A year of Italian cooking

[kellytree]

good boy Kevin !

[Adam Balic]

Cool, I like the pasta idea. I can see that certain individuals of my acquaintance would make complaint along the lines "Nice pasta, pity about the buggery seeds stuck in my teeth". Do you think that it would be permissible to remove most of the seeds and rely on the flavour of the oil?

[Kevin72]

That's actually not a bad idea at all. The seeds got a little more toasty than I'd have wanted (still adapting to that gas burner) and became a little tedious at times. Go for it, just don't invite any Basilicatan shepherds over when you do.

[Kevin72]

September in Dallas brings the dawning excitement that hopefully in just two months we’ll actually have a cool day to look forward to. With that in mind, we leave the southern-centric cooking of the past few months and start making our way back northwards. This is another “two-fer” month, this time the honest, robust cooking of Umbria and Le Marche.

Here again, I feel that I have to explain that doing two regions in one month does not mean to say that the cuisines of each are indistinguishable. Rather, they are just relatively unexplored in cookbook literature in the United States. Umbria is beginning to enjoy some interest thanks to spillover from tourist-saturated Tuscany, but poor Le Marche, just to the east, is largely ignored. As with Basilicata in August, it gets the short end of the stick this month and there are only a handful of meals I’ll be cooking from there.

Chief references other than Culinaria and di Blasi (both were two more regions Mario never got to): the oddly-named cookbook Umbria by Julia della Croce and for Le Marche . . . niente.

Della Croce’s Umbria begins with a fantastic treatment of the region’s history, particularly the impact of the mysterious Etruscans and the locals’ centuries-long resistance to and resentment of papal dominance. Unfortunately, the rest of the book is woefully short: the “antipasti” chapter is actually an amalgamation of antipasti and “sauces”; the vegetables chapter has only seven recipes, and the desserts chapter has five (and one of those is candied orange peel?!). But it’s the only one available, and for such a short book, she really conveys an idea of the cuisine and its major flavor elements: truffles, fennel, black pepper, and salumi.

While I have managed to come up with a good spread of meals that I hope are a fair representation of each region, I’d love to know more about their traditional dishes and/or good cooking references. Kellytree, Hathor, I’m lookin’ at you.

[Kevin72]

We dove in Friday night with a couple of items from Le Marche.

First up, a mussel dish from di Blasi’s Regional Foods of Northern Italy. Arrange several branches of pine over a fire, then put mussels atop, then lay more branches atop them, and let ‘em burn. I instead used some rosemary from the monstrous bush we inherited at the new place.

Before:

After:

Needless to say, the mussels were completely suffused with a smoky, rosemary flavor. Unfortunately, these are the limpid, end-of-summer mussels with very little meat. About a third didn't open, some that did looked an unappealing grey or looked "melted" inside the shell, and so got tossed out. But those four mussels we managed to eat were great!

The secondo were calamari en porchetta. Porchetta, normally a whole pig stuffed with sausage, breadcrumbs, wild fennel, and rosemary and then spit-roasted, is a specialty of the “Central Italian” regions of Tuscany, Umbria, Le Marche, Lazio, and Abruzzo. (I made a pork tenderloin version for Easter: click) But in both Umbria and Le Marche it reaches a near fever pitch, so much so that there is an entire cooking method called “en porchetta” where an item is stuffed with the same ingredients listed above and cooked. So, calamari tubes are stuffed with sausage, fennel, and rosmary, then simmered with white wine, garlic, and chilies.

Really good. The pork-y sausage flavor mingled with the buttery braised calamari flavor to create something new. We had to consciously restrain ourselves from preventing leftovers.

Wanna see what you get when you buy 2 bunches of Swiss chard and braise them with butter, white wine, garlic, and nutmeg?

Edited September 3, 2005 by Kevin72 (log)

[Kevin72]

Yay, it's time for more improvised dishes based on a limited understanding of the cuisine!

Last night, for our first meal in Umbria, I cooked one of my wife's all-time favorite meals, and a beginning of fall, end of summer tradition.

We started with a type of handmade pasta called umbricelli or circiole. Normally these are a type of spaghetti that are made by rolling small pieces in between your palms to form thin ropes. I've done this before and it's way too much of a production, so I did them in the same method as for maccheroni alla chittarra from Abruzzo: roll them to setting 4 out of 6 on my pasta machine, then cut into fettuccine width. In the introduction to the recipe in Umbria, Julia della Croce mentions that sometimes they make their pasta out of their beloved farro, which I tried to approximate by using spelt flour. For the condimento, it was grape tomatoes seared in a hot pan with olive oil, then arugula, chives, and coarsely-grated, younger pecorino.

The main is based on a recipe in Lynne Rossetto Kasper's Italian Country Table for Tuscan-style grilled pork ribs. At the time I first read it, I was really getting into knowing more about Umbria, and so I added two what seemed quite traditional Umbrian flavoring ingredients: ample black pepper and fennel seeds, to a "rub" of salt and rosemary. Smear olive oil over a rack of ribs (I use spareribs, Kasper uses "country-style"), then rub in salt, rosemary leaves, fennel seeds, and black pepper, all minced together or ground in a spice mill together, and let sit overnight. The next day, place them on a rack set over a pan, wrap in foil, and place in a 250F oven for a few hours (I went 3). Then, crust them over a hot grill.

They're done when you can pull a bone out with just the slightest twist--in fact, the grill part is just to give them a nice, smokey flavor and to crust up that rub; they should, obviously, be pretty much cooked already after 3 hours in an oven. Meltingly soft, smokey, full of big, bold flavors from the fennel, black pepper, and rosemary.

So this is the dish my wife loves so. She's been looking forward to it all year, so much so in fact that there have been a few months where, when I announce what the region will be, she asks "Is this the one with the ribs?"

The contorno were braised mushrooms (chaunterelle and cremini) with chilies, garlic, and anchovy. They go perfectly with the ribs and create a full-on, earthy experience that really is a perfect way to set the stage for autumn.

I bought and Umrbian red (Vitiano) to drink with the meal, but was also overjoyed to see that now my store is carrying Due Palme Salento Primitivo, which we had and greatly enjoyed when we went to Puglia this past spring and ate at Osteria del'Tempo Perso in Ostuni. It's a rich, sweet, fruity wine, not nearly as thick and sweet as primitivo di Manduria, but a mediation between that and your standard Primitivo. But, good as this meal was, every drink did make me wish I had some 'cappriatta on hand . . .

Edited September 4, 2005 by Kevin72 (log)

[mrbigjas]

Wanna see what you get when you buy 2 bunches of Swiss chard and braise them with butter, white wine, garlic, and nutmeg?

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yeah but it's TOTALLY WORTH IT.

best vegetable ever.

[hathor]

Yo! Kellytree...we need to help this guy out!! You do the fish...I'll do the meat. OK?

First thing: what's your access to really good salumi, sausage, prosciutto, fresh porcini, guanciale, pancetta?

Try this for an antipasto: guanciale with fresh bay leaves. Get pan hot-hot. Toss in the guanciale and melt the fat, don't scorch, when you have enough fat in the pan, and its hot, toss in the bay leaves. They should only need a few seconds to get crispy. Finish with a little white wine vinegar. Eat quickly. Seriously addicitive.

Umbrian food is all about contadini food, and the orto. I'll dig around and pick out some of my best recipes. But, keep the 'brace' fire going...grilled meats is truly the taste of Umbria. And lots of lamb, on the grill or scotto ditto style.

Right now we've had excellent conditions for early porcini, and every one is canning the pomodori. Its also apparently the season for chickens laying eggs....all of my neighbors have been giving me eggs...do I look protein deficient or something?? Frittatas and omelettes are big on the Umbrian home fire.

I'll stop rambling and go do some homework for you, ok?

ciao!

P.s. to cook something 'in porchetta' in Le Marche speak means to cook it with fennel. Confusing if you ask me...

[Kevin72]

yeah but it's TOTALLY WORTH IT.

best vegetable ever.

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Really? I mean, I like it and all, but it's pretty far down my list. Certainly a little more going on than spinach, but I'm much more of a kale man myself.

[Kevin72]

Yo! Kellytree...we need to help this guy out!! You do the fish...I'll do the meat. OK?     

First thing: what's your access to really good salumi, sausage, prosciutto, fresh porcini, guanciale, pancetta?

Try this for an antipasto: guanciale with fresh bay leaves. Get pan hot-hot. Toss in the guanciale and melt the fat, don't scorch, when you have enough fat in the pan, and its hot, toss in the bay leaves. They should only need a few seconds to get crispy. Finish with a little white wine vinegar. Eat quickly. Seriously addicitive.

Umbrian food is all about contadini food, and the orto.  I'll dig around and pick out some of my best recipes. But, keep the 'brace' fire going...grilled meats is truly the taste of Umbria. And lots of lamb, on the grill or scotto ditto style.

Right now we've had excellent conditions for early porcini, and every one is canning the pomodori. Its also apparently the season for chickens laying eggs....all of my neighbors have been giving me eggs...do I look protein deficient or something??    Frittatas and omelettes are big on the Umbrian home fire. 

I'll stop rambling and go do some homework for you, ok?

ciao!

P.s. to cook something 'in porchetta' in Le Marche speak means to cook it with fennel. Confusing if  you ask me...

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Excellent, looking forward to your insights. Don't be shy, pipe up if I have a misstep!

Salumi: decent availability, but I've lamented the guanciale situation here before when I was doing Rome. I'd order it special, but there's another Umbrian ingredient I'll be springing for this month already. Fresh porcini are a rarity and, last time I saw them, $54 a pound!

The grill will be going alot the next couple of months. In fact, I'd almost say I use as much, if not more, in the fall than I do the summer.

Eggs are mentioned quite a bit in della Croce's book. Quite a few of the antipasti, in fact, are frittate variations.

[mrbigjas]

yeah but it's TOTALLY WORTH IT.

best vegetable ever.

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Really? I mean, I like it and all, but it's pretty far down my list. Certainly a little more going on than spinach, but I'm much more of a kale man myself.

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i don't know what it is about chard, i just like it--maybe because it's milder, it's versatile in a way that kale isn't. i mean, because of this thread i think how great it is in frittatas, in ravioli, satueed/braised like you did above. but other preparations really work for it too--like a french pie recipe i found once with ham and hard boiled eggs and chard and bechamel wrapped in puff pastry. the stems are great gratineed. baby chard is good in salad.

it's all good though. i like every leafy green vegetable--chard, all the various kales, spinach, mustard, collards, pea shoots, brussels, yu choy, bok choy--you name it, i like it. i have yet to find one i don't.

[kellytree]

swiss chard is great - easy to grow - impossible to kill and you can find a place for it in almost any meal (not that you would want to do that but if you had to you could. Sorta like what we are doing with the zucchini these days.

I live in the "mountain" part of the Marche - typical meals here would be pappardelle (flat noodles about an inch wide) with cinghiale (boar) --- its good but nothing that special (tomato sauce with chunks of meat in it - whopee.)

coniglio in porchetta is excellent. Basically you stuff a bunny with wild fennel, pancetta, garlic - tie the bunny shut and brown in a frying pan, add some white wine and then into the oven for about an hour every so often basting the meat.

You can also make snails in porchetta but I prefer rabbit.

Vincisgrassi is another typical dish here - usually its a white lasagna with mushrooms but some people make it with tomato sauce as well.

more later- my boss is yelling at me.

[FoodMan]

You can also make snails in porchetta but I prefer rabbit.

I would imagine stuffing those suckers is a real pain .

Elie

[hathor]

Elie...you don't stuff those suckers...you just put them in with some fennel!!

Lumachine (little sea snails) or Raguse (big sea snails) in porchetta:

Ingredients: olive oil, garlic, tomato paste, carrot, olive oil, thyme, marjoram, parsley, and wild fennel, salt, pepper, peperoncion, dry white wine, fish stock.

If you can get your hands on some sea snails, I'll give you the whole run down on cleaning them etc. etc. Basically you clean the snails, and then stew them in the ingredients above. This turned out to be one of my all time favorite dishes!

Can you locate some "stocafisso"? Air dryed codfish...not salted baccala. It makes a huge difference.

Hmmm....vincigrassi....when we made it, it was a whole other thing. Namely it was made with organ meats. Here's a list of ingredients from one of the recipes that I have: ground veal, cocks comb and testicles, chicken liver, veal brains, sweetbreads, one back (as in chicken or veal...as you like), carrots, onion, garlic, celery, prosciuto, pomodoro passata, wine, milk, brodo, dry porcini, butter, salt, pepper and parmigiano.

But, in looking thru one of my references, I see a Vincigrassi di Matelica that is basically a white lasagna made with pork, lamb, and veal.

Since Kellytree is in the mountains...and pretty much shares the same cuisine as we do, do you mind if I share some info on "brodetto"? Basically fish stews, but man, as these guys territorial!!

Per esampio:

Brodetto di San Benedetto: This version has green and red peppers, and green tomatoes and pepperoncini

Brodetto di Porto Recanti: this is a creamy and mild brodetto that uses saffron and has a lovely color (to me...its a little bland)

Brodetto all Fanese: relies on tomato paste to differentiate it, also uses peperoncino

Brodetto all'Anconetana: probably the 'base line' brodetto, it has olive oil, onion, garlic, peperoncino, vinegar, parsley, some canned tomato and some fresh. The Fanese is a stronger tomato base brodetto.

OH! OH! Try this:

Vongole alla Poveraccia

Chop up some garlic, anchovies (preserved), chili peppers and parsley

Heat up some olive oil Add the clams and cook until the clams open, add some black pepper

Simple, but really tasty. The anchovy flavor just brings a whole new dimension to the tried and true steamed clam.

I'm paraphrasing these recipes as some come from school, and some from books and I don't want to step on any copyright toes...if you know what I mean.

I'll look thru some meat books tommorow. But, don't go for those 'clean' cuts...try to find meat that has some character (bones, gristle, fat). Hard to explain, but those processed cuts found in the U.S. just lack the "texture" of the meat in Umbria. We went to a local festa this summer, and I swear we were served 'bone sandwiches". The lamb chunks had been grilled and then put into a big roll, but the lamb chunk to meat ratio was about 80% bone/gristle to meat. Apparently, only we stranieri were bothered by this, everyone else gnawed around the meat, tossed the bones and ate the bread with all the juices soaked up.

And one more short story, then I'll be quiet, I promise: this morning, I came home from the market and there on my doorstep was a box of salad, cucumber, celery that had been left there by my neighbor. Sort of like a visit from the vegetable fairy. Now, I've lived in New York City for the past 150,000 years, so stuff like that just makes me smile all day!

[Kevin72]

Wow, thanks for all the ideas and a great breakdown of each area. So, what did you think of the rib dish then, esp. using the more boney, knobby spareribs? Would it make an Umbrian proud?

I'll look to try those clams soon.

[Hector]

I'm looking forward to Valle D'Aosta!!!! let see you making Civet and Fonduta, rustic alpine treats!

[hathor]

Your ribs look terrific...I only wish I could smell them too!

What about crostini?? or bruschetta? Bruschetta in this part of the world means toasted bread rubbed with raw garlic a smear of olive oil and some salt. Divine. Addicitive. Resist the temptation to garlic both sides of the bread.

[Kevin72]

This weekend in Dallas we had the annual GrapeFest Wine Festival (I did a report on it on the Texas boards) and to kick things off on Friday night I made a traditional Umbrian meal for la vendemmia, the grape harvest. And yes, I know that vendemmia usually comes a little later in the year.

First of all, I’ve recently made some Pane Pecorino, a bread traditional to both Umbria and Le Marche (though in Umbria it’s formed into a ring shape). I made this version like a focaccia, with plenty of grated pecorino folded in, then topped with even more pecorino and baked.

Earlier I had said that Mario never got to Umbria on his shows, but I forgot that I have some of his older shows from the ‘90’s on tape (Nerd Alert!) and there’s some Umbrian episodes on there. One of them was for a sage frittata with a celery-tomato sauce, which started off our meal, along with a wedge of the pecorino bread.

I think the tomato sauce is a little unnecessary, actually, but I keep forgetting not to make it every time I do this dish.

The secondo is a traditional item made throughout northern Italy: sausage with grapes. Some variations have links cooked in a pan with grapes; I like this version from di Blasi’s Regional Foods of Northern Italy where you make sausage patties and stuff halved grapes in them, then toss them on the grill. Make a little pan-sauce for them with red wine, vinegar, more grapes, and shallots to top them. The contorno were braised greens (collard) with potatoes.

[Kevin72]

Sunday night I took a pretty bold step and ventured into rabbit territory. My wife and I have both had it (in Italy, and stuffed into tamales at an excellent Mexican restaurant in Houston), but I’ve never made it and didn’t know how well it would go over. In fact, it was top-secret with the wife until we sat down for dinner.

To soften the blow, though, I made another favorite dish of hers to start things off: black pepper pasta rottolo from the aforementioned Mario Batali shows. The pasta sheets are blanched, shocked in ice water, sponged off, and then you spread a filling of sausage, ricotta, and Swiss chard into them and roll them up. Place in a pan, top with béchamel and parmigiano and pecorino cheeses, then bake. Slice and serve, and watch them fall immediately apart into a rather unappealing-looking (but very tasty) mess.

All right. The rabbit. I had been planning to cook some sort of rabbit dish this month anyways, and when Adam mentioned a few pages back a rabbit dish “smothered in pancetta” I decided this was the version I’d try. I found no recipes for it in my resources, however, and am a little leery of roasting such a lean meat, so I decided to go for a braise and do a variation on a style of cooking called “potacchio” involving pancetta, capers, sage, and garlic. I floured the rabbit, browned it off, then deglazed with vinegar and half of the potacchio mixture. Rabbit went back in the pan, along with white wine, and was braised to falling-apart stage. Everything was removed, and the remaining potacchio ingredients, along with the livers, were added to the pan, cooked a bit, then more vinegar was added to deglaze and this was then served on the side to augment the rabbit. The contorno for the meal were roasted carrots and fennel from della Croce’s Umbria cookbook. In that recipe, she directs separate roasting for the carrots and fennel, but part of the fun, to me, of roasting vegetables is putting them all in a pan together and letting them trade flavors, so that’s how I went with this, too.

Man, I hate to sound like a cliché here, but for all the expense, I’d have been better off with chicken, which this was nearly indistinguishable with. My wife was reluctant at first, I gave her the least rabbit-like cut (loin) and she got into it after a few bites. Good enough, but you don’t get as much meat as you’d think looking at one of the pieces. Somewhat tough, so, despite trying to braise it in an attempt to keep it moist, that didn’t work out.

Dessert was a convent specialty, serpentone, a “serpent” of puff pastry stuffed with dried pears and raisins that had been reconstituted in a spiced red wine, then mixed with walnuts, chocolate, and pine nuts.

[hathor]

Hmmmm...too bad about the bunny. Coniglio should be gamier, more flavorful, firmer texture than chicken. Somewhere there is an indepth discussion of rabbit recipes on eG...but I'm on dial up and I can't find it. Ore, Kellytree and Divinia all pipe up with excellent versions. Don't give up on the bunny. Now, if you could just find some lepre....

Umbrian and Le Marche food is so simple, and so ingredient driven that I think in a strange way these are two of the hardest regions. You can't fudge anything because there are so few ingredients to begin with. I've been involved in deep discussions on whether it is at all possible or desirable to have any more than 3 ingredients in any one dish. Roasting carrots and fennel together would be total heresy according to these Umbrians or Marchigiani. I'm not saying that I don't ever put more than 3 ingredients in an Umbrian style dish, I'm only mentioning this for some insight into the cuisine.

When we first started spending time here, I found it down right scary to cook Umbrian, you have to have everything perfect or it doesn't work, there's just no way to fudge it with a little butter or sauce, if you know what I mean. Backing off from lots of ingredients was hard for me. Still is.

[Kevin72]

Hmmmm...too bad about the bunny. Coniglio should be gamier, more flavorful, firmer texture than chicken.  Somewhere there is an indepth discussion of rabbit recipes on eG...but I'm on dial up and I can't find it.  Ore, Kellytree and Divinia all pipe up with excellent versions. Don't give up on the bunny.  Now, if  you could just find some lepre....

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See, I wonder if they keep that gamey flavor in the U.S. product. There were a few bites here and there that had a different flavor, but overall it was like overcooked chicken. Picked up a good flavor from the potacchio sauce, though.

I'm really interested to try lepre, but only in Italy and certainly not anything I'm willing to cook. My wife doesn't do the gamey flavor so well.

Umbrian and Le Marche food is so simple, and so ingredient driven that I think in a strange way these are two of the hardest regions. You can't fudge anything because there are so few ingredients to begin with. I've been involved in deep discussions on  whether it is at all possible or desirable to have any more than 3 ingredients in any one dish.  Roasting carrots and fennel together would be total heresy according to these Umbrians or Marchigiani.  I'm not saying that I don't ever put more than 3 ingredients in an Umbrian style dish, I'm only mentioning this for some insight into the cuisine.

When we first started spending time here, I found it down right scary to cook Umbrian, you have to have everything perfect or it doesn't work, there's just no way to fudge it with a little butter or sauce, if you know what I mean. Backing off from lots of ingredients was hard for me. Still is.

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But the carrot and fennel recipe was from an Umbrian cookbook!

So am I doing it right with the flavoring elements: rosemary, sage, pepper, fennel? Seems like you're suggesting a much more austere cuisine than I'd been led to believe.

[FoodMan]

Kevin-

I am, as you might know by now, a big Mario fan and it amazes me how many of his shows you seem to have. How do you know where each episode is? Do you have them catalogued ? Now...er..I don't know how to say this...but how do I get my hands on some copies? Just kidding.

From previous discussions about rabbit we had on eG it seems like the farmed stuff we buy here might not be worth it. Like you said it's more like chicken. If you can get your hands on some free range or wild rabbit, then it might be worth the price.

Elie

[MarkDM]

Kevin,

I've been away for several months and now catching up on your great dinnners. I've also been remiss by not writing my travel/food report from my trip through Basilicata and Puglia in May. I have a pretty good excuse- I now own and operate a restaurant in Clearwater, FL. (no doubt due to a moment of temporary insanity). Alas, it is not an Italian restaurant. After all, your first house isn't always your dream house. However, I have considered integrating some of your compositions and you have inspiried me to work with the chef on integrating some aspects of regional Italian dishes. It will be good practice for when I can open the little neighborhood Italian place.

Let me know where to send the royalties.

Mark

[Pan]

Kevin, I particularly liked the look of that serpentone. That looks like something I'd like to eat!

About that pane pecorino bread, what kind of pecorino would they normally use in Umbria? I'm not familiar with umbrese pecorino, but I do know that pecorino toscano is a lot different from pecorino romano.

[Kevin72]

Kevin-

I am, as you might know by now, a big Mario fan and it amazes me how many of his shows you seem to have. How do you know where each episode is? Do you have them catalogued ? Now...er..I don't know how to say this...but how do I get my hands on some copies? Just kidding.

From previous discussions about rabbit we had on eG it seems like the farmed stuff we buy here might not be worth it. Like you said it's more like chicken. If you can get your hands on some free range or wild rabbit, then it might be worth the price.

Elie

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As a lover of many an underappreciated and invariably cancelled TV shows (Mystery Science Theater anyone? Hello?) I've learned to tape as much as you can, when you can. Consequently I have I'd think about 90% of his new MM's on tape and maybe a third of the older version from the 90s. Not the best of quality since I taped it on SLP. And now, I'll watch an old episode, accidentally leave the tape in, and record a TV show over it, so there's quite a few holes in them.