Dear {NOMEUTENTE}
we live on certainties, but what excites us are novelties with their drive of innovation which pushes ourselves forward, in an endless search for new limits, new successes that season until they become traditions to be questioned again. I was thinking about this endless movement, always denied by those who fear unknown ideas which have to be verified, during classes and convivial moments at Identità London. I was thinking about it in London while listening to Heinz Beck and Gennaro Esposito as well as Davide Scabin who reminded me of five years ago with Corrado Assenza and his Spaghetti with honey at Milan’s debut of Identità Golose. I was listening to them amazed because, as I later commented with a colleague, it is fascinating to find people able to face the world of pasta with different eyes and minds, people who drawing from whatever sector find answers which catch you unprepared.
It is true that tradition at the table is reassuring, but everything moves even when we believe it is still because in the dish it always has the same shape. What is there behind? Which paths does that chef follow to obtain that brilliant pasta with tomato sauce? And what about the pasta-pizza by Scabin? And the underdone pasta by Esposito? And even if tradition was equal to itself, why do we publish thousands of books of recipes? Why is there a rapid succession of cuisine congresses and classes? Why do we learn to ride a bicycle for life while at the table our tastes change?
Paolo Marchi
Texts by Gabriele Zanatta
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Davide Scabin, a storm over pasta Those who have read the newsletter with the account of the second day of Identità London already know it. For those who haven’t, we sum up: the Atelier de Chefs in Soho has hosted an event which will be remembered for a long time, a non-place where Davide Scabin from Combal Zero in Rivoli engaged in a series of interpretations of the Monograno Felicetti which have broaden the borders of pasta we have considered up to now. An enlightened show on how pasta can objectively impose itself not simply as the tired carrier of a sauce but as the main drive of never seen courses, exegeses which improve tradition with inspiration.
The Scabin-Felicetti dictate held prejudices in check through nine moves that we fully list: Pasta Chips with nature shell-shaped pasta, onion pringles and chili pepper seeds; tastings of Check salad, that is pasta with the 5 main sauces of Italian cuisine (spaghetti with tomato sauce, penne with butter and sage, chiocciole alla carbonara (mixed with beaten eggs and diced fried bacon) , eliche with garlic, oil and chili pepper and spaghetto with caviar and chive); 3 Sushi of conchiglioni di pasta with maigre and foie gras, salmon and wasabi and tuna fish with icing of sauce with meat; again three Conchiglioni of seafood with sea-urchin and nori of garlic, parsley and chili pepper, lemongrass oyster oil and pepper; cuttle-fish and ink and Macedonia Cinque Spezie (Five Spice Salad): shell-shaped pasta with cinnamon, rigatini and nutmeg, twisted penne and curry, linguine and star anise, chiocciole with cumin and prawn bisque.
After the turn, the last four tricks: Spaghetti Pizza Margherita with small tomatoes glazed in the oven , anchovy and straccetto of burrata (Apulian fresh cheese with spun dough), green oil, English sauce of burrata, oil and chili pepper. Again, a very special tea ceremony with linguine cooked in tea and vegetables and ditalini with katsuobushi broth and dried soya. The Raviolo Shake, a classic dish by Scabin, was made with Felicetti conchiglie inside (with bagna caoda (warm dip typical of Piedmont) and peppers, in the picture the version seen from above by Alessandro Castiglioni), the Soufflè was a false sweet filled with overdone rigatoni and meat ragout beside, and the Tagliatelle tomato and orange (with ivy honey, orange peel, tomato seeds, orange juice and Cointreau) a very sweet first course to end up. Enough to write again the literature of all we know about pasta.
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Right, passive and overdone: the extremes of Naples How many commonplaces around pasta! Even the definition “done” changes according to latitudes (from this the famous remark by Ducasse: «you don’t even agree upon the time to cook pasta») and is therefore varied. This is not true for Gennaro Esposito from the Torre del Saracino in Vico Equense, Naples, who tried to limit the definition on the stage of Identità London: «it is the right moment when the thin white stripe inside the pasta disappears. It may change according to extruding procedures, shape and the used wheat». A verdict. Which obviously doesn’t prevent other chefs from creatively play with cooking times because in this world, as Platowould say, there is no object identical to another, not even the object itself.
Always in Naples and its surroundings we find interesting experiments. Andrea Aprea, young chef from the Comandante del Romeo Hotel in Naples, as a good former trainee of Elio Sironi in Milan, is a lover of passive cooking (for meaning and debate read here and here), not for respect or creative eccentricity but rather for historical and economical reasons: «formerly in my region having the pasta cook in boiling water was too expensive. So we used to turn off heat and let the pasta cook in the water which was cooling down». Another reason to turn off heat is that «once, but still today, a pasta like pacchero easily crumbles in boiling water». Actually, his half-pacchero will never break in the boiler because his recipe foresees stewed shellfish, artichokes and sea lettuce to be all inside the pasta.
And what about the picture (by Gabriele Zanatta)? It has been taken in Sant’Agata sui Due Golfi: it is a puffed spaghetto. That is overdone in the boiler, dehydrated and fried at 180°C. The chef Ernesto Iaccarino then lifts it up and put it as a side-dish near the excellent meats at the Don Alfonso. Just to show that even overdone pasta can have its reason.
(we thank Cinzia Piatti)
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Cold pasta and not: in the big pot of Andrea Berton We eat very well in these days for lunch at the Trussardi alla Scala: Andrea Berton refreshes us with one single dish divided into four which, in the rectangle devoted to pasta, often leaves space for cold pasta. Or better lukewarm pasta and not actually cold, because it is dipped in water and ice just one moment before the limit time for standard cooking. A pleasant alternative in summer, especially now that sultry weather has (finally!) arrived to Milan.
A first recipe (out of several ones, as the colazione menu, as trendy people say, changes every day) foresees cold Rigatoni with anchovy oil, crispy vegetables and tomato gazpacho. A second one: barley Trenette with Mediterranean sauce: anchovies, capers, olives, crunchy bread crumbs and dried cod foils. A strip of beach in Piazza Scala.
For dinner too we sail well the sea of “hot” pasta first courses at the Trussardi: let’s take the Conchiglione of pasta stuffed with fish soup shown in the picture (by Gabriele Zanatta): the soup first fills the conchiglione, to become then a sea magma sliding from the crater of one single conchiglione and creating a continuity with the lake of cuttle-fish ink at the base. An unusual and amusing escamotage. However Berton also proposes home-made spaghetti: for instance, the disk of Spaghetti alla chitarra with pickled anchovies, seaweeds, basil pesto and crisp bread to thicken. The different consistency of light ingredients slips softly in your mouth. And hot pasta and quite thick sauce help your body temperature to remain stable.
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Hot pasta, cold sauce: the variation by Sultano Let’s say it right now: Ciccio Sultano from Duomo in Ragusa Ibla, the most southerner two-star chef of Europe (and the most northerner of Africa) is not very fond of cold pasta: «technically speaking, the tactile and taste-consistency of a cold spaghetto or penna has no great value to me: the starch seems to disappear and the more it’s cold the worse it is». On the contrary, the changes in temperature which reach the palate from the dishes of hot pasta with cold sauce have a great value: «I think of when you come out of the sea and eat a dish of just prepared pasta with salad of cold tuna fish, lemon juice, oil and parsley. Or to the glass of cold sea-urchins that you put on the just done pasta salted with garlic, oil, chili pepper, parsley, lemon juice and peel».
The greatest pleasure from thermal contrast comes from the development of Pasta with carrots and blue fish in the picture, presented at the Milan’s Identità Golose congress years ago: today it has turned into Spaghetti mixed with “taratatatà” carrot juice, a sauce of Moorish origin and onomatopoeic etymon (it would be the rattling swords of the Arabs struggling against the Normans). The procedure told by Sultano himself: «After mixing spaghetti with carrot juice and semolina, cook them and place them on a cold base of lemon verbena, garlic, oil and chili pepper. To coat the spaghetto pour over it the taratatatà cold sauce made with fish eggs, cinnamon, lemon juice, orange juice, a little bit of sugar and vinegar and bread crumbs. On top, we end with a couple of fresh anchovies». Never mix the three levels before tasting: in this way, the stratification cold-hot-cold reaches the palate in this sequence.
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Felicetti and durum wheat, from selection to pasta factory After khorasan/kamut and emmer, here we describe the third element of the Felicetti trinity: durum wheat. The genesis of this cereal takes roots at the beginning of time: some say 4 thousand years ago, others 100 thousand years ago. The cradle: Mesopotamia, that “fertile half-moon” which made all of us yawn at least once while reading a schoolbook. «Durum wheat», Riccardo Felicetti says, «has a toughness (=ability to hold starches inside after mixing and extruding procedures) that no other cereal has got». This is why it is used almost exclusively to make pasta: «There are different varieties of it. The one we have selected is called matt and belongs to the American family of desert durum (in the picture): it boasts unequalled properties as regards gluten percentage, smell, taste and color. Together with our miller, we have decided to plant it in Apulia and Sicily, the most suitable Italian regions to that type of cultivation».
We just have to properly end the production chain at the pasta factory: «my cousin Paolo tries to transform the cereal into pasta selecting the most suitable and important production parameters: water temperatures, mixing levels, drying diagrams. Together with the miller, we define the most suitable drying degree to obtain the right dehydration of the product». Here are the pasta shapes that are obtained: twisted penne, fusilli, spaghetti, conchiglioni and rigatini. However, other shapes are being studied with a great culinary value.
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The recipe: Spaghetti by Baiocco and backward cooking Cold spaghetti alla chitarra, soup of datterini small tomatoes and Calvisano caviar by Stefano Baiocco, chef of Villa Feltrinelli in Gargnano, Brescian shore of the Garda lake. It is worth noticing the technique to cool spaghetti, still far from being done, in a sort of “backward cooking”.
Ingredients for 4 people
320 g of spaghetti alla chitarra
40 g of Calvisius caviar
for the tomato soup:
400 g of datterini small tomatoes,
40 g of red peppers,
30 g of green celery,
30 g of onion,
30 g of cucumbers,
½ small bunch of basil,
50 g of pile ice,
8 g fresh grated ginger,
15 g of extra-virgin olive oil,
salt and white pepper,
ginger and lemongrass oil (obtained from an infusion of 100 g of seed oil, 50 g of ginger and 50 g of lemongrass),
aromatic flowers and herbs (Baiocco uses basil, parsley, oregano, sweet marjoram, marigold flowers, lobelia, borage and lime zest).
Preparation
Cut all the ingredients for the soup in small pieces and let them marinate in the fridge for at least 12 hours. The day after, strain them with a vegetable mill and then with a thin colander. Keep them in the fridge.
Cook the spaghetti in salty water for 11 minutes. That time elapsed, stop cooking the pasta (which isn’t done yet) and dip the spaghetti in a container with iced water, olive oil and little salt. Drain the pasta and whip it with the ginger and lemongrass oil. Pour 3 spoons of tomato soup in the bottom of a dish, place the spaghetti on top, garnish with the aromatic herbs and a full spoon of caviar.
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Mezze maniche with ragout by Enrico Crippa Mezze maniche with ragout by Enrico Crippa from the Piazza Duomo in Alba (Cn), “847 kilometers from Naples”, presented at Identità Golose 2010 (picture Brambilla/Serrani). |
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