Tag: Verdi

Giuseppe Verdi and the “exquisite soup”: our recipe from 1929 – Italian cuisine reinvented by Gordon Ramsay

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. .

Giuseppe Verdi sitting in the center, surrounded by some friends in his home in Montecatini.

DEA / G. CIGOLINI/Getty Images

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.

Capon Supreme by Giuseppe Verdi: recipe for Buon Ricordo – Italian Cuisine

From the lands of Polesine Parmense, one of the symbolic dishes of the Buon Ricordo restaurants, that of Massimo Spigaroli: a tribute to Giuseppe Verdi and an ode to the capon

The restaurant of the Spigaroli brothers, Massimo and Luciano, was born as a tavern at the landing place of a ferry on the embankment of the river Po, in the Parma lowlands, and even today that has become a star-studded restaurant it somehow preserves its atmosphere. "In Parma it is difficult to live," said the Duchess Maria Luigia, "provided you know how to give reason to the interlocutor in a musical or gastronomic discussion". In these parts, in fact, all are foodies and musicophiles in their own way, if only because Busseto is a stone's throw away and Giuseppe Verdi is considered first of all a fellow villager. It is no coincidence that the Buon Ricordo plate of the house, Capon Supreme by Giuseppe Verdi, is a tribute to the great composer, who despite the worldwide fame has always personally managed the family farm. In the extraordinary food scenario of Emilia, these lands on the lower border between Parma and Piacenza are the home of the noblest salami, the culatello di Zibello, which reigns supreme over a varied court of other cured meats – Parma ham, cooked shoulder of San Second, staple, coppa, pancetta – and then the salami: gentile, cresponetto, mariola, strolghino … The Spigaroli themselves breed pigs of the ancient Black Parmigiana breed, of Spanish ancestry, and produce internationally renowned cured meats, destined for big names of catering, as can be seen from the visit to the basement of the Corte Pallavicina, a stone's throw from Cavallino Bianco, where the precious culatelli season impeccably, according to those concerned, thanks to the Po valley fog. But that's not all, because every type of vegetable and fruit comes from the farm, as well as white beef from the Po valley, chickens and ducks, geese that flock in meadows … As for wines, it occurs a singular separation between hills and plains, because if the best-known productions come from the first Apennines in the Bassa, we discover the use of accompanying local salami with Malvasia, a white in a rough version, as with Fortana, a red equally prone to sparkling.

A waltz menu

Scrolling through the calendar of the Cavallino Bianco is like jumping into a round of brilliant Verdi waltzes. Each season has its events, nicely declined to the gerund: the first mention belongs to the winter appointment with Maialando, dedicated to meats and sausages that are the pride of the company, but similar events are dedicated to the snail, the river fish, the frog , duck, grilled, cold cuts, pumpkin and goose. In short, a tour de force with a review that then summarizes it, Recalling, gastronomic elegy of the past.

Capon Supreme by Giuseppe Verdi: the specialty of Buon Ricordo

These are the lands of Giuseppe Verdi: in Busseto we visit the places dear to the master, and then we move to Polesine Parmense, on the banks of the Po, to the Spigaroli brothers, the most suitable people to reveal their flavors and secrets. Having said that, we understand the proposal of this suprême, a specialty of French cuisine discovered by Verdi at the table of large hotels and re-proposed on special occasions also in the villa of Sant’Agata. The big capon, the capon, not plus ultra of white meat, honored by the truffle, white or black depending on the season, undiscovered richness of the Bassa. The dish requires a certain amount of chicken sauce to prepare in advance: take the leftovers from the breasts or whatever and brown them with chopped aromatic vegetables, then wet with broth and let boil for three to four hours; once filtered, what is found is the base which can be used as a base for the sauce of the supreme. A concentrate of meat will avoid this preliminary, but the difference will be very evident.

Ingredients for 6 people

6 local capon breasts
50 g of chopped leek white or black truffle
1 dl of Champagne
100 g of chicken sauce
100 g of butter
50 g of flour

For the flan
300 g of boiled zucchini
1⁄2 liter of milk
80 g of white flour
50 g of butter
100 g of grated Parmesan cheese
3 eggs
pepper

Method

Melt the butter in a saucepan and brown the leek; flour the capon breasts and add them on the fire; when they have browned, add the champagne, let it evaporate and add the chicken sauce, then put everything in the oven for a quarter of an hour. Remove the breasts from the saucepan and put it back on the fire to reduce the cooking bottom by one third; add part of the sliced truffle. Cut the breast into transverse slices, arranging them in a row on the plate, slightly overlapping; evenly distribute the sauce obtained and complete with a few slices of truffle.

Serve with a small courgette flan prepared in this way: use milk, flour and butter for a béchamel, to which mix the grated cheese, eggs and courgettes, which you have previously cut into cubes and cooked in butter or oil. Pour the mixture into buttered or non-stick single-portion molds, to be put in the oven for cooking in a bain-marie at 130 degrees.

Recommended wine: Gutturnio dei Colli Piacentini Doc lively

Risotto recipe almost to Giuseppe Verdi – Italian Cuisine

Ingredients

500 g Carnaroli rice
150 g hollowed champignon mushrooms
A slice of Prsciutto di Parma PDO
100 g peeled tomatoes
100 g fresh cream
80 g Parmigiano Reggiano Dop
80 g diced cheek
6 artichokes
an onion in slices
vegetable broth
dry white wine
parsley
lemon
mint
garlic
butter
extra virgin olive oil
salt
pepper

Duration: 1 h 10 min

Level: Middle

Dose: 6 people

For the risotto recipe almost to Giuseppe Verdi, finely chopped a nice n nice tuft of parsley and one of mint. Peel a clove of garlic and cut into cubes. Peel the artichokes and dip them by hand in a bowl of water acidulated with lemon juice so that they do not blacken. Drip them and dry them gently. Open the corollas and fill them with the bacon, a little garlic, chopped parsley and mint, salt and pepper.
Arrange the artichokes «upside down in a saucepan with a couple of tablespoons of oil. Bring to the heat and brown for a few minutes, then blend with half a glass of wine, evaporate, wet with a couple of ladles of vegetable stock, reduce the heat, cover and cook for about 15 minutes. Take 3 artichokes and slice them finely. Complete the cooking of the others in 10 minutes. Finally divide them in half lengthwise and keep warm. Slice the champignons. Cut the slice of raw ham into strips.
Brown the onion in a saucepan veiled with oil, after a couple of minutes add the mushrooms, after another 2 minutes the sliced artichokes and the ham strips. Cook for a minute, then add the peeled tomatoes and rice, stir briefly, blend with half a glass of white wine and let it evaporate. Bring the risotto to cooking, gradually soaking it with the necessary broth.
Remove from heat and stir with a generous amount of butter and cream. Complete with grated Parmesan. Spread the risotto in the dishes, add the warm artichokes and serve immediately.