I'm not excited by this one. I wonder how something so simple got such a long name?
Well, Melanie Belshee did the research at her very good Alcohol Infusions blog and it seems to be named for a fellow with a deep connection to the bar where it was developed.
The best I can say about this is that it's a fairly light summer refresher. I made it with an ordinary Highland Scotch and Martini & Rossi Dry Vermouth; a more robust Scotch or a less assertive vermouth might have had better results.
I described in Italy All-Star Feast: The South how a blog about New England food and drink came to focus temporarily on Italian traditional cuisine, wrapping it up with a trio of all-star feasts exploring the 20 provinces of that ancient foodie culture. This was a tricky one, as I had to squeeze in eight provinces, each with long and distinct culinary traditions!
For the Northern Italy feast, I included the big provinces of Piedmont, Lombardy, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna, plus the smaller Alpine border provinces of Val d'Aosta (on the French/Swiss border), Trentino-Alto Adige (Austria), Friuli -Venezia-Giulia (Slovenia), and little coastal Liguria, home of Genoa. Our companions were our old friends David and Diane Peck. Here's how we did it:
For about a year, from late March 2020 through April 2021, when our New England travels were limited by Covid-19, I focused on the traditional cooking of Italy. After Lorna and I were vaccinated, we celebrated with a series of 10-course Italian all-star feasts highlighting recipes from Northern, Central, and Southern Italy. I wanted to have something from each of Italy's 20 provinces.
For the Southern Italy feast, I included Campania (Naples), Basilicata, Apulia, Calabria, Sicily, and Sardinia. Our companions were our old foodie friends John Morse and Christina Cochrane. Here's how we did it:
Aperitivo: Limoncello brought back from Campania by John M's son.
Antipasto: On the platter there's some of the usual fare, plus Luchanico sausage from Basilicata, oil-cured black olives from Sicily, and 'nduja spicy sausage paste from Calabria in the glass sherbet dish. In the bowl are Cruschi, dried red pepper chips from Apulia (I had to order these online). The other sherbet dish next to the crackers has a veggie caponata from Sicily.
Then we moved into the dining room and opened a bottle of chilled Greco di Tufo white wine from Campania.
This is a delicious cool-weather dish to accompany a rich meat dish, or just on its own. It's a classic accompaniment to roast goose, and it's fine with roast turkey, too, especially for a holiday table!
You can get perfectly good chestnuts in a jar, so there is no need to go through the tedious and finger-tearing process of peeling whole chestnuts.
This Lombard classic is beef or veal shank slow-cooked until meltingly tender, and then served with a savory sauce and a contrasting zippy lemon gremolata. It is traditionally served with the beautiful golden Risotto Milanese.
Here's a flavorful treat for St Patrick's Day or any other day that you're feeling Irish!
In WWI, "It's a Long Way to Tipperary" was a popular song among Irish soldiers on the front lines far from home. The story is that a man walked into a bar one night, humming that tune. The patrons suggested that the bartender invent a cocktail to honor the tune and the men who sang it so long ago.
What he came up with is definitely a mix of Irish Whiskey, Sweet Vermouth, and Green Chartreuse with bitters, but recipes vary. Chartreuse has a very strong, bittersweet flavor, and it can easily overpower the other components. The Mr. Boston Official Bartender's Guide has it as equal parts like a Negroni, but other sources vary the proportions. I have tried it the Mr. Boston way, and more like a Boulevardier with two parts Irish to one each of the others, but the one I like best is recorded here. This one is more like a Manhattan Cocktail, with the Chartreuse much diminished but still very present.
Trifolata is Italian for "sauteed", so this is simple zucchini disks sauteed in olive oil with chopped fresh parsley and a crushed garlic clove. It is easy to prepare and it goes with pretty much everything, especially beef, pork, and poultry dishes.
This is a classic Florentine pork roast of Tuscany, Arista alla Fiorentina. Like much Tuscan food, it has few ingredients so they must be of top quality.
In this case, it's just a pork loin roasted with rosemary, garlic, and black pepper, and a couple of whole cloves just to get wacky, in a Tuscan sense.
This is a totally succulent and aromatic piece of meat that is wonderful fresh from the oven, but it is also good (and frequently) served cold in a picnic or other al fresco setting. I know that because I read it, but also because that's how I ate the leftovers with a little mostarda...there was no need to reheat them.
This is a simple vegetarian dish. According to the Accademia Italiana della Cucina, it's "typical of Caserta", a humdrum little town northeast of Naples with an immense and fabulous palace and gardens. I don't know why this simple dish has such specific roots, but there you have it. It's delicious in any event.
We visited Caserta in 2015 to see the royal palace of the Bourbon kings, and I recommend it!
"Our trust is in God, and our Lady, and Rory O' More."
Rory O'More was an Irish nobleman of an ancient lineage ruined by the British Crown, and one of four leaders of the Irish Rebellion of 1641. He was a dashing figure known for his wit, cleverness, and compassion, and he became wildly popular among the Irish laboring and dying under the British imperial yoke. A generation after the rebellion, Oliver Cromwell attempted to destroy the Irish people and killed (by some estimates) a third of them. Almost two centuries (and some more rebellions) later, the Great Hunger saw the loss of a third again. Then came hard-won independence... By the time of the Golden Age of the Cocktail, is it any wonder that the many Irish descendants in America would name a cocktail after this hero?
This is essentially a Manhattan Cocktail made with Irish Whiskey and orange bitters. I like it with Powers Gold and Dolin vermouth.
This Spezzatino di Coda di Manzo is a recipe from the northeastern Italian Alps. It includes typical mountain seasoning like juniper berries and bay leaves and it is typically served with polenta. This is not the iconic Oxtail Stew in the Roman Style - Coda alla Vaccinara, which has tomatoes and batons of celery in it.
Oxtail has a lot of collagen, so slow cooking develops it into a rich, delicious stew full of umami goodness. Leftovers make a great sauce for pasta.
Here is an interesting recipe, the name of which means "mushrooms cooked like tripe". There's no tripe in here, it's a vegetarian dish; the name comes from the inclusion of some tomato and oregano.
This frittata is typical of Lombard tastes, although it could certainly be made anywhere in Italy.
This one is rich and heavy enough to be served at any meal. It would be fine with a little pepper jelly, or maybe a glass of Barbera d'Alba!
This Fagiolini Rifatti, or "twice-cooked beans" is nothing at all like Tex-Mex refried beans! Italian uses the same word, fagioli, to mean both green beans and dried beans.
This is an easy dish that bursts with the contrasting flavors and colors of the green beans and the red tomatoes.
Chicken alla Romana is a classic Roman dish of chicken with bell peppers. There are many recipes, but maybe the best known is that of Sora Lella.
Sora Lella was a fictional character portrayed on TV and in movies for decades by Elena Fabrizi. Elena was also a renowned foodie and restaurateur in Rome. This was her cornerstone dish.
