Returning again to Emilia-Romagna, we have a wonderful stuffed, baked pasta dish called cannelloni. Like many other stuffed pastas, which are typically made with fresh egg dough, it was historically a luxury or an occasional treat. Possible fillings include various cheeses, meats, and spinach. Here we have a spinach, ricotta and mascarpone filling, bound with eggs and flavored with parmesan, parsley and nutmeg, all encased in a rather interesting “pasta.” Rather than ready to stuff tubes or rolled out dough, a thin batter is cooked in a skillet, becoming a crepe-like circle that is then stuffed.
Spinach and nutmeg, so common is pasta dishes today, were not present in Ancient Roman times. Spinach was introduced to Europe by the Arabs during the Medieval period. Nutmeg arrived around the same time or slightly later, either through trade or via the Crusader States in the Eastern Mediterranean. For centuries it was one of the most sought-after spices in the Western World. The search for it helped encourage the voyages of exploration from the 15th Century onward. In the 16th Century, it and other spices were so profitable that Portugal, which had a monopoly on the trade, was one of the richest countries in Europe, despite its relatively small population and peripheral location. In the 17th Century the Dutch fought a series of bloody wars to seize the monopoly for themselves, only to lose it in the 18th when British and French agents managed to smuggle seedlings of various types off the “Spice Islands” and transplant them elsewhere.
It might seem strange to include nutmeg in a non-sweet dish, but it is fairly common in white sauces and cheese dishes, and for good reason. The aromatic, slightly bitter flavor complements and cuts through the richness really well. That is especially necessary when the pasta “crepes” contain butter, are stuffed with a three-cheese mixture, and baked with more butter and cheese. Naturally, they are delicious, although quite rich. While not exactly a diet food, they made a great occasional treat.
Menu: Asparagus Soup with Amaretti and Crisped Leeks, Lasagna Squares with Braised Broccoli Rabe, Butterflied Roasted Leg of Lamb, Slow-Cooked Plum Tomatoes, Spring Greens with Mint, Ricotta Cheesecake
Recommended Wine: Dry Castelli White (like Frascati), Campanian Taurasi (ruby-red with plum, berry, spice and vanilla flavors)
Of all the menus I have tackled, this is perhaps the most ambitious yet. Previous posts cover a combination of ordinary and Sunday dishes. This is a holiday feast. We are invited to imagine Easter in Rome, with bright decorations and flowers everywhere. In Rome, spring lamb is the typical Easter roast, heavily seasoned with rosemary. The menu also includes other spring classics like asparagus and fresh greens, along with a unique lasagna dish, slow-roasted tomatoes with garlic and herbs, and a ricotta cheesecake with a few different flavoring options. If you prefer, artichokes, another Roman favorite, can replace the soup or salad.
As a whole, this menu is a taste of Roman food history. As mentioned in a previous post a while back, the Ancient Romans were fond of their produce. Among other vegetables, they loved asparagus, leeks, and lettuce. Asparagus and early lettuce are typically some of the first vegetables available in the spring, which is also the time for lambs and suckling pigs. Historically, milk and egg production dropped during the winter months before rising again, which is probably how eggs came to be associated with Easter. Even in ancient times, before Christianity, Romans could enjoy lamb with fresh herbs, asparagus, salad, and ricotta cheesecake in the spring.
There is some debate on whether or not the ancients had a form of pasta, but if they did, its widespread use was a Medieval innovation. Trade with various Muslim states, especially in Sicily, brought rosemary, increased almond cultivation, lemons, bitter oranges, and sugar to Italy. Medieval Europeans loved almonds and used them extensively, especially during Lent, when almond milk frequently replaced dairy. As sugar became more widespread (though still a huge luxury) during the Late Middle Ages, it was incorporated into the variety of cookies and confections being developed.
The Columbian Exchange changed everything. Maize, chocolate, vanilla, turkeys, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers and zucchini all arrived from the Americas, though not all were accepted right away. Peppers and tomatoes in particular took a long time to become widespread, but by the late 19th century, they were ubiquitous in Southern Italian cuisine, along with zucchini. Meanwhile, dramatically increased sugar supplies made the proliferation of new pastries and confections possible. These soon became linked to another new introduction, coffee, from the Middle East and East Africa.
What is essentially a cream of asparagus soup, flavored with leeks and thickened with potatoes, is served with two interesting garnishes. First is crushed amaretti; crunchy almond cookies with a slightly meringue-like texture. The other is sliced leeks, fried until lightly browned and crispy. This combination might sound strange, but the sweet, crunchy cookie crumbs are a nice contrast to the soup and the crisped leeks were quite addictive. The flavor was a balance of asparagus and leeks, with neither overpowering the other, accented by a bit of almond. The only thing I would change is to maybe use a bit less liquid, as the soup was fairly thin, but that’s a matter of personal preference.
For the pasta course, we have an interesting spin on lasagna. Rather than layered and baked in a single pan, fresh pasta squares and broccoli rabe (here replaced with mustard greens) are cooked separately, then layered with ricotta on each individual plate. While this method did free up oven space for the other dishes, it involved more work at mealtime. Only a few of the pasta squares can cook at a time, and they cook in about a minute. Once finished, each batch is placed in a bowl with a bit of butter to stay hot and hopefully avoid sticking. This was still a bit of an issue, and the ricotta, which was not heated, cooled down the finished dish. It was still pretty good, but more warm/lukewarm than hot.
The lamb was the most technically challenging dish on the menu. Originally, I planned to get a few lamb chops and marinate them rather than use a leg of lamb, but since the latter was on sale for a really good price I decided to try it. (I’m a few months behind on posting, this was around Easter). The recipe says to ask the butcher to butterfly and trim it, but since I bought it frozen and shrink-wrapped that wasn’t an option. After letting it thaw for a few days, I would have to try and hope for the best. To be honest, I think I did a pretty good job, at least as far as getting it to lay flatter in the roasting pan, which was the point. After marinating overnight in a mix of vinegar, oil, garlic and herbs, it was broiled and occasionally basted with the marinade. The seasonings gave the meat a great flavor, and the sweet, acidic tomatoes worked really well alongside the rich, distinctive flavor of the lamb.
Lamb before and after the oven, roasted tomatoes
The salad, a mix of spring greens and arugula with a bit of mint, had a vinegar and oil dressing with a bit of garlic and anchovy. Since the amount of anchovy was small, it did not taste fishy, rather, it just added another layer of flavor. I wouldn’t have thought of putting mint in a salad, but it worked really well with the other flavors.
I did have a few difficulties with the cheesecake. The recipe instructs the cook to line the bottom of a springform pan with a piece of buttered parchment paper and serve the cheesecake while still slightly warm. A few different flavoring options are available; chopped candied peel, vanilla bean, or fruit-flavored brandy. I chose candied lemon peel, which seemed perfect for spring. For some reason, after the designated amount of time, it was nowhere near done. Even after some extra time at a low temperature to try and firm it up, there was still a lot of liquid in the center, but at that point we decided that maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be and had some anyway. It was still pretty good, but the middle part was still pretty soupy and the lemon flavor seemed somewhat weak.
A night in the refrigerator transformed the cheesecake. Chilling firmed it up and made it easier to slice, while the extra time gave the homemade candied lemon peel a chance to infuse its flavor. Though not a requirement, I would recommend making this a day beforehand and serving it cold. If making this again, I would probably reduce the sugar slightly and add a tablespoon of flour to help bind it together. Still, the whole menu was a thoroughly enjoyable taste of spring.
It seems like every cuisine that includes pork has some form of pork and beans, often using cured meat. Think of ham and bean soup, baked beans flavored with bacon, and the like. The pork and fat add flavor to the relatively neutral beans, which in turn stretch the meat while providing protein of their own. The particular type of pork, type of beans, flavorings and thickness all vary, but the basic idea is the same. In this dish, native to the mountainous Piedmont region of Northern Italy, we have pork shoulder and fat, great northern beans, root vegetables and herbs, seasoned with a basic salt and pepper.
The text notes that this fairly rich dish is traditionally associated with Carnival. Until the 1960s, Catholic fasting rules dictated abstaining from meat for the entirely of Lent, not just the Fridays. Thus, you have traditions like Carnival and Mardi Gras, the last chance to eat meat and rich foods before Lent. In the past, when meat was more expensive relative to income, many people couldn’t afford to celebrate with a roast or other similar centerpiece, but a rich bean dish with substantial quantities of pork and fat was a viable option.
Ideally, this recipe would use a Dutch oven or stove-safe casserole dish. Since I did not have either of these, I browned the meat and combined the ingredients in a pot on the stove, then transferred the contents to a ceramic casserole dish to bake. A small amount of the mixture didn’t fit, so I put it into a smaller ceramic dish with a cover. After a few hours, everything was finished. It just needed to stand for a few minutes to cool and thicken.
This was fabulous. The pork was meltingly tender and its flavor, along with that of the herbs, infused throughout the beans. For anyone who wants to eat less meat, whether for health or ecological reasons or both, but doesn’t want to give it up entirely, a dish like this is an excellent choice. Beans are rich in vitamins and minerals and, like a few other plants, restore nitrogen to the soil they are grown in, naturally boosting its fertility. What’s not to love?
With its abundance of seafood and rice, it is no surprise that Venetian cuisine would feature a number of seafood risottos. Here things are kept simple with shrimp and pieces of bass or other white fish, enhanced with zucchini, shallots and parmesan cheese, but in Venice the options are nearly limitless. One especially interesting example, called risotto nero, is colored black with squid or cuttlefish ink. For this recipe, the color is a surprisingly bright yellow, courtesy of saffron.
Saffron has a fascinating history. Grown around the Mediterranean since ancient times, its prestige was nonetheless on the level of “exotic” spices from Asia. There were two reasons for this. First, it is really labor-intensive, with each saffron crocus yielding a few strands of the spice. It’s true allure, however, is its color. When added to a bit of liquid, it produces a brilliant golden hue. During the Middle Ages and Renaissance, it was often used to create “gilded” dishes for banquets. While stirring the threads and their steeping liquid into the dish, the color showed itself by degrees, starting with a pale, creamy yellow, gradually deepening into the color shown in the picture.
Historically, saffron was considered to have medicinal qualities. Unfortunately, in this recipe it gave a distinct medicinal edge to the flavor. In addition, the fish broth used in the recipe is enhanced by simmering with shrimp shells. I’m not sure if it was the brand of broth I used (since I opted not to make my own) or the shrimp shells, but it gave off a powerful fishy aroma while simmering that lingered in the kitchen. Before adding it to the risotto I diluted it to compensate for what boiled off and reduce the strength, but the taste was still strongly fishy and medicinal.
You might be thinking that fish is supposed to taste fishy, but many white fish like what I used (I think it was haddock, but I can’t remember for sure. It was on sale in the freezer section) have a fairly mild taste. I personally prefer it on the relatively rare occasions that I eat seafood, but that is a matter of personal taste. Unlike many Italian cooks, who view it as culinary heresy, Mr. Famularo has no issue with combining seafood and dairy. The addition of parmesan cheese and butter really helped balance things out. The shrimp weren’t overcooked, the fish cooked up nice and flaky, and the finished dish was actually quite enjoyable once I got used to the strong flavors. That said, if I made this again I’d reduce the amount of saffron. And probably skip the fish broth altogether.
This is another interesting, tomato-less pizza. Topped with broccoli rabe and goat cheese, it has notable bitter and tangy flavors. A thick, mild-flavored crust, garlic-infused olive oil, mozzarella, and rosemary help balance them out. One thing to note is that broccoli rabe is not the same as broccoli or broccolini. It is actually an entirely different plant, with a strong, bitter flavor that needs to be tempered by cooking. As broccoli rabe is difficult to find where I live, I used mustard greens, which supposedly have a similar flavor. They ended up a little bland, but I think that could be dealt with by reducing the blanching time. Overall, this was pretty good, but I liked the last pizza better.
Here is a Tuscan recipe that highlights the diversity of Italian cuisine. Featuring pork, potatoes, and peas, roasted and basted in a water bath, it wouldn’t look out of place at a US Midwestern supper club. Cuts are made in the pork, which are then stuffed with a mix of chopped garlic and herbs and stuck with cloves. Water is added to the pan, not enough to cover, but enough to keep the meat from drying out during a long cooking in a hot oven. Since the water will never get hotter than 212 degrees Fahrenheit and absorbs a lot of heat, the pork cooks slowly and stays wonderfully tender while the exposed top exterior crisps up. Just make sure to put whatever side of the meat has more fat on top. Not only will the melting fat keep the meat from drying out, it forms a delightfully crispy, crackly layer.
Beautiful before and after cooking
Gradually the water absorbs juices from the meat, the melting fat, and the flavors of garlic, rosemary, and cloves, becoming more concentrated and flavorful as evaporation continues. Peeled new potatoes are added to soak up all the flavors, eventually followed by peas. Normally I do not bother peeling new or red potatoes, but it does help them absorb the flavor of the broth. When everything was finished the potatoes had a browned, crispy layer like the meat and the aroma saturated the kitchen. Unsurprisingly, it was a perfect cold-weather dinner.
Menu: Fontina Fondue with Steamed Vegetables, Beef Braised with Red Wine and Spices, Cabbage with Lemon, Chestnut Puree with Whipped Cream and Candied Orange Strips
Recommended Wine: Barolo or other bold Piedmontese red
Here is another pasta-free Northern menu. Home to the Kingdom of Savoy, which united Italy for the first time in over a millennium, the Piedmont region boasts a sophisticated cuisine. Perhaps its most famous product is the white truffle, among the most prized and expensive in the world. Or the red wines of the Nebbiolo grape, held by connoisseurs to be among the finest in Italy. There are hazelnut confections, candied chestnuts known as marrons glaces, cow’s milk cheeses, beef, veal, polenta, potatoes, mushrooms, and cabbage. Panna cotta originated here, where dairy is plentiful. All of the dishes in this menu contain Piedmontese specialties; fontina, beef braised in red wine, savoy cabbage, and chestnuts.
Among the cow’s milk cheeses is fontina. Semi-soft and creamy, it melts easily, lending itself to a variety of dishes. One of these is fondue, enriched with egg yolks and seasoned with white pepper and nutmeg. The reason for using white pepper is to avoid the dark flecks black pepper would cause, as well as its slightly different flavor. It can be a bit difficult to find except in its pre-ground form, but it’s worth seeking out or ordering whole white peppercorns. Pepper seems to lose its flavor faster than most other ground spices. Since you can’t be sure how long that container of pepper has been sitting on the shelf, it is always better to buy whole peppercorns and grind them as you need them. Pepper grinders are easy to find and inexpensive, but if you only use white pepper occasionally it might be better to use a mortar and pestle or spice grinder and save your pepper grinder for black pepper. If you can’t find whole white peppercorns, I would use freshly ground black pepper instead of pre-ground white pepper. The flavor difference between the two types of peppercorns is slight and whole black peppercorns are available in most spice aisles.
The beef dish, braised with wine and sweet spices along with the vegetables, has a somewhat Medieval character. Once the meat is cooked, it is removed while the other ingredients are pureed. If you have an immersion blender, this is the perfect time to use it. The pureed vegetables thicken the sauce, which is then served with the sliced beef. I had a slight incident with this dish, but the issue was human error, not the recipe. While we were eating the fondue, I left the meat in the pot to stay warm but turned off the burner. Upon starting the cabbage, I took the meat out, put it on a cutting board, and turned the burner back on to make sure the sauce was nice and hot. Unfortunately, I turned on the wrong burner. Instead of the one under the sauce, I turned on the one under the cutting board. As I was busy with the cabbage, I didn’t notice the mistake until the plastic cutting board started to warp and melt. Thankfully the melting was only on the bottom and the meat was unharmed, but I was pretty shaken up by the incident. Needless to say, the cutting board was thrown out.
Cabbage and chestnuts are favorites in Piedmontese cuisine. The cabbage is served with a straightforward lemon butter sauce. Dessert, however, is quite unusual. Cooked chestnuts are warmed in a mix of milk, sugar, and cocoa, then mashed and put through a food mill onto the plates. I don’t happen to have a food mill, so I used a small ice cream scoop to put scoops of puree on the plates. These could then be topped with whipped cream and candied orange peel as directed.
Chestnuts have an interesting history in the hilly and mountainous areas of Northern and Central Italy, as well as in neighboring Southeastern France and Corsica. In many of these regions, wheat did not grow especially well but chestnut trees did, making the abundant nuts the “bread” of the poor. Despite being viewed as an inferior substitute, they were a reasonably nutritious staple. Plus, as they were less valuable commercially than grain, chestnuts were less likely to be taxed in kind by the landowners. That’s not to say the rich had no interest in them, but they consumed them in a different manner. Candied marrons glaces became a popular confection in the Early Modern Era. As sugar prices continued to drop, a variety of cakes and tortes appeared. Over time, increased general wealth has made these things affordable to the larger population.
The fondue was the best part of the menu. I was a little worried about adding the beaten egg yolks directly into the cheese mixture, but due to the double boiler it was not quite hot enough to curdle them. For dipping were steamed carrots, broccoli, and mushrooms, along with my own addition of pieces of toasted Italian bread. There was supposed to be cauliflower as well, but I realized as I was getting everything together that I had forgotten to buy it. I’m sure it would have been excellent with the fondue, but so were the other vegetables and toast. The fondue was creamy, slightly salty, a little gritty from the pepper and nutmeg, and generally fabulous. While it is most commonly used as a baking spice, nutmeg adds a nice bit of extra flavor to cream and cheese sauces. The leftovers were especially good on toast, placed under the broiler to brown.
Fondue and vegetables
After the cutting board mishap, the beef was also delicious. The low, slow cooking had made it extremely tender, and there was enough leftover sauce to use with a pork tenderloin a few days later, once all the beef had been eaten. The cabbage, I must admit, was not my favorite. It was sauced with a mix of butter, fresh lemon juice, salt, pepper, and nutmeg, but the proportions were not to my taste. Though freshly squeezed lemon juice has many good uses (like lemonade, salad dressing, on seafood, etc.), it needs to be tempered with something to shine. Here there was not enough butter to do so. But again, that is a matter of personal taste.
Beef, cabbage, and dessert
I felt similarly about the dessert. It was good, but I’m not sure I’d make it again. The texture was nice, but between the heavily sweetened chestnut puree, sweet whipped cream, and candied orange peel, the sweetness was a bit overwhelming. Maybe some unsweetened whipped cream would balance it out, but with all the other excellent desserts in the book (ex. cherry jam tart, panna cotta, praline mousse cake, biscotti, almond cookies, chocolate roll, apple charlotte, baked stuffed peaches, etc.) I’m not sure I’d bother. The star here was the fondue.
Returning again to the South, we have what is essentially a giant, elongated meatball. The name, polpettone, is even similar to the word for meatballs, polpette. A mix of ground beef, Italian sausage, bread, parsley, eggs, fresh mozzarella, and grated Romano cheese is formed into a loaf shape and baked. The result can apparently be served warm or cold, on a sandwich if desired, with an optional tomato sauce. Since it was a weekend afternoon and I wasn’t exactly busy, I opted to make the tomato sauce on page 175 to go with it. Any left over could be used for pasta.
Ready to bake
This was fantastic. I never considered the choice of warm or cold, since it was the middle of winter and the idea of cold meatloaf is odd to me. After pulling it out of the oven, I let it rest for a few minutes while the intoxicating aroma saturated the kitchen, then sliced and dished it up, still piping hot. It did fall apart a little bit (it’s usually easier and neater to slice cooled food), but the taste was the important part. The flavors melded together beautifully, fat in the sausage and moisture in the mozzarella kept it from drying out, and the sweet, acidic tomato sauce was the perfect contrast to the rich meatloaf. Ultimately there was just enough sauce for the leftovers the next day. I used up the leftover ground beef and sausage to make another a few days later and we devoured it that one too. This recipe is just that good.
Menu: Arugula Salad with Bacon and Hazelnuts, Roman-Style Gnocchi, Fig, Walnut, and Almond Tart
Recommended Wine: Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, Purplish-Ruby with Berry and Spice Aromas
We are now invited to imagine dinner with a friend of Mr. Famularo’s at her home in Rome’s Trastevere district, across the Tiber from the historical city center. Though space is limited inside her apartment, it has a balcony overlooking a courtyard garden. For most of the year, it is warm enough to eat and socialize there, where the air is perfumed with roses and jasmine. (Text, page 22) Imagine that the pandemic is finally over and you can socialize without worry.
The original menu is one of indulgence for a small group, featuring foie gras, a favorite since ancient times. There are two options for how to serve this, both on an arugula salad garnished with toasted hazelnuts. The recipe has the foie gras sauteed in butter, then served on top the salad. Another option in the recipe header, for those who aren’t able to obtain or don’t want to work with pieces of foie gras, is to use slices of foie gras terrine. I found the statement that the slices of terrine “of course are not to be sauteed” somewhat amusing. This would not have been obvious to me, though I’m not an award-winning cookbook author whose taken multiple trips abroad with a career spanning decades. Or maybe I’m just an unsophisticated barbarian. Supposedly, the pieces of foie gras are frequently sold in convenient 2-ounce serving size containers and the terrine is available in most supermarket delis.
Maybe that’s true in New York City, but I have never seen either of those things at any supermarket or deli. Granted, I have never actually looked for them, but before the pandemic I browsed a number of grocery stores and meat markets to see what sort of interesting things they had. I’ve seen beef liver, chicken livers, beef tongue, whole Christmas geese, and even pigs’ feet, but no foie gras anything. At any rate, with the price and method of production, I wouldn’t buy it anyway. Thus, I needed to find a substitute ingredient.
My first thought was to use chicken livers. Many large supermarkets have them, they aren’t expensive, and while not the same as fat-engorged duck or goose liver, they are still livers and still from poultry. If I could get over my squeamishness about eating liver, I could sauté them with extra butter to bring the fat level closer to that of actual foie gras. As it turns out, I’m not quite ready to go that far. As detailed in the previous post, I’ve eaten oxtail and loved it. I don’t think beef tongue would be an issue (it’s just another muscle). I’d even be willing to try pigs’ feet if they were cooked in a way to get the skin nice and crispy. Liver is still another story, though, especially knowing what the liver does. Besides, chicken livers look really unappetizing. In the end, I settled on bacon pieces. While not remotely the same thing as foie gras, it’s a good choice on almost any salad. All of the other salad ingredients were unchanged. Unsurprisingly, the blend of peppery arugula, salty bacon, and crunchy, toasty hazelnuts, accented with a vinaigrette, was delicious.
The next course was Roman-style gnocchi. Gnocchi are Italy’s version of the dumpling, the starchy filler to soak up the flavor of whatever it’s cooked with, found in various forms around the world. In most parts of Italy they are potato-based. What makes the Roman kind special is that they are made with semolina flour cooked in milk with nutmeg. Parmesan cheese and eggs are added to bind the mixture before it is cooled and cut into rounds. These are then topped with butter and more parmesan cheese and baked. I had some difficulty with these. The mixture didn’t firm up as much as I expected during cooling, which made cutting the circles out (with a glass) difficult. I ultimately resorted to forming them manually and layering them on the baking pan. My hands were a mess after this, but it worked pretty well. The end result was slightly crispy on the outside, soft and almost custardy on the inside, and delightfully rich.
Dessert was a pastry tart, this time with a layer of fig jam and another of ground almonds and walnuts, held together with eggs and sweetened. If you own the book, you might notice that the recipe calls for pine nuts, not walnuts. The thing is, pine nuts are really expensive. The recipe calls for over a cup, the little packets and bottles of them only contain around a third of that, and they each cost around four dollars. This would add up to at least twelve dollars just for pine nuts, and walnuts are a fraction of the cost. Plus, I’ve come to realize that most pine nuts, even from Italian brands, come from China. With recent aggression in the South China Sea, the broken treaty with Hong Kong, and the worst genocide since the Holocaust being conducted against Turkic-speaking Muslims in the western Xinjiang province, I would prefer to avoid buying Chinese goods whenever possible. It can’t be avoided entirely, but the more people forego Chinese goods in favor of alternatives, the more economic pressure will be put on the government. If enough people are committed, maybe they will be forced to reconsider their policies. Now, I wouldn’t normally get into politics on a food blog. However, this is more than politics. It is an issue of basic decency and treating other people like human beings. While no one can solve the issue on their own, everyone can do something. One easy way to start is to use American-grown California walnuts. Their flavor and texture makes for excellent pesto, and according to several episodes of The Great British Baking Show, figs and walnuts are a winning combination.
And they are. The fig jam and almond mixture are both pretty sweet, with the former being even sweeter than most other jams. Unlike almonds and pecans, walnuts don’t have much of a sweet flavor, making them an excellent choice to provide contrast. The tart was still a bit sweeter than I would have preferred, but the optional unsweetened whipped cream helped with this. Overall, it was really good. I opted to make the pastry rather than use a prepared pie shell. Called pasta frolla, it baked up nice and crispy. The crunch from the pastry and walnuts contrasted with the soft jam and almond mixture, and everything worked well together. I might reduce the sugar slightly if I were to make this again, but that’s just a matter of personal preference. A cup of coffee or tea adds further contrast.
So-called “variety meats” are often disregarded today, but in the past, when animal protein was more expensive relative to income, they were widely consumed. Some parts, like tripe, were poverty food even then, while others, like sweetbreads, were considered delicacies. Yet others, like liver, seem to have been viewed in a similar way to tougher, more inexpensive cuts of meat: not fine banquet fare, but perfectly good for informal and everyday meals.
This appears to have been the case with oxtail. It turns up again and again in old recipes, almost always in soups and stews, which makes perfect sense. It contains a lot of collagen, so it is not very tender initially. As it cooks, the collagen breaks down, imparting an incredible body to the broth. Plus, soup and stew are excellent ways to stretch a small or modest amount of meat to feed more people. Oxtail was made for economical ingenuity.
Versions of oxtail stew are found across the globe, but the Roman variation features wine, tomatoes, and celery. If you don’t have or don’t want to use wine, a viable replacement is grape juice with a tablespoon of vinegar per cup. It’s still a little sweeter than it would be if dry wine were used, but I used this substitution and it worked well.
The dish started with the common flavor base of vegetables and pancetta/bacon. A bit of celery was added now, most was set aside to be separately cooked and added later. After browning, the oxtails are added to the pot, along with the tomatoes and wine. This all simmers for a few hours, with some of the broth being added periodically. Near the end of the cooking time, the rest of the celery is added. I’m not sure why the celery needs to be cooked separately rather than added directly to the pot, but I followed the recipe as closely as possible.
The taste and texture of this stew were both remarkable. The combination of broth, grape juice, tomatoes, and aromatics lent a pleasant, slightly sweet-tart flavor, while the collagen from the oxtail created a rich, almost sticky body. It was definitely messy to eat, though, since the meat stuck to the bones despite its tenderness and could not easily be removed with a fork and knife. Fingers and a lot of patience were required. That’s not to say I wouldn’t make it again. Add some bread and maybe a salad, and it’s clear why this dish remains so popular. Just make sure you have plenty of napkins.
Feasting Through Time 