The Cooking and Cuisine of the Veneto

[Franci]

OH, please pick some up during your next trip and report back.  I think the zest would provide the distinctive flavor in the tea, but I'm sure you'd be able to hunt down a good Italian recipe for the rest of the fruit...or borrow a friend's ice cream maker...

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A nice bergamotto candito...or marmelade.

[Mottmott]

Della Croce has a simple recipe for chestnut cake in Veneto. It's not fancy, but as delicious as it is easy to make. It's one of my favorites and I make it often for its distinctive, chestnutty flavor. Of course this means stocking up on chestnuts when they're in season.

Those on the lookout for flourless cakes might want to check it out.

[Live It Up]

On Thursday I decided to have some friends over on friday night to attempt my second regional Italian meal. I basically haven't done any ambitious cooking or photographed my food since my disastrous Ligurian meal. This time everything just fell into place. I chose the Veneto because I had already bought a bottle of Amarone. As I was planning the meal at work, I wound up picking all my recipes from Mario Batali's Veneto shows (and one recipe from about.com).

For the primo I made crespelle with radicchio and goat cheese, which was delicious and easy to make.

This is what they looked like in the baking dish. They looked much more appetizing plated with a salad of raw radicchio and parsley on top, but I realized I forgot to take a picture of the plated dish after they were all gone. The salad cut through the richness of the goat cheese perfectly.

Secondo was lamb with oranges and olives, which someone else also made earlier in this thread. This recipe is listed in Batali's second episode on Veneto, but I noticed that it called for chianti and tuscan olives. By the time I noticed that, however, it was too late to pick a new recipe, so I just decided to assume that the recipe was from the Veneto.

The leg of lamb that I had had the bones in and I didn't bother to remove them. Also, I didn't pay attention to the recipe and I supremed my oranges rather than cut them into quarter moons, so the oranges kind of dissolved into the sauce. I also made butternut squash in saor from this recipe, but I forgot to get a picture of it. When I got home I found a very similar recipe in Lidia's Italy. With dinner we drank these wines.

For dessert we had brutti ma buoni which weren't that ugly, but really good.

One thing I noticed about Batali's online recipes is that there are a lot of mistakes. The crespelle recipe lists rosemary as an ingredient, but never calls for it in the instructions and the cookies do the same with the orange zest. I just used my common sense and everything turned out great, but it just makes me wonder about the fact checking on these things.

So, only 2 months between my regional meals--at this rate it should only take me 3.5 years to cook through all the regions.

[hathor]

Ah, but Live It Up, what a wonderful 3.5 years it will be!

Sounds and looks like you had a wonderful meal...brava!

[Katie Meadow]

Wonderful thread! Several posters mentioned Sarde en Saor. Earlier this month I was in Venice and flipped for this, ordering it every time I saw it on a menu. I also had a very exotic en saor of those tiny crabs or "moeche" (sp?) one night.

The dish varied, and sometimes it was clear that the sardines had been floured and sauteed before marinating. Another time the sardines appeared to have been uncoated. Both were great. I would like some recipes, or at least just an elaboration of approx quantities and technique from anyone. The bones were left in (at least I think so), so I assume smallish sardines are called for. Some fish-mongers here in Northern CA are starting to carry fresh sardines now, so the rest of the ingredients should be easy. Feel free to jump in w/recipe ideas. Thanks, I can't wait to do this.

I was surprised to see bergamot make an appearance on this thread. I had no idea that they are grown in southern Italy. If you like that flavor here is a suggested use. We can usually find Bergamot once a year, for only a few weeks, some time around late December/new years. My husband and I invented a very nice, albeit intense drink called the Bergamotini. It's really a Leap Year cocktail from the Savoy London (per Gary Regan) with a simple substitution of bergamot for lemon:

2 oz gin (we prefer simple Bombay--not saphire)

1/2 oz Grand Marnier

1/2 oz sweet vermouth

1/4 oz fresh bergamot juice

1 bergamot twist

Shake and strain, add twist. Bottoms Up. And you will be.

[Kevin72]

Good show, LIU! I've made the lamb with oranges before, myself, and left the orange peel and pith on and didn't like it too well; it left a bitter flavor in the sauce (though Mario said that was the appeal to it). I wound up wishing I had just supremed them instead.

And yes, you've picked up on the notoriously inaccurate FTV recipe translations from Mario's shows. Unforunately, however, some of those inaccuracies have made their way into his cookbooks, as well.