Meat/Carne | All Things Sicilian and more

MAIALE AL LATTE (Pork cooked in milk)

A winter dish you could say!

Not so. Even if it is pork, MAIALE al latte is a light, delicate and sweet tasting dish, a classic recipe from the Veneto region of Italy.

This is one of the easiest and most delicious recipes for cooking a lump of pork, either the loin or the neck. I prefer it not to be a fatty piece of meat and I trim most of the fat off.

Many like to prepare a pork dish for Christmas. Pork braised in milk could make a pleasant change!

I always use full cream milk. The milk separates into flavourful and creamy curds that can be gently strained out and served on the side or under the succulent, cooked meat that has been sliced. The meat juices and whey are the fragrant sauce.

Fresh sage, garlic and lemon rind are the flavours. I also like to use quite a bit of black pepper.

I used a boneless loin of pork. Ingredients for 1k.500g:

extra virgin olive oil and butter to seal the meat and brown
1 small head of garlic, cloves peeled and halved
salt and freshly ground black pepper
fresh sage, about 10 large leaves
full cream milk, a sufficient amount to cover up to three quarters of the meat.
lemon peel from one large lemon cut into thin, wide strips – use a potato peeler.

Trim the fat off the meat, rub salt and pepper all over the pork and leave for about 10 mins.
Use a heavy-bottomed pot that is large enough to hold pork and milk that will almost cover the pork.
Brown the pork on all sides in some oil and butter. Use medium-high heat. Add pork and cook until well browned on all sides.
Add garlic and sage and milk. Bring to a boil, add lemon zest, reduce heat to medium-low.
Cover and gently simmer the meat. Resist stirring. Turn over the meat a couple of times and cook for about 3 hours. The milk will have reduced and golden curds would have formed. It will smell like caramel.

Transfer meat to a cutting board and let it rest while you lift off the curds gently and separate them from the liquid. The garlic will have dissolved into the sauce. Remove the lemon peel and the sage leaves. Skim off any fat (I did not need to do this as my meat was pretty lean).

Slice the meat. Serve on a bed of curds and the caramel meat juices poured on top.

Present with asparagus for a taste of summer.

‘NDUJA, was considered peasant food in Calabria

I am not Calabrese, and not being Calabrese means that I only discovered ’nduja late in life, as it was very much a regional and local food. I may have been late, but I did discover ’nduja much earlier than those living in Australia, who are now celebrating its use in a big way. Better late than never, because ’nduja is a fabulous salume (smallgood).

Featured photo is Tropea, Calabria.

So what is ’nduja?

We can thank Richard Cornish for his full-flavoured description of it in his Brain Food column in The Age on 10 November: A fermented sausage, originally from Calabria in Italy, that has a texture like sticky pate and a spicy kick on it like an angry mule. Pronounced en-doo-ya, it is a mixture of pork fat (up to 70 per cent), pork, salt, spices, culture and chilli peppers, which are ground together until smooth, wet, unctuous and deep red. It is stuffed into large-sized natural animal skins and slowly fermented and air-dried. The lactic acid bacteria in the culture ferments the sugars in the mix, making the ’nduja acidic enough to keep it safe from bad bugs. The name is Calabrian slang and is said to derive from the word for the smoked French sausage andouille.

Is it nduja or ’nduja? You will find that in certain references the spelling will be without an apostrophe.

The apostrophe before the nd (as in ’nduja), does not appear in the Italian language and I spent some time looking for the why it is spelt that way. It appears that in Calabrese, nd is proceeded by an apostrophe. Think of ‘Ndrangheta, as the mafia is referred to in Calabria, and ‘ndrina, the different families or clans, usually made up of blood relatives that are part of the ‘Ndrangheta.

Like most Calabresi, I usually spread ’nduja on fresh bread (like pâté) or I have used it as an ingredient in pasta sauces – it can fire up a tame ragù (a meat-based tomato sauce). I have also added ’nduja to sautéed cime di rape and Italian pork sausages, and to squid or octopus for a pasta sauce or on their own to be mopped up with bread.

I first encountered this spicy, spreadable sausage about forty years ago in the home of a Calabrese family who used to slaughter a pig and make smallgoods. They covered all of the smallgoods with chili. To their taste, food without chilli seemed flavourless, but also that the coating of chilli acts as a barrier, repelling flies (and bad bugs as Richard says) and is therefore a powerful and natural preservative. It’s the chili that gives this soft spreadable ’nduja salame its distinctive red colour.

Years later (about 23 years ago), I had some ‘nduja in the Sila mountains in Calabria, but I did not know then, that this peasant food product was to become the taste-sensation outside of Calabria that it is now.

My addition of ’nduja to seafood came much later in my cooking after I tasted a pasta dish of squid and fried breadcrumbs spiced with ’nduja, in a restaurant in Marin County, in California in the northwestern part of the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S). Years later, I had a similar dish in a London restaurant. Both blew me away.

Probably the first dish I tasted with ’nduja in a Melbourne restaurant (Baby octopus with ’nduja) was at Tipo 00 when it first opened and later at Osteria Ilaria.

Originally, ’nduja was considered peasant food. It was first made by contadini (farmers/ workers on the land) who raised and butchered pigs and being poor, would sell the prime cuts of pork to upper-class families who could afford them. as is the way of the frugal, offal, excess fat, and off- cuts of meat were blended together, seasoned intensely with chilli, stuffed in a casing and transformed into a soft salame that tasted good and did not spoil easily.

These days ’nduja is probably made with better fats and cuts of meat and with its popularity, the price has also risen. ’Nduja originated in the Vibo Valentia province in Calabria, and much of it still comes from the town of Spilinga but it is now showing up as an ingredient all over Italy and in many restaurants in UK, US and in Australia – imparting a chilli kick on pizza, in pasta dishes, seafood dishes, burgers and even with Burrata; I would have thought that fresh cheeses are far too delicate to go with the strongly flavoured and spicy ’nduja. However each to their own. ’Nduja is no longer just found in specialist supermarkets and specialty butchers, but also in some fairly ordinary supermarkets. I have liked some varieties much more than others, so it is worth experimenting.

For those who like chillies, recipes that include ’nduja on my blog:

‘NDUJA, a spreadable and spicy pork salame from Calabria

PASTA with ‘NDUJA, CIME DI RAPA and PORK SAUSAGES

‘NDUJA with SQUID, very simple

‘NDUJA and CALAMARI as a pasta sauce

‘NDUJA, SQUID, VONGOLE AND PAN GRATTATO with Spaghetti

CASSOULET? Not quite

Did I use mutton? Pork rind? Pork hock?
Not even goose?
Breadcrumbs on top? Confit of duck?
No, not any of these.

Cassoulet? Not quite. Perhaps I can call my recipe Cassoulet inspired.

Melbourne is in lockdown and I cooked this just for the two of us, and with no guests to impress, I took an easy option. Many writers have written about Cassoulet and I enjoyed leafing through some of the numerous books on my bookshelves.

It takes a lockdown! I have not leafed through books for a very long time.

I found recipes for Cassoulet in books by: Claudia Roden, Paula Wolfert, Joyce Goldstein, Stephanie Alexander, Guy Grossi and Jan McGuiness, Alice Waters, Clifford A Wright, Julia Child, Raymond Oliver, Elizabeth David and Rick Stein. If I had kept looking I may have found more.

The most comprehensive recipes are in this book:

The best photo for ingredients are in this book:

There is very little fat in my version of this dish; this is yet another reason why it cannot be called a Cassoulet. I used chicken legs and thinly cut pancetta because they needed using up. Instead of the pancetta, that I had in my fridge, I would have preferred to have used cubed pieces of speck, fatty prosciutto or raw bacon.

Ingredients

I used duck pieces, chicken legs , good-quality garlicky pork sausages, pork steaks from the neck, some pancetta and chicken stock.

1 onion, 3-4 cloves of garlic, cannellini beans (soaked over night and cooked), 1/2 can of peeled tomatoes, thyme, bayleaves, parsley, bit of celery with leaves, pepper and salt.

Processes

I used a Dutch oven (thick bottom pan, suitable for slow cooking). This allowed me to brown the meat on the stove and to transfer the pan to the oven. .

The cannellini beans can be cooked beforehand and stored in the fridge: Soak over night (about 3 centimetres above the beans). Drain the beans , cover with fresh water, add some bay leaves and celery then simmer till nearly cooked/almost tender, but retain a slight bite, 30 – 40 minutes.

Brown the meat: Begin with the duck, and use the rendered fat from the duck to brown the other meat. Remove the duck, add the pancetta, seal it and set aside. Add some extra virgin olive oil or duck fat or lard if you need more fat and continue to brown the chicken, pork and sausages, turn occasionally until well-browned on both sides. Remove each piece of meat when it has browned and set it aside with the duck. It is best not to overcrowd the meat whilst browning.

Add onions, stir and scrape up browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Add beans with some of the broth from the beans, garlic, thyme, parsley, bay leaves and tomatoes. Cover with stock.

Arrange the meats on top of the beans with the skin facing upwards. Make sure that the meat is almost completely submerged. with the stock.

Transfer to oven (155C) and cook, uncovered, until a thin crust forms on top (about 2 hours). The crust is a combination of the fat and collagen from the meat and bones and the homemade chicken stock I used. The beans need to be covered with liquid and the meat mostly submerged. The liquid will evaporate so add more water or stock as it cooks – pour it carefully and gently down the side of the saucepan so as not to break the crust that forms on top as the ingredients cook.

Continue cooking undisturbed until the crust is deep brown and thick (at least 3 hours). Usually a real cassoulet is cooked for longer, but the meat was very tasty, soft and succulent.

Definitely not a Cassoulet, but I had fun dipping into some of my old books, cooking, eating and writing about it.

SALAME – all shapes and sizes

You will find salumerie (small goods shop) decked with all types of salame

This is a photo in Tropea, Calabria. See what I mean?

Many Australian-Italian families get together during winter for salami making . Once made, the salami are hung to ferment and age in cool dry spaces and usually in insulated home garages.

In Australia, salame has become very well-liked. There are stalls of salame at almost every Farmers’ Market, courses for making salame, competitions and fairs. There are an ever- increasing number of various salami made by artisans, butchers and many made at home. And what may surprise some of us, is that just like passata makers, many salumi (smallgoods) makers are now from a non- Italian background.

Salame (and types of mettwurst) are also made in Southern, Eastern and Central Europe and I have eaten excellent salame in Hungary, France, Germany and in Spain.

In a Farmers’ Market in Lancefield a little while ago I bought a salame. Lancefield is a small town in the Victorian Shire of Macedon Ranges (about an hour’s drive from Melbourne).

What first caught my eye was the display board in front of the stall listing the types of salame for sale.

I burst out laughing and the young assistant behind the stall knew exactly why I laughed and why I bought the salame called Brucia Culo:

Brucia = burn, Culo = bum and you guessed it, it was hot.

She told me her father was the person who was the bespoke butcher of the range of salami on offer and he had named them all. Clever man!

The salame tasted terrific and we could not wait to eat it so we took it with a loaf of bread, local extra virgin olive oil and some heritage tomatoes to Macedon National Park for a picnic, and practically ate all of the salame there and then.

You may have noticed that in Australia salame is now an essential ingredient on platters that offer salumi on menus.

Salame (and types of mettwurst) are also popular in other countries – Southern, Eastern and Central Europe and I have eaten some excellent salame in Hungary and in Spain.

All Italians love salame and I am not stereotyping when I say this. Each region of Italy has particular DOP favourites and at least 113 different types of salami have been identified.

I have many photos of salami and salumerie ( shops that specialize in smallgoods) taken all over Italy; I never take photos unless I make a purchase (an Italian thing!) so you can imagine how much salame I have eaten all over Italy! The photo above was taken in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol.

The photo below was taken in Tuscany. The salame is likely to be all local.

Salame can be coarse-grained or have a fine texture, or cut by hand, seasoned for a few days or several months; have a firm or soft texture and some are even spreadable. They can be lean or high in fat, some have fat pieces that remain much thicker and evident when sliced. Some are flavoured with pepper, garlic, chilli or fennel seed, some are marinaded in wine while others are spiced with secret ingredients. Various parts of the animal is used and although pork is the most common ingredient, there are salami made with duck, deer, wild boar, goose.

The above photo was taken in Lombardy.

In Ferrara in Emilia-Romagna, I had Salama da sugo, a bulbous salame that is eaten cooked.

In Abbruzzo I have eaten salamini (small sausage sized) that were kept in jars and they were covered with olive oil to keep them moist. what made them even more special was that I bought them from a road-side stall.

In Calabria I went to the evocative Serre Mountains of Serra San Bruno in the Province of Vibo Valentia in Calabria, and ate one made with wild boar. It tasted marvellous. this was followed by lunch at the restaurant by the Carthusian Monastery where every course contained porcini in some form or another.

Living in Trieste as a child, the Veneto salame was one of the favoured ones. I now find that the Veneto can be particularly fatty and is not always one of my favourites.

In Piedmont and in Tyrol I had a cooked salame. These are usually made with pork and veal or young beef. The texture reminded me of cotechino.

In Loxton, in the Riverland of South Australia, I ate a very delicious home-made version that had chilli on the inside and flakes all around the outside – this was the mechanism used to keep the flies off.

The people who made this were Calabresi and this is not surprising as in Calabria they like a bit of chilli… think of ‘Nduja.

This spreadable salame is fairly hot!

In 2020 I did not travel but in1919, I spent quite a bit of time in Tuscany especially in the Maremma and I really enjoyed the wild boar versions of salame. I also liked a particular salame called the Cinata Senese especially popular in the province of Siena and throughout the Tuscan territory. The Cinata Senese breed of pork was in danger of extinction but is making a comeback; it is especially favoured by the smaller artisan producers.

Perhaps the most unusual salame I have eaten was one made with asino (ass) in Sicily, a specialty of the region of Ragusa. I also was invited to a BBQ where I ate ass meat – light, delicate and succulent.

For photos of salame made with ass meat in Sicily see post below:

CHIARAMONTE in South-Eastern and the best butcher in Sicily

NDUJA, a spreadable and spicy pork salame from Calabria

PASTA with ‘NDUJA, CIME DI RAPA and PORK SAUSAGES

NDUJA with SQUID,

SPAGHETTI with NDUJA, SQUID, VONGOLE AND PAN GRATTATO

COTECHINO AND LENTILS

RICETTE per capretto (e capra) – Recipes for slow cooked kid and goat

Quite a bit of cooking went on over the Christmas and the New Year period and there was no time to write about it. Most of the time I do not even manage to take photos, however for this dish, I did.

This is a slow cooked goat with mushrooms. The Sicilian bit in this dish is that the goat pieces were marinated in Marsala Fine (semi dry) and cooked with Marsala too. Most recipes eventuating from the rest of Italy would use wine – red and perhaps white.

I used the goat ragout to dress egg pappardelle.

I hope the photos tell the story.

I bought a leg and a shoulder of capretto… the italian word for kid and the etto at the end of the word makes it diminutive…however, judging by the size of it, it was a capra…a goat.

There were seven of us for lunch and I also bought a kilo of mushrooms.

Below is the photo of the marinade:

Marsala Fine, extra virgin olive oil, herbs – bay, cloves, rosemary –

these herbs are used in sicilian cooking but I also used nepitella and sage – herbs that are more common in the north and central Italy.

I cut most of the meat off the bone but kept the bones in with the meat to marinade overnight.

Drain the meat and bones and sauté the meat in some extra virgin olive oil in small batches.

Place the sautéed meat aside and finish sautéeing all the meat and the bones.

Prepare the sofritto – white onion, carrot and celery, chopped pretty small.

Use the same pan.

Sauté the onion first in some extra virgin oil, then add the carrots and celery and sauté some more.

Add the meat and bones.

Add the marinade, the herbs (and some new ones too).

Add salt and pepper and some good meat stock and more Marsala.

Cover and cook on slow heat. Check level of moisture regularly and if needed add more stock. I cooked mine for just below four hours. Remove the bones….they should be clean.

Add sliced mushrooms, cover and cook for 20 – 30 minutes more.

Dress the cooked pasta with the ragout.

Present the pappardelle with grated pecorino and fresh mint leaves.

See:

RAGU` DI CAPRETTO Goat/ kid ragout as a dressing for pasta

SPEZZATINO DI CAPRETTO (Italian Goat/ Kid stew)

SLOW COOKED LEG OF GOAT WITH HOT MINT SAUCE

KID/GOAT WITH ALMONDS (SPRING IN SICILY, CAPRETTO CON LE MANDORLE)

SICILIAN SEAFOOD COOKING, ITALIANICIOUS and READER’S FEAST Bookstore. Recipe for Slow cooked goat in Nero D’Avola

COOKING WITH GRAPPA, cosce di gallina (chicken upper thighs)

I use alcohol in my cooking very frequently. Cooking with alcohol enhances the taste and smell of many dishes.

In savoury foods I mostly add wine or wine-based beverages and spirits. Liqueurs are mostly for desserts, although I rather like the orange taste in Cointreau for pan fried duck breasts, duck or chicken livers and pork fillets. When I want a taste of fennel or anise, as for example in fish, Pernod is a favourite.

Using different herbs and spices are also very apparent in my cooking to impart different flavours and aromas.

One of the most common and simplest ways I use alcohol is to deglaze the pan after pan frying or sautéing meat, fish, vegetables or fruit. For example when cooking chicken or duck livers, once cooked, I remove the contents from the pan, pour in the alcohol and start scraping the sides and bottom of the pan – this dislodges all the tasty, caramelized bits ….I evaporate the liquid and the result is a very flavourful sauce.

Generally my most common types of alcohol for deglazing are wine, vermouth, brandy, Marsala Fine or Cointreau. Each of these beverages will add different flavours.

I need to say that my Sicilian relatives do not use much alcohol in cooking.

This brings me to my use of Grappa in cooking adding a subtle complexity to food. It is equally effective in savory and sweet dishes. Worth doing.

Grappa, the Italian spirit is produced from distilling the skins, seeds and stalks of grapes after making wine. It is drunk and used widely in cooking in the northern regions of Italy.

In Trieste it was a favourite drink for many Triestines and it was a common ingredient when making pastries and sweets like frittole, crostoli and apple strudel.

When my family arrived in Australia there was no Grappa, but we soon met some people from Trieste and found that they were using hot water units with copper piping to distil Grappa in their homes. A very slow process, but how ingenious.

Illegal of course, but we were able to buy flagons of Grappa from these people.

Being interested in my roots – Northern Italian and Sicilian – I have recently reintroduced Grappa in some of my cooking.

Here is a simple recipe:

You can see from the photo, the ingredients are what they call Lovely Legs (chicken), Italian pancetta, sage, rosemary, Grappa, extra virgin olive oil and butter, and although Juniper berries go well with gin, I thought they would be good with Grappa as well.

The process is very simple.

Marinade the chicken legs (there were 5) in some oil, herbs, juniper berries and pancetta cut into smaller bits for about 2 hours or longer.

Add butter to a pan, place the marinated legs and contents in the pan and gently brown the contents. Add a splash of stock or water, cover and cook until the chicken is cooked.

Remove the contents, add a liqueur glass (about 2 tablespoons) of Grappa. Scarpe the solids from the sides and bottom of the pan and let it bubble for a minute or two to amalgamate the liquids.

Place the contents back in the pan to coat them with the flavourful sauce, and there you are.

A special Birthday menu for my friend, in the cloud

It is one of my friend’s birthday today and I am wishing him well, there in the cloud. I have cooked him some of his favourite food.

I hope that he will enjoy the homemade pappardelle dressed with a duck ragù.

I was not able to buy him boar (cinghiale) or hare (lepre) as you can in Greve from that butcher who has a stuffed boar in front of his Macelleria. But I know that he is quite fond of duck; he will be just as pleased.

I have kept some of the dough from the pasta to fry and make into crostoli. I will sprinkle them with caster sugar. We can crunch on these later.

Now he’s no longer unwell, he can once again enjoy the Barolo and the Amarone I have selected for this occasion. I know that he is fond of Sicily and I have a bottle of Nero d’Avola. Perhaps we could have a little of this with our cheese? We will try to drink in moderation. I can return the wines from the decanters to bottles and put stoppers in them…I will be happy to drink them tomorrow.

I was able to find some early spring produce and I have stuffed some zucchini flowers with some stracchino, rather than the ricotta I usually use, a little egg with a few fresh breadcrumbs to bind the stuffing, and some fresh marjoram ... not chervil, I am afraid, as it is not in season, this being his favourite herb. He particularly liked it on scrambled eggs.

I almost forgot! I was able to order a great bottle of Riesling from the Barossa. Peter Lehman’s son – David Franz – Makes it. I love his wine and I am very fond of David’s colourful labels. I think my friend shared a bottle of this wine when I last saw him. This will be a perfect accompaniment for the zucchini flowers.

I have a bottle of Cynar for when he arrives and a little Averna for those who wish, right at the very end.

There will be no second course, the pasta will be enough. The ragù smells fabulous and will be quite rich. Perhaps a little Mâche , or matovilc as we called it in Trieste…. lamb’s lettuce for others. I can add some thinly sliced fennel too – this could be the palate cleanser before the dessert.

My friend does like a good Zuppa Inglese. I think that it’s the savoiardi soaked with Alchermes that he likes, although the delicate egg custard is also a winner. He will understand that I was unable to get the gooseberries or the greengage plums that he is so fond of. They are out of season. My friend was able to buy these for a very limited time of they year from one stall in the Adelaide Market. Gosh, that was a few years ago! The stall holder was a gentle and kind Sicilian man who used to grow most of his produce. I will never forget when the stall holder found out who my father was, he almost hugged me. My dad was liked by so many people… my friend was popular too, and liked a chat or two.

Idid find some Josephine pears at the Queen Victoria Market today, so I have purchased some to present with some cheeses – I selected ripe, juicy pears, just as he likes them. He always expressed his dissatisfaction about fruit that was picked too green.

I have not forgotten the cheese to go with the pears. He is fond of a little cheese. Walnuts too. He likes to crack his own. I know he quite likes a little aged Parmesan with pears and I was also able to buy a good selection of Italian and French Cheeses, some are quite smelly and I had to put them out on my balcony overnight.

Bob has baked some bread, my friend prefers to eat cheese with bread. I do too, perhaps I learnt this from him.

So my friend, up in the cloud, I hope you enjoy what I have prepared for you. Happy Birthday from all of us, here below. We all remember you fondly and miss you.

PAPPARDELLE (Pasta with Hare or game ragù)

ZUPPA INGLESE, a famous, Italian dessert

STUFFED ZUCCHINI FLOWERS

SALAD GREEN: matovilc, also called lamb’s lettuce and mâche

ALCHERMES/ALKERMES (The liqueur used to make Zuppa Inglese)

LONG LIVE ZUPPA INGLESE and its sisters

Polenta and its magic

This post is in praise of polenta, a simple and versatile accompaniment for many moist braises. It is particularly popular in the north eastern regions of Northern Italy – Trentino-Alto Adige, Friuli Venezia Giulia and Veneto. However, this is not to say that some polenta is also appreciated in Piedmont, Valle d’Aosta, Tuscany and Lombardy.

The most common polenta is coarsely ground yellow corn and it is simply cooked in water and salt. Polenta taragna is a mixture of cornmeal and buckwheat, a popular grain in Italy’s Alpine region, especially in the Valtellina in Northern Lombardy. Because wheat is difficult to cultivate in the northern regions like Val d’ Aosta and Trentino-Alto Adige, buckwheat is grown and mixed with wheat flour to make pasta (called pizzoccheri) and in gnocchi . Buckwheat is called grano saraceno , this is because the Etruscans and Saracens introduced the buckwheat grain to Italy. I visited this region last year and particularly enjoyed this combination.

Once cooked, I prefer to spread the polenta in a pan suitable to go into an oven, I drizzle it generously with olive oil and bake it .

The polenta can then be cut into slices and served with a wet dish.

I prefer to bake the polenta, it allows it to form a delicious crust. I am not one for last minute preparations….there is enough to fuss about once friends arrive.

Polenta does not have to be baked, it can just be scraped onto a board and cut at the table prior to serving. In fact, this is how my aunt in Trieste always presented polenta after she cooked it in her heavy bottomed copper pot.

Here are a few dishes that can be enjoyed with polenta:

Polenta is perfect with braised mushrooms. First sautéed at a high temperature with onion and /or garlic and then finished at at a lower temperature (covered with a lid) with some flavoured liquid – I like to use stock and wine. Herbs are a must.

This is a saucepan of my beef Goulash.… a favourite dish served with polenta and as cooked in Trieste, once part of the Austrian- Hungarian Empire.

Polenta is excellent with baccalà. There are many regional recipes for baccalà , for example: alla Vincentina (from Vicenza), alla Triestina (from Trieste), alla Veneziana ( from Venice) and various other cities in Northern Italy.
The recipes are not too dissimilar and basically are “white” with no or little tomato (tomatoes in the cooking of Southern Italy).

Baccalà Mantecato is a creamy spread popular in the Veneto and around Trieste in Friuli Venezia Giulia. Baccalà Mantecato is often presented on crostini di polenta – cooked polenta cut into batons or croutons and then either baked or fried.

The baccalà is poached in milk, the flesh removed from the bones and whipped with extra virgin olive oil and garlic.

Polenta with sauerkraut, very popular in Trieste where I lived as a child. The photo below is of Ponte Rosso and the Canal Grande in Trieste. The statue is Nino Spagnoli’s James Joyce and placed on the bridge over the Canal Grande.

Sauerkraut can be cooked slowly as a side dish for meats.

Sauerkraut and pork sausages are very popular in Trieste.

Polenta is also popular with pork sausages cooked in a tomato sugo. I also like pork sausages braised with borlotti beans.

There is nothing like seppie – inkfish braised in white wine, parsley and garlic and served with polenta. Sometimes white polenta (made from white corn and called polenta bianca ) is favoured with fish, rather than the polenta gialla (yellow, made from yellow corn).

Below in the photo are two typical dishes of Trieste, seppie in umido (on the left) and some iota.

Below is a photo of an ink fish. Inside will be a sac of ink that once removed can be used to flavour the dish.

It is not always obvious that they are ink fish, in Australia they are also often sold as squid. Not all of them will have a sac of ink; this photo is in a market in Venice…. you can tell that they are ink fish.

Here is a photo of polenta as an accompaniment to tripe I relished in a Trattoria in Sienna, Tuscany….it was only last year.

Polenta makes a fabulous accompaniment for pan fried or char grilled red radicchio . This used to be a favourite way to serve polenta by my mother. A little tomato salsa on the char grilled version is very tasty.

And this is polenta with broccoli (or broccolini) with bagna cauda . I first ate it in a restaurant in Hobart and it was presented on a bed of soft polenta – called polenta concia in Italy; this version of polenta is cooked in milk, sometimes stock and has butter and Parmesan cheese added to it once it is cooked. It does not have to be Parmesan, various local regional cheeses are used – Asiago from Trentino and the Veneto, Fontina from Valle d’Aosta, Taleggio from Lombardy and the Italian Alps, etc. Bagna cauda on polenta is not a traditional dish, but I did enjoy this innovation and replicated it at home, .

Polenta is also good with sarde in saor. The sardines are fried then left to marinate with onions and vinegar. Sometimes raisins and pine nuts are added. Although I have made this many times, I do not have many photos. This is often the case with other things I cook. Sometimes I am just too busy to take a photos before I present food or I forget to do it.

Also common is polenta pasticciata (sometimes spelled pastizzada as in the Veneto dialect and it means messed up/ fiddled with) . Layers of cooked polenta are alternated with flavourings. The most common is with sugo (tomato and meat braise) or braised mushrooms or salame, pancetta, and various cheeses …..or whatever you like to fiddle with.

The version above is with Fontina, Gorgonzola and some braised button mushrooms cooked in white wine – I was just dealing with leftovers, not a traditional dish, but tasty. The layers of polenta are then baked: it is very much like a baked lasagna.

Polenta is easily found and it does not have to be imported from Italy.

Cooking polenta is easy.

1 polenta – 4 water ratio, salt.

Bring water and salt to a boil in a large saucepan; pour polenta slowly into boiling water, whisking constantly until all polenta is stirred in and there are no lumps. I use a whisk.

Reduce heat to low and simmer, whisking often, until polenta starts to thicken, about 5 minutes. This is where I swap the whisk for a long handled, wooden spoon; the polenta will begin to bubble and can spit so the long spoon or an oven mit is necessary.

Stir the polenta regularly , at least every 5 to 6 minutes. Polenta is done when the texture thickens and is creamy and it begins to pull away from the sides of the saucepan. It may take up to 30 minutes.

Links to some of the recipes:

GULASCH (Goulash as made in Trieste)

CHICKEN GOULASH (Gulasch di pollo from Trieste)

SEPPIE IN UMIDO CON POLENTA (Cuttlefish or Squid With Black Ink And Polenta from Trieste)

LUGANIGHE CON CAPUZI GARBI; Sausages and sauerkraut, and yes, it is Italian regional cuisine

PIEDMONTESE favourites (bagna cauda)

TASMANIA, FOOD, ART, HOBART and Bagna Cauda

MARINADED FISH and a recipe for PESCE IN SAOR – PESCE IN SAOR

FUNGHI AL FUNGHETTO (Braised mushrooms)

WILD MUSHROOMS; Saffron Coloured, Pine Mushrooms and Slippery Jacks

FREE RANGE PORK WITH NORTHERN ITALIAN FLAVOURS

This pork was simply and quickly cooked but delicious. The meat was tender and flavourful.

This Berkshire pork comes from Brooklands Free Range Farms in Blamfield, in the central highlands of Victoria.

If you live in Victoria, the pork is sold in some of Farmers Markets – see list on the photo below, it is on the back of their business card.

I used sage, thyme and juniper berries, northern Italian flavours. There are a couple of Sicilian recipes at the end of this post.

When I use juniper berries I like to deglaze the pan either with dry vermouth or gin rather than white wine. Juniper berries are a spice used in a wide variety of culinary dishes and best known for the primary flavouring in gin – you will not need much and it will enhance the taste of the sauce.

A little extra virgin olive oil at the bottom of a frypan, put in the meat, a little salt, herbs and some juniper berries. I used about 8. And look how lean and pink the pork is!

Turn them over when they are coloured on one side, cover and cook on low heat for about 6 minutes.

Turn again, deglaze. Turn off heat, rest for a few minutes before serving.

Thank you Brooklands Free Range Farms for producing top quality produce and what i particularly like is that these pigs not only frolic on rich volcanic soils but that other local producers contribute to feeding these pigs- local grain, vegetables and whey. The pigs also eat seasonal acorns…very European.

Sicilian recipes for pork:
BRACIOLI DI MAIALI O’ VINU (Sicilian for Pork Chops Cooked In Wine)

PORK IN RAGUSA (I Ragusani mangiano molto maiale)

PIEDMONTESE favourites

Two of my friends have been spending time in Piemonte (Piedmont) and as a welcome home dinner I made three Piedmontese favourites:
Bagna Cauda with an array of fresh vegetables cut into batons for dipping,
Vitello Tonnato,
Hazelnut cake with a homemade and delicately flavoured, vanilla ice cream.

I too visited Piedmont a few years ago and have very fond memories of of driving around Piemonte and Valle D’Osta. I stayed in Stresa, Lake Maggiore, Asti, Bra and Alba.

Bagna Cauda
I make it different ways but this time I poached the garlic cloves in cream, using low heat. This process softens the taste of the garlic. Notice the tall sided pan…this prevents the cream from boiling over. You can use milk instead.

I added the extra virgin olive oil, heated it and added the anchovies. They soon dissolve with the heat. (Photo below)

Then the butter and mixed the ingredients with a hand whisk. The sauce is kept hot.

Vitello Tonnato

I bought a cut of yearling girello. This is a lean, round strip of meat….giro=one of the words for “round” in Italian.

I always seal (lightly brown) my girello in some extra virgin olive oil, add some onion, carrot, celery and herbs.These are referred to as “odori” in Italian. Always dry white wine and chicken stock and I poach the meat for a short time. This is the same method and ingredients I use when I make Vitello Arrosto…a pot roast.

I want the meat to stay a little bit pink. Some recipes suggest not sealing the meat but poaching it in water or stock. I much prefer my method, the flavour is stronger and I do not do it this way just because my mother did.

I make an egg mayonnaise, add drained tuna packed in olive oil, hard boiled eggs, some lemon juice, capers, anchovies and a few of the poached vegetables that were used in the poaching of the meat. I blend all this and use it to make a stack ….about three layers of sliced meat interspersed with the tuna sauce.

Hazelnut cake

Roasted hazelnuts, skins rubbed off. Ground to resemble fine breadcrumbs, but not a powder.

A splash of Frangelico to accentuate the hazelnut taste.

Eggs and sugar, beaten (3 eggs, 180g of sugar)
Flour….SR or add baking powder to plain flour (200g)
Strong black coffee (1 small espresso cup). In the photo below, are some of my coffee making macchinette, the smallest is for making one small cup.

Butter, melted (150g).

A dash of milk if the mixture seems too dry. Mix all of the ingredients and place the batter in a buttered, spring-form tin.

Baked for 40 minutes (180 C)

TASMANIA, FOOD, ART, HOBART and Bagna Cauda

YEARNING FOR VITELLO TONNATO

VITELLO TONNATO

VITELLO ARROSTO (Roast Veal)

Category: Meat/Carne

MAIALE AL LATTE (Pork cooked in milk)

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‘NDUJA, was considered peasant food in Calabria

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CASSOULET? Not quite

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SALAME – all shapes and sizes

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RICETTE per capretto (e capra) – Recipes for slow cooked kid and goat

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COOKING WITH GRAPPA, cosce di gallina (chicken upper thighs)

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A special Birthday menu for my friend, in the cloud

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Polenta and its magic

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FREE RANGE PORK WITH NORTHERN ITALIAN FLAVOURS

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PIEDMONTESE favourites

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