Monograno Felicetti

Dear {NOMEUTENTE}
I’m back from a really pleasant edition of Strade della Mozzarella in Paestum and more precisely in the Trabeestate, within the municipality of Capaccio in the province of Salerno, with the chef Giuseppe Stanzione (starred from this year) in the kitchen. Four days spent to study, understand, enhance a masterpiece like Mozzarella di Bufala Campana DOP (PDO Milky Buffalo Cheese from Campania) through tastings of it as it is or proposed through the ideas of several chefs and pizza-makers.

One thing surprised me a lot: nobody proposed pasta. The only one who did it, the pair MonosilioPipero, celebrated Carbonara in a session where chefs were not obliged to make proposals including mozzarella. As for the rest, there was even pickled jellyfish (actually raw) and many risottos that I have lost count but never pasta. Obviously, not everyone concentrated on out-and out mozzarella, and many used mozzarella’s water or milk or burrata, but why didn’t they do the same with paccheri and spaghetti?

It is likely that the cooking point of dry pasta is really a moment and when working without a safety net even the best ones can miss it. Not to make mistakes everybody concentrated on other subjects using close-by ingredients. What a pity!
Paolo Marchi

Texts by Gabriele Zanatta
 

The carbonara flies from London to Rome

After its London travel, carbonara is back to its cradle. Save the dates to taste 4 different proposals of the renowned dish from Rome and Latium under the same roof, that is Eataly in Roma Ostiense: May 17-19, the days of the Roma Food and Wine Festival, a new co-operation between Identità Golose and Merano Wine Festival.

On the evening of May 19 yesterday’s carbonara will be proposed in two versions: the one coming from the hands of Alessandro Pipero and Luciano Monosilio, minds of the kitchen and hall at the restaurant Pipero al Rex in Rome and the version of Alessandro Roscioli and Nabil Hassein Hadj from the Roscioli, in Campo dei Fiori. Where is the difference? It lies in the eggs, in the first case whisked until soft peaks while in the second just beaten as for an omelet. Two different versions of the same yesterday’s recipe, the first one softer and more ethereal and the second one coarser and more traditional, however identical in the raw materials used, all of very high quality and refined.

Today’s carbonara, on the same Sunday but for lunch (noon-3.00 pm) will come directly from the area of Vercelli and be created by Christian and Manuel Costardi from the Cinzia in Vercelli: it is a carbonara-style risotto served into the Campbell cans piling up beaten egg yolk, crunchy pork cheek, classical risotto whipped with butter, Grana Padano cheese, and broth, again egg yolk, very smooth ewe’s milk cheese, a few crumbs of pork cheek and a sprinkling of pepper». Tomorrow’s carbonara, on Saturday 18 between 7.00 and 10.00 pm, is that of Davide Scabin from the Combal.Zero in Rivoli (Turin). A future which, at Eataly, will take the shape of the Gnocchi alla romanara, a new dish to be fully discovered.
 

Bottura and pasta French are dreaming of

The menu says Ravioli with leeks, foie gras, and truffles but only when we read the subhead, Dream of French to make pasta like Italians, we realize who the author is , revealed by his typical epic poetry: Massimo Bottura from the Osteria Francescana in Modena.

«This dish» he tells us «makes fun of the French who have first sneered at us: ‘la pâtes, la pâtes, pâtes’, they always jeer at us in the kitchens. And then once Fulvio Pierangelini replied: ‘Yes, pasta. Try to make it if you can’. And he was right because fresh pasta is a complicated dish to make: you shall proceed with an approach faithful to tradition and balance well temperatures at the right Celsius degree because otherwise you cannot roll it out. You shall carefully balance its thickness, how may egg yolks, how much flour…».

Therefore, my dear Gallic, «if you want to learn how to make pasta come to Emilia», is the invitation of the chef from Modena, who ranking third in the world now looks down on the masters. Back beyond the Alps, the stuffing of the colleague may easily have the contents of the dish in the picture, which are French in the form but not in their identity card: «There is goose foie gras from Mortara, truffles from the hills around Bologna, veal gravy made with Riesling wine from the surroundings… Tricks which represent the dream of the French to make pasta like Italians».
 

Felicetti and Italy-not-Italy abroad

One of the main privileges of my job is travelling, observing food habits of the world’s citizens, tasting local products, sharing different eating habits and, very often, looking at how pasta is distributed, marketed, and consumed.

I have been in Israel for a few days now. I have to admit that I didn’t expect such a great presence of Italian products on the shelves.

In the different versions, Italian branded foodstuffs guarantee a capillary covering of the different market segments. In a few words, they play the lord and master.

However, there is a disturbing phenomenon that here reaches peak levels: the use of Italian names and writings by non Italian producers.

The most glaring example I run into in Jerusalem today: Turkish pasta with the trademark Donna Rozza. Freedom of comment to you.
Riccardo Felicetti
 

The tuco by Perdomo: stuffed ravioli

The word tuco has Argentine origins. I heard it pronounced for the first time by my grand-father when remembering dishes linked to his childhood. I thought to understand it was a sort of ragout, but I didn’t really investigate thoroughly the matter until I found myself eating pasta with tuco downtown Milan.

It happened at the Pont de Ferr, on the Naviglio Grande. The chef Matias Perdomo, a volcano of ideas, comes from Uruguay and tuco belongs to his memories too: memories of delicious dinners with the family when people mop up the sauce with bread at the end. Let’s start precisely from the sauce. The word tuco comes from the Genoese tuccu and means meat sauce. Differently from the ragout, the meat in the tuco isn’t chopped but is in whole pieces (called tocchi in Italian). Ingredients can vary according to recipes and in the one from the Pont de Ferr we find tomato, onion, red pepper, carrot and dehydrated grated cheese.

In South America tuco used to be cooked by Italian emigrants. Today it is an extremely popular dish in Argentina, Uruguay, Chile and Peru. Matias Perdomo proposes ravioli stuffed with bread crumbs soaked in the meat sauce: so bread is not used to mop up the sauce at the end but is an integral part of the dish. «Bread gathers the flavors and tastes of this dish which joins Italian tradition to my country» the chef says. A wonderful and delicious dish.
Elisa Pella
 

The balanced beet from the Vecio Fritolin

We are at the Vecio Fritolin the restaurant in the heart of Venice owned by Irina Freguia and managed with passion in the kitchen by the young Daniele Zennaro. Besides the classical fritolin, the cornet of fried fish which represents the symbol of this restaurant, the enthusiasm in the kitchen focuses on different innovatory dishes little aligned to the Venetian culinary tradition.

Among these the Spaghetto made with beet, green asparagus and roasted octopus with lemon thyme stands out. A beautiful fusion of land and sea harmoniously developed with balanced ingredients which give a greedy aspect to the dish, immediately confirmed when tasted. The land and at the same time sweet note of the beet merges with the spaghetti, whose egg dough is integrated with an extract of the red tuber powder. The asparagus gives the salty note of land and the roasted octopus, with its meaty consistency and explosive marine taste, recalls the sea.

After boiling for 40 minutes over a low heat the octopus is tossed in a pan with a few leaves of lemon thyme until reaching a caramelized consistency, exalted by the lemon scent. Using olive oil is crucial to the chef and he suggests a light and scented variation like the cultivars from Garda. A dish which has been in the menu for some time now, changing with the change of seasons with green dough, such as the spinach powder, and dressings of season vegetables and fresh fish. A perfect balance of tastes and lightness for unusual pasta.
Cinzia Benzi

 

The tagliolini by Zanasi are asparagus

We should write a book to sum up all the pasta-not-pasta exercises of the last 10 years. Emanuele Scarello, Carlo Cracco, Pier Bussetti, Simone Salvini: these are only examples of chefs who love reproducing the dynamics of durum wheat (or fresh pasta) without it actually appearing in the dish. Trompe-l’oeil exercises about pasta calling for other ingredients, sometimes vegetables and sometimes fish.

Over the last few weeks Federico Zanasi started following this trend; he is a chef working at the Clandestino owned by Moreno Cedroni in Portonovo (Ancona) in summer and at the Principe delle Nevi in Cervinia (Aosta) in winter. The dish in the picture (by Bob Noto) shows Tagliolini alla carbonara which actually is not tagliolini but filaments of asparagus, an elegant dish which gives a new look to the triptych Asparagus, egg, and Parmesan cheese: «It has been revised not as an entrée» the chef from Modena explains «but using white asparagus fiber as if it was tagliolino».

«Choosing carbonara was a natural consequence: we thought of noodles at the beginning but with a classical dressing such as the carbonara it was worth trying a completely new consistency, that of asparagus». A very successful concealment if we consider that «the first time we served it to a client he criticized us: ‘Excuse-me, pasta is not al dente’ (rightly cooked). Only afterwards we told him it was vegetables…».

 

Overwhelmed by the aglione from Chianti

The Spaghetto all’aglione in the picture has been conceived within the walls of Rinuccio 1180, new entry of the Antinori family in the district of Bargino, San Casciano Val di Pesa, in the most classical Chianti shire, telephone number +39.055.2359720. It is a dish which stands out in a menu trying to give value again to authentic traditional Tuscan cooking: few dishes, pure and well done, to show without too much affectation and rhetoric the identity of the place.

In the preparation of the Spaghetto all’aglione, pasta is tossed using extra-virgin olive oil with garlic in infusion and chili pepper. Then roasted datterino tomatoes are added to give a peculiar note, in contrast with the typical sourness of tomato. Pasta is whipped with tomato oil (always roasted, soaked with thyme and whisked) and roasted garlic (that is garlic head wrapped up in the tinfoil and put into the oven at 200°C to become a cream) and garnished with fried garlic.

One dish of the most simple tradition, “ignorante” as they say here, which gives the idea of how rustic elements can become more refined thanks to technique, without loosing their identity. A little exploit we owe to the insight of Matteo Gambi, young chef already working with Marco Stabile at the restaurant Ora d’Aria in Florence.
Valeria Carbone
 

The sour-tasty spaghetti by Fabrizio Tesse

Caffè Groppi with Fabio Barbaglini in Trecate, La Conchiglia in Arma di Taggia, Balzi Rossi in Ventimiglia and then a long apprenticeship as sous-chef of Tonino Cannavacciuolo at Villa Crespi. The résumé of the young Milanese Fabrizio Tesse, head of the Locanda di Orta in Orta San Giulio (Novara) since March 2012, is not bad at all.

The dish in the picture (by Paolo Marchi) shows Spaghetti cavalier Cocco, with Sarawak pepper, anchovies from the Cantabric Sea and Castelmagno cheese, a lucky combination among tastiness (anchovies), spice (pepper) and sourness (Castelmagno cheese). Here is the recipe to prepare it at home.

Recipe for 4 persons
Ingredients

240 g spaghetti
12 anchovy fillets
4 clove of garlic without the core
160 g Castelmagno cheese
Sarawak pepper to taste
extra-virgin olive oil to taste
chervil (or marjoram)

Procedure
Cook pasta in boiling water for 4 minutes. In the meanwhile, brown the garlic with the extra-virgin olive oil in a different pan. When it is browned, take it off the pan; add some cooking water of the spaghetti and 8 out of the 12 anchovy fillets. After 4 minutes, drain pasta and finish cooking it for another 4 minutes in a pan (like a risotto). At the end of cooking, whip with Castelmagno cheese and plenty of just ground Sarawak pepper. Shape a nest of spaghetti using a steel ring, sprinkle with extra-virgin olive oil and garnish with one anchovy fillet and some chervil (or aromatic herb to pleasure).
 

Pasta Shake by Scabin hypnotizes London

Pasta Shake prepared by Davide Scabin from the Combal.Zero in Rivoli (Turin) on the occasion of the super dinner of Identità London at Harrods. A divertissement which hypnotized the English, amused by the exercise to shake the Cuttlefish ink Conchiglioni Felicetti with a Piedmont-style sauce: roasted peppers, anchovy sauce and black truffles. (picture by Eamonn McCormack)