Those truffles too are no bad accessaries,
Follow'd by 'petits puits d'amour'—a dish
Of which perhaps the cookery rather varies,
So every one may dress it to his wish,
According to the best of dictionaries,
Which encyclopedize both flesh and fish;
But even sans 'confitures,' it no less true is,
There 's pretty picking in those 'petits puits.'

Byron
Don Juan Canto 15

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Smoked Duck Leg Pizza

Cut off all meat from the duck leg(s), and reserve. On the stove top immerse the bones in some hearty red wine with tomato sauce, chopped garlic clove, reduce to a spreadable consistency. Let cool. Top the pizza dough with the sauce, mushrooms, the wilder the better, duck meat and olives. Bake on a pizza stone a highest oven setting. Enjoy with a bottle of a good red wine. Bravo.

(The smoked duck leg was found at a local Asian market, so this is a superb example of East meets west.)

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Pork Pies: Nicht Dise Tone!

P'raps Madam I be Johnnie One Note but really even the lowly hot dog cannot have offended all that is holy in cuisine so much as (gasp) this (without some gravy): Oh Galloping Gourmet thing of wayward youth where art thou?

Simply Deep Fried Asparagus

There is a certain something almost ineffable in the simplest of food preparations upon which nothing could possibly improve. Such is the case with tempura deep fried asparagus. If for some reactionary reason dear reader you do not adhere to this strict dogma, then there is no hope for you. Quick! While you are still ambulatory, march yourself to the nearest institution of mental impairment and have a good long rest.


Saturday, January 7, 2012

Crab Linguine alla Raffaelo : a phantasy to make the Duc de l'Ommelette Come Undone

Go to your local quasi communist "club" market thing and buy their over-sized tub of lump crab meat. Pick up some appropriate alcoholic beverage as the medium of delivery via cookery to the taste sensorum. (Please no red wine, unless you really are a pinko.) Grab some milk product, or substitute if you must, and thickening agent-- whatever. Salt the boiling water and immerse the linguine. Add curry powder to bloom in the fat of choice: butter ain't so bad as they say--ask Julia. Bacon drippings optional ((bacon (per Emeril it rules) can be added to this dish as you like it)) Peas, peas, vodka, or tequila or white wine,or... milk, fold in the lump, oh so gingerly--people like gobs of crab--makes 'em feel like princes(ses.) Toss the linguine AL DENTE (sorry that is de rigeuer these days) into the admixture and some little bit of the Crab Empyrean awaits you dear eaters. Behold!
Raphael: Banquet 0of the Gods

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

New species of Octopus and Crab at Antarctic thermal vents,shall we go fishin?



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Antarctica’s thermal vents are a "lost world" of undiscovered species

Antarctica is the coldest, most desolate place on Earth, and the Southern Ocean that surrounds it is much the same...with one pretty massive exception. The hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor are hot, dark oases, full of previously unknown species.
The East Scotia Ridge is located right at the bottom of the Southern Ocean, and it's home to tons of thermal vents, including the super-hot black smokers that can reach well over 700 degrees Fahrenheit. Though almost no sunlight reaches the areas around these vents, the vents are constantly spewing out heat and a particular brew of chemicals that can sustain some very specifically adapted organisms.
And it isn't just tiny plankton or bacteria-like organisms that eke out an existence around these vents. The bottom of the Southern Ocean is home to completely new species of crab, starfish, barnacles, sea anemones and maybe even an octopus, all of them evolved to live off the heat and chemicals of the vents. Research leader Alex Rogers of Oxford explains how these creatures survive:
"Hydrothermal vents are home to animals found nowhere else on the planet that get their energy not from the Sun but from breaking down chemicals, such as hydrogen sulphide. The first survey of these particular vents, in the Southern Ocean near Antarctica, has revealed a hot, dark, 'lost world' in which whole communities of previously unknown marine organisms thrive."
Antarctica's thermal vents are a "lost world" of undiscovered speciesThe Antarctic vents seem to be dominated by this new crab species, a type of yeti crab. Huge colonies of this crustacean surround all the vents of the Southern Ocean, as you can see in the image on the left. The survey team's craft, the rather aptly named Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV), also saw a predatory starfish with seven arms crawling across a field of barnacles - as you might guess, we've never seen anything like that before. There was also a glimpse of a mysterious pale octopus on the seafloor, which might well be the representative of a new species.
The vent ecosystems of the Southern Ocean are almost nothing like the vents found in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans. Those other, previously explored vents are full of tubeworms, vent mussels, vent crabs, and vent shrimps, and none of those species had any presence at all in the waters around Antarctica. That suggests the Southern Ocean represents a sort of boundary line between different vent systems. Even more excitingly, it suggests thermal vents are capable of far more biological diversity and complexity than we had previously imagined possible.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Lunch from New Years Leftovers

Smoke duck leg meat sauteed to a crisp with Hoisin on whole wheat with tomato, mayo, and cilantro. Now isn't that a dainty thing?

A TUSCAN CHRISTMAS


A TUSCAN CHRISTMAS

Pandoro being warmed by the fire.
What will be on the table in Tuscany on the 25th December, Christmas day?  
Here is a pretty typical menu for this region: to start with a big plate of mixed crostini (little slices of bread with differing spreads). The most common of the crostini is the ‘crostini toscani’. So standard is the chicken liver and rabbit spleen pate on a Tuscan table, anytime of the year, that it is called the tuscan crostini. There may also be, to accompany it, tomato bruschetta, a tuna pate spread crostini, or maybe a mushroom crostini. 

Crostini Misti: toscani, tomato, mushroom, white fava beans. 
This can also be accompanied with a plate of mixed salumi (prosciutto, salami) and /or some sliced chicken galantine. 

Chicken galantine
Following this comes the primo (first course).  The most loved on this festive day is the tortellini in brodo, meat filled pockets of pasta bobbing in a meat broth.
Tortellini in brodo
Then comes the secondo (main dish), which is traditionally a bollito misto (mixed boiled meats) and / or zampone. In the mixed boiled meats there could be tongue, capon (castrated rooster) or chicken, turkey, lean beef and cotechino (a rich sausage typically from Mantua).

Bollito misto + cotecchino bottom left
The salsa verde is a must with the bollito misto. This is a tasty sauce made from bread soaked in vinegar until it becomes almost like breadcrumbs, mixed with finely chopped parsley, garlic and lots of good Tuscan olive oil. Finely chopped anchovies and the yolk of a hard boiled egg are also often added. 

Salsa verde
The zampone is scenographic - I always love seeing the whole pig’s trotter stuffed with meat on the table. Like the cotecchino, the zampone is typical of Mantova, but is a favourite in all Italy around Christmas time and is also eaten on New Year’s Eve with lentils. It too is a rich sausage, however the mixed pork meat (cheek, head, throat, shoulder) combined with spices and herbs is stuffed into the skin of a pig’s trotter. Thezampone is thought to date to the beginning of the 1500’s in a town called Mirandola (in the Romagna area, north of Tuscany). The town, under siege by the troops of Pope Julius II, killed all the pigs so that the troops wouldn’t be able to have them, and so they minced the meat and stored it inside the trotters in the hope that it would conserve better.
Zampone
For desert, the panettone is a must. Originally from Milan, the panettone dates to the renaissance period, although there are differing stories as to its creation and the origin of its name.  

Panettone
One story is that this traditional Christmas cake dates to 1495 when the head cook of Ludovico il Moro, Duke of Milan, having to many things to organise for the sumptuous Christmas dinner for the duke and his guests, burnt the cake that was for desert. A kitchen hand, called Toni, had made a cake that morning with the remains of the ingredients used for all the other meal’s dishes (flour, butter, egg, lime peel and some raisins. Toni presented his creation to the cook, who in desperation took the strange cake, in the shape of a large bread loaf,  to the duke’s table. Proving to be a huge success, all the guests wanted to know the name, to which the chef replied that it was ‘Toni’s bread’ or Pan di Toni, which morphed, over time,  into panettone
Another explanation for the origin of panettone is documented by Count Pietri Verri who described the ceremony of the breaking of bread that both rich and poor families would perform at Christmas time. The ‘ceremonia del Ceppo’ would be when the whole family would gather together and the head of the family would break a loaf of bread into pieces, enough for each member, so that all would share from the same loaf, symbolic of the strong family ties which bind all together. The poor man’s bread was made from millet (pane di miglio, called ‘pan de mej'), and the bread of the wealthy and nobility was white bread (called micca). It was decided however that on Christmas day everybody should use the same bread as in the Ceremonia del Ceppo, as a symbol of equality and togetherness. This bread, made from butter, pure flour and sugar was called the pan de’ sciori or pan de ton meaning the luxury bread. In 1919, Motta, the Milanese company, produced the first industrial panettone.

The rival to the panettone on the Italian Christmas table is the pandoro (see first photo).Originally from Verona, similar to its Milanese cousin, the pandoro doesn’t have candied fruit and it too has now taken on a national status. It is tall and cone shaped with, rather than a point at the top,  a narrower flat form in the shape of a star, typically eight sided. There is often a packet of icing sugar that comes with both the pandoro and thepantettone which is emptied into the plastic covering of the cake just before eating, and, with the cake still inside, is shaken up so that the icing sugar covers the entire exterior surface.

Another national must in this period is the torrone, which is a nougat, made from honey, sugar, egg whites and toasted almonds.  The name could be from the Latin torrere (to toast) refering to the almonds, hazelnuts and pasticcios. It comes in two forms, soft and chewy, and hard and brittle, a speciality of Cremona (Lombardy region), it is eaten all over Italy. A possible origin is also from the fifteenth century, served on the occasion of the marriage between Francesco Sforza and Bianca Maria Visconti in 1441. 
Torrone
Two types of biscuits typically from Siena are eaten all over the region at Christmas time - ricciarelli (soft almond paste biscuits typically shaped like a leaf -  the ingredients being peeled almonds, sugar, icing sugar, egg yolks) and cavallucci (flour, sugar, walnuts, aniseed, honey, cinnamon, and sometimes with candied orange ). The latter’s original name is berriguocoli and they were documented already by 1515 as being the sweet distributed by the consistory to his members during the festive season. The biscuits take on their current name due to the cavallai, the grooms at staging posts along the route, who would keep these as sweets due to their easily transportable nature and long life, were able to be conserved for reasonably long periods of time. 

Ricciarelli
Cavalluci
Typically, Italians celebrate Christmas lunch rather than dinner. The meal is accompanied with red wine  and rounded off with some sweet dessert wine. Many Italians are back in business for a feast the following day, known as 'Santo Stefano'. There is no rest for the wicked. Buon Appetito and happy holidays to all!