Tag: legend

Donizetti cake, recipe, legend and true history – Italian Cuisine

Typical dessert of Bergamo, which seems to have been born in honor of the famous Bergamo musician and composer Gaetano Donizetti

A simple and quick dessert, similar to Margherita cake but with the typical a shape donut and with the addition of candied apricots and pineapples and flavored with vanilla and maraschino. Let's find out together the legend behind this delicious recipe and the true story unknown to many.

Donizetti cake: the legend

Legend has it that one evening the Bergamo Gaetano Donizetti and colleague and friend Gioacchino Rossini, were to have dinner together, but that the former was grieved and heartbroken because of a love penalty that did not give him peace and that had taken away his smile and even his appetite. It was then that Rossini, tired of seeing his friend afflicted and in order not to be completely ruined the dinner, asked his personal chef to prepare a simple, fast and capable dessert to bring back a good mood to the musician and composer. The cook went to work and came back victorious with a soft donut covered with icing sugar, which revealed candied apricots and pineapples and the unmistakable flavor of vanilla and maraschino, apparently the cake apparently liked very much to Donizetti and since then among the streets of the city it is easy to hear these words echoing "if you have love sickness, a slice of Turta del Donizèt is enough and everything passes".

Donizetti cake: the real story

Although the legend just told may seem likely and decidedly suggestive, the truth is another. In fact, this dessert was not invented by Rossini's cook, but created and patented by Alessandro Balzer in 1948, on the occasion of the centenary of Donizetti's death (April 8, 1848). For those who know Bergamo the Balzer is a fixed destination for breakfasts and snacks in the name of genuine sweetness, it is the historic pastry shop that has overlooked the Sentierone since 1936, one of the most important and famous avenues in Bergamo, right in front of the Donizetti Theater . A brilliant invention was that of the then owner and pastry chef Alessandro Balzer, who decided to pay homage to the most famous musician from Bergamo and one of the most famous operatives of the nineteenth century dedicating him a very special dessert, easily replicable at home.

The recipe for the Donizetti cake

The Donizetti Cake has become in all respects one of the symbolic desserts of the city, whose recipe filed must meet the requirements established by the regulation of the brand "BERGAMO, City of a Thousand … flavors". In addition, to celebrate the great composer, on April 8, the date of his death, it became the National Day of Turta del Donizèt.

Donizetti cake ingredients

260 g butter
150 g sugar
100 g starch
80 g 00 flour
120 g cubed candied pineapple
80 g cubed candied apricot
8 yolks
4 egg whites
1 vanilla bean
1 tablespoon of maraschino

Method

Whip the butter together with 120 grams of sugar, add the yolks one at a time and mix well. Beat the four egg whites with the remaining 15 grams of sugar until stiff and slowly add to the previous mixture. Gradually add the flour, the starch and then the candied apricot and pineapple, together with the aromas of maraschino and vanilla. Grease a 24/26 cm diameter donut-shaped hinge mold, pour the mixture, put in the oven at 180 ° for about 40 minutes. Let cool and sprinkle with icing sugar.

the legend and the recipe of the Kaiserschmarren – Italian Cuisine

A dish from the poor kitchen with a noble name: here is the Kaiserschmarrn, the sweet of the emperor born by mistake

Its original name could be difficult to pronounce: it's called Kaiserschmarrn, but more nicely you can call it sweet Emperor. Despite the name, it is not a royal dish or difficult to prepare, indeed. It is a simple dessert, typical of the Austrian cuisine is Tyrolean, to eat for breakfast but also for a snack or as a dessert.

Literally translates to sweet omelette of the Emperor: indeed, it is a sort of sweet scrambled eggs, as if they were pancakes made into small pieces. Traditionally, it is used with the cranberry jam or currant (but we already know that you will try to sprinkle them with chocolate cream). All it takes is a small piece to become seriously dependent, but before understanding how it is prepared, we find out how it was born.

The legend of the Kaiserschmarren, a cake born by mistake

The true story of this cake is not certain, but it is nice to believe one of the legends more widespread on its creation. We are in the period between the end of 1800 and the beginning of 1900. The emperor Francesco Giuseppe of Austria he had ordered a crêpe from his cook, but the latter, busy preparing dinner for the royal family, forgot the crack on the fire and let it scorch. As if that were not enough, in the hurry to remedy the mistake, he tried to turn it over and broke it. The poor cook had to invent a solution: he broke it completely, covered the burns with sugar and accompanied it with jam. Miraculously the Emperor will go mad, so much that he became his favorite dessert.

The Kaiserschmarren recipe, the Emperor's sweet

There is an infinite number of recipes to prepare the Emperor's omelette, so much so that it is often prepared by eye, without weighing the ingredients.
We offer you a greedy version here. Among the ingredients found the rum, which is necessary to rehydrate the raisins: it is optional, but it will give an even more decisive taste. Finally, if you don't have the pod of vanilla, also use a vanilla sugar.

Ingredients

200 g Milk
150 g flour
50 g Sugar
40 g Raisins
4 eggs
1 Vanilla pod
Butter
Rum
Icing sugar
salt

Method

First, soak the raisins in a little rum for about 10-15 minutes. Separate the egg whites from the yolks. Season the egg yolks with the vanilla seeds and beat with the whisk, adding the flour a little at a time and then the milk, until you obtain a homogeneous and frothy mixture.

Separately, beat the egg whites with the sugar and a pinch of salt. At this point add the well-squeezed raisins to the mixture of the yolks and then the whipped egg white, stirring gently from bottom to top.

For cooking, melt a knob of butter in a pan and fill it with a ladle of the mixture. Cook on a gentle heat for about 10 minutes, until it is golden brown, then divide it into 4 pieces, turn them over and cook the other side for about 5 minutes. Chop each clove to get smaller pieces.

Serve the kaiserschmarrns by sprinkling them with icing sugar and accompanying them with jams or creams, depending on your preference.

Filippo Saporito & the legend of the friars – Italian Cuisine

Friendly and immediately sympathetic, Filippo Saporito he is not only a cook, he is also a lively enthusiast of art and rugby. After dinner, he guides clients to discover the works exhibited at Villa Bardini, the splendid museum complex that houses his restaurant, and always finds the time to follow the oval ball championship, among the thousand commitments that entails the role of chef-patron of the the only Michelin-starred restaurant in Florence.

Fortunately it is very supported. First of all wife, the chef Ombretta Giovannini, known among the school desks at the Chianciano hotel institute and since then with him first around the world to refine the culinary art and then to Castellina in Chianti, where together they opened the first restaurant and brought two sons into the world . At his side there is also the excellent brigade (10 people for 26 seats), composed of selected professionals super close-knit. Also thanks to the "boss" who, since he was a small participant in the demonstrations for the great battles in the wake of the environmentalist and feminist mother, has a marked sense of sociality.

Respect for work above all: we eat good things together, we talk, we joke and … if there is the game "there is no high season that takes: the restaurant closes for typhus, as happened for Italy Germany ", explains Saporito," and we go back to work happy. They all earn us: staff and customers ". Because one good atmosphere is essential ingredient for an excellent dish, prepared with taste and ethical sensitivity (chicken livers and anchovies yes, fatty liver and oysters no). "The cook he has a great responsibility: what he prepares he enters you and yes turns into energy. I want it to be beautiful and good".

And it succeeds: with the purple rice we present, the tongue in savoy and apple sauce or the spelled guitar with almonds and wild herbs pesto.

Traveling you learn

Filippo Saporito (46), formerly a sous-chef at the noble Arnolfo di Colle Val d'Elsa, is JRE Europe Manager, where it would like to facilitate the bureaucratic simplification for professional exchanges among restaurateurs, so that young people can easily organize periods of qualified work abroad: fundamental experiences to open wide horizons. The autobiographical idea is not lacking, given that with his wife he worked for years in Paris, Berlin and Atlanta before opening together the restaurant of dreams, 1 Michelin star since 2017.

The restaurant of Filippo Saporito and Ombretta Giovannini, open to Florence in 2015 inside Villa Bardini (overlooking the city, waterfalls and park), has retained the name of the previous room, housed in a convent of Castellina in Chianti. Amazing locations, elegant and polite as the recipes, which you can also cook with the chef during his courses dinner included (lalegendadeifrati.it/).

Land and sea

The chef Filippo Saporito (in the picture with the director of Sale & Pepe, Laura Maragliano) slices the very thin squids, so that they soften with the sole heat of the risotto at the end of cooking.

VIOLET RISOTTO with CALAMARI AND LIME

for 6 people

1 purple cabbage – 300 g of Mediterranean squid – 500 g of Carnaroli rice – 1 glass of wine – 100 g of butter – grated grana padano – 1 untreated lime – salt

● Prepare the ingredients

Wash the cabbage, dry it with paper towel and slice it; centrifuge it or blend it briefly; let it drain into a medium-sized sieve and keep the juice aside. Thoroughly clean the squid by removing the inner cartilage and the entrails, rinse them well and cut them into very thin slices with a sharp knife.

● Cook the rice

In a large pan toasted dry rice, without oil, butter or other seasoning, stirring with a wooden spoon. Add the wine and let it evaporate completely. Add, a little at a time, boiling water while continuing to mix.

● Season the preparation

At about three quarters of the cooking time (after about 12 minutes) add the cabbage juice. Finish cooking and remove the rice from the heat. Mantecatelo with butter, add a little 'grated parmesan and, only at the last moment, the slivers of raw squid; set salt.

● Complete and serve

Distribute the rice in individual dishes and decorate each portion with a pinch of grated lime peel at the time directly on the preparation, and placed with a kitchen tongs. As an alternative to squid, you can use codfish cooked in frying pan or mussels.

Silvia Bombelli
December 2018

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