Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well (55 page)

They also go well with eggs. Beat the eggs and season them with salt and pepper. Put an appropriate amount of butter on the fire, and when it has melted, pour in the eggs and shortly thereafter the thinly sliced truffles, stirring until cooked.

Everyone knows about the aphrodisiacal properties of this food, so I will refrain from speaking about it, though I could tell some very amusing stories. It seems that truffles were discovered for the first time in the Perigord region of France, under Charles V.

I have preserved truffles for quite a long time, but not always successfully, in this way. sliced very thin, dried over the fire, seasoned with salt and pepper, covered with olive oil and then put on the fire just until the oil is heated through. Raw truffles are sometimes stored in rice to impart their fragrance to the rice.

This dish does not require much thinking about, but only good taste, to get the amounts right. When prepared properly, it is an excellent accompaniment for boiled meats.

By pearl onions I mean the white ones that are a little larger than a walnut. Peel them, remove any superfluous parts, and scald in salted water. For about 300 grams (about 10-1/2 ounces) of onions, put 40 grams (about 1-1/3 ounces) of sugar in a saucepan on the fire without any water. When the sugar has melted, add 15 grams (about 1/2 an ounce) of flour. Stir constantly with a wooden spoon, and when the mixture has turned reddish-brown add 2/3 of a glass of vinegar water a little at a time. Let the liquid boil until any lumps that may have formed have dissolved. Then toss in the onions and shake the pan frequently; do not stir them with the spoon, because they will break apart. Taste before serving, because if they need more sugar or vinegar you are still in time to add some.

Peel the onions, cut off the tops and bottoms evenly, toss into boiling salted water and boil for ten minutes. Sauté a bit of butter, and when it has turned golden brown arrange the onions evenly in the pan and season with salt and pepper. When they have browned on one side, turn them over and then moisten with brown stock, thickening the sauce with a pinch of flour mixed with butter.

If you do not have any brown stock, cook them as follows. After you have boiled them and plunged them into cold water, place them in a pan with a
bouquet garni
, a small slice of prosciutto, a bit of butter, and a ladleful of broth. Season with pepper and a little salt, cover with very thin slices of salt pork and then cover these with a piece of paper greased with butter. Finish cooking with fire above and below, and serve as a side dish, pouring the reduced sauce that is left in the pan over them.

After boiling the onions as in the preceding recipe, saute them in butter, season with salt and pepper, moisten with the broth from the cotechino, and enhance with some vinegar and sugar. For 28 to 30 pearl onions, the following amounts should do: 50 grams (about 1 2/3 ounces) of butter, half a ladle of skimmed broth from a cotechino sausage, half a tablespoon of vinegar, and one teaspoon of sugar.

At banquets, the ancients used to wear crowns made of celery plants, believing that this would neutralize the fumes of wine.

Celery is pleasing to the taste because of its special flavor; for this reason, and because it does not cause flatulence, it merits a place among the healthy vegetables. Select celery with a thick stalk, and serve only the white stalks and stems, which are the tenderest parts.

Here are three different ways to cook celery. For the first two, you should make the pieces 10 centimeters (about 4 inches) long, and for the third, only 5 centimeters (about 2 inches). For all three methods, you should trim the rib, cut it crosswise, and leave it attached to the stalk; then boil in salted water for no more than five minutes and strain.

1st method
. Sauté the celery lightly in butter, then cook with brown stock and add grated Parmesan cheese when you are about to send it to the table.

2nd method
. For between 200 and 250 grams (about 7 to 8-4/5 ounces) of raw celery, put 30 grams (about 1 ounce) of butter in a saucepan with a little battuto made of 30 grams (about 1 ounce) of untrimmed prosciutto finely chopped along with a quarter of a medium-sized onion. Add two cloves and bring to a boil. When the onion has turned golden, add some stock and continue cooking. Then strain well, and put the sauce in a pan where the celery stalks have been arranged. Season with a dash of pepper—salt is not necessary—and serve with the sauce.

3rd method
. Roll the celery in flour, coat with the sauce from recipe 156, and fry in lard or oil; or, better yet, after rolling the celery in flour, dip it in egg, coat with bread crumbs, and fry. This last method for cooking celery is better than the others if you serve the celery as a side dish with stewed meats; you can pour the sauce from the meat over the celery.

Use white ribs of celery, cutting them into small pieces about 2 centimeters (about 1/2 an inch) long. Boil for five minutes in salted water, then sauté lightly in butter. Bind with the bechamel sauce in recipe 137, kept rather thick, and season with grated Parmesan cheese.

As a side dish with “zampone,”
⁶⁸
lentils should first be cooked in water, then seasoned with butter and brown stock. If you have no brown stock, boil the lentils with a
bouquet garni
. When done, strain well, and saute in a battuto of untrimmed prosciutto, a bit of butter, and a little onion. When the onion is nice and golden, add one or two ladles of the skimmed broth from a cotechino sausage or zampone. Let boil a while, strain, and reheat the lentils in this sauce, adding another bit of butter, salt, and pepper.

If the cotechino is not nice and fresh, use broth.

This dish could be called
purée
of lentils, as the French do, but Rigutini
⁶⁹
tells us that the real word in Italian is “passato,” which can be applied to any type of vegetables or legumes, including potatoes. So, to make a “past” rather than a “present”
⁷⁰
with lentils, put the lentils in water with a little bit of butter and when they are cooked, but not mushy, pass them through a sieve. Make a little battuto with onion (not too much, because its flavor should not overpower the others), parsley, celery, and carrot; put it on the fire with just enough butter, and when it is golden brown, stop the cooking with a ladleful of broth, which could be the skimmed broth from a cotechino. Strain, and serve the lentils seasoned with this sauce, not forgetting to add salt and pepper. Keep in mind that the consistency should be as thick as possible.

Remove the tough leaves from the artichokes, cut off the tips, and peel the stalk. Cut them into four parts, or six at the most if they are large, put them on the fire with butter in proportion to their size, and season with salt and pepper. Shake the pan to turn the pieces, and when they have absorbed a good part of the melted butter, cover with broth and cook until done, then strain them. Keep the liquid in the pan, and add a pinch of finely chopped parsley, one or two spoonfuls of very fine bread crumbs, lemon juice, and more salt and pepper if necessary. Let this mixture simmer a little, while stirring it. Then remove the pan from the fire, and when the sauce has stopped boiling, add one or two egg yolks, depending upon the number of artichokes, and put it back on the fire for a little while with some more broth to make it smooth. Toss the artichoke pieces into this mixture to warm them up again, and serve as a side dish especially with boiled meats.

If you like the taste of artichokes with the aroma of calamint,
⁷¹
here is how you should proceed. Remove all the inedible leaves from the artichokes and cut them into four parts each, or into six parts if they are large. Dredge in flour and put them on the fire in a copper skillet with oil in proportion to the size and number of pieces; season with salt and pepper. When you have browned them, add a little battuto made of a clove of garlic, or only half a clove if you are cooking only a few artichokes, and a good pinch of fresh calamint. When they have absorbed the oil, finish cooking with tomato sauce or tomato paste diluted in water.

They can be served as a side dish, or eaten alone.

In Florence this is what they call artichokes cooked simply in the following way. Remove only the small, useless leaves near the stalk, and cut off the stalk. Trim the top with a knife, and loosen the inner leaves. Place them upright in a pot, along with the whole, peeled stalks; season with salt, pepper, and oil, all in good measure. Cook them, keeping them covered, and when they are nice and brown, pour a little bit of water into the pan to finish cooking.

Cut off the stalks at the base, remove the small outer leaves, and rinse. Then trim the top as in the preceding recipe, and open up the inner leaves so that you can remove the choke with a small knife. Discard the hairy part of the choke, if any, and keep only the small, tender surrounding leaves, which you will add to the stuffing. To make enough stuffing for, say, six artichokes, use the tiny tender leaves just mentioned, 50 grams (about 1-2/3 ounces) of fatty prosciutto, 1/4 of a spring onion, very little garlic (as much as you could gather on the tip of your fingernail), a few parsley and celery leaves, a pinch of dried mushrooms soaked in water, a small handful of crustless day-old bread crumbled into small pieces, and a pinch of pepper.

First chop the prosciutto finely with a knife, then chop all the ingredients together with a mezzaluna and stuff the artichokes with the mixture, seasoning and cooking the artichokes as in the preceding recipe. Some French cookbooks suggest parboiling the artichokes before stuffing them, which I do not approve of, because it seems to me that this would make them lose the best thing about them—their special fragrance.

For 6 artichokes, make the following stuffing:

100 grams (about 3-1/2 ounces) of lean milk-fed veal

30 grams (about 1 ounce) of fatty prosciutto

the soft inner core of 1 artichoke

1/4 of an onion

some parsley leaves

a pinch of dried mushrooms, soaked in water

a pinch of crumbled bread

a pinch of grated Parmesan cheese

salt, pepper, and a dash of spices

After browning the artichokes in oil, add a little water and cover with a damp cloth kept in place by the lid of the pan. The steam, enveloping the artichokes on all sides, will cook them better.

This is a strange pasticcio, but many people might like it, so I will describe if.

12 artichokes

150 grams (about 5-1/4 ounces) of shelled peas

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

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

brown stock to taste

Remove all of the inedible leaves from the artichokes, cut them into two pieces, and remove the hairy choke or core, if any. Parboil both the artichokes and the peas for a few minutes in salted water, then drop in cold water. Strain, dry well, and cut the sections of artichoke in two again. Put both the artichokes and the peas on the fire with 40 grams (about 1-1/3 ounces) of the butter, season with salt and pepper, and cook with the brown stock until done. With the remaining 10 grams (about 1/3 of an ounce) of butter, one tablespoon
of flour, and the brown stock, make a sort of bechamel sauce to bind the vegetables. Place the artichokes and peas in an ovenproof pan and arrange them in layers with the bechamel sauce and the Parmesan cheese.