The Cooking and Cuisine of Campania

[docsconz]

What book were you using for the "Chiummenzana"? I don't ever recall hearing that word in Naples or environs for cherry tomatoes, though my experience and knowledge is far from exhaustive. The terms I am familiar with are either pomodorini or piennolini.

The cookbook is a cheapie (E 3.99), published by Bonechi, and entitledLa Cucina di Campania. I'd never heard the word before running into it in this book, though googling pulls up over 100 hits, and also suggests that it's a Caprese dish.

←

Does the word specifically mean "cherry tomato" or does it have another meaning that is applied to this dish that sets it apart from other tomato dishes?

[Andrew Fenton]

According to the book, chiummenzana is just the local equivalent of pomodorino. The recipe looks very similar to what you cooked, calling for cherry tomatoes, garlic, oil, fresh basil and oregano.

[docsconz]

According to the book, chiummenzana is just the local equivalent of pomodorino.  The recipe looks very similar to what you cooked, calling for cherry tomatoes, garlic, oil, fresh basil and oregano.

←

thanks. I learned something. Since you mentioned capri, I wonder if that is their variety of cherry tomato. strictly speaking, I believe piennolini are from the slopes of Vesuvius. They (piennolini) remain the best cherry tomatoes I have ever tasted and a simple sauce of jarred piennolini with olive oil over fresh homemade pasta served to me and my son at Agriturismo Seliano in Paestum one of the most memorable dishes I have ever had.

[Andrew Fenton]

good point. I should probably have said that "chiummenzana is A local equivalent of pomodorino" as I suspect that it's actually a slightly different kind of Caprese tomato, not just a dialect difference.

[hathor]

I went back to my Ital.cook notes and recipes from Campania, and last night was braised rabbit Ischia style and "gatto de patate". The coniglio recipe called for braising in stewed/canned tomatoes, but I just had too many fresh ones around to open a can. The gatto de patate is a sort of layered potato/cheese mixture sandwiching a ricotta/salami layer. Very tasty, but as I was making it, seemed more of a French type recipe than southern Italian...lots of butter involved. I also made a tactical error...I wanted to play with my new Silpat molds, this potato dish should have been cooked in some earthenware and gotten nice and brown and crusty on top. Next time.

Tasty looking eggplant Andrew. Egg sounds a bit weird to me too....who knows, the creator of the recipe had an abundance of eggs and eggplants that day.

[Kevin72]

The gatto de patate is a sort of layered potato/cheese mixture sandwiching a ricotta/salami layer. Very tasty, but as I was making it, seemed more of a French type recipe than southern Italian...lots of butter involved.

←

I believe the Neapolitan gatto is either influenced by or a tribute to the French rule of this region.

I make the big beast version in Mario's Holiday cookbook and make it the main. Combines three great comfort foods in one: mashed potatoes, melting cheese, and pork products.

[Andrew Fenton]

The gatto de patate is a sort of layered potato/cheese mixture sandwiching a ricotta/salami layer. Very tasty, but as I was making it, seemed more of a French type recipe than southern Italian...lots of butter involved.

←

I believe the Neapolitan gatto is either influenced by or a tribute to the French rule of this region.

Yeah, the name is from the French "gateau".

Judith, that bunny and kitty-- er, sorry, not THAT kind of gatto-- look great. I think we are on the same wavelength this week; I'm planning to make bunny on Saturday, and have been thinking about gatto as well...

[Pontormo]

Hathor, I already praised you in the Dinner thread.

Andwew, you are hystewical! ( Don't take the etymology sewiously.)

ETA: Have to agree on eggplant parmigiana. I've had good luck with Marcella Hazan's recipe, with minor changes. The egg doesn't sound appealing, agreed.

Edited September 14, 2006 by Pontormo (log)

[mrbigjas]

am i the only one who thinks the egg sounds just fine? i mean, at its most basic level, it's eggplants with tomato sauce--a few egg slices is a natural addition for protein purposes, isn't it? it's one of the first things that would come to my mind.

[hathor]

Andrew, you've found someone to eat your leftover egg/eggplant! Give it to mrbigjas!

Now, if only I had found someone to give my leftover 'pasta al forno' to...It may have looked good, but it was boring, boring, and dull....

Tonight its going to be Foodman's polpette...mmmm.....polpette. Why do I always seem to have Homer Simpson's voice playing in the back of my brain???

[Andrew Fenton]

am i the only one who thinks the egg sounds just fine?  i mean, at its most basic level, it's eggplants with tomato sauce--a few egg slices is a natural addition for protein purposes, isn't it?  it's one of the first things that would come to my mind.

←

I think the thing is that parmigiana is one of those dishes that has lots and lots of variations; some small, like whether it's made with sauce or with fresh or with canned tomatoes, others larger, like the addition of egg or even of pasta. And it's also a dish that I'm pretty familiar with-- I've eaten a lot of it-- and so the less familiar version seems different and strange and bad and terrifying. It's like if you put olives in it; not that olives are bad, just that they're not how I imagine the dish should be.

edit to add to Judith: oh no. I'm still eating it, mind you. Even with the eggs, it's still good. In fact, I'm sitting down to lunch right now...

Edited September 14, 2006 by Andrew Fenton (log)

[mrbigjas]

Andrew, you've found someone to eat your leftover egg/eggplant! Give it to mrbigjas!

edit to add to Judith: oh no. I'm still eating it, mind you. Even with the eggs, it's still good. In fact, I'm sitting down to lunch right now...

←

oh, i don't know, i think she's on to something....

[FoodMan]

Ah! That bunny looks awsome Judith. I have to make one too. Did you have any problem with it coming out dry?

In Naples at Table the author has two baked eggplant Neapolitan style, only the one he calles "white" is battered, deep fried and has sliced hard cooked eggs in it.

[Pontormo]

Since lending libraries around here don't have any cookbooks devoted specifically to Naples, I collected the usual links at the beginning of the month without posting them. FYI for those interested:

Delicious,

Rustico,

This looks really good,

I zanzari,

Tango!, and

a couple more in a second...

[Pontormo]

Clifford Wright's peppers,

Whole Food's mussels,

and finally,

About's collection.

[Franci]

Oh, message for the Doc: that's some nice lookin' spaghetti!  I was looking at another Campanian cookbook which had a recipe for a similar cherry tomato dish, called spaghetti alla "chiummenzana"; evidently that's what pomodorini are called in Naples.

Since I never heard of spaghetti alla chiummenzana I searched for it in google italian, it is a dish from Capri and chiummenzana refers to a concasse of tomatoes and oregano.

But I'll ask around.

[JasonZ]

←

here in philadelphia, we do have a few places that have wood ovens, but they don't hit that peak of genius that 2 amys does.

←

[JasonZ]

←

here in philadelphia, we do have a few places that have wood ovens, but they don't hit that peak of genius that 2 amys does.

←

[JasonZ]

←

here in philadelphia, we do have a few places that have wood ovens, but they don't hit that peak of genius that 2 amys does.

←

[JasonZ]

←

here in philadelphia, we do have a few places that have wood ovens, but they don't hit that peak of genius that 2 amys does.

←

[docsconz]

Oh, message for the Doc: that's some nice lookin' spaghetti!  I was looking at another Campanian cookbook which had a recipe for a similar cherry tomato dish, called spaghetti alla "chiummenzana"; evidently that's what pomodorini are called in Naples.

Since I never heard of spaghetti alla chiummenzana I searched for it in google italian, it is a dish from Capri and chiummenzana refers to a concasse of tomatoes and oregano.

But I'll ask around.

←

Very interesting. Thanks.

[Kevin72]

I'm having a hell of a time staying traditional this month. Last Sunday, I made a meal that started with "fried wind", slices of pizza dough fried in oil and then dusted with sea salt and pecorino. But then the meal veered all over the place: I made tomato sauce but then topped gnocchi with it instead of the beloved pasta (not that that combo is unheard of in Campania, but still . . .), then followed by a roasted stuffed chicken. I tried to make it "Southern" by having chilies in the stuffing, which also had onion, salami, prosciutto, pecorino, and breadcrumbs. The contorno was mushrooms and eggplant with chilies. By the end of the meal, I felt it was equally Tuscan in influence. So, no pics.

Then I was reading up on Schwartz for menu ideas and ran across something like stuffed eggplant bundles. I didn't even look over the recipe, really, just took the idea of the title.

So, I sliced eggplant vertically on a mandoline, blanched the slices in salted water, then wrapped them around leftover chicken stuffing from Sunday, now augmented with a little sausage. I also tucked a wedge of smoked mozzarella in there. Topped the bundles with tomato sauce, more smoked mozz, and then into the oven for half an hour:

If native Campanians aren't miffed enough at me by now, this weekend you have my pizza attempts to look forward to.

[Pontormo]

How about a nice big pot of ragu instead?

[hathor]

Hey, Franci's back from vacation! Welcome back!

Kevin, any good Campanian housewife would use up what she has around anyway!

Foodman: no, bunny wasn't dry at all, it was delicious. The tomatoes sort of melted over the bunny and it all good.

And, here is my version of Foodman's tasty meatballs:

Served on pureed fresh tomatoes, capers, onion and garlic. I'm a heretic too.

[Pontormo]

Those look really good, Hathor!

FYI: In the Zuni Cafe Cookbook, Rodgers has a very long discussion of butchering and preparing rabbit for cooking, calling for an unorthodox treatment since the classic method requires:

...cutting off the fore-and hind-quarters and then whacking through the central section--ribs, loins, flanks and all--to produce three or four flappy chunks that look like bats.

Says they're impossible to cook properly since thy're composed of different muscle types that don't cook at same rate. So she produces four different cuts from each half of the bunny plus innards and carcass for stock. As I said, the discussion is long. If you have the book, cf. pp. 411 ff.