Tag: Piedmontese

Piedmontese Occitan cuisine between recipes and typical products – Italian Cuisine

The Occitan gastronomic culture is so vast and rich that an article will not be enough to tell it all, but we will try to suggest some indications on how to best enjoy it

A very ancient gastronomic and historical tradition, the Occitan one, which involves four states: France, Monaco, Italy and Spain. We will focus on the traditions and recipes typical of the Piedmontese Occitan gastronomic culture, a tradition that involves the Maira Valley, the Grana Valley, Varaita Valley, Stura Valley, Po Valley, Germanasca Valley, Bronda Valley and Infernotto Valley.

The cuisine of the Maira Valley is a rich, opulent cuisine, a cuisine that reflects the territory where it has developed, a cuisine with a strong mountain vocation. The few deviations in the path were born thanks to the contamination due to the seasonal migration from Italy to France, mostly women who went to France looking for work, to pick olives, flowers or to make housekeepers. These returns home brought back recipes and Provencal flavors, the link with the fish, the trade of anchovies, the union of the latter with garlic, to create one of the best known and appreciated Piedmontese recipes, bagna cauda. It was eaten with cooked and raw vegetables according to the season, although it is a recipe that prefers the cold winter temperatures in order to be enjoyed at its best.

One of the best known products, the protagonist of dozens of recipes, is the potato, in Occitan trifolas, tartiflas or bòdis. Cultivated in Val Varaita and Alta Valle Po, it probably spread thanks to the favorable climatic conditions since the mid-1800s. Prazzo potato (Cn) Al Chersogno farm, used for the preparation of Tundiret (potato dumplings) made with eggs and flour and dipped in boiling water, soft and irregular in shape, seasoned with cream, butter and cheese. Or del Mato (or Mata), an ancient preparation that involves cooking pumpkin (stewed with butter), boiled potatoes, leeks and rice, all the ingredients worked separately and then combined to form layers for cooking in a terracotta pan. To be seasoned with butter and cheese, sometimes with the addition of cream, in some cases also with sausage and vegetables such as San Pietro grass, beets or spinach. The bread was prepared annually, by drawing lots, which usually took place from November to Christmas. Few sweet recipes, but it is worth mentioning the Subric, semolina or potato pancakes or the Apple Panet, prepared for the feast of the Saints: an apple was placed in the center of the bread dough, a real delicacy for the little ones . Sweet bread was usually kept in the attic.

We find the potatoes again, for the preparation of the famous ones ravioles (gnocchi from Val Varaita) seasoned with butter and mountain pasture, Nostrale is often used. Among the typical desserts of the Val Varaita the sweet of Miando (in the Occitan dialect the Baita), a sort of caramel crème, which differs from the traditional recipe by adding pears cooked in white wine.

The protagonists of the recipes of the Valleys are also i legumes, vegetables from the garden, what nature offers, leftovers cooked in earthenware pots, transform apparently simple dishes into sumptuous soups. How theOla al forn, an invigorating soup of legumes, vegetables and meat, cooked in the bread oven once turned off, oven that maintains high temperatures even for two days, thus giving way to prepare other dishes without wasting the accumulated heat.
The soup cooks for at least 12-14 hours, usually at night. Dried borlotti beans, leeks, squash, onions, the poorer pieces of the pig are married in the Ola, butter or olive oil and flavorings are added and salt slightly. Once prepared, it is covered with a lid also made of crock and left to cook in the oven while still hot or on the fire (for at least 7 hours). The secret, for an optimal result, is knowing how to dose the amount of water well. A bit like panissa, the spoon, if placed in the center of the crock pot, must remain standing.

Very important for these valleys is also the Nostrale d'Alpe, the cheese par excellence of the Cuneo mountains, produced exclusively from the mountain pastures. The production huts must be at a minimum height of 1500 meters. Nostrale is a raw milk cheese and each malga differs from another, each milk used is different in aroma, due to the different types of herbs and flowers eaten by cows in the mountain pastures. So it may seem very similar, but it will differ in flavor and percentage of fat. It can be found fresh (Nostrale of about 35 days), or seasoned, from 4 or 5 to 12 months. Seasoning gives it intense aromas and a very particular flavor, a slight spiciness. Since 2011, the Producers Association of Nostrale d’Alpe certifies production with a special brand, as well as specifying in which hut it was produced.

For info and purchases: La Meira Dairy, township Meira 3, Elva, cell. 333 408 6239.
Martini Alessandro Farm in Celle Macra (Cn) in Borgata Grangia 9, tel. 340 3243094 (Mountain butter, Tome, fresh and aged Nostrale).
Alpine Nostrale Cheese Producers Association at the Agenform Dairy Institute p.zza C.A. Grosso 82 in Moretta, tel. 017 293 564.

Piedmontese biscuits to taste as Cavour did – Italian Cuisine

Prepared with fioretto corn flour, they were loved by the count who combined them with a small glass of barolo chinato. Here's how to prepare them

It is said that Cavour never ended a meal without two meliga pastes and a shot of barolo chinato. Yes, because these typically Piedmontese biscuits are a pampering not to be missed. Their name derives from the dialect: meliga, in fact it is the way used between Cuneo and Mondovì to indicate the foil corn flour, protagonist of the dough of the cookies. You will not need stencils to create this sort of donuts, but one sac-a-few. Ready to prepare the meliga pastas? Here is the recipe.

The recipe for meliga pasta

Ingredients

To prepare the meliga pastas you will need: 120 g of fioretto corn flour, 240 g of 00 flour, 130 g of white sugar, 1 egg + 1 yolk, 230 g of softened butter, 1 vanilla bean, lemon zest grated.

Method

In a bowl mix the 00 sieved flour previously with the corn flour. Then engrave the vanilla bean lengthwise and using the tip of the knife, extract the seeds and add them to the flour. Then continue with the sugar.

Add the already softened butter (you can leave it out of the fridge for half an hour, or put it on the radiator, it is not necessary to melt it!) And the grated lemon zest.

With the help of a spoon (or if you prefer by hand) mix everything, then also insert the whole egg and the yolk. The dough must become soft but firm and not lumpy.

Transfer it to a sac-à-poche that has a star-shaped spout to obtain the typical striped appearance of meliga pastes.

Meanwhile turn on the oven at 180 ° and prepare a dripping pan with parchment paper. Create with the help of the sac-à-poche of the donuts keeping a sufficient distance between one and the other because they will swell during cooking.

Cook for about 20 minutes checking occasionally the appearance of the meliga pastas, which must be golden brown. They can be kept for several days if kept in a tin biscuit box.

The Piedmontese cuisine of Scabeat, trattoria beat by Scabin – Italian Cuisine

A new place to eat in Rome. A trattoria at the Central Market that combines and mixes the tradition of the Capital with that of Piedmont. At the helm is the chef Davide Scabin and the genius of Umberto Montano

Something happened. Davide Scabin opened a beat al trattoria Central Market of Rome, at Termini Station. As if the general quality of this latest creation of Umberto Montano it wasn't already sky-high.

The Central Markets

Behind the Central Market in Florence, Rome, Turin and what will soon open in Milan, there is always the same genius: Umberto Montano. Born in the dunes and gullies of Stigliano, from a painter's father and mother nurse, he soon began working as a teacher in a hotel institute. Then, one by one the bursting of his enthusiasm, one by one the need to escape from some problems, he moved to Florence, where he continued his teaching work. During this period, he feels ever more strongly a deep desire for freedom: "The freedom to be in a big city, the freedom to be able to build something of my own, the freedom also to make mistakes. And dreams have no inhibitions . So he looks for and finds a restaurant (today Alle Murate of Florence, with very ancient depictions of Dante) buys and studies Ferrandini's book Honesty in the kitchen and decides that in the years in which tradition was denied he would have done honest and professional cuisine, the two threads of all the places that will open to follow. Without repeating ourselves about Florence, Turin or anticipating us on Milan, we lean towards Rome, where even before the arrival of Scabin, nothing was at a very high level, with the maximum of catering: from the pizza by Gabriele Bonci to the round one of Pier Daniele Seu, up to trapezzini by Stefano Callegari and the selection of wines from the great sommelier Luca Boccoli.

Piedmontese cuisine

To maintain this tenor, Umberto Montano had no doubts in entrusting the Mercato restaurant to Scabin, who already imagined Scabeat just as he wanted it: a disruptive trattoria, open seven days out of seven, which served in perfect New York beat style agnolotti del plin is Saltimbocca to the Roman at any time, from eight to midnight. "I want to become a reference point for both travelers and the Romans, I want to get into the Roman's favor, I want it to come to Termini for dinner, as a sort of after-theater." The idea is that of a kitchen piemontesca, which unites the dishes of Piedmont, the region that flows in the blood of Scabin, with those of the Roman tradition, towards which the chef has a profound respect. So there are vitello tonnato is broccoli soup, but also a mix of both as the Cavour risotto going to Rome, with fondue and chicory, or i Beans with pork rinds but Piedmontese or, again, as we shall see, cuts of meat directly from Marco Martini of Boves, in the province of Cuneo, cooked in the Roman style. In short, a truly beat cuisine that just like the generation in the fifties, rejects the rules imposed for new, explicit, raw representations. And all in Nasa oven ceramics. But from one like this, it was to be expected.

Word of grandmother (Roman)

To be sure of starting off on the right foot, Scabin wanted the grandmothers, Roman of course. So, after a non-stop night where his dishes came out to the rhythm of dj Claudio Coccoluto, the menu was submitted to the judgment of some Roman ladies who came from various parts of the city to test this new opening. The verdict was more than positive, I would say enthusiastic, above all on a traditional Roman dish that won over everyone and that, despite their years of home experience, didn't even know them: the Picchiapò.

Famolo alla Picchiapò

The Picchiapò is one of the ancient recipes of Roman cuisine, the real one, at home, not iconographic. There are various hypotheses about the origin of the name. What is certain is that it is also a mask: in the past "Picchiabbò", with the b, represented a court dwarf, an extravagant character. In the kitchen, instead, it indicates a recovered meat, usually a boiled beef (not to be confused with boiled meat), sautéed in a sauce of stewed onions with tomato and accompanied with potatoes. For the occasion Scabin proposed the Cheek to the Picchiapò bringing together two classics in true Piedmontese beat style: Piedmontese beef cheek by Marco Martini, cooked at Picchiapò. Needless to say that in this dish there is a profound sense of what Scabeat wants to be.

Breakfast for taxi drivers

But for Scabin breakfast is the meal of the future: "I almost never do it myself, but if I want to give myself a gift, then eggs, salmon and avocado". So he devised the one he called breakfast for taxi drivers, designed for all those workers who finish the shift or start the work day very early, but also for businessmen such as entrepreneurs and managers who are between 8 and 9 am to be connected with the time zone both in Japan and in New York. For this it will be in real beat style with Benedict eggs, ricotta, bacon, soppressata, cured meats, cheeses, fondue, Club Sandwich, White pizza; but also croissants, brioche and toasted bread in the right place with butter and jam. In short, great intentions that will soon come true in a place that is already a security, because as the fuchsia sign above the kitchen reads: "The future is what we have forgotten". And I add: we just need to remind ourselves.