Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well (53 page)

Zucchini can also be stuffed with the mixture in recipe 347. If you do not have any brown stock, you can cook them just in butter, or in butter and the tomato sauce from recipe 125.

Prepare the zucchini as in the preceding recipe, and stuff with a mixture made with tuna preserved in oil, finely chopped with a mezzaluna and blended with egg, a pinch of grated Parmesan cheese, a little of the pulp that you have removed from the zucchini, a dash of spices, a dash of pepper, and no salt. Sauté the zucchini in browned butter, and add some extra flavor with the tomato sauce from recipe 125.

If you prepare this dish carefully, you won’t believe how good it will turn out.

Cooked this way, these vegetables are served mainly as a side dish. Now, so-called “refined cooking” has reduced and simplified the use of condiments and seasonings. This might be healthier, and lighter on the stomach, but flavor suffers considerably as a result, and that little something that some people need to stimulate their digestion is lacking. This is a case in point. If you are using green beans, parboil them; if zucchini, keep them raw and cut them into wedges or rounds, then saute in browned butter. Season with only small amounts of salt and pepper.

If you then add a little brown stock or some of the tomato sauce from recipe 125, you will have gone beyond the rules of foreign or modern cooking. But in my opinion, they will taste better, and your stomach will feel more satisfied. If you do not have brown stock or tomato sauce, at least sprinkle the vegetables with Parmesan cheese when you remove them from the fire.

Take about 300 grams (about 10 1/2 ounces) of small, tender green beans, remove the ends and the strings, and, as cooks who like to use Frenchified language say,
blanch
them—that is, parboil them in salted water. Then strain, cut into thirds, and finish cooking in butter, seasoning with salt and pepper. In a small pot, beat an egg yolk with a teaspoon of flour and the juice from a 1/4 of a lemon; thin this mixture with a ladleful of cold skimmed broth, and put this liquid on the fire in a small saucepan, stirring continuously with a wooden spoon. When it thickens to the consistency of a smooth cream, pour it over the green beans. Keep the beans on the fire a little longer so that they will absorb the sauce nicely, and serve as a side dish for boiled meat.

In addition to salt, a teaspoon of soda thrown into the boiling water gives green beans and zucchini a nice green color.

Parboil the beans, adding a teaspoonful of soda so that they stay nice and green. Then sauté them in butter—but lightly, so they do not lose their nice color; season with salt and pepper. Pour over them a fairly runny béchamel sauce made with cream, butter, and flour, but not too much of it. Serve with an accompaniment of fried croutons. This dish can be served as an
entremets
.

Soak the green beans in cold water. If they are tender, use them whole and raw, and when you put them in the pot do not shake off too much of the water.

Finely chop a shallot, parsley, carrot, and celery, and sauté in oil. You can also use a pearl onion or an ordinary onion instead of a shallot. Season with salt and pepper, and when this has browned, add broth and strain, pressing hard against the mesh. Add some tomato sauce to the strained sauce, and then cook the green beans in it. Before removing the beans from the fire, season with two teaspoons of vanilla sugar. If you do not like this spice, use calamint instead.

Snap off the ends of the unshelled peas and cut them into thirds. Put them in a saucepan with two whole cloves of garlic, uncooked tomato sauce, and enough cold water to cover them. Season with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and then put on the fire and simmer until done, making sure that enough concentrated sauce is left to make the beans more flavorful. They can be served as an
entremets
, or as a side dish with boiled meat.

In the trattorie of Florence I have heard shelled beans cooked in this way called “fagiuoli all’uccelletto.”

First cook the beans in water and then strain. Put a pan on the fire with an appropriate amount of oil and several sage leaves. When the oil starts to sizzle, toss in the beans and season with salt and pepper. Sauté them until they absorb the oil, shaking the pan every so often. Then pour a little plain tomato sauce (recipe 6) over the beans, and when this has been absorbed, take them off the fire. You can also use boiled thin-skinned dried beans.

If you do not want to eat them by themselves, these beans go very well as a side dish with boiled meat.

300 grams (about 10-1/2 ounces) of shelled beans

100 grams (about 1 ounce) unsliced bacon

2 deciliters (about 4/5 of a cup) of water

4 tablespoons olive oil

a sprig of sage (4 or 5 leaves
)

salt and white pepper

Put the beans on the fire with all of the other ingredients. Simmer, stirring often. Remove the sage and bacon, and serve. This side dish serves four people.

Take 500 grams (about 1 pound) of tender green beans and remove the tips and any strings they may have. Toss into boiling water with a pinch of salt, and as soon as the water comes to a boil again, strain the beans and plunge them into cold water.

If you have some brown stock, use it, along with some butter, to finish cooking the beans. If not, sauté a 1/4 of an onion, a few parsley leaves and a piece of celery, all finely chopped, and when the onion has browned toss in the beans, seasoning them with salt and pepper. Finish cooking, adding a little water if necessary.

Prepare a béchamel sauce with 30 grams (about 1 ounce) of butter, one scant tablespoon of flour, and 2 deciliters (about 4/5 of a cup) of milk. Use this sauce, along with a handful of grated Parmesan cheese and four beaten eggs, to bind the beans after they have cooled. Blend this mixture and pour into a smooth mold greased with butter and with a sheet of paper lining the bottom. Cook (in
bain-marie
if you like), and serve hot.

Take a head of cauliflower, and if it weighs, say, 350 grams (about 12-1/3 ounces) without the stalk and leaves, use the following ingredients to season it:

3 deciliters (about 1-1/4 cups) of milk

3 eggs

60 gram (about 2 ounces) of butter

30 gram (about 1 ounce) of grated Parmesan cheese

Parboil the head of cauliflower and then cut it into small pieces. Sauté these with half of the butter, and season with salt. When the cauliflower has absorbed the butter, finish cooking with a little of the milk. Then you can leave it as is, or purée it by passing it through a sieve. Make a béchamel sauce with the rest of the butter and milk
and one scant tablespoon of flour, and add this to the cauliflower along with the eggs, beaten, and the Parmesan cheese.

Bake in a smooth mold as for the green bean sformato, and serve hot.

These amounts serve six.

Divide a large head of cauliflower, or two heads if they are small, into small sections. Wash the sections, do not dry them, and then cook in the following manner. Chop an appropriate amount of garlic and parsley and sauté in oil; when they start to brown, add a splash of water. Then toss in the cauliflower, seasoning it with salt and pepper. When it has absorbed the seasoning, finish cooking in tomato paste diluted with hot water. Enhance the flavor with some grated Parmesan cheese just before serving. Use as a side dish for boiled meats, stews, or cotechino.

Follow all the instructions in recipe 387 for cauliflower sformato. Cut the cardoons into small pieces so that they will absorb the seasoning well. Taste the mixture before pouring it into the mold.

Parboil the spinach in very little water, or in just the water that remains on the spinach after you remove it from the cold water in which you have soaked it. Pass the spinach through a sieve, and add an appropriate amount of salt, pepper, powdered cinnamon, a few tablespoons of the bechamel sauce in recipe 137, butter, eggs, Parmesan cheese, and a handful of raisins or dried zibibbo
⁶⁶
grapes with the seeds removed. Blend well, and pour the mixture into a smooth mold with a hole in the center. Bake in
bain-marie
. Remove from the mold while still hot, and fill the center with a delicate stew of chicken giblets or sweetbreads, or milk-fed veal—or even both together—mixed with little bits of dried mushrooms.

You should make this sformato at a time when artichokes are not too expensive. I think it is one of the most delicate.

Remove the toughest outer leaves, and trim the artichokes. Peel the stalks, keeping them all, even if they are long.

Cut each artichoke into four sections and boil in salted water for five minutes only. If you leave them on the fire longer, besides soaking up too much water, they will lose much of their flavor. Strain them, grind in a mortar, and pass through a sieve. Blend this puree with all of the ingredients usually used in vegetable sformati, namely eggs (don’t be too stingy to add an extra egg, this will bind the mixture better), two or three tablespoons of béchamel sauce (not skimping on butter), grated Parmesan cheese, salt, and a dash of nutmeg. Taste the mixture several times to make sure that the seasonings are just right.

If you have some brown stock or sauce from stewed meat, it’s not a bad idea to put a little bit in. If the artichokes are quite tender, you can leave them in small sections instead of passing them through a sieve.

Bake, set in a pan of hot water, in a mold with a hole in the middle, if you have some meat stuffing to fill it with; if not, bake in a plain mold and serve as an
entremets
.

Because of the pleasant aroma and sweet taste of fennel, this sformato is one of the most delicate tasting.

Remove the toughest leaves from the fennel bulbs, then cut the
bulbs into small sections, and boil until 2/3 done in salted water. Strain well, and then sauté in a little butter, seasoning with salt. When the fennel has absorbed the butter, moisten with a little milk. When it has absorbed the milk as well, add a little bechamel sauce. Remove from the fire and leave as is, or pass through a sieve. When the fennel has cooled, add some grated Parmesan cheese and three or four beaten eggs, depending on how much fennel you have. Pour the mixture into a plain mold, or a mold with a hole in the center, and treat as you would any other sformato. Bake in
bain-marie
, and serve hot as an
entremets
or as an accompaniment to boiled capon. You can also garnish it with a tasty mixture of giblets and sweetbreads.