Sweet Nothings

By Patricia Winton

I’ve taken a hiatus from writing the blog, but I’m back now and will be posting again every Wednesday. I’ve missed you. Thanks to those who contacted me to let me know you missed me, too.

The driver stretched out in the cab of his truck. He’d been hauling this load for several hours, starting in the Piedmont region of northern Italy. He’d just winded his way through Rome’s traffic nightmare and wanted to catch 40 winks before heading south. He was certainly asleep when disaster struck. Was he dreaming of a wife he might have left in the north? Or of a mistress he might see in the south? Or perhaps just of the sweet cargo resting in the trailer behind him.

 

Whatever his dream, three men waked him and unceremoniously pulled him from the truck, breaking his nose in the scuffle. They left him lying on the pavement and drove his rig back onto the highway. An alert witness called the state police who arrived in short order. After a high speed chase—and that truck was no match for those police cars—the police pulled over the truck, filled with jars of Nutella worth about 200 thousand euros (270,200 USD). The thieves went to jail and the driver, who was suffering from shock in addition to the broken nose, went to the hospital.

This robbery, mirrored by one last spring in Germany netting 5 1/2 tons of the stuff, underscores Nutella’s popularity. Glass jars filled with a gooey chocolate spread seems like a delicate target for thieves, but as the Italian press gleefully noted, they obviously had a sweet tooth.

This year, 2014, marks the 50th anniversary of this fine Italian treat. The idea of combining hazelnuts with chocolate originated in Turin in 1852 with the chocolate confectioner Cafferel. The confection, called granduja after a carnival character popular in the Piedmont region, remains popular today.

Confectioner Piero Ferrero adopted this combination in the 1940s when chocolate was in short supply. By 1946, he had perfected the chocolate-hazelnut cream, originally known as Granduja Paste. He later changed the name to “Nutella” by combining the English word “nut” with a common Italian suffix “ella” meaning “little.”

By the time I first arrived in Italy 23 years later, Nutella was readily available in shops. I loved to eat it back then spread on a thick slice of Tuscan (unsalted) bread. I never ate it any other way in those days. When I returned to the US in 1971, I went into Nutella withdrawal because my lovely spread hadn’t yet traveled across the Atlantic. I had to wait another 12 years before being able to indulge when Ferrero began exporting it to America in 1983.

It’s popularity in Italy continues to soar. Now you can find all kinds of desserts filled or spread with Nutella—from crepes to pizza—but it remains a fixture at the breakfast table. I had to laugh a couple of years ago when a California court ruled against Ferrero for advertising Nutella as a breakfast food. Not a healthy breakfast food, mind you, just a breakfast food. I’d argue that neither Cocoa Puffs nor Pop Tarts make a better breakfast. But I digress.

Today is unofficial World Nutella Day, a celebration created by product fan Sara Rosso, who blogs about food and Italy. Nutella’s lawyers contacted her last May to “cease and desist” using the product name and logo on her site. But they’ve worked it out. Ferrero is pleased to have such loyal fans, and Ms. Rosso is no longer using the Nutella logo on her site.

I hope you’ll spread a bit of Nutella on your toast today.

Please visit my website at www.PatriciaWinton.com

A Summer Treat—Pesto

By Patricia Winton

I’m writing this post under duress. Not duress, exactly, but under orders.

There’s a woman in Rome who’s been my student for the past ten years. We meet weekly just to talk, to help keep her English speaking skills honed. Last week, I checked the time just as I rang the bell and was horrified to discover that I was an hour early. When she opened the door, I offered to go away for an hour, but she ushered me into the kitchen. “I’m cooking,” she said and steered me to a chair.

Strictly speaking, she wasn’t cooking. She was preparing pesto. As she stripped the basil

leaves from the stalks and chunked the Parmigiano-Reggiano, I had a ringside seat. We chatted as we do about this and that. When she finished, I got to sample the finished product. And she said to me, “When you put this in your blog, you have to say it’s Olimpia Pallavicino’s recipe—not yours.” And so it is.

Olimpia didn’t measure anything; she just prepared it by instinct. I’ve tried to standardize the recipe, using American measurements (with metric equivalents in parentheses).

Pesto Milanese

2 cups basil leaves, lightly packed. Olimpia used the leaves from three stems.

1/3 cup pine nuts (40 grams) Olimpia stressed that you must use the best pine nuts you can find.

1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (45 grams)

1/2 to 2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil (120-160 ml)

1 clove garlic (optional) Olimpia omitted the garlic.

Place all the ingredients in a food processor and process until smooth. Olimpia did not grate the cheese. Instead she added it in chunks. She used a blender, and it took a while for the cheese to be completely pulverized. As a result, the pesto was very smooth.

Olimpia planned to serve the pesto with rice that evening, but for pasta she recommended using fusilli because there are so many nooks and crannies for the pesto to cling to.

The Tiramisù Is Out of This World

By Patricia Winton

When Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano arrives at the International Space Station next week, he’ll be dining on familiar food. The new ISS menu includes lasagna, risotto with pesto and another with mushrooms, caponata (a mixed vegetable dish including eggplant, zucchini, onions, and tomatoes), eggplant Parmesan, and for dessert—tiramisù. While it isn’t the first time an Italian has gone to the space station, it’s the first time for authentic Italian food. Heretofore, meals consumed there originated with the United States space agency, NASA, or its Russian counterpart, Roskosmos.

Chef Davide Scabin, whose Combal.Zero in Castello di Rivoli, near Turin, ranks as one of the world’s 50 best restaurants and holds two Michelin stars, developed the menu. He spent a year and a half researching ways to devise tasty, flavorful dishes while adhering to NASA’s strict guidelines.

All food headed for the space station must be treated to remove bacterial contamination, dehydrated, and packed in individual aluminum pouches. Each meal must also have a 36-month shelf life and be prepared without salt. Against this rigorous backdrop, Chef Scabin discovered another challenge. “The olfactory system doesn’t function at 100 percent in space. The astronauts eat with the sensation of having a cold,” he said in a recent interview. He further explained that for flavors to be fully appreciated, both the senses of taste and smell must work together.

Chef Scabin experimented with ways to concentrate the flavor in the foods he prepared. He developed 15 different dishes—including Parmitano’s requested lasagna and risotto—before settling on the five that have already arrived on the ISS.

The scheme to send Italian food into space has given a boost to the Made in Italy program that promotes Italian products at home and abroad and has renewed interest in scientific studies. 

The dishes were unveiled with much fanfare in February at an event for the Italian and European space agencies and government dignitaries. Chef Scabin himself placed a plate of lasagna in front of Parmitano. 

Afterwards, Parmitano embarked on a tour of schools engaging students in discussions of the importance of studying science. Parmitano talked about the experiments that he will be doing on the space station, including work with emulsions that have applications in many fields, including paints. He  adds, “Being Italian there is one field that is important to me, again it is the culinary art: a lot of the things that we make when we cook are emulsions.”

The dishes in the new menu have also been sampled by members of an international astronaut training program. One element of the training includes sending a multi-national group of astronauts into a cave for a week to gain experience working in a confined space in a multicultural environment. Before going underground in Sardinia, the astronauts gave thumbs up to Chef Scabin’s food. The beginning of this video shows their reactions.

Everyone eating the Italian space food is getting a good value. The average price per person for a meal at Combal.Zero is 160 euros—about 200 dollars. Chef Scabin has dropped hints that there is a “special celebration meal” for the ISS crew. Since Parmitano turns 37 on September 27, I’m guessing that’ll include birthday cake.

Astronaut Luca Parmitano will be blogging, in English, from space. You can follow him here. I blog on alternate Thursdays at Novel Adventurers where next week I write about a 19th century woman who revolutionized the way travel guides are written. Please visit my website www.PatriciaWinton.com

Pasta and Tuna

By Patricia Winton

I love tuna...and pasta. Together or separately. I eat them because I like them.

In Italy, yellow fin tuna is favored over the paler variety. It has a stronger flavor. I love to open a can packed in olive oil to make a summer salad. The tuna, drained, crumbled in a bowl with halved or quartered cherry tomatoes, black olives, and a bit of basil. And there’s tuna with cannellini beans, another summer salad with chopped red onion, drained beans, and tuna. Both are staples on my table all summer long. In winter, I cook with it.

Pasta. What can I say? Here on the boot it is noble fare, eaten stuffed or sauced, baked or boiled. It can be as simple as tangled strands of spaghetti with oil and breadcrumbs or as elaborate as linguini with shrimp and artichokes bathed in cream. The sizes and shapes are infinite. You could eat pasta every day for a year without repeating a recipe.

But put them together—pasta and tuna—and you reach perfection.  Here are two recipes fit for a dinner party, one with canned tuna and one with fresh. Both are elegant, the first for those with a thin purse, the other for those with a fat one.

Pasta with Tuna, Tomato, and Cream

1 pound dried pasta (if the package holds 14 ounces, that’s okay)

1 5-ounce can of tuna, drained  (Italians use a darker tuna than Americans)

8 ounces canned tomato sauce

1 cup heavy cream or half and half

1 medium onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

¼ cup flat-leaf Italian parsley, chopped

1.    Put the oil in a frying pan and add the onion, garlic, half the parsley, and cayenne pepper. Sautè until the onions are soft.

2.    Add the tuna and stir a moment to mix.

3.    Add the tomato sauce and check for salt. Add more if needed.

4.    Let the sauce cook over a low flame until it has reduced to a thick paste.

5.    In the meantime, cook the pasta in boiling salted water until chewy and not too soft.

6.    Add the cream to the tomato-tuna sauce and stir to incorporate it. Taste and season with salt and pepper as desired.

7.    Drain the pasta, and add it to the sauce. Stir.

8.    Serve with a sprinkle of chopped parsley.

Serves 4.

Pasta with Fresh Tuna

12 ounces cavatelli, fusilli al ferro, or other short fresh pasta

½ pound tuna steak

½ pound cherry tomatoes

½ onion

1 ½ cups dry white wine

½ cup extra virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons pesto (see note below)

Salt and pepper to taste

Note: you may be able to find fresh pesto in a specialty shop; otherwise put this recipe on hold until spring.

1.    Wash and dry the tuna; cut it into small, even cubes

2.    Wash and stem the cherry tomatoes, and cut them into quarters.

3.    Peel and finely chop the onion

4.    Put the oil in a frying pan and add the onion; cook until soft and translucent.

5.    Add the tuna and let it brown on all sides.

6.    Bathe the tuna with the wine and allow it to cook over medium heat until evaporated.

7.    Add the cherry tomatoes, salt and pepper, and cook, stirring from time to time with a wooden spoon, for about ten minutes.

8.    Meanwhile cook the pasta, taking care not to let it get too soft.

9.    Drain, reserving a little of the starch-laden cooking water.

10.          Add the pasta to the sauce and stir.

11.          Blend in the pesto and enough of the cooking water to make the dish creamy.

12.          Let the dish set for a couple of minutes for the flavors to mingle and serve.

Serves 4

That's Baloney!

Americans of a certain age will remember a television commercial with a little boy singing about his baloney sandwich. He pronounced it that way, but he spelled it b-o-l-o-g-n-a. 

Bologna (bo LOAN ya), capital of Italy’s Emiglia-Romano region, holds many nicknames: La Dotta (the learned) because it’s home of the western world’s oldest university, founded in 1088; La Rossa (the red) because of both the color of its buildings and the left-leaning politics of its people; and La Grassa (the fat) because of the richness of its food.

Bologna (or baloney), the American cold cut, can trace its origins to the city of Bologna in the form of a sausage called mortadella. Pig farmers have been producing mortadella for at least 500 years, but evidence suggests that the ancient Romans may have pioneered the process.

Originally, the sausage was made by grinding meat with a mortar and pestle, and some etymologists think the word mortadella may derive from the Latin word for mortar (moratlis).

And while mortadella is made in several regions in Italy, the Mordatella of Bologna is protected by European law and bears a label attesting to its authenticity. True Mortadella di Bologna must be made entirely of pork (Some forms of mortatella may contain beef, mutton, or horse). After the pork is ground, it is seasoned with a blend of salt, white pepper, peppercorns, coriander, anise, and wine.

Cubes of pork fat, cut from the throat, and sometimes whole pistachios, are added as well. The mixtures is stuffed into a natural casing and baked, not smoked. After coming from the ovens, mortadella is air dried to firm it up.

In Italy, mortadella, like other cold cuts, is sliced paper-thin. It is often served as an appetizer or on sandwiches, but it can also be used in many other dishes as well. 

Pasta with Mortadella di Bologna

12 ounces ridged ditalini or other small pasta

1/4 pound mortadella di Bologna, cut into strips

1 medium onion, thinly sliced

1/3 cup chopped Italian parsley leaves

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper

Put the oil and onion in a frying pan and cook until the onion is soft. Do not let it brown.

Add the mortadella and cook for about a minute, stirring from time to time.

Add a pinch of salt and a grinding of black pepper.

In the meantime, bring a pot of water to the boil and cook the pasta to the chewy stage (al dente). Drain.

Just before serving, stir the parsley into the sauce. Immediately pour the sauce over the cooked pasta and serve.

Italian Jam Tart‒Crostata

One of Italy’s favorite desserts, and one that is often made at home, is the crostata. The characteristic crust, the pasta frolla, resembles a butter cookie or shortbread. And to be a true crostata, the dessert must use this pastry dough. In its simplest form, the crostata is filled with jam and topped with a diamond-shaped lattice before baking. This lattice is often made of “ropes” of the pasta frolla.

It’s the quality of both the crust and the jam that can make this dessert something to swoon over or something to drop in the trash. A good crostata from a pastry shop can cost $15 to $20 for a modest-sized one while another of similar proportions can cost only 99 cents at the supermarket. A glance at ingredients reveals the reason for this disparity.

The most common jams used in the crostata are plum, cherry, and apricot, but I’ve had it with other flavors as well. I made some fig-blood orange jam a couple of years ago that was fabulous in a crostata.

And while the pasta frolla filled with jam appears most often on Italian tables, this lovely pastry dough can house pastry cream topped with fresh fruit. In this case, bake the shell empty and fill it after it has baked. To bake, line the dough with oven paper (parchment paper) and fill with dried beans or pie weights to keep the pastry from puffing up too much. The pastry cream recipe in the link makes too much for one crostata, but it freezes well.

You could  make other fillings with fresh ricotta, chocolate, and other ingredients as well. It’s quite a delightful dough and it’s simple to make.

Pasta Frolla

250 grams flour (1 3/4 cups)

1 grams sugar (1/2 cup)

Pinch of salt

125 grams butter (8 tablespoons-one stick in America-plus about a teaspoon more), cut into small pieces

Grated rind of a lemon (organic preferred)

3 egg yolks

The traditional way of making this and other types of pasta is to place the flour and pinch of salt on a bread board, spreading it around with your fingers to make a well in the center. Sprinkle the sugar into the well, then the pieces of butter. Finally add the lemon rind and egg yolks and mix with your fingers until an amalgamation is achieved.

Modern cooks can use the food processor. Put the dry ingredients in first, followed by the lemon rind, butter, and egg yolks. Process until just combined. DO NOT OVER PROCESS.

Form the dough into a ball. If it seems too dry to shape easily, wet your hands under the tap and use these wet hands to introduce moisture to the dough as you shape it into the ball. Do not get it too wet. Wrap the ball of dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. It can be made the day before.

Roll out to about 1/4 inch thick (or even a little more). Line an 8 to 10-inch tart shell (I prefer those with removable bottoms). With this dough, you don’t have to do elaborate crimping of the edges. Just cut it off at the top of the tin.

For a jam crostata, prick the bottom with a fork and spread about 1/2 to 2/3 cup of jam over the surface. Take the remaining dough and roll into ropes about 1/2 centimeter (1/4 inch) in diameter and string over the jam in a diamond pattern. Bake for 30 minutes in an oven preheated to 190 C (375 F).

Hot Comfort

Minestra is an Italian word for soup, though not the only one. The word comes from the Latin verb minestrare, also the origin of the English verb “to minister;” it means “to take care of wants and needs.” Minestra is a comforting word.

I once stayed in a drafty 18th century villa on a damp winter weekend. As a first course at dinner, my hostess served a simple soup of onions, carrots and potatoes, deliciously seasoned. As she ladled it into our bowls, she said, “I thought we needed a good minestra to combat the cold.” It was a comfort.

A minestra is usually a light soup; minestrone, on the other hand, means “big soup.” Browsing through my Enciclopedia della Cucina Italiana, I find that most minestrone recipes have about fifteen ingredients. Traditionally, the ingredients should be seasonal, so that at this time of year, minestrone features pumpkin, broccoli and cabbage while in the summer, it has zucchini (zucchine in Italian) and peas.

Here in the markets, some vegetable sellers cut up vegetable to make a minestrone mixture which you buy by weight. A couple of days ago, I saw one vendor chipping up radicchio to add to a tray already laden with cauliflower, carrots, onions, shelled beans, and more.

There’s always a debate about the beans. Some people like them; others hate them. I hear people ask, “Do you put beans in your minestrone?” or “Do you have minestrone without beans?” I personally like it with beans, and I often add more if I buy from the market.

And buying from the market is a great way to get variety in your minestrone. Another real boon is frozen minestrone mix. I didn’t buy it for years because it seemed a bit ridiculous to buy a bunch of cut-up vegetables frozen together. I’ve since learned that it’s a great thing to have in the freezer. On a cold day when soup is in order, it’s wonderful to be able to pull out a package, add this and that from the vegetable crisper, a piece of sausage or pancetta, and some fresh herbs like bay leaf or thyme.

Summer Minestrone

The standard frozen food brand here is Buitoni. It’s classic ministrone package lists fifteen ingredients: potatoes, borlotti (a type of shelled beans), tomatoes, carrots, peas, zucchini, celery, swiss chard, pumpkin, green beans, cabbage, leeks, parsley, basil, and garlic. A winter and summer mix.

Recipes vary from region to region. In Liguria (Genoa), you’ll find lots of basil; in the northeast, sage. In the north, people add rice while central and southern Italians favor pasta. Some people may forgo both in favor of potatoes.

Winter Minestrone

There’s an old saying that if you ask one hundred French chefs to cook a traditional sauce, you get the same sauce one hundred times, but if you ask one hundred Italian chefs to cook a traditional sauce, you get one hundred different sauces. With minestrone, you get a different version with every cook.

There’s simply nothing like it on a cold day. Ladle up a big bowl, sprinkle it with parmesan, pull off a chunk of crusty bread, and pour out a glass of red wine. A simple feast.