Dear {NOMEUTENTE}Should dry pasta be made with Italian wheat? If good, excellent, yes indeed. But what about mediocre wheat or a production that is not enough for the demand? Simple: you shop abroad. Unfortunately, the plummeting prices have seriously damaged Italian farmers and so now we have opposite opinions and, in order to defend Italian wheat, we might end up penalising Italian pasta. It will be a hot topic, this coming year.
The association of pasta producers wrote a letter stressing that «Italian pasta producers within AIDEPI, Associazione delle Industrie del Dolce e della Pasta Italiane, learn from the media the fact a decree was sent to Brussels regarding the obligation to state the origin of the wheat on the label of the pasta. AIDEPI is strongly critical of the wording used by the government. According to Riccardo Felicetti, president of the AIDEPI pasta producers, “the words chosen have no added value for the consumer. The origin alone is not a synonym of quality. Moreover, it doesn’t stimulate Italian farmers to invest more so as to produce the high quality wheat requested by pasta producers”».
A seal of quality is more than welcome, but I would like it to indicate the quality of the wheat. Forcing a producer to use a mediocre product just because it’s Italian will end up damaging Italian pasta, in the long run. I remember a few years ago, the review of a restaurant in London published in a British newspaper. It pointed out how everything was British: ideas, style, products. With a final critique, something like: too bad the food is not that good, but this standard will be enough to those who are proud of the new English cuisine in any shape. As for me, that wouldn’t satisfy me.
Paolo Marchi
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Mammoliti’s barbecue flavoured spaghetti  "The idea behind this dish", says Michelangelo Mammoliti, executive chef atthe Madernassa resort in Guarene (Cuneo), which received one Michelin star a few weeks ago "is simple: I wanted to reproduce the flavour of the pork chops my father used to make on Sundays. I wanted to reproduce the friendly atmosphere of a family barbecue".
"In the first tests, I simply tried to recreate the same setting and the same conditions one has inside a barbecue. The first tests were satisfying but not decisive as the smokiness was overpowering. And there was a lack in proteins. This is why I tried to add an extraction of prosciutto from Cuneo. I was still missing a support that would absorb all the aromas generated by the burning of the wood, by the fat rind of the prosciutto and the herbs used when barbecuing".
"I immediately used oil aromatised with smoked prosciutto. I then prepared butter, starting from cream with 35% fat, and then had it absorb all that a pork chop required. The first mouthful was surprising. The second confirmed the flavour of my father’s pork chops. The third had a ratatouille effect, with a tear too: I had managed to reproduce that memory".
Spaghetti cooked in an extraction of barbecued prosciutto from Cuneo
Recipe for 4 people
for the broth with prosciutto from Cuneo
1 l bottled water
300 g prosciutto from Cuneo PDO
1 bouquet of herbs (sage, bay leaves, thyme, garlic and rosemary)
Cut the prosciutto into 1 cm thick slices. Use a slicing machine or ask your favourite delicatessen. Put the slices on a cutting board and cut them into 1 cm large sticks. Then cut the sticks into regular cubes. Put the ham into a pot with a capacity of 2 litres until the ham starts to sweat. Then add the bouquet of aromatic herbs.
Cook on a medium heat for a couple of minutes. Add the bottled water and cook for 2 hours on a low heat. After that, filter the broth and reduce to a half so as to concentrate the flavour of the prosciutto from Cuneo.
for the crunchy prosciutto
50 g prosciutto from Cuneo
Cut the prosciutto from Cuneo into strips, put it into a cold pan and toast the prosciutto until it has a uniform colour and it’s crispy. Put aside the fat from cooking the prosciutto to finish the spaghetti.
for the barbecue aromatised butter
250 g butter
1 sprig of rosemary
1 leaf of sage
1 garlic clove
Prepare the barbecue using preferably chestnut or cherry wood. Wait so as to make the embers and so that there are no more flames. Put all the herbs, rosemary, sage and garlic, inside. Burn the herbs so as to create smoke inside the barbecue, add some oil to increase the smoke, cover and leave the butter in infusion for around 5 minutes. Remove the butter and put it in an airtight container. Keep in the fridge.
cooking the spaghetti
500 g spaghetti
5 l water
50 g salt
Bring the salted water to the boil, cook the spaghetti for 5 minutes, drain and put into a pan with the cooking fat from the prosciutto, the butter and the prosciutto broth. Finish cooking the spaghetti for 3 more minutes. Mix with parmigiano and the barbecue butter.
Finishing the dish
Using a brush, draw a stripe of the butter on a plate, put a stripe of crispy prosciutto on top and place the barbecue spaghetti. Finish with some powdered vegetal carbon and some crispy prosciutto from Cuneo.
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Preceruti serves paccheri as a pre-dessert  "This very-easy-to-make dish", explains Sara Preceruti, young cook recently at the helm of restaurant Acquada in Porlezza (Como) "was designed as a pre-dessert: it’s not too sweet but it’s fresh, and, thanks to strawberries, it’s also a little sour. It’s a way of using dry pasta in a dessert. It will soon be included in the menu at our restaurant".
Red paccheri with meringue mousse and basil oil
for the meringue
50 g egg white
100 g icing sugar
Whisk the egg white with the sugar until the mixture is finely whipped, roll out onto a sheet of baking paper and bake at 80°C until the meringue is dry.
for the paccheri
12 paccheri
2 beetroots
strawberry essence to taste
Peel and blend the precooked beetroots, add the purée to 2 litres of water and bring to the boil. Add the strawberry essence and cook the paccheri pasta for around 13 minutes. Drain and leave to cool.
for the basil oil
100 g basil
50 g olive oil
Blanch the basil for 30 seconds and cool it immediately in water and ice. Dry the basil and blend in a glass of olive oil.
for the meringue mousse
200 g cream
80 g icing sugar
crumbled meringue
Whip the cream with the sugar and add the crumbled meringue. Fill the paccheri with the mousse, serve with drops of basil oil and crumbled meringue.
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Marmo: the elegance of sea urchin (and rosemary) "We have a fisherman" who catches lobsters in front of Bordighera, says Enrico Marmo, chef with Pina Beglia of the glorious Balzi Rossi in Ventimiglia (Imperia) explaining the sparkle behind this first course. “One day he brought some 30 sea urchins and said: make spaghetti with these'. We tried to cook them, looking for the best way to mitigate the strong flavour of the sea urchins and after a few attempts we managed. How? With lots of rosemary, creaming it in the same way as with carbonara and adding crispy bread at the end, like parmigiano".
Spaghetti, sea urchins and rosemary
Recipe for 4 people
240 g spaghetti
100 g sea urchins
75 g salted water
50 g extra virgin olive oil
50 g fresh rosemary
3 garlic cloves
salt to taste
[[ima2]]Cook the spaghetti in lots of salted water. Meanwhile, in a measuring cup, blend the sea urchins with the oil and the salted water at 60°C. In a deep copper casserole tin, warm up the oil, garlic, rosemary and salt. Prepare the crispy bread by toasting it in a pan with the oven-roasted rosemary.
After 10 minutes of cooking, toss the spaghetti in the casserole tin without putting it back on the heat, add the sea urchin emulsion and mix, so that the sea urchin roe gets thicker with the heat. Finish the dish placing the spaghetti in the plate, adding the sauce and some crispy bread with roasted rosemary
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Felice Lo Basso: lumaconi alla boscaiola "With this recipe", says Felice Lo Basso, chef at Felix Lo Basso in Milan, which received a Michelin star a few weeks ago, "I wanted to play with a typical winter dish, snails alla boscaiola. Except in this case I use lumaconi (big snails) pasta instead of the snails. I use this kind of durum wheat pasta to reproduce the soil of this season. This recipe brings me back to the days when I worked in Alto Adige [at Alpenroyal in Selva di Val Gardena, Bolzano, where he got a Michelin star, which he got once again in Milan, a few days ago]".
Lumaconi alla boscaiola
Recipe for 4 people
Ingredients
300 g durum wheat lumaconi
150 g snails
60 g cooked ham
120 g mixed mushrooms (porcini, black trumpets, chanterelle, poplar, king trumpets)
1 twig of thyme
100 g veal jus
20 g fresh cream
30 g shallot
25 cl red wine
black truffle to taste
Method
Take a pan and sauté the shallot, add the diced cooked ham and the snails and brown them. Add the mixed mushrooms, previously cut and washed. Sauté all the ingredients and add some red wine. Add the thyme, veal jus and the fresh cream. Cook for 5 more minutes and turn off the heat.
Cook the lumaconi in salted water, drain them when they’re al dente and mix them with the sauce. Place 4 lumaconi in each plate, trying to put the sauce in the hole of the pasta. Decorate with slices of black truffle and serve.
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Sorbir reinterpreted by Marta Scalabrini "Sorbir", says Marta Scalabrini, revelation-chef at Marta in Cucina in Reggio Emilia, "is a popular traditional dish in Emilia. Farmers would serve it on a Sunday night, warming up the cappelletti in broth left over after the Sunday lunch, with a good dose of parmigiano and a glass of lambrusco".
"As with lots of children in Emilia, it took me years before I accepted by grandfather’s invitation to taste a spoon of this. The rich red colour of the dish and the foam that appeared when the sparkling wine was added to the hot broth made it look more like a concoction than a mouth-watering delicacy. The noisy satisfaction with which grandparents in Emilia would sip the broth (from which people think this recipe is named after) was of no help".
"Today this dish has become an emblem of Christmas and New Year’s and is served to wish serenity and peace. This is why sorbir rightfully found a place in our menu as a tribute to tradition, respecting its original flavour, the creaminess of the parmigiano reggiano sprinkled on top, the red colour of the sparkling lambrusco and the hot sapidity of the Sunday broth. We just changed its shape, hoping that children, after having avoided it all the time, can taste it and fully enjoy tradition".
Sorbir
Recipe for 4 people
for the capon broth
a clean, blanched and cold capon
beef entrecote marked on a high flame
200 g carrots
2 leeks (the white part)
1 stick of celery
Sauté the vegetables in a large casserole tin, add the meat and cover with some ice. When the ice has melted, add 2 litres of cold water and simmer for an hour and a half, removing the foam from the surface, from time to time. Strain and remove the fat.
for the liquid filling for the cappelletti
1 l capon broth (see previous preparation)
6 g gelatine sheet
1 pinch of salt
Reduce the broth to a half on a small heat, add salt and the gelatine sheet previously soaked in water. Using a chinois strain, put in the silicon moulds in the shape of a semi-sphere with a diameter of 1 cm. Leave to cool, remove from the mould and keep aside.
for the cappelletti pasta
500 g flour for pasta
5 eggs
Knead in a planetary mixer until the mixture is smooth. Put into a vacuum pack and leave to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes. Roll out the pasta so it’s 2 mm thick, place the broth semi-spheres so they’re 1.5 cm away from each other. Close the sheet of pasta by folding it. Cut the cappelletti and fold them in the traditional Emilian shape.
for the fondue of parmigiano
200 g parmigiano 36 months
150 g broth of capon (see previous preparation)
60 g milk
grated nutmeg
30 g corn-starch diluted into 10 g of milk
1 pinch of salt
Using the Bimby processor, bring the liquid, salt and nutmeg to the boil and mix with the corn-starch. Let the temperature diminish to 60°C and add the parmigiano, continuing to blend at the highest speed until the mixture is smooth.
for the air of Lambrusco
300 ml lambrusco reggiano
1,5 g sucroemul*
In a steel bowl add the Lambrusco at room temperature and remove the air so as to remove all fat. Add the sucroemul and, using a hand blender, create the air. Leave to rest for a few minutes so that the emulsion is stabilised.
finishing the dish
Place two tablespoons of hot fondue on the base of a plate, the cappelletti cooked in lots of salted water with a little butter and finish with a tablespoon of air of lambrusco.
*Sucroemul is the name Sosa gives to its "fat acid sucroexters". They’re crucial to create water from an alcoholic liquid.
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Trenette at Retrobottega "This recipe", says Alessandro Miocchi, one of the chefs at Retrobottega in Rome, "is a faithful use of the philosophy of our restaurant, focused on limiting waste and valorising even food that is, or was, considered poor. Cod was used in all its parts: the filet, the most precious part, served as a piece as one of the main elements in the dish. And we make an excellent broth using belly, tail and bones with which we finish cooking the pasta".
"Even with the cauliflower we use parts usually discarded: we use the stalks to make a purée to mix with the pasta; the tips instead are used to finish the dish and add crispiness. The burnt wheat is by itself a “discarded part”. When the rich land owners burnt the wheat fields, poor people would run to pick what was left and mill it so as to make a poorer flour. The flavour of the dish is the result of the meeting of the cod’s sapidity and the smoky aroma of the burnt wheat".
Trenette, burnt wheat, cod and cauliflower
Recipe for 4 people
Ingredients
330 g trenette
40 g burnt wheat, toasted and salted
150 g cod
200 g cauliflower
200 g milk
100 g pecorino romano
1 onion
1 celery stick
1 garlic clove
salt and pepper to taste
thyme to taste
lemon zest to taste
preparing the cod
Clean the cod. After seasoning it with garlic, thyme, salt and pepper, bake it wrapped in tin foil for around 5 minutes at 120°C. Once cooked, keep aside.
preparing the broth
Rinse the cod bone and put it in cold water with the onion, the celery stick and the lemon zest. When the broth has reached 90°C, cook for around 30 minutes. When cooked, strain the broth so it’s more limpid.
preparing the cauliflower purée
Pour the milk in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Reduce by about 50% of its volume. Blanch the cauliflower stalk and blend it with the milk, so as to obtain a cream. Carefully clean the tips of the cauliflower and keep them aside to garnish the dish.
preparing the pasta
Cook the pasta a couple of minutes less than necessary and finish cooking it in the pan with the previously prepared broth. Add the cauliflower purée and cream the pasta. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Dishing out
Place the pasta in the middle of the plate. Place the flakes of cod cooked in the tin foil wrap. Sprinkle the burnt wheat on the cod using a sieve (the way you do with icing sugar). Using a fine grater, grate the cauliflower as if it were parmigiano. To add aroma, add some thinly chopped thyme with extra virgin olive oil.
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Gianni Dezio: cacio e ovo pasta  "This dish", says Gianni Dezio, chef at restaurant Tosto in Atri (Teramo) is made by transforming a traditional festive main course from Abruzzo into a first course: agnello cacio e ovo [lamb, cheese and egg]. "First courses should showcase the soul of every Italian restaurant. Behind our soul there’s a constant territorial research and the effort to go beyond traditional recipes. This dish is a homage to our land and people who work here".
Lamb broth, "cacio e ovo" buttons
Recipe for 4 people
for the broth
1 kg lamb (bones and scraps)
3 l cold water
celery, carrot, onion and garlic
pepper, thyme, lemon zest
Mix all the ingredients in a deep pot. Seal hermetically and steam in the oven for around 8 hours. Strain with a cloth. Leave to cool overnight in a refrigerated room. Remove the fat.
for the buttons
300 g fresh egg pasta
for the filling
150 g semi-mature grated pecorino
4 fresh egg yolks from organic eggs
nutmeg
white pepper
If necessary, add salt to the broth and warm it without bringing it to the boil. Cook the buttons separately, in salted water, for 2 minutes. Pour the hot lamb broth over the buttons, finish the dish with leaves of celery, coriander and tarragon.
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Spaghetti anemones and sakè by Antonio Bufi "The idea behind this dish", explains Antonio Bufi, chef at Le Giare in Bari, "goes hand in hand with our idea of giving new value to the territory in which we work, Apulia, and especially to poor and forgotten ingredients that are not considered in mainstream recipes, which have contributed in creating the iconography of our gastronomy. We used a common ingredient among fishermen which unfortunately has been forgotten elsewhere: anemones!"
"Especially in the area of Lecce, they were rolled in flour and egg and then fried. We make a very simple pasta with garlic, oil and parsley, in which we finish to cook the spaghetti and then mix them with the anemones, plus a drop of Honjozo-shu sake which makes the flavour rounder, adding depth".
Spaghetti, garlic, oil, parsley, sea anemones and a drop of sake
Recipe for 4 people
Ingredients
320 g Spaghetti
100 g sea anemones
150 g previously prepared fish stock (squilla mantis are the best choice)
15 g lemon juice
pepper, oil, parsley, pecorino romano to taste
Method
Delicately remove the anemones from the rocks using a small shovel or knife (use gloves, they itch!). Eliminate the tentacles under running water. Blend them with 100 g of cold fish stock, oil, parsley, pepper to taste and lemon juice.
Meanwhile cook the Spaghettoro in boiling salted water for 7 minutes. In a pan, prepare the sauce with oil, a garlic clove, the parsley cut into stripes. Brown them delicately and add the remaining 50 g of broth. Emulsify on the heat, and then drain the spaghetti and finish cooking them in this emulsion for 5 more minutes. Remove from the heat and toss the cream of anemones and some pecorino romano.
Serve pouring a drop of sake in the plate and mix right in front of the guest.
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Schingaro’s Fusilloni with octopus liver  "This recipe", recalls Domingo Schingaro of I Due Camini di Borgo Egnazia in Fasano (Brindisi) "was inspired by my childhood memories when my father would bring home just the octopus liver because he had sold the rest and my mother would clean it and then roll it flour and fry it. I was crazy about it: it was an authentic flavour that I could never find again in my cooking career, so I decided to present it in a gourmet menu. It’s about recuperating both flavours and ingredients, only in a more elegant and less aggressive way. And more fun: as a kid I loved how my teeth turned black after eating it".
Fusilloni Benedetto Cavalieri with octopus ink, pumpkin and ginger
Recipe for 4 people
for the octopus liver sauce
150 g octopus liver
200 g milk
100 g potatoes
1 shallot
10 g oil of toasted sesame
Carefully clean the octopus liver removing the sand with water and ice. Leave the liver to soak in milk for around one hour, cut the shallot in julienne slices and slice the potatoes so it’s easier to cook them, then pour all the ingredients in a pressure cooker, the liver without the milk and with 100 ml of water and cook for 20 minutes. Put everything in a termomix and blend the ingredients adding a drop of oil of toasted sesame until the sauce is smooth and homogenous. Keep warm as we’ll use it to mix with the fusilloni.
for the cream of pumpkin and ginger
200 g pumpkin from Mantua
20 g ginger
Clean the pumpkin and cut it into large pieces. Clean the ginger with a spoon and cut it. Put everything in a vacuum pack with a drop of oil and cook at 65°C for 45 minutes. Open the pack and pour the content in the Termomix and blend until the sauce is smooth and homogenous.
for the octopus
1 squid weighing 400 g
35 g glucose
3 g dark soy sauce
6 g red miso
5 g rice vinegar
Method
Freeze the octopus so as to make it tender, then steam it at 90°C for around 80 minutes straight from the freezer. Cool the octopus in the fridge. Reduce the cooking liquid separately, using only 200 g and adding glucose and red miso. Once the volume is half the initial one, add the soy sauce and the vinegar thus making a glaze to season the octopus; keep in the fridge. Cut the cold octopus and fry it in seed oil at 180°C until golden. Drain and season with the sauce.
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Nino Rossi’s ‘Linguine day after’  «The idea», says Nino Rossi of restaurant Qafiz in Santa Cristina d’Aspromonte (Reggio Calabria), «comes from the paradox of recuperating ingredients taken from Christmas recipes, which are all about eating plenty and wasting a lot, but also about a sort of “war of Titans” taking place at home at Christmas, when food becomes a reason to be together and share».
«Salted cod – there’s always a little left after the fried one on Christmas eve, oh, the tails... Fennel – The real saviour when it comes to digestion, a salad of fennel, orange and black olives is meant to reduce the fat... I chose to use the left over salted cod, the leaves of the fennel, some orange zest and some powdered black olives.
Linguine day after
Recipe for 4 people
Ingredients
320 g linguine
300 g leftover salted cod, skinless
25 g fennel leaves
10 g black olives
garlic to taste
oil to taste
salt to taste
Cook the linguine in plenty of salted water. Stir fry the tails of the salted cod (finely washed) with garlic (removing the peel) and a drop of cooking water for 7 minutes. Cook the linguine in the pan for the last 3 minutes adding some liquid away from the heat. Add the fennel leaves after mixing them with a little oil, and finally season with salt and orange using a microplane. Dish out adding some black olives.
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