Stevarino

A side note, I have hours of video that i'd like to stage step by step photos like the Tiella post. I don't know how to achieve that but I'm sure its possible. If anyone is familiar with iMovie on Mac, and can save me some time researching, I'd appreciate all advice. Thanks Otherwise, this might take me awhile Guess what? I've got it down, and I'm really excited about how its working out so far.

The evidence continues to mount against that old dictum. Perhaps I react strongly to it since I grew up with it. ← Although when we were dining in a restaurant in Rome we saw a couple ask for cheese for their pasta with shrimp, and were firmly and pointedly denied said cheese! ← We were also shown a bread stuffing made with the same bread crumbs, cheese, eggs, garlic, and parsley, that they use to stuff mussels & cuttlefish. IT IS SO GOOD! I'll post pictures of those as well.

Good luck, and I look forward to hearing of your success on that! I understand that they are available canned, or "Jarred" in I think olive oil. I will check on that and see if I can find out who the importer is again. I know they have a website, I just can't remember the name.

Puntarella is one of my favorite salad greens - we always eat lots of it when we've visited Rome - as a salad it's served with a very garlicky/anchovy flavored dressing. The prep is complex, but in the Campo de' Fiori puntarella is generally sold already prepped and sitting in a basin of cold water, which causes it to curl up beautifully. In David Downie's Cooking the Roman Way, there's a 2-page description of how the vegetable is prepped! I've seen it at Agata & Valentina, and at the Union Square Greenmarket when the green vegetables are in full swing. Great pix, Stevarino - keep 'em coming. ← Thanks for that most excellent lead Weinoo! I will look for that book. And so, it is not simply harvested from the field, and dressed as a salad? I recall Hathors lengthy info on Radicchio, in her contributiion to the Veneto. Anything like that?

You are very welcome Hathor, and thank you as well for your contributions. I have thoroughly enjoyed your generosity here, and your blogs.

I am extremely happy to share it with you!

Tiella alla Barese as requested!!! Okay, this is what it looks like after baking, and now I'll show you how to put it together. http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/11802246..._4698_42604.jpg Put some water in a pan. Peel and slice some potatoes, slice some onion, chop some cherry tomatoes, and some parsley. Put everything in the water with the sliced potatoes. Prep the mussels by either shucking them raw, or you can cheat, and steam them open with a little white wine. Just add any liquid rendered to the potatoes. Put down a layer of the potatoes in the bottom of your casserole dish. Sprinkle the potatoes with grated canestrato Pugliese, and a layer of mussels on the half shell. Lay down a layer of arborio rice over the mussels. Lay down another layer of the sliced potatoes. Now pour the water, and whatever else is left in the pan, over the top. Sprinkle the top of the casserole with grated canestrato Pugliese, Bread crumbs, from the pane di Atamura, and extra virgin olive oil. Bake it till its done. In the US, you can do it with mussels mixed with oysters to insify the flavor that would be closer to what it tastes like there.

And, in order to cook "Cucina Pugliese" you must use extra virgin olive oil from Puglia! And that means for everything. If its not extra virgin, its not worth cooking with. Heat control is therefore important as to not lose any of the love.

All your photos are excellent, but this one is exceptional. I have to say that the monkfish is beautiful as well. Keep'em coming. ← All photo credits go to Chef Bernardo. He did all the still shots, and I rolled the video of the demos.

Look at the color of the lamb. It is pale in color compared to what we know. The supply of local lamb is reserved for special occasions, like Easter. They import New Zealand lamb for volume supply. The same for the horemeat.

The Cucina consists mostly of seafood, but lamb is probably the most traditional meat. Horse is also eaten in Puglia. I had read about it in Roots Foods of Italy, and asked about it. They brought in some sausage, and small cutlets for us to try. I will try anything for the experience. They squeezed the raw sausage out of the casing, and encouraged us to taste it raw like that. I thought it was pretty tasty raw. I apologize if I offended anyone, but this is all part of learning from other cultures.

Heres a fresh monkfish! Isn't this GREAT?!!!

That is a mantis shrimp on top, and those little red fish are called? I was afraid this was going to happen. Anybody know? I forget.

Back to the seafood category, fresh is always best, and it comes out of the sea, they have it. Octopus, the really scampi, and the fish is call "Hen of the Sea".

This mushroom is called "cardoncello". I don't have alot of information on other than this is their local variety. One Chef presented it with Shrimp, tengerines, and chick peas.

Docsconz, that sounds pretty close to the dish they showed us with the rape, only with the orecchiette instead. The cavatelle that they prepared for us was cooked with canellini, tomato & seafood. I'll present that at some point as well. Thanks for your interest & input, and RisiBisi to you as well.

Ceci and Fava are used quite a bit. A noted traditional dish is NCapriata, which is boiled dried fava beans, sometimes with potato for some body, and olive oil. I'm trying to give as many cooking ingredients as I can, before I start up on the preparations. potatoes are big in Puglia too. The Spanish had a period of rule here, and had some influences that stuck. Rice, as in the tiella ala Barese, and Barley is another starch that they use here as well.

These are the mussels! They are awesome! The flavor is much more pronounced than the PEI mussels that I have available to me. They were shucking these like an oyster, and very quickly. I watched, and I saw, but I can't imagine how fast. They prepared them stuffed & in the Tiella ala Barese. I'll try to elaborate on those later into this.

This is a bread called Pane di Altamura, named for the town where the bread is baked. It is based on the starter, or the sponge, that has been passed down from countless generations. The yeast imparts a particular flavor, which makes it unique, and is actually protected by DOC status.

These are called Lampascione. It looks sorta like a shallot from the outside, but is not an onion. It is the bulb of a Hyasinth flower. They are very bitter, and require blanching, and soaking in salted water, then cooked into a dish as you would use a potato, but not as an aromatic vegetable.

Hathor, I tasted it raw, and I believe they eat it dressed with olive oil & sea salt, and perhaps lemon juice? At the demonstration, they served it on a plate of grilled Cuttlefish. I haven't come accross it in the States myself, but it is commercially grown in California, but haven't bought any. I am very interested what others have to say about it as well. I was invited to participate in this cooking program, that was sponsored by the Italian Trade Commission. It was designed to share what Puglia has to offer; any regional products available for export to the States, particularly their olive oil. My association in the event resulted from a dinner that I participated in at "the Italian Culinary Institute" in NY, where we performed a "Campagnia" dinner, paired with wine from the region. We did the same, locally, with Cucina Pugliese, and its wine, when we returned to the States. Its a very rewarding way to explore Italian regional history, tradition, and cooking style!

Here's some of Chef Giacomo's ingredients for his demos. Cherry tomatoes were used exclusively. I'm not sure if they use other types of tomatoes, but we were there in Feb/March. Other ingredients are wild chickory, puntarelle, a bag of lampascione, and their go-to cheese, Canestrato Pugliese.

Here's a couple of pasta shapes that are used often in Puglia; the Orecchiete, and the cavatelle. These were brought over from a local pasta shop, not completely dry yet. Very cool.

Chef Giacomo is explaining the typical ingredients used in prpearing traditional Puglia dishes. Chef Giacomo is now showing us the broccoli rabe. The actual flower part of the rape is quite larger that what I've seen available here in the US market, and not as bitter. They chop it up, and boil it in salted water, and then add Orecchiete pasta. Drain it, and toss it with chopped garlic, and anchovy, cooked in olive oil. They use olive oil in everything they cook, including some of the pastry dough.

This is Chef Giacomo Giancaspro! He is the Dean of a Hospitality progam in Molfetta. He is also is involved with the Cuochi Barese, a chapter of the Federation of Italian Chefs. He is holding up a vegetable called "Punterella" which is related to chickory?