Don Carlo by Giuseppe Verdi, this year’s season of the Teatro alla Scala opens with this title. Composed in 1867, it is a mature work by the master from Roncole di Busseto, preceding Aida by four years, a certainly more popular title.
To celebrate this important annual event we offer you a recipe published in the first issue of The Italian kitchen published in December 1929.
At the bottom of the first column of page two, the recipe book of the time opens, which begins with the chapter «Soups and equivalent foods. Among these is the recipe for a tasty soup favored by maestro Giuseppe Verdi. Lover of good food and precious ingredients, he was very attentive to the lands around the villa of Sant’Agata. Here he spends much of the year taking care of it with expertise, studying and introducing improvements, such as the construction of an ice house to store foodstuffs, not only those produced in the farm, but also those brought in from other parts of Italy. .
We cooked this soup following the original 1929 recipe that we report here
Giuseppe Verdi’s exquisite soup
Giuseppe Verdi was especially pleased with this soup, and it was often served in the Palazzo Doria in Genoa, or in the Villa of Sant’Agata.
Cook a kilo of potatoes with salt; then peel them, crush them in a mortar, or crush them with the back of a saucer. Reduce to a paste, add 75 grams of butter, a spoonful of flour, grated parmesan, 6 egg yolks. Shake everything until it combines into a homogeneous mixture: then form lots of balls and fry them in a pan with oil. When they are fried, keep them in scrap paper, so that they release all the oil, and then put them in a pan. Pour over a good broth, especially chicken, or turkey if you have any, and a little gravy.
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