Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well (23 page)

It is said that the Granduke of Tuscany first tasted this soup in a convent of friars and, having found it excellent, sent his cook there to learn how to make it. But no matter how hard he tried, the excellent cook could not make the soup as well as the friars, who did not want to tell the Granduke that the soup was made with broth of capon rather than water!

The umber or grayling is a most excellent fish. When boiled without spices of any sort, it yields a broth that is almost like beef consommé— an eminently suitable base for a light, meatless soup.

These amounts serve three people, maybe four:

500 grams (about 1 pound) of umber

120 grams (about 4-1/4 ounces) of pastina or capellini

30 grams (about 1 ounce) of butter

1 liter (about 1 quart) of water

Immerse the umber in cold water and place on the fire. When the fish is done, pour the broth through a strainer and then use it to cook the pasta, but flavor the broth with tomato sauce (recipe 6) to cover the smell of fish. When the pasta is ready, transfer the soup to a tureen into which you have previously placed the butter. Send to the table with Parmesan cheese on the side, as is done with meat soups.

Take 1/2 liter (about 1/2 quart) of peas and place on the fire in 2 liters (about 2 quarts) of water. Meanwhile prepare a light soffritto with half an onion, one carrot, two finger-length celery stalks, and, if you have some on hand, a few sprigs of dill. Finely chop all these ingredients, and place them on the fire adding some butter. When the mixture begins to brown, add the peas half-boiled and strained. Season with salt and pepper, and allow them to fully absorb the soffritto. Now add tomato sauce (recipe 6) and the water from the peas. Simmer until completely done. Pass everything through a sieve and, if the purée turns out too thick, add hot water. Test for taste, and add a second little pat of butter which the soup will probably need. The bread for the soup should be chopped into tiny cubes and sautéed in butter.

If you make this soup with care, it will taste as if it were made with meat broth.

This recipe serves ten to twelve people.

I call this dish “tagliatelle” (“little strips”) because, since it is cooked in water and served dry with a sauce, the pasta dough must be rolled out to a somewhat greater thickness, and cut into somewhat broader strips than when making “taglierini” (“tiny strips”). The paste is made with the usual flour and egg dough, which should contain no water if you want a pasta that is firm and flavorful.

Cut a large thick slice of untrimmed prosciutto into little cubes. Finely chop some celery and carrot which, heaped together, should equal the amount of the diced prosciutto. Sauté all three ingredients, along with enough butter to flavor the tagliatelle. When the mixture begins to brown, add tomato sauce (recipe 6) or tomato paste, though with the latter you will also need to add a small ladleful of broth or, lacking that, of water.

Keep the tagliatelle al dente, and salt the water you are cooking them in very sparingly given that the sauce has prosciutto in it. Strain the pasta and dress it with the sauce and Parmesan cheese.

When available, you can use sausages instead of prosciutto. Mince the sausages well, and prepare as described above.

Anyone who loves the taste of butter should save half the quantity needed for the sauce and add it in only after the sauce is removed from the fire.

Spaghetti are also very tasty when served with sausages prepared in this manner.

This pasta is lighter and more digestible than noodles made entirely with eggs. To give these tagliatelle their characteristic green color, boil some spinach, squeeze well, and then chop fine with a mezzaluna. On a pastry board, fold two eggs and a handful of the spinach into enough flour to obtain a very firm dough that you must knead well with your hands. Then, using a rolling pin, roll out the dough into a thin sheet, sprinkling it lightly with flour when it shows a tendency to stick (the spinach makes the dough sticky). Wrap the rolled-out dough in a cloth and, when dry, cut it into strips that are somewhat
wider than the taglierini used for broth. Bear in mind that what makes this pasta beautiful is the strips’ length, which demonstrates the virtuosity of its maker. As soon as the water starts boiling, remove the noodles, strain and season like the country-style spaghetti described in recipe 104, or like macaroni or tagliatelle as described in recipes 87 and 69. Or simply flavor with cheese and butter.

This recipe serves four to five people.

“Bills should be short and tagliatelle long,” the people of Bologna say, and they are right, because long bills terrify poor husbands and short tagliatelle look like leftovers, attesting to the incompetence of their maker. For this reason I do not approve of the widespread custom adopted simply to satisfy the palate of foreigners of chopping capellini, taglierini and similar types of pasta into the minutest bits and serving them in broth. Since they are unique to Italy, they ought to preserve their original characteristics.

Prepare the pasta dough and cut it as described in recipe 69. Boil for a short while, drain well, put in a saucepan and heat for a moment to help it absorb the sauce, which is the one for country-style spaghetti described in recipe 104. Also add enough butter to season the amount of pasta you are making. Toss gently, then send to the table.

To my way of thinking, this is a very tasty dish, but to digest it well, you need air like the kind that you can breathe in Romagna.

I remember traveling once with some Florentines (a toothless old codger, a middle-aged man and a young lawyer) who were on their way to claim an inheritance in Modigliana. We stopped at an inn, and you can well imagine the sort of place it was in that part of the country, this being forty or more years ago. The innkeeper gave us only tagliatelle as the pasta course and cured pork neck as an appetizer, and while this was very tough and displeasing to the taste, the effort the old fellow made to gnaw it was a sight to behold. Such was the appetite
he and the other two possessed, that they found this and everything else to be very good, indeed delicious; I even heard them exclaim several times: “Oh, if only we could take this air with us to Florence!”

Speaking of that fair city, let me tell you about a certain Count from Romagna who was living in Florence when “francesconi”
¹⁸
were still in circulation. This gentleman, a fine match for Goldoni’s
Marquis of Forlimpopoli,
¹⁹
had plenty of arrogance, only a few pennies to his name, and a cast-iron stomach. In those days you could live inexpensively in Florence, which was famous for its low prices in comparison to other capital cities. There were many small restaurants that offered a
prix-fixe
meal of pasta, three main courses to choose from, fruit or pastry, bread and wine for a single Tuscan lira. The servings, though small, satisfied everyone who was not as hungry as a wolf. Even the nobility frequented these restaurants, although the count in question did not deign to do so. What trick do you suppose he had found to maintain such a facade while spending little? On alternate days he would go to the buffet table at one of the best hotels, where for half a francescone (2.80 lire), the fare offered was most sumptuous. Gobbling up everything in sight, he would stuff his stomach enough to last him two days. Then he would go home to diet, on the off day, on bread, cheese and cold cuts. Now you have his example and the recipe.

In my kitchen this risotto is usually made with the following amounts:

1 1/3 kilograms (about 3 pounds) of clams, still in their shells

500 grams (about 1 pound) of rice

To remove the sand inside the clams, wash them first. Then arrange the clams on top of a serving dish, which you have turned upside down, and soak them in a basin filled with salted water, or preferably in sea water. After at least two hours, remove the clams from the water, and put them on the fire with enough water to cook the rice. When the clams pop open, remove the shells and save the water. Before you use the water again, make sure to discard the sandy deposit that forms in the bottom of the pan.

Prepare a soffritto with olive oil, garlic, one small onion, parsley, one carrot and celery. Mince everything as fine as possible with a mezzaluna. When the ingredients are sufficiently browned, throw in the shelled clams, a few pieces of dried mushroom previously soaked in water, a pinch of pepper, and some of the water you have reserved. After a few minutes, throw in the rice and cook thoroughly, adding the rest of the water.

Taste to see if the natural salt of the clams and the spices you have added have given it enough flavor. If not, add tomato sauce (recipe 6) or tomato paste, and also some butter and a pinch of Parmesan cheese.

Instead of clams, you can use other varieties of shellfish such as “peocci” (mussels), as is done in Venice, where, if restaurants followed this recipe to cook rice with peocci (a specialty of that town), the results would be much improved. To preserve shellfish for a little while, store in a cool place, tightly wrapped in a kitchen towel or canvas bag. In winter, I have kept fresh clams for up to six days in this way. But avoid it if you can, as mollusks become very indigestible if not fresh.

Do not be frightened by the notion that tench can produce a good risotto, which will naturally taste offish and which can be a bit hard on delicate stomachs. However, it will please the palate and perhaps even win praise, if you are clever enough not to name the type of fish you used.

Here are the ingredients for a first course that serves six or seven people:

500 grams (about 1 pound) of rice

400 grams (about 14 oz) of tench, more or less

Finely chop two garlic cloves, a pinch of parsley, some basil leaves (if you like its flavor), one large carrot, and two stalks of white celery the length of your palm. Place on the fire in a saucepan with olive oil, salt and pepper. Add the tench, gutted and cut into chunks, and include the fish heads. Keep turning the fish, so that it will not stick to the bottom of the pan. When the tench have browned, begin adding some liquid: first tomato sauce (recipe 6) or tomato paste, and then enough water to cook the rice. To make sure you do not use too much water pour it in slowly, especially at the beginning and the end. Also keep in mind that it is better to use too little water than too much. Boil until the flesh of the fish is quite soft and begins to come apart. Then pass everything through a sieve so that only the little bones and cartilage are left behind. In this sauce you will cook the rice until all the liquid is gone and the rice is done. To make this dish more appetizing, you can add a few pieces of dried mushroom and a small amount of butter. Send to the table with grated Parmesan cheese on the side for those who may want it.

When peas are in season, they are better for this dish than mushrooms. 200 grams (about 7 ounces) of shelled peas should be enough. Cook them separately in a little olive oil, some butter and a whole new onion. Stir in the peas when the onion starts to brown. Saute, seasoning with salt and pepper, and then finish cooking in a little water. Discard the onion and mix the peas in the rice when it is just about done.

This invertebrate (
Sepia Officinalis
), of the order of mollusks and the family of cephalopods, is called “calamaio” (“inkwell”) in Florence. The reason for such a name lies perhpas in a simile (indeed, this is the way the lovely Tuscan language often coins its words): this mollusk possesses a pouch enclosing a little bladder which nature has given it for self-defense. This bladder contains a black liquid that can be used for ink.

Tuscans, Florentines in particular, are so fond of vegetables that they would like to stick them in everything. Thus in this dish they put Swiss chard, which, in my opinion, goes with it like the bread soup with the
Credo
.
²⁰
1 fear that this excessive use of vegetables may be one of the causes, and perhaps not the least one, of the weak constitution of certain groups of people who, when struck with some illness, are unable to fight it off, and so drop to the ground in droves like leaves in late autumn.