Alcohol

This simple quince preserve is a specialty in many Italian regions. It seems to have its origins in the fourteenth century, when some of the most noted were from Reggio Emilia and Genova. The translucent, pastel fruit in a jellied syrup is a delightful accompaniment to all sorts of sweet and savory dishes. If you have a large batch of fresh quince, just multiply this recipe and make a big pan of cotognata. It will keep for a month refrigerated. Pack it in little jelly jars and give as a gift: cotognata is a colorful and delicious way to introduce others to the pleasures of quince!

Beef shoulder, usually called the chuck, is the source of many flavorful cuts of meat. One of my favorites for braising is the compact boneless chuck roast, taken from underneath the shoulder blade. There’s so much connective tissue and fat in the meat that long, moist cooking will produce soft, delicious meat, whatever you put in the pot. This braise, however, is a special one, inspired by my connection to and love for Venice and its special place in culinary history—La Serenissima, as the state of Venice was called, was a center for the spice trade and the silk route through the Middle East to the Orient for over 600 years. The use of exotic, imported spices in cooking signaled a well-to-do household with a rich kitchen. I get excited just assembling the spices and flavorings (including coffee and cocoa) for this. And when the exotic perfume arises from the bubbling wine that fills the pot, I hate to leave the kitchen, even though there’s almost no work to do once the beef begins its 3 hours of braising.

I love making risotto for family meals. It’s not something I have time for every day—it takes a good 30 minutes, mostly at the stove—but it is one of those special dishes that focus my attention and engage all my senses in the amazing processes of cooking. I smell, see, and taste what’s in the risotto pan, of course, but I am listening too: for the clicking sound that tells me the rice grains are sufficiently toasted and it’s time to splash them with wine; for the distinctive bubbling as each addition of cooking liquid disappears in the pot, which tells me the rice is ready for more. If I’ve stepped away from the stove—I do take a break from stirring risotto now and then, and you can too—that sound brings me back. I add more liquid and stir (and stir and stir), and feel, through the wooden spoon in my fingers, the corner of the pan where the rice is almost sticking, the resistance that tells me yet another cup of broth is needed before I wander away again. The Basic Risotto recipe that follows is one that will give you this marvelous engagement of the senses. It’s a simple formula that will let you focus on the critical steps in cooking—in the end, creating a great risotto is 100 percent technique—not on a long list of ingredients. You can make this right out of the cupboard, building flavor and superb texture with just olive oil, onions, rice, wine, water, salt, and cheese. Nothing else, not even butter, is necessary. I give you choices, though: use butter or leeks or broth if you want, or more or less of the ingredients listed in ranges. I want you in the driver’s seat, following your senses and tastes, to achieve the texture and flavor you like best (see more on these choices in the box on page 228). With risotto, you see, it is more important that you understand what you are doing than that you add things in prescribed amounts. When you are in control of what’s happening in the pot, you will feel how powerful a few ingredients and a few techniques can be in creating an outstanding dish. To sharpen your focus, you’ll find each step of the recipe instructions accompanied by a brief explanation of its purpose and the chemistry of risotto—these are short, and, believe me, you will have plenty of time to read them while you are stirring! And if you have further questions about risotto, write me at www.lidiasitaly.com. I love teaching about this precious treasure of Italian cooking.

Everyone traveling to Bologna, Emilia Romagna, is bound to eat ragù Bolognese, ricetta tradizionale and/or ricetta antica. Served with fresh tagliatelle, particularly spinach tagliatelle, it is the precursor to meat sauce as we know it, and still the main Sunday staple at a Bolognese Sunday meal. The ricetta antica, an old recipe, has milk added while the sauce simmers, to give it additional richness and velvety texture. Today it is mostly the tradizionale, without milk, that is cooked in Bologna.

This is a great vegetarian sauce, very complex and satisfying. It’s excellent for pasta, baked in a lasagna or polenta pasticciata, cooked into risotto or as a condiment for grilled steak or fish. The mushrooms you can buy at the supermarket will make a fine sauce; if you have fresh wild mushrooms it will be even better. In either case, dried porcini provide a key element in this sauce (and many others). On using dried porcini, see box on facing page.

We have all seen countless dishes called al Marsala on the menus of Italian-American restaurants. Too often, I have found, they disappoint me. The pork scaloppine I enjoyed at the Ferdinando brothers’ trattoria reminded me that this simple preparation depends so much on the quality of the wine that is splashed into the skillet. And I was not surprised to learn that the superb sauce coating the meat was made with a carefully chosen Marsala, dry and aromatic. After all, the town of Marsala lies just a few hours west of Palermo, and from that western tip of the island comes all authentic Marsala, in a wide range of vintages, colors, and degrees of sweetness. The finest Marsalas, aged a minimum of 10 years, are ranked with the great fortified wines of the world—sipping one of these is a pleasure you shouldn’t miss. But for good cooking, I recommend a moderately priced Superiore (aged 2 years) or Superiore Riserva (aged 4 years). I always prefer dry (secco) Marsala, even for desserts like Espresso Zabaglione (page 156); for these scaloppine, secco is a must.

Castagne al vino are a delightful reminder from Maremma that the simple pleasures of rustic life are truly irreplaceable. Roast some chestnuts, and while they are still hot, wrap them in a wine-soaked cloth . . . wait a few minutes . . . then peel and enjoy them with a glass of wine. The question is: red or white wine? The maremmani enjoy, as I do, red wine, a good Morellino. But white wine is also delicious.

Antico peposo, a very old recipe for cubed beef, is cooked with lots of pepper and no other condiment—not even a drop of oil or any other fat—and it becomes a delightfully savory and peppery dish. The dish probably dates back to medieval times, when there was no refrigeration and meat was preserved with salt or lots of pepper and herbs. Once the meat was embedded with the pepper, it was cooked just as it was. Or with a little wine and garlic. My peposo uses only a fraction of the amount of black peppercorns that are in traditional recipes, but it will still please even the most fanatic pepper-lover: this is peppery! To balance the spiciness of the meat and mop up the sauce, you need some starch. I like to serve the peposo with one of the following: polenta, boiled or mashed potatoes, gnocchi, or just beans cooked with olive oil.

Tortelli are ravioli by another name—a square, filled pasta. And though they vary greatly, like all pastas, tortelli often are filled with fresh ricotta and spinach or other greens, herbs, or vegetables. In Maremma, where carnivorous appetites rule, such a meatless approach is not typical. As you’ll find in this set of recipes, tortelli maremmani have meat inside and outside—and lots of it. Fried chopped chicken livers plump up the tortelli, in addition to ricotta and spinach. Once cooked, the tortelli are dressed with a typical ragù maremmano, made with three chopped meats slowly cooked in tomatoes. My friend Alma likes best boar, chicken, and pork, but here I call for veal, pork, and sausage, because I find that combination comes close to the complexity of the boar. Of course, if you can get boar, by all means use it. This is a great pasta, and worth all the stirring and stuffing. However, it is not necessary to make everything here and put the ingredients together in just one way. The components of tortelli maremmani give many options for delicious meals (and convenient advance preparation). For instance, it’s fine to make the filling and the pasta for the tortelli and leave the ragù for another day. You can sauce your tortelli simply with sage butter, pages 49–50, or just shower them with Tuscan olive oil and Pecorino Toscano. On the other hand, go right to the ragù recipe—skip the tortelli—and make this marvelous sauce to dress any pasta, fresh or dry, or polenta or gnocchi. Indeed, the ragù recipe makes enough for two or more meals. Toss a couple of cups of ragù with spaghetti for a fabulous (and fast) supper one night, and freeze the rest. It will still be perfect whenever you do get a chance to roll and fill those plump tortelli maremmani.

A cold-weather tradition I remember fondly took place around the fogoler, or open hearth, of my maternal grandparents’ home. When neighbors would stop by to visit, everybody would gather around the crackling fire and talk. My grandparents would serve zuppa istriana, hearty spiced wine, to satisfy and warm their guests. My grandmother would roast some quince in the hearth, and have a pan of wine nestled in the coals, perking away. Then she would combine the two and pour the soup into a boccaletta, a ceramic pitcher. The pitcher was then passed around the hearth, and everybody would fish out a piece of quince with a fork (or sometimes with a thin sharp twig), take a good sip from the pitcher, and pass it on. The ceramic boccaletta was always considered a hospitable vessel, since no one could see how much one drank from it. Today I prepare zuppa istriana when the snow begins to pile up outside and I want to have something warm and comforting to welcome my friends and family in from the cold.

It’s no surprise that lime is used widely in Mexican cooking, although it can be confusing because the translation is limón. We don’t have the yellow lemon (well, it is very rare). Lime’s lovely puckery, tart flavor is celebrated in many of our preparations, including this one. The filling for the tart is essentially a curd with a creamy texture and a bright flavor. I don’t like to hide the qualities of the lime at all, and I love the combination of cherries with it. I originally made the fruit mixture with capulines, dark-fleshed wild cherries with large pits, but I’ve never seen them outside Mexico; regular cherries or blueberries are a tasty substitute.

I absolutely love passion fruit, and the trees in southeastern Mexico, particularly one in my childhood friend Fernando’s backyard in Bacalar Quintana Roo, inspired this creation. Think of this dessert like a tropical layered cake filled with the exquisite tartness of passion fruit and topped with a silky, sugary meringue. Avoid using mezcal with a worm in the bottle because they are, for the most part, not the best quality. You will need a blowtorch to caramelize the meringue topping, or you can use a broiler or simply sprinkle with some crunchy meringue instead (page 160).

I did a lot of experimenting when I worked at Rosa Mexicano as the pastry chef, and trying out new ice cream flavors was one of my favorite things during my time there. I have always loved rum-raisin ice cream and thought raisins and tequila might also go well together. The reposado and añejo styles of tequila have been aged and come through very nicely, but I felt the ice cream needed another layer of flavor, so I added canela, which turned out to be just what was missing.

Who doesn’t love a margarita? Well, this is one way to get the flavor in a very refreshing ice that you can keep on hand in your freezer. You’ll be tempted to add more tequila, but try to refrain, because it won’t freeze.

A gaznate is a crunchy cylinder filled with a very sweet and airy meringue. They were carefully stacked into a tower and commonly sold outside movie theaters. The meringue is either left white or tinted a fluorescent pink and is commonly flavored with pulque (a fermented alcoholic beverage made from the maguey plant), which many believe is essential. Pulque is practically impossible to get outside Mexico, so I made my version with mezcal. You will need noncorrosive metal tubes, which you can buy at many cooking stores or online, for wrapping the dough and frying it. Or follow the alternative method below if you can’t find the tubes.

Antes are very old desserts that were prepared in many convents. They are similar to a layer cake and are made with marquesote or mamón (similar to a pound or génoise cake) that is soaked in syrup or liqueur, then filled with a fruit jam and colorfully adorned with fresh, dried, or crystallized fruit and often meringue and nuts. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, certain sweets were eaten before a meal, which is where the name of this dessert comes from: antes de means “prior to.” This particular ante was inspired by a recipe found in a manuscript from Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. She used mamey, which I’ve replaced with mango because it is much more readily available and is a wonderful combination with the ground almonds and because it still represents the cultural blend apparent in the original recipe.

Ratafias are cordials made from macerated infused fruits, herbs, flowers, or spices; they make a wonderful digestif. Be sure to keep in a dry place away from direct sunlight while the liqueur steeps.

In the antiques shop area Los Sapos, in the state of Puebla, there’s a charming little bar named for this drink, which is their specialty. The scene is a continuous movement of people enjoying the shot glasses of this raisin liqueur served with a toothpick studded with a cube of salty cheese and a raisin. Their recipe is secret, but this is very close to it.