Two Italian Recipes for Cheese

Posted on January 28, 2012 by bilrob

Mac & cheese grows up

Italian sub inspires toothsome dish with a creamy, sharp cheese sauce. In this grown-up version of macaroni and cheese we take a trip to Italy. Sort of.

Inspired by the Italian sub popular in the Northeast, we sauteed up salami, garlic peppers, sun-dried tomatoes and onion.

Our cheese sauce is creamy and sharp because of a mixture of fontina and picante provolone. If you can’t find picante provolone, just use the sharpest provolone you can find.

And while we used orecchiette pasta, any shape will do. If you prefer your macaroni and cheese baked, spoon the finished recipe into a casserole dish and top with Parmesan cheese before placing under the broiler for a minute or two.

Garlic peppers are a sort of pickled red pepper. If you can’t find them, substitute roasted red peppers and add a minced clove of garlic and a tablespoon of red wine vinegar.

Italian macaroni and cheese

1 pound orecchiette pasta
5 ounces dry salami, diced (about 1 cup)
1/2 cup chopped oil packed sun-dried tomatoes
1/2 cup garlic peppers, diced
1 medium yellow onion, diced
2 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 1/2 cups milk
1 cup shredded fontina cheese
1 cup shredded picante provolone cheese
1/2 cup shredded fresh basil
Salt and black pepper, to taste

Bring a large saucepan of salted water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook according to package directions. Drain and set aside.

Meanwhile, in a large saucepan over medium-high heat, saute the salami until crisped and browned, about 5 minutes. Add the sun-dried tomatoes, garlic peppers and onion. Continue to cook until the onion is very tender, about 5 to 6 minutes. Add the butter and stir until melted. Add the flour and stir to coat well.

While stirring continuously, pour in the milk. Bring the mixture to a boil, continuing to stir. Cook for 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and stir in the fontina and provolone, one at a time, to ensure even melting. Stir in the basil and the cooked pasta. Season with salt and black pepper.

Makes 8 servings. Per serving (values are rounded to the nearest whole number): 480 calories; 170 calories from fat (36 percent of total calories); 19 g fat (10 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 55 mg cholesterol; 53 g carbohydrate; 23 g protein; 3 g fiber; 820 mg sodium.

Cheese tortellini with chicken, broccoli, carrots and basil pesto
By: Chef Dan Eaton

INGREDIENTS:
• approx. 3 cups cooked chicken meat, diced or shredded
• 1 9-10 ounce package cheese tortellini
• 2 small onions, chopped (or 1 medium large)
• 4 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch coins
• olive oil for sauteing veggies
• 2-3 cups broccoli florets
• 1 cup chicken stock
• approx. 1 cup basil pesto (or more to taste)
• grated parmesan cheese for garnish

PROCEDURE:
1. Once the chicken meat has been removed from the bones the rest of the meal comes together in just about the amount of time it takes to bring a medium pot of water to a boil and cook the tortellini, so get the water going for that.
2. And then use another wide, deep pot to saute 2 small rough chopped onions and 4 medium, peeled and 1/2-inch thick sliced carrots in a little olive oil to soften.
3. Once the onions have softened up, add 2-3 cups of small broccoli florets and add 1 cup of chicken stock and turn the heat to high.
4. Put a lid on top of that and, the idea is to cook the broccoli and finish cooking the carrots without the pan drying out, so keep your eye on that. At this point, add one 10-ounce package of cheese tortellini to the boiling water and get that going.
5. The tortellini will only take 4-5 minutes to cook, you want to let it gently simmer along. Once the broccoli is tender crisp, add the cooked chicken meat to that and let that warm through.
6. Then use a slotted utensil to scoop the cooked tortellini into the pot, and then add enough basil pesto to generously coat everything and it is time to eat.
7. Serve it up in bowls with grated parmesan cheese over the top.
HINTS: Add a handful of defrosted frozen peas to the mix as well.
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Panettone - Italian holiday bread

Posted on December 30, 2011 by bilrob

Panettone – Italian holiday bread or An alternative to Christmas Pudding

Jeweled with candied fruits (particularly citrus) and raisins, it first came into being in Milan about 1490 and was quickly adopted throughout Italy, from the Alps to Sicily.

The fruit studded Italian sweet bread originated in Milan and quickly spread to the rest of Europe and beyond
Rachel Zammit Cutajar

Today the sweet bread loaf is enjoyed around Christmas and New Year in much of Europe and South America. The Italian Agricultural Minister is trying to obtain Protected Designation of Origin to protect the real Italian cakes from growing competition in Latin America, however to date this has not been successful.
It has a coupla shape, which extends from a cylindrical base and is usually about 12-15 cm high for a panettone weighing 1 kg. Other bases may be used, such as an octagon or a frustum with star section shape more common to pandoro.

Legends abound concerning the origin of panettone. The most popular is one that tells of a young aristocrat smitten with the daughter of a pastry chef named Toni. To impress the father of his beloved, the young man pretended to be an apprentice pastry cook and invented a wonderful sweet dome-shaped bread of exceptional delicacy. This new fruit bread was an enormous success; people streamed into the bakery to buy the exceptional “pan de Toni.”

Another legend credits the panettone cake’s being invented in the court of the Sforzas, where the court cook had no dessert to offer.

The guests were given a sweet bread baked by a mere kitchen boy, called Toni, which won general praise. Rather than steal the praise for himself, the cook congratulated his assistant and named it after him.

In Milan, businessmen adopted the habit of giving panettone as a Christmas gift to their clients. However, for a long time panettone was seen as a luxury accessible only to a select few, until the development of new production techniques made it available to everyone. A process combining natural yeast and a paper mould allows the yeast to leaven the dough to produce a cake that is light as a feather.

Traditional recipes for panettone are a lengthy process involving the curing of the dough, which is acidic, similar to sourdough. The proofing process alone takes several days, giving the cake its distinctive fluffy characteristics. It contains candied orange, citron, and lemon zest, as well as raisins, which are added dry and not soaked. Today panettone is well-known around the world and a wide range of varieties is available: cream-filled, covered with chocolate or almond icing; they are often sold in a distinctive box with a handle.

Traditionally Panettone is served with sweet hot beverages of a glass of sweet wine such as Moscato d’Asti. It can also be enjoyed in a thousand and one ways, covered with various sauces, filled or topped with cream preparations. It is particularly delicious toasted for breakfast, dipped into hot or cold milk until it softens. Panettone is not only a Christmas tradition but a delicious complement to a fine meal.

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World Chefs: Vetri shows passion for rustic Italian food

Posted on December 16, 2011 by bilrob

World Chefs: Vetri shows passion for rustic Italian food

NEW YORK (Reuters) – American chef Marc Vetri, in his second cookbook, shows home cooks how to prepare flavorful, robust Italian cuisine similar to what he serves in restaurants.

“Rustic Italian Food” includes recipes for southern Mediterranean food. Vetri‘s three restaurants in Philadelphia are known for inventive food. His namesake flagship eatery has been cited by critics as one of the best Italian restaurants in the United States.

The 43-year-old spoke to Reuters about his passion for Italian cuisine, overcoming his stuttering and his love of cereal.

Q: What is the goal of your latest book?

A: “This is the book that I always wanted to write, using my hands more. The breads and sausage making, this is how I cook at home and there are a lot of the artisan things in there. There are the bread making and the pizza making and the sausage making. That’s what I love about this book.”

Q: Why is Italian food so popular?

A: “It is just a natural, beautiful way to cook food. There are a lot of these other chefs. They will stick this on a plate, some of that on a plate … But with Italian food, there is nothing to hide behind. It’s really all so simple. It’s really harder to cook that way and make it perfect. People are just fascinated by the simplicity of the food and why is it such a perfect way to eat.”

Q: Isn’t it difficult to execute simplicity?

A: “Absolutely. If it’s 30 seconds overdone, if the water isn’t salted right, if something is wrong, it could ruin the whole dish. Everything in the dish is an amalgamation and combines into one taste. (If) one thing is off, then the whole thing is off. There is no room for error. Not that there is a lot of error in other styles of cooking, but those other styles are a lot more forgiving.”

Q: What is the most memorable meal you’ve had?

A: “For me, memorable meal is about the whole experience — who you are with, what is your mood. Your most memorable meal could be at a four-star restaurant or a hot-dog on a mountain top with the woman you love.”

Q: You have been open in talking about your stuttering. How did it affect your career choice?

A: “When I was younger … I would just work in the back of the house in the kitchen so I didn’t have to say anything. I loved it so I went with it. Little did I know with what has happened with the restaurant industry chefs are now on television and they have to make speeches. If anything, I always had to work a little bit harder than everyone else.”

Q: What is your favorite comfort food?

A: “I love sushi and cereal. I love to eat at a sushi bar and I love to get some sashimi first, then some sushi that I really like. I love to eat cereal at night. I love raisin bran and soy milk. It’s the greatest thing.”

FENNEL GRATIN (4 to 6 servings)

2 fennel bulbs (about 2 pounds), fronds trimmed and reserved

About 2-1/2 cups olive oil

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1-1/4 teaspoons red pepper flakes

1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Trim the base of the fennel and remove all dark and light green parts down to the white bulb. Slice each bulb in half lengthwise. Cut each half lengthwise into four wedges and remove the cores.

2. Lay the wedges on a rimmed baking sheet and add olive oil to a depth of 1/4 inch. Sprinkle each wedge with a pinch each of salt, black pepper, and red pepper flakes. Top each with about 1 teaspoon of Parmesan.

3. Bake until fork-tender, about 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool in the oil until just warm. Using a slotted metal spatula, transfer the fennel to plates and garnish with the reserved fennel fronds.

You can make this 1 hour ahead because it needs to cool until just warm. It tastes great cold, too.

Vetri recommends a Veneto wine (Pieropan, Soave 2008) with the dish.

(Reporting by Richard Leong; editing by Patricia Reaney)

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Italian Cuisine - Diners from across Calgary venture into enclaves to sample food from faraway land

Posted on December 11, 2011 by bilrob

Italian Cuisine – Diners from across Calgary venture into enclaves to sample food from faraway land

When Gene Cioni opened Calgary’s first Italian restaurant – Gene’s Spaghetti Parlour – in 1949, he hedged his bets.

As written in the book Spaghetti Western by his daughter Maria Cioni, he opened it at 111 4th Street N.E., on the edge of Calgary’s largely Italian Riverside (now Bridgeland) community, but within a stone’s throw of Calgary’s bustling downtown.

Cioni knew that interest in Italian food was growing in the nonItalian population and, with the city in the midst of another oil boom, the economy was looking good.

But Cioni also wanted to stay close to his Italian neighbourhood, to the people he thought would be his main customers. So the spot just north of the river seemed to straddle both the Italian community and the business centre.

His idea proved very successful, enough so that, within a few years, he had moved his Italian restaurant to a larger spot on the then-western edge of the city, to the end of a potholed gravel road near the Shaganappi Golf Course and the Calgary Gun Club. By then, Calgarians of all stripes were clamouring for his Italian food. A trip to the outskirts just added to the mystique, making Cioni’s La Villa Supper Club one of the hottest tickets in town in the 1950s.

Cioni was following one of the main patterns of culinary immigration and integration. In a simplified form it goes like this: A large number of Italian immigrants arrive from a faraway country. Knowing little of the local language and looking for cultural familiarity, they settle close to one another. Quickly, entrepreneurs open shops that sell foods and materials from the homeland. And soon, a restaurant or two opens to serve the needs of the community.

Adventurous diners from across the city venture into the cultural enclave to sample the wares. They report back to their friends and more ‘outsiders’ arrive, bumping up business. In time, entrepreneurs may move or open a second location in the city’s business centre or ‘outsider’ community, expanding the clientele, and helping connect their community to the broader population.

The highest density of restaurants and businesses associated with that culture will typically remain in the neighbourhood, but the food will spread throughout the city. In Calgary, this pattern applies to the two cultural enclaves – Chinatown and Bridgeland – that date to the early 1900s and to the development of many local Chinese and Italian restaurants.

Other cultures have followed a different pattern here. When Rom and Sue Anand wanted to open an Indian restaurant in Calgary in 1974, the Indian community was so small they did not have the benefit of an identifiable enclave in which to locate their business. So the Anands chose a location on the high-traffic 16th Avenue N., a spot that they hoped would be close enough to downtown, the Foothills Hospital and the University of Calgary to attract customers to them. “We were looking for the professors and engineers, the doctors and students to come to Omar Khayyam,” says Rom Anand. It worked.

They had effectively skipped the incubation step of growing in a familiar community and went directly to the larger community around them. And they helped pave the way for generations of Indian restaurateurs to come.

John Manzo, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Calgary and an avid foodie, explains this phenomenon.

“If there is no identifiable community and someone wants to open a restaurant from another culture, they have no choice but to open in other areas. Take Vietnamese,” he says. “Vietnamese noodle shops and pho houses are all over the city, not just in one small area. It helps make us the most integrated city in North America.

“If a Vietnamese noodle house is just down the street, we try it out. Then Vietnamese cuisine becomes routine and normal. We don’t think twice about having a bowl of noodles or a Vietnamese sub sandwich for lunch. Just like curry and chips in Britain, it becomes part of what we eat.”

Dining on other cultures helps integrate the entire community too. As we gain familiarity with other people’s foods and the way they eat them and barriers drop and we become more comfortable with each other. Cultures collide – in a good way – and a new culture is created.

Manzo mentions something else that happens in these circumstances. “The food changes. It might be the surroundings and it might be a generational thing, but there will be a Canadian spin put on the food.”

Like the Vietnamese sandwich or curry and chips, the food is always evolving.

He also adds, “There’s no point complaining that the food doesn’t taste like it did wherever. The question is whether or not it tasted good.”

Good-tasting food is also what Term Chanhao was aiming for when he and his family opened Thai Sa-On in 1990.

“There were only 50 to 60 Thai people in Calgary back then,” says Chanhao. “So we needed to attract Calgarians who had never had Thai food before. We served Royal Thai cuisine, which looks good on the plate and has a medium level of spicing.”

So, instead of focusing the food on one region of Thailand, they opted for a crowd-pleasing best-of menu. Today, even though the Thai community still numbers only a few hundred, we have an abundance of Thai restaurants throughout the city. In twenty years, accelerated by many Calgarians’ travel to Southeast Asia, Thai food has gone from unknown to almost mainstream.

Meanwhile, in parts of Calgary’s northeast, an Indian-Pakistani enclave has grown over the past few decades, long since the Anand’s restaurant opened.

And with it, we have seen the arrival of restaurants, large and small, spice shops, bakeries, sweet houses and grocery stores associated with India and Pakistan.

As that community grows and matures, entrepreneurs, just like Gene Cioni, will look outside the area to open more outlets.

It’s already happening. Lamb korma and aloo gobi are becoming as commonplace as the once unknown pizza Margherita.

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Jamie's Italian

Posted on December 6, 2011 by bilrob

Jamie Oliver - The Naked Chef

Jamie’s Italian

Jamie’s Italian is fast food dressed up as rustic Italian but you’ll have to wait to get it. Simon Thomsen reports.

There is a moment in the film Six Degrees Of Separation when Stockard Channing’s character, Ouisa, slaps the roof of the Sistine Chapel, touching the hand of God on Michelangelo’s Creation Of Adam fresco. Given the chance, we’d all love to slap the Almighty’s hand, but happily settle for lesser gods, in this case Jamie Oliver.

That desire partly explains a queue outside the CBD trattoria bearing his name when I join it at 12.05pm on a weekday. They don’t take bookings for less than six people. Fifteen minutes elapse before we reach a young woman who explains another 20 minutes will pass before we can be seated. We get a beeper and wait in the bar. She’s true to her word, but it’s after 1pm by the time our first dish arrives. The kitchen is reasonably quick, but if you only have an hour for lunch, chances are you’ll spend most of it waiting.

The god of pukka tucker is applying the same principles that made McDonald’s a global success to Jamie’s Italian. He’s selling the restaurants as a franchise. There are 26.

Jamie’s Italian is all about systems. And volume. This is fast food dressed up as rustic Italian. The service is as cheerful and charming as the man himself.

Jamie’s special ingredient is adjectives such as “gorgeous”, “vibrant”, “beautiful” and “amazing” sprinkled liberally through many dishes.

My favourite is the “insanely good truffle oil” on that most rustic of Italian classics, “posh chips” with parmesan ($6). At least no truffles are harmed in making the truffle oil: it’s synthetic.

The menu is divided into eight nibbles, 10 antipasti, 13 pasta and rice dishes, 12 mains, 10 sides and nine desserts.

Jamie says he should have been Italian, but I suspect only Silvio Berlusconi would rival him in the popularity stakes once Italians discovered his “authentic” menu includes an appetiser of “Italian nachos” ($7) and “Italian” Bakewell tart ($9) for dessert.

But first we start with the nachos: deep-fried ravioli with a four-cheese filling and “angry” arrabiata sauce. The crunchy pasta is puffed up like Sicilian cannoli, with small nuggets of gooey cheese inside.

Scamorza arancini ($9.50), crumbed and fried rice balls filled with smoky mozzarella and porcini, are more satisfying and truthfully Italian.

Next is bucatini carbonara, $12/$19. The pasta suffers from what seems like rigor mortis – a stiffness that leaves it bent like leftover electrical wires and impossible to twirl on a fork. There’s a creamy puddle in the bowl with the pancetta, leeks, eggs and parmesan.

The short pasta tubes in the cuttlefish paccheri, $13.50/$21, are also what my dining companion declares “bravely al dente”. I like the braised cuttlefish in white wine with capers, tomato and parsley.

Tuscan wild boar sausage, $22.40, is a little dry, yet pleasantly spiced on a bed of lentils sharpened by vinegar. The best dish is “fish baked in a bag” ($28), a take on Sicily’s pesce al cartoccio. A mulloway fillet with fennel, chilli and mussels and clams in their shells sits on couscous-like bulgur wheat that absorbs the briny juices as the fish steams in a “bag” that releases its wonderful scent when opened.

I don’t doubt the quality of ingredients or the commitment, but there’s something missing from this restaurant. Call it a soul.

Hopefully the investors will have made their cash after everyone has had the chance to slap the hand of God. But for this travesty to all that is great about Italian eating in Sydney, I just want to slap Oliver.

How it rated

Food: 11/20
Staff: 7/10
Drink: 3/5
X-factor: 3/5
Value: 8/10

The score out of 50 – 32

Jamie’s Italian’s details

Address: 107 Pitt St, Sydney; Phone (02) 8240 9000
Food: Italian
Drink: Licensed; small range of Italian varietals
Hours: Lunch dinner Mon-Sat 11.30am-late; no bookings
Price guide: Entrees $6-$16.50; Mains $15-$38; Desserts $6-$9.50

Snapshot: In a city with a great Italian heritage and food, Jamie Oliver’s faux Italian doesn’t cut the mostarda, but that won’t stop it being a roaring success.

www.twitter.com/simonthomsen

Information in this article is correct as of 6 December, 2011

Simon Thomsen reviews NSW restaurants for the taste section every Tuesday in The Daily Telegraph.

Source

Taste.com.au – The Daily Telegraph – December 2011

Author

Simon Thomsen

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Jamie's Italian, Westfield Stratford

Posted on November 30, 2011 by bilrob

Jamie Oliver - The Naked Chef

Jamie’s Italian, Westfield Stratford

On a sunny Sunday my two fellow diners and I entered Jamie’s Italian at Westfield Stratford. Our main reason for choosing Jamie’s for lunch was that none of us had dined there before and were eager to sample the menu of delights.

Although we had to wait for a table we didn’t mind having the opportunity to sit at the bar and order coffees. We were told the wait would be ten to fifteen minutes but was instead only five at the most.

We opted for the nibbles, antipasti and sides to share between the three of us. The crispy squid (£5.75) was fresh and was joined by a garlic mayo sauce. Italian Nachos (£3.55) were crispy fried small ravioli parcels with a spicy sauce. Although nice, unless I had reread the menu description I would not have known these were made with four cheeses as there was not a lot of flavour to the them and the spicy sauce was definitely needed to boost the dish. The Posh Chips (£3.25) were flavoured with truffle oil and parmesan. Although drizzled with oil, we could not taste the truffle; the parmesan added that extra flavour to what is simply a bucket of chips. Crispy Stuffed Rice Balls (£4.95) were praised by all of us with the crispy coating complimented by the soft smoked mozzarella and porcini arancini contents. Our favourite dish was the side of Radicchio and Rocket Salad (£3.25) with aged balsamic and shaved Parmesan. The leaves were very fresh and the dressing was superb.

Our least favourite dish was the Sicilian Spaghetti Fritter (£4.50). This was very dry with not much flavour and needed the accompanying sauce, which had a nice spicy kick. On reflection the concept of fried spaghetti was certainly an unusual choice and probably wouldn’t be repeated.

We had to ask for our forgotten Selection of Italian Breads (£3.75) order but once they arrived we all agreed that they were a good choice with olive oil and rosemary flavours fusing together nicely.

The menu offers something for everyone whether it is light dishes to share or a three course lunch. Our shared dishes certainly reflected the concept of Jamie’s Italian to relax and share affordable food. I enjoyed the simple table settings with rustic plates and none fussy glassware and the fresh ingredients. The obvious passion for food from the chefs is reflected in the dishes which were all presented beautifully on the plates. The non-flustered and friendly attitude of the waiters added to the occasion and we certainly did not feel pressure to give up the table once we couldn’t eat another bite.

Perhaps our expectations of Jamie’s Italian were a little too high. Don’t get me wrong we were not expecting the man himself to be cooking up meatballs in the kitchen whilst shouting “Mama Mia” or greeting us at the door with a friendly “Ciao”. We were however expecting slightly fuller flavours; we were not expecting items of dirty cutlery on a freshly set table nor the long wait we had for our orders to arrive, especially as they were relatively simple dishes.

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Real Italian cooking for everyone

Posted on November 29, 2011 by bilrob

Real Italian cooking for everyone

Have you noticed the lines, or that you need a reservation at red sauce Italian restaurants lately? Or that upscale eateries that once refused to recognize the tomato have added lasagna Bolognese and eggplant parmigiana to their menus?

Not only the restaurant world but the food media have re-discovered Italian-American food. Saveur magazine features it on its current cover. Inside articles range from Sunday family dinner to the annual Celebration of the Seven Fishes. Even the New York Times Book Review recently recognized Italian-American cooking. On Sunday, its closing essay by Laura Shapiro described researching a 1950s cookbook at Radcliffe’s Schlesinger Library. She writes that American home cooks were not ready, not for its lyrical descriptions meant to be the actual recipe, or its inattention to exact measurements.

Thirty years later American home cooks were not only ready they heartily embraced Mary Ann Esposito when she debuted her Italian cooking show, “Ciao Italia,” on PBS. They looked forward eagerly to her first book so they could re-create her recipes. Mrs. Esposito became the most beloved Italian cooking teacher in the USA. Not only because of her books or show, but because her personal appearances are full of warmth and willingness to engage with her readers, answering questions and dispensing kitchen wisdom until everyone’s hunger is sated. (A tasting and book-signing on Nov. 30 at Gordon’s Fine Wines in Waltham is nearly sold out)

Her latest book, “Ciao Italia Family Classics,” is different from all her previous books; there’s a thickness to it beyond its 450 pages. It captures the current excitement in the restaurant world and brings it home. It acknowledges that Italian-American cooking never went away; it continued in home kitchens through generations of cooks honoring their culinary heritage.

As a history teacher and translator of ancient Italian texts, Mrs. Esposito gently and lovingly traces the history of Italian cooking as interpreted on American soil, aka Italian-American cooking. She guides the reader through several generations of recipes using her own family remembrances as the vehicle. Each one demonstrates a stop on the journey from the first immigrants who adapted available ingredients to recreate a taste of home. It follows the ensuing generations of American tourists who sought out their roots in Italy’s trattorias and their children, today’s new cooks, back to the kitchen.

Remembrances of Sunday dinner evoke the early morning fragrance of tomato sauce simmering on the stove and extended family piling in the door. There’s her grandmother’s rolled beef, pounded thinly and stuffed with cheese and parsley and walnuts and eggs, then cooked in tomato sauce, the tomatoes tenderizing the beef, the beef lending its flavor to the tomatoes. More flavor memories appear in chickpea and pasta soup, the Friday supper staple during Lent when meat was forbidden.

And, there’s today’s stylish branzino in orange sauce, featured on big city upscale, or alta cucina, menus. Mrs. Esposito’s recipe reveals it as simple-to-prepare — providing you can find sea bass at your local fish store. And penne alla vodka, an idea that Mrs. Esposito discovered was the brainchild of liquor distributors. Only briefly accepted in Italy, it became a hit in this country. She improvised her own recipe based on traditional Italian techniques.

The gamut of Italian-American cooking finds a comfortable place on the pages of this book laced with memories and lovely photographs of finished dishes so that the cook knows the result. The flavor will follow as well as a future of warm memories.

The following recipes are adapted from “Ciao Italia Family Classics” by Mary Ann Esposito.

GRANDMOTHER GALASSO’S STUFFED ROLLED BEEF

From Gizzard Stew to Jelly Tiramisu, Italian Cuisine Goes French

Posted on November 23, 2011 by bilrob

From Gizzard Stew to Jelly Tiramisu, Italian Cuisine Goes French

Nov. 22 (Bloomberg) — Bankers in Paris once considered Italian cuisine as even more toxic than Italian debt.

The year was 1533 and Florence’s elite had arrived to celebrate the union of their wealthy local teenager Catherine de Medici and King Henry II of France. Along with portfolios of investment opportunities, Catherine and her financial advisers brought cooks, graduates of “Compagnia del Paiolo” or Brotherhood of the Big Pot, the first European culinary academy to graduate chefs schooled in the new art of power dining.

Historians say the Medici macaroni seemed nice enough. Then came the “cibreo,” Catherine’s favorite main-course stew of gizzards, testicles, offal and rooster coxcombs. According to Medici biographer Leonie Frieda, the young queen’s fondness for the brotherhood’s signature dish almost killed her and the guests on more than one occasion.

That legacy illustrates why it has been impossible to find a passable Italian restaurant in Paris for five centuries. It also helps explain the glum faces that greeted the “octopus cooked in crazy water” served at the Royal Monceau Raffles Hotel’s Il Carpaccio when the restaurant last year greeted its first visitors with the flourish of the Medici court.

Now, with business expense accounts falling victim to austerity and new Italian chef Roberto Rispoli in charge of Il Carpaccio’s aquarium kitchen, the only potential fatality is monetary: Dinner for two costs 400 euros ($538), including a 100 euro bottle of Sicily’s superb 2008 Cerasuolo di Vittoria Classico selected from probably the most extensive — and expensive — Italian wine list in Paris.

Strange Soup

The cephalopod mollusks boiled in weird water have been replaced with a 68 euro rainstorm of white truffles on risotto, a circular 28 euro goat-cheese lasagne gasping in Sicilian caponata sauce and a 48 euro Florentine fish soup that bubbles with the uneasy appearance of cibreo.

It’s once again time to question the existing order of Italian food in Paris and whether a 38 euro veal osso buco braised in red wine is more than the French reflection of Tuscan bone marrow. At the table are Renee Pappas, former Beach Boys’ director of personal appearances and senior executive at the rock-and-roll firm Geffen-Roberts Management in Los Angeles, and Charles Copetas, a 13-year-old graduate of the kiddie course at the Atelier des Chefs cooking school in Paris.

“Yuck,” says Copetas, sticking a spoon in the 18 euro tiramisu dessert. “It’s coated in bitter jelly.”

Chic Gunk

That’s not just any jelly, my son. This is “la gelee de cafe de Pierre Herme,” a French pastry-and-dessert chef who finds nothing odd about encrusting Italy’s signature sweet dish in quivering blobs of astringent gunk.

“This is aristocratic French cuisine with Italian ingredients,” Pappas says, slicing into Il Carpaccio’s 55 euro filet of sea bass stuffed with a confit of cepe mushrooms, onions and Tuscan panzanella sauce. “This is not Italian cooking.”

That brings us to the rouget, the small Mediterranean red mullet that Il Carpaccio plugs with olives and sultanas, and sells for 34 euros. As Italian author and gastronome Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa says about offering fancy French food to dignitaries hungering for real Italian food in his novel “The Leopard,” it’s best to “infringe the rules of haute cuisine” and serve up a “towering mound of macaroni.”

Nonetheless, Il Carpaccio has at least one thing that puts it squarely, if gently, in the tradition of Italian cuisine in Paris. The cooks are imported from Florence, though as Lampedusa points out in his 1958 book, “Rumors of the barbaric foreign usage of serving insipid liquid as first course had reached the major citizens of Donnafugata too insistently for them not to quiver with a slight residue of alarm at the start of a solemn dinner like this.”

Il Carpaccio’s “formidabile” mousse au chocolat is indeed formidable. More Italian souffle than a French foam, the 18 euro dessert is a contender for the European title Best in Chocolate. It leaves diners asking why the restaurant that the 2011 Pudlo Paris guide touts as the “Best Foreign Restaurant in the French Capital” dishes out tasteless round lasagne instead of zesty linguini in clam sauce.

Il Carpaccio, Le Royal Monceau Raffles Paris, 37 Avenue Hoche, 75008 Paris. Information: www.leroyalmonceau.com +33-1-4299-8800.

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Italian Cookery with Bill & Sheila

Cookery book Review - Step by rustic step

Posted on November 21, 2011 by bilrob

Cookery book Review – Step by rustic step

There were 25,000 copies initially printed, but Marc Vetri’s new cookbook, Rustic Italian Food, went into its second printing before the Nov. 1 release date.

Compare that to Il Viaggio Di Vetri, his first book, which sold 25,000 copies after three years.

“I just got a $420 royalty check. . . . my first one, three years later,” says the chef, sitting on a broken-in brown leather sofa in his newly renovated home kitchen.

After two years of recipe testing, writing, and waiting, Vetri is ready to show the world his latest collection.

The photos in this new book, many of him cooking with his kids, Maurice, 5, and Catherine, 3 (little Mario, now 20 months, wasn’t quite camera-ready), were shot in his kitchen pre-renovation. The room was nice then, but it’s a real chef’s kitchen now, and reminiscent of the updated, rough-hewn designs of two of his restaurants, Amis and Osteria.

It’s more open, with more light, bright green painted cabinets, a smooth wooden countertop, and a huge island made of Carrara marble, perfect for rolling pasta and finagling dough.

The pizza stone has been heating in the new Wolf oven for a while, ready to crisp the round of dough that he’s deftly, with one hand, coaxing into the perfect round. He tops it with a few spoonfuls of marinara and a few chunks of fresh mozzarella, before sliding it onto the pizza peel and into the oven. It isn’t this pizzaiolo’s first day on the job. (Watch video of Vetri making perfect pizzas at philly.com/vetribook.)

With his first book, his publishers fought him on the name. “They said it was in another language, it’s not going to sell as much.” Which is why this time around, the James Beard award-winning chef, who is about to open his fourth city restaurant, deferred to the experts.

“They wanted a simple name. I was being sarcastic and joked around . . . ‘What, like Rustic Italian Food?’ Lo and behold, there wasn’t another book named that.”

It’s printed in clear, silver-foil letters along the book’s spine, and the hope is that the title will draw bookshelf perusers in. Even if they never heard of Marc Vetri.

Vetri says writing this cookbook was not about money. “Everyone is always asking me, how do you make this? How do you make that?” He’ll e-mail customers recipes, but with hesitation. Reducing a recipe for 40 to four servings is never ideal, and his cooking is more about technique than anything else.

He does admit, though, that cookbooks are great marketing tools that “definitely add to your relevance in the industry.” This time around, he learned a few things.

“We started looking at Il Viaggio again, and thought this is an awesome book, but if you don’t have experience cooking, you need more detailed, user-friendly explanations.”

Which is how Rustic Italian Food evolved from an artisanal cookbook to a multifaceted experience: It’s part reference (see chapters on meat curing and paragraphs on oils and cheese); part culinary philosophy (his opinion of molecular cooking and absentminded line cooks), part travelogue (like his laugh-out-loud search for the perfect Parisian baguette), part expert cookbook (homemade pastas, breadmaking, spit-roasting a pig), and part novice cookbook (some recipes, like the spinach gnudi, marinara, and salads, are downright Rachael Ray simple).

He culled most of the recipes from his files; he recently started giving his cooks the homeworklike (and useful) task of writing down the recipes they make on the line, to build up an archive. He then chose the dishes that felt right for Rustic Italian Food, tested and tweaked, and knocked out most of the writing while on vacation in Boulder, Colo.

The book took years; the pizza, which is now bubbly perfection, took minutes. And the aroma, as in a Folger’s commercial, lured toddler Mario into the kitchen. He’s no fool, lunch was being served.

The chef will soon hit the road to promote the new book, including signings and guest cooking gigs at restaurants in L.A., Chicago, Boston, and New York.

On the road, he’ll be spreading the rustic gospel, while locals who have eaten at Vetri’s restaurants already know that rustic doesn’t mean simple.

“There is nothing to hide behind,” says Vetri, who was nonchalantly mixing ricotta, spinach, egg, and flour in a bowl to make his next dish, gnudi. “You have to cook perfectly, you have to have perfect technique, always.”

Which is why some of the book’s most significant tidbits are not in the ingredient lists, but in the chapter introductions and cooking instructions. You might never make lamb mortadella, but reading about the process, in Vetri’s approachable, engaging dsescription, is captivating, in the same way people who have never turned on a stove watch Food Network cooking shows for hours.

“I started making sausage 15 years ago, and there has been an evolution in my understanding of it. It’s such interesting stuff and it’s not in a whole lot of books. They tell you to use this and use that, but they don’t tell you why.”

Why and how are big themes. He explains why pizza dough should come to room temperature: “It will stretch more easily when it’s warm.” And he has detailed step-by-step photo instructions on prepping a whole chicken for grilling. It’s like a stylish and relevant version of outdated cooking-school tomes.

Vetri reminds readers that the recipes need to work for them – it’s OK to use store-bought pasta – and the process will get easier with practice. And, most important, readers learn through his stories (like his missteps on Iron Chef) that messing up can be a good thing.

“If you don’t push yourself and make mistakes, you never learn anything.”

Case in point: With the gnudi dough mixed, he dropped one in boiling water to test it out. “Needs a little more flour,” he said before making the adjustment. Now, it’s perfect.

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Italian Cookery with Bill & Sheila

North Jersey’s 5 Best Italian Delis & Food Stores

Posted on November 20, 2011 by bilrob

November 18, 2011 11:43 AM

Margherita Pizza from AS Fine Foods (credit: AS/Facebook)