Kevin72

Jeffery Steingarten writes about trying to make Boudin Noir in Must've Been Something I Ate. He relates that in the U.S. there's pretty strict legislation on selling pig's blood, which may be why recipes here are hard to come by.

I'd avoid the Tomato--very saucy style pizza. In Lewisville, try Jinbeh (in the shopping center with Toys R Us and Best Buy facing 35N) for sushi. There's a fairly decent Indian place in the shopping plaza with Einstein's at I think 3040 and MacArthur. A Vietnamese place opened in Lewisville about a year ago but I could never track it down. Further down 3040, after the 121 crossover, is a Thai Place that's also pretty good. Sorry about the shoddy vague directions and place names.

I absolutely agree. In fact since large swaths of V-F-G belonged at one time or another to neighboring countries it's just as much a tribute to their regionality as it is to Italy's. While regionality certainly exists in the US and barbecue is a prime example, as is the Napa valley region, I must say you really don't have such sharp micro-level distinctions as you would find elsewhere. For instance in going from Venice to Verona, the food changed almost entirely from the light elegant seafood dishes of Venice to robust rib-sticking fare in Verona. And how far apart are they? Maybe 100 k? Regionality is certainly coming back into style in our cooking, and something I'm getting into in ideas of U.S. cooking, but I doubt it will ever get to the level of "Austin" cooking vs. "Dallas" cooking vs. "Houston" cooking--we don't have centuries of rooted populations and traditions to draw from.

I agree that the regionality can be confusing. While it is important of course to understand the addage that there is no "true" Italian cuisine and that region, microregions, and even villages can differ sharply in traditions, it is confounding I think to start at that point. I found it better to start large with the general understanding of the old "Northern vs. Southern" distinction and go from there, peeling back more layers of understanding and going deeper the more I learned. Now when I put together a regional dish it's not even enough to have it be all from the same region, but I even make sure it's from the same town! As an example of this, I got a regional Spanish cookbook at Christmas and I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around it since I don't have that base understanding of Spanish style and culture yet.

All right then. We'll arrive in Bari and then hit the next train to Monopoli and use that as a base for going to Alberobello. Then we'll stop at Ostuni next. I continue to hear good things about it, particularly Tempo Perso (sp?) and a number of great sounding B&B's that also have dinner service. Oddly enough it looks like the expensive stays are going to be Puglia, instead of Rome, where originally we had budgeted for the opposite.

Puglia planning continues . . . The general vibe I'm getting about Bari is that it's only good for arriving at, and then you get the hell out of there. Hotel and restaurant sites keep diverting me to Ostuni and Lecce, or list ludicrously expensive hotels in Bari proper. Should I bother with trying with Bari or just get going? Again, we're still thinking the majority of our travel will be by train, and will not be renting a car. Ostuni looks interesting though. Lecce and Alberobello are definites, with Monopoli and possibly Gallipoli thrown in. Monopoli also seems thin on the places to stay/restauant front. Suggestions? Websites to check out? I've already hit slowtrav, Igougo, tripadvisor, and very little luck.

Are there any restaurants that use these items in their cooking? Are there regulations preventing them from doing so?

Friuli was a real eye-opener for me, too, when I came across it. I was getting kind of bored and arrogant in my Italian cooking, thinking I had "learned it all", and then I'm reading a regional book and they have a chapter on Friuli, and there's sauerkraut soup, and gnocchi stuffed with plums . . . Since then I too have been utterly fascinated with the concept of "border cooking". Hell it's even made me appreciate Tex-Mex a little more!

Plotkin really goes into this in his somewhat ponderous (110 pages?!!!!) intro in Terra Fortunata. Trieste was the foremost edge of the Dalmatians and various other Empire's trading arms so you have all the spices coming in and distributed out. There's also he says a huge Greek community in Trieste, which is where the use of feta in some sauces comes in from. Edit: Sardinia seems to me the supreme example of "isolation" in Italian cooking. The best descriptions I've read of it is that it has been "ruled but never conquered"--various countries have laid claim to it before but haven't made inroads into it the way Sicily has. Thus the cooking styles remain untouched through the years and you have the height of rustic cooking: alot of spit and open fire roasting recipes turn up in the books I've read. And yeah, you can't get much more "distinctive" than maggot cheese!

With extended cold weather finally upon the Dallas area, I took the opportunity over the weekend to make the heavyweight of Friuli soups, La Jota. We had some last night. La Jota consists of beans, potatoes, lots o' pork, and sauerkraut. What consistently amazes me about the cooking of Friuli-Venezia-Giulia is the number of unusual flavor combinations. Chocolate gnocchi? Sauerkraut soup? Ewwww. But they all work in wonderful, subtle ways. From my observations at least, next to Sicily, I'd say Friuli has the most distinctive use of exotic and unusual flavors. You cook the soup in stages and in a number of separate pots: the beans soak and then simmer, the sauerkraut cooks down for a while with smoked pork (I just used bacon), and the meat is blanched separately to leech out some of its fat. I use a half-rack of pork spareribs and simmer it until the bones easily slide out, then shred the meat. Then you cook everything together for an hour or two with peeled potatoes. Traditionally you stir in a little polenta at the end to thicken the soup. Instead, I serve it with cornbread (to make sure I'm offending traditions on both sides of the Atlantic, the cornbread is sweetened!). If there's any dish to try to make from Friuli, I'd say this is the one. Despite the sauerkraut, it tastes instantly, classically familiar when you try it. The 'kraut gets a little sweet as it cooks down with the bacon, and its lingering tartness helps cut the fat and richness in the soup.

What's not to like? It gets right to the heart of the matter: melted cheese. Screw all that other stuff that just gets in the way, like a tortilla chip or pizza underneath it.

I made a batch this past fall with homemade pasta ribbons in there. What really, really made the soup was that I added prosciutto rind to the soup as it cooked. It leant the whole thing a viscous texture and porky flavor throughout. It's nothing at all new but really it makes a giant difference.

Very enjoyable. I was impressed with both efforts, particularly the fava-crusted buffalo and Flay's buffalo chop. My only quibble is that I wish they'd spend a little more time on the background of the challenger: Bayless is such a luminary in the field, and I was really looking forward to him going against Flay, but the credits rolled and they just cut immediately to the challenger, the IC, and the ingredient selection.

Expense-wise, Venice is fairly pricey in comparison to the rest of Italy. There are some restaurants that serve meat; in fact there was one near Piazza San Marco that had a very interesting looking menu posted out front and it was mostly grilled meat items. I'll check my notes for the name but I don't think I have the address. One route for both seafood-free and less expensive eating is to look for "cicchetti"--snacks that are like tapas, in any number of bars throughout town. They have them on display so you can see what you're getting, and there are many non-fish items: sandwiches, wedges of frittata, pickled vegetables, etc. As is usual in eating out in Italy, you pay more if you get a table, so eat them standing up. Eat a few and then move on to the next place that looks interesting for a fun little evening on the town.

Ate out a couple of times last week, so the first new meal was cooked on 01/16. Menu: Antipasto: Frico--Plain, "Stuffed" with Bacon, "Stuffed" with chopped pickle Primo: "Gnocchi di Cjalson" Secondo: Prosciutto in crosta; braised cabbage with cumin Dolce: Baked pear custard Frico are a cheese crisp. Coarsley grated montasio cheese is sprinkled in a little pile on a hot griddle. The cheese melts and browns; then you flip it and cook it briefly just to set the other side. Other versions call for a longer cooking time and you virtually coat the bottom of a small skillet with the cheese and cook and melt it slowly. To stuff them you sprinkle the filling over a bottom layer of cheese, then a little more cheese on top. Let it melt and brown a little and flip. The pickle ones were the favorite. Gnocchi di cjalson are a modification of cjalson, a festive stuffed pasta. Historically, they were made to herald the return of a village's shepherds and tradesmen, who returned from the mountains with pockets full of herbs and exotic spices that then went into the pasta filling (Plotkin does a much better job explaining their history than I just did). An unbelievable number of separate ingredients goes into the filling--Plotkin lists twenty-two!--I just picked a few highlights that I had on hand. While they are traditionally a stuffed pasta, I did a lot of stuffed pastas over the holidays and still have a few coming up that I know about, and am a little tired of the production. On his show, Mario Batali has made them more as a gnocchi, which I find much more accessible and less time consuming. In my gnocchi di cjalson: chocolate, cinnamon, chives, nutmeg, pear, potato, ricotta, flour, egg, orange and lemon zests. Here they are rolled out: And here they are. sauced with butter, broth, a pinch of sugar, and ample roasted ricotta: Roasted ricotta is a great little find. Very delicate, sweet, and almost has its own chocolatey, cinnamon-y flavor. Very unusual dish, to say the least. Not sweet and yet not savory. You think it wouldn't work at all but the spices are added in such small amounts that they don't dominate, and the potato goes a long way towards making it much more savory in flavor. For the main, it was "Prosciutto in Crosta": Ham baked in a crust. Traditionally it's a whole ham, but I just bought a large slice of precooked, French-style ham; my local store normally carried Prosciutto Cotto from Italy but were out at the time. The crust is a yeasted dough with chopped rosemary, lard, and butter. I chose to garnish it with browned butter, grated apple, and horseradish, which worked very well. The contorno was braised cabbage and cumin, and the two take quite well to each other. I would have taken a picture of it cut up, but I baked the crust a little too long and it fell apart when you went in to serve it. Likewise, no pic of dessert, a baked pear custard, which also fell apart flipping it out of the pan. Wine-wise I've been trying to track down Tocai, the famous Friuli white, with little luck, except some pricey bottles at my local store, and I'm too much of a swigging drink kind of guy to justify the expense and appreciate the subtleties found in the higher range bottles. Interesting Tocai note: Plotkin relates that the EU has dictated that starting in 2006, the name "tocai" will be exlcusively granted to Hungary and their sweet dessert wine, "tockay". Tocai from Friuli will now be called "Furlan" after their local dialect. So I guess those bottles out there with "Tocai" on their labels are collector's items now! We also finished with slivovitz, a plum brandy from Slovenia, right next door to Friuli.

Didn't get the name . . . it's around the corner Ristorante from Montegrappa Da'Nello, tucked in a back alley. This was another place where we fell for the table fee and sat down. Ristorante Montegrappa Da'Nello, btw, is a good eating destination as well.

Yeah, I'm combing EG right now for information and ran across your old posts about Mondays. That was our experience before also. That will be some stress, I can tell.

I'm wondering if Speck (smoked prosciutto) would have gone well in the pasuticce? I'm led to believe that it's "lightly" smoked but the product I get here is from Austria and tends to dominate whatever dish it's in. Anyways, that's a possible alternate. Bastianish also says that you can make the pasuticce into "fuzi" by wrapping them around the handle of a wooden spoon, but that was too much effort even for me.

Incidentally, we've decided to throw caution to the wind and booked the trip to Italy Feb 28-Mar 10. First four days will be in Rome and then Saturday morning we will leave for Puglia. I need to refresh my research on Puglia but right off the bat, how put out will we be being in Puglia on a Sunday? Will it be hard to come by places to eat or go to? I'll have more questions as I go along.

Hi Michael: Were any of the sandwiches you tried the piadine (sp?)--flatbread--variety? We went to one place and did a piadine sampler and they were pretty solid. Bologna is the one place we went on our trip where I'd gladly play restaurant lottery and pick a random restaurant for dinner and probably come out ahead. Fantastic and unsung eating destination.

I'll look into the Passion for Piedmont book. With all that cooking over the weekend it's pretty much leftovers most of this week!

The meal I can count on to consistently please: Chicken Putanesca Sweet and Sour Eggplant Stuffed Artichokes Cannoli

Sunday's meal: Primo: Pasuticce (sp?) with Prosciutto San Daniele, Poppyseeds, and Montegrappa cheese. Secondo: Lamb "braised backwards" with brown butter and horseradish served atop toasted polenta; sweet and sour beets. Pasuticce are a variation on pappardelle, the wide, ribbon noodles usually seen in Emilia Romagna and Tuscany. After they are rolled out and cut into pappardelle, you go through and cut them again on the diagonal. Here's a pic of them rolled out and cut, ready to go: I used Lidia Bastianich's book La Cucina di Lidia as point of reference, but please don't mistake my sloppy cutting as the real item! Sauced them with a little reduced broth and butter. Put half of the total poppyseeds and prosciutto into the broth/butter as it reduced. Tossed the pasta once cooked with this mixture, then garnished with chives, more poppyseeds, prosciutto San Daniele, and coarsely grated Montegrappa cheese. Central Market was out of Montasio, which would have been the cheese normally called for. The main was the aforementioned lamb "braised backwards", from Diane Darrow and Tom Maresca's excellent regional treatise, La Tavola Italiana. Indeed, you put everything in the pot at once: meat, aromatics, fat, and liquid, bring to a boil, cover and cook for half an hour over lowered heat. Then you remove the lid and raise the heat a little and cook the liquid completely away, and the meat and aromatics glaze and brown a little. The meat stayed firm almost the entire time, but right when the sauce was evaporating it miraculously became meltingly tender. Serve over polenta and top with browned butter and horseradish. I'm sorry I didn't get a "before and after" shot of the meat as it cooked in the pot, but here's the finished product, ready to serve: No picture of the sweet and sour beets, another recipe from Plotkin. Roast the beets until tender, peel and cube them, then cook them with a little butter, vinegar, sugar, and water (only a few tablespoons of each). Meanwhile, slice some onion into thin rings and steam it for a few minutes to get rid of the raw, harsh bite. Plotkin calls for the onions to be ladled onto a plate and the beets put on top but I just stirred them together and served. The sweet and sour wasn't as pronunced as it is in other agrodolce dishes, but then it probably shouldn't be for a contorno. So my wife did indeed enjoy the lamb after I had aggressively trimmed off the fat, the source of the meat's lamb-y, gamey flavor. As with the cevapcici from Saturday, though, a key ingredient kind of lost its flavor in the muddle: the horseradish lost some of its pungency in the browned butter. Next time I would grate fresh, raw horseradish over the whole dish in addition to the browned butter/horseradish sauce. Also, I'd part with the recipe instructions to cook the liquid from the braise completely away and instead leave just a little concentrated sauce. Off topic: I've noticed the pictures seem to stretch the frames a little. Any way to reduce them? Also, is there any way to upload images for posts directly from a hard disk? Currently I'm having to load them into my photo album on egullet and then post the URL from there.

Ecr: Any Piemonte cookbooks to recommend?

Good point on that, Divina. We got burned in Venice on our first morning there when the elderly proprietor of a bakery we went to insisted we sit down for breakfast, only to get walloped with a 12 Euro "seating" fee. And here we thought she was just fussing over us . . .