Seafood in Cinque Terre

We had lunch in Vernazza, one of the five villages that made up "Cinque Terre" on the Italian west coast.  (For more photos on the village, please visit my travel blog Travels with rarecat.)  We were a group of eleven but we split up into two groups for ease of ordering.  In any case, we tried to "maximize" our food experience - the motto was try as many kinds of seafood as we possibly could!

In general the seafood was fresh tasting.  The one dish we were looking forward to was the fish baked in salt, just because it was the house specialty and the restaurant made a show of its presentation.  In reality, I found the fish too salty and was disappointed the skin was not crispy, in fact it was quite tough (likely from the salt), and not great for eating, no wonder the server was about to throw it out when I stopped him.  I would think that most seafood already have enough natural sodium in them that very little salt, if any at all, is needed in their preparation.  This is clearly a recipe that needs updating.

Fried shrimp

Mussels and squid

Anchovies made three different ways - deep fried tasted best for me

Octopus!  Love this!

Scampi and squid - personally I don't see much point in scampi - neither shrimp nor lobster and not tasting as good as either...

The galley kitchen which opened out onto the street

The fish baked in salt presented with a flourish

Good fileting! 

Looked good but...

Where we ate - prime location in Vernazza on the main street right by the water

A High Risk Menu

Whether the menu of Rickybobby, a casual neighborhood eatery, is terrific or terrible depends on one’s point of view.  But there is no doubt that most items on it are high cholesterol, high fat and high calorie food.  Here are some examples: “Beef and Bacon Burger” with two patties of ground bacon and beef glued together by melted American cheese, “Pork Fries” of curly fries and pull pork with cheese sauce and buffalo sauce drizzled all over, meaty “Spicy BBQ Pork Ribs” with country bacon potato salad, and “Duck Confit Potato Skins” with Manchego cheese and ranch dressing.  Arteries, beware!  With this sort of food, it is amazing that the restaurant has been packed since its opening.  

On a recent evening, Mr. & Mrs. A felt brave enough to eat dinner there, carrying along some baby aspirin with them as a precaution.  It was a relief that they did not need to ingest the pills after all.

Mrs. A loved her “Lobster Mac n Cheese”.  Bathing in the bubbly hot béchamel sauce were farfalle (a.k.a. “bow-tie” pasta), lobster meat, corn and spinach.   The sauce was slightly over-salted but it went well with her beer.  The dish would be even better if it was made with macaroni. 

Lobster Mac n Cheese

The aroma of Mr. A’s “Crawshrimp Grits” captured his attention when it arrived.  Inside the bowl was a pile of crawfish and shrimp meat and shredded pork belly in a spicy broth.  Hidden underneath was a generous portion of creamy cheesy grits.  Every spoon of grits, mixed with broth and meats, delivered a rich flavor so delicious that Mr. A kept on eating until the bowl was empty.  

"Crawshrimp" grits

As an attempt for a balanced meal, Mrs. A ordered sweet potato and broccoli.  The kitchen turned the two healthy vegetables into something otherwise.  The sweet potato tots were deep fried and served with a ranch dressing, and the broccoli crowns were covered with a Welsh cheddar cheese sauce.  

Sweet potato tots

Broccoli

Mr. A ordered something good for his heart – a glass of red from the wine list that could not be any shorter.  It had just three words: house red/white. 

The four dishes were both satisfying and filling, so filling that there was plenty of food to take home.  That did not prevent Mrs. A from ordering a piece of pumpkin pie with maple whipped cream to go.

They like to return to sample the rest of the menu.  But it won’t be any time soon as they reckon that a “de-tox” period is absolutely necessary.

Veal and Chicken Stew, an Italian Recipe

Mr. A received in the mail the gift Arufa & M got him in Italy.  It was a box set of four cookbooks on Vegetables, Fish, Meat and Desserts, Cakes, Cookies, the “1,000 Recipes From the Cooks and Restaurants in the Slow Food Osterie d’Italia Guide” (edited by Bianca Minerdo and Grazia Novellini).  

He browsed through all four books immediately.  Right away, he found an interesting recipe titled “veal and chicken stew”.  He conjured up an image of a casserole of boiled chicken, chunks of veal breast and shank, root vegetables, all in a rich stock.  As he read on, he knew that he was way off the mark.  

The leading sentence of the recipe set the tone.  It read “Clean and wash the brain, sweetbreads, marrow, testicles, and cock’s crests in cold water.”  For sure this was not for the squeamish eaters, he thought.  

The brief recipe continued: 

“Blanch separately in boiling salted water for 5 minutes.  Allow to cool, and cut into small pieces.  Chop the veal fillet and calf’s liver to pieces of the same size.   Melt a knob of butter in a skillet with bay leaves and, in separate batches, brown the meat and liver, the offal, and diced porcini mushrooms.  Melt more butter in a large pan, and add all the ingredients.  Pour over the dry Masala, white wine vinegar, adding a little broth if necessary.  Cook for another 10 minutes, season to taste with salt and pepper, and serve hot.”

This recipe comes from Ristorante Sotto la Mole in Turin.  It was devised in the 19^th century for bankers and financiers of Turin, thus its Italian name “Finanziera”.  The English name “veal and chicken stew” is totally misleading as it is not a stew, the only chicken part is cock’s crest, and the veal is mostly offal.  This old-fashioned local dish sounds delicious to Mr. A.  He has eaten all but one of the ingredients before in separate dishes as roasted marrow bones, pieces of crispy sweetbreads as well as whole creamy ones, sauced cock’s crests and mushroom in a pastry puff, and so on.  But having all of them on a single plate is a culinary tour de force, a masterpiece of Italian cooking.   

Unfortunately Mr. A won’t be able to cook this dish at home as many ingredients are not easy to come by where he lives.  Besides, this is not Mrs. A’s “cup of tea”, so to speak.  He has to wait for the day that he and Mrs. A can travel to Turin to eat it at the Ristorante Sotto la Mole.

(Note:  A picture of the dish can be found on the Tripadvisor site under “Sotto la Mole, Turin”; look for “Finanziera alla Piemontese” posted by Senor blunotte79 in Nov 2013 in the section of visitor photos).

A Surprisingly Good Bowl of Ramen

The waiter delivered two small bowls of ramen to Mr. and Mrs. A’s table.  The kitchen had split their order to two half portions upon their request.  In each bowl, the noodle was covered by a generous portion of tontoro (pork cheek) and deboned pork trotter slices.  The bowl was garnished with thinly sliced green onion, radish sprouts, a sheet of nori (seaweed) and half a marinated soft boiled egg.  Missing were menma (marinated bamboo shoot) and kamaboko (fish cake), both of which Mrs. A did not care for.

Tokyo style ramen

Mr. A started with eating a little bit of the ramen noodle, then a piece of tontoro, before taking a sip of the soup.  The noodle had the proper texture.  The pork cheek was incredibly soft and tender, with just the right amount of fat to make it sinfully delicious.  The soy-sauce seasoned Tokyo-style ramen soup was gentle and rich in pork and chicken flavor with no hint of MSG.  Mr. A finished his ramen with relish, drinking up every drop of the soup.  It was the best bowl he had in many months. 

That the ramen was so good came as a complete surprise because Mr. and Mrs. A were not eating at a ramen shop, or a Japanese restaurant for that matter.   They were having dinner in a casual bar/restaurant in a small town called Saint Helena.  It was curious to them that ramen was one of the main courses on the menu.  So they ordered it as their “pasta” dish following small plates of potato and salted cod fritters, roasted marrow bones with crispy sweetbreads, fried shrimp, and a spicy tripe stew.  

Baccala fritters

Roasted marrow bones, crispy sweetbreads

Fried shrimps

Tripe stew

Dessert was ultra-light Malasada doughnuts and Meyer lemon fool (note: a fruit fool is whipped cream or custard with fruit puree folded into it; in this case it was cream).  

Donuts and Meyer lemon fool

Mr. and Mrs. A enjoyed their dinner very much.  They have planned to return for more ramen.  They won’t share it the next time; each will have an order.

Cooking class in Tuscany

What better way to sample authentic Tuscan food than to take a cooking class with a Tuscan chef!  We took a cooking class with Giuseppina Pizzolato from Cuciina Giuseppina at the apartment we rented in Tuscany and enjoyed every minute of it.  To top it off, we had what we cooked for dinner in addition to other foods that Giuseppina and her son Simone brought with them.  It was a great start to our Tuscan holiday.

Never had this before - zucchini flowers

Preparing the batter for frying the flowers

Giueseppina demonstrating how to dip and drain the flower in the batter before frying

The flowers were so delicious!  This professional stove was in one of the apartments at the Castello di Pastine where we stayed

Like all cooks, we multi-tasked.   After we prepared the zucchini flowers so that they were ready for frying closer to dinner time, we started making the pasta.  Giuseppina showed us how to put the olive oil and eggs in the middle of the flour on a tray.  

Mixing the ingredients right on the tray

The proper way to knead...

So much fun putting the dough into the pasta maker!

This is cute - a simple press on this pasta tool created the little shell pasta

A trayful of shapes all made from the same pasta maker

Giuseppina showing off her students' work 

We learned the secret to the pasta sauce - put the olive oil and garlic in cold pan, just when oil heats up and the garlic is slightly cooked, add tomatoes and basil, salt and pepper, cover with lid, then turn off heat.  The tomatoes will cook itself.

We assisted in the preparation of the risotto with porcini mushrooms - mouth-watering good!  So was the liver paté.

The bruschetta - can't fail when the tomatoes were farm fresh

The fettucini that we made - the best we ever tasted...;-D

The osso buco that Giuseppina brought with her - full of flavour and melt in your mouth

Do we still have room for the apple cake?!

Thanks, Giuseppina - it was great fun!