Aroma Cucina

Le Logge Ristorante, Citta di Castello

La Logge is tucked away in the atrium building off the main piazza in Citta di Castello, and they have quietly been developing a fine restaurant. We’ve gone a number of times now and have impressed with their creative menu, execution, presentation and obvious love of what they do. 

The three young proprietors have created a chic, modern and inviting space housed inside a gracious vaulted ceiling dining room. Now that the cold weather is upon us, a very warm crackling fire welcomes the hungry diner.   The wine list is a careful selection of Umrian wines and a few choice regional Italian wines. And by choice, I don’t just mean expensive, I mean they are good choices.

Recently the fall menu included a number of white tartufo selections, and even though this is not a good truffle year in Umbria, their truffles were pungent and delicious. Memories of their steak covered in white truffles will sustain me through a long truffle-less winter in New York. And just for the record, a salad with truffles isn't bad either!

Last Saturday night was the one year anniversary party for Le Logge and we were happy to be there as the good food, good wine and good cheer flowed. Photos of everyone gnawing away at  fabulous bistecca will be kept private!

So, to Arlind, Natascia and Michele: Auguri!! Complimenti! E ci vediamo nella primavera!

Le Logge Ristorante

Piazza Matteotti (Logge Bufalini)

Citta di Castello, PG

Tel: 075-864-2304

info@ristorantelelogge.com

Sautéed Cavatelli with Radicchio

 

Our friend Toni recently gifted me with 4 goose eggs which she assured me were great for making fresh pasta. Is it just my imagination or do people just get a kick of giving me large quantities of challenging ingredients? I’m not complaining I’m just wondering out loud.

 

Goose eggs are HUGE. It has the most gratifying heft in your hand, thick sandstone colored shell; gigantic bright orange yolk and water clear white. An average chicken egg’s contents weighs about 45-50 grams, a goose egg weighs in at around 125 grams.  Doing a rough comparison, goose eggs are higher in calories, protein and cholesterol. It is the protein part that intrigues me because the pasta dough had a much drier and slicker hand feel than chicken egg pasta. I opted to make cavatelli, which in retrospect was a good choice, because I think goose egg pasta lends itself to a chunkier, heavier style pasta.   I used a traditional 2:1 ratio of flour to egg, and actually had to cut back a bit on the flour because the dough was becoming too stiff and dry.

 

The fun part was the ‘sauce’, not really a sauce but more of a condiment.

 Radicchio Guanciale Gorgonzola Sauce

1 radicchio head, thinly sliced

1 medium onion, thinly sliced

¼ cup guanciale, pancetta or bacon

1//4 cup fresh walnuts, roughly chopped

3 T Gorgonzola dolce, the soft kind

Balsamic Vinegar

Salt, Pepper

 

 

 
About 4 minutes before your pasta is done, start the sauce.

Sauté the pancetta, then add the onion and finally the radicchio. Use a sauté pan big enough to hold the drained, cooked pasta.  Sauté the vegetables until everything is tender and wilted.

When the pasta is done, drain and add to the sauté pan and cook until slightly browned. Toss in the walnuts. Adjust for salt and pepper. 

Plate the pasta and add a nugget of Gorgonzola in the center, sprinkle on a bit of good balsamic vinegar. Eat.

 

 

A note about walnuts: Discovery! Fresh walnuts make a huge difference. I’ve always used the grocery store walnuts in a bag, and you know, uh, they have a mild walnut taste.  We were given a huge bag of very fresh walnuts (see what I mean… people give me great stuff!) and Jeff was my hero and shelled the whole lot of them. They are so flavorful and oily…grocery store walnuts just won’t cut it anymore. I’m such a snob.

Maple Syrup & Bourbon Glazed Quail, Whey Not?

 

Pizza Guru took a trip back home to Vermont and came back bearing a gift of maple syrup. It’s such an American ingredient and as I looked around my kitchen filled with very Italian ingredients I thought, “What am I going to do with this? Maple syrup pasta??!”

 

Fortunately, a quick conversation on Serious Eats, and I had more than enough inspiration, but funnily enough I paired it with another American ingredient: bourbon.  Was I embracing terroire, or just not thinking out of the box? Regardless, it turns out maple syrup and bourbon love each other!

 

Maple Syrup & Bourbon Glaze

¼ cup maple syrup

¼ cup bourbon

1 dried chili pepper, crumbled

¼ t Viet Namese cinnamon (very pungent)

Fresh nutmeg

¼ t grains of paradise

2-3 juniper berries

 

Place all the ingredients in a saucepan and gently reduce just a little, stop when the glaze starts to thicken.

 

 

I like to brine my quail, but instead of using a regular salt brine, I used the whey left over from mozzarella (the whey is that liquid that comes with mozzarella).  The intrepid experimenters at Ideas in Food and Studio Kitchen had been fooling around with whey marinades and it is an intriguing way to tenderize meat. The lactose in the whey acts as the tenderizer, and commercial meat processors will actually use lactose crystals to tenderize meat. I’ve also experimented with yogurt as a tenderizer, and it works, but then you encounter the snot factor. I don’t know the science here, but a few times I wound up with a seriously mucilaginous sauce. This describes the snot factor, which is defined as when you bring the fork up to your mouth a long string of sauce snot clings to your plate. It’s sort of charming with melted cheese; it’s just revolting with a brown sauce. I’m happy to report that whey tenderized the meat, left no discernible flavor and there was zero snot factor.

 

Science lesson is over and now the rest is easy. Brush the quail with the glaze. You really do need a brush, if you pour, you’ll waste too much. As for trussing the bird, that is up to you. I don't truss because I think it causes problems with over roasting the non trussed areas.  As long as you are not bothered by the wild abandon of the legs, and I'm a great fan of wild abandon, I do not recommend trussing. If you are a bit shy, you may want to truss.

Roast the quail at 375F for about 35 minutes, basting the quail every 8-10 minutes.  About 10 minutes before the quail is done, drain off the pan juices and added them to the glaze, reduce the sauce again and continued painting the birds with the pan juice glaze. The overall result was fantastic; the glaze was crackling hard, very flavorful and just the right amount of finger licking sticky.

 

The other night, as you can imagine with all of this hot oven work, it required a cold cocktail as everyone waited for their birdie. Since we were already in an experimental mode, we opted for a modified Sazerac, subbing the maple syrup for simple syrup and bourbon for rye (there is no rye to be had in Umbria, which is reason enough to head back to the States).  The maple-bourbon Sazerac was marvelous, an elegant variation with an elusive complexity from the maple syrup. This cocktail deserves a better name.

 

One last note about maple syrup, as Pizza Guru gave me the full rundown. He is a versatile fellow, isn’t he? This was ungraded syrup that he got at a Vermont coop and it was a revelation. Not super sweet, not particularly viscous, it was so delicately flavored you could sip it from a cordial glass and be quite happy. I’m now spoiled and will be on the hunt for some of this nectar when we get back to NY.

 

P.S. I also tried the glaze on some chicken legs….and it is a fine, fine thing this maple syrup bourbon glaze!

 

Tartufo Bianco and Polenta

It's a classic fall weekend here in the Upper Tiber Valley. The rain is falling, the fog is gathering, there is snow on the distant peaks.

And a white truffle festival in Citta di Castello. We went early on Saturday to beat the crowds and taste the new olive oil that's just been pressed. And of course, we wandered around sampling sausages.

Chatting with the pretty onion ladies.

Admiring  a very interesting dog.

 

Today is a chilly Sunday, and we were treated to a delicious polenta lunch.

And after polenta, we went for stroll around the Maridiana Alpaca farm.

and Pizza Guru just called wanting to meet for pizza... so off we go. Never a dull moment.

 

Festa del Bosco in Montone

It may only be a weekend long Festa, but it starts on Monday when workmen come around and run electric lines from our house out onto the street. It’s part and parcel of the festa, as we live on one of the main streets, we are therefore expected to donate our electricity to the cause.   By Wednesday evening, pick up trucks are roaring around town with flanks of men standing up in the backs of the trucks as if some strange coup had erupted. I kept checking to make sure no one was waving an AK47, and that the men were holding pieces of gazebos that would house cheese and salami stands. (Not that I might not be in favor of a coup, but that is something we should discuss in the back room of the Aries bar.)  Thursday was the day of the Concerto of the Dropping Pipes. Apparently, while assembling the vendor stalls it is required to drop the support pipes regularly and rhythmically or the Festa Gods will be angry.  By Friday night, all the pipes were standing, the stalls had been built, decorated and stocked and it was the opening night of Festa del Bosco 2009.

 

This is where I start to lose track of the days, and of the nights. People started showing up in our kitchen bearing gifts of art (It was actually quite amazing: young Daisy’s watercolors, Joseph’s unexpected and very beautiful gift, and the irrepressible Franco showing up with his Burning Bridges and Woman Reading to the Sea…. Don’t you love the idea of a young woman entertaining Neptune?), people were telling stories, saying good-byes, saying hellos, opening Prosecco, opening more Prosecco, handing me goose eggs, and just when I wished out loud for some roasted chestnuts, Oswaldo walked in the door with a huge bag of warm chestnuts and cool and fresh Cannaiolo wine.  Oswaldo and Giusy set up their chestnut stand in front of our house and they always make sure that we have more chestnuts than we could possibly desire; but how he knew to walk in the door, right on cue, is a mystery to me.

 

Saturday I entered the world of Taverna Indentured Slavery and began cooking pasta for all of Umbria and beyond. Kilo after kilo of pasta, mountains of miaile, entire forests of olives, and leg after leg of prosciutto walked out of our kitchen.

 

Saturday night we had planned on a quiet dinner for two, but then the door opened and there was Jonathan with more cheese and wine and salami, along with some crazy good cured cinghiale.  And before you know it there was roasted quail in a maple syrup and bourbon glaze, followed by a spectacular, intimate jazz concert in the teatro San Fedele.

 

Sunday is usually the busiest day, and this year was no exception.  The Taverna del Verziere was packed to the gills and once again we cranked out the food, only this time there was the added excitement of serving Emanuele Umberto Reza Ciro René Maria Filiberto di Savoia, Prinicipe di Venezia and Piemonte.  I’d had my head in a polenta pot for too many hours, when Luca starts bouncing around the kitchen babbling something about the Principe di Savoia and pointing in the general direction of the dessert station, which is also near the front door. I look over at the desserts expecting to see a Principe di Savoia…I thought it was some sort of whipped cream dessert confection, hey, if strangoprezzi, or ‘strangle the priest’ can be a pasta dish, why can't Principe di Savoia be a pastry? Finally Luca explains that we actually have royalty in our midst and he literally drags me outside to take a group shot with the very gracious Emanuele Filiberto di Savoia and his two adorable daughters.

This happy episode is immediately forgotten as a large man rushes into the kitchen, shouting at full volume, complaining that he has been waiting too long for his polenta. Which has the result of everyone dropping what they were doing, including making his polenta, so that we can all discuss his rudeness, thereby further delaying delivery of said polenta.  Dinner service was fairly dull by comparison, as everyone alternated between falling over with exhaustion and giddy exuberance that festa was nearly over. At one point in the night, there were literally more people crammed into the kitchen, all babbling and grabbing bits of food, then there were diners out at the tables. Anyone who is part of the Del Verziere family is eternally permitted to come into the taverna and scrounge for handouts.

 

   I staggered over to Jane & Eddy’s for a very welcome cup of tea, and finding it hard to put a whole sentence together in any language, Jeff took pity and guided me home.  Arriving at our door, we stepped over and around mounds of chestnut shells, cheese, corn, fruit, leaves, empty wine bottles, cartons, crates, found our traumatized street cat Niccolino at our feet begging to come in,  and with that, we went inside and closed the door on Festa 2009. Or at least I did, Jeff wound up helping Oswaldo and Giusy break down their stalls, whereupon we were gifted with more chestnuts, a sack of walnuts and more wine.   This morning, the Concerto of the Dropping Pipes resumed to give thanks for a successful Festa del Bosco, and right on cue the rains have begun as Montone shrugs off the effects of the Festa like waking from a fevered dream and we inhabitants resume our usual rhythm.

For a full set of photos: clicca qui

 

Hunting Season Conundrum

  The guns are blasting outside, so it must be hunting season in Umbria.  Mushroom hunters battle for territory, clusters of men dressed in camouflage gather on the sides of the road clutching walkie talkies in one hand and the lead of a barking dog in the other. Cinghiale is hunted ‘in battuta’ meaning the hunters and their dogs bark and whoop and flush the prey into a tight spot and then they shoot it. I have mixed feelings about battuta style hunting as it doesn’t’ seem very sporting to have 10 men with advanced weaponry, dogs and a lot of communication devices chasing after one wild boar. On the other hand, the terrain around here is seriously challenging, one misstep and you disappear into the bowels of a bottomless ravine, so maybe it’s best for everyone if they hunt in a group. That is, everyone but the cinghiale.

Dana McCauley’s recent blog post “How Bloodthirsty are you?” is a lively piece where she grapples with her own issues about hunting.

I have to support responsible hunting because I love to cook and eat game, so I can’t be wishy-washy on the subject. But, could I pull the trigger? I just don’t know.

According to my dear friend Jay Cassell, a life long hunter and big muckedy-muck editor at Field & Stream, the number of hunters and women hunters has risen in the US to around 15 million, but as a percentage of the overall population, the hunting population is shrinking and women account for less than 10% of hunters. Jay thinks I should take up hunting, and maybe I’ll go out with him when we get back to NY, if only to symbolically honor the fallen deer (Because Jay, if I go out with you, I totally expect to come back with a nice buck, none of this, oh better luck next time nonsense like you pull with fly fishing!). 

In Umbria, hunting is so woven into the fabric of life, you just accept that in the fall it sounds like you are living outside the Green Zone in Baghdad, it’s best to wear a red bicycle helmet and you always hope that sooner or later someone is going to hand you a choice piece of cinghiale. This weekend, we are serving cinghiale with black olives at the Taverna del Verziere during our Festa del Bosco and I promise to say a small prayer of thanks to the animal spirit. It’s the least I can do.

So, what about you? Do you eat game? Could you pull the trigger?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Black Celery from Trevi

 

No, black celery is not the stuff you find in the back of the fridge. 

It’s a much revered type of celery that can only be grown in Umbria in the area around the picturesque town of Trevi. The town seems to be literally spilling down a mountainside, almost in defiance of gravity.

This celery variety, Apium graveolens L. var. dulce (Mill.) has earned IGP (Indicazione Geografica Protetta) status along with Cannara onions, Lago Trasimeno beans, faro from Monteleone di Spoleto, saffron from Cascia and other products unique to Umbria.

 

Trevi loves it’s black celery so much that they’ve been holding the Sagra del Sedano e della Salsiccia” since 1965.  This year we made it our business to get to Trevi to experience this famous black celery. The first thing you notice, aside from the fact that this is some honkin’ big celery, is that it’s not black. The leaves are a very dark green but even in the dark, they don’t look black.

There is something quaint, and slightly mad about seeing crates of celery stacked up and people lugging around big bags of celery. I’m sure it’s my US perspective, where celery is this generic crunchy stuff without much flavor, so to see true passion for celery, well, it just warmed my heart on a very cold night.

 

Now that I had my bunches of celery, and was carrying around a bag just like a local, I started to wonder what exactly was I supposed to do with them? We took a walk around the vendors who were selling black celery products and most of them were a ‘crema’ de sedano with sausage or truffles.  Restaurant menus also offered mainly ‘crema’ preparations, so we staggered around with our celery bag still a bit mystified by the cult of the black celery.

 

Arriving back in Montone, I was seized by inspiration! Give one of my huge bunches to Margie and let her figure out what to do with it! Ha! Half of my dilemma solved. We stood around in her kitchen munching on the flavorful (but my no means earth shatteringly tasty) celery stalks. Assessing the celery like wine we came up with: somewhat woody character with a good celery flavor. Maybe you need to cook it.

 

The next morning I had to face my celery and deal with it.  I cut off the huge, dark leaves and made a vat of richly flavored celery stock. The stalks I chopped into finger length pieces, put them in a clay pot with a very small amount of water and braised them for about 2 hours. Then I pureed the braised celery into a fragrant green mush.

 

My first experiment was “sedano nero e patate puree”, or “celery mush mixed with pureed potatoes” which I used as a bed under roasted quail. Not bad at all!

 

These are approximate quantities:

1 cup of celery puree

1 cup of potato puree (boiled, salted, potatoes put through a ricer and combined with a few tablespoons of olive oil)

 This would be a nice side dish all on its own, for those times when you are tired of just plain potatoes.

 

Next, I had to try the sausage and celery combination as this seemed to be the most classic preparation.

Celery & Sausage Sauce

1 medium sliced onion

1 cup of pork sausage meat

1 cup of celery puree

½ cup white wine

¼ cup heavy cream

4-5 thinly sliced artichoke hearts (optional)

 

Put a large pot of water on to boil the pasta and begin cooking the pasta as soon as the water boils because this sauce only takes about 5 minutes to cook.  I used orchiette pasta, which made for a toothsome, hearty dish.

 

Sauté the sausage meat and the onion, when the meat is brown add the pureed celery, artichoke hearts, and white wine. Gently simmer. About 2-3 minutes before the pasta is cooked, add the cream and check the seasonings.  In Italy, it is common to buy pre-seasoned ground sausage filling, which is usually heavily salted so I’ve learned to be extra careful about not adjusting salt levels until ready to serve. If the sauce seems too thick, add a bit of the pasta water to loosen things up.

 

I realize that not everyone is going to have access to ‘sedano nero’, so I think you could adjust the braised celery described above by adding a bit of parsley and the celery leaves to the braising pot.  You’d need to experiment on your own if you want to discard the parsley and leaves before pureeing. You might also consider using Chinese celery which has much thinner stalks, more leaves and is very flavorful; however it is meant to be cooked and not eaten raw as it is rather tough. And here is your celery trivia of the day: most of the nutrients in celery are in the leaves so consider using them in salads and stews.

 

Deborah Mele on ItalianFoodForever describes a black celery pesto that she made and that sounds yummy.

 

I’ve been singing the praises of celery for ages, and it’s good to know I’m not alone!

 

P.S. My trusty camera is in the hospital. It had a focus seizure and had to be rushed to the ER. I’m using a little hand held video camera thing to take stills and its like shooting with a blindfold on. So, for the next 10 days or so, my shots will be more ‘artistic’ than usual. Pray for a speedy recovery!

 

 

 

Fall in Umbria

And the days go flying by. The searing summer heat is gone, replaced by a chill wind and a few thunderstorms.  A tougher skinned, hardier tomato has replaced the sun warmed summer tomato, but no one really is thinking much about tomatoes now. The first of the fall artichokes showed up at last week’s market, along with the first ‘cachi’ or soft persimmons. We have marvelous leeks in the orto, and we’re waiting for a batch of rucola to sprout.  We need more rain if we are going to have a good truffle harvest. Most everyone's grapes are in, and it will be another few weeks before olives can be picked.

The mono diet continues. Last week we ‘processed’ a large amount of grapes, but I’ll save that story for another day.  Tomorrow I work on a crate of lemons, hand delivered by Joni and Carl, all the way from Positano.

 

It’s the fall festa season and time for the debate: Shall we go to Morra for chestnuts? Apecchio for truffles? Citerna for funghi? Trevi for black celery? We meet our cheese maker friend, Francesco, up in Apecchio, and then run into his sheep on the way home.

The light is softer now, the shadows deeper and cooler. Sunday lunch was as if we were living in a painting. After a  few weeks of much loved guests visiting us, everyone has gone home, and the house seems so quiet. But our Festa del Bosco is right around the corner, so I’m savoring the calm.

And so, it’s fall in Umbria.

Cue: Sister Sledge singing, “We are Family”.

Sometimes you need a soundtrack in your head to set the mood.

Normally I don’t blog about people that I cook for, but I was honored and privileged to be a part of a fantastic wedding celebration. Two families that came together to have fun and share the love; it was something that none of us will forget. Seriously who can forget a cooking class of barely contained chaos, with an aubergine frying marathon, or a naked guy making breadsticks, or the cries for yet more garlic? And our poor token, good-natured vegetarian took a lot of ribbing but still kept laughing. The wedding day was absolutely storybook beautiful and we were happy to be a part of the festivities.

 

Cooking for people takes a lot of heart and sometimes, I’ll be honest, it takes a lot out of me. This time, I got it back in spades.  Making and sharing food with people is absolutely primal, and to be able to do this with my own family and very close friends, made it all the more special.

Tante Auguri Sarah & Chris!!

 

BLT in Italian = PIP

I confess that I really don’t miss too much American food, and I was never much of a sandwich eater, but I recently NEEDED to eat a BLT, but obviously it was going to have be Italian style, so we created the Pancetta Insalata Pomodori!

 

Here’s the recipe, but you’re on your own deciding if it’s worth it. We had everything around so it was no big deal, but you do have to stop and wonder and pay respect to what it took to get our sandwiches to the table.

1)    Bake the bread. That’s the easy part, I usually bake a batch once a week, freeze it and we’re all set.

2)    Find some willing chickens. You need an egg to make the mayonnaise. What? You thought I was going to buy mayonnaise? Our friend Bruce has some lovely chickens that lay great eggs, the kind with very dark orange yokes.  Yeah, that orange stuff on the bread is actually the mayo made from these eggs.

3)    Grow and harvest a good tomato.

4)    While you are out getting the tomato, pick some lettuce.

5)    Fry up the pancetta. I did not raise the pig, know the pig or have anything more to do with the pancetta other than buy it. What can I say? Maybe next year we’ll convert the guest room to a pigpen.

6)    Slice, fry, assemble, eat.