Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well (26 page)

Take a small piece of spleen, preferably veal spleen, cut it open and scrape the inside clean with a knife. Then place the spleen under the duck to boil. It will add flavor to the sauce, which it is a good idea to season with a little tomato and a dash of nutmeg.

Make a dough with only flour and eggs, and roll it out in a rather thick sheet as for tagliatelle. Use a pastry wheel with a scalloped edge to cut the dough into strips somewhat wider than a finger. Boil these for a short time and toss with the sauce, the duck’s liver cut into tiny pieces, Parmesan cheese and some butter, if necessary. The pappardelle will be the pasta course, and the duck the main dish.

This is the Tuscan name for a dish of pasta—“nocette” (little nuts), “paternostri” (rosary beads), “penne” and so forth—served with a
sauce of teal meat. Teals are marsh birds, with webbed feet, spoonbills, and very similar to ducks but much smaller. In the wild they weigh from 250 to 300 grams (about 1/2 a pound). Two teals should suffice to make a sauce for 400 grams (about 14 ounces) of pasta, or enough to feed four people.

Remove and discard the teal’s head, feet, rump-gland and intestines. Boil the birds with a
bouquet garni
of celery, carrot and parsley sprigs in as much salted water as you will need to cook the pasta. Once done, bone the birds and mince the flesh with a mezzaluna together with the livers and cleaned gizzards, which you have cooked along with the teals. Boil the pasta in the broth, then drain and season with the minced teal meat, butter and a good measure of Parmesan cheese, making a few layers.

The result is a pasta dish that is not only delicious, but more importantly easy to digest.

The preceding recipe made me think of the following dish, which is every bit as appetizing.

Take one teal, clean it as described in the preceding recipe, and saute it in a battuto made with a quarter of an onion (half if the onion is small), a good-sized stalk of celery, half a carrot, 40 grams (about 1-1/3 ounces) of untrimmed prosciutto, and some butter, seasoning with salt and pepper. Once the bird has browned, cook it in a good broth, adding a little tomato sauce (recipe 6) or tomato paste. Then bone the duck and chop it finely, adding, if you have them, a few pieces of dried mushrooms, which you should cook in the broth with the teal.

Put everything back on the fire and flavor with a dash of herbs or nutmeg. To bind the sauce add some butter mixed with flour. Then toss 350 grams (about 12-1/4 ounces) of pasta—use macaroni, “strisce” (strips), horse-teeth or any other variety of this general size and shape—with the sauce and Parmesan cheese.

This recipe serves five people, unless the company includes hearty eaters.

By adding 50 grams (about 1-2/3 ounces) of ground beef fillet to the teal, you will get an even more substantial sauce.

After you have washed the rabbit, cut it into larger pieces than you would if frying it, and place these in a saucepan to draw out the water they contain. Drain the water off and when the pieces are nice and dry add some butter, a little olive oil, and a finely chopped battuto made with the rabbit liver, a little piece of bacon, and the usual seasoning—that is, onion, celery, carrot and parsley. Season with salt and pepper. Stir often and when browned, cook it with water and tomato sauce (recipe 6) or tomato paste. When done, add another small piece of butter. Use the sauce to season pappardelle or strisce, and serve the rabbit in a separate bowl as the main dish, using a bit of the sauce as gravy.

If you are not going to use the sauce to season the pasta, do not put any bacon in the battuto.

As it is dry and not very tasty, the meat of the hare needs in this recipe the help of a very substantial meat sauce to yield an elegant pasta dish. Here are the ingredients to serve five people. A dough made with three eggs should do, in my opinion. The rolled-out dough should be cut in the shape of pappardelle about one finger in width using a pastry wheel with a scalloped edge. Or you may use between 500 and 600 grams (between about 1 and 1-1/3 pounds) of strisce, which you can buy at the store.

2
fillets of bare that together should weigh between 180 and 200 grams (between about 6-1/3 and 7 ounces), including the kidneys

50 grams (about 1 -2/3 ounces) of butter

40 grams (about 1-1/3 ounces) of bacon

1/2 of a medium-sized onion

1/2 of a carrot

1 palm-length celery stalk

a dash of nutmeg

Parmesan cheese, as needed

1 tablespoon of flour

6 deciliters (about 2-1/2 cups) of brown stock

The fillets should be skinned of any covering membrane and cut into small cubes. Then, using a mezzaluna, finely chop the bacon along with the onion, celery and carrot. Put the battuto on the fire with a third of the butter and the hare meat, seasoning with salt and pepper. When the meat turns brown, sprinkle the flour on top. Wait a few seconds before adding the brown stock, then simmer until done. Add the rest of the butter and the nutmeg before serving.

Prepare the pappardelle or the strisce in salted water. Drain, and then toss with the stew and Parmesan cheese.

If you have no fillets, use hare legs instead.

Here is another, simpler recipe that uses the same amounts of pasta and hare meat.

Make a battuto with 50 grams (about 1-2/3 ounces) of fatty pro-sciutto, a quarter of an onion, celery, carrot, and very little parsley. Put on the fire with 40 grams (about 1-1/2 ounces) of butter, and when it begins to brown, toss in the hare meat cut in chunks, seasoning with salt and pepper. Allow to brown, and then finish cooking in broth and tomato sauce (recipe 6) or tomato paste, which you will adding little by little, making sure that at the end there is a lot of liquid left in the pot. When the meat is done, remove it from the sauce, and mince into small but not tiny bits with a mezzaluna.

Prepare, as the French say, a roux, or as I would say, a paste with 30 grams (about 1 ounce) of butter and a tablespoon of flour.
Put on the fire and when the paste begins to turn a golden brown add it to the minced meat and the sauce, adding another 30 grams (about 1 ounce) of butter and the dash of nutmeg. Use this sauce to season the pasta; add Parmesan cheese. And do not reproach me for recommending the use of nutmeg in many of these dishes. In my opinion it goes well with them; if, however, you do not like it, you know what to do.

300 grams (about 10-1/2 ounces) ofricotta cheese

50 grams (about 1-2/3 ounces) of grated Parmesan cheese

2 eggs

boiled Swiss chard, as much as you can hold in your hand

a dash of nutmeg and the usual spices

salt, to taste

Pass the ricotta through a sieve; if it is too liquid, first squeeze it dry in a cheesecloth.

Cut the stalks away from the chard, steam, dry well and chop finely with a mezzaluna.

Make a firm dough with all these ingredients. Take spoonfuls of this dough and drop them on a layer of flour which you will have spread out on a pastry board. Roll each dollop well in the flour, giving it the round, oblong shape of croquettes. With these amounts you can make about two dozen ravioli. To cook them, toss them in a pot of unsalted water that is at a full boil. Remove them from the water with a slotted wooden spoon, to keep them dry. Season either with sauce or cheese and butter. Serve as a first course or as a side dish with a beef stew.

These ravioli cook fast and are done as soon as they become firm Cook them only a few at a time and they will not fall apart.
²⁴

Because of their climate, which requires very substantial fare, and perhaps also because they have been so long accustomed to heavy foods, the Romagnoli tend to cook their vegetables in a way that makes them as pleasant as smoke in the eyes. Indeed, I have often heard people cry out in restaurants: “Waiter, some boiled meat please, but mind you, no spinach.” Or, pointing to the spinach, “with that you can make a good poultice for your bottom.”

Thus, leaving out chard and spinach, here is the recipe for ravioli Romagna style:

150 grams (about 5-1/4 ounces) ofricotta cheese

50 grams (about 1-2/3 ounces) of flour

40 grams (about 1-1/3 ounces) of grated Parmesan cheese

1 egg

1 egg yolk

salt, to taste

Prepare a firm dough with all the ingredients and pour it on a pastry board sprinkled with flour. Roll it into a cylindrical shape, which you will then cut into 14 or 15 pieces of equal size, molding them in the usual way as you go along. Boil for two or three minutes in unsalted water and season with cheese and brown stock, or serve as a side dish with a stew or a
fricandeau
.

Actually, these should not be called ravioli, as true ravioli are not made with meat and are not wrapped in pastry shells.

1/2 breast of capon or pullet

1 lamb’s brain

a few lamb sweetbreads

1 chicken liver

Put all these ingredients on the fire with some butter, and when they change color, finish cooking in brown stock. Remove them from the sauce and, using a mezzaluna, mince the meat very finely together with a thin slice of untrimmed prosciutto. Then add a little spinach, boiled and passed, through a sieve, some grated Parmesan, a dash of nutmeg and two egg yolks. Mix well and then make dumplings, which you will wrap in pasta dough like the cappelletti Romagna style described in recipe 7, or even in a simpler fashion. With these quantities, you can make about 70 ravioli.

Serve as a pasta dish with cheese and butter, or with a sauce, or in broth as a soup.

This is an appetizing meatless pasta dish. Use medium-size spaghetti, which are preferable to those double-bass strings, which are excellent if you have the stomach of a lumberjack. 350 grams (about 12-1/4 ounces) are more than enough to feed four people with a normal appetite, and for this amount of pasta five anchovies should suffice. Wash, remove all spines and scales, and mince the anchovies with a mezzaluna, then put them on the fire with a generous amount of fine olive oil, adding a pinch of pepper. Do not let them sizzle, and when the anchovies start to get hot, add 50 grams (about 1-2/3 ounces) of butter, a little tomato sauce (recipe 6) or tomato paste, as you take them off the fire. Use this sauce to dress the spaghetti cooked in lightly salted water, making sure they turn out al dente.

500 grams (about 1 pound) of spaghetti

300 grams (about 10-1/2 ounces) of hake (or codfish
)

60 grams (about 2 ounces) of butter

4 tablespoons of olive oil

4 tablespoons of Marsala wine

a dash of nutmeg

Chop a medium-sized onion and squeeze it in your hands to remove its sharpness. Put it on the fire with the olive oil and when it begins to brown, throw in the hake cut into chunks. Season with salt and pepper. As soon as the fish begins to brown, pour in some tomato sauce (recipe 6) or tomato paste diluted with water, and allow to cook. Then pass through a sieve, moistening the pieces of fish, if necessary, with a little hot water to extract all the pulp. Put the pureed fish back on the fire together with the butter, the Marsala wine and the dash of nutmeg. Unless the sauce is too watery and needs to cook down, as soon as it begins to boil pour it on top of the spaghetti, which you have boiled in salted water. Season with Parmesan cheese.