Salt Archives - Page 2 of 3 - attheitaliantable.com

February 13, 2015 by Gina Stipo Leave a Comment

Colatura – Italy’s Umami in a bottle

The current issue of Saveur magazine has a short feature about the town of Cetara on the Amalfi coast and colatura, the special anchovy sauce they produce there. An important ingredient in many of the dishes of the Amalfi coast and southern coastal towns of Italy, colatura is the juice drained off of anchovies that have been salted and aged in a wooden barrel for several months. It is a concentrated fish sauce that both disgusts the nose and delights the palate and is undoubtably Italy’s best answer to the fifth taste, umami.

Based on an ancient Roman staple called garum, colatura has been made in this quaint fishing village for centuries. Whenever we take groups to Naples and Campania, we always make a stop to see the women and men who labor at the task of cleaning the fish, salting them and then when they’ve been cured, removing the skin and bones and packing the anchovy filets in small jars. The process of cleaning, salting and packing in large plastic bins, or in the case of colatura, in small wooden barrels, takes place when the anchovies are running, generally from spring through early summer. The process of cleaning and packing filets in jars is year-round. Watching them work will make you grateful for whatever job you have!

It’s difficult to get in to see the process anymore due to hygiene controls in place, as with any food production facility. But it’s Italy and if you know the right people long enough, it’s possible to get a pass to see the work done.Cetara is a beautiful coastal town, with a small quaint beach on the Amalfi coast. It’s quiet because all the buses and cars are frantic to get to better known towns and destinations, like Positano, Amalfi and Ravello. I love stopping in Cetara long enough to lay on the beach and listen to the waves on the sides of the little fishing boats.

Most of the anchovy production is done in non-descript buildings under the bridge just after the town of Vietri sul Mare.

October 13, 2013 by Gina Stipo Leave a Comment

Sotto Sale: baking fish under salt

It must be orata (sea bream) season because beautiful specimens are showing up in the fish market and recently a friend called to say he’d procured two fresh caught orate from Orbitello on the Tuscan coast, and would I come over to show him how to cook them sotto sale, or under salt. Then last week for cooking class I had a special request to do an all fish menu with a whole fish sotto sale for the main course, and I found the most gorgeous 6 pound orate in the market. We baked it under several boxes of coarse salt, a procedure so simple you don’t need a recipe.

If you look on the internet or most cookbooks for a recipe for whole fish baked in salt, current chefs seem to complicate the whole procedure and have you mix kosher salt with egg whites. It’s a step that’s really not necessary, save your egg whites for a meringue cookie. In Italy we just grab the box of sale grosso, or large salt, and cover the fish completely, giving it a good bed of an inch of salt to lie on and a nice comfy blanket of salt to put it to cook in the oven.

A note on salt: you can find sale grosso in Italian deli’s or in a lot of supermarkets. It has a large crystal than sale fine or fine salt. It shouldn’t cost a lot of money and don’t use any of the expensive flake salts like Maldon. Never use kosher salt for anything other than salting the driveway in the winter. Kosher salt is highly processed and rends a bitter acrid saltiness to anything you use it in. While fish baked under salt doesn’t taste salty because the flesh never comes in contact with the salt, the salt you use should be a natural, sweet salt, not a processed acrid product.

When deciding what fish to bake, choose a nice plumb, like branzino (sea bass) or orata (sea bream), or even a fresh trout. Always get a fish that’s been wild caught as they’ll have more flavor. The salt acts as an airtight cover to keep the moisture in while baking and the end result is a fish that is moist and delicate and not salty.

You have the option of adding something to the fish cavity to flavor the meat, like lemon or onion slices or a sprig of parsley, but it’s not necessary. The Tuscans like to add rosemary to fish dishes, but I’ve always felt rosemary is way too strong for the delicate flavor of a white fleshed fish.

So here’s what you do: get your whole fish, gutted and with scales on. Find a baking dish big enough and put a solid bed of large grain salt down, place the fish on it and cover it completely with more salt about an inch thick. Put it in a 400 degree oven and bake it for about 40 minutes. If the fish is very small, less time; I cooked the 6 pound orata that was 4″ thick and it took an hour.

When you pull the fish out of the oven let it sit for 5 to 10 minutes. Then gently start to remove the salt crust, being careful not to open the fish or pull away the skin to expose it to the salt. When you have most of the salt brushed off the top, pick up the fish and place it on a clean board or platter. Gently pull back the skin, keeping a bowl of warm water nearby to rinse your hands of excess salt. With a large fork or fish spatula, pull off the white meat onto a separate warm platter. Work quickly but carefully. Garnish it with lemon slices and some parsley sprigs. A little black sea salt sprinkled on top gives a lovely contrast!

December 21, 2012 by Gina Stipo Leave a Comment

Salty, Savory, Crunchy, Sweet

nutty snack I don’t remember when I had my first taste of toasted almonds mixed with plump golden raisins and coated with olive oil and crunchy salt, but I know it accompanied a glass of Amontillado. They were beautiful together, as so few things really are. The savory crunch of the roasted almonds and the sweet chewiness of the raisins were the perfect foil for the oaky fruitiness of the sherry. Alone each was delicious, but together they were a force.

I’ve been making it for years to enjoy and give to friends. My Christmas wouldn’t be complete without it. Well, that and a glass or two of Scotch and Drambuie and some roast beef.

The mix is savory, salty, sweet and crunchy perfection. Try it with a glass of Amontillado or your favorite sherry, or if you have some good Tuscan Vin Santo or Sicilian Marsala you won’t go wrong. I make large batches as it keeps well and makes a great homemade gift. Happy Holidays!

2 cups whole, raw almonds

2 cups golden raisins

2 teaspoon Maldon or Cyprus flake salt (or fleur de sel)

1 tbsp great olive oil

Blanch the almonds: bring 4cups of water to a boil, add the almonds and stir; after 30 seconds drain the almonds and pop the skins off by squeezing the base, shooting the almond out through the tip. Place in a single layer on a sheet pan and roast at 350 until golden brown. Meanwhile, put the raisins in a large bowl. When the almonds are done, add them to the raisins and add the salt and olive oil, stirring well to coat. Cool the mixture and keep it in an airtight container.

November 18, 2012 by Gina Stipo Leave a Comment

Salt and Pepper get a Divorce

Salt and Pepper are breaking up. They’ve been together in our kitchens for too long. They have become such partners at the table that you would think they’d been officially married by some Higher Power. And although salt and pepper are essentially two separate ingredients with different roles to play on the plate and palate, somewhere along the line they got fused into one, with pepper as salt’s inevitable sidekick.

No matter what other seasoning goes into a dish, most recipes invariably finish with “salt & pepper”. Salt and pepper are eternally paired in matching shakers on the table. Chefs in restaurants mix pepper with salt together in a bowl and use it to flavor every dish that walks out the kitchen door. Waiters attempt to indiscriminately garnish everyone’s plate with fresh grinds of black pepper. We season by rote.

Well it’s time for Salt and Pepper to get a divorce!

After 12 years spent cooking in Tuscany, I found myself reaching for the pepper mill less and less until I stopped using it altogether. I began to notice this when my students started asking me why we weren’t putting pepper in anything. My answer was always “because it isn’t necessary.” I had learned to season food differently, relying on strong flavors like Tuscan olive oil, sage and rosemary.

Tuscan cuisine utilizes intense flavors like rosemary, sage, capers, wild fennel and garlic, all of which are free for the picking in gardens and fields. In addition, Tuscan extra virgin olive oil is peppery, adding a heat to the dish that renders black pepper unnecessary.

When we season with other strong spices like cumin, cinnamon, clove or cayenne, it’s because we want a particular flavor to stand out. We don’t put those spices indiscriminately in everything we eat, but use them to add sweetness, complexity or heat to a dish. Black pepper is the only spice we use without thinking. Putting black pepper in everything we cook results in both a failure to truly appreciate it as well as a sameness of flavor.

So think before grabbing the pepper mill the next time you’re in the kitchen. Set salt and pepper free from each other and see what it does for your cooking!