Article first published as When in Rome…. on Blogcritics. |
I took a special trip to Rome last May, for a very particular purpose: I had to initiate a couple of friends, who have been living in Rome for almost 10 years, to the real, unique and exceptional rustic Roman food. Why this urge? Well, these friends are co-founders of our “gastronauts society” and are foodoholics like me. Considering that they are soon to leave Rome, I could not accept the fact that they had never tasted our fantastic delicacies.
So, what am I talking about? Simple: “pajata”, “coda alla vaccinara”, “animele”, “coratella” and similar things. These items would be described by a vast majority of the earth’s population as “offal”. Let’s take these one by one:
Pajata
What is pajata? Looking at Wikipedia’s entry can be scary
“[...] Pajata is the term for the intestines of an “un-weaned” calf, i.e., only fed on its mother’s milk. The intestines are cleaned and skinned, but the Chyme is left inside. Then the intestine is cut in pieces 20 – 25 cm long, which are bond together with white thread, forming rings. When cooked, the combination of heat and the enzyme rennet in the intestines coagulates the chyme and creates a sort of thick, creamy, cheese-like sauce [...]“. I can assure you that it is DELICIOUS!!!
Considering the whole issue with cows and veals and mad-cow disease, real “pajata” has been banned since the early 90s. Instead of calves, Romans have now switched to un-weaned lambs. Anyway, according to the timeless tradition, we had the delicacy served in a tomato sauce with pecorino and rigatoni (see photo).
Next, my guests had another CLASSIC Roman dish:
Coda alla vaccinara
This is a more common animal part and less “yucky” for many people. It’s a stew of ox-tail, celery, tomato, ham, bacon and many herbs. The dish is cooked for hours, until all the meat is tender and falling off the tail bones. A typical menu would consist of preparing such a stew and, once ready, use part of the tomato sauce to season a “primo” of pasta and use the rest a the meat “secondo”. Sorry, I have no picture of this dish.
While my friends were inhaling their ox-tail, I was inhaling my own plate of roman “delicacies”. The restaurant had its own name for it, but I can clearly say that it was a mix of
Animelle and Coratella
What are these? Sit down, take a breath and get ready. Look at the picture. See anything familiar? Not, unless you took anatomy in college. This dish consists of grilled offal: hearts, kidneys, livers, lungs, pajata. Not for the faint hearted. Hard-core stuff, but sooooo tastylicious. As someone once said, “ya cannae not die stoopid”… got taste it all, then decide 
So that was the evening. My friends were very positively impressed and gave the “foodgasm!” stamp to the dinner. And the wine: we washed the whole thing down with a couple of bottles of this guy (see photo). Very nice, very nice indeed.
[...]
Buon appetito!
I haven’t written in a while and I do feel guilty about it. That’s how it goes when the writing follows a great food experience. I wish I could do that more frequently. Anyway, I hope you’ll enjoy this dish I cooked last weekend. Here’s what happened.
I went to the supermarket to do the usual weekly shopping and decided it was time I passed by the fishmonger as well. Weather is nice, full spring, for sure, some good stuff must be coming out of the sea. I get there and what do I see? Fresh squid. But not the wee ones. The real ones. 2-3 pounders. “mmmhhhh” was my first thought. My brain went immediately into “assembly” mode:
- What can I do with that?
- How should I cook it?
- What other goodies should I add to?
At first, I thought about a stew but then I saw the mussels on the side, there, just sitting quietly in their box, trying to avoid eye contact. “Too late, pals!”. There it was. Illumination. Pasta with mussels and squid. Now we were getting somewhere. Think about it: fuming spaghetti, with bits of squid and fresh tomato, all topped with splendid mussels in their shells. Still, I felt that something was missing. Think. Think. Think. Then I remembered that mussels go splendidly with strong, salty tastes, like pecorino. Have no pecorino. Have bottarga. Jackpot!
You might wonder: what is bottarga? It’s very simple, it’s roe. Caviar of the poor. There are two kinds sold in Italy: tuna and grey mullet roe. Tuna is more expensive, yet tastier and more sought for. I do have both, but my tuna one is fresh, thus I need to use it before it gets destroyed.
Anyway, we now have a dish in the planning and we can start cooking. First, we need to clean the squid and the mussels. Mussels are simple. First of all check that they are alive. To do that, see that they are closed when taking them off the bag. If they are open, “bang” them against the table and make sure that they “react” by closing the valves. If that doesn’t happen a few bangs, throw that shell away. Once they are closed, remove the “beard” by pulling it off the beast.
Squids are a bit more difficult. I asked my fishmonger to clean mine, but he didn’t a proper job and I had ink all over my kitchen. So make sure that everything is removed properly and keep the tentacles!
Start boiling the water for the pasta.
OK, now: prepare a base for the mussels. I used a big deep pot where I added some olive oil, to finely chopped sticks of celery, to chopped leeks, 2 cloves of garlic and 2 glassesand let it all blend and golden up. When that was the case (about 10 minutes), I added 2 glasses of chardonnay (or any white wine you have around) and threw in the mussles. Close the lid and cook slowly for about 15 minutes or until you think they are cooked. The lid is important, as it allows for a proper “sterilisation” of the mussel shells, by entrapping the high temperature steam in the pot.
Next, let’s prepare the squid. First of all, take the squid and chop it into small pieces (like 1×0.5 cm for example), including tentacles. Wash it all nicely under a lot of water. Now, in a wide and tallish pan, crush 2 cloves of garlic, add 2-3 tbsp of olive oil and warm it up. Cut a few thin slices of the bottarga, chop into as finely as you can and add it to the oil/garlic mix. Stir for 5 minutes and then add the squid and half a glass of white wine.
Cook at high temp for 5 minutes, turn down the heat and wait until the next step is ready. In the meantime, get some tomatoes and chop them finely.
Now, it gets “complicated” At this point, the water should be boiling, thus throw the pasta in. Take the mussels off their broth and toss them in the frying pan. Pass the broth through a sieve and put the liquid back in the pot. When the pasta is half cooked (let’s say 5 minutes) take it off that water and finish cooking it in the mussels broth. Just before it’s ready, drain it, put it back in the pan, add the fish together with the finely diced tomatoes.
Ready. Crack open another bottle of white (I love Chablis or Greco di Tufo with these dishes) and enjoy. I loved it!!! Foodgasmic!!!!
Here’s the “precise” list of ingredients:
- Olive oil
- 4 cloves of garlic
- 500 grams of spaghetti
- 1.5 kg of fresh mussels
- 1kg of fresh squid
- 5 tomatoes
- 3 slices of tuna bottarga
- 2 sticks of celery
- 2 leeks
- half a bottle of white wine
- a lot of hunger
- a love for good food
Article first published as Pasta With Squid, Mussels, Tuna Roe And Fresh Tomato on Blogcritics.
I love food. I love my work. I HATE people eating in the office. I just cannot stand the noise. That crunching, munching, grinding, sipping, swallowing, unwrapping, cracking sound of food. Most of all, I can not stand apples and carrots any longer. My two co-workers spend their day eating those two food items.
Just imagine the situation: silent office. All concentrated on our work. Suddenly you hear it: the plastic bag opens, and CRUNCHmunchmunchmunchmunchCRUNCHmunchmunchmunchmunchCRUNCH! for hours. Then comes the carrots bag: STACKcrunchcrunchcrunchSTACKcunch and so on.
Can you feel it? That shiver down your spine? The hatred? Can you hear Palpatine inviting you to the dark side? Can you feel your ears exploding because of the continuous destruction caused by extremely loud, yet useless, music in your headphones?
So, only two words for you noisy eaters: EAT BANANAS!
There, I said it!
Article first published as Eat Bananas! on Blogcritics.
Read more: http://blogcritics.org/tastes/article/eat-bananas/#ixzz1IjGQwaPd
I remember the good’ole days, when just the idea of whisky would make me sick. I just could not drink that stuff. Horrible liquid. I have to confess that at those times, whisky to me meant J&B, Ballantines, Chivas Regal, Cutty Sark… ie crap that was easily available at home or at friend’s places.
Then, over the winter break in 1994 or 95, I went ot visit me dad in Namibia and my “step brother” from Tennessee was there. He talked so much about Jack Daniels and blah and blih and bluh, that I finally tried it and it was for sure different and better than the above-mentioned crap. So, I slowly got used to the idea of whiskEy (bourbon) being somewhat drinkable.
Come September 1996 and I move to Glasgow to finish my studies. Made the mistake once and never asked for Jack Daniels again in my whole life. I still remember the scene. Was in a big whisky bar/pub at the intersection between Sauchiehall street and Kelvin Way (now there’s a steakhouse called the Butchershop). I asked for a JandD and the bartender, with a very thick local accent, replied “not in me fecking lifetime”. He turned around and showed me his scotch selection. 20×2 metres of different bottles. My Glaswegian friend explained “the situation” and I survived. Still, the barman made a point in teaching me a “single malt” lesson and started pouring a few different things, to “show me”. Could hear them angels singing (no, I was not drunk).
After 4 years in that paradisiac town, I became familiar with a few standard/conventional distilleries and I was happy. Lagavulin, Oban, Talisker, Bunnahabhain, Aardbeg, Bowmore, Caol Ila, Jura, Craganmore, Glenmorangie, etc… I was happy with this and felt “good” about the fact that I now knew about the classical good Scotches available. As for many other people, Lagavulin was unbeatable and the others are very good as well. Won’t touch no Irish stuff and bourbons are shite.
That was until a few months ago, when I moved to the next level. Hate you Alan! Hate you Angus! As you can see from one of my previous posts, we had a wee tasting session at a local whisky store, where I had the chance of discovering the fantastic world of independently bottled whisky. Other planet. Other experience. Other dimension. After that, I see no point in purchasing any of the “standard” bottles. I would actually feel “dirty” and here are a few reasons why:
- Whisky in the bottle is EXACTLY the same stuff coming out of the cask/barrel. No filtering, no coloring, no nothing. What you distil is what you get.
- What you get this year might not be the same as last year or next year. Contrary to “commercially” sold bottles, here the bottlers don;t try to get the same taste over and over. It’s all an “inshallah” process.
- What you get is of the best possible quality: the whisky you get is still coming from the “normal” distillers. The independent bottler purchases barrels from them, so what you get in a Macallan is the same stuff you would get in a commercially available Macallan bottle.
- The whisky selection (from producer to shop) goes through 3 decision processes: Bottler choses 10 barrels from 40 available (blind tasting). Store owners blind taste these 10 and chose 2. Selected customers of one shop will blind taste these and a unanimous decision has to be taken about which barrel will be “bottled” ie: both, one or none (am I right Angus? is this how the process works?).
- Because of the previous point, you always get the best of the best.
- Cask strength is your friend. End of discussion.
Anyway, now I can really differentiate between different products and am learning how to “describe” the differences. Still, I would love to take some tasting lessons or do some reading about all various aromas, tastes, finishes, colors that you can get and how to describe them. Have also decided to get a new bottle every second month, if I manage (still 70-100 euros a pop). Right now my bar is very small. Have a “standard” Lagavulin 16yo (that was a present), a 10yo Longrow and a 15yo Bruichladdich. Next one will be chosen between a Cragganmore 15yo, Springbank 12yo or Allt-A-Bhainne 16yo.
In conclusion, I think that if I had to chose between a wine and a whisky, I would go for the Scotch
Cheers,
Fred
PS: btw, I even changed my mind regarding bourbon. The one we had was awesome.
I admit it! Alan and I had a wee, mini gastronauts meeting in Rome last month. I was in town for the rugby 6Nations game between Italy and Ireland, and crashed at Alan’s flat. Since we only had a few hours to commit our gastro-crimes (I arrived latish in Rome on friday afternoon, Alan was leaving at 05:00 for teh US), we chose a very simple, yet tasty menu.
First, I got a small 30g can of “entry level” sturgeon caviar from Prunier at the airport in CPH. While on my way from Fiumicino airport, I got a bottle of Greco di Tufo at a petrol station on the raccordo, while Alan was preparing a quick puttanesca. So, as I arrived home, we immediately started with the caviar, washed down with a quite mellow chardonnay and we followed suit with the pasta, wetted by a jar of nebbiolo.
As a secondo, Alan had gotten some straccetti (litteraly translated to little rags) and some fresh rughetta (arugula, for you non romans). Straccetti are very thing and small strips of beef. It was my duty to cook them. So here’s how I made them:
In a large frying pan (or skillet), I did put quite an amount of olive oil. I’m Italian, I can’t quantify how much oil I used as if I were in the lab. I just know how much is right 
Anyway, I bring the oil the very high temp and throw in and 3 cloves of garlic and let tem get golden. Once that is ready, I bring down the heat and throw the meat in the pan (carful!) and quickly stir the whole thing.When the meat is almost ready, I salt it and add balsamic vinegar until the while dish is covered with a think and brownie sauce. Turn off the heat, serve the straccetti on large plates, covered with fresh rughetta and some slices of parmigiano. Enjoyed with the remaining nebbiolo and the greco di tufo.
Mmmmhhhh! Shame was that Alan’s butcher cut the meat too thick. Bollocks to him.
After a lot of pressure from Alan, here’s the explanation of how I cooked those kidneys at the Gastronauts dinner.
Angus ordered the veal kidneys form an organic butcher in downtown Copenhagen. They came from happy veals, the butcher said, which was nice. Nice thing of ordering them from a butcher, rather than buying them at the supermarket, is that you gain in quality and they clean the buggers for you. Cleaning kidneys is simple, but it takes time. Basically, you soak them in plenty of water for a few hours, rinse them, then soak them again a few times for an afternoon (or over night in plentyplentyplenty of water). 
Finally, you soak them for an extra few hours in water-vinagre or water-lemon solution, to disinfect the whole thing and remove the last traces of “kidney-essence”. Some people like to then leave them in a milk-bath for a while. ANYWAY, this done and dealt by the butcher, we just need to cook the things. First job, is to cut the nice brownish kidney lobes from the white fat/nerve/duct bits holding the whole organ together. You should end up with little bite-sized lumps of tasty kidney.
Now, for the cooking. You’ll need:
- the kidneys (we had 1kg for 6 ppl)
- 1 onion (or 2 shallots, even better)
- a “walnut” of butter
- 2 spoons of olive oil
- flour
- a small glass of port
- a small glass of scotch
- salt/pepper
Take a large frying pan, melt the butter, add the oil and the onions, chopped finely. When the onions are golden, take the cut kidneys, quickly cover them in flour and place them in the pan.
When all the kidneys are in the frying pan, keep moving them around until the flour and the oil/butter make a nice think sauce. Pour the port and the scotch and keep stirring until thick again. All in all, it should take ~ 10-15 minutes for the dish to get ready. Sprinkle the dish with freshly grated white pepper, some salt to taste and and some freshly chopped parsley.
PS: you could use this dish as a sauce for pappardelle. Heavenly. Foodgasmic.
Had my only blog follower “begging” me to add more recipes to the site. Here’s a quick and easy one, for when you are uninspired and hungry.
You’ll need good quality spaghetti, a can of tuna in oil (not the mini ones, but the normal sized cans), olive oil, a lemon, as much garlic as you can deal with (usually 2-3 thingies) and, optional, parley, capers and black olives.
Put the water onto the fire, allow to boil and “throw” the pasta. While it’s cooking, cut your garlic extra small and put it in a bowl. Add the tuna and the juice of the lemon (you can start with half of it and adjust as you like). You can add some capers or black olives if you want. When the pasta is “al dente”, ie: one minute before the time written on the packaging, drain it and toss it into the bowl. Mix well, add olive oil ad libidum and the chopped parsley.
Serve and eat hot, warm, cold, however you like
I love this dish. Cheap and easy and very tasty. And reminds me of the good’ole times when living in Rome alone with my brother.
Enjoy!
Hi again,
a coupe of weeks ago, I was in Lodon for work and had the chance of meeting with my “partner in gastronomical crime”, Alan. Since we both love a good curry, we went to Southall to the restaurant Brilliant!, which was recently featured in Gordon Ramsay’s new show Ramsay’s Best Restaurant.
Amazingly, we managed to get a reservation on a Saturday night, even though it was quite a late table (21:15). We arrived there and the place was packed. All tables filled to the limit. Good sign. Very good sign. We had a very nice waitress and we asked her for advice, as we could not eat everything on the menu. So here’s her plan
Starters:
- half a butter chicken
- half a spicy chicken
Main course:
- Tilapia in a kenyan masala sauce
- lamb chops in a smooth and creamy sauce
- some dahl, rice and a naan bread.
In between starters and main course, we had a couple of mango and banana lassies, but we washed down the whole lot with 2 bootles of cold Chablis. Nishe.
Well, that was a complete feast. Each dish was better than the previous one. Most particularly, both chicken starters were foodgasmic. Butter chicken melts in your mouth. Spicy chicken is just, how can I say, fuckingly awesomly, orgasmically good. Spicy it is, hot, sweat a lot, but the blend of aromas and spices they use makes you just forget about that. You just can’t stop it. You find yourself licking the bones, crying in pain and joy and gaging for more. Fantastic (as were the fresh, cold lassies after that).
As for the main courses, also a great experience. I am not a fan of tilapia, but the way they prepared it made it a very tasty dish. The lamb chops were just too small for my taste. Can really remember all the details as we were, at that point, pretty “happy” (had a few drinks beforehand, as 21:!5 is late) and full and with half stoned taste buds, caus’of the chicken.
So, message is, if you are in London and want a real curry, take the trip to Southall (basically, just before Heathrow) and have dinner there. You won’t regret it!!!
See yous!
Fred
PS: Alan, cheers mate!
I’m on a roll.
This is the dish that Nadia prepared. Fantastic. I am getting more and more convinced that it was my favorite of the evening. I haven’t seen her preparing it (no pictures), but here are the instructions I got from her:
Osso Buco Bianco River Café
2 inch crosscuts of veal hind shank
½c flour
seasalt and ground peper
½c butter (4 oz)
2Tb olive oil
2 small red onions, peeled and chopped
4 celery stalks, peeled and chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
9 salted anchovies, prepared (washed and spine bones and heads removed)
½ bottle dry white wine
Gremolata
Finely grated zest of 2 lemons
1 garlic clove, peeled and finely chopped
3 heaped Tb chopped fresh flat leaf parsley
Preheat oven to 300F.
Dust osso buco with flour, salt, pepper. In large heavy-bottomed casserole just large enough to hold all the pieces in one layer, melt half butter and all the olive oil, brown and seal osso buco on each side. Remove from the pan and pour away fat. Then add remaining butter, gently sauté onions and celery until very soft but not brown. Add garlic and anchovies and mash until anchovies have melted, this will only take a second. Pour in the wine, bring to a boil and reduce.
Carefully put osso buco back into the casserole, making sure that the bones are placed so that the marrow can not fall out during the cooking. Cover with parchment paper and the lid, and cook in oven for at least 2.5 hours. Can be made ahead and reheated.
Mix together the gremolata and sprinkle over each osso buco.
This we served piping hot and enjoyed with a Springbank 12 yo, cask strength. Perfect match.
Compliments to the Chef