The Cooking and Cuisine of Friuli Venezia-Giulia

[Adam Balic]

I am really time poor at the moment and quite pissed off as I cannot cook for the next week to any great extent.

So here is one I made before.

These seem to be quite common in the region, the version I want to make is stuffed with raddicio. I think that raddicio and walnuts would make a good combination.

[FoodMan]

They're calamari "steaks"--CMs here sporadically sell them.  Not sure how they even work, but they're extra thick cuts from calamari. That's gotta be one huge squid, though.

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I have seen them before and like you I have no idea where they come from! Next time I will ask the fish guy.

[Adam Balic]

Potentially they are cuttlefish, how thick are they?

[Kevin72]

About a quarter inch thick . . . err, hold on, let me convert that to metric: .635 cm

They come already scored so as not to curl up when cooking.

[Adam Balic]

Based on the thickness (even if given in an anchronistic measure), I would say squid, rather then cuttlefish then.

[Kevin72]

That rottolo you linked brings to mind similar Marcella recipes from her first cookbook. I undertook a number of them with disastrous results when I first started cooking, since I lacked cheesecloth to wrap it in and a vessel large enough to pre-poach it with. Then I just tried baking it off without a pre-poach which of course resulted in a dry, crunchy pasta.

But of course, yours' looks solid; didn't realize it was common up in Friuli also. Radicchio and walnuts does sound good; would there still be ricotta in to bind it?

[FoodMan]

Ah Rottolo! I've been wanting to try one of these for a loong time and never did. I had no idea they are common in Friuli. Maybe I'll finally give one a shot, maybe a half-rottolo .

Kevin, what kind of texture did the Squid Steak have? If it is squid...it's one big cephalopod.

[Pontormo]

I am glad the unusual appearance of the squid is now being addressed. Next time, it might be prepared wearing this tee shirt.

Due to Kevin's dish, in part, I made a more coastal dish myself since beautiful large fresh shrimp were available, on sale, this weekend. I have been enjoying how much risotto we've been making this year, personally, so I prepared one said to be traditional in this region.

Shopping too late to buy heads and scraps of the fish filleted that morning, I nonetheless managed to make a fairly aromatic broth by sacrificing a couple of the shrimp and using all of the shells along with vegetables, wine and tomato that Anna del Conte suggests.

Her recipe for Risotto with Prawns (4 servings) calls for more tomato and an entire bunch of parsley which is minced and added to the pot before the rice. I think I would prefer a brighter color and taste, using a bit less later in the process. Otherwise, the results were wonderful, especially since the shrimp were cut into very small pieces and integrated in the very last minutes of cooking.

I also managed, at last, to purchase Montasio, this piece neither young nor aged, but in the second of three stages identified on the official Web site I linked in this thread. I will therefore review posts of frico and make some later in the week.

[Kevin72]

Kevin, what kind of texture did the Squid Steak have? If it is squid...it's one big cephalopod.

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It's got that firm, toothsome texture, not at all flaky or anything. It's definitely squid-oid in origin.

[Adam Balic]

That rottolo you linked brings to mind similar Marcella recipes from her first cookbook.  I undertook a number of them with disastrous results when I first started cooking, since I lacked cheesecloth to wrap it in and a vessel large enough to pre-poach it with.  Then I just tried baking it off without a pre-poach which of course resulted in a dry, crunchy pasta. 

But of course, yours' looks solid; didn't realize it was common up in Friuli also. Radicchio and walnuts does sound good; would there still be ricotta in to bind it?

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They are very traditional based on This site. The trick is to pre-boil the cloth just before using it and flouring it well before putting the dough in.

[Kevin72]

Cool site! That's fascinating about the strucolo and how they're boiled instead of baked; wonder why they're not more widely reported on after the breadth and depth he gives them.

[Adam Balic]

Maybe because there is a perception that they are too 'heavy' for todays groovy young hipsters or technically challenging. I mean you have to get a cloth and everything.

[mrbigjas]

so, orzotto is a dish i've always liked, and considering this thread i decided to make it tonight. however, i had a couple of small leftover beets, and remembered that in lidia's italian table she has a recipe for beet risotto.

so any notions of authenticity aside (because i have no idea what's 'authentic' and not), i combined the two concepts, and here we have beet orzotto:

and again, as i say about any dish involving beets: how could anyone NOT like something that's that color?

Edited March 21, 2006 by mrbigjas (log)

[Kevin72]

and again, as i say about any dish involving beets: how could anyone NOT like something that's that color?

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When it gets on your cutting board, or shirt, or pants . . .

Both beets and orzotto are used in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, and somewhere, they just have to have been used together there, so I wouldn't worry too much about authenticity!

[Kevin72]

Like, mrbigjas above, I did a little "inspired by" cooking and made shrimp with polenta Friday night:

And, yep, another repeat from last year's efforts.

Monday night, two dishes from Plotkin's Terra Fortunuata:

Salmon with a ginger vinaigrette:

Also, I saw some artichokes relatively cheap (2/$3) at Central Market and snapped some up. I served them with a yogurt, dill, and caper sauce:

I kept the 'chokes whole, to dip the leaves in the sauce. Unfortunately, these were very dry, tough, older artichokes and didn't lend themselves well to the preparation.

I love the seafood dishes of this region and the interesting if not unique for Italy styles and flavoring elements that come into play. They further exemplify the range of cooking and influences in Friuli.

[Pontormo]

I know it's fun to see photograhic evidence of meals and I was almost tempted to see if I could post a Powerpoint drawing of tonight's dinner, but words and trust will have to do.

I appreciated all the reactions to paparot and frico in its various manifestions. I kept your likes, dissatisfactions and adjustments in mind to eat very, very well.

First, the chicken stock I made this weekend is delicious and that helps. I've become a purist over time, and use only celery, carrot, onion and a touch of salt to flavor the bird. This time, I added some leek greens and a very small leek and the sweetness made a difference.

Therefore, the spinach soup did not make my eyeballs roll back in my head, but I really, really liked it. Because of comments about blandness, I added far more garlic than one needs for a single bowl and let the slivers of the cloves turn brown as instructed. I cooked the spinach only until the cornmeal clearly thickened the soup and a glossy sheen developed on its surface. It was still bright green and just begining to darken. A bit of butter swirled in...nourishing against the bitter cold.

Now, as for the frico, I am reminded how Lucifer was called the most beautiful of the angels before his fall. I would have probably lived to a very old age, happy, if I had never heard of Montasio, never spent weeks trying to find a local source. All your reports were too tempting, though, and so I reached my arm up high and plucked.

Man, oh man......

I followed most of the instructions here for Frico with Pears, something Kevin prepared with radicchio earlier in this thread. However, I liked Nathan's series of fricos, too, so I took a little bit from each of your posts.

I cubed a Yukon Gold potato and waited until all the chicken stock in the pot was absorbed. Then I tossed it in with the browned bacon, grease, onion and sliced mushrooms. Ultimately, I ended up with very rich Hash Browns, I suppose, blanketed by a big slab of frico. The latter was fun to watch bubble and solidify, at least for this novice.

All this was served on a hand-rolled plate made by a radio producer who once had a Fulbright to study ceramics in Japan for a year. The rough shape and colors complemented the frico. On the side, golden beets tossed in orange juice and then with strands of raddicchio. On the other side, a sprig of parsley.

Gluttony's a sin. I am going to Hell. For now, life is good.

Edited March 23, 2006 by Pontormo (log)

[Kevin72]

Well, as long as you don't turn it into that item you have to consume every day . . .

Glad the paparot turned out so well. It really defies expectations on how good it would be based on the description or ingredients, but I just go back to how nourishing it feels to eat it.

And the frico . . . ah frico. There'd better be a statue or a Saint's day dedicted to the inventor. The vivid descriptions of the plate and accompaniments did the job perfectly.

[hathor]

I'm just catching up on all the cooking. Oh my!!! Great stuff going on.

Hello! Nathan, you had a frico party and didn't invite any of us???? The frico and asparagus look particularly good.

(Kevin, I just threw out my petrified hunk of fresh horseradish. Flavor wise it doesn't compare to the stuff in jars, but what a waste! )

I've got wines waiting for me, so I better get my act together and get into the kitchen. Ciao!!

[Pontormo]

Yes, Kevin, "Does this dress make me look fat?" was encoded in my last post. You said the right thing.

Now that Hathor is back, have decisions been made about all three months in Q2?

I'm also looking forward to hearing more about April's fermenting turnips.

Edited March 24, 2006 by Pontormo (log)

[azureus]

I'm  also looking forward to hearing more about April's fermenting turnips.

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I'm not sure that they're actually fermenting, thought they are nice and pink. I'm not seeing any bubbling that would indicate fermentation. Probably it would happen if I ever remember to add grape must. I plan on using them for a meal this weekend, and I still am planning on using the turnips to make another batch of jota before the end of the month. Right now I have a version of Chicken in Sguazet, inspired by a story in La Cucina di Lidia simmering away in my crockpot overnight. I'll report on it tomorrow.

April

[hathor]

Do you think we should start a separate frico thread?? It could have a life not unlike 'roasted cauliflower' me thinks!

We had some fun in Friuli last night. The meal started with some....frico! This time I used the montsaio cheese and I have to say, I like parmigania better. I found the fat content in the montsaio to be so much higher so that the end result was not as cracklingly crisp. I served it with some sliced pears with a little honey drizzled on them and the Russiz Supeiore. sp? The wine was excellent: complex with hints of fresh peaches, almonds, lavender, but still crisp and straightforward with a lingering finish.

The meat course was roast goose from a recipe that I found on mangaben.it. It was supposed to be an 'ancient preparation' using lots of celery. The instructions were a bit vague, especially at the end where it just says 'make a sauce with the celery'. I pureed the roasted vegetables (celery, carrots, onions, rosemary, sage) along with some potatoes and the goose liver, and wound up with something that should never be photographed. It looked the product of a toddler's diaper, but if you were brave, it tasted pretty good. Some beautiful white asaragus made up for the ugly vegetables. I have very fond memories of all the white asparagus that comes out of this area. Last nights's was just simply steamed with butter and lemon. The goose was disappointing, tough and stringy. Could have been the bird, could have been the recipe, could have been the chef. I'll go back to my usual roast goose recipe next time. And that was my ode to barnyard animals of Friuli.

[Pontormo]

Vivid description, as always, Hathor.

Sorry about the tough bird. I don't think I've ever had goose, come to think of it....

As for the frico, perhaps I'll try using the end of the P-R that is just about whittled down to the rind and do a comparison. I have to say that I enjoyed my first bit with Montasio because of the fat content and the richness of the wedge. Kevin the cheesemonger said that when he worked in a restaurant, the kitchen would make a kind of lattice pattern with Montasio to cradle salads...perhaps because it is so thick and perhaps too much a contrast to delicate greens.

While I don't think a frico thread is going to top the Roasted Cauliflower fan club here, I do think we need to proselytize outside this regional forum. Montasio would be easier to find (at least it was difficult for me) were more people aware of frico. Whole Foods now carries a type of Greek cheese which they first ordered special for the Olympics. The packaging explains how to cook it and that it remains solid, etc. It is now a regular item and always available.

Edited March 27, 2006 by Pontormo (log)

[Kevin72]

How do you normally cook goose?

I'm intrigued about trying it, but after my disastrous results roasting a duck I'm just not willing to spend the $40-$50 I see goose for here just to have it turn out like that.

Are you back in the U.S. or still in Italy?

[Kevin72]

Recent cooking exploits:

Baked polenta with mushrooms, herb frittata:

I used chervil, dill, fennel fronds, parsley, and lemon thyme in my frittata. The dill and lemon thyme dominated.

Saturday night, I made dishes from probably opposite ends of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, so it's not so micro-regionally "pure". We started with gnocchi stuffed with pear and ginger:

Plotkin lists these as one of several variants for Gnocchi di Susinne, a gnocchi made with prunes or plums that I’ve made before but wanted something a little lighter this time. The condimento was butter, sugar, and cinnamon. The cinnamon, oddly, seized in the butter and turned into a viscous goo right in the middle of the pan. Never seen that before.

We then continued with cevapcici, another meal I recall fondly from last year’s cooking. These are little oblong patties that I made with a combination of ground beef, lamb, and pork, as well as ground cloves, cinnamon and salt (the spice used traditionally is ground mace, which I do not have on hand). I ground the meat myself, having recently undertaking sausage making at home thanks to a meat grinder and sausage stuffer attachment for my KitchenAid.

The white sauce is more of the yogurt dill and caper sauce I made for the artichokes last week. The red sauce is haivar sauce, the more traditional accompaniment. This is cooked eggplant pureed with raw red bell peppers, garlic, and lemon juice. The haivar sauce, interestingly, really brought out the spicing in the meat patties, but both were really good with the meat in their own way. Downright Greek in some ways. To accompany, in the background on the left is Serbian-style goulash, which is peppers, onions, tomatoes, and Hungarian paprika slowly stewed together. On the right is “stakalsa” (sp? I can’t make out the font in Plotkin’s book), a stamppot-esque puree of potatoes and string beans, cooked in lard. Plotkin is rather firm on the point that this be cooked in lard as the potatoes absorb the porky flavor and he was dead-on: I could put away plates of this stuff.

For dessert, palacinche, a crepe-type item, topped with sour cherry preserves and slightly sweetened sour cream:

I really enjoyed this meal. I know there’s not much time left in the month, but I highly recommend trying all or even any part of it before time’s up.

Sunday’s meal was a pork goulash with polenta:

Pork shoulder and spareribs are cooked slowly with onions. No liquid; Plotkin says that it will throw off enough on its own after a few hours of slow cooking and again, he was right! But then, with these residual pan juices, you do add a cup of water with tomato paste and paprika diluted into it, along with some flour to thicken the sauce.

I also made for lunches this week minestra di Bobici, bean and corn soup, for lunches. I omitted the pancetta/prosciutto the recipe calls for with an eye towards the previous meat-intensive weekend, but it really is lacking that meaty punch to send it home. Speck, I’d imagine, would also be a welcome addition to the soup. No pics, however. Just a bowl o’ potatoes, brown beans, and pork, nothing too challenging to the imagination.

[Kevin72]

So, to sum up, the regions for Q2 are officially:

April--Lazio

May--Liguria

June--Sardinia

I know that it had been brought up earlier to switch Liguria and Sardinia to allow for a more summery clime for Liguria, but Sardinia, further to the south than Liguria, would probably profit even more from warmer weather.