Eating Italy: A Chef's Culinary Adventure (15 page)

CLAUDIA’S LIMONCELLO TIRAMISU

Tiramisu is like an Italian Tastykake (a beloved Philadelphia snack cake). You soak cookies in syrup and layer them between a creamy mascarpone filling. You can flavor the syrup and filling however you like. Coffee and chocolate is the most common combination, but Claudia always made tiramisu with fruit that grew in her backyard. Her cherry tiramisu was one of my favorites. Then she came up with this limoncello tiramisu made with Pina’s Limoncello (
page 85
). It’s my new favorite. Refreshing, rich, and ridiculously good.

MAKES 10 TO 12 SERVINGS

Mascarpone Mousse:

8 large eggs

1½ cups (300 g) granulated sugar, divided

2 pounds (1 kg) mascarpone (about 4¼ cups)

2 lemons

Limoncello–Soaked Ladyfingers:

¾ cup (150 g) granulated sugar

1½ cups (375 ml) Pina’s Limoncello (opposite page) or other limoncello

1 (8-ounce/227-g) package ladyfingers, about 30 ladyfingers

For the mascarpone mousse:
Separate the eggs, putting the yolks in a medium bowl and the whites in another bowl. Add 1 cup (200 g) of the sugar to the yolks and whip with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until thick and pale yellow in color, 2 to 3 minutes. Beat the mascarpone in a separate bowl with clean beaters on medium speed until softened. Add the whipped yolks and beat on medium speed until smooth. Grate the zest from the lemons and squeeze out ¼ cup (60 ml) of lemon juice. Stir the lemon zest and juice into the mascarpone mixture.

Whip the egg whites in a clean bowl with clean beaters on medium speed until frothy, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the remaining ½ cup (100 g) of sugar and whip on medium-high speed until the whites form medium-soft peaks when the beaters are lifted, another 2 to 3 minutes.

Fold the whipped whites into the mascarpone mixture to form a mousse.

For the limoncello-soaked ladyfingers:
Combine the sugar and ¾ cup (175 ml) of water in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a simmer and cook just until the sugar dissolves. Remove from the heat and set the pan in an ice bath to cool down the syrup. Stir in the limoncello.

Soak the ladyfingers in the limoncello syrup in batches for 20 seconds; the cookies should not be saturated all the way to the center or they will fall apart. As you work, lay the soaked ladyfingers in the bottom of a 2½-quart (2.5 L) baking dish, breaking up the cookies as necessary to make an even layer. Spread a layer of mousse over the ladyfingers. Continue making layers of soaked ladyfingers and mousse until the dish is filled, ending with a layer of mousse on top. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or up to 1 day.

Note

The finished tiramisu can be refrigerated for up to 1 day before serving. It’s ideal after just a few hours in the fridge, as the ladyfingers will continue to soak up liquid in the tiramisu and eventually become soggy.

PINA’S LIMONCELLO

After they made wine from the grapes on their property, Pina’s grandfather would make grappa from the stems, skins, and grape must. Grappa was the sipping liquor of Bergamo. You never saw limoncello because lemons didn’t grow there. But in the mid-1990s, Pina went on vacation to the Amalfi coast and brought back giant lemons the size of grapefruits. These lemons have almost no juice, so the peels are used to make
mostarda
(fruit relish),
canditi
(candied fruit), and limoncello. One of her ex-boyfriends gave Pina this recipe for limoncello. She only makes it once or twice a year in twenty-liter batches, which takes about two hundred lemons. She keeps her limoncello in the freezer in tall, clear glass bottles with pieces of red cloth tied around the tops. (It doesn’t actually freeze because of the alcohol.) You can use Eureka lemons (the most common grocery store variety), but keep in mind you’ll only be using the peels. Squeeze all the leftover lemons and use the juice to make lemonade!

MAKES 2½ QUARTS (2.5 L)

20 Eureka lemons, 15 Sicilian lemons, or 10 Amalfitano lemons

1 quart (1 L) grain alcohol or 100-proof vodka

5 cups (1 kg) granulated sugar

Peel the lemons, using a vegetable peeler or large zester, taking care not to remove much of the bitter white membrane beneath the peel. Marinate the peels in the grain alcohol in a glass jug at room temperature for 2 weeks. Strain into a pitcher and reserve the peels.

Combine the sugar, 1½ quarts (1.5 L) of water, and the peels in a large saucepan. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, stirring just until the sugar dissolves, 5 to 8 minutes. Remove from the heat and let cool, and then strain out and discard the peels.

Let the syrup cool completely, then stir into the alcohol. Store in bottles in the freezer, sipping or using as needed.

CLAUDIA DROVE. I TOOK IN THE LANDSCAPE. TRAVELING FROM BERGAMO TO LIGURIA WAS LIKE GOING TO OCEAN CITY, MARYLAND, FROM PHILADELPHIA, EXCEPT WE PASSED THROUGH THE APENNINE MOUNTAIN RANGE. WHAT A VIEW WHEN YOU REACH THE TOP! ROLLING GREEN HILLS GIVE WAY TO ROCKY CLIFFS AND ENDLESS BLUE WATER AS THE LIGURIAN SEA SPREADS BEFORE YOU.

This was our first getaway. It was early June when we got there—a little before tourist season—so it wasn’t too crowded. Pina’s boyfriend, Carmine, set us up to stay at Hotel Florida in Lerici, just down the coast from the mountain villages of le Cinque Terre. We spent a little time in Lerici, then hopped a ferry up the coast. The boat took us around the tip of Porto Venere past all five villages: Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monterosso. On the cruise, Claudia told me about the area. My Italian and her English were getting better. “This is where we spent our summer vacations,” she said. “It’s the closest beach and it’s always warm in the summer.” The rugged shores reminded me of northern Maine. But the cliffs were steeper; the water, deeper indigo; and the sloping terraces, sprouted with scraggly olive trees, lemon trees, and vineyards that looked thousands of years old. “The Cinque Terre landscape is just mountains and sea,” she continued. “It’s hard to grow things, but what does grow is intense with flavor.” She explained how the basil is the most aromatic on earth. How the olives are small but jammed with flavor. And how currents from the Mediterranean and Tyrrhenian Seas encourage algae to grow, which feeds the local fish and gives them an incredible taste.

Explaining all this to me, Claudia looked as robust and beautiful as the olive groves on shore. We stepped off the ferry in Monterosso, and I took in the deep perfume of basil. No wonder pesto was born in this region. Fragrant basil, velvety olive oil, rich little pine nuts. . . the ingredients are all local to these seaside cliffs. It made sense. They cooked with what they had.

I knew that corzetti was the region’s most famous pasta. Each circle of dough gets embossed with an intricate design stamped from a one-of-a-kind woodcut stamp. The stamps themselves are carved from olive wood or walnut wood and traditionally etched with a family crest to celebrate the birth of a child. Authentic corzetti stamps are nearly impossible to find outside of Liguria. I went into umpteen curio shops looking for them. It became the Great Corzetti Quest.

When we got to Vernazza, it was midmorning. You could smell the
farinata
throughout the whole town.
Farinata
is a local chickpea flatbread made after the morning yeast breads come out of the oven. “Oh my god,” Claudia said, lifting her nose to the air, “we have to go down this street.” We got lost down a half-dozen crooked, narrow streets before arriving at a nondescript back door. We went in, and it turned out to be a factory bakery, not a café or store. The workers looked at us, like, “What the hell are you doing here?” Claudia told them, “We’re visiting. Jeff is a chef from America working in Italy.” Ten seconds later, I had a piece of
farinata
in my mouth, seasoned with onion, rosemary, and black pepper. Claudia had one with stretchy mozzarella. Before long, we were sitting at the water’s edge, tasting different
farinata
and focaccia made with fava bean flour and chestnut flour, laughing with the workers. Claudia wiped a few stray
farinata
crumbs from my chin.

In Manarola, we stopped to read a little trattoria’s chalkboard sign advertising its porcini tasting. Time for lunch! The first course was
funghi porcini di Borgotaro
, summer porcini from Parma, sliced and breaded in polenta flour and fried. Delicious. Fettuccine with porcini came next. Then oven-roasted veal breast with porcini sauce. We finished off the mushroom tasting with two straws in a goblet of
sgroppino
, a kind of frozen slushy made with lemon sorbet and grappa.

After lunch, we hit the Sentiero Azzurro (Blue Trail) that connects le Cinque Terre and has incredible views. The vivid flowers, steep terraces, sweet herbs, craggy cliffs, and gleaming blue seas hypnotized our senses at every turn. Back down in town, we sampled gelato every chance we could. The best was at 5 Terre Gelateria e Crêperia in Manarola.

With our licorice gelatos, we strolled along the Via dell’Amore from Manarola to Riomaggiore. We paused in secluded nooks along the way to kiss over our gelato: we couldn’t stop looking at each other, like teenagers in love. Claudia told me that these five fishing hamlets were once completely isolated from one another by rocky hills. Boats were the only means of transportation, and villagers mostly kept to themselves. The railway came in the late 1800s, and in the 1920s, the first walking path was cut between the five villages. It allowed young lovers from different villages to find each other, so it was called
Via dell’Amore
(“Lovers’Walk”).

I wondered what it would be like to live in one of these jumbled pink, blue, or yellow houses that tilt toward the sea. We later walked the main street, Via Colombo, and Claudia and I were seduced by all the little shops selling fresh-picked strawberries, cherries, lemons,
nespoli
(loquats), leeks, spiky artichokes, savoy cabbage, rainbow chard, ruddy Taggiasca olives, and little vegetable fritters and savory pies. We’d just eaten but we were hungry again.

Wandering through le Cinque Terre gave us more time to talk than we’d ever had before. We talked about our families and lives back home. Our hopes for the future. Our dreams. The idea of owning our own restaurant came up. Before we knew it, the ferry back to Lerici was about to board.

Although Liguria has some of the best seafood in Italy, we’d only had a few nibbles of fish throughout the day. Some anchovies in Monterosso. Fried
gianchetti
(whitebait) in Riomaggiore to go with an
aperitivo.
We saved our appetites for dinner that night in Lerici. Dei Pescatori on Via Doria is one of the best seafood restaurants in the region. There is no menu and platter after platter of fresh-caught fish just keeps coming. . . stuffed anchovies, grilled sardines with lemon and olive oil, fried and marinated trout, grilled swordfish, steamed mussels with white wine, sautéed
gamberi
(shrimp), langoustines,
vongole veraci
(carpet clams) with pasta. . . it was endless, uncomplicated, and beautiful. Each briny bite seemed to capture the entire glorious day in our mouths. We capped the meal with a couple of glasses of
sciacchetrà
, the sweet local white wine perfumed with apricot and honey.