Cured meats Archives - attheitaliantable.com

August 25, 2016 by Gina Stipo 1 Comment

Amatrice and its gift to Italian culinary history: Amatriciana

Such sad news this week coming out of Italy. As beautiful as the country is, it sits on several tectonic plates which are on the fault line between Europe and Africa. This means that the earthquakes that routinely happen are usually shallow, which cause more damage to the surface than the really deep quakes that happen in Asia or California. The one this week was only 6 miles below the surface and basically leveled several old towns in the mountainous regions of the Appenine mountains of Lazio and Umbria.

Especially noteworthy is the tiny town of Amatrice, high in the mountains and accessible only by a few old roads. I made a pilgrimage there, years ago, in a quest to better understand the pasta sauce amatriciana, which is common on menus in central Italy and is said to have originated in Amatrice. I found a sleepy little town and only one place open for lunch, but the proprietor was happy to discuss the history of amatriciana sauce.

It was developed hundreds of years ago by the shepherds who spent months in the pastures with the sheep, traveling to high mountain meadows in the summer to follow the grazing animals and cooking for themselves. The original recipe was simple: cured pork cheek (guanciale), onions and aged pecorino cheese. These were staples that the shepherds could carry with them and quickly turn into a simple sauce for pasta. As time went on, the tomato gained popularity and was added to the dish.

It is easy to complicate with the addition of sausage or white wine or parsley, but the original recipe is simple and requires only a few ingredients, provided the ingredients are of excellent quality: pork cheek or pork belly (guanciale or pancetta) which has been cured with lots of black pepper; sliced or chopped onions; aged pecorino cheese such as pecorino romano which is generously grated over the top. Tomato sauce is optional but I like to use it.

Amatriciana is traditionally tossed with bucatini pasta, a thick spaghetti with a hole through the middle. Made with semolina and water, it comes dried in a box and can be found in specialty stores and is a common pasta in the Rome area. You can use another dried pasta such as spaghetti or spaghettini, but I like to use homemade spaghetti alla chitarra, made with semolina, water and olive oil, and cut by hand on a chitarra, or “guitar”. It’s commonly used in the Abruzzo area just to the south, which sustained a major earthquake in 2009.

The 50th annual sagra of spaghetti all’Amatriciana was scheduled for this weekend. Sadly, I doubt the town will ever recover to hold another one. At the Italian Table will be making this pasta all weekend and raising a toast to the people who survived while saying a prayer for those who lost their lives. God bless all those in central Italy who are affected and all those who are there helping and giving aid.

Pasta all’Amatriciana

1/4 cup olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, chopped

8 oz guanciale or pancetta, cubed

6 cups tomatoes, crushed with juices

1 cup grated pecorino cheese

sea salt

The pork cheek or belly should be well cured with black pepper and very fatty. If you can’t find that, use the fattiest pancetta you can get and add black better while it’s sauteing.

Sauté the guanciale or pancetta in a medium sauce pan, using a small amount of the olive oil. Remove to side and sauté onion and garlic in olive oil until soft, adding additional olive oil if necessary. Return the meat to the pan, add the tomatoes and salt and freshly ground pepper, simmer for 30 minutes. Toss with cooked spaghetti, or use the more traditional bucatini if you can find them. At the restaurant, we use homemade spaghetti alla chitarra. Serve with lots of grated pecorino romano cheese.

January 19, 2015 by Gina Stipo Leave a Comment

Pancetta Arrosto – rich roasted pork belly

Years ago in Tuscany and most of Italy, before fresh meat was readily available for purchase in the grocery store or a butcher shop, fresh meat was rare on the common dinner table. Roasted and braised meats or grilled steaks were only available during the hunting season or in the winter when the pigs were butchered. The rest of the year it was vegetables, bread and pasta, and the protein options were cured meats like salami, prosciutto or pancetta, with the occasion chicken or rabbit for Sunday dinner and special occasions.

January and the winter months were traditionally the time that the pigs were slaughtered, when the cold weather would keep the meat from spoiling before it had a chance to begin to cure. Hams, necks, and bellies and were salted and laid down to become prosciutto, capocollo and pancetta. The head was boiled in spices and lemon and picked over to be made into soppressata. All the rest was chopped and ground to be made into sausages, cured in olive oil, or salami, mixed with fennel, garlic and black pepper.

All that is still done, but in modern, temperature controlled facilities on a year round basis. The seasonality of the pig slaughter has mostly disappeared and with it the appreciation of the rarity of a great chunk of roasted loin, shoulder or pork belly.

During my first winter in Tuscany, one of my most exciting discoveries was roasted pork belly, or pancetta fresca arrosto. To me, the best part of roasted pork was always the fat on the outside, and the cuts had become so lean and dry in the US it had lost its appeal. But all that fat, hot and roasted, with the skin brown and crunchy, was sheer heaven.

Pancetta in Italian comes from pancia, which is the belly of the pig, and can be cured, smoked or raw. The first time I saw a large slab of raw pancetta in the butcher window, rolled and stuffed with rosemary and sage, I knew I’d found dinner.

The pancetta can be rolled on it’s own or rolled around a pork shoulder. Because the pork belly must cook at a high temperature until it’s crunchy and thoroughly cooked, it’s unwise to roll it around a pork loin, which will overcook and become dry.

The easiest way to cook a pork belly, is just to salt it and put it on a bed of sage and rosemary sprigs and whole garlic cloves. Add some white wine to the pan and put it in a really hot oven, at 425-450, until it’s gorgeous with a brown crunchy skin and the juices from the fat running out and making your mouth water. Take it out and put it on a large cutting board for 10 minutes. Chop it with a large chef or butcher knife and serve it with sauteed fennel and winter greens, roasted potatoes and good bread.

You can also get a pork roast and roll the pork belly around it. Salt the shoulder, rub it all over with a paste of fresh rosemary, sage and garlic, and wrap the pancetta around it, skin and fat side out. Tie the roast well and follow the above roasting instructions.

Enjoy the winter! Buon Appetito!

September 12, 2012 by Gina Stipo Leave a Comment

Taralli – the pretzel of southern Italy

We called them “Grandma’s pretzels” and they were little rings of fennel flavor dough, alternately crunchy and chewy. But the official name is “taralli”, and if you go to southern Italy you see them everywhere. Flavored with fennel or pepper and occasionally almonds, they are great with a glass of wine and sliced salami. Often taralli are made with lard which makes them flakey, or olive oil which gives them more of a crunch, taralli are gaining popularity in Tuscany and regions up north.

Grandma’s pretzels were both chewy and crunchy, which you don’t get in store bought versions. Shaped into small rings or knots, she made bags of them and brought them out for cocktail hour, which was taken seriously in my grandfather’s home.

I recently decided to pull out her recipe when my niece, Nastasia, was visiting and we had a nice little salami we were going to slice for dinner. It gave me the chance to pass it on to the next generation. We had so much fun making them that she carefully wrote the recipe to replicate them at home.

They’re easy to make. You begin with a simple bread dough, give it minimal time to raise and then roll them out and shape them. Thirty seconds in boiling salted water and then 20 minutes in a hot oven and you have a lovely, homemade pretzel.

Taralli – southern Italian pretzels

6 cups flour

1 envelope yeast, dissolved in 1 cup water

2 teas salt

¼ cup fennel seed (or 2 tbsp black pepper)

¾ cup olive oil

Combine flour, salt and fennel seed, make a well and add the water and yeast and oil. Mix together until it forms a stiff dough, then knead until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. Cover and let it rest 15 minutes.

Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil.

Take a quarter of the dough and roll it flat with a rolling pin. Cut ropes and roll them thin, less than 1/4” and 3” long; form each piece into a ring and secure. When you have your work surface filled, pick them up and plunge them into the boiling water for 30-60 seconds. Pull them out with a spider or slotted spoon onto paper, then place them on parchment paper on a baking sheet and bake at 400’ until lightly browned.

Allow them to cool before putting them in plastic bags to save. Serve with any Italian cured pork product. Buon Appetito!

October 4, 2011 by Gina Stipo Leave a Comment

Culatello di Zibello

If you like prosciutto, you gotta try culatello. Formally known as Culatello di Zibello, it is a luscious cured meat that’s literally the culo (that’s Italian slang for butt) of the pig. Whereas when making prosciutto, the entire leg of the pig is salted and dried in cool air at a high altitude, in making culatello only the largest, choicest muscle of the leg is used, turning a simple ham into a sublime experience.

Culatello di Zibello is your favorite prosciutto taken to an all new level. The town of Zibello in Emilia Romagna is located in the lowland plains north of the Appenine mountains, about 10 miles to the north of Parma, in an area prone to humidity. Because the entire leg with the bone doesn’t cure well in the high humidity and warmth of the plains, they cure just this choice piece of the leg with the bone out. The result is a cured meat that is so delicate and porky, so satiny, luscious and soft in the mouth you seriously consider never eating anything else again.

Culatello isn’t imported into the US so you have to search it out when you’re in Italy. Legally the only three cured pork products that can be imported are Prosciutto di San Daniele, Prosciutto di Parma and Mortadella di Bologna, based on old import restrictions because of parasites that existed in raw pork, implemented to protect the US consumer. Today, while these are allowed in, it’s not from just any Italian producer but from specific producers that have met the strict guidelines set by the US FDA and have passed stringent inspections from US FDA inspectors. Sure do wish they spent that kind of time and energy inspecting the meat packing plants in America.

Not being able to export their exceptional culatello to the US concerns the people of Zibello, of course. They see the market strength of neighboring Parma and they want a piece of the American pie. Back in 2009, shortly after the last Presidential election, I was talking with a culatello producer about the US import ban. He was telling me how difficult it is when American food writers and chefs come to see, taste and fall in love with culatello. But since they aren’t able to get it at home, they stop writing and talking about it. But, he continued, now that Obama had been elected President of the United States, the locals were convinced that soon culatello would be recognized for the superior pork product it was, and very soon the ban on it would be lifted.

Now, having spent the entire 2008 campaign and election in Italy, I was aware that people outside of America had high hopes for our new President and were certain that Barack Obama would save the world. But it had never been made so clear to me in how many small, myriad ways Obama was expected to do this. An obscure cured pork product that many Italians have never heard of, much less Americans, and that even the majority of well-connected foodies don’t even know exist, was going to be brought to the forefront of importation issues by the election of a man in a distant country. No matter how wonderful or delicious or regionally important this product may be, those expectations were astounding. Oh how I wish it were so! Perhaps if we all spent more of our time and energy finding and eating pork products as excellent as Culatello di Zibello, peace might reign in the world! Make food not war!

Buon Appetito! Gina