Rustic Italian Food Read online

  Copyright © 2011 by Marc Vetri

  Photographs copyright © 2011 by Kelly Campbell

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of

  the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  www.crownpublishing.com

  www.tenspeed.com

  “The Times They Are A-Changin’” written by Bob Dylan, copyright © 1963, 1964 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1991, 1992 by Special Rider Music. All rights reserved.

  International copyright secured. Reprinted by permission.

  Ten Speed Press and the Ten Speed Press colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Vetri, Marc.

  Rustic Italian food / Marc Vetri with David Joachim ; beverage notes by

  Jeff Benjamin ; photography by Kelly Campbell ; foreword by Mario Batali.

  p. cm.

  Summary: “The second cookbook from acclaimed Philadelphia chef Marc Vetri, featuring recipes for staples of the hand-crafted Italian Kitchen like bread, pasta, pizza, and salumi”— Provided by publisher.

  1. Cooking, Italian. 2. Cookbooks. I. Joachim, David. II. Title.

  TX723.V484 2011

  641.5945—dc23

  2011015301

  eISBN: 978-1-60774-079-7

  Cover design by Nancy Austin

  Prop styling by Sarah Cave and Theo Vamvounakis

  v3.1

  To the love of my life, Megan,

  who taught me that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts

  and to my three little gnocchis,

  Maurice, Catherine, and Mario

  { CONTENTS }

  Foreword by Mario Batali

  Introduction: A Return to Real Cooking

  • • •

  Bread and Pizza

  Pastas

  Salumi

  Pickles and Preserves

  Meats and Fish

  Simple Vegetables and Sides

  Rustic Desserts

  Sauces and Other Basics

  • • •

  Sources

  Acknowledgments

  Index

  The line it is drawn

  The curse it is cast

  The slow one now

  Will later be fast

  As the present now

  Will later be past

  The order is

  Rapidly fadin’.

  And the first one now

  Will later be last

  For the times they are a-changin’.

  —Bob Dylan, 1964

  Hip: Informed, up-to-date, fashionable, contemporary, relevant. Being modern in dress, attitude and interests. From “hepi,” meaning “well-informed” from the West African language of Wolof.

  —URBAN DICTIONARY, 2011

  FOREWORD

  BY MARIO BATALI

  IT SEEMS THAT NEARLY every month there is a new place in town, mine or yours, with some hipster chef who has spent a couple of weeks or months or years in Italia or France or España or Denmark, working in a legendary place. The chef is back in town with his or her “new” ideas on how to improve the mother country’s food and gastronomic culture, all for our delight. As not-hip as I am, I try now to wait a month or two before heading in to check out the “new” freshie and to see if, in fact, there is something new or innovative or provocative or at least delicious to enjoy and subsequently talk about with my ever-growing group of pleasure-interested pals and associates in the field of food, beverage, and hospitality. The result is usually a mishmash of successful and not-so-successful dishes somehow thematically entwined by their faint relationship with the original versions. The problems are usually the same: overambitious creativity for creativity’s sake, less than perfect shopping, and hurried technique that can lead to some fine dishes, but overall a cuisine a little less than fully inspired or executed.

  My first visit to Vetri in 1999 was an exploration before the “scientist” chefs had yet to invade the United States. I went there hoping to find Italian food inspired by true technique and fine products but practiced by a master. And so it was: perhaps the best meal of true Italian deliciousness with sublime mouthfeel and honest and clear flavor I had ever had outside of the boot, and better than many meals I had eaten inside the boot. I was immediately a huge fan and have been ever since. Marc Vetri is not a practitioner of modern food. He is, however unbeknown to him, a “hipster.” His food and style at that time, in 1998, were among the first real things in the gastronomic rebirth of Philadelphia that became a revolution, and these two stylistic components define to this day what hip means to me. His cooking is not trendy, it is not based on ingredients from Asia or South America, and it is decidedly not “creative for creativity’s sake.” Marc Vetri’s take on “hip” is the well-informed part. He has studied and cooked in and around Bergamo in Italia, as well as around the country in the United States, and developed his personal style at the hands of the masters. His food represents and tastes like the truly ethereal and delicious food made in Italia, but maybe just a little bit lighter, just a little bit cleaner, more to the point.

  Which brings me to the book in your hands, Rustic Italian Food. Like everything Marc does, I truly love it. And like everything Marc does, it really delivers even more on second glance, as I realize just how intensely Vetri observes and catalogs when he is creating the new from the traditional. From the first bread recipe to the pickles and preserves, Marc understands the fundamental building blocks of the real cooking of Italia. It starts at the soil and goes/grows/evolves from there.

  This book should in fact be placed in the “reference book” category. The chapter on both rolled and extruded pastas has more useful information than encyclopedias about the noodle. The salumi chapter has enough true and thoughtful information to replace many single topic tomes from the shelves of cookery schools. The vegetable and sides recipes are superbly simple, and yet the dishes are fresh and packed with layers of flavor and complexity.

  As the times are a-changin’ and the newest is often thought of as the best, Rustic Italian Food holds the line with traditional technique, as does Marc Vetri himself. But here, and everywhere in the Vetri world, the technique and the food are lightly and delicately refined, with a sense of true thought, not toward innovation, but toward imaginatively modifying the really good into the great. Being well informed and continuing to improve on delicious is the new “hip.” This book is that, too.

  INTRODUCTION:

  A RETURN TO REAL COOKING

  I REALLY LIKE TO COOK. I don’t say that as a joke—I really, really enjoy cooking. Sniffing out the best ingredients, dreaming up a dish, and then handcrafting something delicious brings me immense satisfaction. That idea might seem odd in the technological age of modern cuisine. Why bother cooking by hand? Why judge doneness with your eyes when you can just put something in an oven, press a button, and take it out when the buzzer goes off? It will be cooked perfectly. You can vacuum-seal a veal medallion in plastic, label it, put the bag in a water bath at a prescribed temperature for a prescribed time, then take it out, cut it open, and serve it. Some people think that this kind of scientific advancement is a godsend. But not me. If I wanted to be a file clerk, I would work at an accounting firm. I don’t enjoy filing. I enjoy cooking. I like to touch and smell fresh herbs, to roll them between my fingertips and breathe in their tempting aromas. I like to feel the supple skin on a fresh pear and taste the tannic bite of young artichokes. I want to understand where my food comes from—the earth, the climate, and the place where it was grown. Touching, knowing, and understanding give me more respect for the ingredients I’m working with and help me hono
r those foods in the kitchen. The fewer things between me and the food, the better. Don’t get me wrong—knowing the science of food can certainly make you a better cook. But how you use that knowledge makes all the difference between modern cuisine and rustic preparations. Some chefs use their knowledge to manipulate our medium—food—to its furthest reaches, constructing or deconstructing elaborate dishes with multiple components. Other chefs use food knowledge to expertly pair two ingredients together in a simple preparation like a musician who can move you from your seat with two minimal notes. That musician may have a deep understanding of musical theory but chooses to display his or her knowledge with an uncomplicated melody. I love knowing how and why things happen in cooking, but I’ll take Miles Davis over Wynton Marsalis any day of the week.

  This kind of simple, hands-on cooking is the core of Italian cuisine. In the kitchen, my greatest aspiration is to take as few ingredients as possible, cook them perfectly, and make them sing. I try to bring this kind of simplicity to all of my tables—at home and in my restaurants. It’s what I teach the cooks who come to work with me, and what I set out to share in this book.

  I’m not alone in this straightforward approach. Thomas Keller, the prince of precise French cooking, recently told reporters that a chicken tastes best when simply roasted in the traditional manner: “Clean the chicken, season it inside and out, rub it with butter, truss it and roast it at 425 degrees,” says Keller. I couldn’t agree more. Even Alain Ducasse, one of the most decorated chefs in the world, recently simplified the menu at his flagship Plaza Athenée restaurant in Paris. “We’ve never been about bling-bling,” he told an international news agency, “but now we are definitively going to get back to essentials. Cuisine has become too complicated—this is about subject, verb, adjective: duck, turnips, sauce.”

  For many young cooks, the simple basics no longer hold their interest. Some very talented chefs have come to work with me over the years, and I am still amazed at how many of them don’t know rudimentary food preparations like butchering animals and making stock. For me, it is an art to make a piece of cured salami with only three ingredients: pork, fat, and salt. Bread, one of the world’s most important foods and most beautiful art forms, can be crafted from only flour, water, salt, and yeast. Yet these fundamental procedures are foreign to many cooks. It’s not because making bread is hard. It’s because few people take the time to show others how simple it is to make.

  Think of pickles, jams, and preserves. Cooks have been preserving seasonal fruits and vegetables for thousands of years. Simple tarts and sweets have been put on Italian family tables for more years than any of us has been alive. Thankfully, this kind of hands-on food is making a big comeback these days. Highly technological cuisine may be fascinating, but food made by hand is what people are really excited about. American restaurants proudly serve house-cured meats and house-made breads. Every year, thousands more people turn to home canning, home brewing, home butchering, and making things like homemade pickles and home-cured bacon to save money and enjoy the satisfaction of doing things themselves.

  You could chalk up the handcrafted food movement to tough economic times, but I think our interest in rustic food goes deeper. Breads, preserves, pies, roasted meats … these are the foods that cooks—especially Italian cooks—have been inspired by for centuries. These are the approachable foods that people everywhere feel comfortable preparing and eating. This is the cooking that I teach in Rustic Italian Food.

  Here is my basic approach:

  1. Cook and eat food that is as close to the earth as possible. The fresher and more local, the better.

  2. Start with whole foods. They taste better than processed foods.

  3. Keep it simple. A few high-quality ingredients make a bigger impact than a dozen cheap ones.

  To help flesh out this philosophy, I don’t just give you recipes here. I open each chapter with details about making satisfying Italian foods like homemade pasta, sausages, and vegetables. These introductions are like mini classes, explaining everything you need to know to get started. The recipes themselves also give you the ins and outs of rustic Italian food the way I cook it—with more than 120 of my favorite breads, pizzas, grilled meats, slow roasts, braises, pickles, preserves, and desserts. Some dishes, like Fusilli with Fava Beans and Pecorino, are perfect for off-the-cuff weeknight cooking. Others, like Chocolate Zabaione Tart, are more sophisticated and meant for special occasions. Still others, like Spit-Roasted Suckling Pig and home-cured Soppressata Calabrese, require some serious time and attention but give you a huge payoff. Any time you cook a whole animal or serve home-cured salami, your guests will love you for it. Believe me. People appreciate the effort and care that goes into handmade food. This is the kind of rustic cooking that I am most excited to share with you.

  BREAD

  AND PIZZA

  Flour, Measuring, Yeast, Water, Salt, Starter, Mixing and Kneading, Proofing and Shaping, Baking and Steaming, I Want It Burnt!, Think Outside the Wine Bottle, Part Skim Is Part Insane

  • • •

  Biga Starter

  Rustic Loaf

  Ciabatta

  Parmesan Bread

  Durum Focaccia

  Rosemary Durum Bread

  Blueberry Schiacciata

  Chocolate Bread

  Fig and Chestnut Bread

  Brioche

  Romana Pizza Dough

  Napoletana Pizza Dough

  Margherita Pizza

  Mortadella Pizza

  IT SMELLED LIKE OLD BOOTS. I was cramped. Tired. And I could be caught and arrested at any moment. Luckily, the rumble of the train, chugging along the track, was putting me to sleep. This was in 1993, and I had left L.A. to go to Italy and learn everything I could about Italian food. For weeks, I had been staging at Taverna Colleoni dell’Angelo, a seminal Northern Italian restaurant in Bergamo, Lombardy. I finally felt like I’d found my roots in Italy. Yet, here I was on a train to France.

  I usually don’t tout the French for coming up with anything—except maybe béchamel—but I love French bread. It’s amazing. In Italy, I was really underwhelmed by the bread, so I decided to spend my first ferie (vacation) in Paris. Of course, I was broke. Stagiares (culinary interns) don’t make any money. So I stowed away on the train from Italy to France. The trains have luggage areas upstairs, and I hopped up into one of them and put luggage in front of me to hide. It was leather luggage and had that awesome smell of boots, somewhere between bread and sausage.

  I was meeting my friend and mentor Joseph Manzare in Paris. He had just left Wolfgang Puck’s Spago and come to France to work in a pastry shop. We met at his friend Larry’s apartment and slept on Larry’s floor for a week. Joseph and I rented bicycles and rode around the city all week eating whatever street food we could find. We walked in and out of all kinds of bakeries, sampling everything. I had made bread when I lived in L.A., but nothing like this. Different doughs and shapes were everywhere! From baguettes, batons and boules to ficelles, miches, fougasses, and épis.

  I was on a quest to taste the best baguette ever. One day, Joseph and I rode away from the center of town onto a side street with a bakery on the corner. I don’t remember the name of it. But they had a beautiful little food cart out front that sold only one thing: sandwiches made of leg of lamb roasted with rosemary and garlic, on a baguette with tomatoes, lettuce, and horseradish cream. We both got one. Of course, I’d had baguettes before. But this one was phenomenal. We were there in the morning, so the bread was probably right out of the oven. Crisp on the outside, marble-size air pockets on the inside … chewy … crunchy … sophisticated. I found myself taking one bite at a time, not to savor the filling, which was also amazing, but to really taste the bread! It was a life-changing moment. Unfortunately, this was France, and I was quickly reminded that I was not in Italy anymore.

  Above: Marc, Joseph, and Larry

  Joseph and I were eating, and I was staring at something through the window of the antiques store nex
t to the baguette shop. I must have leaned a little too close to the window, and a smudge of horseradish cream got on the glass. The store owner came out, furious, screaming at me in French. I said to the man, “I don’t understand.” He said in French-accented English, “Look at my window! You fucking Americans come to our country and you barely spend a fucking nickel!” But over the past week I’d spent every penny I had in search of the best baguette. And this guy was complaining about how I don’t appreciate his country? I suppose my response was a bit excessive. I took the whole sandwich and rubbed it all over the window. Joseph and I took off on our bicycles as fast as we could!

  I probably shouldn’t have given up my perfect baguette that day. But I’ve never given up my love for great bread. I’m always working to make my bread better and better—a thicker crust, a loftier crumb, a deeper flavor. The French taught me a lot about these basics and helped hone my recipes for Ciabatta, Durum Focaccia, and other Italian breads. I’m starting this book off with bread because it is one of the world’s most elemental foods. Only three ingredients—flour, water, and yeast—can produce thousands of different breads. But with so few ingredients, the techniques—from the measuring to the baking—become extremely important.

  FLOUR

  The French taught me quite a bit about flour. It is the cornerstone of any bread. What you need to know is that flours vary from region to region, brand to brand, type to type, and year to year. In baking, the type of wheat flour matters, because some wheat varieties are higher in protein, creating well-structured artisan breads, while others are low in protein and work better for cakes and pastries. Some fall in the middle.

  I tried so many different flours to find the perfect one for pizza dough. I tried various combinations of tipo 00 (Italian finely ground all-purpose wheat flour), higher-protein bread flour, and durum flour. Then I started buying an Italian pizza flour from Naples that combined tipo 00 flour, soy flour, and a few others. It was good but expensive. And it was never consistent. So I tried using King Arthur Sir Galahad, the main all-purpose flour I keep around for most baking. It was ten times better and much more consistent.