Eating Up Italy: Voyages on a Vespa. Matthew Fort
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Salmoriglio
There are no hard and fast versions of this sauce, which is brushed on to fish, meat and vegetables after grilling or roasting. This is Signora Cappello’s own trope. Variations on salmoriglio also crop up in Sicilian cooking.
290ML EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL
JUICE OF 2 LEMONS OR EQUIVALENT OF WHITE WINE VINEGAR
2 TEASPOONS FINELY CHOPPED GARLIC
3 TEASPOONS DRIED OREGANO
SALT
Beat the olive oil in a bowl, gradually adding the lemon juice or vinegar. Then stir in the chopped garlic, the oregano and salt to taste.
INVOLTINI DI VITELLO
Stuffed veal escalopes
Makes 12
Lay out the escalopes on a work surface. Dust with salt and pepper. Mix all the remaining ingredients to make a stuffing, using enough olive oil to bind them. Distribute the stuffing among the escalopes, roll them up and secure each one with one or two toothpicks. Grill for 10 minutes, turning over from time to time.
12 THIN VEAL ESCALOPES
SALT AND PEPPER
12 TABLESPOONS BREADCRUMBS
6 TABLESPOONS CHOPPED PARSLEY
5 CLOVES GARLIC, CHOPPED
75G FRESHLY GRATED PARMESAN
OLIVE OIL
PASTA AL FORNO
Baked pasta
Serves 4
Heat the oven to 180°C/Gas 4.
Make the meatballs by mixing all the ingredients and forming small balls with the mixture.
Boil the rigatoni in salted water until cooked. Drain. Cut the aubergine into slices 1cm thick. Fry in hot oil until soft.
Grate the provola, slice the mozzarella, chop the ham. Cut the hard-boiled eggs into thin slices. In a baking dish put a layer of rigatoni. Place in order a layer of hard-boiled eggs, a layer of melanzane, and then a few meatballs. Cover with tomato sauce, cheeses and ham. Repeat until all the ingredients are used up. Scatter grated Parmesan over the surface.
Bake in the oven for about 25–35 minutes until the mixture is bubbling and the top is golden.
500G RIGATONI
1 AUBERGINE
OLIVE OIL
100G PROVOLA
1 MOZZARELLA
100G COOKED HAM
2 HARD-BOILED EGGS
400ML TOMATO SAUCE
100G GRATED PARMESAN
FOR THE MEATBALLS
450G MINCED BEEF
25G WHITE BREADCRUMBS
1 EGG
15G GRATED PARMESAN
PARSLEY, CHOPPED
1 CLOVE GARLIC, FINELY CHOPPED
WHITE PEPPER
PASTIERA
Pastiera
Serves 12
Sift the flour on to a work surface. Make a hollow in the centre and add the sugar. Chop the lard into small bits and add to the flour and sugar. Lightly beat the egg, egg yolk and vanilla essence together and pour into the centre. Using a fork, gradually mix the ingredients, drawing in the flour from the sides until the mixture comes together as a dough. Knead the dough with your hands until it is soft. Wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for at least an hour.
FOR THE PASTRY
350G PLAIN WHITE FLOUR
150G SUGAR
100G LARD
1 EGG
1 EGG YOLK
1 TSP VANILLA ESSENCE
Soak the flour in enough milk to moisten, with the cinnamon, lemon zest and ½ tsp of the sugar, for 15 minutes.
Put the ricotta into a large bowl with the rest of the sugar, the candied fruit and the milk-soaked flour mixture.
FOR THE FILLING
100G PLAIN FLOUR
MILK
1 PINCH OF GROUND CINNAMON
1 PIECE OF THINLY PARED LEMON ZEST
100G SUGAR
200G RICOTTA (PREFERABLY SHEEP’S)
250G CANDIED FRUIT, INCLUDING CEDRO AND PUMPKIN (SUBSTITUTE LEMON OR GRAPEFRUIT FOR THE CEDRO, AN OBSCURE MEMBER OF THE CITRUS FAMILY)
Separate the egg yolks from the whites. Boil the milk in a saucepan and add the cornflour. Cook over a gentle heat, stirring, until the cornflour has been thoroughly amalgamated and the milk has thickened. Let it cool down slightly before beating in the egg yolks. Add the orange flower water and mandarino. Fold the crema into the ricotta mixture. Beat the egg whites until they are stiff, and fold them into the mixture.
Roll out the pastry and use to line a 30cm flan dish. Pour in the ricotta mixture. Bake at 190°C/Gas 5 for 1 hour. Serve cold.
FOR THE CREMA
3 EGGS
200ML MILK
1 TEASPOON CORNFLOUR
2 TABLESPOONS ORANGE FLOWER WATER
2 TABLESPOONS MANDARINO LIQUEUR
2
KING PIG
REGGIO DI CALABRIA – VIBO VALENTIA – PIZZO – PIANAPOLI
Soppressata
The soppressata was fine grained and the colour of roses and spicy and sweet, with aniseed coiling through it.
2
KING PIG
REGGIO DI CALABRIA – VIBO VALENTIA – PIZZO – PIANAPOLI
I thanked the Lord that, by the time I finally opened up the throttle on 50cc of raging power on my Vespa and wobbled off through the heart of Reggio with a combination of blind bravado, blind terror and blind relief, it was 1.30 p.m., and the roads were almost clear. The Calabresi maintained the extremely civilised habit of lunching properly every day. From about noon to 1 p.m. the roads were filled with traffic, and everything closed down as people headed for home or a restaurant for lunch.
Your average Italian Vespa rip would have been kitted out in trainers, jeans, shirt and maybe, just, a helmet. Wearing a helmet had recently become compulsory, but it was treated more as a fashion accessory than cranium protection. But as far as I was concerned, comfort came before cutting a dash. I was dressed in heavy-duty brown shoes, heavy-duty green cords, T-shirt, shirt, a rather macho lightweight charcoal motorcycle jacket with pockets in all sorts of unlikely places, black leather gloves and a white helmet like the basinet of a knight of the Middle Ages. There was no way that anyone was going to identify me as an Italian. This was unlikely anyway, as I had no intention of travelling faster than fifty kilometres per hour, a preposterously stately pace by Italian standards.
I envied the Calabresi their complete mastery of their machines. They seemed to have no fear of hurtling down roads at speeds which I thought suicidal, or zooming up them while carrying on an animated conversation with their pillion passenger over their shoulder. They could hover like hawks, absolutely stationary, without putting their feet on the ground, just revving their engines to maintain their stability while they nattered away to one another for a minute or two before swooping away into a