Pizza!

Thanks very much to Marco for hosting a terrific convivium at the San Francisco Baking Institute. Besides the inventive pizzas that many participants have created, I had the chance to refresh my palate with flavors such as gorgonzola and pears and Italian wild arugula (the pointy one) on top of an awesome focaccia di Recco (with Bellwether crescenza) and superb eclaires (recipe for the choux pastry from Sherry Yard).

My pizza was OK…I was light handed with salt and the dough came out bland in flavor althoug it has huge potential. A different take on the classic Gorgonzola and pears combination where the silky texture and the truffley flavors of goat cheese are contrasted by the tart crunchiness of green apples. For this pizza I always use an aged goat cheese like a Laura Chenel‘s taupiniere (very reasonably priced at Rainbow grocery).
Walnuts are also very welcome too as an additional topping.

Here is the recipe for my fail-proof dough (and it only takes 2-3 hours to have it).

• 500 g strong flour (W250 like the Ultimate performer from Whole Foods)
• 1 tsp of barley malt
• 1 tsp of gluten flour
• 4 good pinches of kosher salt
• 2 good pinches of sugar
• one little piece of fresh yeast (1 x 1 x 0.5 inches) diluted in a glass of lukewarm water with a pinch of sugar

I do normally work the dough a lot, something like 10-15 minutes, until silky and elastic. I let the ball of dough rise in the oven for an hour (with the light on, or just turn it on for 30 seconds to generate a gentle heat) then punch it down, let it rise another hour or so and then it’s ready to use.
The wood-fire oven created beautiful blister and the dough was perfectly crusty and soft at the bite….I love it like that….

Tomini elettrici

Soft cow’s milk cheese with herbs and crushed red peppers preserved under oil: most probably the most soul-touching food I miss from Piemonte (after truffled cacciatorini). The tragedy is that there’s no close relative being sold in the US and even fresh cheeses like farmer’s cheese are too grainy and lacking the twang of a real tomino from Piemonte. Needless to say, I undertook the challenge and started from scratch.
I followed the recipe of Dr. Fankhauser for Neufchatel cheese and made some tweakings.
I used ½ tablet rennet, got 2 pounds of cheese out of 1 gallon of Clover Stornetta Organic Vitamin D milk and mixed with 3 tsp of salt.

I molded the cheeses into logs and sprinkled the surface with kosher salt.
Wrapped the logs into cheese cloth and sprinkled the cloth with salt too. I aged the cheeses for one week in the upper part of the fridge into a tupperware for herbs (the ones with a grid on the bottom and some apertures on the sides to keep the right amount of moisture).

I finally cut the logs into rounds, sprinkled them with crushed red pepper and dried oregano and parsley and covered them with safflower oil. Now they are in the fridge and they just taste phenomenal.
Considering the amount of handling that the cheese has underwent I won’t keep these more than two weeks in the fridge.

Mangialonga SF

Menu and path:

(A) Cantine Barbone
- tomino elettrico 
- lingua in bagnetto verde
- vitello tonnato
Mutti Noceto 2007 Cortese Colli Tortonesi
 
(B) Antica Prosciutteria
- peperoni in bagna caoda
- zucchine in carpione 
- tartine di polenta con crema di porri, fondue e bagna caoda
- tagliatelle fatte in casa al castelmagno e ragu’
Bovio Barbera d’Alba 2005
 
(C) Pasticceria Baldini
- brasato al barolo con patate al forno e pure’ 
- cotechino con lenticchie
Massa Pertichetta 2004 Croatina
 
(A) Cantine Barbone
- torta alle nocciole
- pesche all’amaretto
- panna cotta
- fragole e panna
- caffe’ e amaro
La Morandina Moscato 2007

A huge thanks goes to Ceri Smith of Biondivino in SF for having made the wine selection possible within a very limited budget. Pure Piemonte, thanks Ceri!

Limoncello math

My limoncello has won many blind tastings even when compared to some bottlings imported from Italy.
I’m not bragging here…
Basic recipe:

• 10 lemons (the most healthy, organic and unsprayed you can think…the thicker the skin, the better)
• 1 L 95º alcohol (Everclear in the US….only 75º)
• 400 g sugar
• ½ L filtered and purified water

Zest the lemons with a microplane and soak the zests in alcohol for 4 weeks in a sealed jar.
Filter the flavored spirit twice and add to the syrup prepared from sugar and water over a gentle heat.
Shaky shaky and you’re done.
Store in the fridge for up to one year and in the freezer for better results.

Bagna cauda

A favorite from Piemonte.
We topped some polenta cakes and red peppers with this earthy and dense sauce.

• 6 garlic heads, peeled and core removed
• 12 oz of salted anchovies, deboned and washed with red wine
• 4 cups of milk
• 2+ cups of oil
• 1 cup of whipping cream

Open garlic heads, separate cloves, peel them and cut longitudinally to remove the core.
Place in a bowl, cover completely with milk and let stand in a fresh spot for the night having care to cover the pot with a lid or plastic wrap.
Drain the garlic and discard the milk.
Place the pot on a stove, cover completely with milk again and let slowly simmer until the garlic begins to melt.
Let the mixture cook slowly until a creamy texture is obtained.
It requires slow simmering and continuous care to prevent the sauce from drying up.
Add the anchovies and simmer until completely melted and blended in the garlic mixture.
Slowly add oil as needed to create a smooth cream, about 2 cups.
When the mixture comes to a slow boil again, pour the whipping cream and bring back to a slow boil/simmering.
Divide in small portions and serve on butter warmers to help the sauce keep the temperature.
The Bagna Cauda can be eaten with many different vegetables (raw, parboiled or boiled), such as: celery stalks, roasted bell pepper, fennel, boiled fingerling potatoes and jerusalem artichokes or parboiled green cabbage, red radicchio, onion, turnips, parsnips, and white cardoon.

Gnocchi alla Vigezzina

While not being a fan of tweaking recipes, sometimes you just need to substitute your ingredients. It would be actually difficult to find the right cheese even in Italy. On top of that you can skip the chestnut flour just because you may have a hard time finding it. But of course…what’s the point? Get going and find some, even online.
The flavors stuck in my head since I visited val Vigezzo in Piemonte (Italy) years ago during college.
It’s chestnut gnocchi with cheese and bacon but there’s a unique earthiness associated with this dish.
The original cheese was a local “nostrano”, undefined for “made here”.  Slightly creamy and young with a subtle buttery texture and great texture thanks to the great pastures available in val Vigezzo and most probably the good view cows get since val Vigezzo is also called “painters’ valley” for the beautiful landscapes.

I actually pair these chestnut gnocchi with Castelmagno cheese or Castelrosso, a rather inexpensive cousin.

Murray’s Cheese defines Castelrosso a “pasteurized red cow’s milk cheese is a cousin of the famous King of Italian cheeses, Castelmagno from Piemonte, in NE Italy. Similar in apppearance, it has a dry, crumbly, snowy white paste, which is a bit creamier and more complex beneath the natural thick, gray rind smattered with yellow and red mold. The flavor is mild: lactic and buttery, with a full fungal finish. Its residual tang is similar to Lancashire and other English cheddar-styles. The straightforward flavors are an ideal foil to Italian condiments such as grape mostarda and chestnut honey”.

Now, I just love it when melted with some milk into a luscious creamy sauce that brings out the full earthy potential.

So here is the math for the gnocchi:

• 500 g russet potatoes
• 120 g flour
• 40 g chestnut flour
• 1 egg

Boil potatoes, skin on, until soft and let on a plate to dry for 10 minutes. Peel, mash and mix with the flours with a good hefty pinch of salt. Beat the egg, incorporate in the dough and let rest covered with foil for 30 minutes. Roll the dough, cut the gnocchi and texture them with a fork (or with a cheese grater as my Grandma does).
Boil some water, add salt, and cook the gnocchi until they float on the surface then remove them in batches and add them to the sauce. You can thin out the sauce by adding some of the starchy water used to cook the gnocchi. A dash of white pepper and you’re good to go.