Everyone knows that classic Italian favorite Fettuccine Alfredo! But most of what we get in this country is a rich, somewhat bland mass-consumption version of a very fine (if labor-intensive) recipe from Rome. The original version is well known and the technique is brilliant - this one is well worth making.
We had this all over Sicily and then in Rome. It's a classic Sicilian dish of simple ingredients that must be fresh and well-prepared. Make this in summertime when the eggplant is fresh and flavorful. The tomatoes can be fresh in season or canned, but canned tomatoes without preservatives are better than "fresh" tomatoes out of season (the tomatoes were fresh when they went into the can). I like Cento brand canned tomatoes.
Bistecca alla Fiorentina is maybe the original foodie's steak, with much lore about the great care needed in getting and cooking the perfect steak.
There are also many misconceptions about this wonderful and expensive pinnacle of carnivory. While in Tuscany, I engaged in grueling research to get to the real facts of the matter. ;-)
Bistecca alla Fiorentina, or Florentine Beefsteak, is a T-bone steak prepared with the finest beef and minimal other ingredients. It's all about the technique and the quality of the beef.
That's where the first problem arises. Bistecca alla Fiorentina is prepared from the beef of the white Tuscan Chianina cattle. This is not your basic Black Angus or fancy New Zealand ribeye - the Chianina is very lean, but the cut used for the steak is tender as long as you don't overcook it. It's dry-aged 15-30 days. Of course, being so lean, you have a very small window to get it right, and its expensive so you can't afford a lot of practice.
The steak is unseasoned, except for a dusting of salt. It's cooked over very hot charcoal, very briefly, and served rare or on the light side of medium rare.
It's a huge piece of beef, typically sold by the hectogram (100 grams, about 4.5 ounces), but you cannot order a 1 hectogram sample; the cook carves off a steak and sends it out for approval. The one I got was 1.3 kilos and, at 5 euros/hg, cost 65 euros. (It's OK to share one steak with a couple of friends, but I had the good sense to dine with two vegetarians!)
Then it's carved tableside, and served, both the sliced meat and the remaining bone that you can hack at at your leisure. A traditional side dish is white beans with olive oil.
I had mine at Tar Tufo in Siena, one of the few places that guaranteed Chianina beef properly aged and cooked. That's important because I saw the "Bistecca alla Fiorentina" served at a number of places, most of which refused to answer the question of sourcing, or else admitted that they used Irish or French beef as less vulnerable to overcooking and more similar to what tourists expect of a steak.
There's no reason that you can't make any American cut with the same care. It's all about the quality of the beef, and the precision technique is a factor of the leanness of the beef made worthwhile because of its great flavor. This maybe the way to go if you can get your hands on great grass-fed beef at your local farmers' market!
This hard-to-find, visually-unappealing, finicky vegetable is worth the hunt and the longish preparation.
I had searched for cardoons for years every late fall/early winter, with no success. Albie's Produce in the North End and even Eataly in Boston's Back Bay had failed me.
Then a double-stroke of good luck brought me success! The produce manager at my local Stop & Shop acidentally got a shipment of cardoons from California, and I happened to be at the store on that morning.
I sort-of recognized this long-sought vegetable, but I wasn't sure. Fortunately they were labelled Cardones, the Italian name for the vegetable, so it was easy to connect the name.
The raw vegetable is very bitter, but 30 minutes of boiling extracts most of the bitterness, leaving only a bracing aftertaste that complements a rich buttery or cheesy sauce.
I made this for A Feast of Parma and it wowed everyone. It's not like the ubiquitous heavy mass that we see in chain restaurants and pizza joints all over New England. The eggplant is not breaded, the sauce is light and very simple, but then baked long. The reason for this is simple: the eggplant and the excellent cheese are the stars of this show, so why overpower them with strong herbs?
You will use a lot of olive oil in this recipe. There is no need to use cold pressed extra-virgin oil, because you lose all the flavor when it is heated. The oil is just a cooking medium, so regular olive oil or olive pomace oil are fine for sauteeing.
This peculiar and delicious late summer dish is certain to provoke conversation! Whoever thought to combine these three flavors was inspired. Any two of the flavors do not work well together, but the three together make a strange magic.
This is a special occasion dish, so try to use a fresh melon in season, a very good port, and a very fresh lobster from a lobster pound, not from the supermarket.
What a treat is fresh pasta! When we toured Italy in July 2015, our most memorable meal was a plate of fresh ravioli in Rome. The story is rather longer than this page requires, but the bottom-line result was that fresh home-made pasta is work exploring, so I did.
In this case, it was for Annette's Genoese Birthday, so I made silky-smooth, super-thin Genoese Mandilli de Saea (Silk Handkerchiefs) with fresh pesto. It was fun and delicious!
This was our first locavore meal in Italy. It was at the Hotel Sole in the town of Busseto, in the province of Parma, in Emilia-Romagna in north-central Italy's agricultural heartland. Busseto was the hometown of my favorite composer, Giuseppe Verdi.
Emilia-Romagna is dominated by the rich agricultural flatlands around the Po river valley. The climate is mild and the growing season is long. This long-settled region is home to a lot of familiar foods that we see in supermarkets all the time: prosciutto and Balsamic vinegar, Reggiano-Parmigiano and Grana Padano cheeses, Lambrusco wine, and many pastas.
This is a fabulous seafood antipasto: seafood on a pile of steamed vegetables with a piquant Genoese green sauce to hold it together.
The top image shows one that was made by Richmond for a gala affair at the Old Colony Club with 80 guests. It was an extravagant showpiece with numerous kinds of seafood, including lobster. Then he used the head and flippers to make it even more eye-catching.
The middle image was for a smaller event at the Old Colony Club, this one a structured wine tasting with 36 guests. This Capon Maggro was made by my friend Mary Quinlan. It had to share a table with cheeses and salumi from Piedmont and Genoa, so she made it simple and elegant, so as not to overshadow the other foods and the Roero Arneis and Gavi di Gavi wines that we were showcasing in this room. In addition to the basic structure of bread topped by the vegetable salad garnished with seafood, she also added steamed mussels and cherrystones around the bottom for color contrast. The white and green along the top are quartered hard-cooked eggs and large green pitted olives.
The bottom image is a small one made for an appetizer for a dinner for four people. It was made with only shrimp with steamed potatoes and pearl onions.
See the notes for tips on how to make this delicious invention into a less intimidating affair.
Castagnaccio is a traditional Tuscan unleavened bread for travelers and field-workers. It's heavy, flavorful, and nourishing without being too sweet.
Castagnaccio is made with fresh chestnut flour, olive oil, rosemary, and pignoli, and sometimes raisins. I get chestnut flour in Boston's North End at Polcari's Market or at Salumeria Italiana; I am told that it is also available at Whole Foods sometimes.
