Deciding what to cook: a few thoughts on recipes

A few days ago, I received a "freebie" in the mail, a collection of recipes called "Italian Classics." It is the second in a series of little pamphlets (I don't know what happened to the first one). They are manageable in size and number of recipes. This one contains only fourteen, and they range from appetizers to desserts, wtih some of each.

I looked through the recipes titles, and I know how to make all of them, or variations on them, so I thought about giving it to a friend. Then I read the recipes.

No.

Putting aside the issue of complexity (some of these recipes are VERY complex and time consuming to make), many of them are just plain WRONG. Either they have wrong ingredients, or the cooking times are wrong, or , and this is the thing that bothered me the most, the context is wrong. Let me give you some examples.

There is a recipe for spaghetti alla carbonara, and while the notes on the dish are right, the ingredients are wrong. They use pancetta, which is a standard substitution for guanciale, which IS difficult to find. I think they ought to explain the substitution. The recipe for minestrone calls for "cooked beans," without explaining how to cook them, and a recipe for ossobucco calls for cooking the meat for "about two hours, until the meat is fork tender and falls off the bone. " Rest assured that if you cook a veal shank for two hours, it will NOT be fork tender, it will NOT fall off the bone, and you will NOT be happy. You have a LOT more cooking to do.

But perhaps the item that bothers me the most is the recipe for "chicken alla cacciatora" The comments on it explain that this is a dish that Northern Italian housewives made for their husbands, before they went out hunting. The recipe then calls for olive oil.

Well, no. This is a southern dish. It has olive oil in it. That's your first clue. Second, the traditional knowledge on this dish is that it started as RABBIT in the hunters' style, because this is what they cooked while they were out hunting, and they made it with what they could carry. Later, it became codified as chicken cacciatore because everyone had chickens at home. You used the older birds who had stopped laying for the dish. And the killer here is that they recommend serving the dish with plain white rice.

No.

There are no Italian dishes that I know of that serve a main dish (a "secondo"), with rice. The other alternative, potatoes, is somewhat canonical for the dish, but the rice is purely an American conceit.


Now, having said this, one cannot throw the baby out with the bathwater. When you get a group of recipes, go through them, and 'edit'. There were two in the pile that I knew very well, and they are spot on. And it was good to see them, because I will make them both.

As you do more cooking, and learn more things, you will learn what recipes will and will not work. I can almost always look at a recipe and say "never going to work." That of course is different when you stick up your nose, as I have a few times in this piece and have said "nice, but not authentic." That's a personal choice. For example, if you like spaghetti alla carbonara, and you don't have access to guanciale (which IS hard to find), by all means, use the pancetta. I'm sure that there has been more than one cook who has done so. So develop your sense of what's right and not, and also develop your sense of what you want to do. There are very few wrongs and rights about cooking. Calling a dish what it's not is one of the wrongs. Giving poor instructions is another. And with experience, you'll be able to tell what's what.

Here is one of the recipes. One of my favorites, using a vegetable that I'm learning is much more loved than I thought it was. It is "finocchio con burro e parmagiana," and it encapsulates all that is right about Italian cooking.

You need about eight fennel bulbs, which unfortunately is going to be not inexpensive. Fennel costs more than it should, and you'll have a lot of waste with the fronds, because you wont' use them. Save some and chew on them at the end of the meal, the way Italians do, to sweeten your breath. You'll also need half a stick of unsalted butter, and parmagiana cheese, freshly grated.

What you'll do is bring a pot of salted water to the boil. While that is happening, trim off any "uglies" on the fennel bulbs, and then quarter them, lengthwise. Put them into the boiling water and cook them for five minutes, then drain them.

On the burner next to the pot of water, melt the butter in a big pan. Add the fennel to that melted butter, and toss in some salt. Taste, and add more if you need it. You'll be turning this for about fifteen minutes, and don't be alarmed if things brown a bit. That's good cooking. Then, dump it all into a serving dish and toss the cheese into it. Use as much as you like: half a cup is a good amount.

And that's it. This is a rich, very full tasting side dish, and I would put it alongside a simple grilled piece of chicken, or even better, some fish. Perhaps a grilled seabass or something like that? If you were doing a complete meal, what you might do is make a risotto before hand, maybe using some of the fennel fronds and a different seafood, like scallops.

SO, there you have it. One of Annalena's periodic diatribes, and a recipe too. I hope that helps make your day more interesting, mi ragazzi