Dear {NOMEUTENTE}Identità di Pasta is back with this number full of summer recipes. And prompted by the attitude of Identità Golose in general: trying to look at things from an always new point of view because tradition which stops cannot be considered as such. It is inactivity, fading, surrender. There is no comparison with the verve of chefs like Davide Scabin or Alfonso Caputo? Happy reading.
Paolo Marchi
Texts by Gabriele Zanatta
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Scabin and the macaroni soufflé towards the unknown Davide Scabin and pasta. At the mere thought of this pair, the moderates flee. The work of the chef hidden in Rivoli is so ahead that when he comes out in the open traditionalists run away terrified whilst he sneers. From now on, no conservatives of spaghetti, lasagna, and macaroni please.
In the middle of the dish in the picture there is a circle which will lead the most attentive ones to the event Pure Monogram Pasta of Identità London 2010: there Scabin unveiled for the first time the macaroni soufflé. Today, in the menu of the Combal.Zero there is its evolution: the soufflé is prepared with 3 tomato ragout and at the table it is sprinkled with fondue of 16 month “our reserve” Grana Padano. The soufflé is the Island in the middle of the painting and it floats on curaçao blue water, a dynamic canvas framed by a discontinuous, open frame. A surrealist subject because this was the theme of the debut of the dish as it is today. It happened in Düsseldorf, on the occasion of a Luis Vuitton event. And the macaroni is surrealist and dreamy, because it was there but there isn’t. Moreover, its leavening, conveyed by gluten instead of butter or cream, makes pastry-chefs bite their nails too.
The ingredients overflow the frame and this is a good effect of the state of grace of the chef, engaged to steadily overcome the Pillars of Hercules of taste with a smiling rashness because he is at ease in the unknown. Just like the donkey standing on the motor boat, the nice picture at the entry of the kitchen of the Combal.
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Black is Black: evolutions of a chef-designer This is a second evolution conceived by the revolutionary Scabin. The root is recognizable: the Spaghetti Pizza Margherita, symbol of the congress Identità Milano 2011. But the white spaghetto has disappeared and only the black one has remained. It is called Black is black and the “exploded” subtitle would be Cuttlefish ink spaghetti with sepia and caviar (Calvisius in this case) carbonara.
We draw from the vocabulary of space engineering not by chance, because now the guy considers pasta not as an ingredient but as a material. Like Corian to a designer. A cuisine of concepts instead of recipes. For instance, here cuttlefish ink has simply a chromatic purpose, he says, and not an organoleptic one (but it’s really delicious when you taste it). So many solutions and prototypes that only the wind tunnel is missing since, as the chef explains «nothing is left to chance, not even the optical view of our dishes, always conceived standing up with a visual angle ranging between 42 and 48 degrees».
In fact, we are struck by the fact that ingredients in the dishes always have a “vertical alignment besides an effort “ directed not to fill the dish but to where leaving it empty”. It happens with the black is black but also with the Seafood Pasta, Italian sushi replacing rice with the Conchiglioni Matt Felicetti. By the way, there is a new smashing conchiglione stuffed with Cantabrian sea urchin preserve. To be eaten with hands; a real undecided storm between ancient history and progress.
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Captain Caputo's self-made pasta One day of some years ago Alfonso Caputo, a man who dreams of food when he is not cooking it, woke up with a sudden flash: «why should I go on putting pasta produced by others into the boiling water? ». He wants to make it by himself. However, freeing himself at the beginning means making a leap in the dark. Luckily, the distance between Nerano and Gragnano is short: «I found this 80-year-old pasta maker for vermicelli, rigatoni, linguine or eliche». Then the problem was drying: «I have made a counter with two fans. The process lasts about 12 hours, during which I dry at 35°C. Today, I produce 5 kilos of pasta per day». As simple as that? Of course not: «it took me one year to understand the right percentages of water and semolina». Semolina which is brought to him by friends from Apulia, “from wheat very suitable to make raw and rough pasta”.
Why doing all this? Because behind the chef-fisherman after all Caputo is a food philologist: «I wanted to understand well the concept of “al dente” (underdone pasta), an expression which has lost its original meaning: it was used for pasta which sticks to teeth, that slightly gummy consistency which allows to better taste the semolina». Actually, the result of those “simple” drawn Vermicelli with seafood, small tomatoes and parsley (with self-made extra-virgin olive oil from a plot of land near Sorrento) tasted one afternoon of late spring was the desire to taste also the other self-made-pasta dishes. For instance the Linguine made of semolina and red seaweed with liver, raw octopus (an ingredient which drives the chef crazy) and cuttlebone or the hand-made white and black Tagliolini with cuttlefish and courgettes. Let’s go all to Nerano, then. For the new dishes and because the most secluded beach of the Sorrento coast is also one of the most quiet.
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Christoph Bob and the marred mezzo pacchero Done, overdone. Dehydrated, forced, murdered. Pasta is a versatile and quite docile product: you can do what you want to it. The killer instinct is rife also in the Amalfi/Sorrento coast, cradle of the most ancient pasta-factories of the Country but not the place for chefs who don’t dare breaking tradition. We have already mentioned the puffed spaghetti by Ernesto Iaccarino: overcooked in the kettle for half an hour, dehydrated and fried at 180°C.
We add Christoph Bob from the Relais Blu in Massa Lubrense, Sorrento side of the peninsula, to the squad of chefs who do violence to pasta. The dish shown in the picture is called: mullets from Nerano on a purée of peas, sauce and Giffoni hazelnut and what we see above is a super crispy pacchero because it has been dehydrated: overcooked for 80 minutes, dehydrated for 12-14 hours at 52°C, fried for 3-4 minutes at 160-170°C and then dried in the oven to remove the slight residue of oil. «We wanted to review the super classical Pasta and peas», Bob goes over its genesis, «we tried with pea purée and bacon mousse but we didn’t feel that it was that dish: too far from the original one. Then we decided to make the pacchero crispy, like puffed rice or fried noodles, ancient techniques which can be used for some types of pasta».
Successful experiment: the crispy texture is fun for both eye and palate. However, be careful: «I think that dehydration doesn’t work with other shapes of pasta such as spaghetti or penne. In fact the dough shall be voluminous, but not too much. And the half pacchero is perfect for this purpose». Starting from September, we will see it appearing again with other new companions in the dish.
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The fresh super fusillo by Agostino Iacobucci Whatever newspapers say, a walk along the Naples promenade is peerless. In these days too. An ideal walk starts from Mergellina a little hour before lunch, goes along via Caracciolo and stops in via Cuma at Santa Lucia, just beyond Castel Dell’Ovo. At the street number 42 there is the Cantinella, one of the two starred restaurants (the other one is Palazzo Petrucci) of the town. Sit down, open the menu and read among first courses: “Fusilli a ferretto”.
Ferretto? Let’s see what it is. But before, let’s get rid of a northern prejudice: according to tradition the fusillo isn’t short but quite long, up to 10 centimetres. That’s how we like it , together with the chef Agostino Iacobucci, follower of Gennaro Esposito, a clear tie in the identical enthusiasm to look for good and little known products. So, we were talking about Ferretto. The word comes from the way in which this fresh pasta is prepared, with the same needle (ferro) used for knitting: «Once the fresh dough is prepared, it is twisted around a needle identical to the one used for knitting», the big chef explains, «what is important is eating the pasta within a short time: no more than one week after it came down from the needles».
Who does bring it to you? «Olga from the small pasta-factory Aliberti in Gragnano, +39.081.8733085, an over eighty year old woman who has made it like this for decades. She also makes paccheri, scialatelli, orecchiette and half paccheri, but I use only her fusilli which are perfect because they mix very well to different sauces». The fusilli in the picture are dressed with a great white ragout and its tartare smelling of ginger, pine-seeds, raisins and green olives. They are marvellous because they aren’t taken for granted at all, a crossover between Asia and Campania enjoyable also for its prolonged chewing: it releases tastes otherwise restrained. Starting from September in the menu they will be proposed also with Montuoro onion Genoa-style sauce and the classical Naples style veal chop. And who knows in how many other versions.
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Summer first courses: the horizons of cold pasta Now that torrid climate starts preparing for battle, do we lay pasta to rest? Not at all. Listen to Riccardo Felicetti of the homonymous pasta-factory in Predazzo, Trentino: «From a statistical point of view, it can be true that in summer first courses leave the way to other dishes. However, pasta can be easily eaten cold, a pleasant expedient maybe not so much traditional but anyway not breaking tradition or the thinking of great chefs such as Gualtiero Marchesi».
We all remember the famous statement of the Master: «Better cold than warmed». Among the many additions to this statements, pasta salads or his work to reconvert sushi, with cold pasta replacing rice in the “Italian” version. An idea that a few decades after would have convinced also chefs like Davide Scabin (see also the first 2 news of this newsletter), «for instance», Felicetti remembers, «with the conchiglione stuffed with seafood». We remember three versions of it: with sea urchin and nori, garlic, parsley and chili pepper, with oyster, lemongrass, oil, and pepper or with cuttlefish and cuttlefish ink. Perfect to be tasted with salty water still on.
However, the universe of cold pasta counts on endless Italian interpreters. To remind just another two, let’s think of the dish by Michele Rotondo: different types of pasta (paccheri, conchiglie, calamarate, macaroni…) with raw fish from the Tyrrhenian Sea: shrimps, octopus, sea urchins, clams… Or the cold Rigatoni with anchovy oil, crispy vegetables and tomato gazpacho by Andrea Berton, a pupil of Gualtiero Marchesi too. But while the second suggested to cool pasta by simply rinsing it under running water, the pupil goes beyond it: he just dips it in water with ice one minute before being properly cooked.
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RECIPE/Fojade with mixed salad by Chiara Rizzi The Fojade with mixed salad from the meadows, quenelle of sausage and mauve flowers by Chiara Rizzi, chef of the Caput Mundi in Castellucchio, in the province of Mantua, +39.0376.439441.
Recipe for 6 persons
for pasta
300 g ground semolina
150 g 00 flour for making fresh pasta
50 g whole-corn flour
5 whole eggs
salt
for the mixed salad
a small bunch of catchfly leaves
a small bunch of dandelion leaves
a small bunch of plantain leaves
a dozen of hop sprouts
a clove of garlic
a shallot
olive oil, salt, pepper qs
for the quenelle of sausage
300 g Mantuan sausage
50 g butter
50 g mascarpone (mild creamy cheese)
for the decoration
a dozen of mauve flowers and a few threads of chive
preparation of pasta
prepare the dough mixing all the ingredients on the pastry-board, form a block and leave it to rest in the fridge for about one hour. Roll out the dough with a roller, furl it and make rough tagliatelle.
preparation of the mixed salad
Wash and clean the herbs, quickly parboil them in salty water and pass them in cold water. In a pan brown the finely chopped shallot and garlic, add the herbs and cook, adjust with salt and pepper.
preparation of the sausage
in a pan shortly brown the sausage with butter and cut it into pieces with the fork. Put it in a glass for the Pacojet alternating with the mascarpone, make cool and mix with the Pacojet. As an alternative, whip until obtaining an homogeneous purée.
Making up the dish
Cook the pasta “al dente” in plenty of salty water, drain it and pass it in the pan with the mixed salad, add half kitchen spoon of the pasta cooking water and sauté for one minute then place the pasta in the dishes. Make a few quenelle with the sausage purée and place them on top of the pasta. Decorate with the mauve flowers and the threads of chive.
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Eight recipes for burning hot weather. From the web On the 9 of May 2011 the new course of www.identitagolose.it has started, web site much more strengthened as regards contents and updated daily. Among the sections most visited by users there is that of Recipes and it couldn’t be differently, considering the great wealth of recipes accumulated in so many editions of Identità in Milan, London, New York, San Marino...
Recipes can be selected by key words: At the table (that is the dish or ingredient), Name of the chef or Event. Here below we list some new ones based on pasta. They are perfect for summer which now is very near.
Garlic, oil, chili pepper and mint by Elio Sironi
Fresh pasta cake with seafood by Ezio and Maurizio Santin
Aubergine Parmesan by Andrea Berton (in the picture by Brambilla/Serrani)
Pasta and cauliflower with oyster and Pecorino by Gennaro Esposito
Bronze drawn spaghetti with cheese, pepper, juniper and chocolate by Enrico Crippa
Spaghetti made of scorzonera, Arnad lard and white truffles by Emmanuel Renaut
Tagliatelle with prawns by Niko Romito
Tagliolini with clams by Moreno Cedroni
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Green spaghetti by Paolo Lopriore Cold spaghetti, tuna roe & anise by Paolo Lopriore, chef of the Canto della Certosa di Maggiano, Siena. Be careful, it is an absolutely cold dish. The idea, coming from Marchesi, is to refresh the palate. An unexpected pleasure. |
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