Monograno Felicetti

Dear {NOMEUTENTE}
I spent three days in Tokyo discovering the world of Luca Fantin, chef at Bulgari, a great restaurant in Ginza serving contemporary Italian cuisine. Thanks to him, Japanese people have the opportunity to discover a version of Italy that is not the stereotyped one presented by dozens and dozens of Italian or Japanese chefs. And pasta had to be present, even though there are different standards for pasta.

On the Alitalia flight from Milan (Malpensa) to Tokyo, with an Italian catering, that is, I ate bad food in magnifica – business class (a totally usurped name) something rarely happens to me. Two pastas out of two were shamefully overcooked. I inquired and basically the national company serves pasta that is already overcooked before departure and when it needs to be warmed up for service, it receives the finishing blow. The flight back was better, with a Japanese catering - incredible.

Then I had two dinners and a lunch – the latter on Sunday – at Fantin’s. There, at Bulgari there are only two tasting menus. After the crabmeat salad and before the risotto with Italian mushrooms, it was the turn of the Spaghetti with sea urchins and lettuce. An exemplary al dente cooking, the crab fillets were salty, hardly annoying, the creaminess that united everything was sensual.

I really liked the fact I wasn’t offered Spaghetti with tomato and basil. Not because I don’t adore them, but because when you get to Fantin’s standards, you cannot be banal. What a fight he has, however. It’s the only starred establishment in Tokyo with an Italian chef and at the beginning there was a constant argument on pasta’s cooking times. It was regularly uncooked, according to the Japanese. So he gave up: he serves fresh pasta and from time to time a recipe with dried pasta, but with a creative flair that would leave clients and critics floored.

Paolo Marchi
(news edited by by Gabriele Zanatta, translations by Slawka G Scarso)
 

Monograno Felicetti Days, the contest

Pastificio Felicetti is happy to announce a fun initiative that is open to the public. It is called Monograno Felicetti Days and is a contest dedicated to those who can prepare a creative and original dish with Monograno Felicetti products. There’s time until November 30th 2014 to take this challenge. The prize is a dinner in your own home for six people, cooked by Davide Scabin, chef at Combal.zero (he’s the author of the Conchiglioni Empire State Felicetti in the photo).

Participating is easy: you sign up on the website and, once the registration is completed, a text message will give you a code thanks to which you can collect 500 g of the pasta format requested for the contest, from the nearest shop. Next step: you prepare a dinner with your friends, posting photos or videos in a special section on the website. The online community will select the best 10 dishes, which will be then judged by the Monograno Felicetti Days official jury.

This will be composed of Scabin himself, who will assess the quality of the dish and of the dishing out; Riccardo Felicetti, general manager of the pasta factory, who will express his judgement with regards to the choice of products and ingredients composing the dish and Paolo Ferretti, an advertising professional who will assess the creativity of the dinner, the style and the appeal. The winner will be announced by January 31st 2015. But there will also be a prize for the most active shop in the contest: the chosen one will win a dinner for four people at Combal.Zero in Rivoli (Torino).

ps. Scabin himself was the victim of a candid camera, the first of a series that will be published on the contest’s website. Worth watching
 

Tony Mantuano, Spiaggia’s carbonara

Tony Mantuano, the protagonist of the first edition of the Italian Food and Wine Festival in Chicago in October, sent us his personal recipe for carbonara, in the menu of his new Lounge at restaurant Spiaggia, which has been for 30 years now an influential Italian cuisine establishment in the metropolis in Illinois. This is prepared by executive chef Chris Marchino and the fun fact is that it is available in three formats: 50, 100 and 150 grams and you can pair it with wine, beer or even some Italian classic cocktails. The following recipe is for the smallest portion.

Carbonara

Recipe for one person

Ingredients
50 g spaghetti
2 each duck egg yolks
1 tsp each of Cubeb peppercorn, rose peppercorn, Sichuan peppercorn, toasted and ground
¼ cup Pecorino Romano
1 teaspoon Extra Virgin Olive oil
2 ounces Guanciale, diced

Method
In a medium pot over medium-high heat, bring water to a boil. Season with salt to taste like the ocean. Add the dry pasta to the boiling water and stir regularly so the pasta doesn’t stick together. Meanwhile, in a mixing bowl, combine the egg yolks, ¾ of the cheese and the ground, toasted peppercorns.

In a sauté pan, over low heat, add the olive oil and guanciale. Slowly cook the guanciale until it is golden brown and crispy, 5 to 8 minutes. Remove the crispy pieces of guanciale and guanciale fat from the pan and add them to the mixing bowl with the other ingredients, being sure to allow the hot fat to cool for 5 minutes before adding it to the egg mixture.

When the pasta is quite al dente, (we recommend 2 minutes less cooking time than the box advises) add the pasta and a ½ cup of the pasta cooking water to the sauté pan over medium-low heat. Allow the pasta to finish cooking in the pan. After 1 minute, temper the eggs by add a splash of the pasta cooking water to the mixing bowl. Stir in the water completely, then add the pasta to the bowl. The egg will thicken from the heat of the pasta. Stir with a fork until all of the pasta is coated with sauce. Place in a bowl and top with remaining cheese. Serve immediately. (credit Galdones Photography)
 

Badaracco and Genoa’s cold salad

For Matteo Badaracco – chef born in 1985 now working at creative bistro Giardino degli Indoratori in Genoa – summer appears in the shape of a salad with cold spaghetti. “This idea was born a bit like a joke”, he sums up, “with reference to something that is often shouted in the kitchens: ‘quick with those spaghetti or they’ll get cold’, and as the result of some professional memories of mine: the spaghetti and caviar salad by Gualtiero Marchesi and now Silvio Salmoiraghi”. Simple procedure, special taste.

Cold spaghetti with garlic, oil, peppers and clams

Recipe for one person


Ingredients
80 g spaghettoni (Cavalieri, so thick they look like a finger)
50 g clean clams
1 oyster
1 small garlic clove with no heart (“Genoa’s Vessalico is perfect”)
A mix of hot and sweet peppers (“jalapeno, aji amarillo, cayenne, chilli and friggitello”)
1 lime

Method
While the spaghettoni are being cooked, prepare an emulsion with the oyster and clam water, blending everything powerfully and gradually adding the extra virgin olive oil. This sort of mayonnaise will be used to season the pasta. In a small mortar, add a small piece of raw garlic, salt, pepper, sugar and fresh chilli and pesto, so as to obtain a very aromatic paste. Add the juice of the lime, a teaspoon of anchovy colatura and a tablespoon of oil to this. Drain the spaghettoni al dente, cool them under running water, season with the oyster emulsion, some drops of lemon and place them on the plate. Add the slightly warm clams, the aromatic and spicy paste, a julienne of the various sweet peppers and a touch of cayenne pepper.
 

The Torrentes: spaghetti Franciacorta and Cetara

This is the dish with which Pasquale and his son Gaetano Torrente of Al Convento in Cetara (Salerno) began to charm the palates in Franciacorta. Locanda Burro & Alici opened on July 3rd in Via Cavour 7 in Erbusco (Brescia), a wind of freshness from Amalfi in the location of the ex Mongolfiera dei Sodi.

“Zio Vittorio” is Vittorio Moretti in Albereta, patron of the Locanda. And the dish, as explained by Pasquale and Gaetano Torrente, “is born from an old recipe of master Enrico Cosentino”. Having worked at Grand Hotel Quisisana in Capri for a long time, Cosentino is, among other things, the inventor of the scialatielli format. Here, however, we speak of spaghetti. With a very tasty sauce.

The herbs of zio Vittorio meet Cetara

Recipe for 4 people

Ingredients
320 g spaghetti Pastificio dei Campi
100 g basil
30 g parsley
30 g mint
20 g shallot from Nocera
20 g garlic
100 g tuna
150 g extra virgin olive oil
20 g anchovy colatura
the rind of half a sfusato lemon from Amalfi
the juice of half a lemon
fresh chilli pepper to taste
pecorino 40 g

Method
Chop the herbs with the knife, together with the lemon rind, the garlic and the shallot. In a salad bowl, mix these cold ingredients with the oil and the crumbled tuna. Cook the pasta without salt, add some cooking water to the chopped ingredients, the juice of half a lemon, season with the anchovy colatura and cream to taste with the pecorino and the fresh chilli pepper.
 

The bipolar spaghetti by Felice Lo Basso

This is a dish that at the moment can be found in two restaurants: Alpenroyal in Selva di Val Gardena (open all August), and Unico in Milan (closed for the holidays from August 9th till the 26th). As of September 25th, however, after the period of transition between the two establishments, its author, Felice Lo Basso will reserve this only to the guests of the restaurant in Milan.

“It’s like my farewell to Alto Adige, where I’ve worked for 10 years”, he says, “but there’s lots of Apulia, the region I come from: wild garlic is an expression of northern valleys; red prawns and chanterelle mushrooms represent my South”. A very summery and fresh dish, that short-circuits Alpine tops and Adriatic beaches.

Spaghetti alla chitarra with wild garlic, red prawn essence, chanterelle mushrooms and black truffle caviar

Recipe for 4 people

for the spaghetti
200 g “00” flour
300 g durum wheat semolina
5 eggs
10 egg yolks
20 g salt
200 g wild garlic pesto
seed oil to taste
Mix the flours and knead with the other ingredients until you obtain a smooth mixture. After having left it to rest, roll out the pasta and using a guitar form some spaghetti nests weighing 60 g.

for the prawn essence

500 g red prawns from Apulia
150 g chopped ice
100 g extra virgin olive oil
20 g xantana
Clean the prawns and keep the heads to a side which will serve to make the mayonnaise. Cut the prawns into 4 parts and keep to a side to season the pasta. Put the heads in a Bimby processor and add the ice and oil. Blend at the highest speed, add the xantana and strain the mixture. You will obtain a thick sauce similar to a mayonnaise which will be the prawn essence.

Finishing
Cook the spaghetti and pan-fry them with the pieces of red prawns, the chanterelle mushrooms and the truffle caviar. Take a bowl, put the prawn sauce on the bottom, a nest of guitar spaghetti with wild garlic. Finish with oil and serve.
 

Alessandro Dal Degan and the pepper tagliatelle

The pasta-non-pasta current – very frequent in these electronic pages – has a new interpreter: Alessandro Dal Degan of La Tana in Asiago (but he’s also the chef at Arquade in Villa del Quar, Verona). In the following mixture he uses pepper. “The idea is very simple: I wanted to cook a fresh summer dish. In view of this, the pepper is aided by lardo and anchovy, which recall each other in a game of fatness and sapidity”. Pay attention, the pig is berico, without the initial “i”: it comes from the Colli Berici.

Pepper tagliatelle with smoked lardo, anchovies and basil

Recipe for 4 people

Ingredients
1 kg durum wheat semolina
300 g juice of chargrilled red peppers
320 g pepper tagliatelle
smoked lardo made with berico pig
8 fresh anchovies
50 g salt
50 g sugar
fresh basil
40 g goat butter
1 pink garlic clove
cooking salt
50 g juice of chargrilled red peppers

Method
for the pasta
Knead all the ingredients, leave the pasta to rest for 4 hours. Roll out the pasta so it is around 2 mm thick and cut it in the shape of tagliatelle. Leave to dry completely for at least 24 hours.

Carefully clean the anchovies, removing the bones from the fillets. Marinate these with salt and sugar in equal quantities for 10 minutes. Pay attention that the anchovies are in contact with the salt and sugar mixture on both sides. In a pan, melt the butter with a good tablespoon of water and juice of roasted pepper. Add the garlic clove (without removing its skin) and cook for 1 minute. Meanwhile, cook the pasta in lots of salted water. Move the pasta into the pan and quickly pan-fry. Dish out. Cover the surface with thin slices of lardo, the anchovies cut into thin strips and the basil leaves. Serve the dish slightly warm in order to better highlight the aromas.
 

Riccardo Gaspari: mountain's aglio e olio

“Some time ago”, Riccardo Gaspari, chef at El Brite de Larieto above Cortina d’Ampezzo and the author of these spaghettoni recalls, “I was in the mountain hut with a friend and colleague. We found some Swiss pine cones and he told me how to aromatise oil. Once I returned to my kitchen, I came up with the idea of cooking these spaghettoni, a simple dish with spaghetti, garlic and oil that highlights the aromas and flavours of our mountain”.

Crispy Spaghettoni Felicetti, garlic, oil with Swiss pine cones and thyme

Recipe for 4 people

Ingredients
400 g Spaghettoni Monograno Felicetti
100 ml olive oil
2 garlic cloves
1 green Swiss pine cone
chicken stock
dry bread
Swiss pine needles

Method
for the oil

Toast the pine cone in the oven so it can release all the resin’s aroma. After that, cut it into half and leave it to marinate in the oil for 5-6 days.

for the bread

Chop the dry bread together with the Swiss pine needles so as to obtain a homogenous mixture. Toast everything until it becomes crispy.

Cook the spaghettoni in the chicken stock, drain when they’re still very al dente and finish cooking them in the pan with the oil aromatised with Swiss pine cone and the garlic adding some chicken stock if necessary. Place the spaghettoni in the dish, seasoning them with some toasted bread with Swiss pine cone needles and some needles and thyme.
 

Panero’s summer is an oyster root

With this dish, Enrico Panero, chef from Piedmont with a wide experience, now at the helm of restaurant Da Vinci at Eataly Firenze, wanted to unite lightness and complex flavours, aromatised with a very strong attention to seasonal raw materials. “Thinking of summer and my previous experience in Genoa”, he says, “I decided to use oysters from La Spezia, which are marine and meaty, and to pair them with carrots, a product that is strongly tied to the earth, but also to the sun, with reference to its chemical components. In order to highlight the sweetness of the carrot and the sapidity of the oyster, which balance each other, I added ginger and created a contrast with some crispy, simply fried, seaweeds, in order to maintain a neat flavour. I then added freshness with apricot, a summer fruit par excellence, which in this case is valorised by the aromatic character of gin”. The result is a dish that represents summer in terms of colours, balance and lightness.

Oyster root

Recipe for one person

Ingredients

70 g linguine di Gragnano Afeltra
1 organic carrot
60 g organic carrot centrifuge
20 g ginger centrifuge
4 oysters from La Spezia
30 g sea lettuce
5 g anchovy colatura
2 unripe apricots
10 g gin

Method
for the powdered burnt carrot

Cut the carrots in thin slices and place them on a baking tin. Cook in a dry oven at 180°C for 10 minutes, cool and blend until you obtain a thin powder.

for the sea lettuce sauce

Remove the salt from the sea lettuce by washing it under lots of running water. Dry and blend it with hot water and anchovy colatura.

for the fried sea lettuce
Fry the lettuce at 170°C in seed oil.

for the apricots with gin
Cut the apricots into slices and marinate theme for 15 minutes in gin. Braise them in a very hot pan for a few seconds.

for the oysters
Remove the oysters from their shell keeping the water. Keep only their heart.

for the pasta
Cook the linguine in lots of salted water for 4 minutes. Drain them and then cook them in a pan adding half of the carrot centrifuge, the anchovy colatura and the fresh grated ginger. Finish cooking them and mix with the filtered oyster water, add the remaining centrifuge and the green lemon zest. Dish out the linguine in the middle of a plate, season with a few drops of sea lettuce sauce. Finish by garnishing with the oyster, the fried lettuce, the marinated apricots and the powdered burnt carrot.
 

Felice Sgarra and the memories of the harvest

Even Felice Sgarra, chef at restaurant Umami in Andria in Apulia wanted to ponder the simplicity of a “sauce” such as garlic, oil and chilli pepper. “I added some elements that are profoundly rooted and linked to my territory such as courgette tops and flowers. I remember very clearly when it was time to harvest, as a kid, with my father. Today one can still find this simple flavour in an “emotional” dish. To this character I added, without imposing, the technique of salted codfish milk and the crispiness of its tripe. This technique, acquired after a continuous research, will never stop adding a harmony, an unexpected note, to emotions, to the soul of a dish. This is an invitation to taste a dish full of Apulia”.

Spaghettoni “primo grano”, courgette tops and salted codfish tripe

Recipe for 4 people

Ingredients
for the salted codfish milk
300 g salted codfish scraps (bones and skin)
500 g fresh whole milk
200 g water
1 carrot
1 celery stick
1 rosemary twig
1 bay leaf
extra virgin olive oil

for the salted codfish tripe
200 g salted codfish tripe
extra virgin olive oil

Other ingredients
320 g spaghettoni
200 g raw salted codfish
200 g salted codfish milk
200 g courgette tops
salt to taste
4 fresh mint leaves
extra virgin olive oil to taste
white pepper to taste

Method
In order to prepare the salted codfish milk, clean the bones and the skin of the salted codfish under running water. To a side, in a casserole, brown the finely chopped carrot and celery. Add the salted codfish scraps and once you do so, pour the milk and the water. You will need to simmer everything for about 40 minutes – until you reduce it to 1/3 – aromatising it with the rosemary twig and the bay leaf. If necessary, remove the foam and finally strain the mixture with a colander.

In a pan, scald the salted codfish tripe cut into pieces in oil. Salt lightly and add pepper.

In a pot, pour 2 litres of water, add salt and bring to the boil. Put the spaghettoni in the boiling water with the courgette tops. Bring them to 2/3 of their ideal cooking time. Drain them and put them in an aluminium pan, finishing the cooking by adding the salted codfish milk.

Finishing
The spaghettoni need to be creamed in the pun, with the flame turned off, adding extra virgin olive oil, the hand-chopped mint leaves and the pepper grinded on the spot. Finish with the salted codfish tripe. Serve immediately.
 

Caterina Ceraudo’s gnocchi are made with ricotta

Dried pasta is not at home in Strongoli, in Southern Calabria, in the province of Crotone. For this reason the young chef Caterina Ceraudo, daughter of the owner of Dattilo, Roberto, decided to fall back on gnocchi.

These, however, are special gnocchi because they have no potatoes: they are made with ricotta, a symbol of this area together with peppers and basil. A first dish with a nikoromitiano approach, because this girl spent an important training period in his very temple, in Castel di Sangro.

Ricotta gnocchi with pepper and basil sauce


Recipe for 4 people

Ingredients
200 g sheep ricotta
50 g parmesan
50 g “00” flour
1 egg
salt
2 red peppers
basil
garlic
oil

ricotta gnocchi
Knead the ricotta, parmesan, flour and the egg and a pinch of salt and then roll out and give the shape of gnocchi.

for the pepper sauce
Peel the peppers both outside and inside. Steam them at 90°C then blend them and add salt to taste.

Dishing out
When serving, blanch the gnocchi in salted water. Place the slightly warmed pepper sauce in the centre of the plate, put the gnocchi on top, place on each gnocco a slightly pan-fried basil leaf.
 

Spaghetti with sea urchins, Luca Fantin at Bulgari in Tokyo

Spaghetti with sea urchins by Luca Fantin, chef at restaurant Bulgari in Tokyo. It’s a great Italy.