Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well (86 page)

1 cinnamon stick

1/2 a lemon

Reinette apples are preferable because they are soft and fragrant. If they are not available, use apples of a similar variety. If this jam-like filling is to be preserved for a long time, you should use twice as much sugar; but if you use it right away, sugar in the amount of one-fourth of the weight of the apples is enough.

Peel and quarter the apples, remove the seeds and seed compartments, and toss them in cool water to which lemon juice has been added. Then drain the apple quarters, and cut them crosswise into thin slices. Next, place them in a saucepan over the fire with a cinnamon stick and no water. When they begin to dissolve, add the sugar and stir frequently until they are cooked, which is easy to tell. Then remove the cinnamon stick and proceed as follows.

Melt the butter and when it bubbles, that is when it is quite hot, dip in as many slices of crustless bread as needed. Prepare these slices ahead of time, taking care that they are not more than 1 centimeter (about 1/2 an inch) wide. Use the bread to line the bottom and sides of a smooth round mold, making sure you leave no gaps. Pour in the filling and cover it with more buttered bread slices. Cook it like a pudding with fire from above, keeping in mind that all you need to do is to brown the bread. Serve it hot.

You might try more varied and elaborate versions of this dessert. For example you can make a hole in the middle of the
preparation and fill it with apricot or some other preserves, or you can arrange the filling in layers with the bread slices.

This apple filling would also do nicely in a short pastry crust.

Se il maiale volasse
Non ci saria danar che lo pagasse.

(If pigs had wings to fly on,
you couldn’t afford to buy one.)

This is what someone once said; and someone else replied: “A pig, with all the cuts of meat it provides, and all the various manipulations these cuts can be subjected to, lets you taste as many flavors as there are days in a year.” I let the reader decide which of these two silly sayings comes closer to the mark. As for myself, I will be happy to evoke that the so-called “pig’s wedding,”
¹³³
for even this filthy animal can be amusing, but, just like the miser, only on the day of his death.

In Romagna, well-to-do families and peasants slaughter pigs at home, which is an occasion to make merry and for the children to romp. This is also a great opportunity to remember friends, relatives and other people towards whom you may have some obligation by making a gift of three or four loin chops to one, a slab of liver to another, while sending to yet a third a good plate of blood pudding. The families receiving these things will of course do the same in return. “One gives bread in exchange for flour,” one might say. But regardless, these are customs that help maintain goodwill and friendships among families.

Coming at last to the point, after this preamble, here is the recipe for Romagna blood pudding. On account of its nobility this blood pudding would not even deign to recognize as kin the sweet-flour blood pudding you can find on any street corner in Florence:

7 deciliters (2 4/5 cups) of milk

330 grams (about 11-2/3 ounces) of pig’s blood

200 grams (about 7 ounces) of concentrated must,
¹³⁴
or refined honey

100 grams (about 3-1/2 ounces) of shelled sweet almonds

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

80 grams (about 2-2/3 ounces) of very fine bread crumbs

50 grams (about 1-2/3 ounces) of minced candied fruit

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

2 teaspoons allspice

100 grams (about 3-1/2 ounces) of chocolate

1 teaspoon nutmeg

a strip of lemon peel

Crush the almonds in a mortar together with the candied fruit, which you have first diced, moistening the mixture now and then with a few teaspoons of milk. Then pass through a sieve. Boil the milk with the lemon peel for ten minutes, then remove the lemon peel, add the grated chocolate and stir until melted. Remove the milk from the fire and let it cool a little. Then pour into the same bowl the blood, which you have already passed through a sieve, and all the other ingredients, adding the bread crumbs last, so that if you have too much you can leave some of it aside.

Cook the mixture in
bain-marie
, stirring often so as not let it stick to the bowl. You will know that the mixture has achieved the right consistency and is done when the mixing spoon remains upright, if you stand it in the center of the mixture. If this does not happen eventually, add the rest of the bread crumbs, if you have not already used all of them. For the rest, follow the directions for ricotta cake (recipe 639), that is, pour the mixture into a baking pan lined with crazy dough (recipe 153), and when it has cooled completely, cut it into almond shaped pieces. Cook the dough as little as possible, so that it is easier to slice, and do not let the pudding dry out over the fire, but rather remove it from the hearth as soon as the broom-twig with which you are pricking it to test for doneness comes out clean.

If you are using honey instead of the concentrated must, taste it before adding the sugar to avoid making it too sweet, and keep in mind that one of the beauties of this dish lies in a creamy consistency.

My fear of not being understood by everyone often leads me to provide too many details, which I would gladly spare the reader. Still, some people never seem to be satisfied. For instance, a cook from a town in Romagna wrote to me: “I prepared the blood pudding described in your highly esteemed cookbook for my employers. It was very well liked, except that I didn’t quite understand how to pass the almonds and the candied fruit through the sieve. Would you be good enough to tell me how to do this?”

Delighted by the question, I answered her: “I am not sure if you know that you can find sieves made especially for this purpose. One type is strong and widely spaced, and is made with horsehair. Another is made of very fine wire. With these, a good mortar and
elbow-grease
, you can puree even the most difficult things.”

120 grams (about 4-1/4 ounces) of sugar

80 grams (about 2-2/3 ounces) of potato flour

80 grams (about 2 2/3 ounces) of chocolate

30 grams (about 1 ounce) of butter

4 deciliters (about 1-2/3 cups) of milk

3 eggs

1 tablespoon of rum

Melt the butter over the fire, then add the grated chocolate. When this too has melted, pour in the potato flour and then the hot milk a little at a time. Keep stirring briskly as you add the sugar. When the mixture is blended and the flour is cooked, allow the preparation to cool. Lastly, add the rum and the eggs, first the yolks and then the whites beaten until stiff. If you use more than three whites this dessert will come out even better.

Grease an overproof bowl with butter, pour in the mixture, place it in a Dutch oven or simply on a burner with fire above and below. Serve hot as soon as it has risen.

These amounts serve six people.

Try this because it’s worth it—in fact it will be pronounced delicious.

1/2 liter (about 1/2 a quart) of milk

80 grams (about
2-2/3
ounces) of sugar

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

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

30 grams (about 1 ounce) of sweet almonds

3 eggs

a dash of vanilla sugar

Blanch the almonds, dry them, and crush them in a mortar until very fine with a spoonful of the sugar.

Make a béchamel with the butter, flour, and hot milk. Before removing it from the fire stir in the crushed almonds, the sugar, and the vanilla sugar. Once it has cooled, add the eggs, first the yolks and then the whites, beaten until stiff. Grease an ovenproof bowl with butter, pour in the mixture and bake in a Dutch oven.

This recipe serves five to six people.

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

80 grams (about 2-2/3 ounces) of potato flour

1/2 liter (about 1/2 a quart) of milk

3 whole eggs

2 or 3 egg whites

a dash of vanilla or lemon zest

Put the sugar and the flour in a saucepan and stir in the cold milk a little at a time. Put the mixture to thicken over the fire; keep stirring with the mixing spoon and don’t worry if it comes to a boil. Add the vanilla or lemon zest.

Allow the mixture to cool and when it is lukewarm, mix in the three egg yolks, then beat the whites and fold them in gently. Pour the mixture into a metal bowl and place it on a burner, covering it
with the lid of a Dutch oven, with fire above and below. Wait until it rises and turns lightly brown; sprinkle confectioners’ sugar on it and send it to the table right away. It will be praised for its delicacy and, if there is any left, you will find it is also quite good cold.

This recipe serves five people.

100 grams (about 3-1/2 ounces) of rice

80 grams (about 2-2/3 ounces) of sugar

6 deciliters (about 2-2/5 cups) of milk

3 eggs

a small piece of butter

1 tablespoon of ruma

dash of vanilla

Boil the rice in the milk, but unless you cook it for a very long time nothing good will come of it. When it is half done, add the butter and the sugar, including vanilla sugar for flavor, and, when it is done and has cooled, mix in the egg yolks, the rum and the egg whites, beaten until stiff.

As to the rest, follow the directions for the potato flour soufflé.

This recipe serves four people.

150 grams (about 5-1/4 ounces) of chestnuts, the largest available

90 grams (about 3 ounces) of sugar

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

5 eggs

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

2 tablespoons Maraschino liqueur

a dash of vanilla

Boil the chestnuts in water for only five minutes because that is all it takes to be able to shell them and remove the inner skin. Then cook
them in the milk and pass them through a sieve. Then add the sugar, melted butter, Maraschino, and vanilla. Stir in the eggs at the end, first the yolks and then the whites, beaten until good and stiff.

Grease an ovenproof bowl with butter, pour in the mixture, and bake it in a Dutch oven. Before sending it to the table, dust with confectioners’ sugar.

This recipe serves five people.

600 grams (about 1-1/3 pounds) of apricots, barely ripe

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

1 glass of water