Holiday Highlights 3: Rude Food (and food in general).
September 12, 2007
Hello Possums. Traveling in Italy and France recently for the first time was truly a gastronomic experience: from a cooking lesson with two Tuscan chefs from Kitchen chez nous, to dishes served to us at restaurants, to cooking for ourselves using fresh local produce.
The Tuscan chefs visited our villa near Florence to teach us to cook a four course meal of Italian classics. The menu for our cooking lesson was stuffed zucchini flowers, home made spinach ravioli in a sage and butter sauce, peposo and panacotta with peach sauce:
The zucchini flowers were stuffed with buffalo mozzarella and anchovy, and fried in a light beer batter. The beer batter drew the oil away from the flowers and complemented their texture by adding crunch. The kids and adults adored them.
The pasta for the ravioli was made with strong durum wheat flour and required half an hour of constant kneading before going through the pasta machine. But the result melted in your mouth – heaven on a stick! Here I am with our finished ravioli taking a break whilst the peposo simmers along on the stove in the background. The peposo recipe called for a cup of red wine and, because it was quite a tasty Chianti, of course we got stuck into it too. Here is the Peposo Recipe (as promised to Charlotte):
700g muscle of veal taken from the shin bone (or if you prefer to use beef, go for stewing steak or beef osso bucco)
7 cloves garlic
3 tins peeled tomatoes, the Italian brand CIRIO or similar was recommended (or 400g peeled fresh tomatoes)
1 onion
1 carrot
1 stalk celery
1 glass red wine
extra virgin olive oil
2-3 tablespoons black pepper
salt
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Saute finely chopped onions, carrots, celery, galic cloves with olive oil in a deep thick bottomed saucepan. Add the meat cut into large cubes. When meat is sealed add pepper and the tomatoes. Cook medium temperature for 10 minutes. Add the red wine. Season with salt. Cover it and allow to simmer slowly for about two hours over a low heat.
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At the end of our 2 week stay in Tuscany we went to a local restaurant that was walking distance from our villa. There was no menu. Instead the chef asked us to choose our meals from verbally recounted dishes of the day. There was a choice of four different entrees and the only choice for the main course was the type of meat, which was served with set accompaniments. I chose pigeon for my main course and was served a meal that had us in hysterics:
Well I made the choice to be adventurous, and ended up with food that has to be described as rude!
In the south of France we ate duck every day because it was always on the menu. My favorite dish was Margaret e Canard, the most delicious example of which I found at a lovely cliffside restaurant looking across to Rocamadour:
Here’s the view of Rocamadour from the restaurant:
And here’s a view of inside the restaurant:
Rosie and Emma in the foreground so that we could discretely take a pic of the pooch under the table behind – in a restaurant! What the…?
Thanks for the recipe! That’s gonna make my man-a very happy. I am desperate to learn how to stuff a zucchini flower – I kept seeing them in the supermarket in Tuscany and wondering what the hell to do with them.
As for the pooch in the picture, it is utterly normal in Germany (can’t speak for Italy, but it’s probably the same) for dogs to go wherever their people go. The dogs are exceptionally well-behaved and usually sit under the table while their people do their eating. Not for me, I have to say, but all dog owners here do it.
No problem Charlotte, good luck with the recipe. It serves about 6-8 people, use 500g meat for generous servings for four. We used tin tomatoes and it worked really well. Chop the carrot and celery into julienne strips before cutting them up to get quite small cubes, and you could double the quantity of these. Peposo is traditionally served with fresh bread and that’s it.
The zucchini flowers are a cinch, I’ll put it up for you also if you like.
And, dogs in restaurants – never in Australia! We soon worked out that the French treated their dogs differently. In Paris we played spotto for the number of dogs we found being carried around, either in bags or in their owner’s arms. So, Germany too eh?
Now that’s my idea of a holiday!
Dogs in restaurants, YUK!
I’d have loved to be there to learn how to cook the zucchini flowers and fresh pasta…and eat it all of course.
Hi miss lionheart and Kit, the cooking lesson was a great thing to do and you both would have loved it! It also reminded me how much fun it is to cook with friends. Both Jess and I are keen to do more. She has already bought herself a pasta machine, and so will I. I like the idea of it as an activity with my girls too. Making the pasta is really worth it because the result is so noticably better when its fresh (melts in your mouth) so I can imagine having cook-ups for special occasions.
The view of Rocadamour from the restaurant is wonderful – Rosie and Emma both look so sweet.
Unless it is a seeing-eye dog, people would be hysterical at a dog in a restaurant (or in any public buildings, stores, etc.) Lytton, my brown lab, would be in heaven if he could spend time in a restaurant.
The recipe sounds delicious. I should try it tomorrow when I’ve people over. It is currently -3c this sunny Friday morning and a meat dish like this sounds so appealing.
Hi Kate. The French countryside was stunning – you’d love it! Good luck with the recipe. It really is comfort food! If you use freshly cracked pepper then less is required, perhaps start with one tablespoon.
[...] when it occurred to me that I could cook a plain risotto to accompany it. I felt inspired. Our holiday to Tuscany came back to me. I purchased crusty bread and fresh salad greens. Back in my kitchen I hoped that [...]