Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well (27 page)

This recipe serves five people, and will please them all, for it is anything but a haphazard concoction, as it may at first seem from the description.

Here are the approximate amounts to make enough of this pasta to feed five people.

Take three medium-sized cuttlefish, which may weigh in all between 650 and 700 grams (about 1-1/2 pounds). Remove the membrane that covers them, the cuttlebone, the mouth, the eyes, the digestive tube and the ink sac. Some cooks leave the latter, but I remove it, because it gives the dish an unpleasant appearance.

Prepare a battuto with 100 grams (about 3-1/2 ounces) of crustless bread, a good pinch of parsley, and a garlic clove. Finely chop the tentacles (there are two for each cuttlefish), season them with olive oil, as well as a good measure of salt and pepper. Then use this mixture to stuff the cuttlefish, sewing up their mouths. Chop up a medium-sized onion, squeeze it to remove its sharpness, and put on the fire with a little olive oil. When the onion begins to brown, toss in the cuttlefish and season with salt and pepper. Wait until the cuttlefish begin to turn a golden brown and then finish cooking over a low flame in lots of tomato sauce (recipe 6) or tomato paste, adding water a little at a time. Allow to simmer for 3 hours, but make sure that enough sauce remains to season 500 grams (about 1 pound) of spaghetti. Before serving, add some Parmesan cheese, and you will
find that this is a delicious sauce. The cuttlefish, which when cooked in this manner become tender and easy to digest, should be removed from the sauce and served as a seafood stew for the next course.

Many who read this recipe will cry out, “Oh, what a ridiculous pasta!” I, however, like it. It is common in Romagna, and if you serve it to youngsters, you can be almost certain they will love it.

Pound some walnuts together with bread crumbs, adding confectioners’ sugar and a spoonful of the usual spices. After removing the spaghetti from the water, season first with olive oil and pepper, then with a good measure of this mixture.

For 400 grams (about 14 ounces) of spaghetti, which feeds five people, you will need:

60 grams (about 2 ounces) of shelled walnuts

60 grams (about 2 ounces) of bread crumbs

30 grams (about 1 ounce) of confectioners’ sugar

1 heaping tablespoon of allspice

The ancient Romans left the consumption of garlic to the lower classes, while Alfonso King of Castile hated it so much he would punish anyone who appeared in his court with even a hint of it on his breath. The ancient Egyptians were much wiser—they worshipped garlic as a divinity, perhaps because they had experienced its medicinal properties. Indeed, it is claimed that garlic provides some benefit to those suffering from hysteria, promotes the secretion of urine, strengthens the stomach, aids digestion and, being also a vermifuge, protects the organism against epidemic and pestilential diseases. When sauteing it, however, you must be careful not to cook it too
much, as then it acquires an unpleasant taste. There are many people who, ignorant of the ways of food preparation, have a horror of garlic merely because they can smell it on the breath of those who have eaten it raw or poorly cooked. As a result, they absolutely ban this plebeian condiment from their kitchens. This fixation, however, deprives them of healthy and tasty dishes, such as the one I present below, which has often comforted my stomach when upset.

Finely chop two garlic cloves and a few sprigs of parsley, as well as some basil leaves, if you like the taste. Saute in a good measure of olive oil. As soon as the garlic starts to turn golden brown, toss in 6 or 7 chopped tomatoes, seasoning with salt and pepper. When everything is well cooked, puree the sauce, which will serve four to five people. Pour the sauce over spaghetti or vermicelli, adding grated Parmesan cheese. Remember to cook the pasta only for a short time in plenty of water. Send to the table immediately, so that the pasta does not have time to absorb all the moisture, and thus remains of the right consistency.

Tagliatelle are also delicious when served in this sauce.

This is a family dish, but good and tasty if prepared carefully. Besides, pasta dishes of this sort are useful alternatives to that eternal and often stringy and tasteless stew.

500 grams (about 1 pound) of spaghetti

500 grams (about 1 pound) of shelled peas

70 grams (about 2-1/2 ounces) of bacon

Make a battuto with the bacon, one new onion, one fresh garlic clove, some celery and parsley. Sauté in olive oil and when it starts to brown add the peas together with a few stems of chopped dill, if you can find some. Season with salt and pepper, and cook.

With your hands break the spaghetti into pieces shorter than half a finger, then cook them in salted water, drain well, mix with the peas and send to the table with Parmesan cheese on the side.

This recipe serves six or seven people.

Drain 300 grams (about 10-1/2 ounces) of spaghetti and season in a bowl with the, amount of butter and Parmesan cheese you normally use. Then pour over the pasta a bechamel sauce made with:

3 deciliters (about 11/4 cups) of high quality milk

30 grams (about 1 ounce) of butter

1/2 a tablespoon of flour

This recipe serves four people.

Take a bunch of Swiss chard, a bundle of spinach, a head of lettuce and a section of cabbage. Remove the larger ribs from the chard, then coarsely chop all these vegetables and soak them in cold water for a few hours.

Prepare a battuto with a 1/4 of an onion and all the usual seasonings, that is, parsley, celery, carrot and a few basil leaves (or a few springs of dill). Sauté in butter. When the battuto has taken on a nice golden color, add the vegetables which you will remove from the water without squeezing them dry, some chopped tomatoes and a sliced potato. Season with salt and pepper and allow to boil, stirring frequently. When the vegetables have cooked down, pour cold water over them and then cook them until they break up. Then pass the mixture through a sieve, which will remove the vegetable’s rinds and filaments, which you will discard. Use some of the pureed sauce to cook rice or to provide the base for a soup. But first test for flavor, to see if it needs some additional seasoning and particularly butter, which is almost always the case.

Serve this first course with Parmesan cheese on the side. But I warn you not to make it too thick, so that it doesn’t seem like plaster.

Appetizers or antipasti are, properly speaking, those delicious trifles that are made to be eaten either after the pasta course, as is practiced in Tuscany, which seems preferable to me, or before, as is done elsewhere in Italy. Oysters, cured meats such as prosciutto, salami, mortadella, and tongue, or seafood such as anchovies, sardines, caviar, “mosciame” (which is the salted back of the tuna fish), etc., may be served as appetizers, either alone or with butter. In addition, the fried breads I describe below make excellent appetizers.

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

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

30 grams (about 1 ounce) of raisins

20 grams (about 2/3 of an ounce) of pine nuts

20 grams (about 2/3 of an ounce) of untrimmed prosciutto

20 grams (about 2/3 of an ounce) of candied fruit

Coarsely chop the capers. Remove all the stems from the raisins and wash them well. Slice the pine nuts crosswise into three sections, finely dice the prosciutto, and chop the candied fruit into little chunks.

In a small saucepan heat a heaping teaspoon of flour and the two tablespoons of sugar. When the mixture begins to brown, pour in a half glass of water with a few drops of vinegar in it. Let it boil
until smooth, then toss all the other ingredients into the saucepan and let simmer for 10 minutes. Test for flavor from time to time to make sure the sweet, strong taste is just right (I have not specified how much vinegar is needed, because not all vinegars are of equal strength). While the mixture is still hot, spread it over small slices of bread fried in good olive oil or lightly toasted.

You can serve these canapes cold even midway through dinner, to whet the appetites of your table companions. The best bread to use is the kind baked in a mold, as in England.

Preferably use baguettes cut into diagonal slices. If you cannot get baguettes, prepare small elegant slices of lightly toasted bread, which you will butter when still hot. Spread truffles prepared as described in recipe 269 over the bread, and coat with any drippings that are left over.

As you know the gall bladder must be removed unbroken from a chicken liver, a procedure you can best perform in a small basin of water.

Put the chicken livers on the fire together with a battuto made with a shallot or, if you do not have any, a section of a small white onion, a small piece of fat trimmed from prosciutto, a few sprigs of parsley, celery and carrot, seasoned with a little olive oil and butter, as well as salt and pepper. Be sparing with the amounts, so that the resulting mixture will not turn out too spicy or heavy. When half done, remove the chicken livers from the saucepan and chop finely with a mezzaluna along with two or three chunks of dried mushrooms soaked in water. Put them back in the saucepan, and finish cooking, adding some broth. Before serving, however, sprinkle the mixture with a pinch of bread crumbs to bind it and add a little lemon juice.

I remind you that these canapes should turn out tender. Therefore, make sure the mixture is somewhat runny. Alternatively, soak the small bread slices lightly in broth.

Finely chop very little onion and some untrimmed prosciutto. and saute with butter. When well browned, add the chicken livers, finely minced, together with a few sage leaves (four or five will be enough for three livers). Season with salt and pepper. After the moisture has evaporated, add some more butter and bind with a tablespoon of flour, then finish cooking with broth. Before removing from the fire, add three or four teaspoons of grated Parmesan cheese and taste to see if properly flavored.

Make the crostini with a loaf of crustless stale bread. Each piece should be a little less than 1 centimeter thick (about 1/2 an inch). Spread the mixture generously on top of the slices when they are not too hot. After a few hours, when you are ready to serve the dish either alone or as a side dish for roast, beat an egg with a drop of water. Pick up the crostini one by one, dust the top with flour to cover the spread, then douse them in the beaten egg and fry them in the skillet, with the covered side down.

Gut the woodcocks and remove the entrails, discarding only the part of the intestines close to the rectum. Combine the entrails with the gizzards (without emptying them), some parsley leaves and the pulp of three anchovies for every three sets of entrails. No salt is needed. Mince everything finely with a mezzaluna. Put on the fire with butter and a pinch of pepper, then add brown stock.

Spread this mixture on thin bread slices. Toast lightly and serve with the woodcocks, which you will have roasted with a few bunches of sage and larded with a thin slice of salt pork.