The Umbrian Thursday Night Supper Club
Page 27
THE METHOD
Pour the Marsala or sherry into a small bowl and sprinkle the gelatine powder over it. Let the mixture stand, without stirring, for 5 minutes, allowing the gelatine to absorb the wine. Now give the mixture a stir.
Meanwhile, over a medium heat, warm the cream and the cheese in a large, deep and heavy-bottomed saucepan, stirring often. Watch carefully and beware overspill since, as the mixture approaches the boil, the volume of the cream will expand and rise quickly. Remove from the heat. Add the softened gelatine to the cream and stir for a full minute to be certain that it has fully dissolved in the hot, hot cream. Quickly pour the mixture into six individual moulds, preferably metal if the plan is to unmould them or into ceramic ramekins if the plan is to serve the savoury pudding in its dish.
Allow the panna cotta to cool to room temperature, then cover each mould tightly with plastic wrap, place the six puddings on a platter and store in the refrigerator overnight (4 or 5 hours is sufficient to gel the puddings but the additional resting time allows the cheese/wine flavours to ripen). Take care to place the platter distant from foods which would not benefit from proximity to the whiff of pecorino such as desserts, most especially those made with chocolate.
La Crostata di Pere e Pecorino – ‘The Tart’
TO SERVE 6 TO 8
A beautiful thing to see with the roasted pears standing up to their middles in a golden cream, ‘the tart’ is lush yet rustic with its medieval perfumes of honey and just-cracked pepper and can be served as a finepasto, supplanting the fruit and cheese course or, better yet, instead of dessert.
THE CRUST
INGREDIENTS
170 grams plain flour
40 grams finely grated aged Pecorino
4 or 5 good turns of the pepper grinder
½ tsp fine sea salt
40 grams light brown sugar
140 grams unsalted butter, chilled, cut into 1 cm pieces
60ml vin santo or other ambered wine, very well chilled
THE METHOD
Pulse the flour, pecorino, pepper, salt and brown sugar two or three times in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Add the butter and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. With the machine running, pour the cold wine in through the feed tube all at once and process for 4 or 5 seconds, only until the components just begin to hold together and form a dough.
Turn the mixture out onto a large sheet of plastic wrap, gathering up the errant bits and gently pressing it all into a mass. Enclose the dough in the plastic, cover the plastic with a clean kitchen towel and leave it to rest in a cool place or in the refrigerator for up to 30 minutes. Roll out the rested dough to a thinness of 5 millimetres. Transfer the rolled pastry into a buttered, 25 centimetre loose-bottomed tart pan, fitting it evenly and trimming the excess. Cover the pastry with plastic wrap and place it in the freezer for 20 minutes or in the refrigerator for an hour. Preheat the oven to 220°C/425°F.
Remove the plastic wrap from the chilled pastry shell, line it with a sheet of baking paper and fill it with dried beans (or stones gathered along the Tiber and kept for this purpose) and bake it for 10 minutes before lowering the oven’s temperature to 200°C/400°F and baking the pastry for 8 minutes more or until it begins to firm and take on a pale golden colour. Remove the partially baked pastry from the oven, remove the baking paper and weight and leave to cool completely.
THE PECORINO FILLING
INGREDIENTS
500 grams of whole-milk ricotta (should you find the ewe’s milk variety rather than that made from cow’s milk, opt for it, keeping the elements all in the family)
360 grams mascarpone
120 grams finely grated aged Pecorino
30ml dark honey (chestnut, buckwheat, etc.)
1 large egg plus 1 large egg yolk
THE METHOD
In the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade, process all the components to a thick creamy mass. Cover and set aside.
THE PEARS
INGREDIENTS
A stick of cinnamon bark
6 whole cloves
6 whole allspice berries
10 whole black peppercorns
8 small, brown or green-skinned ripe but still firm autumn or winter pears
½ a lemon
80ml dark honey (chestnut or buckwheat)
120ml vin santo or other dessert wine
For the Final Gloss
30ml dark honey
60ml late-harvest or dessert wine
THE METHOD
Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F.
In a spice grinder or in a mortar with a pestle, grind the cinnamon, cloves, allspice berries and peppercorns to a fine powder. Cut a very thin slice from the bottom of each pear to prevent wobbling during the roasting, core them from their bottoms with an apple corer and stripe-peel them vertically (a strip of skin removed, a strip left intact and so on around the belly of the pear) with a vegetable peeler. Leave the stems intact. Rub each pear with the cut lemon. Place generous pinches of the spice powder inside the cavity of each pear and position them, upright and nearly touching, in a ceramic or metal roasting dish, just large enough to hold them. Warm the honey and paint each pear with it. Pour the wine into the bottom of the dish and roast the pears for 15 minutes, or just until a thin, sharp knife easily penetrates their flesh. The fruit suffers if roasted to a state of collapse. Remove the pears from the oven and baste them several times with the winey juices. Pour any remaining juices from the roasting dish into a small saucepan. Add the last doses of honey and wine and warm them together. This potion will be used as a final gloss for the pears once the tart has been baked. Meanwhile, allow the pears to cool.
ASSEMBLING THE TART
Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F.
Spread the pecorino filling over the cooled pastry. Carefully position the pears over the filling and bake the tart for 15 minutes, or until the filling begins to take on a bronze skin and the pastry has crisped. Remove the tart from the oven and paint the pears with the reserved wine and honey mixture. Permit the tart to cool for 10 minutes before unmoulding it. Serve it warm or at room temperature. Present the tart with tiny glasses of the same ambered wine used in its making.
Savoury Cornmeal-crusted Tart with Olivada
THE CRUST
INGREDIENTS
110 grams plain flour
160 grams stone-ground coarse cornmeal
1½ tsp fine sea salt
1 tbsp fennel seeds, dry pan-roasted and coarsely crushed
120ml extra-virgin olive oil
120ml cold dry white wine
THE METHOD
Don’t even think of using a food processor for this simple, less than a minute, procedure. It will do you and your hands such good to get in there and feel what you’re doing. In a medium bowl, mix the dry ingredients by tossing them together for a few seconds until the yellow and white flours are blended. Add the crushed fennel seeds. With a fork, stir the oil and wine together in a small bowl, beating the mixture as you would an egg. Pour it all at once over the dry ingredients and mix together with that same fork or your hands until blended. Knead the mixture in the bowl six or eight times. Leave it to rest for 30 minutes in a cool place covered with a kitchen towel while you get to the olivada.
THE OLIVADA
INGREDIENTS
3 pitted prunes
60ml warmed Cognac or brandy
500 grams large fleshy black or purple Italian or Greek olives, pounded lightly with a mallet and relieved of their stones
2 fat cloves of crisp white garlic whose hearts have not been sullied by acidic green sprouts (better to do without the garlic than to use the imperfect)
1 ½ tbsp fresh rosemary leaves chopped down nearly to a powder
Extra-virgin olive oil (approx. 60ml)
THE METHOD
Though I pound away at this mass in a large stone mortar with a wooden pestle, a food processor would be more convenient if far less satisfying.
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br /> Place the prunes in the warmed Cognac or brandy for 15 minutes until they soften and plump. Place all the elements, save the oil, into the food processor bowl fitted with a steel blade and pulse until a coarse paste is achieved. With the motor running, begin to pour, drop by drop, the good oil into the mixture until it thickens, emulsifies and turns glossy.
Scrape the paste into a bowl and cover it with plastic wrap, leaving it in a cool place to rest while the Cognac ripens. Refrigeration simply stultifies the flavours and renders the paste like something from a tin. Why the prunes? Because the natural brine in which the olives have been aged is salty. On the tongue, one hardly notices even a whiff of prune but gets rather a sensual, richer, less-aggressive taste of olives.
TO ASSEMBLE THE TART
Generously oil a 30 centimetre metal tart tin (preferably with a removable base) and press the cornmeal pastry into it, taking care to knuckle the dough evenly over the bottom and sides of the tin. Place a sheet of baking paper over the crust, weight the paper with dried beans (or river stones collected from along the Tiber and kept for this purpose) and place it in the freezer for 15 minutes while preheating the oven to 180°C/350°F.
Bake the shell for 12–15 minutes until it begins to shrink away from the sides of the tin. Remove the baking paper and the weights and continue to bake the crust until it’s golden, another 10 minutes or so. Leave the oven on. Allow the crust to cool for 10 minutes, spread the olivada evenly over the bottom, as extravagantly or as moderately as you wish. Remember the paste is rich. Should you end up with some to spare, spoon the olivada into a glass jar with a screw top and save it in the pantry. Use it over the next day or so to sauce pasta or to spread on toasted bread. Now put the tart back into the oven for 3–4 minutes, just to ‘set’ the paste. Take it out and leave it to cool a bit. Unmould the tart and serve it at room temperature or leave it in its tin and cut it at table.
Red Wine-braised Pasta with Shavings of 99% Cacao Chocolate
If, at the end of a good supper, you’ve had the orgasmic pleasure of placing a shard or two of gorgeous bitter chocolate (70–99% cacao) in your mouth, allowing it to barely begin melting before tipping your glass to sip the last of the fine red wine which you’ve drunk with that supper, and then – eyes closed and silent – let the two elements find their way to one another and finally to wander slowly, voluptuously down your throat, you will understand what to expect from this esoteric-sounding dish.
As the narrative recounts, cooking dried pasta in water is a relatively upstart method, it having for centuries been softened in wine or broth. There are any number of methods to cook pasta in wine but it’s this unfussy way which, I think, yields the best results. Should there be a Ninuccia-type figure in your life who would dare you to produce a 15 kilo dose of the stuff, refuse.
TO SERVE 6
(As a primo or first course with other courses to follow; recipe may be doubled successfully if the pasta is to be served to six as the main plate.)
THE PASTA
INGREDIENTS
500 grams short dried pasta, preferably penne rigate
Coarse sea salt
A bottle plus 240ml of the same red wine you’ll drink at table
125 grams plus 35 grams unsalted butter
30ml extra-virgin olive oil
25 grams finely grated fresh ginger
5 whole cloves and a stick of cinnamon bark, pounded together coarsely
100 grams of 99% chocolate (Lindt has a good version and is most readily available worldwide)
A pepper grinder
THE METHOD
Bring 7 litres of water to the boil, heaving in a fistful of coarse salt just as it begins to roll. Add the pasta, stirring well until the water resumes the boil. Quickly drain the pasta after 3 minutes. While waiting for the water to boil, pour 240ml of red wine in to a small saucepan and warm it over a slow flame without letting it approach the boil; add the 35 grams of unsalted butter, stir to melt in the warm wine, and grind in several vigorous turns of the pepper grinder. Keep the buttered, peppered wine warm over a quiet flame.
In a very large sauté pan or a very large shallow pot over a medium flame, melt 125 grams of butter, add olive oil, then stir in the ginger and cinnamon/clove mixture to perfume the oil. Add the par-boiled, drained pasta. With a wooden spoon, move the pasta about in the perfumed oil to coat each piece. Turn the heat to high and, without stirring, allow the pasta to begin taking on some colour and to form a golden crust. After about 2–3 undisturbed minutes, give the pasta a good stir so that more of it can have the benefit of the heat and begin to take on colour and crust. The process of ‘pan-toasting’ the pasta will want anywhere from 6 to 8 minutes, depending upon the size of the pan. Now begins the dosing with the wine.
From the bottle, pour in about 60ml, give the pasta a stir and, still over a high heat, allow the pasta to drink in the wine. Give the pasta the next dose when the wine has been thoroughly absorbed. Repeat the dosing and absorbing until the pasta is properly al dente. In most cases, the entire bottle of wine will be needed to achieve this texture. Should the texture be reached before the bottle is empty, pour what remains of it into the cook’s glass.
Now add the reserved buttered, peppered wine to the hot, hot pasta and toss and toss, glossing the pasta, plumping it in its final dose of wine. You’ll recall that this last dose of wine has only been heated and thus its alcohol has not gone to steam – another reason not to stint on the quality of the wine in the dish or in the glass. I am not suggesting a 1998 Pomeral, for instance, but an honest red with more muscle than fruit.
Immediately ladle the pasta into warmed deep plates and, with a vegetable peeler, shave curls of the chocolate over each plate.
Schiacciata con Uve di Vino – Winemaker’s Flatbread Laid with Wine Grapes and Crusted with Pepper and Sugar
A truly ancient ritual bread made once a year to celebrate the harvesting of the grapes, there are as many ways to put it together as there are women who have and who still do bake it. The single commonality is the rite which dictates that the eldest and the youngest members of a family – holding the secateurs together – cut the first of the grapes while the winemaker’s wife stands at the ready with a fine white cloth in which to take the grapes and carry them to her kitchen. This ceremony signifies continuity, the passing down of ‘life’ from generation to generation. They actually cut a branch or an arm of grapes on which hang several bunches. This is not only for convenience, since more than a single bunch is necessary for the bread, but also because the grape-stripped branch and the attached leaves are used to decorate the finished bread.
Once the grapes are in the kitchen, the breadmaker’s own fantasy and instinct prevail as long as the result is both sweet and salty, dolce salata. The taste of life itself.
This harvest bread is distinctly perfumed with rosemary, anise and fennel, while the grapes which are laid on it are again perfumed and then generously sugared and peppered, the sugar forming a kind of crust in the oven which, when broken in the mouth, gives forth a burst of warm luscious juices.
TO MAKE 1 LARGE FLATBREAD WHICH SERVES 6 TO 8
INGREDIENTS
1 cube fresh yeast
360ml cups lukewarm dry white wine
60 grams plus 1 tbsp dark brown sugar
600 grams plain flour
240ml plus 1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
3 tbsp fresh rosemary leaves, finely chopped
2 tbsp fennel seeds, crushed
2 tbsp anise seeds
A pepper grinder
1 tbsp fine sea salt
2 eggs, well beaten
750 grams white, black or red wine grapes or table grapes (or a mixture) cut into small bunches, washed and dried
130 grams caster sugar
THE METHOD
In a large bowl, soften the yeast in the lukewarm wine with 1 tbsp of the dark brown sugar. Cover lightly with a kitchen towel and allow the yeast to activate for 5 minutes. Stir in 160 grams of the flour and, o
nce again, cover the bowl with a kitchen towel and allow the yeast to further activate for 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, gently warm 240ml of oil over a low heat, adding the rosemary, fennel and anise seeds and a few generous grindings of pepper. Do not overheat the oil; cover the saucepan, set aside and allow the herbs to perfume the oil.
Now, returning to the sponge, add the remaining flour, the sea salt, 60 grams of dark brown sugar, one-half of the perfumed, cooled oil with one-half of its seeds and finally, add the eggs. Incorporate the elements with a wooden spoon or, better, your impeccably clean hands. You may never use a food processor for breadmaking again. Turn the mass out onto a lightly floured pastry marble or work surface and knead in a forceful slapping–turning motion for as long as 8 minutes or until a satiny, elastic texture is achieved. Wash and dry the bowl and pour in the 1 tbsp of oil; place the worked dough into the bowl and turn it about until it’s well coated with the oil. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and then cover the wrapped bowl with a folded tablecloth or a few layers of kitchen towels. I keep a small quilt, once my son’s carriage blanket, for this use. We are, after all, in pursuit of continuity here.
Allow the dough to rise until doubled. Time required depends upon the atmospheric conditions in your kitchen, the quality of your flour and the will of Destiny. The combination of yeast and wine rather than yeast and water causes dough to rise somewhat more rapidly (while giving the eventual bread a delicate crumb and an almost imperceptible sourdough flavour) so the dough may want only 30 minutes to double.