briciole

minestra di fave e orzo

fava bean and barley soup

Last Sunday, for a dinner with friends, I prepared three soups. One of them was the result of my first attempt at cooking dried fava beans (fave secche).

While I am very familiar with fresh fava beans (fave fresche), and prepare them often when they are in season, I had never had the chance to meet the dried kind up close and personal.

When I saw dried fava beans at the farmers' market, I knew the time had come for me to experiment with them. Melanie and Kevin, the young couple behind Shakefork Community Farm (the grain CSA of which I am a shareholder) had the fava beans for sale at their booth. Melanie mentioned that she had prepared a soup with fava beans and their hulless barley (orzo nudo, literally, naked barley), so I went home with a suggestion that sounded very appealing.

Since I learned from Melanie and Kevin to toast grains before cooking them, I have established a routine to cook barley: I rinse half a cup of barley, then put it in a skillet and warm up over medium heat, shaking the skillet to prevent the barley from getting scorched. After a short while, the popping starts. I keep shaking the skillet until the popping subsides (not all the groats will pop). I let the barley cool briefly then put it in a saucepan with 1.5 cups of water, bring to a boil and cook, covered, until tender (42-45 minutes). I prepare barley this way independently of having a recipe in mind for using it, since even simply cooked as described, it makes a nice side dish or breakfast cereal.

I soaked one cup of dried fava beans in plenty of water overnight (16 hours or so), then drained and removed the skin. (A longer soaking may be needed, depending on the beans, so you may want to allocate 24 hours to this step.) I have seen recipes that use whole fava beans, but I don't like the skin and so I take the extra step of removing it. This is usually easy and I accomplish it by twisting each bean to break the skin. Sometimes I use my thumbnail to break the skin and then twist.

Here is the list of the ingredients I used for the soup:

• half a cup of hulless barley, rinsed, toasted, cooked in 1.5 cups of water until tender and drained (see above for details)
• one cup of fava beans, soaked overnight or longer, as needed, skin removed (ditto)
• half of a smallish onion and one small shallot, finely chopped
• olive oil
• two cloves of garlic (due spicchi d'aglio), minced
• a cup of my homemade chicken stock
• a cup of water plus more as needed
• salt and freshly ground pepper
• two tablespoons of fresh parsley (prezzemolo), finely chopped (from my herb garden)
• a teaspoon of fresh dill (aneto), finely chopped (ditto)

And here it the procedure I used to prepare the soup:

• Warm up a bit of olive oil in a saucepan and then add onion, shallot and garlic
• Cook for a few minutes, then add fava beans, stock and water
• Bring to a boil and cook, covered, for half an hour
• Stir and start mashing the fava beans with a wooden spoon
• Continue cooking, adding hot water if needed. At regular intervals, stir and mash fava beans.
• Within 10 minutes, the fava beans should be cooked and the mashing will have created a purée with the pieces of fava beans providing some texture
• Add barley and continue cooking for 5 minutes
• Add salt and pepper, to taste
• Add parsley and dill (but feel free to omit the latter, if you are not a dill lover or don't have fresh dill available)
• Stir, let sit for a minute or two, then serve

I made a rather dense soup, which became denser after spending a night in the fridge. Use water as needed to dilute the soup to your taste. The small portion in the photo at the top is from the leftover soup: I added to it some water while warming it up.

I liked the soup (it was actually the favorite soup of one of our guests). I will make it again, probably adjusting the recipe, as I test some variations on the basic theme. It feels quite appropriate for winter dinners.

A bit more about barley before I conclude.

Hulless (or hull-less) barley is a type of barley in which the tough inedible outer hull adheres losely to the kernel, so that when this barley is harvested, the outer hull usually falls off. Because hulless barley requires minimal cleaning, most of the brand and endosperm is left intact and the germ is present.

Hulled barley is barley that has been minimally processed to remove only the tough inedible outer hull.

Either type of barley is whole grain (integrale) and therefore a healthy choice.

This is my submission for My Legume Love Affair 27, the current edition of the popular, legume-centered event created by Susan, The Well-Seasoned Cook, and hosted this month by the creator herself.

This post contains the roundup of the event.

Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post:

minestra di fave e orzo

or launch the minestra di fave e orzo audio file [mp3].

[Depending on your set-up, the audio file will be played within the browser or by your mp3 player application. Please, contact me if you encounter any problems.]

Project Food Blog, Weekend Herb Blogging and Daring Bakers

I certainly had a busy weekend, between tasting variations on the theme of salsa created by local schoolchildren (more on this in the future), making macaroni and cheese for the first and second time in my life, preparing three different kinds of soup for a dinner with friends (more on this in the future as well), making a new kind of cheese (no other detail available for sharing at this time), and writing posts for various events.

I also had an extremely busy Monday, and, as a result, I have been away from my blog on a day in which a lot was happening on it. Hence, I decided to write a summary with links to the most recent posts to clarify what is happening when, and to help readers make sense of my recent output.

On Sunday, I published my answer to the second challenge of the Project Food Blog by foodbuzz. Asked to prepare a classic dish not from my own culinary tradition that would push me outside my comfort zone, I turned "never" into "now" and made Baked Macaroni and Cheese using two of my homemade cheeses.

I know that macaroni and cheese strikes a chord with many people, starting with my husband: take a look at what I have made and let your memories bring a smile to your face.

Then, this week I have the pleasure of once again hosting Weekend Herb Blogging, the venerable event started by Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen, and now organized by Haalo of Cook (almost) Anything at Least Once. We are getting close to the fifth birthday of WHB. You will find the detailed announcement of edition #253 in this post. I have already received the first contribution, and I am looking forward to getting a lot more until the deadline of Sunday, October 3, at 2 pm Pacific.

Finally, on Monday, as it regularly happens on the 27th of each month, the food blogosphere learned what the Daring Bakers had been working on during the previous days: for September it was decorated cookies. My minimalist-style realization of this month's challenge is in this post.

That's it for now. You are invited to read, comment, vote, contribute and otherwise enjoy the bread crumbs (briciole) I scattered around the blog world during the past weekend.

 

frollino

The September 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mandy of What the Fruitcake?! Mandy challenged everyone to make Decorated Sugar Cookies based on recipes from Peggy Porschen and The Joy of Baking.

The recipes Mandy provided for the different elements of the challenge can be found here.

What I made looks different from what you see on the Daring Bakers web site due to our household's dietary needs. Before I move on to describe what I did and why, I'd like to say a few words about icing. The Italian expression that corresponds to the English "the icing on the cake" is la ciliegina sulla torta (literally, the glacé cherry on the cake). To me, this is emblematic of the differences between English and Italian pastry traditions. One day, I will explain my thought in more details: for now, I will concentrate on my frollini.

Printer-friendly version of briciole's recipe for frollini

A frollino is a biscotto di pasta frolla, a cookie made with sweet shortcrust pastry (or sweet tart dough). Frollini are popular in Italy, one of the kind of biscotti that Italian eat for breakfast or a snack, as I explained in this post. I usually make pasta frolla to make a crust for a tart and use the leftover dough to make cookies. This time, I made only cookies, and had fun cutting them in various shapes. The recipe for my variation on the pasta frolla theme is in this recent post.

When you are ready to bake the cookies, prepare a baking sheet lined with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper (carta da forno). You will have enough cookies to make two baking shifts, so take  a bit more than half the dough and put the rest back into the fridge. Roll the dough to 4 mm thickness (a bit more than 1/8 inch) and cut as desired. Put the baking sheet with the first batch of cookies into the fridge for 10-15 minutes, while you heat the oven to 350 F.

Put the cookies in the oven. I check the cookies after 15 minutes and then carefully monitor them, as they can easily become overbaked. Cool the cookies on a wire rack. Repeat with the second batch of cookies. If you have two baking sheets, you can cut and chill the second batch of cookies while the first one is in the oven.

The challenge required us to decorate the cookies with the theme of September, "whatever that means to you." September is when my husband and I celebrate the anniversary of the day we met. So, I started by making heart-shaped cookies (biscotti a forma di cuore). I then made turtle-shaped cookie. As I recounted in a previous post, my husband loves turtles, especially the sea turtles (tartarughe marine) that we are fortunate enough to have seen many times in their natural habitat (swimming, eating, or taking a nap). I also made cat-shaped cookies, since my husband is a cat lover and he taught me to love cats (gatti).

I recognize the great qualities icing has for decorating, but iced cookies are not eaten in our household. I therefore decided to use some white chocolate to add a touch of decoration to some of the cookies. I melted a small amount of white chocolate in a small bowl over a pot of steaming water, making sure the bowl did not touch the water, as explained in the book "Chocolate" by Linda Collister (a gift from a friend).

I didn't want to dip the cookies into the chocolate, and my attempts at creating some sort of design by spreading the melted chocolate did not go well. Still, one can interpret the small dot in the middle of the heart-shaped cookie in the photo as a stylized ciliegina sulla torta. I really like my frollini plain. You can eat them as a snack, or dip them into tea or caffelatte. Grab one or two, sit down, relax and concentrate on every bite: it's a celebration of the present moment.

A special thank you goes to our host for her choice and her efforts. It was a nice challenge. I hope you will take the time to go around and look at the creative output of my talented fellow Daring Bakers.

Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words and expressions mentioned in the post:

frollino

or launch the frollino audio file [mp3].

[Depending on your set-up, the audio file will be played within the browser or by your mp3 player application. Please, contact me if you encounter any problems.]

"macaroni and cheese" al forno

baked macaroni and cheese (a dish I thought I would never make — but I did, using my homemade cheese in it)

[If you like what I made, you can vote for me by clicking on the Project Food Blog widget on the right, or by clicking on the ♥ [heart] on the banner at the top of this view of my post.]

The first time I listened to my husband wax poetic about Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, I knew he had a long way to go — food-wise. He has indeed gone a long way, and I have also progressed substantially in my cooking skills, which were basically non-existent when we first met, 18 years ago. Still, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese has a special place in my husband's heart, as it speaks to him about his college days and his acquired sense of independence, which included the ability to feed himself.

Once I moved to California, I learned that macaroni and cheese is comfort food for body and soul, a dish close to the heart of many people, a theme on which countless variations have been developed. So, while I could dismiss the packaged version with a smile and a kiss on my husband's cheek, I could not subject the real thing to the same treatment: I respected the tradition and acknowledged that I would never attempt to replicate such a treasured dish.

So, when I found myself challenged, as part of the Project Food Blog by foodbuzz, to prepare a classic not from my culinary tradition and that would push me outside my comfort zone, macaroni and cheese was the immediate choice. After all, this was a dish I had many times told myself I would never attempt. Mai dire mai, as the saying goes (never say never).

Due to a number of concurrent commitments, I knew I would only have time to make the dish twice. But before I embarked in my adventure, two things had to happen. First, my husband insisted that I take a close look at a box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, not just the outside, but its contents. He did not ask me to actually prepare the dish, just to have a look at the components. To oblige him, I went to the grocery store and looked for the treasured item. I was greeted by row upon row of different brands and flavors, a testimony to the enduring success of the formula. I focused on the Kraft products' section and had difficulty choosing a box. My requirement was that it had to be as close as possible to the one my husband bought in his college years. In the end, I settled on the White Cheddar version¹. If you follow the link, you can see the many options a buyer has nowadays, from Organic Cheddar to Extreme Cheese Explosion (the latter a rather threatening offering, if you ask me).

The second thing was some background reading, which turned out to be difficult, as it usually happens in the case of beloved dishes with a rather long tradition. In the interest of time, and having by now accepted the fact that this would probably be only the first episode of a long-running adventure à la recherche (in search) of a recipe that truly satisfies me, I focused on four sources:

• the recipe for Baked Macaroni and Cheese in the book 200 Easy Homemade Cheese Recipes by Debra Amrein-Boyes
• a recipe for Baked Macaroni and Cheese by Alton Brown
• this article from the New York Times
• a recipe for Baked Macaroni and Cheese from About.com: Southern Food

The two parameters I established before choosing a recipe were:

1. I would use my homemade cheese (formaggio fatto in casa)
2. I would strive for a balance between pasta and cheese

Even after reading the New York Times article, I went for a white sauce and cooked pasta, as in all three recipes listed above. However, in my second attempt, I forwent the bread crumb layer in favor of additional cheese.

Without further ado, here is the list of ingredients and the way I combined them to make my version of this American classic.

For the white sauce:

• two tablespoon flour (I use 1 tablespoon all-purpose and one tablespoon white rice flour)
• two cups of 2% milk
• 4 oz. of Wensleydale cheese of my own production, shredded

Follow the link to read about the long history of this traditional English cheese. The main reason for my choice being that I thought it would melt well, which turned out to be the case, so the resulting cheese sauce was nice and smooth, perfect in terms of texture.

To make the white sauce, I kind of used Debra Amrein-Boyes' list of ingredients and kind of followed the instructions in the Alton Brown's recipe. The first time, I used 1 teaspoon powdered mustard, half a bay leaf and 1/8 teaspoon of paprika, seasonings suggested by Alton Brown. The second time, I used only paprika, as in the About.com recipe.

For the pasta:

• 10 oz. pasta, elbows the first time, medium-size shells the second time, cooked al dente and drained

After mixing pasta and cheese sauce, I poured into a buttered 2-qt Pyrex rectangular baking dish.

For the topping:

• the first time, I melted 2 tablespoons of butter and stirred in it half a cup of fresh bread crumbs (literally: briciole, but in Italian we say pangrattato, literally: grated bread) from my homemade maize bread (recipe by Dan Lepard, from "The Handmade Loaf"), then distributed the butter-coated bread crumbs over the pasta
• the second time, I cut into small pieces about 2 oz. of my homemade Fourme d'Ambert, a lovely blue-veined cheese, then added to it two tablespoons of fresh cheese curds (Sunday morning is my cheese-making time) and distributed over the pasta

I placed the baking dish into the oven heated to 350 F and baked the first time for 20 minutes, the second time for 25 minutes.

The verdict. My husband was first incredulous, then touched by my unannouced foray into the macaroni and cheese field. He deemed both attempts better than anything he ever made for himself as a college student. He liked the flavor of both versions, but had a slight preference for the bread crumb crusted one. I was satisfied with the balance between pasta and cheese sauce, as I was looking for a quantity of sauce that would not drown the pasta. After all, I am Italian, and I like to taste my pasta.

The first sauce was a bit more flavorful, due to the additional seasonings. Contrary to my husband, I preferred the version without bread crumbs (a difference of opinions easily addressed in future versions of the dish). My Wensleydale cheese does not have a pronouced flavor, so the overall quality of the dish was delicacy. I must admit that I liked it, though before saying the last word, I need to replicate the recipe using different types of cheeses.

You see, I stepped out of my comfort zone and now I am ready to push further.

This is my answer to the Challenge #2: The Classics, part of the Project Food Blog by foodbuzz. Voting started on Monday, September 27, 2010 and will continue until Thursday, September 30.

You can vote for me by clicking on the Project Food Blog widget, or by clicking on the heart ♥ on the banner at the top of this view of my post.

I am virtually sending to all of you a nice piece of my "macaroni and cheese" al forno made with formaggio fatto in casa and plenty of love. In the words of Debra Amrein-Boyes:

When made from scratch with your own handmade cheese, this is comfort food with flair.

Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post:

"macaroni and cheese" al forno

or launch the "macaroni and cheese" al forno audio file [mp3].

[Depending on your set-up, the audio file will be played within the browser or by your mp3 player application. Please, contact me if you encounter any problems.]

¹ The photo is for demonstration only: it is not an advertisement. I do not have a business relationship with Kraft or the grocery store mentioned in the post.

Annuncio: weekend di erbe aromatiche numero 253

Announcement: Weekend Herb Blogging #253

This week I have once again the exciting honor of hosting Weekend Herb Blogging, an event started by Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen, and now organized by Haalo of Cook (almost) Anything at Least Once.

The rules for participating are detailed on this page. You can download the logo on the left to add to your post.

I will be delighted to receive your contribution to the event at simosite AT mac DOT com. Please, specify WHB #253 in the title of the message.

In your email please include the following information:

• Your Name
• Your Blog Name/URL
• Your Post URL
• Your Location
• Attach a photo (maximum width 400px)

Sometimes messages get lost in cyberspace, so if you don't receive an acknowledgment of your email or a comment on your post, please contact me again by leaving a comment on this post.

The deadline for submitting your contribution is Sunday October 3, 2010 at 2 pm PDT (5 pm EDT).

I will publish a roundup of the event on Monday, October 4. Ready? Go!

cavolfiore col formaggio

cauliflower with cheese

For the current edition of Cook the Books, we are reading Climbing The Mango Trees: A Memoir of a Childhood in India by Madhur Jaffrey. The title clearly says what the book is about. What it doesn't say is that the volume includes a set of 32 recipes, which, I must admit, I browsed first (I guess that means I started reading the book from the end). Next, I will admit that I chose the recipe before knowing where it was mentioned in the book. It's that as soon as I read the title, Grandmother’s Cauliflower with Cheese (Cheese Vali Gobi), I knew I would make it, because I like cauliflower and I am always looking for recipes where i can use my homemade cheese (formaggio fatto in casa).

The recipe is mentioned towards the end of chapter 12:

In the dining room, there was a long, formal dining table and, joined onto it, two other dining tables of decreasing quality. There was a chair for my grandfather at the head of the formal table, a chair for my grandmother to his left, and more chairs for the grown-ups on either side. Farther down, at the tables of lesser quality generally reserved for children, chairs gave way to benches. We children were so far away from the head of the table that I did not know until I was told years later by my aunt Saran Bhua that my grandmother was a vegetarian and that she had invented the East-West dish spicy cauliflower with cheese that we all loved so much.

In the introduction to the recipe, Jaffrey says that she doesn't have her grandmother's exact recipe:

I never asked her, being too young at the time to know better. But the recipe that follows is a good approximation... and utterly delicious.

I can perfectly relate to the contents of the first sentence. I wish I had known better and asked for the recipes of dishes I enjoyed as a child (right now, for no particular reason, I am thinking of my aunt Lucia's giardiniera, pickled vegetable medley).

Back to "the East-West dish spicy cauliflower with cheese," my rendition is a variation of Jaffrey's approximation, since it includes some changes to the list of ingredients. Jaffrey adds a note regarding the chiles to use. I had just oven-roasted three Round of Hungary peppers (peperoni) — a.k.a., pimento cheese peppers, a sweet variety that has thick flesh and is my current favorite pepper to roast — and decided to chop them and add them to the cauliflower.

As you can see in the photo of the dish, I used some white and some purple cauliflower, so the dish was quite colorful (both cauliflower and peppers were acquired at our farmers' market). Here is the list of the other adjustments I made to the given recipe:

• fresh turmeric (curcuma), grated, like the ginger (zenzero), using my Microplane grater
• a small, whole peperoncino (red hot chili pepper), instead of the hot green chiles and cayenne pepper
• half a tablespoon of ground coriander (coriandolo), instead of one tablespoon
• fresh parsley (prezzemolo) from my herb garden, instead of cilantro (which to my husband tastes like aluminum)
• no cream
• half a cup of grated homemade Montasio cheese of my own production (two slices of which are portrayed in the photo below), since I did not have any Cheddar cheese ready for consumption

I don't know how different my rendition is from the dish mentioned in the book. What I know is that I loved what came out of my oven and will certainly make it again. In fact, I already have some peppers in the fridge that I have roasted with the idea of adding them to my next realization of this recipe.

This is my contribution to the current edition of Cook the Books, hosted by Deb of Kahakai Kitchen. You can find the guidelines for participating in the event here, and here is the announcement.

This post contains the roundup of the event.

Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post:

cavolfiore col formaggio

or launch the cavolfiore col formaggio audio file [mp3].

[Depending on your set-up, the audio file will be played within the browser or by your mp3 player application. Please, contact me if you encounter any problems.]

Novel Food #11: the finale (one serving)

The fall equinox marks the changing of the season. The light has already acquired a warmer tone here and winter squashes and apples have started contributing their cheerful colors to the farmers' market offerings. I have already discussed pumpkin patches with a couple of our local farmers, but in the meantime I am roasting tomatoes and peppers, wishing they will last a little longer. 

About a month ago, Lisa of Champaign Taste and I announced the 11th edition of Novel Food, the literary/culinary event that we created three years ago, following a lively exchange of messages about the novels, whose protagonist is Inspector Salvo Montalbano, a Sicilian police inspector with a passion for good food.

Novel Food is about literary works (prose or poetry) that inspire the preparation of dishes. Like all its predecessors, the current edition presents an interesting set of both readables and edibles, of which I will introduce half. Please, follow me on a short literary/culinary tour.

As in previous editions of this event, Ruhama of rumahama takes us to the world of children's literature. This time she tells us about R. L. LaFevers' Flight of the Phoenix (Book One of Nathaniel Fludd Beastologist). The orphan Nathaniel is sent to live with his last known living relative, who brings him with her on a trip to watch the phoenix die and be reborn in Arabia.

En route, they stop in Budapest, where Nathaniel is given a bowl of stew for supper. Ruhama was thus inspired to make Goulash Soup, "warm and comforting, and great as a leftover meal."

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Tracy of Vanilla Bean Cafe read Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle with her book club and then they had a potluck dinner: "In keeping with Kingsolver’s theme about eating local, we attempted to buy all the ingredients and products in season from local vendors."

From that evening, Tracy shares with us Butternut Bean Soup, "which a bookclub member decorated so elegantly with local organic thyme" (see photo) and Sweet Potato Quesadillas, in flavor and texture likely the best quesadillas she's ever had.

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Marta of Mangiare è un pò come viaggiare (Eating is a bit like traveling) read Marsha Mehran's Rosewater and Soda Bread (in Italian: Pane e acqua di rose), a novel of three sisters, two countries and the language of food. The two countries are Iran and Ireland: the three sisters flees the first and take refuge in the second.

The detailed description of Tacheen in the book inspired Marta to reproduce the layered dish of baked saffron rice and chicken (post in Italian). Ingredients include almonds, spinach and yogurt (here you can find an English version of the recipe.

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In reading Elio Vittorini's Conversazione in Sicilia (Conversation in Sicily), Cynthia of The Smiling Eggplant found a passage where the protagonist's passion for lentils takes on biblical dimensions, as his mother reminds him that he loved lentils made with onion, dried tomatoes, lard and a twig of rosemary:

"You were like Esau... You would have given away your birthright for a second plate of lentils."

Cynthia labeled her recreation of Vittorini's lentils as "not noteworthy." In her post, you will find an interesting explanation, following an introduction on Sicilians and lentils.

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Simona of briciole (that would be me) read Chourmo, the second volume of Jean-Claude Izzo's Marseilles Trilogy, whose protagonist, Fabio Montale, is a former cop, who loves good food and good wine.What makes Izzo's "work haunting is his extraordinary ability to convey the tastes and smells of Marseilles, and the way memory and obligation dog every step his hero takes."

A reference to fish soup, inspired me to make a version of Bouillabaisse marseillaise.

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My event partner, Lisa of Champaign Taste, read David Fulmer's Chasing the Devil's Tail: A Mystery of Storyville, New Orleans, a story set in late 19th-century New Orleans, whose protagonist, a private detective named Valentin St. Cyr, is half Sicilian and half African-American.

The story inspired her to make Muffuletta "a large, round sandwich filled with meats, cheeses, and olive salad, drenched in olive oil and reeking of garlic." "Yep, it was quite an endeavor to assemble all of the ingredients, but so worth the effort."

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You have not one, but two reasons to go over to Lisa's blog now: to read the details of her submission for the event, and to enjoy her portion of the roundup. Many thanks to all who contributed to our event and to my partner Lisa. As always, the event has provided an excuse to exchange emails and ideas.

The next edition of our event will be next year: we will announce it on our blogs and on other venues (including The Food Blog Diary and Is My Blog Burning?), so stay tuned. In the meantime, read good books (maybe with the next Novel Food in mind), cook good dishes, and otherwise savor life's local and seasonal offerings. Arrivederci!

la sfida di foodbuzz: il mio blog, la mia voce

foodbuzz challenge: my blog, my voice

The secret, per così dire (so to speak) has been revealed in my Project Food Blog profile: behind my decision to start a blog there was the idea of providing audio files to people interested in learning how to pronounce Italian words and expressions related to food. There was no other resource to answer this need, so I stepped in.

The core idea then expanded, and I started presenting recipes, adding photos to my posts, participating in and organizing blog events, and even talking about my travels.

All along, to encourage my efforts was the amazing community around me. To interact with that community is the main reason why I blog, and what makes blogging an important part of my life. Chi l'avrebbe mai detto? (Who would have thought?)

What makes my blog unique is, of course, my voice (voce). You can actually hear my physical voice in the audio files attached to my posts — this being still a unique feature of my blog. And you can read my writing voice in my posts.

Two years ago, something special happened: acting on an impulse, I bought some rennet tablets and tried making cheese at home. It was un colpo di fulmine (love at first sight). Since then, making cheese has been one the joys of my life, an activity that excites me no matter what else is going on in my life (and this year a lot has happened, mostly in the sad events department).

So, to showcase the uniqueness of my blogging personality, I have chosen a set of photos from my cheese-making archive. Do you think what I am doing is quite special? If you do, you can say so by voting for me in the Project Food Blog contest. Voting starts on Monday, September 20, 2010 at 6 am (Pacific Time) and ends on Thursday, September 23, 2010 at 6 pm (Pacific Time).

To vote, click on the Project Food Blog widget, or, if you follow this link, click on the ♥ [heart] symbol at the top of the page. You need to register to vote, so foodbuzz can keep track of the votes. When your vote is registered, a small pop-up appears with the message "Thank you for voting!" and the ♥ [heart] symbol turns red.

A gallery of briciole's formaggi fatti in casa (homemade cheeses)

• 
• 
• 
• 

Left to right:

1. Montasio
2. Jarlsberg
3. Fourme d'Ambert
4. my beloved cheese press

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• 
• 
• 

Left to right:

1. my first hard cheese
2. Gouda before last pressing
3. Gouda in the drying phase
4. Manchego with toasted hazelnuts

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• 
• 

Left to right:

1. mascarpone in the draining phase
2. fromage blanc
3. dipping true ricotta
4. true ricotta just unmolded

And now, the familiar finale:

Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post:

il mio blog, la mia voce

or launch the il mio blog, la mia voce audio file [mp3].

[Depending on your set-up, the audio file will be played within the browser or by your mp3 player application. Please, contact me if you encounter any problems.]

Novel Food #11: bouillabaisse marseillaise (zuppa di pesce alla marsigliese)

In the announcement of the current edition of Novel Food, I wrote: "I am reading Chourmo, a novel by Jean-Claude Izzo (I am actually reading the Italian translation from the original French), the second volume of his Marseilles Trilogy. I won't say more about the book now, because I may choose to feature it..." I have made my choice and here I will tell you a bit more about the novel and its author.

In previous editions of Novel Food, I have written about Salvo Montalbano (more than once) and Pepe Carvalho. Now is the turn of Fabio Montale: how does he fit with the other two?

• As I have written in this post, the creators of the three characters, Andrea Camilleri, Manuel Vázquez Montalbán and Jean-Claude Izzo, respectively, were friends (Vázquez Montalbán and Izzo have died)
• Like Salvo Montalbano and Pepe Carvalho, Fabio Montale loves good food
• Again like Salvo Montalbano and Pepe Carvalho, Fabio Montale lives close to the Mediterranean Sea.

As somewhat of an aside, I like the name Fabio Montale a lot. Fabius was a Roman family name, the nomen of the gens Fabia; Montale is the last name of one of my favorite Italian poets, Nobel laureate Eugenio Montale. Jean-Claude Izzo shares with his character the fact of being the son of immigrant parents. This informs their sensitivity to the conditions of immigrants and their children.

Fabio Montale is the protagonist of three novels by Izzo: Total Chaos, Chourmo and Solea (together called the Marseilles Trilogy). Chourmo is the second one. In the first one (Total Chaos) Montale is a policeman. In Chourmo, he has retired from that job, but ends up investigating a murder, because the victim is the son of a cousin.

Izzo's novels have a strong sense of place. They are rooted in the ancient port city of Marseilles. In the words of one reviewer:

Izzo conveys a very Gallic sense of disenchantment and fatalism. It's a complicated portrait of a city, loving and nostalgic, yet sad and angry.

The New Yorker says:

But what makes his work haunting is his extraordinary ability to convey the tastes and smells of Marseilles, and the way memory and obligation dog every step his hero takes.

What does the title of the novel mean?

He smiled. "And there's the chourmo. Know what that is?"

I knew. Chourmo, a Provençal word derived from chiourme, the rowers in a galley. In Marseilles, we knew all about galleys. No need to kill your mother and father to find yourself in the galleys, just like two centuries ago. No, these days, you just had to be young, whether you were an immigrant or not.

Then, there is the chourmo-spirit:

You weren't just from one neighborhood, one project. You were chourmo. In the same galleys, rowing ! Trying to get out. Together.

A review of the novel and various links are available on this page. Two more pieces of information:

1. The Italian word for chourmo is ciurma
2. French actor Alain Delon played Fabio Montale in the movies based on Izzo's trilogy (here is a sequence from Total Khéops, in French).

Montale owns a small boat and likes to go out in the morning to fish. Food and wine are mentioned throughout the novel. Early in the story, old Fonfon reminds Montale that, as a kid, he only ate soup with croutons (zuppa con i crostini), without any of the fish that Fonfon himself, Montale's father and other friends had caught. This reference put me in the mood for fish soup (zuppa di pesce). Shortly before the climax of the story, Montale thinks about soup — at least he does so in the Italian translation (of which my English version follows):

It was the time when Marseilles stirs. When people ask themselves what kind of soup they will eat tonight. West Indian. Brazilian. African. Arab. Greek. Armenian. Vietnamese. Indian. Provençal. Or from Réunion. There is a bit of everything in the Marseilles melting pot. Something for every taste.

In the English translation, the subject of the sentence is "food" instead of "soup:" I could not find the relevant excerpt of the original French, so I don't what the passage says there (also, the English version has Italian instead of Indian in the passage quoted).

Once I was in the mood for soup, it was a question of deciding which one. Bouillabaisse was a possible choice. However, I wanted an easy version of the traditional zuppa di pesce alla marsigliese. In browsing the web, I found one that I liked in the book The Soup Peddler's Slow and Difficult Soups: Recipes and Reveries by David Ansel. The book was already in my wish list after I made several times (and always enjoyed) the Armenian Apricot Soup — which incidentally would have been also a good choice for the event, since Armenian is in Montale's list. In any case, bent on bouillabaisse, I got the book and besides making Bouillabaisse Marseillaise, I also made Bouktouf, another good fit, since it is described as coming from Algeria.

There are many recipes for Bouillabaisse on the web (for example Julia Child's recipe). I was happy with Ansel's staightforward one, and simplified it further by skipping the rouille and the croutons. It wasn't until I had made it a second time that I realized I had repeated myself, since Pepe Carvalho also inspired me to make fish soup, his caldeirada. What can I say? I like fish soup and I am always willing to try different versions.

You can read the details of the recipe here. I pretty much followed the recipe as written, halving the quantities, as I was making soup for two people, not 8 to 10. Here are the changes I made to the recipe:

• In the freezer, I had some fish stock (brodo di pesce) I had previously made. It was not enough, so I added some water, but the total amount of liquid was a bit less than indicated (based on my personal preference for thick soups)
• I did not have chili powder, so I added a small peperoncino broken into three pieces to the soup. I had forgotten that there was some peperoncino in the fish broth as well, so the resulting soup was a bit on the hot side. The second time I made it, I toned it down.
• I used a can of fire roasted diced tomatoes and a cup of fresh crushed tomatoes (see this video for the technique)
• I did not peel the potatoes (All Red potatoes from the new crop) and cut them into 1/8"-thick rounds
• I chose fish based on what was available at the store, namely rock cod, ling cod (locally caught) and sturgeon; I used only half a pound of mussels, since I am not a big mussel fan; the second time that I made the soup I omitted the mussels in favor of (medium) shrimp.

In David Ansel's words:

The combination of fish stock, saffron and white wine will destroy you. It will leave you weak and helpless and quivering with unrequited desire.

I am not sure I recognize my reaction in this description. I certainly got a second helping and so did my husband.

What about Fabio Montale? After the short passage quoted above, the events move fast towards the final resolution, but not before another reference to food is made. Fabio realizes he is hungry:

I should have eaten before unleashing this mess. [...]

A nice plate of spaghetti all'amatriciana with a glass of red wine. A Tempier rouge, for example, from Bandol. Maybe I'll find it in the hereafter. 

I have the third volume of the trilogy (Solea) on my bookshelf and I am looking forward to reading Montale's adventures in that book.

Update. As you can read in the Comments, Maria Rosa mentions a trip to Marseilles and a visit to Fabio Montale'svplaces. She kindly sent me three photos related to the subject of my post and I am publishing them with her permission. Thank you, Maria Rosa!

Chez Loury is one of the restaurants mentioned by Izzo

Loury's bouillabaisse

Monsieur Loury

This, as mentioned above, is my contribution to the eleventh edition of Novel Food, the literary/culinary event that Lisa of Champaign Taste and I have been co-hosting for some time, since a conversation on the food in Montalbano's novels gave us the idea of marrying literature and food in a blog event.

This post contains my portion of the roundup of the event and a link to Lisa's portion.

Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian (and French) words mentioned in the post (note that I pronounce Fabio Montale in Italian):

bouillabaisse

or launch the bouillabaisse audio file [mp3].

[Depending on your set-up, the audio file will be played within the browser or by your mp3 player application. Please, contact me if you encounter any problems.]

burro di mele alle more

The September 2010 Daring Cooks' challenge was hosted by John of Eat4Fun. John chose to challenge The Daring Cooks to learn about food preservation, mainly in the form of canning and freezing. He challenged everyone to make a recipe and preserve it. John's source for food preservation information was The National Center for Home Food Preservation.

You can find the information on food preservation that John had compiled on this page. Out of the options John offered us, I chose to make Reduced Sugar Apple Butter from The National Center for Home Food Preservation, roughly halving the recipe.

Apple butter is something I didn't know existed until I visited New England with my husband a number of years ago, in early October. I brought back a jar from the trip and used it mostly as an ingredient in baking goods. I actually made apple butter for the first time at the end of last apple season, so I decided that for the Daring Cooks challenge I would make a variation of the basic recipe.

In my freezer, I had a one cup container of frozen blackberry purée from last year. After making blackberry sorbet (sorbetto alle more) and blackberry risotto many times, not to mention some jars of apple and blackberry preserve, I decided to try and preserve the intense flavor and color of blackberries in the freezer. I puréed the blackberries in my food processor and pressed the result through a mesh strainer to remove the pips. It is a bit of work, but I think it is worth the effort. I then froze the result in a two small plastic containers. The right time to use the frozen (surgelato) blackberry purée never came, and then a new blackberry season got under way. When I saw the Daring Cooks challenge, I decided to thaw some of the blackberry purée and add it to apples from the new crop to make a variation on the base recipe.

The photo shows some of the apples I used (organic and locally grown) and the two jars of apple butter I got as result. My list of ingredients:

• slightly more than 2 lbs of apples, unpeeled, cut into eights
• blackberry purée, approximately 3/4 cup
• apple honey (miele), about 20% of the weight of the apples

I brought the fruit to a boil. After 10 minutes of cooking, I mashed the apples with a potato masher. Towards the end, I added the spices specified in the recipe, halving the quantity of cloves and allspice and using one teaspoon of cinnamon. After I turned off the heat, I used my immersion blender to obtain a smooth purée.

I jarred the hot apple butter according to the method described in this post (see step 4), which I learned when I took a conserve-making class last year, as recounted in this post. Once cooled, I labelled the two jars (vasetti) I had filled, so I would know what fruit is in them, the quantity of sweetener, and the date of preparation. I am planning to use some of the apple butter right away in recipes like this torta di mele, where I use it as a substitute for some of the butter and sugar.

The slice of bread in the photo will look lovely when topped with a layer of my apple butter with blackberries, don't you think? Like other mystery baked goods shown in previous posts, I will soon reveal the source of the recipes. Stay tuned.

You will find out about different preservation efforts, when you browse the creations of my fellow Daring Cooks. A special thank to John for an interesting and fun challenge.

Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post:

burro di mele alle more

or launch the burro di mele alle more audio file [mp3].

[Depending on your set-up, the audio file will be played within the browser or by your mp3 player application. Please, contact me if you encounter any problems.]