Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well (21 page)

These amounts serve six to seven people.

Take some small zucchini equal in weight to the amount of rice you wish to cook, and cut them into chunks the size of hazelnuts. Sauté them in butter, seasoning with salt and pepper. As soon as they begin to brown but are still rather firm, throw them in the half-cooked rice, so that they will finish cooking together.

The rice should be fairly dry, and the zucchini should not lose their shape. You may cook this dish in water instead of broth, and serve it quite dry. But in this case, add tomato sauce (recipe 125) to give it character, likewise pouring the sauce into the rice when it is half cooked. Also add some Parmesan cheese.

This soup can be made with either broth or milk, and the following amounts serve five people.

250 grams (about 8-3/4 ounces) of white bread

80 grams (about 2-3/4 ounces) of grated Gruyere cheese

50 grams (about 1 -2/3 ounces) of butter

40 grams (about 1-1/3 ounces) of grated Parmesan cheese

3 eggs, beaten

2 large white onions

1-1/2 liters (about 1-1/2 quarts) of milk or broth

Slice the onions very thinly and sauté them in butter. When they begin to brown, add the broth or milk (depending on what you are using). Cook well so that the onions are soft enough to be passed through a sieve. Mix the puréed onions with the remaining liquid. Cut the bread into slices or cubes, toast it, and then arrange it in layers in a soup tureen. Garnish the bread with the beaten eggs, the Gruyere and the Parmesan cheese. Lastly, pour in the boiling broth or milk and send to the table.

If you make this dish with milk, you should salt the eggs well. Given the amount of onion used in this soup, it is not recommended for those suffering from loose bowels.

Make a dough with flour, two eggs, 40 grams (about 1-1/3 ounces) of finely grated Parmesan cheese, and a dash of nutmeg. Roll out the dough, not too thin, and cut it with a pastry wheel with a scalloped edge into strips a finger and a half wide. Then, with the same pastry wheel, cut the strips at an angle, at intervals as wide as the strips, to obtain lozenge-shaped pieces. Take a piece at a time and with your fingers squeeze the four corners—two above and two below—in such a way as to form two attached rings. Cook briefly in broth. With two eggs you should be able to make enough strichetti for five people.

If you like this soup, you can thank a young, charming Bolognese woman known as la Rondinella, who was so good as to teach it to me.

If we take a soup for four people as the norm, 150 grams (about 5-1/4 ounces) of shrimp should do. Wash the shrimp and place them on the fire in two ladles of broth. When they are cooked, scoop them out, and dissolve in the broth 30 grams (about 1 ounce) of crustless white bread sautéed in butter. Shell the shrimp, mash them in a mortar and pass them through a sieve, moistening them with
the mixture of broth and bread. Add the resulting mixture to a brown stock like that in recipe 4. If you do not have brown stock handy, you can make one with about 100 grams (about 3-1/2 ounces) of meat. Finally, stir the mixture into the broth you have set aside for the soup, and pour the liquid over the roasted bread, or bread cubes fried in lard or oil.

Serve with grated Parmesan cheese.

The distinguished poet Olindo Guerrini, librarian of the University of Bologna, has a taste for learning so developed that he enjoys digging up the bones of the culinary paladins of old, and drawing astonishing inferences from them that make modern cooks laugh out loud. He was good enough to favor me with the following recipe, taken from a little book,
The Art of Cooking Well
, by Signor Bartolomeo Stefani of Bologna, who was the cook of His Serene Highness the Duke of Mantua in the mid-1600s. At that time, much use and abuse was made of all manner of seasonings and spices, and sugar and cinnamon were used in broth, as well as in making boiled or roasted meat. Omitting some of his instructions for this soup, I shall limit myself, aromatically speaking, to a bit of parsley and basil. And if the ancient Bolognese cook, meeting me in the afterworld, scolds me for it, I shall defend myself by explaining that tastes have changed for the better. As with all things, however, we go from one extreme to the other, and we are now beginning to exaggerate in the opposite direction, going as far as to exclude herbs and spices from dishes that require them. And I shall tell him as well of the ladies who, at my table, have made gruesome faces when confronted with a bit of nutmeg. Here is the recipe for the soup (serves six):

120 grams (about 4-1/4 ounces) of veal or lamb brains (or brains of a similar animal
)

3 chicken livers

3
eggs

1 sprig of basil and 1 of parsley, chopped

the juice of 1/4 lemon

Scald the brain so as to be able to skin it, and then sauté with the chicken livers in butter. Finish cooking them in brown stock, adding salt and pepper for seasoning.

Put the eggs in a pot and beat them with the basil and parsley, as well as the lemon juice and a bit of salt and pepper. Add cold broth a little at a time, to dilute the mixture. Then dice the brain and the livers and add to the pot. Put this on a low flame to thicken, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. Take care not to bring it to a boil. After it has thickened, pour into a soup tureen over some diced bread sautéed in butter or oil and sprinkled with a handful of grated Parmesan cheese.

This is a delicate, substantial soup. However, it you, like me, are not particularly fond of foods with such a soft texture, then you may want to substitute sweetbreads for brains. And this reminds me to mention—and I know whereof I speak—that in some regions where, because of the climate, one must be careful about what one eats, the inhabitants have soenfeebled their stomachs by eating light and preferably soft, liquid dishes, that they can no longer withstand food of any weight.

A woman from Parma, whom I have not the pleasure of meeting, wrote me from Milan, where she lives with her husband, as follows: “I take the liberty of sending you a recipe for a dish which in Parma, beloved city of my birth, is a tradition at family holiday gatherings. Indeed I do not believe there is a single household where the traditional ‘Anolini’ are not made at Christmas and Easter time.”

I declare myself indebted to this woman, because, having put her soup to the test, the result delighted not only myself but all my guests.

To serve for four to five people:

500 grams (about 1 pound) of lean, boneless beef loin

20 grams (about 2/3 of an ounce) oflardoon

50 grams (about 1-2/3 ounces) of butter

1/4 of a medium-sized onion, chopped

Lard the piece of meat with the lardoon, tie it and then season with salt, pepper and spices. Then place it on the fire to brown in an earthenware bowl or other saucepan with butter and the roughly diced onion. When the meat has browned, add two ladlefuls of broth, and then cover with several sheets of paper held firmly in place by a soup plate containing some red wine. As to why wine and not water, I cannot explain it, and neither could the lady.

Now let the meat boil gently for eight or nine hours, to obtain some four or five spoonfuls of flavorful, concentrated sauce, which you will then strain, pressing firmly against the mesh. Set it aside for use the next day. Make the filling for the anolini with:

100 grams (about 3-1/2 ounces) of grated day-old bread, lightly toasted

50 grams (about 1-2/3 ounces) of grated Parmesan cheese

a dash of nutmeg

1 egg

the meat sauce you prepared the previous day

Blend this all together into a smooth mixture. Then make a dough with flower and three eggs, keeping it fairly soft. Roll it out and cut it into scalloped disks as in recipe 162. Fill the disks with the stuffing, then fold them in half to obtain small half-moon shapes.

These amounts should yield about 100 anolini. They are good in broth or with a sauce like tortellini, although they are lighter on the stomach than the latter. You can eat the leftover meat as stew by itself or with a side dish of vegetables.

200 grams (about 7 ounces) of ricotta or raviggiuolo (soft white cheese), or both mixed together

40 grams (about 1-1/3 ounces) of Parmesan cheese

1 whole egg

1 egg yolk

a dash of nutmeg and spices

a pinch of salt

a little parsley, chopped

The stuffing is enclosed in dough like cappelletti but the pasta is cut with a somewhat larger round disk. I use the disk described in recipe 195. You can leave the dumplings in the half-moon shape obtainable after the first fold, but the cappelletti shape is preferable. Cook them in sufficiently salted water, drain and garnish with cheese and butter. These amounts will yield 24 or 25 tortelli, and being large, they will serve three people.

400 grams (about 14 ounces) of shelled fresh peas

40 grams (about 1 1/3 ounces) of untrimmed prosciutto

40 grams (about 1 1/3 ounces) of butter

1 new onion, no larger than an egg

1 small carrot

a pinch of parsley, celery and a few of basil leaves

Dice the prosciutto finely with a knife, and then mix it with the other ingredients, also finely chopped. Place on the fire with butter, a little salt and a pinch of pepper. When it begins to brown, pour in as much water as you judge sufficient for the soup, and when it comes to a boil, throw in the peas together with two slices of bread fried in butter. Then pass it all through a sieve. This will yield a puree sufficient for six people. Pour this over some additional bread, prepared as in the recipe for pea soup with meat broth (35).

It is said, and rightly so, that beans are the meat of the poor. And when the manual laborer going through his pockets sees with a sad eye that he is unable to buy a piece of meat large enough to make soup for his little family, he often finds in beans a healthy, nourishing and cheap alternative. Moreover, beans take some time to leave the body, quelling hunger pangs for a good while. But… and even here there is a but, as there so often is in the matters of this world— and I think you get my point. For partial protection, choose thin-shelled beans, or pass them through a sieve. Black-eyed beans partake of this drawback less than other varieties.

To make the bean soup more pleasant and tasty, and sufficient for four to five people, make a soffritto as follows: take a quarter of an onion, a clove of garlic, a bit of parsley and a nice piece of white celery; chop these finely with a mezzaluna and place them on the fire with a good amount of oil—and be generous with the pepper. When the soffritto has begun to brown, add two ladlesful of bean broth, add a bit of tomato sauce (recipe 6) or tomato paste, bring to a boil, and then pour it into the pot containing the beans.

For those who like some vegetables in their soup, they can add a bit of red cabbage, first washed and then boiled in the liquid of the soffritto.

Now the only thing left is to pour the soup over some bread already roasted in slices one finger thick and then diced.