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December 29, 2011 by Gina Stipo Leave a Comment

Winter Radicchio “tardivo”

Winter greens such as kale and swiss chard are plentiful at this time of year, but another greens family that is common in Italy in the cold weather is cicoria, or chicory. The chicory family includes many different greens, including puntarelle from Rome, but the most welcome and famous are the radicchios from the Veneto.

Known as far back as Roman times, there are many varieties of radicchio, the round cabbage-shaped Chioggia being the best-known in the US market. Grown in California, it’s a year-round staple in US produce departments. But in Italy the time of year between Christmas and Easter brings a welcome flood of winter crop radicchio to the marketplace. Most of them are known for the name of the town in the Veneto region where they are grown.

The oldest and most famous is the Treviso, which is long and shaped like romaine lettuce; it has protected status and can only be grown around the town of Treviso and a few towns outside Venice and Padova. There is also the Castelfranco, with variegated creamy leaves speckled with red, and the Verona with full shaped round heads. Chioggia also derives its name from a town on the Venetian coast.

But the rarest of all and the radicchio that you simply must be in Italy to find is the winter tardivo, which means “late”. Known for its chef-hat shape, strong white ribs and trimmed root, these heads are harvested soon after the first November frost. Labor intensive to produce, after pulling them up with the root ball attached, they are kept in circulating spring water, which brings on crisp new shoots on the inside of the head. After several weeks they are plucked from the spring water and the root ball is carefully trimmed, with the dead leaves pulled away. They seemingly magically appear in the markets in mid-winter and are wonderful, crisp and bittersweet.

All radicchio are great raw in salads or can be grilled or sautéed with a sprinkle of olive oil and sea salt. A delicious risotto can also be made with sauteed radicchio, a bright and warm risotto to warm you in the cold mid-winter.

Buon Appetito! Gina

Risotto con Radicchio

2 cups fresh radicchio, chopped

1 onion, chopped finely

1/4 cup olive oil

2 cups white wine

2 cups arborio rice (1/4 cup per person)

6-8 cups rich vegetable or chicken broth

6 tbsp butter

¾ cup parmigiano or grana padana, grated

Make the vegetable broth with a chopped carrot, a celery stalk or two, half an onion, a few sprigs of fresh parsley, some peppercorns and a bay leaf; for chicken broth, add ½ a chicken. Simmer 60 minutes and after it’s cooked, discard the veggies and add salt to taste.

Heat the broth to almost boiling and keep hot.
In a large pot, sauté the onion in olive oil and 1 tbsp butter until soft, then add the radicchio and cook 2 minutes. Add the rice and stir to coat with oil, allowing the kernals to heat up. Add the white wine and stir until well cooked off. Add the broth one to two cups at a time, stirring until the liquid is absorbed with each addition. The rice should be soupy after each addition of hot liquid; as the liquid cooks off and is absorbed, the mixture becomes drier, at which point you add liquid to the soupy stage again. Continue this process until the rice is cooked, with the interior of the kernels being slightly al dente, about 15 minutes. Check for salt.
Add the butter and grated cheese and vigorously beat them in. The risotto will stiffen quickly, so serve it immediately, adding additional liquid as needed right before serving to maintain the characteristic creaminess of the dish.

October 23, 2011 by Gina Stipo Leave a Comment

Tortellini and a history lesson

I spent some time recently with my good friend, pig farmer and professional olive oil taster, Daniele Barufaldi, and in the course of the day we started talking about food, our favorite dishes and how to make them. Daniele is originally from Emilia Romagna, the region north of Tuscany, and while he has lived near Siena for over 20 years with his Venetian wife and sons, he still maintains a freezer full of homecooked specialities, lovingly made by his mother. As he says it, he’s from Emilia.

United as one region today, Emilia and Romagna were separate regions until the 1860’s when the unification of the country of Italy took place. But the people still think of themselves as either “Emiliano” or “Romagnolo”. Divisions run deep in Italy and people relate more to their hometowns and families, and less to the regions they live in. What is oftentimes so difficult to understand about regional Italian cooking is, it isn’t regional. It’s local. It’s so local that neighboring towns will go to war about the right way, the only real way, to make a particular dish. Any dish. I have learned about Italian cooking from both working with the old ladies in the kitchen as well as listening to the old men at the table, who don’t actually do the work but are there to critique it. Or should I say I have gleaned what I can about Italian cooking from talking with the people.

So it should have come as no surprise when Daniele started arguing with me about the correct way to make tortellini. Tortellini in brodo is the pride of the Emilia Romagna table and one of my favorite dishes. The broth is satiny and complex tasting, yet simplicity at its most earnest. The pasta is rich and silky, stuffed with meat and redolent of nutmeg and pepper. Cooked in the broth and served with a dusting of parmigiano reggiano on top, it is heaven on a spoon.

Now, I’ve made tortellini many times. Learned to make them in Bologna years ago and the recipe I use is from a friend’s mother who was born and raised outside Bologna. Yet when I tell Daniele that I cook the pork and veal before pureeing it with mortadella, prosciutto, parmigiano and nutmeg, he raises such a fuss you would have thought someone peed in the ragu.

“NO!” he yells, “the pork and veal must be raw in the stuffing!”

“OH, Calmati!” I yell back at him. That’s the only way to hold your own in a food discussion with an Italian: you have to yell back. And there’s no better way to get a discussion going than to yell at the other person to Calm Down. “That’s how I was taught by two old women from Bologna who have made more tortellini in their lives that you have!” I rush to the defense of my education and honored teachers.

“Well, obviously your teachers were Romagnolan”, he concedes, “that’s how they make it in Romagna. In Emilia – where they REALLY know how to cook – the stuffing is raw before making the tortellini.”

I did not know that.

Then he puts the loaded question to me, with the raise of an eyebrow: “And how big do you make them??”

“Very small”, I answer. “A square inch of pasta wrapped around a tiny amount of meat stuffing and formed around your littlest finger.”

“No!”, he yells. “There can be no less than five (5) tortellini on a soup spoon!”

“Oh”, I say, really getting into the argument, “and how big is this spoon? Soup spoons come in all different sizes!”

“No! All soup spoons are the same size!”

Really??? I go to his cupboard, pull out the drawer and fish out three different sized soup spoons. “There”, I say, laughing. “You didn’t think that in Italy tortellini would be all different sizes but all the spoons would be the same!?”

We ended by agreeing that very soon we have to share a plate of tortellini in brodo. I hope he pulls out his stash of his mom’s tortellini. And if I can’t get five on my spoon, there’ll be hell to pay!

Tortellini in Brodo

This recipe, given to me by Grazia’s mother, cooks the meat with celery and onion before pureeing it with the other ingredients. If you use raw meat, as they apparently do in Emilia, leave out the celery and onion.

½ onion, chopped

1/2 stalk celery, chopped

½ lb veal in chunks

¼ lb pork in chunks

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1 cup white wine

1 slice mortadella

2 slices prosciutto di parma

½ cup grated parmigiano

¼ teas nutmeg, freshly grated

1 bay leaf

Salt, pepper

Saute the onion, celery, veal and pork in the oil until cooked through, add the bay leaf and white wine and cook off completely. Let cool. Place the mix in a food processor with the mortadella, prosciutto, nutmeg and parmigiano and puree completely. If mixture is too dry to mix, add a small amount of milk. Salt to taste.

Brodo

½ chicken

2 large beef short ribs

2 carrots, cleaned and cut into large pieces

2 celery stalks, cut into large pieces

1 onion, cut in quarters

1 whole tomato

3 parsley sprigs

10 whole black peppers

2 bay leaves

2 whole cloves

Cover all vegetables with fresh water and bring to a boil, add the chicken and beef and simmer for two to three hours, covered. If any foam rises to the top, skim off and continue cooking. After an hour you can add a tbsp of sea salt to taste.

October 9, 2011 by Gina Stipo Leave a Comment

Wild Fennel

Autumn is finally here and it gets cool as soon as the sun goes down, but the days are still bright blue and sunny. This summer and fall we haven’t had rain at all and that means no excursions into the woods to hunt mushrooms. But there’s always something to harvest in Tuscany and right now the countryside is loaded with bright yellow wild fennel flowers turning to seed. I know that if I wait a month there will be a great crop of wild fennel seed, but as soon as it gets cool I start thinking about roasted pork and pancetta, how great they would be dusted with fresh fennel pollen and I can’t wait.

Fennel pollen has become a big hit with chefs in America. It sounds so exotic and carries a big price tag. Which I find amusing, really, because wild fennel plants line the country lanes in Tuscany and cover the meadows, free for the picking. The wild fennel flower is basically a dot of yellow pollen on the end of a small stem, surrounded by miniscule petals, almost too small to notice. A dozen or more of these form the flower, so when you’re collecting fennel pollen you’re in effect collecting the flowers.

Fennel is great for digestion and intestinal ailments and the locals frequently make a tea to drink after dinner. It’s also a main ingredient in digestivi and bitters, Italian liquors drunk after dinner to aid digestion, and bowls of the seeds are often found in Indian restaurants for you to snack on after dinner.

Of course if you don’t have wild fennel growing in the fields where you live, just grind cultivated seeds for the same effect. Fennel marries beautifully with pork and Italians put fennel seed, both wild and cultivated, in lots of pork products. You find the whole seeds in fresh sausage and the Tuscan salami known as finocchiona, while ground seeds are rubbed on the outside of cured pork products like guanciale and copacolla.

Buon Appetito! Gina

Maiale Arrosto con Finocchio (roast pork with wild fennel)

pork loin roast, with fat if possible

extra virgin olive oil

1 tbsp wild fennel seeds and flowers, whole or crushed

1 sprig fresh rosemary

5-7 fresh sage leaves

4 garlic cloves

salt

white wine (dry)

Salt the roast. In a heavy sauté pan, heat a small amount of oil and brown the meat over a high heat, turning to brown all sides and ends. Remove and place it in a roasting pan.

Rub the fennel all over the pork, place the rosemary and sage underneath the roast and scatter the garlic cloves around it. Pour in enough white wine to cover the bottom of the pan. Roast it in the oven at 425° until the internal temperature reads 150°, turning the roast over once. (An instant read thermometer is indispensable for this.) Remove from oven and let it rest 15 minutes before slicing. Slice the roast and serve it topped with the pan juices, with a sprinkle of fennel pollen on top. Garnish with fennel fronds.

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