Monograno Felicetti

Dear {NOMEUTENTE}
First Sarah Grueneberg in Chicago with her “spaghetteria” and the other night a dinner in Milan, at Matteo Aloe’s brand new pizzeria Berberè, in Isola, brought a thought back to my mind, a question I still cannot fully answer: why are there pizzerias and why aren’t there restaurants serving only pasta, instead?

There are old and clear reasons. Pizza will feed you, it’s an exceptional single course dish, and cheap too. Pasta, or a portion of lasagne is equally satisfying and cheap but the way we see a meal, it’s a step in the meal itself, which includes at least first and main course. Without forgetting that pizza is also a formidable street food. Pasta is less so because it also requires cutlery.

I know this very well. My point is different: why have we lost count now of pizzerias serving pizzas already sliced, so as to help sharing among guests, and the same doesn’t apply to the universe of pasta? There’s no doubt Davide Scabin has revolutionised the world of pasta by creating new recipes and shapes. A day will come when we’ll have menus entirely focused on pasta, not as a game, or for marketing reasons. Authentic, real places. Not pop-up restaurants created to do something weird and then go back to normality.

Paolo Marchi

Content by Gabriele Zanatta, photo by Brambilla/Serrani, translation by Slawka G. Scarso
 

Riccardo Felicetti: pasta fights back

During Identità’s trip to the United States I had a further confirmation: pasta is fighting back. This is happening after years of oblivion. And of masterfully spread theses that were built so as to demonise it: the unpopularity of carbohydrates, the gluten threat, the diets eliminating it.

Yet people hold pasta in their hearts more and more. This interest is confirmed by the attention of publishers, journalists, but most of all by sales and public, especially in the international markets (in Italy we’re basically experiencing stable volumes).

This growth in popularity is apparent in the pantry of fine kitchens: «Until a few years ago», writes Eleonora Cozzella in her recent book “Pasta Revolution” (published by Giunti), «it was very hard to find spaghetti or short pasta formats in fine dining restaurants. Today everybody uses it, and often as a signature dish».

We’ve returned from Chicago and the Big Apple with a flattering interest from the New York Times. They came spontaneously to interview Massimo Bottura. Indeed, pasta is fighting back and this makes us trust the future more.
Riccardo Felicetti

(in the photo with Carlo Cracco at Identità Chicago)
 

Sarah Grueneberg, ambassador in Chicago

Our most interesting discovery in Chicago is called Monteverde (above, in the photo with Anthony Tahlier). It’s the entirely pasta-focused restaurant of volcanic Sarah Grueneberg (her surname indeed means Green Mountain, Monte Verde, in German). Thirty-five, from Houston («I’m from Texas, so I don’t need a microphone», she said at the beginning of the lesson at Eataly Chicago), she worked for many years beside Tony Mantuano, her mentor at Spiaggia.

She strengthened her love for Italian cuisine with a long series of experiences in Italy: «The first time I landed in Rome», she recalls, «I said: ‘wow, this city is really old’. But Romans immediately corrected me: ‘it’s ancient’». Then she discovered the first courses at Sanlorenzo, then at Rigoletto in Reggiolo and at Dal Pescatore, 3 Michelin stars in Canneto sull’Oglio: «It’s in the kitchen with Nadia Santini», Sarah today recalls, «that I learnt to cook pasta risotto-style. It was the staff meal, and I liked it a lot».

So much so that 10 months ago she opened a “ristorante e pastificio” (she uses Italian words) in the West Loop in the metropolis in Illinois. It immediately became a case study thanks to the fact she seats 300 people per night with strong rotation what with high decibel, dim lights and the very luminous station of a rezdora (a real Italian lady from Bologna) who never stops rolling the pin and filling tortelli and ravioli.

The menu is a hymn to durum wheat and egg pasta: there are Pasta tipica dishes (Gnocchetti sardi, pumpkin tortelloni, spaghetti alla chitarra) and Pasta atipica (Arrabbiata with prawns or Cacio Whey Pepe, which she presented during the lesson in Chicago, read below).

And then a series of single course dishes to be shared following the dominating American sharing model. Even in Italy you can’t find such a tribute to pasta. Why? «Because I want to prove Americans», Sarah explains assertively «that spaghetti and tagliatelle can go much beyond the concept of easy food for many people». An ambassador.
 

Carlo Cracco/1: spaghetti with plankton

«Today», Carlo Cracco started his lesson at Identità Chicago, two weeks ago, «I’d like to speak about two different recipes. We’ll use pasta and try to be as simple as only a dish of pasta with tomato sauce and basil can be».

With the first dish (in the photo), phytoplankton entered the scene, «This microorganism once was only used in farmaceuticals. It’s a very innovative product that tastes like the sea without being fish». It’s a bit like saffron: «It’s very expensive but you only need a gram per portion. We pair it with Spaghetti Monograno Felicetti, made with Matt wheat from Arizona grown in Apulia – I point this out because it is essential that a chef knows where the wheat comes from, just like with fish or vegetables».

The plankton is put on the base of a bowl and becomes a fabulous seasoning, when it wraps around the spaghetti: «Finding strong-flavoured ingredients, with exciting concentrated notes is always stimulating». Super tasty depths.
 

Carlo Cracco/2: fusillotti with smoked butter

The second dish at Cracco’s lesson in Chicago: Fusillotti Cappelli Felicetti and smoked butter. Why smoking it? «I find butter fascinating because it’s fat and rich, but by smoking it, it acquires a completely different direction».

When the butter becomes very creamy, you smoke it with a gun, then place it in the fridge covered in cling film. A few hours later you drain the pasta 2 minutes before the suggested cooking time. You then toss it in the pan so it can fully absorb the sauce.

Final touch: «So that people understand it’s smoked, we add some black bread made with vegetal carbon, without yeast». When tasting the pasta, you’ll feel like tasting many ingredients, «in fact it’s only one».

The conclusion is based on two golden rules by Cracco on the theme of pasta: «The first is that it must be tasty, it must be good. The second is that you appreciate it more if it’s al dente: it tastes better and it’s easier to digest». We may take this for granted, but it’s different in Illinois.
 

Massimo Bottura: passatelli with pizza marinara

Passatelli made with left over pizza marinara, in tomato water. This is the dish presented by Massimo Bottura at Identità New York edition number 7, on 5th October. A lesson the chef from Modena had anticipated live to the cameras of the New York Times, one hour earlier from the same backbench at Eataly Flatiron’s Scuola.

The sparkle behind the recipe: «Once a week, my daughter organises a pizza party in Washington. They always leave plenty of leftovers like this. Hence I had an idea and I told my sous chef: ‘Davide [Di Fabio, his second] why don’t we turn pizza leftovers in passatelli?».

Here’s the preparation, step by step: «Process some very ripe tomatoes for 3-4 minutes in the Thermomix, then strain them so as to obtain the tomato water. Put aside all the left over pulp. The passatelly made with left over pizza marinara, hence without cheese, are dried and then grated. Add the remaining tomato pulp to the powder, plus dry oregano, oil from anchovies preserved in oil, an egg, Grana Padano together with Parmigiano. Knead the passatelli, then warm up everything to 60°C in the previously obtained limpid tomato water, dish out and finish with some drops of garlic oil, oregano and chilli pepper».

The pizza passatelli are very effective in that their finish spreads the flavour of pizza. «This recipe is like a mask. It hides behind a very Italian symbol. Centuries of history compressed in a mouthful».

 

Sarah Grueneberg’s Cacio whey pepe

The dish presented by Sarah Grueneberg (see news above) at Eataly Chicago is called Cacio whey pepe and the key element is indeed whey. She says: «This recipe was born by mistake: I was making Cacio e pepe for my boyfriend. We had just visited a farm, looking for high quality eggs – essential for the tons of fresh pasta we prepare every night. At one point they gave me a gallon of raw milk, which is illegal but very exciting for a chef.

Starting from an intuition, I decided to use the whey for the final emulsion with the cooking water from the pasta – you usually discard the whey, and that indeed is legal – instead of the butter». This trick made her win the dish of the year award from the very popular Bon Appetit magazine (which joins many other important prizes).

In between there’s a laborious preparation, «made with simplicity, yet not simple» Paolo Marchi effectively sums up at the end of the lesson. They use Spaghettoni with Matt Monograno Felicetti, removed from the water 5 minutes before what’s suggested on the pack. You toss them energetically in the pan for 5 more minutes with chunks of ricotta crumbled on top with your hands, previously cooked on a low heat with a little salt.

To the side, in a mortar, she grated with a Microplane three types of cheese: Grana Padano, Pecorino Romano and a second Pecorino, less salty. «It usually comes from Tuscany or Sardinia», the chef explained. She finishes with a blend of four types of black pepper. A dish rich of flavour and lightness, with a beautiful acidity and an important characteristic, which Sarah pointed out: «Every piece of spaghettone has its sauce». Which, come to think about it, almost never happens with the classic recipe.

 

Sedani in a cream of beans by Michael Tusk

Sedani Monograno Felicetti and cream of beans with octopus, abalone from the Bay of Monterey and smoked pepper. This is the delicious dish presented by Michael Tusk at Identità Chicago. Originally from New Jersey, a graduate in History of Arts and an important experience with Alice Waters, today he has two very popular restaurants which he runs in San Francisco with his wife Lindsay: fine dining restaurant Quince and the more rustic Cotogna.

The sedani pasta is cooked straight into the soup, the octopus is vacuum cooked (and all its cooking liquid is then added to the soup) and then lightly smoked on the grill. The result is a fantastic soup with pasta, very rich, with many elements all of which are perfectly recognisable on the palate.


 

Luca Fantin’s spaghetti with sea urchins are cold!

These Spaghetti with sea urchins were cooked by Luca Fantin, chef from Treviso working at Bulgari’s in Tokyo, in the Milanese restaurant of the same maison. The dinner followed the presentation of his book, just published by Assouline: we wrote about it in detail in our website.

While 90% of the ingredients Fantin uses when cooking are Japanese, the remaining 10% of Italian raw materials leaves space for pasta, of course. Felicetti. The news led to an anecdote with regards to the Japanese approach to durum wheat: «Seven years ago, when the restaurant in Tokyo had just opened, they’d send back 80% of the spaghetti: ‘too raw’, the Japanese complained. But they were simply al dente. I understood I couldn’t force this on them. At the same time, I didn’t want to just use fresh pasta in the menu, which was closer to their taste as it’s softer on the palate».

His stubbornness led to fantastic devices. Like the one he used with these spaghetti: over cooked by 3 minutes, and then tempered thanks to a quick shock in iced water (at 4°C). Served cold, just how they like it in Tokyo, it transformed prejudiced, perplexed expressions into happy smiles.
 

Scabin’s Spaghettini tomato and Incuso

Spaghettini Felicetti in the “Pantelleria Incuso” style with three tomatoes, a dish served lukewarm by its author, Davide Scabin of Combal.zero in Rivoli (Torino) at Spazio Orlandi, a dinner organised last week by Italia Squisita. Incuso refers to extra virgin olive oil and to the Nocellara del Belice olives produced with a “lay” method by PG Bonsignore, originally from Gragnano and now living in Selinunte. The cream of tomatoes created by the chef from Rivoli instead gives 3 different notes: sweet, tannic, acid.
 

Identità, by Massimo Bottura

! Identità", the dish with letter-pasta in a broth prepared by Massimo Bottura in New York as a homage to our work. For us, an honour. «“Identità” is you, as well as all the identities from which we come from». Bravo.
 

Pasta revolution, it all began thanks to Scabin

The image above shows the cover of a great book by Eleonora Cozzella published by Giunti. The title: Pasta Revolution. Subtitle: La pasta conquista l’alta cucina [Pasta conquers fine dining]. When thinking of the journey behind Identità di Pasta and the great work of pasta producer Felicetti in Predazzo in Trentino, it feels strange to read that in Italy pasta is conquering fine dining when in fact it is a pillar of Italian quality together with pizza.

Yet fine dining has always found it hard to put dry pasta in the first line, so much so that Riccardo Felicetti, at the presentation at Salone del Gusto in Torino, on Sunday 25th September, recalled where the revolution started from: «I was dining at Davide Scabin’s Combal.zero in Rivoli. A night to remember, except for a detail I pointed out: there was no pasta and Davide replied that he didn’t take it into consideration because “pasta is banal”. I accepted the reply, thought about it at length and six months later I returned to Combal with a pack of pasta for him. As I gave it to him I said: “Chef, please make it less banal”. And that’s what he did».

The seven years spent working together at the congress in Milan and the six months at Identità Expo in 2015, with over thirty chefs who came to Fiera di Rho to discuss pasta, are summed up in 160 pages with a preface by Oscar Farinetti. The title: E’ difficile essere semplici [It’s hard being simple]. An absolute truth, which explains why in the middle of the pasta revolution you still can’t eat a really good dish of spaghetti with tomato and basil in a starred restaurant. They are still considered banal. Perhaps it is true, but it’s also true that it’s very, very hard to make them in an unforgettable way. One exception: Nino Di Costanzo in Ischia.

Foreigners, the French above all, have always made jokes about Italian as spaghetti-eaters. Scabin remembers: «When the French want to refer to us in a despising way, they always say cooking is not about boiling pasta and they are very much mistaken, starting from the verb they use: you don’t just boil pasta, you cook it». Riccardo Felicetti added: «If we can once again be proud to be Italian, it is also thanks to cooking and pasta».

And in Pasta Revolution you’ll find some excellent pasta, for your mind and palate, from Andrea Aprea to Marianna Vitale, Enrico Bartolini and Massimo Bottura, Moreno Cedroni and Pino Cuttaia, Niko Romito and Ciccio Sultano.
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