abruzzese Bruschetta Primo: Taccozzelle alla ricotta verde Secondo: Lamb “piccino, piccino, piccio” The bruschetta consisted of deep-fried slices of zucchini that are then steeped in a reduction of white wine, broth, and saffron, then spooned over grilled bread. The primo, “taccozzelle” are a type of broad-cut pasta squares that are then tossed with a sauce of ricotta and sautéed spinach. When Mario Batali made these on his show, he used egg whites in the dough rather than the water that Callen calls for. This is the version I went with, giving the pasta a pale white look and an interesting, firm bite to it. Mario also cleverly described this almost as an “exploded” ravioli dish, meaning that you just tossed the pasta sheets with the filling instead of making them into ravioli. Perfect for when it’s too hot outside to spend all that time making pasta, he said, and with it nearing or topping 100F that day, I’d agree. The lamb “piccino, piccino, piccio” is described by Marlena di Blasi in her book The Regional Foods of Southern Italy as “delicate, more delicate, most delicate of all”. It’s hard not to be intrigued by the recipe: seal the chunks of lamb with one onion studded with cloves and a lump of butter in an ovenproof vessel with an airtight lid, then place in a 400 F oven for an hour. What emerges is a nearly meltingly soft lamb which you serve with or over bread to sop up all the fragrant juices. I’m having bad luck making meat lately, after the duck from last weekend and some incinerated steaks I made at mid-week. You’re supposed to leave the lamb in the vessel and not disturb the lid for the full hour it bakes. Twenty minutes in I realized I forgot the butter and seasoning, so I reluctantly added them to the vessel, then set the time back a little. So this could have been the culprit, or maybe the lid wasn’t so airtight and I should have done the flour-water paste di Blasi recommends to completely seal the vessel. Regardless, the meat was dry and hard. Good flavor when you occasionally got the tender bite or two, but otherwise quite disappointing. I’m really curious how this recipe works, though, with no liquid other than the incidentals from the meat and the onion.

This past Saturday, my wife and I took off and began what will hopefully be a series of pleasant daytrips or weekend sojourns investigating Texas wines and wineries. We’ve always been suckers for the Texas wine scene: timing our trip to Fredericksburg last fall to coincide with their wine tasting, attending the Grapevine wine festival in the punishing late summer heat, and even holding our wedding reception at Delaney Vineyards in Grapevine. Our reference book was The Wine Roads of Texas, by Wes Marshall. He details chief wineries, reviews and recommends their stock, profiles the winemakers (all have interesting stories to tell, it seems). Best of all he arranges the book by regions with suggested itineraries for day trips or long weekends, even including places to stay and eat in the vicinity. So, Saturday morning, with a belly full of Einstein’s bagels, camera, notebook, and Marshall’s book in tow, we headed off north of Dallas, the new Beck album blaring. Following Marshall’s suggestion, we would go north on 35, to just past Sanger, then east along the back country roads, hitting Lone Oak Vineyards, then cut over to Tioga for lunch, and back down again, hitting Cross Roads Vineyards on the way back. From 3040 and I35 in Lewisville, it took about 40 minutes (traffic included) to get to our first stop, Lone Oak Vineyards. >>On the road to Lone Oak Vineyards We got there earlier than the posted opening time of noon but the gates were open. Owner Robert Wolf was out in the already sweltering sun, clearing some underbrush. He led us into the tasting room and we quickly got underway. Robert’s an interesting, easygoing guy, bearing a passing resemblance to actor Billy Bob Thornton in mannerisms. Over an hour blew by talking to him over wine samples. He related one of their biggest problems in the past few years is wild hogs which have a knack for finding the grapes just as they reach full ripeness. In 2004 they reduced the Cabernet Sauvignon crop by nearly 80 percent (what remained is outstanding, he adds). He also operates the Rudy’s Barbecue franchises in North Texas, so he couldn’t fully endorse our lunch plans at Clark’s Outpost in Tioga. It’s hard not to catch his enthusiasm though; he’s really excited about their first batch of Port due to be released close to the Holidays this year, and he’s positively giddy about this year’s wine crop with the near-perfect weather for it. We sampled the 2002 Merlot (save it, Sideways freaks), the 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon, the 2003 Merlot, and Dolce Rouge, a sweet red that they had only recently started producing. I have to say both my wife and I had agreed to completely write off Texas red wines after tasting far too many samples that were all oak or sugar and little or no depth. They all seem to have a faint taste almost like leather, but just no complexity. Still, Wes Marshall gives Lone Oaks’ Merlots top ranks, and I was intrigued. Furthermore, unlike many Texas wineries, the grapes were grown on-site, and the Wolfs use French oak (Marshall says this is more subtle than American oak) for their barrels. In fact, the Wolfs modeled their winery after the French Bordeaux style, which is why they don’t offer any white wines in their stock. All this is to say that the 2002 Merlot was very impressive, the 2003 even more so. Very full-flavored, complex. At the time I thought the Cabernet we sampled did have a tinge of that tell-tale “leathery” taste to it, but it still had much more body than most Texas Reds we sampled. Even the Dolce Rouge, the sweet red wine, wasn’t as headache-inducingly sugary as many other samples we’d tried over the years. After we were done with our samples, Robert took us in back to the barrel room, where we tried, straight from the barrel, 100 percent Merlot (the 2002 is 88%, the 2003 is 90%) which was even more suave and fruity. We also sampled some port that they will be releasing later this fall for the first time. My wife said she couldn’t wait for the Holidays if this is what we had to drink then! We purchased a bottle of the 2002 and 2003 Merlots. Robert recommends letting the 2003 Merlot sit for about a year (though again, he and I agreed it’s enjoyably full-flavored now), up to a maximum of four years. Robert told us that S&K in Plano sells some of the wines, but for a broader selection, it’s best just to go to the winery itself. Robert’s point of pride is that they have no plans to expand their winery size for a larger distribution. More chatting while purchasing the wines, and Robert wrote down a few wineries to check out in the Hill Country, hopefully an upcoming trip for us this fall. >>Vineyards at the entrance of Lone Oak. We headed off for Tioga and lunch at Clark’s Outpost barbecue. I was a little disappointed, particularly in the ribs, which were dry. None of the meat had that big, smoky flavor and was even a little underseasoned. It’s changed ownership in the past few years and has consolidated with the catfish restaurant in town (forget the name) so there may be some growing pains. Should’ve listened to Robert and headed back to Denton for Rudy’s. On the way out of Tioga, within about five miles south of town on 377, is Hidden Springs Winery. We were on a time crunch that day so Hidden Springs lost out, but it’s an easy stop on the way for three wineries in one day trip just north of Dallas. Next stop was Cross Roads Vineyards. Robert had warned us that it has since changed hands and moved from the location in Marshall’s book, but we went to the original location anyways, figuring it might still have the tasting room up. Well, we arrived and found it completely abandoned. Luckily, Robert had furnished us with a number for the new location, and we were able to call and get directions. It’s not the most appealing location right now: located in a complex of large, green, commercial sheds. The winery has also changed hands, to a youngish couple John and Monica (neglected to get their last name). John has had experience with wineries in Oregon so it will be interesting to see where he takes Cross Roads. The wine available for sale now is under the old label and producer. John proudly showed us the new label for the wines that they have begun producing. Their grapes come in from West Texas. We tasted the Fume Blanc, then the Texas Rojo, the Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, and the Reserve Cabernet Sauv. All the reds were 2001 vintage and again, unfortunately lacked much depth and complexity. But we both did like the Cabernet Franc, which had an interesting floral but not sweet note to it. We bought a bottle of the Sauvignon Blanc (conversely, we both do think that Texas does dry whites quite well) and headed back home. Cross Roads has distribution in Dallas from Whole Foods on Preston and Connoisseur in the same shopping center as Zorba’s, Luna de Noche, Red Hot and Blue, etc on Preston and Plano Parkway. We wanted to have the Lone Oaks 2002 Merlot with dinner that night. It was then we realized that we had gotten the Cabernet Sauvignon by mistake, and I was a little disappointed since I wasn’t as big on that as I was on the Merlots. Still we opened it anyways and I was surprised how well it went along with the meal, changing flavors with the dishes (bruschetta, pasta with ricotta, roasted lamb) and as it sat as well. Its harsher notes softened, either from breathing or with the food, so that by the end of the meal I was well-pleased. Sunday night we had the Sauvignon Blanc with our dinner and it fit in effortlessly, no heavy oak or sugars intruding. So from this trip we’ve learned to rekindle hope in Texas reds. Lone Oak is really doing them well and it’s worth a little day trip to head out there and meet the Wolfs and chat over some wine samples. Cross Roads is a short hop from Frisco if you’re in the area, and hopefully with more support they can move to a more appealing locale and really open up their distribution. Lone Oak Vineyards 4781 E. Lone Oak ( east F.M 3002), Valley View, TX 76272. (940) 637-2612. Tasting room hours: Thurs-Sat. noon-5pm or call for appointment. Cross Roads Vineyards: **Has moved locations from the one listed in The Wine Roads of Texas. 15222 King Road, #1001 Frisco, TX 75034. (972) 294-4144 [From Main Street in Frisco, take it west to 423. When it crosses 423, it becomes King Road. Go about a mile and start looking for a complex of large, green metal sheds on the right. Turn in and Cross Roads is all the way in the back row.] Marshall, Wes. The Wine Roads of Texas: an Essential Guide to Texas Wines and Wineries. San Antonio: Maverick Publishing, 2002. Big thanks to Richard Kilgore for advice, guidance and suggestions on researching Texas wineries as well as creating this thread.

Marcella gives another recipe in the same book already mentioned (Marcella Cucina) which specifically calls for fresh cranberry beans cooked with mussels, fresh tomatoes, basil, and chili. You might want to give that a shot, too.

No, it was a little more firm than the artisinal mozzarella. But I should note that I left it out on accident when I got home from the store, so that may have contributed to some of its texture . . .

So, wait, is scamorza a little softer, more like mozarella/F.D.L and less like cacciocavallo? Is it supposed to be so smoky? I bought "scamorza" at the store today, it had a hard, brownish rind but was soft inside.

Looking forward to it! Please post a link when it's all in place.

Thanks for the answers so far. Naturally, I just got back from the store and they have a new item available: smoked cacioccavallo!

I consistently get these two cheeses confused. Both seem to be derivatives of the pasta filata method that gives us mozarella/fior di latte cheese but then both are aged. Scamorza is smoked, but is caciocavallo smoked also? When I've bought scamorza here in Dallas its been overwhelmingly smoky. Good enough on its own but not something you want to garnish a dish with as it is more traditionally done. Further confusing things is smoked mozarella, which seems to be smoked while it's still young and very soft, whereas the scamorza I've seen seems more "cured" or harder. I've not yet seen caciocavallo cheese here. Is provolone an acceptable substitute?

Yeah, Abruzzo and lamb go hand in hand it seems. It'll come up soon, stay tuned!

Crap. I knew I shouldn't have gone trumpeting this on eG without the recipe. Brown sugar is a major component, and mom says it's simple. I'll try to get it from her but they're out of town. Edit: I'm thinking that it's basically a sponge cake recipe with brown sugar instead of white sugar. The rhubarb goes in raw, no precook. But again, I'll see if I can get the specific recipe.