Lorighittas with bottarga, courgettes and ricotta

Right up there with the White Alba Truffle in reputation , Bottarga is one of the true gastronomic gems to hail from Italy. It is a very simple product born out of the need in prerefridgeration days to preserve foodstuffs using salt. Bottarga is the egg sack of certain marine fish. The roe is prepared by salting, pressing and drying for up to 6 months in cool well aired rooms. There are two types, Bottarga di Tonno (Tuna) and the more prized Bottarga di Muggine (Grey Mullet). Tuna bottarga is mostly produced in Sicily (it is sometimes referred to as Sicilian Caviar) and in Carloforte, where the now much declined Tuna fishery is based. It is grey in colour and has a stronger, saltier more robust flavour than that of the Grey Mullet. The best examples of mullet bottarga come from Sardinia.

Grey Mullet is one of the staple fish harvests all over the Mediterranean. Looked down on by some due to its distasteful habit of congregating by sewage outlets to feed, it has a lovely delicate white flesh. The Sardinians claim to have the fattest most flavoursome examples in Italian waters and the best time to harvest them is in August and September, when the hen fish are full of roe. The egg sacks are removed with the utmost care to avoid piercing; they are then salted and pressed in to the characteristic oblong shapes before drying. The finished product is amber to dark brown in colour and firm and waxy in texture. They are delicately flavoured, unmistakeably fishy but more subtle than the Tuna bottarga.

The best way to eat bottarga is raw. Sliced thinly and drizzled with good unfiltered extra virgin olive oil and lemon it makes a delicious, fresh and clean tasting antipasto. It also tastes, for the more profligate, wonderful with pasta. Here's a recipe to pair bottarga with another gem of Sardinian's culinary tradition: lorighittas! A beautiful type of pasta which, thanks to its shape, works perfectly with this type of ingredients.

Ingredients:

Lorighittas 400gr

Bottarga crumbles  40 gr

Courgette 1 large

Sheep Ricotta 160 gr

Garlic 4 cloves unpeeled

Extra Virgin Olive oil 

White wine  1 dcl

Dried chilly pepper 2 small

Salt

Freshly ground pepper

Vegetable stock 2 dcl

Method:

In a deep saucepan heat some EVO Oil and toss in garlic cloves. Cut a courgette in 4 parts and then in thiny slices. Add to the saucepan. Crush the chilly and add it as well, then stir frequently the courgettes. Cook for about 15 min.

In the meantime, in a large casserole, bring water to boil and then add salt and throw in the lorighittas. Cook for about 11 min. 

In the meantime add white wine to the courgettes and let evaporate alcohol. Lower the heat. Add the vegetable stock and 1/3 of the bottarga crumbles.

Once the lorighittas have been cooked for 11 minutes, drain them and add to the saucepan, making sure there's enough vegetable stock.

Cook for 4/5 min untill lorighittas are aldente.

Turn off the flame and toss in the ricotta and let it melt stirring frequently. Adjust with some freshly ground pepper.

Serve adding the rest of the bottarga crumbles and a drizzle of EVO oil.

Frankie goes to Oliwood

Once in a while i am going to upload posts (mostly photos) about traveling and, more importantly, about people. To travel, even more so when it's driven by gastronomical interest, is in first place a matter of meeting people, know their stories. Those stories are going to tell me everything i need to know about a certain culinary tradition, especially when this tradition is embraced and loved with such pure passion as it's done by Maria. Together with her husband Erik and their two kids, they moved from Slovakia to Vicopisano, near Pisa, and they created Oliwood, a little gem on the Tuscan hills. They make an amazing extra virgin olive oil and Maria cooks using herbs and fruits of her garden (speak of "zero miles").

I spent a week there with family and friends and i had the pleasure to cook together with Maria: she's got such love for italian cuisine and for the quality of basic ingredients that i forgot that she wasn't born and raised in Tuscany. Of some of the dishes we prepared together i am going to post the recipe on this blog in the future. For the moment enjoy the vibe of Oliwood.

Polp allada: sous-vide octopus Catalan style

Since a lot of people seem to be adopting sous-vide cooking at home with Sous Vide Supreme I’m going to post some easy recipes of traditional dishes, such Polp Allada, a typical dish of the Catalan tradition of the northwest of Sardinia, with the technological improvement offered by the progress. Sous-vide cooking is a method that was developed in France in the 1970′s but that has gone mainstream only  in recent years. I think where sous-vide excels is at maintaining the integrity of ingredients in a way that was once impossible, and that’s achieved by cooking food in air-vacuumed bags for an extended period of time at relatively low but tightly controlled temperatures.

Octopus is a notoriously tricky ingredient, one wrong step can lead you to chew on a cephalopod chewing gum – and it’s just as bad as it sounds. When you get it right though, it’s pure bliss. Sous-vide is a great technique to use on octopus as it produces perfectly tender tentacles without the hassle. You can then finish them up on the grill for a little bit of char just before serving or, as you do in this recipe, deep frying before combining with the sour and spicy depth of the allada sauce.

Ingredients:

• For the sous-vide octopus:
  
  
  
  
  • 1 medium-sized octopus
  • 1 carrot, roughly chopped
  • 1 onion, roughly chopped
  • 1 celery stalk, roughly chopped
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 2 sprigs of thyme
  • 1 tablespoon red peppercorn
  • 1 tea spoon cilantro seeds
  • 1/2 cup white wine vinegar
  • Zest from a bio lemon
  • 
    
  • For the allada:

35 gr sundried tomatoes

5/6 cloves of garlic

150 gr peeled tomatoes

2/3 bay leaves

1/3 cup of white wine vinegar

1 chilly pepper

pinch of salt and pepper

Method:

• For the sous-vide octopus:
  
  
  
  
  • Place 8 cups of water and the carrot, onion, celery, bay leaves and parsley stems in a large saucepan and bring to a simmer for 15 minutes. Add the white wine vinegar and keep at a simmer. Wash the octopus in plenty of cold water and remove the tentacles with a sharp knife. Blanch the octopus for about 45 seconds and remove from the poaching and into an ice bath to cool rapidly. Drain. Cool the poaching liquid.
  • Place the octopus in two separate sous-vide bags. Add a few tablespoons of the poaching liquid to the bags, then lemon zest, red peppercorn and cilantro seeds and vacuum-seal on high.
  • Place the bags in the sous-vide machine for 4 hours at 185′F (85′C). Cool in an ice bath. Remove the octopus from the bags, cover with rice flour and deep fry for 30/40 seconds in rice oil. Drain and set aside on paper to absorb oil.

For the allada:

Cut the garlic and place it in a hot saucepan with olive oil. Add the sundried tomatoes finely chopped. Stir gently then add the the peeled tomatoes which have been finely chopped too previously. Add bay leaves and vinegar and let evaporate. Then lower the heat and let the sauce reduce. Throw in the octopus (either whole tentacles or you can cut them in small pieces before), adjust with salt and pepper. Stir for a minute or two and then turn off the flame and set aside to cool off.

Place the polp allada in a non reactive bowl, making sure that the sauce cover the octopus and let it rest in the fridge over night.

You can serve it cold or quickly reheat before serving.

Coffee butter

I know, i know: Italians are supposed to deal with coffee just for espressos, moccas or for Tiramisu'. But being a curious Italian i keep looking for new tecniques and new flavor combinations. I stepped into this idea looking for new ways to enhance my sous-vide steak and i just got blown away.

To respect at least a bit the tradition i got the coffee beans from my friend Aldo who is from Naples, the Italian capital of coffee.

Ingredients:

Coffee beans, whole 250 gr

Butter unsalted, 500 gr

Method:

Vacuum package the whole coffee beans together with the unsalted butter. Coffee beans are fairly buoyant because of the large volume of CO₂ they contain, so remove as much gas as possible during the vacuum packing step. I recommend adding a heavy weight to the bag to help it sink.

Cook sous-vide at  90 °C for three hours. Shorter cooking times will yield a milder coffee flavor. Strain the beans from the infused butter through a chinois or a sieve. Agitate the beans to extract as much of the infused butter as possible, then discard the beans. Vacuum pack the coffee butter and keep refrigerated until needed.

Tip:

Coffee butter works amazingly with a sous-vide steak ( in this case a boneless rib-eye steak ). The tecnique is very easy:

Vacuum package the steak with enough coffee butter to coat the steak as it cooks. Cook the steak sous vide to your desired core temperature. After cooking the steak, briefly sear it again to refresh the crust. This can be done in a pan, on a grill or on the stone.  Brush the steak with warm coffee butter, season with salt, and then slice into few portions.

Summer, lamb and a glass jar

A variation on the theme....

Herbs and coconut coated lamb confit cooked in a jar 

Ingredients:

500 g French rack of lamb

500 ml sunflower oil

50 ml coconut oil

40 gr Dijon mustard

20 gr dried coconut

15 gr estragon

15 gr oregano

15 gr thyme

15 gr coriander

15 gr sage

a pinch of Maldon smoked salt flakes

a pinch of freshly ground black pepper

a pinch of freshly ground dried chilly peppers

2 cloves of garlic

a small shallot

Method:

Take the lamb rack out of the fridge at least 20 minutes before start cooking. With a sharp knife cut in between the ribs, then separate the meat from the bone, creating nice round sirloin pieces.

Fill glass jars ¾ with sunflower and coconut oil, close them, place them into large casseroles, cover with water and bring to 70 degrees temperature.

Chop very finely the herbs leaves and then put them on a piece of paper to absorb a bit the moisture. Mix with the coconut. In the meantime brush the meat with the mustard and then cover it with the herbs, pressing well so it creates a tight coating. Leave on the side a pinch of chopped herbs and mix them with salt, pepper and chilly.

Very quickly remove the jars from the casserole, open them and toss the lamb in it . Close and put them back in the water and let it simmer at 70 degrees for 17/18 minutes.

Serve with the salted herbs seasoning and a bit of balsamic reduction