The Cooking and Cuisine of Lazio

[Pontormo]

The anchovies are cooked with garlic and capers until they melt. The sandwiches are dipped in an egg batter.

Also really good with these are round tuna fritters made with potatoes, ricotta and lemon zest (same book).

[FoodMan]

The anchovies are cooked with garlic and capers until they melt.  The sandwiches are dipped in an egg batter. 

Also really good with these are round tuna fritters made with potatoes, ricotta and lemon zest (same book).

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Many thanks for clarifying this Pontormo. I saw them in the book and was planning on making them, but never read the recipe in too much detail.

I hope you let us know how they turn out mrbigjas.

[mrbigjas]

will do--i'm going to have to check and see if the book i have (simple italian cooking, i think) has them in there, or if they might be on food network's website--i don't have that mario book. thanks!

[hathor]

I wasn't even hungry...then I started catching up on this thread.... fantastic looking food everyone!

Brad, that write up was great. I really appreciate the effort and the info.

We've got a gang coming for Easter dinner, and I'm trying to go as Roman as possible! Wish me luck!

[Eden]

Coincidentally, my nice husband made Lenticchie alla romana for dinner last night from Fagioli by Judith Barrett. Not bad, but the onions could sure be cooked longer - she says to cook the veggies for about 10 minutes till just browned, but I would have gone for a longer caremlization to soften them more & add more complex flavor.

[Nathan P.]

So much great looking/sounding food.

Chufi- beautiful gnocchi! I remember the first time I tried this using a Williams-Sonoma recipe that either sucked or was followed poorly since they did not set well and then melted more in baking until they were a pile of mush.

FoodMan- I love doing pasta dressed with cooking juices. It always tastes great and makes so much sense. I'll have to try lamb braised in milk one day- a nice regional variation on a well known dish. I'm starting to think that we could all just braise pork in milk every month and call it regional food. I did it in Piemonte, Culinaria had it in the Lombardy section, Downie has it in Rome, I think Boni gives it to the Veneto and there are claims for Emiglia-Romagna as well! Nice dessert too.

Kevin- Nice purple artichokes- love how there is a but of a purple tinge on the tops of the trimmed ones as well. I've done the pasta with artichokes a number of times but will have to try adding fennel next time- sounds like a great addition.

Brad- Thanks for the wine write-up. My grocery only had one bottle from Lazio so I am waiting to see if my wine shop can do better.

Here are my Artichokes alla Romana. I thought these came out a bit flat- not enough seasoning and I think a bit more fresh mint to perk them up would have helped. I actually took my leftovers and fried them up with a bit of chile to give them a bit more excitement.

I also made some delicous spaghetti a cacio e pepe.

What is everyones view on the use of fat in this preperation? I've always used butter or olive oil or a combo (which is what I did here) emulsified with a bit of pasta water and then blended with the pasta and cheese. I was surprised to see that Downie's recipe was just water with cheese and pepper.

[Pontormo]

Actually, I forgot I made this earlier in the week. I used to make it with olive oil all the time (a Moosewood recipe) and love it that way. However, the past few times, I have been using his method, down to toasting and crushing Tellicherry peppercorns. I can't say I like it better, though it's good to have something drier if the next course has a lot of sauce or fat. They're different.

[Kevin72]

I used Downie's version when I made it last year and didn't use any additional fat for the initial prep, though I think I recall that leftovers needed a jot of oil to moisten things up.

When I've made the Batali variation which uses rigatoni and then arugula over the top, however, I have used the oil.

[Shaya]

Gorgeous looking food everyone.

tupac17616 that pasta looks great - great for you scoring guanciale!

Kevin, that birthday dinner looks awesome. And that spaghetti - yum! I think I would faint from delight if I ever found artichokes like that at my grocery store. Do they taste any different than the green ones?

Foodman - that dinner looks amazing. I made those same artichokes from Batali tonight as part of my passover dinner - they were yum. Next year I will try to make an all-Italian meal!

Carciofi alla Romana

[mrbigjas]

will do--i'm going to have to check and see if the book i have (simple italian cooking, i think) has them in there, or if they might be on food network's website--i don't have that mario book.  thanks!

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well, that book did indeed have it, so i made it tonight:

there they are in the front, obviously. they were pretty good. but that flour-egg coating has never really satisfied me, the several times i've used it, including once for those sandwiches that are battered/fried buffalo mozzarella in bread. it's like, for things like this i always want something with more tooth to it. sure, the little eggy strands that get all crisp are good, but they don't provide quite enough structure to hold together the insanely hot polenta. (aside: what IS it with cornmeal's heat capacity? that stuff stays so hot, for so long...) it's almost like, if i could mix the egg and flour to make more of a batter, things would get crisper and be easier to handle. there's also the possibility that my polenta was a little softer than it should be--i tend to make it just a little runny when i make it. it sets up pretty well as it cools, but not super hard.

but boy, that combination of really hot, rich mushy polenta, with a fry batter, and then that sharp, salty filling is really a great combo.

other dishes were: the fennel with garlic, anchovies and sambuca that we've all made a hundred times and can never get enough of, from mario's roman jewish cooking show, in the blue dish in the back.

the other plate is grilled beef with arugula--this was a dish we had the first night we were in rome a few years ago, at a restaurant called pommodoro in san lorenzo. just a plate of relatively plain grilled beef strips (i used sliced flank steak, marinated in olive oil and some rosemary), with simply dressed arugula on top of it. that night was a great night for me, because i got a dish of spaghetti carbonara, and it tasted just like what i made at home. so that first night in rome, i knew that i was on the right track with how i was thinking about cooking this stuff.

Edited April 13, 2006 by mrbigjas (log)

[Pontormo]

I think the anchovy sandwiches are easier to make if you pour the polenta in advance. At least, the time I made them, I had deliberately made extra polenta one night and spread the remainder on a wooden cutting board to solidify, using it the next day.

That said, yours look sensational, a savory version of something Patrick S might bake.

I decided to make another recipe from Downie's book called Spaghetti con Fave, Lattuga e Pancetta since I was happily surprised to find fresh fava beans from California at the grocery store earlier in the week. I removed them from their skins since they were a little bitter. Bright, bright green, buttery and delicious as a result.

I highly recommend the dish, sometimes known as spaghetti con la scafata and associated with spring. I used trenette instead of spaghetti as per suggestion and regular bacon instead of pancetta along with Boston lettuce which I had never cooked before despite seeing recipes for lettuce soup, etc. over the years.

Does anyone know anything about the usage of the word "trenette"? I had a box of "artisinal" trenette from Abruzzi (no longer the original $7-$8 since the store was discontinuing the item) that look like elongated, slender penne, only triangulated.

However, every image on a google search was of a flat, narrow strand; one entry says the word is unique to Linguria whereas everyone else says linguine.

At any rate, after the pasta with fava beans, I drank a glass of Chianti.

Edited April 13, 2006 by Pontormo (log)

[mrbigjas]

I think the anchovy sandwiches are easier to make if you pour the polenta in advance.  At least, the time I made them, I had deliberately made extra polenta one night and spread the remainder on a wooden cutting board to solidify, using it the next day.

That said, yours look sensational, a savory version of something Patrick S might bake.

why thank you! they were tasty.

i made them with leftover polenta from last night. of course i'd poured it in a loaf pan rather than a sheet pan so i had to slice it longways to make the things--all things considered they were definitely worth the effort of deep-frying. but next time i'm going nontraditional and hooking up a more solid batter, i think.

[Kevin72]

Man, this thread is flying!

Brad, thanks as always for the wonderful contribution on the wine essay. Put me into the column of those who go to Rome and have Frascati there and find it radically different than what you get here. But don't they also drink it very fresh in Rome? Still, I like the Frascati we get here. After a winter of robust, sturdy reds, there's something to be said about sipping a glass of this on your patio while the sun goes down.

Nathan, sorry about your chokes ala Romana. But your suspicion is right: in my experience, you can't put too much mint in there, and can't use too much olive oil, either. Both yours' and Shaya's look great!

Shaya, I don't notice a difference in flavor between red and green artichokes but I'm sure aficiandos would be able to tell you. The reds are much more supple, tender, and have a good deal less choke that comes out very easily.

Pontormo: that spaghetti with scafata has caught my eye as well. I may make a straight-up scafata at some point this month if I get the time.

Bigjas: What about doing the polenta in a flour/egg wash/breadcrumb dip next time? I can never get the egg and flour coating to work right in a deep fry. And that is too funny what you said about eating real carbonara in Rome and being ecstatic that it was so like yours'. Same thing happened to me when we went there and had Pasta all'Amatriciani the first night; I almost danced around the dining room that I was doing it right all this time!

[Kevin72]

All this talk of strucolo in the Friuli thread last month brought to mind a dish from--all together now--Mario Batali that he made on his Rome shows. Basically it was a rotolo made of mashed potatoes, stuffed with escarole, then bound in cheesecloth and poached.

I went a different route and baked it instead, and, since it was to be our main course, topped with tomato sauce and pecorino.

[Kevin72]

So, does anybody have experience with nepitella and mentuccia? These are two mint-type herbs used alot in Roman cooking, nepitella in particular. Several cookbook authors suggest comibining oregano and spearmint for a close approximation of the flavor, though Mario has said to do spearmint and fennel fronds. Downie recommends going a completely different track and using pennyroyal. I got some from my Mom, and despite her warnings that it would take over my garden, it hasn't budged from the little dome shape it was in when I first got it two years ago.

Are seeds for either readily available in the U.S.?

[Michael M]

Great thread. I just breakfasted vicariously on everyone's meal pictures.

I'd like to mention two Lazio wines I enjoyed on my recent trip, but the pictures/names are at home. One was a bone dry, mineral Frascati that was recommended as a pairing with artichokes, favas and assorted fritti misti, although I don't know if it's available in the U.S., or as Brad said above, was better due to the surroundings. The other was an interesting Lazio red, which for me meant I enjoyed it (hadn't met a red from the region I'd bother ordering again until this one).

I'll be back with their names tonight!

[azureus]

So, does anybody have experience with nepitella and mentuccia?  These are two mint-type herbs used alot in Roman cooking, nepitella in particular.  Several cookbook authors suggest comibining oregano and spearmint for a close approximation of the flavor, though Mario has said to do spearmint and fennel fronds.  Downie recommends going a completely different track and using pennyroyal.  I got some from my Mom, and despite her warnings that it would take over my garden, it hasn't budged from the little dome shape it was in when I first got it two years ago. 

Are seeds for either readily available in the U.S.?

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Apparently not. I haven't found it in any of my seed catalogs. You can buy seeds or plants from Richter's Herbs. They ship to the U.S.

I bought a plant labelled "Nepeta" last year, but I don't know if it's the authentic nepitella. The scent was wonderful, but not reminiscent of fennel. I'd go with the oregano/mint mix, if necessary. You might look for plants at your local nurseries, or raid your Mom's garden!

All of the meals looks fabulous, and I think that I'm going to have to jump on the Carbonara/Artichokes alla Romana bandwagon. Are there any good Roman/Lazio recipes featuring leeks?

April

[Kevin72]

I think Mario's going to owe this thread some promotional royalties.

On his Roman shows he did a grilled leek "packet" wrapped with cabbage. He mentioned on the show that you could also wrap the leek in pancetta, then cabbage, and grill it and I did that version once and the smell of it on the grill would wake a dead man.

He made a veal braise with leeks and spicy peppers, also.

You could do them "sweet and sour style" as they do with onions and use leeks instead?

[azureus]

I think Mario's going to owe this thread some promotional royalties.

On his Roman shows he did a grilled leek "packet" wrapped with cabbage.  He mentioned on the show that you could also wrap the leek in pancetta, then cabbage, and grill it and I did that version once and the smell of it on the grill would wake a dead man.

He made a veal braise with leeks and spicy peppers, also.

You could do them "sweet and sour style" as they do with onions and use leeks instead?

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Thanks. I love sweet-and-sour onions, and the grilled packets sound wonderful.

April

[FoodMan]

At any rate, after the pasta with fava beans, I drank a glass of Chianti.

LOL...all you are missing was some liver ! That fava bean pasta sound great. I might try it once I get a hold of some good frozen or fresh favas.

mrbijas- these sandwiches looked great. You definitly have to pour them flat and cut them with a cookie cutter for a more even shape and certainly drier polenta will produce better results. In any case you really made want to try them more. The batter looks pretty crisp though. Was it not? or was it just too light and not substantial? I might try breading them for the sake of experimentation when I do it.

Kevin- more details about that rotollo please. Was the dought similar to a potato gnocchi dough?

[Kevin72]

With the potato rottolo, I kept thinking that it would be like a giant gnocchi, too, but I forgot that there's no flour in there, or at least, not when I made it (I went by memory). So, more mashed-potato-like, though there were eggs in there so it set up a little, just not as firm and toothsome as a gnocco.

[FoodMan]

My midweek Roman meal yesterday consisted of,

Romain alla Romana, of course this is based on the Puntarelle alla Romana recipe. what Mario believes to be the "real" Ceasar Salad. I had no Puntarelle so I went with Romain lettuce with very good results. Even my anchovie-phobe wife loved it's garlicky salty sour notes and the crunchy greens.

Pollo alla Romana, taken from this recipe. This is different than Mario's recipe that uses red bell peppers. I also used my own home-cured Pancetta instead of ham in the dish. All in all not a very "exciting" dish since I cook similar chicken dishes all the time. The flavor was very good and the prep very quick and everyone loved it, what else can we ask for. Certainly a lovely mid-week dinner. I also loved the loads of fried parsley in it, just like the lamb dish. Is this (frying chopped parsley and garlic as a base) a typical Roman thing?

here is the pancetta BTW, sorry I could not help but show off

Crispy baked Potatoes with herbs and garlic made a perfect contorno to the chicken. These are based on a drum-roll please....Mario recipe again. They are blanched in boiling salted water, drained, tossed with garlic, oil and herbs and roasted at a high temp.

plated dinner

[Kevin72]

Oh man oh man that pancetta, Elie! You should be showing it off! Are you going to get one of those deli slicer thingies? How soon before you attempt prosciutto?

Is that a Roman beer I see in the background there?

I've, erm, taken to making a little variation on Caesar salad myself this month, coincidentally: anchovies, a clove of garlic, olive oil, white vinegar, a dash of Tobasco, and pecorino whizzed to an emulsion and then topping romaine as well. A Julius Caesar salad, if you will, heh heh.

[FoodMan]

Oh man oh man that pancetta, Elie!  You should be showing it off!  Are you going to get one of those deli slicer thingies?  How soon before you attempt prosciutto? 

Is that a Roman beer I see in the background there? 

I've, erm, taken to making a little variation on Caesar salad myself this month, coincidentally: anchovies, a clove of garlic, olive oil, white vinegar, a dash of Tobasco, and pecorino whizzed to an emulsion and then topping romaine as well.  A Julius Caesar salad, if you will, heh heh.

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prosciutto is more tricky, needs a much longer curing and drying time. As you know in Houston with no real curing chamber, this could be bad. I am planning on making a boneless lamb prosciutto soon though based on the notes in the Cahrcuterie thread in the Cooking forum. The samples shown there look amazing. Currently my wife will surely vito a suggestion to buy a meat slicer thingy...no room in the budget for it . A very sharp knife or a good bread knife is what I use.

No, no Roman beer. That is actually a picture taken a few weeks ago when I first cut into the pancetta. The beer I think was a Sierra Nevada

[Pontormo]

Hey, I'll send you some fava beans if you tackle some guanciale for mail-order next!

Another on the pancetta, too, Man!

Edited April 13, 2006 by Pontormo (log)