Cooking Rice with an Italian Accent! (12 page)

1 tablespoon butter

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 small peeled onion, thinly sliced

1 large peeled clove garlic, crushed

3 ounces sweet Italian sausage, skinned and crumbled

2 canned Italian plum peeled tomatoes, chopped

2 tablespoons frozen peas, completely thawed

2 frozen artichoke hearts, thawed and julienned

Salt and pepper to taste

1½ cups Arborio rice

½ cup dry white wine or dry vermouth

1 quart boiling hot chicken stock

½ cup chopped fresh flat leaf parsley

1 heaping tablespoon grated Gruyère or Swiss cheese

Melt butter in oil on gentle heat in a large saucepan. Sauté onion and garlic five minutes. Add sausage. Adjust heat to moderate and brown for five minutes. Add tomatoes, peas, and artichokes. Season with salt and pepper and cook, stirring, for ten minutes. Add rice and stir three minutes. Adjust heat to high. Add wine and cook until wine evaporates (five minutes), then lower heat. Add hot stock cup by cup and, with wooden spoon, stir until rice absorbs most of the liquid (about eighteen minutes). Add parsley and grated cheese. Stir vigorously. Remove from heat. Transfer to a deep serving bowl and bring to the table.

RECOMMENDED WINES:

ROSSO DI MONTALCINO, CHIANTI COLLI SENESI

Risi (Rice Dishes)

Risi
(rice dishes) are recipes where the rice, usually long-grain, is cooked separately and drained. It is combined with the other ingredients in the recipe and then served as is, or baked. But in the following recipe the rice is cooked along with the chicken and vegetables.

 

Riso alla Pitocca

(BEGGAR WOMEN'S RICE)

SERVES 4 TO 6

A beggar's life is not easy. Unfortunately, there is a great deal of homelessness in Italy also. This recipe, according to legend, was invented by a poor beggar woman in the middle ages who gathered her alms at the end of the day and with her few pennies bought the ingredients for this dish. She used her imagination and lovingly cooked this magnificent supper for her husband and children.

1 whole 3-pound chicken with innards

2 carrots

2 medium onions, peeled and left whole

1 large rib celery

1½ quarts water salted with one tablespoon salt

Salt and pepper to taste

1½ cups long-grain rice

2 tablespoons butter

1 cup dry white wine

2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

Wash the chicken well in cold water. Dry it and cut all the meat into bite-size pieces. Remove skin and reserve. Wash the carrots, whole onions, and celery, and place in a large saucepan with the water; bring to a boil. Add the chicken skin, the carcass, and innards, and bring to boil again. Lower heat to simmer and cover for one hour. Strain the broth and put into another pan and keep on simmer for later use. Wash the boiled vegetables and mince them. Place them in a saucepan and cook gently in 1 tablespoon butter for two minutes. Add the chicken pieces and brown lightly (about six minutes). Add wine and cook until evaporated. Season with salt and pepper. Add rice and, stirring, cook for four minutes. Now begin adding the hot chicken broth, cup by cup, stirring constantly for eighteen minutes until the rice has absorbed all the liquid. Remove from heat, mix in remaining tablespoon butter and grated cheese. Serve immediately. That beggar lady sure did know how to cook!

RECOMMENDED WINES:

VERMENTINO, VERDICCHIO

 

Riso con Filetti di Mandorle

(RICE WITH SLIVERED ALMONDS)

SERVES 4

This rice dish is an interesting combination of contrasting textures and flavors and reminds us of how much we are indebted to the Arab culture. It reflects the Arab invasions in Sicily and Southern Italy. The almonds and raisins are found abounding in North African Arab cuisine.

1 quart water

11 ounces long-grain rice

1 large peeled onion, sliced thinly

2 tablespoons butter

½ bay leaf

Salt and pepper to taste

2 tablespoons seedless raisins plumped in warm water for a half hour

6 tablespoons milk

½ beef bouillon cube, crushed

2 ounces slivered almonds

2 tablespoons olive oil

Grated Parmesan cheese to pass at the table

Bring water to boil. Add rice, stir, and cook on moderate heat for twenty minutes. Meanwhile, sauté onion and bay leaf in skillet in butter on gentle heat for eight minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add raisins, milk, crushed bouillon, and stir. In another small skillet toast the almonds in olive oil on moderate heat until light brown. Add contents of the almond skillet (oil included) to raisin sauce, remove the bay leaf, and stir well. As soon as the rice is cooked, drain it in a colander, pour into serving bowl, toss with sauce, and bring to table. Pass the grated Parmesan cheese. This is an ambrosial main course.

RECOMMENDED WINE:

BIANCO DI ALCAMO (INZOLIA/CATTARRATTO BLEND)

 

Monticello Giallo di Riso

(LITTLE YELLOW MOUNTAIN OF RICE)

SERVES 4

I love the imaginative and descriptive names the Italians give to many of their recipes. This “Little Yellow Mountain of Rice” is as delicious as it is pretty. Your kids are going to go off the wall with this one.

½ quart water

2 beef bouillon cubes

1½ cups long-grain rice

3 fresh egg yolks

2 tablespoons light cream

Pinch of nutmeg

1 tablespoon dry marsala wine

3 tablespoons room-temperature butter, diced

3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

2 hard-boiled egg yolks, grated

In a large saucepan, bring water to boil, crush and drop in bouillon cubes. Sprinkle in the rice. Stir with wooden spoon and cook on moderate heat for eighteen minutes. Remember, keep on stirring. Beat the egg yolks, cream, nutmeg, marsala wine, and diced butter together. Add to the risotto in the last five minutes of cooking. Add the grated cheese. Mix well. Take off heat, cover, and let rest for two minutes. Pour into a serving dish and mold with your spoon into a heaping little mountain. Sprinkle the grated egg yolks over the top and bring to table.

RECOMMENDED WINES:

BARBERA, ROSSO DEL VALTELLINA

 

Riso in Forma con Salsa Speciale

(BAKED RICE MOLD WITH SPECIAL SAUCE)

SERVES 4

I tasted this gorgeous baked rice in a resturant in Breuil-Cervinia in the region of Valle D'Aosta, a ski resort town high in the Italian Alps. The majestic Alps were breathtaking and so was this extraordinary riso.

6 ounces butter

1 peeled onion, thinly sliced

1 leek, trimmed, white bulb only, quartered, washed carefully under cold water, dried, and thinly sliced

1 rib celery, diced small

1 scallion, trimmed of roots, washed, and thinly sliced

10 ounces white cultivated (ordinary) mushrooms, wiped clean with paper towel, and thinly sliced

1 ounce dried porcini mushrooms, softened in a cup of lukewarm water for twenty minutes, washed, dried, and diced

1 beef bouillon cube, crushed

½ cup dry Marsala wine

½ teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper

¼ cup light cream

4 quarts of water with 1 teaspoon salt

1½ cups long-grain rice

2 ounces butter

2 heaping tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

½ cup chopped fresh flat leaf parsley for garnish

Preheat oven to 350°. Melt 2 ounces butter in a large saucepan on gentle heat. Add onion, leek, celery, and scallion. Sauté eight minutes. Add sliced white mushrooms, stir and cook for three minutes. Add porcini mushrooms. Add crushed bouillion cube. Stir. Add Marsala wine and cook on moderate heat until wine evaporates. Add black pepper. Adjust heat to low and simmer sauce uncovered for thirty minutes. Add cream and stir well, set aside. Meanwhile bring water to boil, stir in rice. Bring back to boil. Cook uncovered for eighteen minutes. Drain rice in colander. Pour into large mixing bowl. Add 2 ounces butter and grated cheese. Stir. Grease an angel food baking pan with last ounces of butter. Press rice mixture into baking pan and bake at 350° for ten minutes.

Pour the mushroom sauce into the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade and process for thirty seconds. If sauce is too dense, mix in a couple of tablespoons of milk, then set aside. Remove rice from oven. Let rest five minutes. Unmold onto a flat serving platter. Cover with sauce. Garnish with chopped parsley.

RECOMMENDED WINES:

PINOT NOIR, LAGREIN

 

Riso con Uova e Fagiolini

(RICE WITH EGGS AND GREEN BEANS)

SERVES 4

Green beans, I was told by a pink-faced, slim shepherd who was only 97 years old, were so expensive in Italy a century ago, that they were not often found in the cuisine of the common folk. I met Basilo Paternò on the piazza of Rhogudi, a small mountain village inhabited by a few Grecanici (Greek-speaking) families in the province of Reggio Calabria. There were more sheep and goats than people in the piazza that golden November day. I was invited by Basilo to break bread with him and his 50-year-old wife (his second; he married when Filomena, his 70-year-old first wife, died a year ago). Rosinedda was thrilled that this American priest who could speak their dialect was going to write down her recipe.

2 tablespoons butter

1 large clove garlic, left whole (peeled of course)

1½ pounds fresh green beans, washed, ends snapped, boiled in a quart of boiling, lightly salted water for ten minutes, drained and cut into one-inch pieces.

3½ ounces boiled ham, julienned

2 eggs beaten with 2 tablespoons milk

3 tablespoons grated Pecorino Romano cheese

Pinch of salt and pepper

4 quarts water with 1 teaspoon salt

1½ cups long-grain rice

2 egg yolks

2 tablespoons butter

Pinch of nutmeg

Preheat oven to 400°. Place the butter in a large skillet on moderate heat. Add the garlic clove and brown well. Remove the garlic. Add the green beans. Stir and cook for three minutes. Add the julienned ham. Add the eggs beaten with the milk, two tablespoons grated cheese, and seasoned with salt and pepper (she used hot pepper flakes). Scramble in skillet until eggs are set but still moist (about three minutes). Set aside. Bring water to boil in large pot. Stir in rice, allow water to return to boil. Cook the rice fifteen minutes. Drain in colander. Pour into mixing bowl, add two eggs, 1 tablespoon butter, one tablespoon grated cheese, and a pinch of nutmeg. Mix well with wooden spoon. Grease a two-quart angel food cake pan with the last tablespoon of butter. Press in all the seasoned rice. Place in oven for five minutes. Remove, let stand five minutes. Invert on flat serving platter. Fill center with green bean–egg mixture. Serve immediately. Kind of fancy for a country girl, isn't it? Wait until you taste it!

RECOMMENDED WINES:

CIRÒ CLASSICO, NERO D'AVOLA

 

Tortino di Riso alla Rustica

(PEASANT LADY'S RICE CAKE)

SERVES 4

Peasants throughout the world are known to cook wonderful food with the few foodstuffs they can afford. This rice cake is no exception. It is a very tasty and filling main course. I tasted it for the first time at a weather-beaten wooden table outside a farm shed in the hills surrounding the village of Locri, province of Reggio Calabria in Italy.

3 tablespoons olive oil

2 medium peeled onions, thinly sliced

1-pound can Italian peeled plum tomatoes, and their juice

6 fresh whole basil leaves

1 rib celery, cut in large pieces

3 cloves garlic, peeled and left whole

Salt and pepper