Dear {NOMEUTENTE}
I think there is no such month as August during which very few people want to cook. It is the holiday month par excellence, even though generally the husbands still want to be served and the wives would very much like to stop and relax. Chefs from necessity for eleven months, in August they too pretend to be served or, if the family doesn’t go to the hotel, at least they ask to reduce the time spent in the kitchen to the minimum.
Furthermore, when it’s too hot a few still want to indulge at the table and prefer cold dishes, cold cuts, omelettes, salads, fruit salads… This is why Gabriele and I have decided to ask ten or so chefs form Northern to Southern Italy for a pasta dish to exalt summer and be fully in tune with summertime. Recipes to highlight those who have conceived them and which don’t sound impossible for the readers.
Paolo Marchi, texts by Gabriele Zanatta
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Pasta does better than baguette The news, given a few weeks ago by all press agencies, was sensational: «The baguette no longer is the daily bread of the French: now only 50% of the population eat it twice a day and most are elderly people». To sum up, the French Oversight Body for Bread explains that customers in the boulangerie (bakeries) go on decreasing because «the baguette suffers from the diffusion of competing products: cereals for breakfast, biscuits for a snack and pasta or rice during meals».
I am sorry for the decline of one of the symbols not only of French gastronomy but of the whole country. However, I cannot conceal my happiness for the fact that pasta is among the products responsible for this slow down in the consumption of bread. Pasta that is certainly a symbol of tradition, but a tradition that works and is increasingly appreciated also by the new generations. This is why I’m particularly happy that many of the summer recipes you will find here below are signed by excellent promises of Italian haute cuisine. The fact that young chefs too are engaged to interpret pasta is a sign that tradition is renewing. If pasta is proposed by a young chef the young consider it contemporary and not simply the Sunday dish at grandma meal.
Riccardo Felicetti
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Cold spaghetti with edible crab at the Marchesino At the beginning it was Cold spaghetti with caviar and chive, the best way for Gualtiero Marchesi to give nobility to a product which is the flagship of Italian cuisine but is too often spoiled by a coarse abundance, with those dishes so full that are difficult to enjoy.
Today there is also Cold spaghetti with edible crab and tarragon: delicious. It enlightened a hot day of July in Milan. I was sat at the Marchesino, where Daniel Canzian is heading the kitchen, and I thought it was the most logical dish, obviously thinking about the season. An odd order: two first courses and a second course which looks like an entrée. After the cold pasta a (hot) risotto with peas, ham and prawns and then whipped salted codfish with fried (and burning) polenta. An excellent start thinking of the hot weather in town, then two springtime proposals; which is the sense of out of season dishes and then very hot dishes? It is like offering shaved ice to someone who spent the night in the open.
Here below you will find the recipe, with a warning: once drained, spaghetti has to be dried with a cloth or some sheets of kitchen paper otherwise the water still remained would ruin the dish. Cold pasta doesn’t absorb liquids as it happens with rice.
Cold spaghetti with edible crab and tarragon
Recipe for 2 persons
INGREDIENTS
160 g Spaghetti from Gragnano
140 g edible crab pulp
tarragon
salt
oil
lemon
PROCEDURE
Dice the tarragon in 2/3 millimetre pieces. Stew the edible crab. Take the pulp from the shell and the claws. Prepare an emulsion with three equal parts of soya sauce, lemon juice and extra-virgin olive oil from taggiasche olives. Boil pasta in salted water. Drain and cool it under running water. Dry it well. Season it with the emulsion of soya sauce, lemon and oil. Plate, sprinkle with tarragon and put the edible crab pulp on top of it.
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Benita and the cavatelli between garden and sea The dish created by Salvatore Perrone from the restaurant Benita in Cogoleto (Genoa) is called «Quel che abbiamo» (What we have); it is quite complex to prepare and he explains it to us step by step. A lucky combination of elements from the garden and the sea, two main macrocosms in the kitchen of every restaurant in the region Liguria.
Cuttlefish ink Cavatelli over a soup of trombetta squash from Albenga, carpaccio of violet prawn and its velvet sauce
Recipe for 4 persons
INGREDIENTS
150 g 00 flour
150 g bran flour
180/200 g boiling water
1 bag of cuttlefish ink
4 prawns from Santa Margherita
saffron pistils
cognac
extra-virgin olive oil
garlic, salt, pepper, cinnamon
50 g single cream
400 g trombetta squash from Albenga
one third of leek
PROCEDURE
Mix flour, cuttlefish ink and boiling water in a bowl or a planetary mixer until obtaining a smooth dough with a consistency similar to that of gnocchi (potato dumplings). Leave it to rest until warm and cover it with a plastic wrap. Clean prawns taking off the heads and keeping the tails in the fridge. Put oil, garlic and the prawn heads without eyes in a saucepan. Let it fry over low heat and simmer with cognac until reduced; let it evaporate and add vegetable broth (or water, salt and pepper). Cover and cook for about 10 minutes.
Whip with the immersion blender and pass through a thin sieve, add a few pistils of saffron previously soaked in water, a pinch of cinnamon, the single cream and prepare the velvet sauce. Once ready, put it aside. In the meantime, sweat the leek in 4 spoonfuls of oil, add the trombetta squash cleaned and without flowers (that you will put aside). Cover with water and cook until softened. Whip using the mixer adding a few pistils of saffron; pass through the sieve and put aside.
Once the dough for the cavatelli is cold, shape it in small long rolls, about half centimetre thick; cut them like potato dumplings and “hollow” them out with your fingers. You can use the obtained pasta immediately or parboil it and cool it with water and ice, add oil and put it aside. Cut open the prawn tails, lay them on a tissue paper sheet and press them with a meat hammer very softly until shaping prawn disks you will put in the freezer to harden.
FINISHING
Warm the squash soup up and lay it over mirror plates. Meanwhile, cook the cavatelli, lay it in the middle and place the frozen prawn disks on top; they will melt with the heat of pasta. Add a few grains of salt and pepper, take the velvet sauce you have prepared with the prawn heads and shape some small drops of it to be placed around the plate. Use some other prawns to garnish together with the flowers.
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Gian Paolo Raschi: summertime paccheri We go to Rimini not to have fun at the “bagni” (beach resorts) but to taste all the delicacies conceived by Gian Paolo Raschi from Guido, a fish restaurant on the seafront since 1946: «We wanted to concentrate the smells and colours of summer in one single dish», the cook explains. “Steamed hake, which we have eaten so many times during childhood, with potatoes, a light sprinkle of vinegar, oil (the good one) and parsley. And then tomato and basil, the summertime duo par excellence.
Summertime pasta
Recipe for 4 persons
INGREDIENTS
16 paccheri
for the stuffing
5 fresh hakes weighing about 300 g
1 wild oyster
1 shallot
10 g anchovy sauce
for the sauce
hake carcasses
1 onion
50 g oil
50 g cream
0,5 l fresh milk
1 l mineral water
3 g xantana rubber
for the basil oil
2 basil bunches
peanut oil to taste
for the tomato concasse
4 ripe tomatoes
50 g extra-virgin olive oil
PROCEDURE
Fillet hakes, vacuum pack them with the rest of ingredients and cook them in a thermostatic bath at 64°C for 13 minutes. Take them out of the vacuum; eliminate the shallot, the oyster and knead to obtain smooth dough. Fill the pastry bag.
Toast the onion with oil and add the hake carcasses. Cover with milk and water, cook over a low heat for 30 minutes, let it cool, filter, place again on the heat and reduce to half. When the mixture is still hot add cream, xantana rubber, season and keep warm.
Blanch the basil leaves in salty water, ice them, squeeze with a cotton cloth, insert into the Pacojet, cover with peanut oil and freeze. Pacotize and filter through thin gauze. Peel the tomatoes, seed them, and reduce them to a concasse. Vacuum pack with oil, dip in a thermostatic bath at 55°C for 10 minutes.
SERVING
Cook paccheri in plenty of salted water, stuff it with the hake pulp, fry it in a pan with the reduced broth and smoothly whip. Place one spoonful of tomato concasse in the middle of the dish, place the paccheri on top, glaze with the reduced broth and dress with basil oil and a few fresh sprouts.
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The sea of pasta by Deborah Corsi At the restaurant Perla del Mare in San Vincenzo (Livorno) the summertime cold pasta by Deborah Corsi is called “Un Mare di Pasta” (A sea of pasta). «It is my interpretation of ingredients the majority of clients appreciate a lot. The octopus is cooked at low temperature and I have created a mayonnaise using the cooking water; it is placed on the bottom of the dish together with other two sauces excellent for summer, one made with carrots and the other with zucchini. They give color and freshness. The inside of the conchiglione is stuffed with crushed potatoes aromatized with ginger and parsley».
A sea of pasta
Recipe for 4 persons
INGREDIENTS
32 conchiglioni extruded with a bronze die
2 octopus
4 squids
100 g salmon
2 carrots
2 zucchini
fresh oregano
4 potatoes
1 bunch of parsley
2 egg yolks
PROCEDURE
Clean the octopus removing the beak and dress with oil, salt and a pinch of chilli pepper. Vacuum pack them and cook them at 80°C for 4 hours. At the end, prepare a sort of mayonnaise with the cooking water emulsifying the yolks with extra-virgin olive oil. Lightly scald the previously peeled carrots and whip them, drizzling little oil over them. Same procedure for the zucchini.
Stew the potatoes, crush them and place them into two different containers: add whipped parsley in the first one and grated ginger in the second one. Season to taste. Cook the conchiglioni and cool it. Stuff it with the aromatized crushed potatoes with the peeled octopus and squids on top of it. Garnish a white dish with the zucchini sauces (using imagination, as if you had a brush). Lay the conchiglioni over it and finish the dish with the octopus mayonnaise.
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Underground spaghetti by Stefano Ciotti In my restaurant, I would never propose risotto or dry pasta: dry pasta reigns supreme», says Stefano Ciotti for a few months chef at the restaurant Urbino dei Laghi, Pesaro Urbino, who was already awarded one Michelin star at the Vicolo Santa Lucia in Cattolica. «My Spaghetti with sea urchins and fondue of ditch pecorino comes from underneath: sea bottom and the ditch». Underground spaghetti.
Spaghetti with sea urchins and ditch cheese
Recipe for 4 persons
INGREDIENTS
300 g Mancini spaghetti
100 g grape seed oil
1 clove of fresh garlic
10 small peppers from Calabria crushed in oil
70 clean sea urchins
15 g shallots from Romagna
Extra-virgin olive oil
500 g hen broth
1 medium-sized potato peeled and diced.
100 g fresh cream
salt
80 g ditch pecorino cheese
30 g butter whipped with sea urchins and shrimp bisque
PROCEDURE
Put grape seed oil, minced garlic and peppers in a saucepan, and cook on a very low heat for about 35 minutes. Pass through the thin sieve obtaining oil with a purée of garlic and pepper and, when it is warm, pour it over the sea urchins. Now prepare the sauce of ditch pecorino cheese: simmer the minced shallots on a low heat with little extra-virgin olive oil, add the hen broth and the potato and cook. Whip all the ingredients with the grated ditch pecorino cheese. After obtaining a smooth and flowing sauce, keep it warm.
FINISHING AND SERVING
Boil spaghetti in salty water, drain it and pour it in the oil with the sea urchins, whip with butter, a few drops of lemon and its peel. Plate and finish with the hot ditch pecorino cheese sauce emulsified with the cream.
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With Torsiello the salad becomes a first course If we had to multiply the rate of geographical insulation by the creative instinct the Osteria Arbustico in Valva, a far away little village in the inland of Salerno, +39.0828.796266 would position in the Italian top ten. In the kitchen there is Cristian Torsiello, who has just celebrated his 30years: «My pasta dish takes the cue from the idea of the classical summer salad with tomatoes, green peppers and anchovies, which I propose as a first course».
Spaghetti, green peppers, anchovies and wild fennel
Recipe for 4 persons
INGREDIENTS
320 g Gentile spaghetti
300 g green peppers
10 desalted anchovy fillets
wild fennel
roasted tomato
sauce of anchovies from Cetara
bread crumbs
garlic
oil
PROCEDURE
Dissolve 5 anchovy fillets in a pan with oil and garlic and mix them with the bread crumbs. Clean the small peppers; prepare a sauce with half of them. Cut the other half into julienne strips. In another pan dissolve the remaining anchovy fillets with oil and one clove of garlic; add also one spoonful of water .Cook spaghetti very underdone. Complete cooking in the anchovy sauce adding the wild fennel in the end, a few dices of roasted tomato, the pepper sauce, the raw pepper strips and a sprinkle of anchovy sauce. Serve in a soup dish creating a nest with the aid of a salad fork and finish with crunchy anchovy bread crumbs.
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Rabbit and snail eggs: the Linguine by Iannotti “This dish is the development of the Coniglio nell'orto ('Rabbit in the garden')”», Giuseppe Iannotti chef of the restaurant Kresios in Telese Terme, in the province of Benevento explains. A dish which uses a meat generally neglected by haute cuisine. Here there is also snail caviar, the eggs of the shellfish available on sale for a long time.
Linguina with datterino tomato, smoked rabbit and snail caviar
Recipe for 4 persons
INGREDIENTS
320 g linguine
45 g extra-virgin olive oil
150 g datterino tomato
1 clove of fresh garlic
80 g rabbit fillet
4 teaspoons of snail caviar
10 g salt from Cervia
2 g sugar
olive tree chips, thyme, fresh wild thyme, chilli pepper to taste
PROCEDURE
Put 10 g of salt, 2 g of sugar and the rabbit fillet in a vacuum bag. Close and let it marinate for one night. The morning after, smoke with the olive tree chips for 4 hours. In a capacious saucepan boil water and salt for pasta. Pour oil in a pan and brown the garlic clove, add the cut tomatoes, cook them for one minute over the high heat, and cover them with the plastic wrap to warm them up without overdoing them. Cut the rabbit, season with oil and thyme, cook pasta very underdone and whip it with the tomato, add the rabbit and a hint of chilli pepper. To plate add a spoonful of snail caviar.
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Spaghetti with raw ingredients by Angelo Sabatelli «The idea of this dish», the brilliant Angelo Sabatelli from the homonymous restaurant in Monopoli (Bari) tells, «came from the consideration that in summer people prefer fresh dishes, especially for lunch. I took 4 simple ingredients from the delicacies of Apulia and I cooked an almost traditional dish as the crudaiola (with raw ingredients). I added a very sweet ingredient like the violet prawns from Santo Spirito and a surprise element like the powder of extra-virgin olive oil instead of the usual drizzling of raw oil.
Spaghetti served cold with raw violet prawns from Santo Spirito, tomato and basil
Recipe for 4 persons
INGREDIENTS
200 g Benedetto Cavaliere spaghetti
200 g diced fiaschetto tomatoes from Torre Guaceto (without peel and seeds)
500 g violet prawns from Santo Spirito
120 g extra-virgin olive oil
1 unpeeled garlic clove
20 leaves of basil (small)
salt flower to taste
20 g powder of extra-virgin olive oil
PROCEDURE
Clean the prawns, crush the heads and put the juice in a bowl, add the prawns, cut them in two and season them with 20-40 g of extra-virgin oil and basil leaves (salt is not necessary because prawns need nothing). Cover and put them in the fridge.
In a pan, brown the garlic with extra-virgin oil, add the diced tomatoes, cook a few seconds and season to taste. Remove from the heat and let it cool. Cook pasta in plenty salty water, drain it when underdone and cool it with ice water. Season it with tomatoes and prawns previously prepared.
Share into four dishes and sprinkle with powder of extra-virgin olive oil. Serve.
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Warm seafood soup at the Dattilo Covatelli is a typical shape of fresh pasta from the area of Crotone. Caterina Ceraudo the young chef from the Dattilo in Strongoli, cooks it in a broth of raw fish and spottail mantis shrimps, clams, mussels and serves it warm. A real sea of tastes.
Warm seafood soup
INGREDIENTS
Spottail mantis shrimps
Mussels
Clams
300 g semolina
30 g boiled potatoes
about 150 g water
7 0g potatoes
vine tomatoes
1 celery
1 white onion
1 carrot
extra-virgin olive oil
Salt, garlic and lemon
PROCEDURE
To make the covatelli: knead semolina with potatoes and water until it becomes thick. Once the dough is ready, cut it into strips and then into small pieces; press over the small piece from bottom to top. Clean the seafood, put it in the pan with oil and little water, and let it open. Then remove the shells and keep the liquid.
For the spottail mantis shrimp sauce: toast the exoskeleton of the spottail mantis shrimps, add cold water and let it boil. Filter it and wash the spottail mantis shrimps under running water, add cold water and white wine and finally celery, carrot, onion and tomato. Peel the potatoes and dice them very small, add a clove of garlic, chilli pepper and the warm spottail mantis shrimp sauce. Have the potatoes almost done.
Separately boil the covatelli for 1 minute (depending on the size), drain it and finish cooking it in the spottail mantis shrimp sauce with the potatoes. Out of the heat add mussels, clams and spottail mantis shrimps.
SERVING
Warm a soup dish, add the soup with a drizzling of oil and the lemon peel. |
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PHOTORECIPE: Fettuccine at the Degò in London Six steps to make the Home made Fettuccine with stracciatella and roasted small tomatoes at the Degò, a successful wine bar in London managed by 3 Italian boys: Massimo Mioli, Enrico Olivetto and Elisa Bedin. Enjoy. |
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