Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well (56 page)

Now cover the pasticcio with the dough described below; gild with egg yolk, and bake in a Dutch oven; serve hot, because this dish loses a great deal if allowed to cool. This recipe serves seven to eight people.

Dough:

230 grams (about 8 ounces) of flour

85 grams (about 3 ounces) of confectioners’ suga
.

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

30 grams (about 1 ounce) of lard

1 egg

Everyone knows that you can grill artichokes and serve them with any kind of steak or roasted meat. For this recipe, choose tender artichokes, trim the tops, cut off the stalk at the base, and do not remove any of the leaves. Loosen the leaves well so that they can easily absorb the seasoning, which should consist simply of olive oil, salt, and pepper. Place them upright on a grill, and if necessary insert a stick into the bases of two or three at a time to keep them in place. Midway through the cooking process, season again with oil, and leave on the fire until the outer leaves are charred.

In southern Italian cities, where artichokes are found almost every month of the year, it is useless to bother drying them, especially as there is a big difference between fresh artichokes and dried ones. But it is convenient to have dried artichokes if you live where you cannot get them out of season.

Prepare them at the height of the season, when they don’t cost much; but choose artichokes of good quality, at the right stage of maturity. Remove all the tough leaves, trim the tops, cut off a good portion of the stalk, and cut them into four sections, removing the hairy part of the core, if any. As you are cutting them up, toss the artichokes into cold water with either vinegar or lemon juice to prevent them from turning black. For the same reason, place them on the fire in an earthenware pot of boiling water, to which it is good to add a
bouquet garni
consisting of herbs such as thyme, basil, celery leaves, and the like. Ten minutes’ boiling time, or even five if the artichokes are tender, should suffice to cook them halfway. Drain, and put on a grate to dry in the sun; then string them together and finish drying in a shady, well-ventilated place. Try not to keep them in the sun too long, or else they will start to smell like hay. Soften them with boiling water when you are ready to fry them or serve them as a side dish with stewed meats.

This recipe is for 1 liter (about 4 cups) of fresh peas. Take two spring onions, cut them in half lengthwise, put a few sprigs of parsley in the middle, and tie them together. Having done this, place them on the fire with 30 grams (about 1 ounce) of butter, and when they are golden brown, pour a generous ladleful of broth over them. Bring to a boil, and when the onions have fallen apart, pass them through a sieve along with the liquid, squeezing them well. Put the liquid back on the fire with the peas and two hearts of lettuce, left whole. Season with salt and pepper and boil slowly. When half done, add 30 more grams (about 1 ounce) of melted butter mixed with a level tablespoonful of flour, and more stock if necessary. Before sending to the table, bind with two egg yolks dissolved in a little stock. They come out very delicate this way.

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This recipe is simpler and quicker to make than the preceding one, but it is not as refined. Cut some onion into very thin slices and put on the fire in a saucepan with a little butter. When the onion has browned well, add a pinch of flour, stir, and then add a ladleful or two of broth (depending on the amount of peas), then let the flour cook. Add the peas, season with salt and pepper, and when they are about half cooked add one or two hearts of lettuce, left whole. Boil slowly, making sure that the sauce does not become too thick.

Some people sweeten the peas with a teaspoon of sugar; but add only a small amount, because the sweetness should seem natural and not artificial.

Remove the lettuce before serving.

Let’s leave to the English the taste for eating boiled vegetables without any seasoning, or at the most with a little butter; we southern types need our food to be a little more exciting.

I have never found peas anywhere as good as the ones they serve in the restaurants of Rome, not so much on account of the excellent quality of the vegetables from that part of the country, but because in Rome they flavor peas with smoked ham. Having experimented a bit trying to discover how they prepare them, I might not have yet fully succeeded in reproducing their delicious flavor, but I am pretty close. Here is how to do it.

Cut in half lengthwise one or two spring onions (depending on the amount of peas), and put them on the fire with oil and a generous amount of untrimmed smoked ham diced into small cubes. Fry lightly until the ham shrinks, then toss in the peas, seasoning them with little or no salt and a pinch of pepper; stir, and finish cooking with broth, adding a little butter.

Serve either alone as a vegetable course, or as a side dish; but first discard all the onion.

Peas are also good prepared in the following way, but, unlike the preceding recipes, this one cannot be said to belong to fine cuisine.

Put on the fire some finely chopped bacon, garlic, parsley, and oil; season with a little salt and pepper, and when the garlic is golden brown, toss in the peas. When they have absorbed all the oil, finish cooking them in broth, or lacking that, in water.

If the pea pods are tender and fresh, they can be cooked in water and passed through a sieve. You thus obtain a puree which, when dissolved in broth, adds a delicate flavor to a vegetable soup or a soup of rice and cabbage. It can also be mixed with the water for risotto with peas described in recipe 75.

600 grams (about 1-1/3 pounds) of shelled peas

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

30 grams (about 1 ounce) of butter

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

3 eggs

1 tablespoon of grated Parmesan cheese

Finely chop the prosciutto, a spring onion, and a pinch of parsley. Put on the fire with oil, and when the onion is golden brown toss in the peas, seasoning them with salt and pepper. When they are cooked, pass 1/4 of them through a sieve, and add this purée to a mixture of melted butter and flour in the amounts indicated above. Dilute the mixture over the fire with brown stock or broth. Then blend all of the ingredients together, including the Parmesan cheese, and bake in
bain-marie
in a smooth mold lined with a buttered sheet of paper.

Choose large, ripe pods; shell and skin the fava beans.

Finely chop a spring onion, put it on the fire with oil, and when it begins to brown toss in some untrimmed diced prosciutto into small cubes. Shortly thereafter, add the fava beans, season with pepper and a little bit of salt, and when the fava beans have absorbed the condiments, add one or two coarsely chopped hearts of lettuce, depending on the amount of beans. Finish cooking with broth, if necessary.

Choose medium-sized ripe tomatoes; cut them in half, remove the seeds, season with salt and pepper, and stuff the cavities with the following mixture, which should form a nice mound on top.

Make a little battuto of onion, parsley, and celery, put it on the fire with a bit of butter, and when it has browned add a handful of dried mushrooms moistened with water and chopped very fine. Add a tablespoon of crustless bread soaked in milk, season with salt and pepper, and boil for a while, adding milk if necessary. Remove from the fire, and when the mixture has cooled, add grated Parmesan cheese and a whole egg, or an egg yolk alone, if that is sufficient to thicken the mixture. Once the tomatoes have been prepared in this way, bake them in a pan with a little butter and oil, and serve as a side dish with any roasted meat or grilled steak. They can be made more simply with a little battuto of garlic and parsley mixed with a very small amount of bread crumbs, salt, and pepper. In this case they should be sprinkled with oil when they are in the baking pan.

As a side dish for boiled meats, they are excellent prepared as follows. Take a large skillet or baking pan, sprinkle with little bits of butter, and cover with tomatoes that have been cut in half and cored. Arrange the tomatoes with the skin side down. Season with salt, pepper, and a little oil, sprinkle more bits of butter on top, and bake uncovered.

All members of the cabbage family, be they white, red, yellow, or green, are children or stepchildren of Aeolus, god of the winds. Therefore people who cannot tolerate wind should have no difficulty remembering that these plants are called
crucifers
, since for such people these vegetables are truly a cross to bear. The real reason for the name, however, is that the flowers of these plants have four petals arranged in the shape of a cross.

Remove the leaves and the green stems from a large head of cauliflower, make a deep crosslike cut in the stalk, and cook in salted water. Then cut into small sections and season with butter, salt, and pepper. Place in an ovenproof dish, sprinkling with a little grated Parmesan cheese and covering with the bechamel sauce from recipe 137. Cook until the surface is golden brown.

Serve hot as an
entremets
, or better yet accompanied by a stewed meat or boiled chicken.

This is not true
sauerkraut
, which we must leave to the Germans to make: it is a pale imitation of it, but it is not unpleasant as a side dish with cotechino, zampone, or simple boiled meats.

Take a head of white cabbage, remove the green leaves and large ribs, and cut into four sections, starting at the stem. Wash well in cold water and then, with a long, sharp knife, cut the sections crosswise into thin strips, much like taglierini pasta. Once all the cabbage has been cut in this way, place it in an earthenware dish with a pinch of salt and cover it with boiling water. When it has cooled completely, rinse the cabbage, squeezing it well and discarding the water; then put it back in the dish with a finger of strong vinegar mixed in a glass of cold water. If the head of cabbage is very large, double the amount. Leave it to soak in this infusion for several hours, squeeze it well again, and cook in the following way.

Finely chop a slice of fatty prosciutto or bacon, and place with a little butter in a saucepan; when this has browned a little, toss in the cabbage and cook with broth from a cotechino or zampone
sausage, if they have been freshly made and are not too spicy; otherwise, use broth. Taste the cabbage before sending it to the table to make sure that it is sufficiently salted and that a perceptible vinegar flavor remains.

Speaking of cured meats, in some Italian provinces people have acquired the vice of abundant and frequent libations in honor of Bacchus. As a result their palates have become jaded, and since the pork butchers have to cater to a perverted sense of taste, they cram their cured meats with salt, pepper, and pungent spices, much to the annoyance of the connoisseurs of good food who would prefer these meats lightly seasoned and with a delicate flavor like the ones that you are likely to find especially in the province of Modena.

This can be used as a side dish with cotechino and boiled meats, as in the preceding recipe. Take a head of white or Savoy cabbage, cut it into strips about a centimeter wide and keep it immersed in cold water. Remove it from the water without squeezing, place it in a saucepan on the fire, and press it down to draw out all the water, which you will remove with a ladle. Finely chop a 1/4 of a large onion and a little bacon and fry in a bit of butter; when the onion has browned, add the cabbage along with a whole piece of bacon, which you will later remove, and season with salt and pepper. Simmer, adding broth until it is cooked. At the end add a little vinegar and a teaspoon of sugar; you should barely be able to taste the vinegar.