The Cooking and Cuisine of Liguria

[Shaya]

Very tasty looking dinner, Kevin.

Elie, that dish looks really lovely. I love the bright green quality of the pasta, and the contrast it provides on the plate. I love watercress - have some in my fridge right now but I don't have the kind of week ahead of me that will enable me to put this dish together. I hope I can try it another time.

ETA: I just noticed that the pasta is made purely from semolina and watercress, with one egg white. Was it a hard pasta to work with? Did it hold together easily?

Edited May 16, 2006 by Shaya (log)

[NYC Mike]

I STILL haven't tracked down the Ligurian oil. I never quite venture above 14th St...at least not without shots and a passport..

HA! I had a boss once who lived on 8th and Mercer who said if he had to go above 14th St. for anything, he didn't really need it. But, NYC is wonderful for its bounty, if you are willing to pay you can probably find anything....unless its Ligurian wines of course! I have given up trying and swaped in dolcetto, frascati (my heart is still in Rome ) and orvieto for this month's everyday drinkers.

Great meals everyone, very inspirational!!

Loved the crescenza so much I wanted to go back and get more. The wisconsin brand was out of stock!! BUT they had this instead...lucky me...it was orders of magnitude better.

With it we made Foccaccia col Formaggio. The end product tasted amazing. I will make this again. Getting there was rough though, we lost the seal on the foccaccia midway through and the cheese exploded out of the seams, all over the oven, there was smoke everywhere. We pressed those seams together pretty tight, we thought, you can see the break in the lower left corner. Any advise on how to keep that pie together?

Tried my hand at fresh pasta, I really have my eye on the Ravioli di Carne in the Plotkin book but started tonight with the Ravioli di Magro. Served it with fresh tomato and basil sauce.

Before..

after.

For dessert we made the Spungata Ligure. I have wanted a slice of this since Chufi made it early on. This pie is amazing! The dough is one tough mother to roll out, it broke in a million places but the taste of it was so worth the effort.

and a slice with a nice cup of coffee. A nice finish to a great meal.

I have my sight set on the Burrida next, those pics are haunting me.

-Mike

Edited May 17, 2006 by NYC Mike (log)

[natasha1270]

Some very nice meals, everyone! Sorry I haven't been able to join in that much.

For good or bad, I did make the gubeletti recipe I mentioned earlier:

I Gubeletti della Signora Baj, pg 57, Rustico by Micol Negrin

Unfortunately, I didn't think to google for a pic until after I made them. They seem to be meant for a shallower cupcake pan or a flat, round ravioli shape or maybe I just misread the directions. Also, I had a hard time with this dough (3 1/4 c flour, 1/2 c sugar, 1/4 tsp salt, 20 tbsp chilled butter, 1/4 c sweet marsala & 1 x-lg egg) and ended up rolling it too thick which didn't help matters. In this state, they were way too rich and sweet...even for my gigantic sweet tooth! I thought about trying to make another batch but so far that doesn't seem likely.

enjoy!

N.

[hathor]

excellent job, foodman--i saw that same ep of great chefs and thought about making it as well.  i really need to get over my fear of making fresh pasta.  just because i don't have a pasta roller-outer doesn't mean i can't do it, right?

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Pasta roller-outers are for weeines!! Seriously, the only time I use the pasta roller outer is sometimes for ravioli, when I want a very even consistency. Otherwise I find the hand kneading and rolling works better than the machine...and its way more fun.

Those greeen raviolis look really, really good! FoodMan, you are in the US, what flour are you using?

Ok, OK, I see the recipe says semolina...did you use 100% semolina?

Edited befire FoodMan sees I didn't follow his link!

P.S. NYCMike, didn't you say you just started cooking??? Your meal looks fantastic!! Bravo!

P.P.S. Pontormo, I made sformato this weekend too...potato and leek. Must have been something in the air.

Can you tell my cappucino is kicking??

Edited May 17, 2006 by hathor (log)

[Pontormo]

Must be something in the air, indeed. Speaking of Crescenza, Micol Negrin and dough, I made the Focaccia di Recco, called Focaccia con Spinaci Saltati e Marzolino in the recipe with photographs here. In Recco, Crescenza is traditional. I wonder if your focaccia di formaggio is basically the same thing, different name, Mike.

I used a Pecorino Fresco from Pienza for the cheese. I thought the spinach added a great deal since the flavors are rather subtle.

One of the minor problems I had may have been due to the weather since the sky has been overcast, threatening to rain again for days. The dough didn't cling to the blade of the food processor; it sat like soup in the bowl until I fed it more flour. Later I consulted Colman Andrews who calls for 3 cups of flour and 1 cup of water vs. 1 c. flour and 1/2 c. water for a pie of similar dimensions.

When rolling out the dough, one half played Good Cop to the other's Bad Cop, forming a perfect, transparent circle, lifting docilely off the floured waxed paper onto the oiled pizza pan instead of clinging on for dear life and tearing like its companion. Easily fixed.

I e-mailed Micol Negrin who surprised me with a quick response to my question about proportions of water to flour. She wasn't sure why my dough was as liquid as it was, but said that she uses a high-protein flour. She was delighted to learn about our project here.

[Pontormo]

By the way, Mike, your array of dishes is quite impressive. I find it difficult to believe cooking is so new for you.

The only suggestion I have for the edges of your pie is to slide a finger under both layers of dough and pinch them together...or brush/dab a little water in between the two layers. (DON"T brush it on first, just in case you need to realign that upper crust once you place it on top of the pie.)

[FoodMan]

Mike-

nice dinner and excellent looking Raviolis. To prevent future cheese outbursts, make sure the edges are very well crimped and pinched and certainly open up a few vents in the top of the bread.

ETA: I just noticed that the pasta is made purely from semolina and watercress, with one egg white. Was it a hard pasta to work with? Did it hold together easily?

I did use 100% fine Semolina and it really was very easy to work with and rolled with almost no effort using the rolling pin. Although, this is good advice if you are going to try this recipe, notice the watercress is 10oz BEFORE cleaning and stemming. I weighed it after doing that and ended up adding more semolina to my dough to make up for the extra liquid even though I did my best to drain the excess when I noticed my mistake.

[NYC Mike]

Thanks everyone! I had a lot of pre-game planning help from the boss lady. The pie crust was the bear of the deal by far but made a great breakfast this morning.

I thought of sealing that foccaccia with water and pinched all around like I did with the ravioli but didn't! I have to remember to think outside the book sometimes!! I will do that for next time.

Pontormo, my first thought after tasting the foccaccia was all of the possibilities for fillings, spinach or greens for sure, cured meats, eggplant. I wonder if that is done in Liguria.

-Mike

Edited May 17, 2006 by NYC Mike (log)

[Pontormo]

Elie's comment about vents is really the most important.

See the link I added again regarding the foccacia I made. Look at the photograph way at the bottom. The hole torn in the center revealed the spinach, adding visual appeal, but it was mostly made to allow steam to escape and thereby keeping the edges of the thing intact.

[Pontormo]

In a land tenderly embraced by dazzling blue sea , where pesto drips from chins and clings to silken folds of egg pasta, there is BROWN FOOD :

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As you can see, this photograph is borrowed from Restorer, a contribution to "Dinner II: Regrettable Food..."

It is even prettier than Riso Arrosto, a Genoese dish that I made last night since I had all the ingredients, including an artichoke that was no longer new. According to Colman Andrews, it is supposed to be made with leftover risotto, though he has developed a different method of preparation that requires neither constant stirring nor leftovers.

Onions and sausage meat are sauteed, then rice and reconstituted dried porcini are added along with beef stock, meat sauce, peas (the kind Tim Hayward despises in my case: frozen organic petites) and chopped artichokes. Cover 10 minutes. Uncover. Add Parm-Reg, S & P. Pop in oven and wait until liquid is mostly soaked into the rice and a crust forms on the surface.

It was ugly, but also quite satisfying. Ligurian hot dish.

Edited May 18, 2006 by Pontormo (log)

[FoodMan]

Brownish with tinges of green food from me as well. I used Kevin's notes about Plotkin's Almond sauce recipe and applied it to nice fatty pork chops that were pan fried in olive oil with salt and pepper. The sauce was roasted almonds, garlic, Pecorino, breadcrumbs loosened up a bit with some milk and cooked for a few seconds in the saute pan where the chops were done.

I served it with warm cannelini bean and herb salad. All in all a very quick and tasty meal.

Sauce in the making

Finished dish

[Pontormo]

Nice mortar and pestle, there, Elie! Do you ever use it to make pesto?

* * *

And Natasha, let this serve as a belated welcome to this thread! I do hope you'll continue to post even as we move on to Sardinia and other Italian regions in the months ahead. It's nice to have someone else from this (meaning my) area participating in the cooking project.

As for better pans, I bought a mini-muffin tin around Christmas time to make pine-nut cookies. I found mine at Sur La Table, so it wasn't dirt cheap, but is of good quality and accommodates, I think, two dozen cookies/crostade/muffins at a time.

[Kevin72]

Whoah, what happened to all the green food?

Elie, you should know that Plotkin would not approve of the pestle since it isn't made of the olive wood that authentic Ligurians use . . .

[Pontormo]

But shouldn't one be true to one's own region, too?

[FoodMan]

Sure Pontormo I use it for pesto. I used it earlier in the thread to make pesto and maro.

As for olive wood Kevin, as you know Houston is not exactly teaming with olive trees. Besides I love my granit authentic Thai mortar and pestle, makes pesto faster than a food processor and cleans up much easier too .

[NYC Mike]

Wow Elie, that is one amazing looking peice of pork chop.

My wife has a very narrow mortar that she uses for a dominican dish called mofongo. I've been websurfing wider ones to use for pesto etc but my kitchen is just so small! . Yours looks really great!

-Mike

[hathor]

I admit to mortar envy as well....

There is some baccala sitting downstairs in water...hopefully, by tommorow it will be golden brown food, with little green accents. (Fried, with parsley)

[NYC Mike]

Looking at these pics after the fact I prolly should have posted in the gallery of regretable foods instead! It tasted better than it looks!

Rosemary Foccaccia - I cooked it longer to get more color than last time but now it tasted drier than I like..I also had real trouble getting the dimples in this one, the dough remained too sticky to touch. Maybe I needed more flour, but that would have made it drier right? Oh well, back to the drawing board.

Tried my hand at gnocci. What an easy dough. The shaping is another story altogether, I had to abandon my perfectly sized cookie cutters in favor of my big thumb and a fork. I am still not sure I did it right, but they tasted great.

For the finish I made a variation (if it can be called that) of Tocco. I didn't have the heart to use veal for this, but after the fact I imagine the broken down veal would have been sublime as a sauce for the gnocci. I used some sweet italian sausage in its place. This is a entire afternoon deal, close to 4 hours total time but time very well spent.

-Mike

Edited May 21, 2006 by NYC Mike (log)

[Pontormo]

COZZE FAN TU WAY

Mussels were on sale, and since the two-pound bag actually contained nearly three pounds, I made one recipe from Micol Negrin's Rustico web site and another found in a post for Slow Travel here by Gavin Crawford who visited Vernazza in the Cinque Terre.

The former calls for garlic, fresh marjoram and white wine. Please note if you're interested in the recipe that the cooking time is too long, at least for the ones available to me. Around half the eight minutes called for should open up the shells and plump the mussels without making them rubbery.

(I am trying to follow in the footsteps of Jeffrey Steingarten, eating marjoram over and over again until I like it. Technique actually worked for the chicken dish posted above—where I wrote "oregano" in error—but not for this dish.)

I preferred the second recipe with a garlicky tomato-wine sauce with lots of parsley and leeks from the farmers's market instead of an onion. Good with crusty bread. White Bordeaux. California Chevre.

There was lots of broth left over in both pots, too much for the bread, so it got turned into soup for lunch with added vegetables and thickened with pureed white beans. Not quite a ciuppin or buridda. Sort of a Genoese minestrone, if faintly fishy and good.

[Pontormo]

Looking at these pics after the fact I prolly should have posted in the gallery of regretable foods instead!  It tasted better than it looks!  -Mike

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You're too hard on yourself. These all look very tasty to me! The focaccia looks perfect; the bread rises to different degrees depending on preference...or luck.

The tocco is what I should have used for the Riso Arrosto instead of some of my leftover frozen Roman sauce from Easter dinner.

[Kevin72]

Pontormo, you don't like marjoram but you do like oregano, then?

I've been using oregano from my garden (it's absolutely exploding and already flowering) in place of all the marjoram Plotkin calls for. I've tried growing marjoram, as well, but it's just not taking.

And Mike, you made gnocchi? Bravo! My first attempt took me 4 hours--we were eating dinner at 10 pm! Second attempt I wound up with potato paste in the bottom of my food processor! Are you sure you're new to all this?

[Kevin72]

Sunday night I set out to contradict the statements I've made about Ligurians not having so rich a tradition of seafood.

Antipasto I: Glazed calamari with basil:

I heated a pan very hot, added olive oil, then in quick succession, the calamari, garlic, and two whole chili pods, then a shot of water and some salt. I kept cooking the water off and adding more until they were soft; about 30 minutes. Probably should have gone just a little longer; they were still slightly toothsome and not as melting as long-cooked calamari get. Off the heat, shredded basil was added, and fresh crusty bread used for the sauce.

Antipasto II: Shrimp fritters

In Liguria, one seafood item that is doted on are bianchetti (whitebait) and rosetti; the newborn of anchovies or sardines and red mullet, respectively. In Plotkin's book, he has a picture of a fritter made with bianchetti, but then no recipe.

So I made do with a yeast-leavened batter and some egg whites. Rather than the whitebait, I used baby shrimp about the size of your thumbnail.

When I cut open the fritter in the first pic above to get a picture, I was horrified to find that it was still raw and runny in the middle. Back into the fryer they all went for a few more minutes. I'm sure they absorbed buckets of oil in the process. They tasted vaguely Asian.

The main was pesce alle Ligure, Ligurian-style fish, which is to say simply roasted with white wine, garlic, olives, and ample olive oil. I added caperberries to the mix. On the side, steamed potatoes dressed with one of the multitude of "salsa verde" that Plotkin uses in his book: this version had anchovies, garlic, parsley, capers, and raw celery.

Edits: Forgot that Chufi had beaten me to the Pesce alla Ligure preparation right out of the gate this month! I used pompano for the fish.

Finally, I seem to have really neglected Ligurian desserts this month.

Edited May 22, 2006 by Kevin72 (log)

[Kevin72]

Housekeeping note:

I've only received three peoples' votes for the next three regions we'll be covering during July, August, and September. Remember, I'd like to announce those regions in the first week or so of June to give everyone a chance to pick up related cookbooks and such in advance.

[NYC Mike]

And Mike, you made gnocchi? Bravo! My first attempt took me 4 hours--we were eating dinner at 10 pm! Second attempt I wound up with potato paste in the bottom of my food processor! Are you sure you're new to all this? 

Ha! It was a complete all day deal here too, I just got a very early start! I can see myself gaining minor efficiencies here and there but overall this is a big time commitment. Amazingly enough Plotkin's dough recipe worked like a charm right out of the gate.

In your main, what are the long stemmed items in the upper right of the plate? Those calamari look amazing!

-Mike

[Kevin72]

Caperberries.