Eating Italy: A Chef's Culinary Adventure (3 page)

It struck me how relaxed the whole family was around the table. They nibbled on salumi and cheese, talking and laughing. Francesco made jokes and winked at everyone. Maurizio had a glass of wine with an ice cube in it. Oliviero took a quick nap.

This was new to me. I wasn’t used to stopping in the middle of the afternoon to enjoy a peaceful lunch—or, for that matter, starting the day with a leisurely cappuccino and croissant. The Italian lifestyle had a comfortable rhythm. It was slower than the amped-up American rat race.

As lunch went on, my mind wandered back to the previous day and the long plane trip from Philadelphia to France to Bergamo. I remembered seeing the mountains, rivers, and valleys from 20,000 feet (6 km) up. The snow-capped Alps tower above the North and the Apennine Mountains jut up from the green plains in the south. These two mountain ranges create a paradise of fertile valleys and rivers that you can grow just about anything in. Lombardy is so desirable that every neighboring country, including France, Austria, and Germany, has held control of it at some point in history. The local economy accounts for a big chunk of Italy’s gross domestic product. It’s full of hard-working people. And cows. Most of Italy’s cattle are raised on the lower plains of Lombardy. Pigs thrive more in the north around Bergamo. So it’s no surprise that beef, cheese, and sausage are some of Lombardy’s most important foods.

Oliviero snapped me out of my reverie when he tapped me on the knee. We cleaned up lunch, went downstairs, and opened up the butcher shop again, working until about five o’clock. We butchered all the veal for the week, then hosed down the entire shop and closed for the day. When we were done, it was so clean you could eat off the floor.

Our days went on like this for five months. Maurizio taught me everything he knew about farming and butchering animals. I visited the family farm where the animals were raised. I learned how to kill them as quickly and humanely as possible. I gutted and skinned them; broke down half-ton steers into sides of beef; and let the meat rest for two weeks to develop flavor before cutting it into steaks. Sometimes little old ladies would come in and order half a steer, specifying how much of it they wanted ground for
polpettini
(little meatballs) and what parts they wanted cut for freezing and sharing with their families. Maurizio showed me how to hang big pieces of beef off the edge of the table to let gravity help with the heavy butchering.

The Mangilis took me in like family. Maurizio had me over for dinner. Francesco and Oliviero brought me to local fairs, where they showed off their prized cows—just like at county fairs in the United States. But instead of the overalls American farmers wear, Italian farmers wear Gucci jeans and Louis Vuitton shoes—even while stomping around in cow shit!

Seeing this entire process, day in and day out for the better part of a year, gave me a new respect for Italian food. I realized how important farming is to the economy and the cuisine of northern Italy. When I cooked, I was no longer just grilling a rib-eye steak. I was grilling a rib-eye steak from the local Fassone breed of cattle that was raised and butchered by someone I knew and respected. When I snacked on cheese, it was no longer just fuel to get me through the day. I was enjoying creamy formagella made from goat’s milk by an award-winning local cheese maker named Battista. Everything I ate became more important. More meaningful. It made me feel more grounded. Seeing the love and care that went into preparing the food made every bite taste better somehow. And it made me curious to learn even more.

BEEF TARTARE
with
FRIED EGG YOLK
and
PARMIGIANO

The tartare at Mangili butcher shop was like none I’d ever had. As a chef, I was used to chopping raw beef by hand for tartare. Almost every restaurant I worked in served it that way—in tiny cubes. But at Mangili, they ground the raw beef twice in a meat grinder. The grinder cut down all the connective tissue in the meat and made it super-creamy. Traditionally, tartare is served with arugula, lemon, and Parmesan. Once in a while, you see egg yolk. I thought it would be cool to roll an egg yolk in breadcrumbs, deep-fry it, and serve it over the tartare. When you cut into the crispy yolk, it runs all over the meat and makes it taste even creamier.

MAKES 4 SERVINGS

½ small red onion, cut through the root end

About 1 cup (235 ml) whole milk

About ¾ cup (175 ml) olive oil, divided

3 tablespoons (45 ml) red wine vinegar

8 ounces (225 g) beef tenderloin, trimmed of fat

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Canola oil, for frying

2 Belgian endives, cut in a thin julienne

½ cup (30 g) chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

1 cup (100 g) plain, dry breadcrumbs, sifted

4 large egg yolks

Parmigiano cheese for shaving

Chill four serving plates. Thinly slice the onion on a mandoline (or use a very sharp knife). Separate the onion into slivers in a large bowl. Add enough milk to cover the onion and let stand at room temperature for 30 minutes to extract the raw onion taste. Drain the onion slivers, rinse them and the bowl, and return them to the bowl. Add ½ cup (120 ml) of the olive oil and the vinegar, stirring to mix. Marinate the onion for 2 hours at room temperature.

Put the beef and all the parts of a meat grinder in the freezer for 20 minutes. Grind the cold beef twice on the small (¼-inch/10-cm) die of the meat grinder. Season the beef to taste with salt, pepper, and olive oil.

Heat the oil in a deep fryer or deep saucepan to 350°F (175°C). You can check the heat by sprinkling in small pinches of breadcrumbs to see whether the oil sizzles instantly and fries them up golden brown.

For each serving, mold the beef mixture in a 6-inch (15-cm) ring mold (or a large cookie cutter) on a cold plate. Lift off the ring to unmold.

Toss the endives with the marinated onion and top each serving of beef with the mixture. Sprinkle the parsley on top.

Put the breadcrumbs in a shallow bowl and carefully add the egg yolks, one at a time, to coat thoroughly without breaking the yolks. Use a slotted spoon to carefully lift the yolks from the crumbs. Gently shake off the excess crumbs and turn each yolk into the fryer, frying for exactly 12 seconds. Remove each yolk with a heatproof slotted spoon and place gently on top of the endive salad.

Drizzle the remaining olive oil around the plate, along with a few grindings of cracked black pepper. Using a vegetable peeler, shave 3 slivers of Parmigiano over each serving.

CARNE SALATA
with
RED ONION, CELERY,
and
OLIVE OIL

You always see
carne salata
in Italian butcher shops. It’s usually made with horse meat that’s salted, cured, and then boiled. Horse meat just became legal in the United States and is still very hard to get, so I make mine with beef eye of round. It comes out fantastic. My wife’s family slices their
carne salata
meat paper-thin and serves it with raw onion. They soak the onion first in milk so it loses its bite. (You can also soak the onion in vinegar.) After that, a little celery, parsley, and olive oil is all you need to round out the salad.

MAKES 8 SERVINGS

3 pounds (1.25 kg) beef eye of round, trimmed of fat

3½ tablespoons (35 g) rock salt

1½ teaspoons (6 g) granulated sugar

½ teaspoon (6 g) curing salt #2 (see
page 277
)

½ teaspoon (1 g) freshly ground black pepper, plus more to taste

⅛ teaspoon (0.25 g) ground mace

⅛ teaspoon (0.25 g) ground coriander

⅛ teaspoon (0.25 g) freshly grated nutmeg

⅛ teaspoon (0.25 g) ground cloves

1½ teaspoons (1.75 g) chopped fresh rosemary

1 small red onion, thinly sliced (about 1 cup/160 g)

1 cup (235 ml) whole milk

2 ribs celery, julienned (1 cup/100 g)

2 tablespoons (30 ml) red wine vinegar

½ cup (120 ml) olive oil

2 tablespoons (7.5 g) chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Salt

Place the meat in a plastic tub or wide nonreactive bowl. Mix together the rock salt, sugar, curing salt, ½ teaspoon (1 g) of the pepper, and the mace, coriander, nutmeg, cloves, and rosemary. Rub the spice mixture all over the meat, cover, and let cure in the refrigerator for 4 days, rotating the meat every day and dousing it with the liquid that settles in the bottom of the tub or bowl.