Cooking and Cuisine of Piemonte and Val d'Aosta

[Kevin72]

I was pretty happy with this meal though adding fish stock to a sauteed fish dish and then thickening the sauce with a flour slurry challenged my ideas of Italian cooking.

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Well, keep in mind who's right next door, and who occupied them until the mid 1800's . . .

Looks like a great meal! I've never heard of salami cotto before, either. Thanks for the web link.

[hathor]

Nathan, that all looks beautiful. Cauliflower in lard, now that sounds really good.

I've never heard of salami cotto either. Maybe it was an odd translation of something.

[mrbigjas]

you know, i just thought of something: you guys are doing piemonte this month, and next month the olympics are in turin, so i'll be able to copy all these ideas for olympics-watching parties... nice timing!

[Adam Balic]

Nathan, that all looks beautiful.  Cauliflower in lard, now that sounds really good.

I've never heard of salami cotto either. Maybe it was an odd translation of something.

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No the translation is correct, these are traditional to the area and similar to some of the cooker germanic type sausages. Both Turin and Asti have specific types, which contain cabbage, spices and herbs.

[divina]

When I am back at the market next week, I will fotograph and cook, some salami, I can get it here in Florence.

Much like Cotecchino, they are boiled before serving.

I will do chocolate and Hazelnuts... of course Giandiua, the mask of Torino, and also the chocolate praline mix.

I conducted a chocolate tour this year for professionals and we got a lesson in making giandiaua from Paul deBondt in Pisa.

[Nathan P.]

Thanks for the info Adam and Divina. Yeah my first thought was an odd translation but the recipe is available in Italian as well so the starting point was salami cotto. Cured meats is one of the harder things to replicate in the US since it is hard to find much beyond prosciutto imported. Things are improving as new salumi producers seem to be popping up these days which is a postive step.

Look forward to the market pics Divina! Give us some serious pork envy...

[Behemoth]

Had Vitello Tonnato in y'all's honor tonight. Also drank a lot in your honor so I hope you appreciate my sacrifice. Northern-most city in Italy, kids.

edit: editing grammar after a half bottle wine and several grappas is not easy, so please appreciate that too.

Edited January 11, 2006 by Behemoth (log)

[divina]

on my whole hog blog, I have started documenting pork recipes, working my way from Nose to Tail!

I have slow dialup internet so it is hard for me to post foto's here.but will try to give you some Market envy soon!

Did someone say Cardoons! My favorite!

Edited January 11, 2006 by divina (log)

[Pontormo]

Nathan: That is a beautiful meal, especially the stuffed onions!

Very WHITE!!!!

Panna cotta with fresh golden raspberries would be a perfect dessert.

[hathor]

Ciao tutti!!

We had a bit of a Bacchanal last night, naturally with a strong Piemontese accent.

Short background: my college going son hadn't been home for the winter break until this week as he was working on a film shoot. Last night was a festa for him and his old school friends. These 'Bacchanal's have become a tradition in our household whenever all these wonderful kids can get together, birthdays, or whatever excuse we can come up with to celebrate!

Now on to the menu:

While we waited for Louie to get off from work. We stared with some bubbly and 'grissini' strecchati. Making grissini is so much fun, as I explained to my diners...these were 'artisinal' looking grissini.

Primi was agnolotti in brodo. The agnolotti were stuffed with the left over veal roast, ricotta, and a little soffrito. Just a word on that salt encased veal: try it. It was fantastic the next day cold. I had to hoard a small chunk to use for the agnolotti. The brodo was a rich veal stock.

The fish course wasn't even remotely Italian, but a special request from my son.

Fresh, very spicy shrimp, quickly sauteed and served on a scoop of avocado cream. The cream soothes the shrimp fire and then all the juices get mixed up in the avocado cream, and it is just a damn good combination!

Back to Piemonte.

The meat course was a riff on the Langhe.net recipe for 'stinco al vino rosso". I love stinco, but I couldn't get any at the market. So, I subbed some nice pork ribs, which worked well and didn't scare any of the diners.

I also added some soffrito to the recipe...well, just because it looked like it needed it. I also topped it off with some crushed, crunchy warmhazelnuts.

Unfortunately I had some trouble uploading the photo, so I'll try again later.

Dessert was some lovely fruit tarts brought by a friend. There was much laughter and much wine drunk. All in a very Piemontese way, naturally!

Divina: nice to see you on this thread!! I wasn't sure what IACP was, so I googled it up, and the first hit was "International Association of Chiefs of Police". I had no idea you were the Firenze Chief of Police. That is pretty cool to be up there with Fergus Henderson! I can't wait to have some time to catch up on your "nose to tail" blog.

[marlena spieler]

Ciao Hathor, Divina, and all.......

and so we meet again!

I was looking for an italian restaurant in london for an italian chamber of commerce for one of their big delicious regions, and then thought i'd drift on down to the italian board....and what do we have here, a veritable party goin' on! cauliflower in lard, agnolotti that are floating beautifully, veal encased in salt! the most delicious looking crisp grissini! mamma mia!

piemonte: the best thing i've ever eaten there should be on any piemonte menu: but you need fresh white truffles. fresh utterly fresh and gorgeous eggs, fried in butter, firmish white runny runny yolks, then lashings, a soft pile, of truffle shavings on top. Eat it and whimper with pleasure......

x marlena

ps i think a bed of sliced artichokes might be very nice, topped with those eggs and truffles too.

[hathor]

Marlena, you are an instigator!!! We are trying not to not even think about truffles!! I love eggs and truffles...soft runny eggs. Or a butter meltingly soft slice of potato with truffles. But...I'm not in the zona at the moment...financially or physcially. so, in that case: "Let them eat grissini!"

[divina]

Ciao Marlene.. see you in london in Feb if our paths cross!

have you guys tried the new Truffle salt??? lovely food toy!

IACP perhaps culinary police!!! cheap thrills.. love it on boiled potatoes

[Nathan P.]

Nathan:  That is a beautiful meal, especially the stuffed onions!

Very WHITE!!!!

It takes a serious white boy to make such serious white food

Of course it is all this delicious monochromatic food that got the italian to make brightly painted plates to liven up brown, white and red meals.

Nice looking meal Hathor- I'm swatting other hands out of the way to grab the tall breadstick with the round knob on the top. I'm looking forward to making agnolotti in the nest couple of weeks but have not come up with a main to go with some Barbaresco I have.

[hathor]

Thanks Nathan. I kinda liked the knobby breadstick myself...

Barbaresco. What about some knock out, drop dead cheeses and just have a bread and wine fest??

[FoodMan]

This all looks so good folks! I should add some contributions in the next few days. Beef tongue in salsa rossa (from Roden's The Foods of Italy) will probably be the main course.

Now what is stinco?

[Kevin72]

A shank, usually in one whole piece as opposed to cut up (osso bucco).

Great looking meals, everyone! And tongue, Elie? You really know how to start off!

[Nathan P.]

Barbaresco. What about some knock out, drop dead cheeses and just have a bread and wine fest??

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Did someone say cheese???

This is a soft goat cheese with black truffles I picked up today at A.G Ferrari's. It is from the Piemonte and about as close to truffles as I am going to get this month I also picked up some arborio rice from Piemonte and some fregolas for when we get to Sardinia if it lasts that long. Enjoyed the cheese after eating Cal-Italian out tonight (I did drink Barbera though).

The problem with cheese with Barbaresco is that I have a cool take on Agnolotti that I want to do but need a secondo. There is a cool sounding take on the milk braise that we all know that adds ground hazelnuts as a thickener but I am not sure how that would work with the wine.

And show us your tounge FoodMan, show us your tounge!

[marlena spieler]

Ciao Marlene.. see you in london in Feb if our paths cross!

have you guys tried the new Truffle salt??? ....... love it on boiled potatoes

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Divina! !

WISH that i could see you in feb, but i'll be in california!

Tuffle salt, TRUFFLE SALT? I WANT SOME!!!!! esp on boiled potatoes. who makes it? where do we get it?

have fun in london, again, sorry i'm missing you.

x marlena

Edited January 13, 2006 by marlena spieler (log)

[Kevin72]

The problem with cheese with Barbaresco is that I have a cool take on Agnolotti that I want to do but need a secondo. 

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What about a brasato al vino rosso?

[Eden]

Tonight we finally had time for the carbonade.  I used a recipe from La Cucina Italiana Jan 2001, and I'm not really happy with it. Not that the final product isn't tasty, but I don't think it's right.  The instructions weren't as clear as I'd like in various parts (what to do with the onions for example, they ended up very undercooked) and my final product was just not as dark as I'd expect from my understanding of the dish. 

I rescued the carbonade last night.

Pulled the leftovers from the fridge & took off the 1/4" of solidified fat from the top, then put it back on the stove to reduce for another 40 minutes.

The "sauce" came out dark and rich, with a velvety texture, the meat darkened up beautifully, and the onions were finally cooked sufficiently, I have annoteed my recipe to just do this in the first place next time.

Served with a sagey polenta from the WholeFoods deli (I was WAY too busy yesterday to make my own) for a perfect comforting wintery dinner.

Nathan, I have serious cheese envy right now!

If I have time today I must go hit up the Italian cheese-monger and see if I can find something similar

[Chufi]

I'm sorry that it took me so long.. I've been eyeing this thread from the beginning, very impressed with all the dishes.. today I finally got round to doing some Piemontese cooking myself.

Claudia Roden has a recipe for pheasant 'in salmi' in her chapter on Piemontese cooking. The birds are cooked in a red wine sauce, flavored with juniper, cloves, cinnamon, bacon, sage and rosemary, and anchovies. That's what I made.. only I had a pair of partridges in the freezer, so I substituted them for the pheasant.. served with soft polenta.

I also made sformato di cardi.. from Mario Batali's recipe.. I made them in individual molds.. but I have no clue if this is what it should look like. I ended up fooling around with the proportions of the recipe so much, that it could be very far away from the original. It was delicious though! First time I cooked (or ate!) cardoons, I love them!

[Adam Balic]

Wow what an excellent looking meal!

Cardoons are very common in Chianti as a winter veg, and when I asked my brother-in-law's mother how they cooked them, she said that they were nearly always prepared as a sformato. It is often made in a ring mould and is pretty much a very eggy souffle. The version I have had was more reduced in texture, but I think yours look nicer.

[Chufi]

The version I have had was more reduced in texture,

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what do you mean by reduced in texture? Softer cardoons? A more compact custard? I've been looking at other sformati recipes, they intrigue me, but I've never had an 'official' one and that always makes it a bit more difficult to cook something I think.

Edited January 13, 2006 by Chufi (log)

[Adam Balic]

The cardoons were more mushed up when added, so there were few 'chunks' as such. Not sure if the is a preference of that particular family or region though.