Dear {NOMEUTENTE}Last Thursday it was Christmas day, a holiday that we at Identità celebrated with a newsletter dedicated to pasta. Enjoy reading it.
Paolo Marchi, edited by Carlo Passera and Gabriele Zanatta |
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Tubetti by Marianna Vitale «This is certainly a very aromatic and fresh dish», says Marianna Vitale, chef at Sud in Quarto (Naples) and female chef of the year in 2015 according to Guida di Identità Golose, «but also a deep, mineral and lively dish. It is characterised by a format that has fallen into disuse, that of small tubetti, and most of all the use of red mullet entrails, which give the broth a complex acidity and a pleasant bitter touch that is promptly balanced by the freshness of the coriander and the citrus fruit ».
Tubetti, red mullet and mandarin
Recipe for 4 people
INGREDIENTS
360 g tubetti
2 rock red mullet (200 g each, before cleaning)
300 g Vesuvius tomatoes
2 mandarins
1 chopped lemongrass stalk
Garlic, extra virgin olive oil, chilli pepper, coriander
METHOD
The red mullet
Clean the red mullet and cut it roughly into four filets and keep to a side. Keep the bones and entrails and sauté them in a pan with oil, garlic, chilli pepper and lemon grass until they are lightly toasted. Add water so as to cover them and bring them to the boil, then turn off the fire and strain in a fine colander. Keep hot.
For the Vesuvius tomato
Cut the tomatoes into four slices and sweat them in oil and garlic. Add salt and process them in a vegetable mill. Keep to a side.
Tubetti
In a pan, sauté the garlic in oil, add a ladle of light red mullet broth and one of Vesuvius tomato cream. Bring to the boil then add the tubetti and cook them adding, when necessary, some broth and tomato cream. Once the cooking is completed, add the red mullet filets and the coriander. Away from the fire, complete with some thin mandarin peel.
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Panero: Christmas between Piedmont and Tuscany  Enrico Panero, chef at restaurant Da Vinci at Eataly Firenze, thus explains his recipe for maltagliati: «It recalls our Christmas traditions, offering a first course in a broth that has all the flavours of the countryside in it. It is a “comforting” first course, with enveloping flavours, that aims at bringing the scents and flavours of the winter vegetable garden on the table, putting together my Piedmontese traditions, as with the capon stock, the Jerusalem artichoke and the Marsala wine, and Tuscan products such as black cabbage and chestnuts, looking towards the East with the addition of soy sauce to give a sapid note that is to increase the roundness of the dish». (Photo by Claudia Del Bianco).
Chestnut maltagliati in winter soup
Recipe for 4 people
INGREDIENTS
for the maltagliati
60 g organic chestnut flour
130 g 00 flour
80 g eggs
10 g extra virgin olive oil
8 g salt
The broth basics
2 l water
500 g capon
30 g celery
30 g carrots
30g onion
20 g orange zest
to complete the broth
18 g black truffle
30 g black cabbage
50 g Jerusalem artichoke
50 g honey mushrooms
30 g blanched chestnuts
10 g soy sauce
10 g marsala wine
METHOD
Knead the ingredients for the maltagliati and leave the pasta to rest for around 30 minutes. Roll out the brick into thin layers and create some small maltagliati around 2 cm wide.
Mix the ingredients for the basics of the broth and bring them to the boil. Cook for around 2 hours then strain. In a saucepan, add the black cabbage and the diced Jerusalem artichoke, the truffle cut into slices and the clean mushrooms to the strained broth. Cook for around 4 minutes and add the maltagliati and cook them.
Strain the broth once more and serve the maltagliati with the vegetables in a soup dish and with the boiling hot broth on the side, which will be poured in the dish once the plate is served.
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Peppe Barone and the defense of pastratedda  Pastratedda from Modica (though in Scicli it is called n'cucciatieddu or n’cucciatu) in the beginning was a gift among the poor, who had nothing to give as a present, not even on holidays, if not their time, their infinite patience. So countryside home keepers would prepare this pasta which requires an extremely long time to prepare: it was a way to demonstrate their devotion, the tribute that was possible to someone who had little means but wanted to prove a strong attention.
They would thus knead durum wheat flour with water, eggs and salt; once they had reached the required texture, they would start to “pinch” the dough thus obtaining many small gnocchetti – in different sizes and shapes because they were not only home made but it was important they would appear so, the result of commitment, work and effort that were handed together with the gift. It is perfect, besides, to be cooked as risotto (but in a shorter time, 8-10 minutes instead of 15), al dente. On top of that, it can be prepared both as a «dry» pasta or as a soup.
Today even in Modica there are less and less people who prepare pastratedda, substituted by the simpler cavati. If any, one can find a slightly simpler version: they are transformed into long “spaghettoni” that are then cut into small pieces. Peppe Barone, chef at Fattoria delle Torri in Modica and director of the Scuola di Alta Cucina Nosco in Ragusa, is a tireless defender of this nice tradition.
He presented an incredibly delicious version, Pastratedda di russello with courgettes, mussels and calamari (in the photo), during his recent cooking show at Taormina Gourmet (russello is an ancient, local durum wheat variety, which is stone-milled). And he made us taste another version, Pastratedda with bisque and mantis shrimps and lime, no less delicious, at Cenobio too, the training restaurant that is located inside the same building as “his” school in Nosco, the ancient convent of the Capuchin monks, today also a fascinating hotel.
CP
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Bernardi’s Sorrentinos, between East and West  Going out for a walk in the East, and in the West: we could use this metaphor to sum up the dish created by Andrea Bernardi for Identità di Pasta. Bernardi is Italian, from Marino, one of the Roman Castles, but works in Tenerife (we wrote about him here); on top of a creative menu of tapas, he presents a tasting menu that is extremely technical, of great balance, the result of the embrace between his Mediterranean origins and two strong influences: that of his South American wife, Fernanda Fuentes Cárdenas, from Chile, and that of his beloved East.
This also applies in the case of this recipe: Sorrentinos are a sort of large raviolo from Argentina (some say it is named after its possible inventor, an Italian immigrant in the Mar del Plata, originally from Sorrento; others say it comes from a pasta factory in Buenos Aires that is thus called), but it is larger and has more filling than ours. In this recipe, one can find ingredients from different traditions in a lovely fusion.
Sorrentino with calamari tartare, bonito eggs, bamboo sprouts and lime on a broth made with small calamari and legumes
Recipe for 8 people
INGREDIENTS
for the bonito eggs
5 kg eggs from a bonito
200 g cooking salt
100 g brown sugar
150 ml soy
18 ml mirin
20 ml saké
10 ml anchovy colatura
for the broth made with calamari and vegetables
400 g fresh calamari
200 g hydrated chickpeas
150 g pancetta
4 scallions
2 leeks
20 ml soy sauce
20 ml seed oil
3 l water
0.8 g xantana
for the calamari tartare
500 g small fresh calamari
juice of 2 limes
15 g coriander
3 g wasabi paste
10 ml mirin
salt, black pepper
25 ml extra virgin olive oil
for the pasta
3 fresh eggs
20 ml extra virgin olive oil
5 g salt
220 g 00 flour
7 g curry powder
for the finishing
1 lime
2 bamboo salt
Maldon salt
METHOD
for the bonito eggs
Put the eggs with the salt and sugar into a vacuum pack and leave in the fridge for a week, then wash the eggs in water to remove salt and sugar, dry and put back in the vacuum pack with the other ingredients, and leave to marinate for 24 hours. Strain and leave to dry in the sun for 3 days. Keep in the vacuum pack.
for the calamari and vegetable broth
Put the oil in a pan, then the calamari, the vegetables and the pancetta until they are golden, then add the other ingredients and leave to reduce to 400 ml. Strain with a Superbag and thicken with xantana, and leave in the fridge.
for the calamari tartare
Clean the calamari and cut them into small pieces with a knife, add the other ingredients and season with salt and pepper. Fill some small semi-sphere shaped moulds in silicon and freeze.
for the pasta
Place the flour and curry in the shape of a well, add the two eggs, the oil and salt. Form a ball with an elastic texture. Leave in a cool place for 30-45 minutes. Roll it with a rolling pin then pass the dough through a pasta machine. Roll out a 30x15 cm layer of pasta on the table, place the frozen semi-spheres on top, put the other layer of pasta on top and cut with a pastry cutter. Finish by pressing the edges with your fingertips. Place on a dish with some flour.
FINISHING THE DISH
Place two sorrentinos in a steam-cooking basket, put into the steam oven with 100% humidity for 5 minutes. Place the peeled lime, diced finely, into a round dish, add 3 2x0.5 cm slices of fish eggs, then the sorrentinos with the base facing the top, the tips of the bamboo sprouts and the Maldon salt. Finish the dish when serving at the table with the reduction of calamari and legumes.
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Marco Martini’s sea side ajo e ojo  An immediate, craveable, dazzling dish, stimulating and evoking memories, drawing from the deep memory of well known aromas, though expressed in the best possible way, in perfect balance: this sea side Ajo e ojo is indeed one of the signature dishes and – better still – one of the dishes that best represents a style in the kitchen, that of Marco Martini, with no frills, few redundancies, a style capable of hitting the target following a very “Roman-style” seemingly simplicity.
After all, this is also Antonello Colonna’s lesson, Martini’s master; young Marco caught its spirit and substance moving them to his new restaurant, Stazione di Posta, a secluded location (and praised right away by both critics and public) inside the ex Mattatoio, today Città dell'Altra Economia, in the heart of Testaccio, the neighbourhood of the capital’s new movida.
The story of the dish itself confirms what we are writing: it was born in 2010, when Martini, 24 at the time, was sous chef at Open Colonna; it was initially conceived as «midnight spaghetti, something you could cook on returning home» after all «in the past, including spaghetti ajo e ojo in the menu would be considered something mad. We did it», and it received an immediate, and very understandable, success. Today at Stazione di Posta it is available at lunchtime and its appeal seems not to decrease. The merit goes to the difficult balance on which it is based, the pasta (delicious, from a tiny pasta producer in Abruzzo, Gran Sasso) cooked in the water of the seafood, the right seasoning of garlic, oil, salt, chilli pepper and even parsley («It’s the only dish with parsley in my cuisine: a tribute to tradition»), elements that melt in the mouth together with the powdered seafood itself, «in the end, there’s no sauce left over to collect with some bread, there must not be a sea of oil in the plate, the condiment needs to remain attached to the spaghetti». Delicious.
Seafood ajo e ojo
Recipe for 4 people
INGREDIENTS
500 g previously cleaned razor clams
500 g previously cleaned warty venus clams
500 g previously cleaned clams
500 g mussels
320 g spaghetti
1 fresh head of garlic
1 fresh chilli pepper
Parsley
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt
METHOD
Remove the brown filament, if present, and clean the mussels under running water using the special brush to remove any sand or seaweeds, then rinse well. Open them in a pan with a little oil and a garlic clove. Once they are open, remove from the fire and pour the mussels in a colander, collecting their cooking water. Do the same for the clams, the warty venus clams and the razor clams.
Now remove the molluscs from their shells, then remove the black sachet containing the sand inside the razor clams and put them in a bowl with their cooking water and keep this in the fridge, covered in cling film. Distribute the seafood on a silpat sheet and dehydrate them in the oven at 65 °C for 24 hours. Leave them to cool before processing them in a mixer so as to obtain a powder. On the day of the preparation, cook the spaghetti with lots of unsalted boiling water.
Chop a garlic clove with a handful of parsley leaves and a little piece of chilli pepper. In a pan, heat up a little oil and sauté the chopped herbs, add the spaghetti, drained after around 5 minutes of cooking and finish their cooking by using a few ladles of seafood cooking water. Mix the spaghetti away from the fire with the dehydrated powdered seafood, then place as a nest in the centre of the plate.
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Felice Sgarra and the tagliolino con-fuso  «In Apulia», says Felice Sgarra, chef at restaurant Umami in Andria, «thanks to burnt wheat, a burnt density arrives, like the Scirocco wind, the air from the Apulian tableau. The first time I got my hands dirty with flour was with my mother. This is when I learnt about the tactile sense, the only one that can transmit to us the real presence of things. I then lived an important part of my life in Roccaraso. The years spent in that land gave me strength and knowledge. The recipe for tagliolini recalls some aspects of that, through the use of cheek lard and anchovies. The tradition of cured meats and the memory of the sea as something distant».
Burnt wheat tagliolino con-fuso (carbonara and anchovies)
Recipe for 4 people
INGREDIENTS
for the tagliolini
200 g re-milled semolina
60 g burnt wheat flour
100 g water
for the sauce
1 garlic cloves
1 anchovy
rosemary and sage leaves
cheek lard
1 egg
METHOD
Knead all the ingredients for the tagliolini and cut them by hand. Sauté the garlic with extra virgin olive oil adding water and the chopped rosemary and sage. Cream with toasted cheek lard and a whole egg.
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Federico Delmonte’s fusilli with clams Federico Delmonte, chef at restaurant Settembrini in Rome, originally from the Marche, wanted a pasta, he says «That would strongly speak about my land, that is to say my sea, the Adriatic. So clams, an ingredient I adore, are presented in the shape of an ice cream and you cream it away from the fire. Fusilli preserve all their most intrinsic flavour».
Fusilli with clams
Recipe for 10 people
INGREDIENTS
5 kg clams from Fano
3 garlic cloves
parsley stalks
wine
extra virgin olive oil
20 g parsley leaves
1 lemon
1 kg fusilli
METHOD
for the clam ice cream
Open 2.5 kg of clams in the traditional way, with 2 garlic cloves, a few parsley stalks, placing them in a casserole tin. Add the wine, a little water and cover. Once the clams are open, drain them and leave them to cool so as to be able to separate the meat from the shell. Leave the obtained juice to decant overnight in the fridge.
Throw the other 2.5 kg in boiling water for 10 seconds. Using a small knife, open the clams to remove their meat.
Place the two batches of clams inside a Pacojet basket with a part of the strained and decanted liquid. Freeze and on the following day pacosse it so as to obtain the ice cream.
Cream the fusilli with the liquid from the clams, a garlic clove and the oil. Finally add the ice cream, finish the creaming away from the fire, place the fusilli in the plate, finishing with a little freshly cut parsley and some grated lemon zest.
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Biagiola and a book called Spaghetti Michele Biagiola is a professional and knowledgeable chef. He’s the one who takes care of the craveable rites at Enoteca Le Case in Macerata, tel. +39.0733.231897 - 264762, and he’s the one who wrote “a book dedicated to the Italian dish par excellence, full of history, anecdotes, secrets and classic, reinterpreted and new recipes” for Edizioni Estemporanee. The title is clear and leaves no doubt on the topic: Spaghetti, photos by Leonardo Rinaldesi, edited by Tito Vagni.
Don’t worry, indeed there are recipes and they are captivating. But there’s also much more. A book you can eat and cook from one end to the other.
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