Dear {NOMEUTENTE}
seven recipes for a summer under the banner of pasta, seven preparations far from the well known patterns of homemade cooking, seven ways having pasta as central element, the heart of thoughts, tastes, and executions never “killed” by predominant sauces. In a dish we have to recognize the products used but we often forget the quality of pasta, which has its soul and taste and isn’t simply an excuse to taste a good sauce.
These recipes are an invitation not only to reason, prepare, and cook but also to visit the restaurants where the different chefs work. Some may seem to be complicated or difficult but they have to be considered as an inspiration, an ideal height of perfection in order to grasp the aspects within our reach and make them personal.
Paolo Marchi
Texts by Gabriele Zanatta
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Did you know that…? Pasta in Italy  Did you know that…? The figures of pasta in Italy
How much pasta is consumed in Italy? Is more popular the short or the long shape? Dry or fresh pasta? We have asked a series of “setting” questions to Riccardo Felicetti of the homonymous Felicetti
pasta-factory in Predazzo, Trentino, vicepresident of Aidepi, Associazione industrie dolciarie italiane. (Industrial association of italian pastry and pasta)
How much pasta is produced in Italy every year?
3.3 million tons. An equivalent of about 4 billion and 300 million Euro.
How many pasta-factories are there in the country and how are they distributed?
At present in Italy there are 139 pasta-factories: 58 in Northern Italy, 30 in Central Italy, 40 in Southern Italy, and 11 in Sicily and Sardinia.
Is pasta eaten more in the North or in the South?
In the South. An example: in Sicily the yearly consumption per capita is 40 kg. In Trentino Alto Adige it is 20 kg, almost half.
How many shapes of pasta do exist?
About 200. In the family of long pasta, spaghetti are certainly the most common. Among short shapes, penne and rigatoni.
Which is the most widely sold shape?
From the latest survey, the most widely sold pasta shapes are the short ones. While the shape/production ratio is 30% long pasta and 70% short pasta.
As for consumption, which are the increasing and the decreasing shapes?
There are no data on the matter but we see an increasing consumption of typical regional shapes.
Which is the ratio between the consumption of dry pasta and fresh pasta?
The total national consumption reports 91% dry pasta and 9% fresh pasta. That is 1.4 million tons and about 2 million Euro of dry pasta against 144 thousand tons and 700 thousand Euro.
(Illustration taken from The Geometry of Pasta)
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New York: shrimp spaghetti by Dufrense Now the diffusion of Italian cuisine is such – I mean to the top in terms of chefs, places and addresses – that it isn’t hard to find it in the menus all around the world, in restaurants that follow our principles in a more or less strict manner but also in places absolutely far from Italian creativity.
During a recent visit to the wd-50 of Wylie Dufrense in New York City, 50 Clinton Street, telephone number 212-477-2900, I tasted two delicious pasta dishes, provided that we forget any expectation of underdone cooking. It isn’t that Wylie overcooked dry pasta, but he rather chose preparations very close to our fresh pasta which has different consistencies compared to the classical spaghetti and macaroni needing from eight to thirteen minutes cooking.
Two tastes very far from each other in a dinner marked by semi-surprise courses of a tasting menu. First Shrimp spaghetti, tomato, basil, garlic, spaghetti with shrimps not only in the sauce but also in the dough, rich, round tastes full of sensuality and life. Then King oyster “udon”, sweetbreads, banana-molassas, pickled ginger, pasta with mushrooms (the king oysters) in the dough too, pasta of Japanese inspiration as stated by the term “udon” in inverted commas accompanied by sweetbreads, banana and pickled ginger. All much more emphasized, with the sweetness of banana in contrast with ginger.
The moral? May be many people consider dry pasta like an Everest because of the underdone cooking that creates problems to us Italians, given that the right cooking point in Trento is completely different than in Naples, imagine to a foreigner. Cooking fresh pasta is easier because it doesn’t belong only to our history and is less difficult to be dressed with a sauce, that thus becomes the protagonist. The focus is shifted as the makers of ordinary pasta, to be submerged with tomato sauce, do here in Italy.
Paolo Marchi
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RECIPE 1/ Spaghetti with cuttlefish livers by Alajmo The Spaghetti with cuttlefish livers, oil and chili pepper by Massimiliano Alajmo, chef of the Calandre[/link]]Calandre in Rubano (Padua).
Recipe for 4 persons
INGREDIENTS
280 g artisan-durum wheat spaghetti
80 g fresh cuttlefish livers
80 g raw cuttlefish cut into julienne strips (40 g of which for the finishing, dressed with oil, salt and very little sugar)
40 g juice of clams
40 g extra-virgin olive oil
30 g vegetable broth
10 g lemon juice
8 g chopped roasted tomatoes
4 g chopped parsley
2 g thinly cut chive
8 Dublin Bay prawn antennae fried in olive oil
4 boiled Dublin Bay prawns cut into pieces
a pinch of salt
a trace of sugar
a pinch of chili pepper
PROCEDURE
In a bowl emulsify the cuttlefish livers drizzling the oil as for a mayonnaise. Add the lemon juice, the clam juice, the herbs and roasted tomatoes. Flavor with chili pepper, add the prawns and 40 g of raw cuttlefish. Adjust for salt and dilute with the vegetable broth. Cook the sauce in a bain-marie at 60°C. In the meantime, cook spaghetti in plenty of salty water. Drain it and whip it in the bowl. Place a serving of spaghetti in a soup- dish, decorate with two fried prawn antennae and a forkful of dressed raw cuttlefish. |
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RECIPE 2/Tagliolini salad by Fabio Barbaglini The Tagliolini salad with lemon peel scented with balm, red onions from Tropea and pickled sardines by Fabio Barbaglini, chef of the La Cassolette restaurant in the Hotel Mont Blanc of La Salle in Val d’Aosta. And recently also of the Cucina del Toro, via Camperio 15 in Milan, newborn restaurant he shares with Antonio Facciolo, who in his turn is also chef of La Brisa, via Brisa 15, always in Milan.
Recipe for 4 persons
INGREDIENTS
150 g flour
7 egg yolks
2 medium-sized red onions
5/6 balm branchlets
10 sardines
Extra-virgin olive oil, salt, pepper
PROCEDURE
Prepare the dough by mixing and working flour with egg yolks, half of the finely chopped lemon peel and a drizzle of oil.
Cut onions into slices, add salt and leave to drain for about 20 minutes.
Wash the onions under water, dry and dress with lemon juice, salt, pepper and extra-virgin olive oil.
Fillet the sardines and pickle them with oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper, an unpeeled clove of garlic and a few leaves of balm.
Roll-out the dough and cut tagliolini using the rolling pin and the pasta guitar (Chitarra).
Cook them in salty water, stop cooking under cold water and dress with oil, the remaining lemon peel and finely cut balm leaves.
Place the onions in the middle of the dish, put the sardine fillets around and tagliolini in the middle.
Decorate with a balm branchlet.
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RECIPE 3/Fettuccelle with tuna fish and anchovy sauce (colatura) by Paolo Barrale The Fettuccelle from Gragnano with fennel ragout, tuna fish and Cetara anchovy sauce (colatura) by Paolo Barrale, Sicilian chef of the Marennàin Sorbo Serpico, in the province of Avellino.
Recipe for 4 persons
INGREDIENTS
350 g fettuccelle
3 tender fennels
150 g fillet of fresh tuna fish
1 spoon of anchovy sauce (colatura)
chive
1 lemon
bread tarallo
olive oil, salt, pepper and chili pepper
PROCEDURE
Clean and cube the fennels. Put aside the tender beard of fennels.
Stew the fennels with a clove of garlic and a bit of sliced shallot, a drizzle of oil and add vegetable broth little by little. Adjust for salt.
Cube the tuna fish and dress it with the anchovy sauce (colatura) the chive, a few drops of lemon, pepper and light oil.
Drain the underdone pasta, whip it with the ragout, the chopped beard of fennels and grated lemon peel.
Place the fettuccelle dressed with their sauce in a soup plate and add the tuna fish tartare, a bit of crumbled beard of fennel tarallo and a drizzle of olive oil.
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RECIPE 4/ Riquadri with gazpacho by Lorenzo Cogo The Riquadri with gazpacho, buffalo mozzarella and herbs by Lorenzo Cogo, 25-year-old promise chef of the newborn El Coq in Marano Vicentino, Vicenza.
Recipe for 5 persons
INGREDIENTS
30 Verrigni riquadri
1 buffalo mozzarella
250 g tomatoes
100 g extra-virgin olive oil
3 g salt
15 g shallot
40 g red pepper
15 g peeled cucumber
2 g garlic
0,5 g Xanthan gum
3 g sweet marjoram
3 g thyme
3g basil
3 g mint
2 g wild fennel flowers
PROCEDURE
Dice the vegetables and leave them to pickle for 24 hours.
Whip them with the Thermomix, pass them into the chinoix and then add the Xanthan gum.
Take a mozzarella, whip it coarsely and adjust with salt.
Put it into a pastry bag and use it later to stuff pasta.
In the mortar, prepare oil aromatized with raw herbs using sweet marjoram, thyme, basil, mint and leave some of them to decorate the dish.
Filter it and then mix it with pasta, cooked for 14 minutes.
FINISHING
Arrange harmoniously 3 riquadri stuffed with mozzarella and 3 without stuffing. Add some spots of gazpacho sauce and then place the herbs. Serve warm.
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RECIPE 5/ Pasta and potatoes by Nino Di Costanzo The Pasta and potatoes by Nino Di Costanzo, chef of the restaurant Il Mosaico of the Terme Manzi Hotelin Casamicciola Terme, Ischia (Naples).
Recipe for 4 persons
INGREDIENTS
22 types (4 pieces per type) of Gragnano mixed pasta
100 g white potatoes
100 g yellow potatoes
100 g blue-violet potatoes (vitelotte)
40 g 36 month Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
80 g fresh cream
40 g smoked provola cheese
2 tomatoes
8 small tomatoes
40 g bacon
80 g red crawfish
40 g cuttlefish
50 g veal gravy
2 garlic cloves, onion, salt
extra-virgin olive oil
chicken broth
PROCEDURE
Boil the blue-violet potatoes, peel them, sift them, and dress them with oil and salt. Roll them out on a silpat in circular shapes of different sizes, freeze. Detach and keep aside.
Brown the chopped garlic with a drizzle of oil, add the small tomatoes cut into 4, add salt, cook for 5 minutes and pass through a vegetable mill.
Brown the onion cut into julienne strips, add the yellow potatoes, the tomato sauce, and cook thoroughly with water. Whisk and sift.
Reduce the cream by half, add the provola and the parmesan cheese and whisk.
Parboil the tomato, eliminate the seeds and cut it into 1cm cubes; do the same with the grilled cuttlefish and the browned bacon.
Boil the white potatoes, emulsify them with oil, salt, chicken broth and cream, put into a siphon and charge with gas. Keep in a warm place..
Cook pasta in salty boiling water (the different pasta shapes have different cooking times).
Place the cubes of bacon, tomato, and cuttlefish on the dish together with the sauce of yellow potatoes, that of provola cheese and the wafers of blue-violet potatoes. When pasta is done, sauté it in the cooking gravy of the bacon, place it in the dish, add the lightly cooked red crawfish, a few drops of veal gravy and the hot potato mousse.
Finish with potato chips, diced fried potatoes and extra-virgin olive oil.
Text gathered by Claudia Orlandi
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RECIPE 6/Bread and cocoa gnocchi by Davide Oldani The Bread and cocoa gnocchi with tuna fish eggs and lampascioni (tassel hyacinths) by Davide Oldani, chef of the D’O in Cornaredo, Milan, telephone +39.02.9362209.
Recipe for 4 persons
INGREDIENTS
for the bread and cocoa gnocchi
250 g steamed potatoes, then peeled and mashed with the potato-masher
35 g common wheat white flour
8 g powder of bitter cocoa
20 g white of egg
fine salt
for the lampascioni (tassel hyacinths) sauce
150 g cleaned lampascioni (tassel hyacinths), finely sliced, whitened for 4 minutes in boiling water and drained
1 dl passito white wine
4 dl water
4 dl cream
4 g maizena dissolved in 2 ml cold water
fine salt and castor sugar
Finishing
40 g crumbled tuna fish eggs
20 g sautéed vegetable buds
extra-virgin olive oil
PREPARATION
For the bread and cocoa gnocchi
On a pastry-board prepare a heap with the flour, add all the other ingredients and mix working gently for a few seconds.
Prepare small 20 cm long loafs having a diameter of 1 cm, cut them (2 cm long) with a steel spatula and pass them on the fork prongs. Once obtained the classical gnocchi, cook them in salty boiling water for 4 minutes. Drain them.
For the lampascioni(tassel hyacinths) sauce
Put the lampascioni with the wine in a small pot, have the wine evaporate completely, add cold water, cook for about 15 minutes, whisk using a bar blender, add the cream, bring to boiling point and thicken with a bit of maizena, cook for one minute again, add salt and a bit of sugar.
Finishing
Veil the dish with the sauce, arrange the gnocchi, the crumbled tuna fish eggs, the vegetables and end up with a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil.
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RECIPE 7/ Cold linguine with clams by Frank Rizzuti The Cold linguine with seafood pesto, carpet shell clams, candied lemon and sauce of young garlic by Francesco “Frank” Rizzuti, chef of the Antica Osteria Marconi in Potenza and of Dattilo in Strongoli, Crotone (if you don’t want to prepare it, the dish is in the menu of both restaurants).
Recipe for 4 persons
INGREDIENTS
100 g wakame seaweed
100 g kombu seaweed
30 g parsley
100 g young garlic
250 g milk
12 candied lemon zests
800 g carpet shell clams
PROCEDURE
Keep the seaweeds in water for one hour.
Rinse under running water and dry.
Then place the seaweeds in the mixer glass with oil and a pinch of coarse salt and whip until obtaining the consistency of classical pesto.
In a small pot pour two fingers of milk and parboil the garlic, then whisk until obtaining a sauce.
Heat an iron pan until it is very hot, put the clams all together into it and cover with a lid, moving continuously as soon as the shells begin toasting, giving a smell of embers.
When the clams start opening, add the glass of white wine, turn off the fire and place the clams into a bowl. Add a few ice cubes, cool quickly and shell them.
Cook the linguine, drain well, place it for 10 seconds under running water and whip with the pesto. Serve with a touch of garlic sauce and complete with the candied lemon and the clams.
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Candle penne by Pasquale Palamaro The Candle penne stuffed with ricotta and anchovies, Piccadilly tomatoes, basil and sea-urchins, a dish by Pasquale Palamaro
now in the menu of the restaurant Indaco of the Regina Isabella Hotel in Ischia, Naples. |
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