Recipes list
Asparagus with Zabaglione Sauce
Radicchio and Rocket Salad with Pancetta
Peppers and Aubergines Venetian Style
Sardines in Sweet and Sour Sauce
Tagliolini with Prawns and Crab
Pappardelle with Chicken Livers
Ricotta Gnocchi with Gorgonzola Sauce
Cuttlefish or Squid Risotto with Their Ink
Goose with Apples and Chestnuts
Polenta with Sausages and Pancetta
Italians describe the cooking of the Veneto as delicate and colourful. They compare it to Venetian mosaics and tinted marbles, use words such as ‘poetic’ and ‘spiritual’ and explain that Venetians have Venice and the paintings of Bellini and Titian to inspire them. They talk of the Middle Ages and Venice’s central role in the spice trade, of the dried fruit and nuts that came from the East, of the Saracens and Byzantium and the feasts of the Doges.
But the people I met in the Veneto, in Verona and Vicenza, Padua and Treviso, and in Venice too, said their cooking was la fantasia dei poveri (the fantasy of the poor), and stemmed from the days when the region lived (meagrely) off the land. There is no trace, they claim, of the grand dishes of the old noble families, i signori, such as the Della Scala of Verona.
The Veneto consists of the plain between the rivers Po and Tagliamento, bounded in the north by the spectacular Dolomite Mountains. The plain is a region of small industries: factories are dotted amid fields and woodlands, and busy modern agglomerations contrast with ancient villas and palazzi, noble cities and serene villages. Most people have either moved to the nearest town or remained in the village and gone to work in the nearby factory, so there has not been a complete break with the countryside.
The main feature of the cooking in town and country is the all-important influence of Venice, the lagoon city, which developed as a refuge for mainlanders fleeing the northern invaders and became the ruling economic and political power of the Venetian republic, which remained independent for a thousand years. Venice was once the richest, most powerful city in the world, mistress of the Mediterranean, an international market and a great maritime power, with her own fleet and her own trading posts in the Levant. She was like a bazaar city, with foreign communities – there were Germans, Turks, Greeks, Arabs, Jews and Armenians, each with their own quarters – traders from everywhere at her quayside and her own merchants and seamen in the four corners of the world. Marco Polo was Venetian.
Venice was Europe’s point of contact with the East, and Venetians absorbed culinary ideas from the Arabs and Byzantium (Arab-style pesce in saor, sweet and sour fish with raisins and pine nuts, is typical of the region). But they translated everything into their own, very simple, style. When I asked the owner of the popular Madonna restaurant in the Rialto why, despite the sumptuous past and the spice trade, the cooking of Venice was so uncomplicated, he explained that their cooking was simple because it was based on fish.
If you could see the fish come in live at dawn in barges on the Grand Canal straight on to the market stalls around the corner from the Madonna you would understand why all they want to do is lightly fry, poach or grill it.
The entire Veneto is a region of water with rivers and streams, lakes, canals and lagoons, so much of the cooking revolves around fish. The best antipasto is seafood. Large and small prawns, crab, squid, cuttlefish, baby octopus, and all kinds of shellfish are served simply dressed with olive oil, chopped parsley and lemon, but the lemon seems superfluous. My own favourites are moleche, the tiny soft-shelled crabs of Murano, netted when they change their shells in the spring and autumn, dipped live in egg batter with garlic and parsley, and fried.
Shellfish soups are simple, made with olive oil, white wine and garlic. Mixed fish soup, broeto, is served with fried bread. Scampi are dipped in batter and fried; eel is cooked in Marsala, mackerel in white wine. One of the most famous Venetian dishes is seppioline nere, baby cuttlefish cooked in their ink. As everywhere in the Mediterranean, salt cod and stockfish are adored. There is a great variety of fish and seafood risottos variously called bianco, di pesse (dialect for ‘fish’), di mare, ai frutti di mare, alla marinara or dei pescatori.
Although most dishes in the Veneto are variations of Venetian ones, each city also has specialities of its own. Horsemeat stew is a speciality of Verona, an old garrison town where, once upon a time, when they were surrounded, they ate their horses. Also from there is peara, a peppery sauce made with bone marrow and breadcrumbs, the secret of which Veronese girls are supposed to receive when they marry. Verona is also the city of potato gnocchi. Every year on Good Friday the Veronese celebrate a baccanale del gnocco with a procession in fourteenth-century clothes, and they elect a papà del gnocco, who rides on a donkey holding a dumpling on the end of a fork. Padua is known for mutton with a wine sauce called piperata, Treviso for a pigeon stew, Vicenza for stockfish, Belluno for bean soups and ice cream. Every city is famous for something.
What is special about the cooking of the Veneto is the cosmopolitan and exotic touch. Meat is marinated in wine, then simmered in milk; turkey is bathed in pomegranate juice; fish is garnished with pine nuts and raisins. It is the result of Venice’s old connections with both Germany and the Orient.
Spices were much used in the Middle Ages: the old cookery books are full of ginger, saffron, cumin, cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, under the influence of the French after Napoleon had conquered Venice, they went out of fashion in favour of herbs.
The Veneto is in the polenta, bean soup and risotto belts that run right across the north of Italy. Polenta was once eaten for breakfast, lunch and supper, and is an accompaniment to many foods. (It was blamed for pellagra when many of those who suffered from the disease ate hardly anything else.) Maize was brought from America to Venice in the sixteenth century; but it was called granoturco because it was believed to come from Turkey whose merchants were always there. In Venice they like polenta soft and creamy and use a coarser grind of maize flour which is supposed to keep better by the sea. In other parts of the Veneto they make it firm, turn it out on a board, cut it into slices, then grill or fry it.
Minestre (soups) are a strong point of the cooking of the Veneto, and pasta e fagioli (pasta and beans) is the queen of soups. This chocolate-coloured soup is made with borlotti beans, which came originally from Mexico straight to Belluno in the region of Lamon, where they are still grown.
The rice dishes of the Veneto are among its glories. Rice was introduced by the Arabs, and many short-grained types grow in the marshlands around the river Po. Other Italians have their way of cooking risotto but Venetians make their risottos all’onda, almost liquid, with a velvety consistency, and eat them as soups, minestre di riso. The merit of the Veneto risotto lies in its delicate flavour, its jewel-encrusted look and most of all in its versatility, for every possible seasonal ingredient is used. Peas, green beans, artichoke hearts, asparagus tips, mushrooms, spinach, fennel, celery, carrots, potatoes, cabbage, cauliflower, leeks, courgettes, pumpkin and courgette flowers – all these go in.
The Veneto is richer in the variety of vegetables than any other region of Italy, and this is why Venetian food is so colourful. There are five types of their famous radicchio. The most popular are the long-leafed variety of Treviso (Trevisans have a radicchio festival in November, when they make everything, even puddings, with it) and the round kind with variegated leaves from Castelfranco. During the mushroom season half a dozen wild varieties appear at the market.
Venetians do not eat much meat, but they like offal, and liver is their favourite. They cook chicken and many types of migrating birds that are trapped when they alight on beaches and marshes. Inland there is plenty of game, and farmyard animals such as rabbits, geese, ducks, guinea hens and turkeys.
In the hills and mountains in the north cows and pigs are raised, and cheeses, hams and sausages are produced. The most famous cheeses are the hard, strongly flavoured asiago and vezzena, which are aged from six to eighteen months. Smoked ricotta is also made in the Veneto. Venetian hams are lean and savoury, and each mountain province has its own special recipes for making salami and sausages (you can still occasionally find them hanging in cellars in country homes). There is a Venetian saying, ‘Chi no ga’ orto ne’ porco, porta el muso storto’ (he who has no vegetable patch and no pig has a sad twisted face). It was said that the pig was the king of the peasant table and that polenta was the queen. One accompanied the other. Special Venetian sausages include the soft soppressa, fatty ossocollo, musetto (made from head meat), fat cotechino for boiling, and luganega. Bondola is a smoked speciality of coarsely minced pork with red wine and plenty of pepper stuffed in a bladder. The making of salami, sausages and ham has been governed by Venetian statutes since the Middle Ages, and today it is guaranteed by an association that uses a roaring lion of St Mark as a trademark.
Cakes and pastries here have always been for special occasions, such as weddings, baptisms and anniversaries, and many are attached to religious holidays. Every town has its own specialities which are made by bakers. Venice has an Easter yeast cake in the shape of a dove. The town of Este has one too, highly esteemed in all of Italy for its delicate flavour, a secret of the family which has been making it for generations. Vicenza has the Marsala-flavoured sponge cake called bussolano, and Padua has pinza, which is packed with dried and candied fruit. Verona became a capital of industrial pastry-making before the Second World War with yeast cakes in the Viennese tradition, which were introduced when Napoleon handed Venice over to Austria. Pandoro and nadalin are Veronese Christmas specialities, rivals of the Milanese panettone. Verona also has brassadela, flavoured with grappa, and the famous mandorlato, also called il miracolo del miele, made with almonds and honey and produced by the same family for 150 years; the festa del mandorlato, with flags, tastings and banquets, is held in Verona the last week in November. The torta sabbiosa, a light sponge cake made with potato flour and perfumed with vanilla and anise-flavoured alcohol, is one of the most popular cakes; people sometimes embellish it with zabaglione or mascarpone cream.
There are many old traditional desserts but it is their new ones that are the stars in the Veneto today. Treviso claims to have invented tiramisù (literally, ‘pick-me-up’), the most popular dessert in all Italy; and the men of the Valle del Zoldo near Belluno, who are professional ice cream makers, have developed some of the best ice cream I have eaten.
After dinner, in the Veneto, they bring out a bottle of home-made grappa – a powerful spirit made from grape skins – sweet wines and hot chocolate or coffee, and biscuits for dunking – yellow maize flour zaleti, bigaroni and baicoli, hard biscuits perfumed with cinnamon, nutmeg and orange zest which, many years ago, were taken on long sea voyages because they kept so well.
The wines of the Veneto are the most widely available of all Italian wines abroad. The three most famous – Valpolicella, Bardolino and Soave, produced in the hills around Verona – are ‘party’ wines, often unpalatable as a result of too much pressure to produce too much at the lowest possible price. But at their best, those described as Classico or Superiore are extremely good. The most highly prized are the Recioto wines made from partly dried, shrivelled grapes. Amarone di Valpolicella is a dry Recioto, and the only slow-ageing big red wine in the Veneto. It is best partnered with red meat or game and rich sauces, or with strong cheeses. The sweet Recioto della Valpolicella is almost port-like. Torcolato and Vin Santo di Gambellera are other much appreciated dessert wines. Bardolino Chiaretto is a fine rosé, Bianco di Custosa a fine white, and sparkling Prosecco, is the favourite of Venetians that we too have come to love. All are good with antipasti, pasta and light secondi of fish or white meat.
[ baccala mantecato ]
It seems strange that a country that juts out into the sea and has so much coast should adore baccalà, cod dried and preserved in salt, and stockfish (stoccafisso), cod dried in the sun and the wind until it is rock-hard, both imported from North Sea countries, and that coastal towns should have adopted them even more than inland towns. But although the variety of fish is great in the Mediterranean, it has always been scarce and expensive. And in the days when preservation was difficult and Lenten meatless dishes were obligatory, this dried cod was a certain and cheap source of fish. Now that it is no longer cheap it is a much-loved delicacy. Every region has its special ways of preparing baccalà and stoccafisso, and the Veneto and Liguria have the most.
This creamy paste of salt cod and olive oil spooned over fresh or grilled polenta (here) or crostini, is a favourite appetiser in the bàcari (bars) and eateries of Venice where antipasti are called cicchètti.
Ask your provider of salt cod how long you need to soak and desalt it, as that varies, and if at all. It needs to be soaked in cold water for between 12 hours to 2 days depending on the strength of the cure (stockfish, which is preferred in Venice takes even longer to desalt), and the water must be changed 4 or 5 times to remove all the salt. You have to taste a bit to see if the salt has gone. But you can nowadays in Britain buy vacuum-packed desalted baccalà that is ready to cook.
SERVES 4–6
500g desalted salt cod
500ml whole milk, or more if necessary
300ml mild-tasting extra virgin olive oil plus more for serving
1–2 whole garlic cloves, crushed (optional)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1–2 tablespoons finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
Put the desalted and drained salt cod in a pan with enough milk to cover. Bring to the boil, simmer over low heat for 2 minutes and take off the heat, then let stand for 20 minutes. Remove any scum, drain, then carefully remove any skin and bones and flake into small pieces with your fingers.
Put the fish in the food processor and blend to a rough paste. Then pour in the oil slowly, a little at a time, while pulse-blending, until the paste is smooth and creamy but retains a little texture. Add garlic if you like and season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve sprinkled with olive oil and parsley.
VARIATION: Some like to add a pinch of dried chilli flakes, some add the juice of ½ a lemon.
ASPARAGUS WITH ZABAGLIONE SAUCE
[ asparagi con salsa zabaione ]
SERVES 4
700g asparagus
4 large egg yolks
120ml light fruity white wine
¼–½ teaspoon sugar (optional)
Salt
Rinse the asparagus, peel away any hard skin and snap off the tough ends. Simmer briefly in salted water until you can pierce the stalks with a pointed knife, being careful not to overcook. Lift out carefully, drain well and keep warm.
To make the sauce, beat the egg yolks with the wine and a little salt in a heatproof bowl in a pan of boiling water and continue beating until the sauce is thick and smooth. Add a little sugar if the wine is too dry. Serve at once with the asparagus.
RADICCHIO AND ROCKET SALAD WITH PANCETTA
[ radicchio e rucola con pancetta ]
SERVES 4
2 heads radicchio
A good bunch of rocket leaves
2–4 bacon rashers cut into small pieces
4 rashers of pancetta or streaky bacon, chopped
3½ tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon wine vinegar
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Fry the bacon.
Separate the radicchio leaves and put them in a serving bowl with the a dressing with 3 tablespoons of the oil, the vinegar, salt and pepper. Just before you are ready to serve, fry the bacon pieces in the remaining ½ tablespoon of olive oil and the fat they release until crisp and lightly browned. Toss the salad with the dressing and sprinkle with the hot bacon.
VARIATION: Instead of fried pancetta or bacon, sprinkle with 100g coarsely chopped walnuts.
PEPPERS AND AUBERGINES VENETIAN STYLE
[ peperonata alla veneta ]
Peperonata is famously Neapolitan, but the Veneto has its own version, from Treviso, where the peppers are so good and sweet they hold a festival for them each year. Serve hot, warm or cold.
SERVES 4
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic, peeled
1 large red onion, cut in ½ and sliced
1 medium aubergine, cubed
2 yellow peppers and 1 red pepper, seeded and cut into strips through the stem end
5 tomatoes, peeled and chopped
Salt and pepper
150ml dry white wine
Heat the oil in a large sauté pan with the garlic (remove it as soon as it browns). Add the onion, and cook over medium heat until soft and beginning to colour. Add the aubergine and the peppers and cook, stirring, for about 10 minutes. Add the tomatoes, turn up the heat and cook for about 8 minutes. Then pour in the wine, and simmer gently for 20 minutes, or until tender. Uncover to allow most of the liquid to evaporate. Adjust the seasoning.
[ crostini di granseola ]
SERVES 4
200g fresh crab meat
Extra virgin olive oil for the dressing and to brush the crostini
Juice of ½ a lemon
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 red chilli pepper, seeds removed, finely chopped (optional)
2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
4 large or 8 small slices of firm crusty white bread about 1cm thick
Sprinkle the crab meat with 3 tablespoons of the olive oil, the lemon juice, salt, pepper, chilli if using, and parsley and mix well.
Toast the bread lightly on both sides, brush with olive oil and spread the crab meat on top.
FRIED SOFT-SHELL CRABS
[ moleche frite ]
I was in Venice in the spring when tiny crabs from the lagoon were moulting and fishermen were netting them as they shed their shells to grow. They are a great Venetian delicacy. Every restaurant had them on the menu. They throw them live into a bowl of beaten egg which they eat avidly until they drown, then they roll them in flour and deep fry them. You can buy soft-shell crabs cleaned and frozen in 1kg packs of 24. Serve them with mayonnaise and salad leaves.
SERVES 4
4 small soft-shell crabs, defrosted
125g flour
1 egg
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda or baking powder
100ml cold water (chilled bottled water from the fridge)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Sunflower or olive oil for frying
Rinse the crabs and dry them on paper towels. Then turn them in the flour to cover them all over.
For the batter, beat the eggs with the remaining flour, then gradually beat in the cold water until smooth, adding salt and pepper. It does not matter if there are a few lumps. Dip the crabs in the batter, and deep-fry, two at a time, in about 2cm of medium hot oil (it is ready when you pour in a drop of batter and it sizzles) in a deep saucepan for about 3 minutes until crisp and golden. Lift out with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels.
[ sopa di cape sante ]
SERVES 4
400ml light fruity dry white wine
12 scallops
5g butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
½ clove garlic, crushed (optional)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
Simmer the wine in a pan for 10 minutes to reduce it (it will acquire a mellow flavour).
Sauté the scallops, for a moment only, in a mixture of butter and oil with a little garlic, if you are using it, turning them over carefully. Add salt and pepper and pour in the reduced wine, then simmer for 1–2 minutes only, until the scallops become translucent. Be very careful not to overcook them as they quickly become tough.
Add the parsley and serve in soup plates.
DEEP-FRIED SQUID AND PRAWNS
[ calamaretti e gamberoni fritti ]
The Adriatic has the tiniest squid and the largest prawns. The most popular way of doing them is deep-fried in oil. One or the other can be served alone but often they come together as a little appetizer. You can buy frozen cleaned baby squid with the tentacles stuffed inside the body.
SERVES 4
250g small squid
250g large raw peeled prawns
Salt
Plain flour
Olive oil
1 lemon, cut in wedges
Clean and rinse the squid (see here). If using prepared frozen ones, remove the tentacles from the bodies. Cut the bodies into rings and keep the tentacles whole.
Roll the squid and the prawns in salted flour to cover them all over. Deep-fry briefly in not-too-hot oil and lift them out quickly with a slotted spoon as soon as they are golden. Drain on paper towels, and serve at once, accompanied by lemon wedges.
SARDINES IN SWEET AND SOUR SAUCE
[ pesce in saor ]
Saor is dialect for sapore, which means ‘flavour’. Marinating in vinegar was an old Italian way of making fish last in the days before refrigeration, but this recipe has a particular Arab flavour with its raisins.
Around the end of the twelfth century in Venice, an Arab treatise on dietetics, including 83 recipes, written by a Baghdad doctor, Gege son of Algazael, was translated from the Arabic into Latin by a certain Jambobinus of Cremona, who called it Liber de coquina (cookery book). Much later, in the sixteenth century, a scholar from Belluno, Andrea Alpago, who spent 30 years in Damascus and later became professor of medicine in Padua, published, in Venice, a translation of the works of the famous Arab physician and philosopher Avicenna (Ibn Sina), a great part of which was devoted to dietetics and cooking. Quite a few of the dishes described were embellished with raisins and pine nuts.
According to an old Venetian saying, social class is characterised by what fish is used for pesce in saor: the poor use sardines and the rich use sole.
Ask the fishmonger to scale and gut the sardines for you but to leave the heads on. The dish is meant to be served cold. You can make it one or two days in advance. Serve it with crostini or cold grilled polenta.
SERVES 4
800g onions, sliced
Olive oil
120ml white wine vinegar
250ml dry white wine
2 tablespoons raisins
2 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted
600ml small sardines
Plain flour
Salt
Sauté the onions in 3 tablespoons of the oil in a large frying pan over low heat for about 20–30 minutes, covered to begin with and stirring often, until very soft and lightly golden. Add the vinegar and wine, season with salt and pepper and simmer for about 10 minutes. Then remove from the heat and stir in the raisins and pine nuts.
Lightly coat the sardines with flour seasoned with salt and deep-fry for l½–2 minutes in hot oil until browned on both sides, and drain on paper towels. Place in layers in a deep serving dish, pouring some of the onion sauce, over each, starting and finishing with a layer of the sauce. Cover with cling film and leave in the refrigerator to absorb the marinade for at least half a day.
[ pasta e fagioli ]
Pasta e fasioi (dialect for ‘beans’) is an old peasant dish that is now so popular it is served at elegant parties and appears on every restaurant menu in the Veneto. The soup varies from one city to another. There are small differences – wide tagliatelle are used in Vicenza, wholewheat noodles called bigoli in Verona, lasagne in Este and Padua, and thin fettuccine or small tubular pasta in other parts.
This recipe is based on one from the family of a Verona lawyer and famous buongustaio (food lover), Vito Quaranta who showed me around his city. It is a very thick, dense soup. Some of the beans are puréed and give the soup a velvety texture.
SERVES 6–8
200g dried borlotti beans, soaked overnight in cold water
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil plus more to drizzle on
125g bacon, rinds removed and chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 carrot, peeled and chopped
2 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
3 tomatoes, peeled and chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
150g penne or other short tubular pasta
Grated parmesan or grana padano
Drain the beans. Heat the 3 tablespoons of oil in a large saucepan and sauté the bacon, celery, onion, carrot and garlic, until the vegetables have softened, stirring often. Add the tomatoes and cook over medium heat for 10 minutes. Then add the beans, cover with water and simmer gently from 1–2 hours, or until they are tender. Add water every so often and salt and pepper when the beans have begun to soften. Take out a ladleful of beans, purée them in a blender, and return to the soup. Add the pasta and cook until it is done a bit more than al dente.
Serve with pepper and a dribble of olive oil on each serving, and pass the cheese.
TAGLIOLINI WITH PRAWNS AND CRAB
[ tagliolini con gamberi e granchio ]
SERVES 4
125ml extra virgin olive oil
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 ½ fresh chillies, deseeded and finely chopped
300g peeled raw prawns
200g cooked white crabmeat
Juice of 1 lemon
Large bunch of flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
Salt
Heat 3 tablespoons of the oil in a large frying pan with the garlic, chillies and prawns, and cook over medium heat, stirring, and turning over the prawns, until they are pink all over and the garlic begins to colour then take off the heat.
Stir in the crabmeat, the remaining olive oil, lemon juice and parsley and season with a little salt. Cook the linguine in boiling salted water until al dente and drain, then mix with the prawn and crab sauce.
PAPPARDELLE WITH CHICKEN LIVERS
[ pappardelle e figadini ]
In this lovely speciality of Verona there should be some liquid but not so much that it becomes a soup. Maltagliati are sometimes used instead of pappardelle.
SERVES 4
250g chicken livers
25g unsalted butter
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
250g papardelle or tagliatelle
1 litre good beef or chicken stock
Plenty of grated parmesan or grana
Clean the chicken livers and cut a few into pieces, leaving the rest whole. Fry them quickly in sizzling butter for 1 minute or until they are brown outside but still pink inside. Season with salt and pepper and take off the heat.
Drop the pasta into the boiling stock, stir well and after 2 minutes add the livers. When the pasta is cooked al dente, serve hot, pouring a little of the stock in which it has cooked on each serving, and sprinkling with plenty of grated cheese.
RICOTTA GNOCCHI WITH GORGONZOLA SAUCE
[ gnocchetti di ricotta al gorgonzola ]
SERVES 4–6
250g ricotta
50g grated parmesan
2 large egg yolks
120g plain flour
A good pinch of nutmeg
Salt and freshly grated black pepper
Semolina or flour for the tray
For the sauce
20g unsalted butter
100ml double cream
125g gorgonzola cheese
3 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
Mash the ricotta (throw out any liquid) with the parmesan, egg yolks, flour, nutmeg, salt and pepper, and beat well with a fork. Grease your hands with oil so that the mixture does not stick when you handle it. Take lumps of the mixture and roll into thin rolls about 1cm in diameter (or the thickness of a finger). Lay the rolls on a tray covered with fine semolina or with flour, dust them with more semolina or flour and roll them gently on the tray to firm them. Then cut them with a sharp knife into pieces about 2cm long.
Drop the gnocchetti into plenty of boiling salted water and cook for about 3 minutes. They rise to the surface. Lift them out with a slotted spoon onto a serving plate.
For the sauce, melt the butter with the cream in a small pan, add the gorgonzola and cook over very low heat, crushing and stirring the cheese until you have a homogeneous sauce. Serve the gnocchetti hot with the sauce poured over and sprinkled with parsley.
VARIATION: For a southern Italian version of these gnocchetti, instead of serving it with the gorgonzola sauce, serve it with the tomato sauce on here.
[ risi e bisi ]
This is one of Venice’s great loves. They make it in the springtime with tiny, tiny young tender peas. The dish is with a quite a bit of liquid, like a soup and they call it a minestra, or soup, but it is something between a soup and a risotto. Like any risotto, it is served as a first course. Unless you can get really tiny young peas it is best to use frozen petits pois.
SERVES 4
300g young tender fresh peas or frozen petits pois
1.5 litres light meat or chicken stock or stock made by boiling the pea pods
1 tablespoon olive oil
40g unsalted butter
2 slices pancetta or unsmoked bacon, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
250g risotto rice
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
4 tablespoons or more grated parmesan
Shell the peas. Bring the stock to the boil. Heat the oil and half the butter in a large pan and sweat the pancetta or bacon with the onion over low heat until the onion is soft and translucent. Add the fresh peas (frozen petits pois can go in when the rice is almost cooked) and the sugar, and stir for a minute or so. Then pour in the boiling stock, bring to the boil and add the rice. Add salt and pepper and simmer gently, stirring occasionally, until the rice is al dente. Stir in the rest of the butter, the parsley and cheese, and serve in soup plates.
[ risotto ai frutti di mare ]
When they make risotti in Lombardy and the Piedmont, the rice is first sautéed in sizzling butter, then stock is added gradually, as it becomes absorbed. In the Veneto the rice is often cooked from the start in plenty of stock, and in Venice it is made almost liquid and called minestra, or soup. There are dozens of fish and seafood risotti using only one kind or, as restaurants in Venice now mostly offer, a variety of fish and seafood.
SERVES 4
500g mussels, scrubbed and beards removed
250ml dry white wine
About 1 litre pale fish stock
350g risotto rice
1 small onion, finely chopped
50g unsalted butter
400g raw peeled large prawns, peeled
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
Place the mussels and wine in a saucepan and cook, covered, until the mussels open (2–4 minutes). Remove them from the pan. Strain the cooking liquid and reduce to about 150ml by simmering for 10 minutes. Take the mussels out of their shells.
Bring the fish stock to the boil in a large saucepan. Take a cupful or two out to add later as needed (because rice varies so much, it is impossible to know how much liquid it will need). Add the rice, stir and simmer for about 10 minutes. Pour in the reduced wine used to cook the mussels and cook for 5–10 minutes longer, adding a little stock if necessary, until the rice is tender but firm and there is still a little liquid left.
In the meantime, fry the onion in 15g of the butter until soft, add the prawns and cook for 1–2 minutes until they turn pink. Stir this into rice with the mussels, the rest of the butter, cut into small piece, and the parsley and season with salt and pepper.
It is heresy to serve parmesan with fish or seafood risotto. I saw a cook adding some in a restaurant kitchen who said with a smile, ‘We are all heretics!’
VARIATIONS: Use baby squid, cut into small pieces (see here), cooked in the wine, or, if you like, clams or scallops.
CUTTLEFISH OR SQUID RISOTTO WITH THEIR INK
[ risotto nero con seppioline o calamaretti ]
The Veneto has a long tradition of cooking cuttlefish or squid in their ink and serving them with creamy polenta. The legendary Harry’s Bar started a fashion of serving them with tagliatelle, and when concentrated cuttlefish ink became available in sachets, fashionable restaurants began to serve very dramatic-looking risotto nero as black as tar. In the old days there was only enough ink in cuttlefish to result in grey rice. Squid is easier to find than cuttlefish in the UK. Many fishmongers and some supermarkets now sell frozen raw baby squid, cleaned and packed with the tentacles inside the bodies, and some also sell the tiny sachets of concentrated cuttlefish ink. For a grey risotto nero (I like it grey) use only 2 sachets of ink; for a very black one use 4. If you are using fresh cuttlefish or squid, see how to clean and prepare them on here.
SERVES 6
500g frozen prepared baby cuttlefish or squid, defrosted
About 800ml fish stock (have 1 litre ready)
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 large tomato (about 250g), peeled and chopped
½ teaspoon sugar
300g risotto rice
150ml dry white wine
2–4 sachets cuttlefish ink
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
50g butter, cut into small pieces
4 tablespoons finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
Drain the squid, take the tentacles out of the bodies and wash well. Cut the bodies into rings about 1cm wide and leave the tiny tentacles whole. Heat the fish stock to simmering point.
In a large saucepan, fry the onion in the oil over low heat until soft (about 10 minutes). Add the garlic and fry 1 minute, then add the tomato. Raise the heat and cook stirring, until reduced to a jammy consistency. Put in the cuttlefish or squid and cook, stirring and turning the pieces over for 1 minute, then stir in the rice, and after 1 minute, the wine, and reduce the heat.
When the wine has been absorbed, start adding the hot stock, ladle by ladle, stirring all the time, and waiting to add more after each ladle as it becomes absorbed. Season with salt and pepper and continue to add stock until the rice is al dente in a creamy sauce. Towards the end, stir in the cuttlefish ink and the butter. Before serving stir in some of the parsley, leaving some to sprinkle over each serving.
VARIATIONS: For Stewed Cuttlefish or Squid In Black Ink to serve on creamy or grilled polenta, or as a sauce for tagliatelle, fry the onion and garlic, the tomato and the cuttlefish or squid, add the wine and 1 or 2 sachets of ink. Season with salt and pepper, and chilli flakes, if you like, and cook until the cuttlefish or squid are soft.
[ maiale al latte ]
Pork is traditional rural fare in the Veneto. This way of cooking it in milk that curdles makes it a delicious and an elegant dish served with mashed potatoes.
SERVES 4
1kg boneless leg or loin of pork, rolled and tied
350ml or more dry white wine
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and frehly ground black pepper
A few sage leaves
Sprig of rosemary
600ml–1 litre whole milk
Put the meat into a deep dish, cover with wine and leave to marinate overnight.
The next day, remove the meat, dry it and brown it in oil in a large pan or casserole. Season with salt and pepper, add a few leaves of sage and a sprig of rosemary and cover with milk. Cover and place the pan or casserole on low heat to cook very slowly for 1 ½ to 2 hours. When the meat is very tender, remove the lid and increase the heat to reduce the liquid.
Take out the pork, slice not too thinly on a warm serving dish and pour the sauce over it. Serve the rest in a sauceboat. The sauce always curdles but that is how it is. Some strain it, some blend it to a cream, some like to leave it as it is.
LIVER, VENETIAN STYLE
[ fegato alla veneziana ]
This famous Venetian dish is always popular everywhere.
SERVES 4
4 tablespoons olive oil
50g unsalted butter
2 large onions, cut in half and thinly sliced
Salt
500g calf’s liver, thinly sliced
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil and all the butter in a large frying pan. As soon as the butter is melted, add the onion and stir. Cover the pan and cook on low heat, stirring occasionally, for 45–60 minutes until melting soft. Add salt.
Heat the remaining oil in another frying pan, add the liver and cook very briefly, in batches if necessary, over high heat from 30 seconds to 1 minute on each side – it should be still pink inside. Add to the onions, heat through and take off the heat. Serve sprinkled with salt, pepper and parsley.
GOOSE WITH APPLES AND CHESTNUTS
[ oca con mele e castagne ]
Geese were called the ‘farmyard pigs’ because they ate anything and were easy to keep.
SERVES 6
1 goose, about 5–6kg
Salt and pepper
1kg dessert apples, such as Golden Delicious
50g unsalted butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
750g frozen chestnuts, defrosted
Sprinkle the goose with salt and pepper and stuff with 2 of the apples, coarsely chopped. Place in a roasting tin (on a rack if you like) and pierce the skin all over with a fork or pointed knife to allow the fat to run out. Roast in the oven at 220ºC/200ºC fan/gas 7 for 20 minutes, then cover the bird with foil, turn the oven down to 180ºC/160ºC fan/gas 4 and roast for another 2¼–2¾ hours. Test for doneness by piercing the thigh with a pointed knife. The juices that run out should not be pink.
Meanwhile peel, core and cut in half the remaining apples and cut them into thick slices. Fry gently in batches in the butter and oil in a large sauté pan until soft.
Boil the chestnuts in water to cover for about 10–15 minutes until tender and drain, then break them into quarters and mix with the apple slices. Put them in a baking dish and heat through in the oven when you are nearly ready to serve.
In the 1950s restaurants were ashamed to offer polenta. After thirty years of neglect, the old heartwarming maize flour mush rejected as ‘poor food’, made a triumphal comeback and became very fashionable and popular in the north of Italy and especially in the Veneto, where it was once a rural staple. Restaurants began to serve elegant portions, often in the form of thin toasted slices, crostoni, which act as a bed for game birds, sausages, fish and meat stews. Some poured it on to a large board and cut it with a long thread in the old traditional way, or pressed it in an oiled mould and turned it out.
There are many ways of making polenta. There are those who like it soft and creamy, those who prefer it firm enough to cut with a knife, those who want a thickness of three or four fingers and those who like it sliced no more than 1cm thick. There is white maize flour as well as the more common yellow one in Italy, but they taste almost the same; and there are different degrees of fineness. The fine-ground flour is considered the best, although many people prefer the coarse one.
The difficulty with the traditional way of making polenta is that it must be stirred for about 45 minutes so that lumps do not form. The flour is poured gradually in a thin rain, with the left hand, into boiling salted water, while the right hand stirs vigorously, always in the same clockwise direction. As the thick mass gurgles and splatters you must be careful that the bottom does not stick and burn, or that the taste will be spoiled. The traditional polenta pan, or caldiera, is heavy copper with a cone-shaped bottom which would fit into a hole in the old hearths; it has a kind of oar, or caldina, which makes stirring easier. Although gourmets claim that polenta made in the slow, even heat of a caldiera is superior to any other and has another flavour and another smell, people have successfully devised ways of preparing polenta more easily and you can even buy a special polenta pan with a built-in electric oar. An easy way given to me by Lucia Alberini is to put the maize flour with the water and salt in a saucepan and bring them to the boil, stirring vigorously. After cooking and stirring for a few minutes, she pours it into a greased baking dish and bakes the polenta covered with foil in a 200ºC/180ºC fan/gas 6 oven for 1 hour. It works very well.
For a softer, creamier polenta, you add more water, or a mixture of milk and water – you can add up to twice as much liquid. This too eventually becomes firm and can be sliced and grilled and yields a lovely crisp crust and a soft inside.
For polenta a bocconi, serve in bowls with plenty of butter and grated parmesan. For polenta conzada serve with plenty of butter, ricotta and grated parmesan. For polenta a bocconi dolce, add sugar instead of salt and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon instead of parmesan.
A dramatic way of serving polenta in rural Veneto is to pour it out on to the wood or marble kitchen table (you can cover your table with foil) and to lay on top of it various foods, such as fried sausages, slices of salami or cheese, quail, lightly fried mushrooms, pigeon or hare stew and let people help themselves. You can buy polenta boards with a wire thread attached to cut the polenta.
USING INSTANT POLENTA
There are now many companies making ‘fast cooking’ or ‘instant’ polenta. They vary in quality and some are really good enough, especially when you are going to use it as a bed for a tasty stew or as a grilled crostone for a delicacy to sit on. I expect that is what most of you will be using. The instructions on the packs usually recommend using 1 litre of water for 250g of polenta but that results in a hard polenta. Some tell you to cook for 2 minutes but it should be longer.
1.5 litres of water
1½ teaspoons salt
250g instant polenta
In a very large saucepen bring the water to the boil with the salt and pour in the polenta flour in a thin stream stirring vigorously with a wooden spoon. When it begins to boil again, reduce the heat and continue to stir for 2 minutes. It gurgles and splatters so you might need to put a cloth around your hand. Cover the pan and cook over very low heat for another 10 minutes, then stir again pour into a serving dish.
FOR POLENTA WITH PARMESAN stir in 100g grated parmesan and and 50g butter
GRILLED POLENTA CROSTONI: To make grilled polenta turn out the polenta while still hot onto a baking sheet lined with foil and spread it out to a thickness of about 2cm. Let it cool and become firm, then cut it into slices, brush them or not with oil, and toast under the grill until lightly browned on both sides. They will be crisp on the outside and very soft inside.
A simple way to obtain wide slices is to pour the polenta on more than one sheet to a thickness of about 1cm. When cool and firm, cut it into large squares or rectangles.
POLENTA WITH SAUSAGES AND PANCETTA
[ polenta con salsiccia e pancetta ]
My cousin Donald who lived in Milan as a child told me about this polenta which a young woman who came to clean described nostalgically. In her family in rural Veneto they made huge quantities and poured it straight onto their marble kitchen table from which they ate. In the middle were fried sausages and pancetta. Her brothers were always quicker to eat their way to the centre and got more. It makes a wonderful lazy Sunday breakfast.
SERVES 4
8 good quality fresh pure pork sausages
8–12 slices streaky bacon
3 tablespoons olive oil
900ml whole milk
900ml water
1½ teaspoons salt
300g quick-cooking polenta or maize meal
50g unsalted butter, cut into pieces
Freshly ground black pepper
Prick the sausages in one or two places with a pointed knife. Fry them in 2 tablespoons of the oil in a large frying pan over low heat, turning them until they are cooked through and well browned all over (about 20–25 minutes). In another frying pan fry the bacon in the remaining oil, turning the slices over until crisp. Keep them hot or reheat when you are ready to serve.
Bring the milk and the water with the salt to the boil in a large saucepan. Pour in the polenta in a thin stream whilst stirring vigorously and continue to stir in one direction for 5 to 10 minutes squashing any lumps until it is a thick porridge. Then stir in the butter.
Pour the polenta in a wide serving dish and top with the sausages and bacon or serve directly into individual plates.
[ semifreddo al miele ]
The Valle del Zoldo near Belluno in the northern Veneto is known for its creamy, delicately flavoured semifreddos that are quite different from the legendary Sicilian and Neapolitan ice creams. The men of the region – like Sicilians and Neapolitans before them – have brought their trade all over Italy and abroad. This is one of their traditional flavours.
SERVES 4–6
1 large egg
4 large egg yolks
100g scented honey, such as acacia or orange blossom honey
300ml double or whipping cream
Beat the egg and the egg yolks with the honey in a double boiler or in a bowl placed on top of a pan of boiling water until the mixture becomes thick and pale. Beat the cream until stiff and fold it in. Pour into a serving bowl and freeze for 4 hours or overnight.
The whipping cream gives a fluffier, lighter ice cream.
TIRAMISU
[ tiramisù ]
SERVES 8
2–4 tablespoons rum, or to taste
120ml strong black coffee
2 tablespoons brandy
16–20 sponge fingers or boudoirs
500g mascarpone
2 large eggs, separated
5 tablespoons icing sugar
75–125g dark bitter chocolate, pulverised in a blender
Mix 2 tablespoons of the rum with the coffee and brandy. Dip sponge fingers in this mixture and lay in a shallow dish. Pour over them any remaining coffee mixture, but not so much that the sponge fingers become soggy. Beat together the mascarpone, egg yolks and icing sugar, and add the remaining rum. Beat the egg whites until stiff but not dry, and fold into the mascarpone mixture. Spoon over the sponge fingers and sprinkle with chocolate. Refrigerate overnight.
[ semifreddo al ciocolato ]
SERVES 6 OR MORE
250g bitter or dark chocolate, broken into pieces
4 tablespoons cognac
165g caster sugar
3 large eggs, at room temperature
2 large egg yolks
430ml double cream
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
Put the chocolate in a heatproof bowl sitting on a pan of barely simmering water – make sure the bottom does not touch the water – until all of it melts, stir in the cognac, heat through and take off the heat.
Now put the sugar, eggs and yolks in another large heatproof bowl over the pan of barely simmering water – it must not touch the water. Beat with an electric mixer to a pale thick cream, then take off the heat and continue beating for about 6 minutes as it cools. Gently mix with the melted chocolate.
Beat the double cream until it forms soft peaks, sprinkle in the cocoa powder and beat to blend it in. Now fold this very gently into the chocolate mixture. Line a mould with cling film, pour in the semifreddo mixture, cover with a piece of cling film and freeze overnight.
Take the semifreddo out of the freezer 15 minutes before you want to serve. Remove the cling film from the top, turn it out and peel off the covering cling film. Serve it cut into slices.
[ semifreddo al vino ]
SERVES 6
2 large eggs
125g sugar
175ml sweet white or red wine
300ml double or whipping cream
Beat the eggs with the sugar in a double boiler or in a bowl placed on top of a pan of boiling water. Gradually add the wine, beating well until the mixture thickens. Let cool. Beat the cream until stiff and fold into the cooled egg and wine mixture. Freeze overnight.
COLD ZABAGLIONE
[ zabaione freddo ]
This recipe comes from Giorgio Gioco, chef-owner of the Ristorante 12 Apostoli in Verona.
SERVES 6
6 large egg yolks
150g sugar
200ml Marsala
Grated rind of ½ lemon
1 teaspoon cinnamon
A few drops of vanilla essence
200ml double or whipping cream
Put all the ingredients, except the cream, in the top of a double boiler or in a bowl placed on top of a pan of boiling water, and beat vigorously until the mixture is frothy. Put directly on the heat and beat constantly until the mixture is thick and creamy. Take off the heat and let cool. Beat the cream until stiff and fold into the egg mixture. Pour into a bowl or in wine glasses and serve chilled with biscuits.
