Tag: Marche

Fishmongers with cuisine in the Marche region – Italian Cuisine

In the fish market as in the restaurant. Choosing fish from the counter for an easy aperitif, street food or dinner with the family. Four ports of Marche with a long maritime tradition and four families of fishermen converted to cooking. From broth without bones, to fish olives, to molluscs with rum, autumn is by the sea

Eat at the fish market choosing directly from the counter which fish will end up on your plate. The Adriatic puts itself in the window after the summer catch which lasts from early August until mid-September. A biological rest that ensures the reproduction of fish species and that makes the middle seasons the best times to enjoy expressed local fish specialties. In the Marches the trend sees the growth of the premises offering this formula, with an excellent value for money and great attention to the Marche recipes.

The Queens, in the Adriatic, are the mullets, those of small size, of "mud" or of rock, but also the shrimp, the cuttlefish and the squid. Then there are the local prawns, with their intense flavor, and above all the blue fish: sardines, mackerel and "suri", to be enjoyed in soups or grilled. Here are some tips on where to buy fresh fish, choose it from the counter and have it cooked at the time. The dream of every "fish eater".

The beauty and the beast in Fano: the brodetto "deliscato"

In the center of Fano, in Piazza delle Erbe where the weekly market is, since 2006 Daniele Bocchini has opened The beauty and the beast, a fish shop with a kitchen where you can eat at the table, both outdoors and indoors. The specialty is brodetto "alla fanese", the one made with the "tomato paste", the homemade concentrate that is never lacking in the Marche families. Bocchini was champion of brodetto and has traveled the world making known this local variant that strictly foresees the tomato concentrate and the nuance with vinegar. Here you can taste the real "soup of the sailors", a recipe born on boats, where bottom fish such as scorpion fish, race, monkfish or trolls end up, with the right proportion of local crustaceans and molluscs. Lying on the large pan they are cooked adding them gradually, depending on the consistency. The real novelty lies in the fact that the soup is presented without the bones, with the fish already filleted. In short, even without getting your hands dirty, you can enjoy a brodetto, as well as taste the "tuna in porchetta": fillet worked from fresh, cooked at low temperature and prepared with wild fennel, pepper and garlic, just like a real pork.

Ricci's fished & fried fish in Numana

A family of fishermen converted to street catering, along the central street that leads to the beautiful little square on the Conero. Francisco Ricci (but they swear to pronounce Francesco) he gave the idea to his family in 2016 and his son Fernando took the ball. The formula is the simplest possible, but also the most intriguing: I choose fish from the counter, I watch them while they are filleted and I eat them in a generous portion served in a box (the standard one of three hundred grams is recommended; the net weight is paid). All squid and prawns ask for them, but after the catch stops the varieties to be tasted are the most disparate: trigliette, anchovies and busbane, together with sole, dogfish and local prawns. The fishmonger's advice is to put in some nice crabs, which abound here, and are special. Whether you prefer it filleted or with bones, this marinade of fried fish can be combined with seafood cuisine from the Marche region: cuttlefish with peas, “panicchie” (shrimp) steamed and in winter stockfish and stockfish.

The stuffed olives are fish, from Pallottini to San Benedetto del Tronto

In the city with the most important navy of the Marche there is the fish market Pallottini, where you buy it or eat it at the table. There are two types of cuisine: lunch includes classic Marche seafood recipes, half-shell recipes, spaghetti with clams (which never fail), or tasty anchovy spaghetti. Excellent stuffed olives with fish filling for a cartoccio to take away. At dinner, however, the offer becomes more innovative. The deconstructed revisitation of the "cuttlefish with peas" is a must: it provides that the cuttlefish is lightly scalded and placed on a pea soup, while the tomato is proposed in small gelatinous pearls made with agar agar. Among the first there are also gnocchetti with clams and mazzancolle with lemon peels above. The menu is weekly and is served in the restaurant for forty seats next to the fish market, but you can also enjoy a simple fried foil at the moment.

"Pirate" aperitif with a rum flavor, at the old Civitanova Marche market

Needless to book. We eat what the sea offers. In this small and spartan fish market, you can enjoy an aperitif or dinner sitting in front of the counter. The sardines are strictly hot. There is no lack of exotic fascinations: the “marinated mullet” (Adriatic mud mullet) is cooked with a chopped onion of tropea with ginger and pepper. The brodetto here is barbed, but the real specialty is the "cannelli al rum" (razor clams cooked on a base of chopped vegetables and generously drowned in rum, with the result of a white sauce with a pirate flavor). Don't miss the mussels, but also the swordfish omelette (made with nothing less than pancetta and pecorino di fossa). There are ten places in all. The idea also comes here from a family of fishermen who went to the stove and Vincenzo Vallesi think of the menu of the day, but also of the fastest fish aperitif.

Marche non-lasagna with 7 layers – Italian Cuisine

In the Marche, lasagna is not eaten, vincisgrassi is cooked. Here's where to eat them in Macerata, how to prepare them and the difference with the ancient version of the princisgras

A lasagna? No. In the Marche there are the vincisgrassi. Seven layers of pasta rolled by hand, dipped in béchamel and an old-style ragù, where the flavor of the regattas dominates. It is the dish of Sunday, that of the grandmother. Born between Ancona and Macerata at the end of the eighteenth century, today, thanks also to a work of territorial promotion, the vincisgrassi are back in vogue and tourists (especially foreign ones) ask them more and more often.

The vincisgrassi recipe (no grams, you go to eye)

If you want to prepare puff pastry by hand, you need eight eggs for a kilo of flour. No water. A dough that comes from the rural tradition and that ensures unique porosity and consistency. The substantial difference that makes the vincisgrassi very different from lasagna is all in the ragù. Indeed, the vincisgrassi contemplate chicken regattas. Moreover, the sauce is made with mixed meat from the farmyard. The allowed ingredients are goose, duck, chicken, rabbit and pork. The ground beef is banned instead. This is because the ancient "lines" used what the courtyard offered. Celery, carrot and onion (with some skewered cloves) are fried in large pieces, so that they can be easily removed at the end of cooking. Then brown the coarsely chopped meat and blend with the white wine. Add tomato paste, of the puree, and add water to cover. Slow boiling is another of the secrets. A "slow" ragù, which will be ready when it is reduced to about a third compared to the beginning of cooking.

The final touch: the chicken regattas

When the sauce is cooked, it is essential to add the regaglie, previously chopped and browned with a little oil in the pan. It is at this point that the flavor of the sauce becomes unmistakable. Free from odors and any bones, the sauce should be rather liquid. To make the vincisgrassi you need at least seven layers of puff pastry that are placed one on top of the other and sprinkled with the sauce and the béchamel made with milk, butter and a little flour. To taste it should also be added grated cheese (traditionally it was the caciotta of sheep or mixed milk) especially on the last layer. Finally put in the oven and brown at 200 degrees for about 30 minutes.

Where to taste them in Macerata, in the Princisgras version

In Macerata, a restaurant has made it its flag. Is theOsteria dei Fiori, in the historic center, which the three brothers Iginia, Letizia and Paolo Carducci, founded in 1980. On the menu there is also a cultured version of the legendary first course of the Marche documented in a cookbook from 1779: i princisgras. It is a gastronomic gem, at the time the prerogative of the nobility of the eighteenth century, later transformed into the popular and peasant version (in red). "Tourists arrive already documented on both dishes – says Chef Iginia Carducci – An English gentleman, recently, sat down and even asked for the corner portion in the pan". The most crunchy part of the vincisgrassi, the one that children like so much, in fact, is precisely that of the corner, where the crust is more present and inviting. In the center, instead, an explosion of creaminess.

At the Osteria dei Fiori in Macerata, the original recipe that dates back to 1779 is faithfully reproduced and from which the vincisgrassi are supposed to have been inspired. Unraveling with the units of measurement of time, here is the original text for those who want to try their hand at princisgras.

"Take half a pound of persciutto, make it into small dice, with four quarters of fine sliced tartufari; from then take a leaf and a half of milk, dilute it in a casserole with three ounces of flour, put it in a stove putting some persciutto, and tartufari, always handling until so much that it begins to boil, and must boil for half an hour; then you will put half a pound of fresh cream, mixing everything to make it join together; then make a pearl of tagliolini with two sheep and four reds inside; roll it out not so thin and cut it for use by mostaccioli from Naples, not so large; cook them with half the broth and half water, season with salt; take the dish that you have to put on the table: you can make a border of frigè pasta around the said dish to retain the sauce in it, so that it does not give out when you put it in the oven, while it should be made to take a little swarm; cooked that you will have the lasagna, take them out and put them in Parmesan cheese and go to the aforementioned plate, with a solaro de salsa, butirro and cheese and the other de lasagna, and put them on the flat, and you will do it for as long as you have. finished filling this plate; we must warn that above it must finish the sauce with butter and parmesan cheese and finished, put it in the oven to make him make his swarm … (Antonio Nebbia, Il Cuoco Maceratese)

The Saturnia fishing, the chefs and the Bellini from Marche – Italian Cuisine

A special peach, produced between the provinces of Macerata and Fermo, in the Marche, awakens the imagination of many chefs and barmen

Sometimes a farm is enough to enhance a product and make it a true regional typicality. The history of Marche fishing that has conquered the national market bears the name of Saturnia. It is cultivated between the provinces of Macerata and Fermo, in the valley of the Chienti river. The farm that focused on this product is called Eleuteri, and in 1985 it planted its first peach orchard, which today has grown to cultivate sixty hectares (for sixty thousand trees) whose fruits are found in supermarkets throughout Italy. Marco Eleuteri, which leads the family farm, is working on new plants for a further thirty hectares, choosing hilly land not far from the sea, strictly exposed to the south.

In the beginning the fishing was flat and with white flesh. Originally from China, originally all peaches were "platicarpe", ie flat. The Saturnia, also known as Saturnina (today a registered trademark) is an evolution of the Tabacchiera, a variety historically produced in Sicily. This peach should be eaten at room temperature and at the right degree of ripeness, that is, just soft. Woe to peel it! In order not to lose its nutraceutical and aroma characteristics.

It's the chef's fishing

The low acidity, the high sugar content and aroma of the aroma have meant that this fruit has been celebrated by important chefs who continue to experiment with combinations of meat and fish. Ten years ago, the first to believe it was the chef Rosaria Morganti who took this product to heart so as to make it a flag. But the Saturnia passed into the hands of Mauro Uliassi and Michele Biagiola; it has been the subject of competitions and, today, it is permanently in the menu of Alessandro Rapisarda. Another experimenter is Niko Pizzimenti, who in his "Sepia by Niko", in Senigallia, declines it from appetizers to dessert, as in "Mullet ham with n'duja, red turnip and glacial Saturnina"; grilled, next to the “Tuna in a cube with agretti garlic and oil”, but also in osmosis in the “Salt and pepper BBQ of totani”, or, again, slightly fermented in the elegant “Risotto and grancelle”.

The Saturnia Bellini cocktail, where to find it and the recipe

There is no fishing without his Bellini. The famous cocktail based on sparkling wine and white peach pulp, invented in 1948 by Giuseppe Cipriani, head barman of the Harry's Bar in Venice, found a worthy native celebration in the hands of Stefano Renzetti, barman of the homonymous "aperitif and bar" of Civitanova Marche, capital of nightlife and shopping along the Adriatic, a few kilometers from the crops.

Here are the suggestions to try to do it. To take full advantage of the pleasant and ethereal scents of Saturnia peach, the fruits must be kept in the fridge at an optimal temperature of 4 degrees. Once washed they are inserted into the extractor (with the peel). The nectar thus obtained is literally dropped on ice cubes (to avoid oxidation and keep the cold chain).

At this point, in the same container it comes to life with sparkling wine (to avoid the foam being excessive, we do not recommend the reverse path: never add the peach to the wine).

Now pour the nectar into the glass and add more brut sparkling wine. Better than indigenous grapes, sparkling Pecorino is perfect. A light "caress" to mix it and the Marche Bellini with Saturnia peach is ready. During the whole period of harvesting the fresh fruit, ie from the end of May to mid-September, the Saturnia Bellini is always on the cocktail list of Bar Renzetti.

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