briciole

torta salata "nella pentola" con pollo / chicken pot pie revisited

"antique" pot pie (partially cut)

This is my first experience with pot pies. As far as I know, we don't have a name for it in Italian: torta salata nella pentola is the literal translation (pentola is Italian for pot). For my rendition, I used a small soufflé dish.

This pot pie was inspired by Susan The Well-Seasoned Cook, who after Thanksgiving suggested to use leftover turkey to make a pot pie. There was no turkey on our table on Thanksgiving: I cooked other dishes, a story for another day. I called my pot pie "revisited" because I honestly wasn't very attracted by the concept of pot pie until Susan's suggestion made me revisit my attitude — and with good results!

But her suggestion immediately sparked the idea of turning leftovers into something new and appetizing. Here is what I used:

• leftover roast chicken (pollo arrosto), mostly breast, diced
• leftover zimino di fagioli
• some "alternative" puff pastry (pasta sfoglia "alternativa")

I basically assembled the ingredients and put the result in the oven.

zimino di fagioli

Leftover zimino di fagioli + leftover roast chicken =

= the pie filling

Preheat the oven to 375 F.

Take a 4 1/2-inch soufflé dish and add leftover zimino di fagioli. Do not overfill the dish.

Add some leftover roast chicken, mostly breast, diced and stir it in.

Take 1/4 of  the amount made by the recipe for "alternative" puff pastry (about 3 oz. / 83 g), roll it and use it to cover the dish, sealing well around the edge. (While I have not tried making the recipe with regular puff pastry, I don't see why it would not work with it.)http://www.typepad.com/site/blogs/6a00d835508b1869e200d8351b280f53ef/post/6a00d835508b1869e2017c3411e8eb970b/edit?saved=e

Make some egg wash: Lightly beat one egg with a tablespoon of water. Apply some egg wash to the puff pastry surface and put the dish in the oven. Bake until the surface is nice and golden (25 minutes or so). Let rest a few minutes before serving. The recipe makes a big portion or two small ones.

I took a number of photos of both pot pies I made when I took them out of the oven, and none of them was good enough. The nicest photo was taken after I had made a small cut on the surface to reveal the filling.

I am submitting this post to the November edition of Monthly Mingle that has Pot Pies as theme. The event was created by Meeta of What's For Lunch, Honey? and is hosted this month by Susan, The Well-Seasoned Cook.

This post contains the roundup of the event.

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

torta salata "nella pentola" con pollo

or launch the torta salata "nella pentola" con pollo 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.]

pot pie, beans, chard, mushrooms, chicken

pomodori in scatola e la picada catalana

canned [tinned] tomatoes and Catalan picada

[cliccare il link per andare alla nota in italiano]

If you open my pantry, you won't find much canned food. There are a few exceptions and I will describe them within the context of the Tin Can Recipes event dedicated to celebrate 200 years of canned food. (If you are interested in the details of the story, this page has a brief description of the relevant events.)

The first exception is tomatoes. Considering that I live in California (the leading producer of tomatoes in the US), I should be able to can my own tomatoes in the summer, right?, but the fact is, I have not yet developed a liking for tomato preservation. This past summer, I did a little bit of roasting and puréeing of tomatoes, which I then froze, but it was a no-pressure enterprise, totally different from the almost industrial operation my mother would set up to bottle tomatoes for the whole year. I am not an industrial operation person: I prefer micro-batches of whatever I am doing.

Once tomato season is over, I switch to organic canned tomatoes from California, the format depending on the recipe I am making. A favorite kind is organic fire-roasted crushed tomatoes. I also use fire-roasted diced tomatoes. Very well, then, I'll admit it: I like roasted tomatoes a lot.

I have written an enthusiastic post about a gift I received in late 2009 from Gattina of Kitchen Unplugged. Thanks to the gift, I learned to make a version of Catalan picada, and the more I make it, the more I like it. Using the picada set Gattina sent me worked for the first realization of a recipe for chicken with Catalan picada. I then adjusted the recipe to use available ingredients.

The original recipe I chose is here: I follow it fairly closely, especially in terms of execution. The following are the adjustments that I made for last Sunday's rendition, which is featured in the two photos below:

• For the first time, I used "4 whole chicken legs, split" from locally raised organic chicken (by Shakefork Community Farm); I had bought them (frozen) at the farmers' market some time ago, knowing I would use them for this dish; however, chicken thighs (bone-in and skin-on) are still a great alternative (remember to set aside discarded bones and skin to contribute to the making of light chicken stock)
• Instead of "one 14-ounce can whole tomatoes, drained and finely chopped" I used a 14.5-ounce can of organic fire-roasted crushed tomatoes
• Instead of "1 1/2 cups low-sodium chicken broth" I used a cup of my homemade light chicken stock (plus the liquid component of the can of tomatoes)
• Instead of "1/4 cup oloroso sherry" I used 3 tablespoons of vermouth (Martini Bianco) and one tablespoon of water, because I have always liked vermouth and I have it in my pantry
  
• Instead of "1 slice of peasant bread, crusts removed and bread cut into 1/2-inch cubes (1/2 cup)" I used 1 ounce of homemade breadcrumbs (pangrattato, also spelled pan grattato), which I obtain by processing pieces of my homemade bread with my grater (I usually toast lightly the bread before putting pieces of it in the grater)
• Instead of "1/4 cup slivered almonds" I used a mix of toasted hazelnuts and toasted blanched almonds (I do both the blanching and the toasting).
• I used a special kind of chocolate not for sale (the story will be told at some point in the future), corresponding to 80% cacao chocolate. I have used chocolate with a cacao contents between 70 and 80% and prefer the highest value.
• Thyme and parsley were again fresh from my little garden (to be precise, I have a parsley jungle, which fortunately does not seem to have been affected by the recent cold weather).

The photo¹ shows some of the ingredients and a small bowl of the picada sauce. One of the beauties of this recipe is that I always get some leftover sauce to be reused (more on this really soon). (Note: the chocolate in the photo is not the one I used last Sunday.)

I followed the recipe's instructions, except for step 3, which did not apply, since the almonds and hazelnuts I had were already toasted (I rubbed the hazelnuts slightly to remove the skin) and instead of bread pieces I used my breadcrumbs.

I have said it before and I say it again: this recipe is great. It pairs very well with polenta, as shown in the original post and above. Some of you may notice that the polenta in the photo has an unusual color. Indeed, while the polenta in the original post was made with a mix of cornmeal and what in local stores is sold as polenta (roughly corresponding to Italian polenta bramata, which is coarse), the one in this photo was made with a mix of cornmeal and buckwheat flour, both stone milled from locally grown grains (by Shakefork Community Farm, again). Details will be given in an upcoming post.

A few more words before I conclude. In this context, in scatola means canned (or tinned, in British English). Scatola indicates a container with a lid, so in other contexts it may be translated with "box" (for example, una scatola di cioccolatini is a box of chocolates). Beverages are packaged in lattine (singular: lattina, as in una lattina di Coca Cola). Jarred tomatoes, of which my mother would make some every year, to be used as pizza topping, are pomodori in barattolo. The word scatola is used in a number of expressions, like comperare a scatola chiusa, which means to buy something without seeing it first and checking for its quality (box unopened).

As mentioned above, this is my contribution to the March edition of Tin Can Recipes, a monthly event that will run until the end of this year. The organizers are Ale, Fra, Sere and Paola of Il Giardino degli Aromi and Brii of Briggis recept och ideer and Briiblog in English. The rules for participating are detailed on this page. You are invited to join the event with your recipe (in Italian or in English) that includes one or more canned ingredients.

This post has the roundup of the event.

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

pomodori in scatola e la picada catalana

or launch the pomodori in scatola e la picada catalana 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 can of tomatoes in the photo is for information only: it is not an advertisement. I do not have a business relationship with the company referenced.

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Per i lettori italiani

Con questo post contribuisco all'evento Tin Can Recipes dedicato alla celebrazione dei 200 anni del cibo in scatola. L'organizzazione dell'evento è di Ale, Fra, Sere e Paola del blog Il Giardino degli Aromi e di Brii che scrive Briggis recept och ideer e Briiblog in English. Le regole per partecipare le trovate su questa pagina.

La ricetta per il pollo con la picada catalana non è mia originale: nel post fornisco il link alla pagina dove è descritta e specifico i cambiamenti che vi ho apportato. La ricetta originale è in inglese e in inglese ho scritto le variazioni che ho apportato a tale ricetta la prima e l'ultima volta che l'ho realizzata.

Il primo post l'ho scritto dopo aver ricevuto in regalo da Gattina di Kitchen Unplugged il kit di ingredienti per preparare la picada catalana. Per le realizzazioni successive ho adattatto la ricetta all'uso di ingredienti disponibili. La ricetta originale la trovate qui: la seguo piuttosto alla lettera, specialmente per quanto riguarda l'esecuzione. Sono pronta ad aiutare chiunque sia interessato alla ricetta e necessiti di consulenza linguistica. Lasciatemi un commento o scrivetemi direttamente a simosite AT mac DOT com.

Questo post contiene il riepilogo dell'evento.

¹ La scatola di pomodori nella foto è solo a titolo informativo; non è una pubblicità. Non ho alcun rapporto commerciale con l'azienda in questione.

pollo con picada catalana

chicken with Catalan picada

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano]

Babbo Natale (literally, Father Christmas, the Italian Santa Claus) made an early visit again this year delivering me an envelope from Barcelona. I have already been to Barcelona virtually once this year, thanks to Tatuaje (Tattoo), the 1976 novel by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán where the famous detective Pepe Carvalho is introduced. You can read the details of that adventure in this post.

My second virtual visit comes compliments of Gattina of Kitchen Unplugged. The special delivery was not unexpected, since last month I signed up to participate to Season's Eatings, an edible gift exchange event engineered by Katie of Thyme for Cooking, the Blog. So, I knew I would receive something, but did not know what, or from whom. The decorated envelope contained a truly beautiful card displaying honeysuckle blossoms, the artwork of another blogger, Callipygia of Food Chair.

The package included two food products:

• El Farcellet, a bouquet of five herbs, namely thyme, fennel, rosemary, oregano and bay leaves (timo, finocchio, rosmarino, origano e alloro), nicely bundled together [on the right in the photo]
• a set of ingredients ready to be ground to make Picada, a Catalan sauce: toasted hazelnuts, almonds and pine nuts (nocciole, mandorle e pinoli tostati) and bite-size grissini (breadsticks)

I am very thankful to Gattina for her gift. It gave me the opportunity to explore a Catalan dish I did not know, which she suggested in her missive, together with a link, where a recipe for Catalan Chicken with Picada is featured in a video. I was ready to try the attractive recipe, when, as I was roaming the web looking for more information on picada, I found another attractive recipe, this one for Chicken with Catalan Picada on the Food & Wine magazine web site. The one ingredient that made me opt for the second recipe was dark chocolate. I had been wanting to taste chocolate (cioccolato) in the context of a savory dish for a while and this seemed the perfect occasion. I made the following changes to the original recipe:

• Instead of "4 whole chicken legs, split (2 pounds)" I bought 4 chicken thighs (from free-range organic chicken), which were less than 2 pounds
• Instead of "one 14-ounce can whole tomatoes, drained and finely chopped" I used a 14.5-ounce can of organic fire-roasted diced tomatoes, because I thought that their flavor would work well in the dish; I did not drain the tomatoes; after they had cooked for five minutes (see step 2 of the recipe's directions), I mashed them a bit with a potato masher
• Instead of "1 1/2 cups low-sodium chicken broth" I used a cup of my homemade light chicken stock (plus the liquid from the tomatoes)
• Instead of "1/4 cup oloroso sherry" I used 1/4 cup white wine, because that is what I had available
• Instead of "1 slice of peasant bread, crusts removed and bread cut into 1/2-inch cubes (1/2 cup)" and "1/4 cup slivered almonds" I used the picada set.
• Note: the chocolate I used was 71% cocoa; thyme and parsley were fresh from my little garden.

I followed the recipe's instructions, except for step 3, which did not apply, since the nuts I had were already toasted (I rubbed them slightly to remove the skin) and instead of bread pieces I had bite-size breadsticks. (After the fact, I realized that, based on the information in the video referenced above, I should probably have added the bread pieces anyway. Since the dish I obtained was great, I am at peace with my choice.)

This is a case of the whole being so much more than the sum of the single parts. The kitchen smelled good throughout the cooking time, but the moment I added the picada to the pan, it was as if some magic had happened. The kitchen was enveloped in a rich aroma of chocolate and spices. After pleasing the nose, the chicken made the palate very happy.

I served the chicken with small polenta cakes (as shown in the photo). We had it twice for dinner and then we had some leftover sauce, so I cooked some canario beans (a.k.a., mayocoba beans), then warmed them up with the sauce to make a dish of fagioli con picada catalana.

It goes without saying that I will make this dish again. To begin with, I am wondering about the different texture the bread will provide. I am also wondering how having more almonds will affect the flavor (the picada set contained mostly hazelnuts). Finally, there is also the first recipe to try.

And the farcellet? you may wonder. Gattina's suggestion was to add it to the tomato sauce. I decided to keep it for now, because I want some time to study it in detail. Then, I will think about using it. Many thanks again to Gattina for her wonderful gift and to Katie for organizing the exchange. Here is the roundup.

BUONE FESTE!

[Happy Holidays!] Hear me pronounce the words on the pollo con picada catalana audio file [mp3] or go to the pollo con picada catalana audio page for more listening options.

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Per i lettori italiani. Babbo Natale mi ha fatto visita in anticipo e mi ha recapitato una busta da Barcellona. Quest'anno ho già visitato virtualmente questa città grazie a Tatuaggio, il romanzo di Manuel Vázquez Montalbán che introduce il detective Pepe Carvalho (1976). Potete leggere i dettagli di quell'avventura in questo post.

La mia seconda visita virtuale la devo a Gattina di Kitchen Unplugged. Il pacchetto non era del tutto inaspettatato, poiché il mese scorso ho aderito all'evento Season's Eatings, uno scambio di regalini commestibili organizzato da Katie di Thyme for Cooking, the Blog. Sapevo perciò che avrei ricevuto qualcosa, ma non che cosa e da chi. Come potete vedere nella foto qui sotto ho ricevuto un elegante biglietto che mostra fiori di caprifoglio, opera di un'altra blogger, Callipygia of Food Chair.

Il pacchetto conteneva anche due prodotti alimentari:

• El Farcellet, un bouquet di cinque erbe aromatiche: timo, finocchio, rosmarino, origano e alloro, elegantemente raccolti in un involto [a destra nella foto]
• un set pronto di ingredienti da macinare per preparare la picada, una salsa catalana: nocciole, mandorle e pinoli tostati e piccoli grissini

Sono molto grata a Gattina per il regalo che mi ha dato l'opportunità di esplorare un piatto catalano che non conoscevo, da lei suggeritomi nella missiva insieme al link della pagina dove la ricetta del Catalan Chicken with Picada viene presentata in un video. Ero pronta a provare questa attraente ricetta, quando, girovagando su internet, ho trovato un'altra ricetta attraente, per pollo con picada catalana sul sito della rivista Food & Wine. L'ingrediente che mi ha fatto scegliere la seconda ricetta è stato il cioccolato fondente. Era da un po' che volevo usare il cioccolato in un piatto salato e questa mi è sembrata l'occasione perfetta. Ho apportato i seguenti cambiamenti alla ricetta originale:

• come carne ho comprato 4 sopracosce di pollo bio che pesavano un po' meno di 900 g
• come pomodori ho usato una lattina (circa 400 g) di pomodori bio arrostiti e tagliati a dadi; dopo che avevano cotto per cinque minuti (vedi punto 2 della ricetta) li ho schiacciati un po' con uno schiacciapatate come questo
• come liquido ho usato 250 ml circa del mio brodo di pollo, più il liquido dei pomodori, più 125 ml di vino bianco
• come addensante per la salsa ho usato il contenuto del set per picada
• Nota: il cioccolato era al 71% di cacao; timo e prezzemolo li ho colti nel mio orticello.

Ho seguito la ricetta tranne che al punto 3, poiché la frutta secca del set era già tostata (l'ho strofinata leggermente per rimuovere la pellicina) e invece dei pezzi di pane avevo i piccoli grissini. (Dopo aver completato la ricetta, mi sono resa conto che in base al video citato sopra, avrei forse dovuto aggiungere comunque i pezzi di pane. Dal momento che il piatto che ho ottenuto era speciale, mi sta bene quello che ho fatto.)

In cucina c'era un buon profumo fin dall'inizio, ma dopo che ho aggiunto la picada alla padella, una magia si è sprigionata e la cucina si è riempita di un profumo intenso di cioccolato e spezie. Dopo aver deliziato l'olfatto, il pollo ha reso felice il palato.

Ho servito il pollo con delle tortine di polenta (foto sopra). Ci abbiamo cenato due volte. Siccome mi era avanzata della salsina (che è davvero ottima) ho cotto dei fagioli canario (chiamati anche mayocoba, abbastanza simili ai cannellini) e ce li ho conditi, così ho fatto i fagioli con picada catalana<.

Naturalmente, rifarò questa ricetta molto presto. Prima di tutto, sono curiosa di assaggiare la ricetta fatta col pane. E poi c'è l'altra ricetta da provare.

E il farcellet? vi chiederete. Gattina mi ha suggerito di aggiungerlo al sugo del pollo insieme ai pomodori. Io ho deciso di tenermelo per un po' perché voglio studiare come è fatto. Poi penserò a come utilizzarlo. Mille grazie ancora a Gattina per il regalo graditissimo e a Katie per aver organizzato lo scambio. Qui potete leggerne la descrizione.

lenticchie di Castelluccio con avanzi di pollo arrosto e patate al forno

Castelluccio lentils with leftover roast chicken and baked potatoes

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano]

For our Thanksgiving dinner, I roasted a chicken, one of a batch locally and organically pasture raised by our friend Don (a.k.a. the accidental chicken farmer). The recipe for the roast chicken (pollo arrosto) is not mine but Thomas Keller's and was described in this guest post. Hence, there was no leftover turkey in my fridge, but leftover chicken (avanzi di pollo) upon which to let my creative juices flow.

To go with the almost five-pound chicken, I roasted two lbs. of locally grown, organic fingerling potatoes. After carefully scrubbing the potatoes, I used my nebulizer sprayer to distribute olive oil over them, then added  a generous amount of finely chopped fresh rosemary leaves, salt and freshly ground black pepper, gave a good stir and baked in a pan at 375 F until done. We partook of the roast chicken and of the potatoes, but left a good quantity on the plate, to undergo some transformation before reappearing on the dinner table.

In a previous post, I have introduced you to lenticchie di Castelluccio, the small lentils that are grown in an area of my home region (Umbria). These are the lentils I grew up eating and the ones I like. I brought back some from my recent trip to Italy. The store in Perugia where I get locally grown legumes is called Bavicchi, in Via dei Priori (downtown), the road that starts under the arch surmounted by the clock (only the top part of the arch is visible in the photo, on the left). As an aside, the reason why I took this photo was because I love the windows of the Palazzo dei Priori. (And I hope you'll forgive me for taking the chance to show you another photo of my home town.)

Not sure what directed my thoughts towards lenticchie while considering solutions for my day-after dilemma, but once that happened, I did not stop until the pairing of the little legumes with my leftovers was a reality held in a bowl. I cooked a cup of lentils in two cups of water with an unpeeled clove of garlic (spicchio d'aglio in camicia) and a bay leaf, until tender (about 20 minutes), then let them rest (after removing the garlic and bay leaf) while I prepared the leftovers. I diced the chicken, saving bones and trimmings to make chicken broth, and then cut the potatoes into bite-size pieces (half-inch slices, actually).

I added chicken and potatoes (including the rosemary bits left behind in the bowl that held the potatoes) to the lentils together with half a cup of homemade vegetable broth and heated until everything was nice and hot. The addition of more broth would have pushed the dish towards the soup camp, but I was happy with a denser consistency. I adjusted the salt and served immediately. A perfect body- and soul-warming dish for a windy day, sunny, but chilly.

This is my submission for My Legume Love Affair - 17th Helping, the popular, legume-centered event that is the brainchild of Susan, The Well-Seasoned Cook and is hosted this month by Sra of When My Soup Came Alive .

Here is the roundup. If you could not participate this month, you can check who is hosting the next edition of the event.

Hear me pronounce the words on the lenticchie di Castelluccio con avanzi di pollo arrosto e patate al forno audio file [mp3] or go to the lenticchie di Castelluccio con avanzi di pollo arrosto e patate al forno audio page for more listening options.

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Per i lettori italiani. Per la festa del Ringraziamento la tradizione vuole che si prepari l tacchino, ma io invece ho arrostito un pollo ruspante del nostro amico Don secondo questa ricetta, e l'ho accompagnato con patate "fingerling" bio cotte al forno (intere) con rosmarino, sale e pepe. Visto che eravamo solo in due, di avanzi ce n'erano a sufficienza per un piatto creativo con le lenticchie di Castelluccio.

Ho cotto 200 g di lenticchie in poco meno di mezzo litro d'acqua con uno spicchio d'aglio in camicia e una foglia d'alloro, poi le ho lasciate riposare mentre tagliavo il pollo a cubetti e le patate a pezzi (di fatto, a fette, dal momento che le patate "fingerling," come dice il nome, hanno la forma di dita). Ho poi aggiunto pollo e patate alle lenticchie (dalle quali avevo rimosso aglio e alloro), insieme a 250 ml circa di brodo vegetale. Ho scaldato tutto ben bene, ho aggiustato il sale e ho servito subito le lenticchie fumanti.

insalata di pollo con labneh

chicken salad with labneh

Roasting a whole chicken for two means having a certain amount of leftovers (avanzi). Making chicken salad with avanzi di pollo arrosto is not really creative, but using labneh to season it is probably not as common as using, say, maionese (mayonnaise).

Why labneh? Because of a photo of it that I saw in this post by Lucy of Nourish Me. The image of a snow-white ball nestled in white cheesecloth stayed with me and inspired me to follow the instructions on this page and get my own snow-white mass of labneh. I decided to be daring and used non-fat, organic yogurt.

The process of draining yogurt to make labneh was a bit messy. Hanging the wrap of cheesecloth and cloth inside the fridge required the building of a contraption that made access to a section of the fridge difficult for 24 hours, not an ideal situation. Next time I'll be better prepared, and I will use only cloth.

Fortunately, the contraption worked and I got my mass of soft, creamy, deliciously tart labneh. Having never tasted labneh before, I have no idea how my rendition compares to the real thing, but I am not worried: in any case, I like the result of my effort.

The first thing I did with it is sprinkle its surface with slivered fresh basil (basilico). I made a tomato sauce to go with it and the pairing was wonderful. Then came the pollo arrosto, and its leftovers, and the idea of using some labneh as an ingredient of my insalata di pollo.

The chicken being quite tasty of its own, I didn't add much to the salad: a rib of celery, finely chopped; a handful of toasted walnuts, finely chopped as well; a few leaves of lavender mint (menta) and pineapple sage (salvia) fresh from my garden, plus some more basil (besides that already on the labneh), all finely slivered; and a generous sprinkling of freshly-ground black pepper. I spooned some labneh over the diced chicken until the balance of flavors seemed right. The salad made a satisfying dinner.

Warning: I am actually not done with the aftermath of the pollo arrosto, so expect another post on the subject.

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Readers of this and many other blogs have learned that Sher of What Did You Eat? died recently of a heart attack. In memory of Sher, Lia of Swirling Notions has organized an online fund raising for WomenHeart, the National Coalition for Women with Heart Disease. Visit this page to find out the details of Lia's initiative.

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Hear me pronounce the words on the insalata di pollo con labneh audio file [mp3] or go to the insalata di pollo con labneh audio page for more listening options.

pollo arrosto per Paz

roast chicken for Paz

I wrote a guest post for Paz, of The Cooking Adventure of Chef Paz, describing my first attempt ever at preparing pollo arrosto. Fear not, the adventure has a happy ending.

Hear me pronounce the words and expressions on the pollo arrosto audio file [mp3] or go to the pollo arrosto audio page for more listening options.

pâté di fegatini di pollo

chicken liver pâté

The version of this dish I am referring to here is typical of central Italy and is eaten spread over small slices of lightly toasted bread, called crostini. Crostini con pâté di fegatini di pollo are traditionally served as an appetizer and they are featured in the menu of many restaurants. I recommend you try them if you find yourself in the area, and maybe compare the different local versions. It is also possible to purchase fresh pâté in stores.

I grew up eating the variation common in Umbria, the region where I was born. My mother would make pâté di fegatini for special occasions, using her hand-powered tritacarne (meat mincer) to mince the cooked fegatini. She has not made them in a long time, though, because she prefers the recipe a friend of hers uses, which apparently is rather complicated, and includes, among other ingredients, anchovies, capers and a salsiccia (pork sausage). All the added ingredients are detectable when you taste pâté di fegatini, so the liver flavor is not pronounced.

In Italian liver is fegato. Fegatino is a diminutive form of the word. And since we are talking about internal organs, let me also mention the word rigaglie, meaning giblets. Another dish my mother would sometimes make is sugo con le rigaglie di pollo (tomato sauce with chicken giblets) and use it to season her handmade tagliatelle.

[This post was inspired by Lori Lynn's recent post about chicken liver pâté]

Hear me pronounce the words on the pâté di fegatini di pollo audio file [mp3] or go to the pâté di fegatini di pollo audio page for more listening options.

pollo arrosto alla Julia Child

roast chicken à la Julia Child

The time is a few years ago and the place is my mother-in-law's apartment in the Chicago area. My mother-in-law is watching TV when we arrive: she is enjoying the program, so we start watching it too. On the screen there is Julia Child preparing a chicken for roasting. That was my first and only encounter with her. Julia's manners and her interaction with her partner, Jacques Pepin, made me overcome my natural aversion to watching television. That was also my first and only encounter with a food program. I don't watch TV of any kind, so this has nothing to do with food programs in particular.

The episode occurred at a time when I was not yet interested in cooking, so it was only later on that I realized the importance of the person and of the program I had watched. As a result of that encounter, for me Julia Child is inescapably linked to roast chicken. The image that is most vividly etched in my memory is that of a hand slid underneath the skin: I had never seen anybody preparing chicken that way. What I cannot get from my memory is whose hand that was. Has anybody seen the episode I am describing?

I don't remember anything else, most probably because we decided to start a conversation and turned off the TV. As a result, I don't know what a pollo arrosto alla Julia Child looks like. Later on I heard the story of Julia dropping a chicken on the floor and nonchalantly picking it up, then I read that the story is a myth and that nothing of the sort ever happened. I guess it is part of the price you pay for being famous, having an action attributed to you that people believe is in tune with your public persona. I am sure the chicken protagonist of the episode I am referring to did not end up on the floor at any time while I was watching.

I have recently written about pollo arrosto and the place the delicious dish had in my childhood (visit the earlier post to listen to a recording featuring the Italian words). The current post is my entry for the Julia Child Birthday Event, a loving tribute with a lovely logo organized by Lisa from Champaign Taste. I have found many references on the web to Julia Child's recipe for pollo arrosto, though none of the ones I read instructs to slide your hands under the chicken's skin to spread the seasoning. I chose a recipe from the Food Network, which sounds delicious and which I may one day soon try, since I have signed up for email alerts from Wild Chick Farm a local provider of organic, pasture-raised chickens, from whom I have been buying incredible eggs for some time.

Here is the roundup of the event.

pollo arrosto

roast chicken

Talking about Sunday lunch (pranzo) in my previous post made me think of another dish that was only featured in that meal: pollo arrosto. We would buy it at a store, una rosticceria, actually 'the' store, because we had one favorite place. I am not sure whether it is still in business, but I hope it is.

As a child, I loved going with my father to the rotisserie to get the roast chicken: I loved the smell of the place and the look of the food that was made and sold there. I usually got to carry the warm bag with the chicken and would bask in the heady smell that came from it. I alternated between eating the breast (il petto) and the thigh (la coscia). I remember the taste of rosemary and the crispness of the skin. To this day, smelling rosemary reminds me of the pollo arrosto from my childhood.

If a person is a pollo, he or she is a simpleton, someone easily taken in. Something or someone that fa ridere i polli (literally: makes chickens laugh) is ridiculous, or acts in a ridiculous way. When I am able to predict exactly what my husband will do, he always asks me: "How did you know?" to which I answer: "Conosco i miei polli." Literally it translates: "I know my chickens" and it means that I am familiar with their ways, so I can predict what they will do.

Hear me pronounce the words and expressions on the pollo arrosto audio file [mp3] or go to the pollo arrosto audio page for more listening options.

polpettone

meatloaf

Polpettone comes from polpetta with the addition of the augmentative suffix -one.

I have never eaten either polpettone or meatloaf, because both are famous for being particularly demanding on our digestive system, a character I dislike in food. This defining trait of polpettone explains the metaphorical use of the word to describe something muddled and boring. Movies and books are at particular risk of being condemned as polpettoni.

Hear me pronounce the words on the polpettone audio file [mp3] or go to the polpettone audio page for more listening options.