Cooking Rice with an Italian Accent! (13 page)

Pinch of sugar

1 beef bouillon cube, crushed

3 tablespoons butter

2 level teaspoons all-purpose flour

1 cup hot milk

3 quarts water with 1 tablespoon salt

10 ounces long-grain rice

1 egg beaten with 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

1 egg beaten with 2 tablespoons Pecorino Romano cheese

Preheat oven to 350°. In a large skillet, sauté onions in oil on gentle heat for eight minutes. Pour can of tomatoes into skillet and mash with a fork. Add basil, celery, garlic, a pinch each of salt and sugar, and the bouillon. Cook uncovered on moderate heat for twenty minutes. Pour into bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade and process for one minute. Reserve sauce. While tomato sauce is cooking. Make a thick béchamel sauce (
here
).

Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in small saucepan. Add flour and stir with wooden spoon on moderate heat for three minutes. Lower heat to simmer and add hot milk. Keep stirring until it becomes very dense (about ten minutes). Remove from heat and season with salt and pepper.

Bring water to boil in 4-quart pot. Stir in rice and bring water back to a boil. Cook rice uncovered for fifteen minutes. Drain in colander. Have two mixing bowls ready. Place half the cooked rice in one and half in the other. Mix one bowl of rice with the béchamel sauce and add mixture of 1 beaten egg and Parmesan cheese.

Mix the second bowl of cooked rice with tomato sauce and the 1 egg beaten with Pecorino Romano cheese.

Grease a bundt pan with 2 tablespoons of butter. Fill the bottom of the pan with the béchamel dressed rice. Press down with a wet spoon. Press in the tomato-dressed rice on top of the bottom layer. Place pan into 350° oven for twenty minutes. Remove, allow to cool for five minutes. Invert onto a flat serving platter and serve immediately.

RECOMMENDED WINES:

CIRÒ CLASSICO, SALICE SALENTINO

 

Riso in Padella con Prosciutto e Piselli

(PAN-FRIED RICE WITH PROSCIUTTO AND PEAS)

SERVES 4

This fried rice has very little in common with the fried rice from your favorite Chinese take-out shop. It is an exquisite dish and very classy. I sampled this dish in Bergamo, Pope John XXIII's birthplace, in a trattoria (a small family-owned restaurant where the natives go to eat) named
Il Buon Papa Giovanni
(Good Pope John). How could I miss?

2 tablespoons butter

1 large peeled white onion, finely sliced

1 tablespoon white lard or fatback, minced (may be omitted)

3 ounces prosciutto or boiled ham, julienned

15 ounces fresh peas or frozen, completely thawed

¼ cup boiling hot beef stock

Salt and pepper to taste

4 quarts water salted with 1 teaspoon salt

1½ cups long-grain rice

2 tablespoons light cream

2 heaping tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

Heat 1 tablespoon butter in a saucepan on gentle heat. Sauté onion and lard if using, for eight minutes. Add julienned prosciutto and cook for five minutes. Add peas and stir for five minutes. Add hot stock. Season with salt and pepper. Cook on moderate heat for ten minutes. Put the mixture into your largest skillet and set aside. Meanwhile, bring water to a boil. Stir in rice and cook uncovered on a boil for eighteen minutes. Drain well in colander. Pour into the skillet into which you placed the peas and prosciutto mixture. On high heat, fry the dressed rice, stirring vigorously with a wooden spoon, for five minutes. Add remaining tablespoon butter and the cream. Stir and remove from heat. Empty into a deep serving bowl, sprinkle grated cheese, and bring to table. Sorry, no fortune cookie with this fried rice!

RECOMMENDED WINES:

BARBERA–BONARDI BLEND, NEBBIOLO

 

Riso all' Emmental

(SWISS CHEESE RICE)

SERVES 4

This sumptuously rich dish takes about twenty-five minutes to make and is a hearty main course that should be followed by a simple green salad. The nutty flavor of genuine Swiss cheese blends beautifully with the rice. The recipe comes from Lugano, the Italian-speaking town situated in the Ticino Canton of Switzerland.

2 cups rice (any long-grain rice will do)

4 cups water with 1 teaspoon of salt

5 slices Swiss cheese (Emmentaler), diced

1 tablespoon chopped fresh flat leaf parsley

½ cup dry white wine

Pinch of salt

2 medium eggs, beaten

Salt and pepper to taste

Bring water to boil in a large saucepan. Throw in rice, stir, lower heat to simmer, and cook covered for twenty minutes. In another saucepan place diced cheese, butter, parsley, white wine, and a pinch of salt. Cook on low heat stirring continuously until cheese is melted. Add beaten eggs and continue to cook, stirring, for eight minutes. Add the cheese mixture to the rice. Mix well and turn into a warmed bowl. Bring to table.

RECOMMENDED WINES:

MÜLLER THÜRGAU, MERLOT

 

Riso Pasticciato al Forno

(BAKED RICE PIE)

SERVES 4

The only thing that this tasty dish has in common with what we know as pie is that it's also baked in an oven. No, it is not a dessert. It is a satisfying main course that will have them smacking their lips.

2 cups Arborio or any long-grain rice

2 quarts water with 1 teaspoon of salt

4 tablespoons butter

4 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

2 tablespoons grated Gruyère or Swiss cheese

3½ ounces shelled peas, frozen or fresh

½ beef bouillon cube, crushed

5 ounces smoked bacon, coarsely chopped

2 medium eggs, beaten with a pinch of salt

1 tablespoon butter to grease baking dish

Preheat oven to 350°. Boil the rice in the salted water uncovered for fifteen minutes. Drain in colander, pour rice into a bowl, and dress with two tablespoons butter and the cheeses. Mix well. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in small skillet on low heat. Add peas. Dust with a crushed bouillon cube. Cover and cook on lowest heat for fifteen minutes. In another nonstick skillet, sauté bacon on lowest heat just until fat is transparent. Remove bacon and set aside. Now add the beaten eggs to the seasoned, cooked rice. Grease a baking dish with one tablespoon butter. Cover the bottom with a layer of rice, lay on some bacon and another 3 tablespoons of buttered peas, then another layer of rice. Make layers in the same manner until all is used, but end with a layer of rice. Place in preheated 350° oven and bake for fifteen minutes. Bring the dish directly from the oven to the table. (Be careful; put something under the dish or you'll burn the table.)

RECOMMENDED WINES:

VALPOLICELLA, BARBERA D'ASTI

 

Riso alla Moda del Pioniere

(PIONEER-STYLE RICE)

SERVES 4

Where and how this dish got named, I couldn't find out. The only thing I could figure is that anyone who can invent a recipe could be considered a pioneer. Even though I couldn't discover how it was named, it's a very tasty dish.

1½ cups Arborio rice

2 quarts water with 1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons butter

2 fresh sage leaves (may be omitted) or use ¼ cup flat leaf parsley on stem

3½ ounces boiled ham, julienned

2 egg yolks

2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

Salt and pepper to taste

¼ cup light cream

Preheat oven to 350°. Cook rice in boiling salted water for twenty minutes. Drain and set aside. In a small skillet, sauté the ham and sage leaves in butter for five minutes on low heat. Discard sage leaves or parsley stem. Beat egg yolks with grated cheese, salt and pepper to taste. Add the seasoning, butter, ham, and beaten eggs to rice. Mix well. Bake in buttered baking dish in 350° oven for fifteen minutes. Let set outside oven for ten minutes. Slice or scoop and serve to your pioneers.

RECOMMENDED WINES:

MERLOT, SANGIOVESE

 

Riso ai Tanti Sapori

(MANY-FLAVORED RICE)

SERVES 4

The many flavors come from many distinct vegetables and herbs. Yet they are in total harmony with one another and sing in a polyphonic chorus worthy of Palestrina's composition for the Vatican choir. In other words, this terrific rice dish makes your taste buds tingle.

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 small peeled onion, minced

2 scallions, trimmed of root ends, washed, and thinly sliced

1 large peeled clove garlic, minced

2 ounces prosciutto or boiled ham, minced

2 medium carrots, peeled and diced small

2 ribs celery, diced small

1 zucchini, diced small

1 cup chopped flat leaf parsley and basil leaves (equally divided)

¼ cup hot chicken stock

Salt and pepper to taste

¼ teaspoon marjoram

4 quarts water with 1 teaspoon salt

15 ounces long-grain rice

1 tablespoon butter

2 heaping tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

In a large skillet, sauté onion, scallions, garlic, and prosciutto in oil on gentle heat for eight minutes. Add carrots, celery, zucchini, chopped herbs, and cook slowly, adding stock as needed, for ½ hour. Season with salt, pepper, and marjoram. Meanwhile, bring water to boil in a large pot. Add rice and stir. Cook on the boil, uncovered, for twenty minutes. Drain in colander. Pour into large bowl and mix well with contents of skillet. Add butter and grated cheese. Mix well again. Transfer to deep serving bowl and serve immediately.

RECOMMENDED WINES:

LUGANA DEL VENETO, CHARDONNAY

 

Riso Degli Arabi

(ARABIAN-STYLE RICE)

SERVES 4

Arabs invaded Sicily many centuries ago and left their distinctive culture, architecture, language, and cuisine. It all became characteristic of Sicily because of the Arab rule over a large part of that island nation. I ate this marvelous dish when I was the guest of the cardinal-archbishop of Palermo, Cardinal Pappalardo. I was sent as a courier for Unico National (an organization of Italian-American business and professional men who engage in raising funds for other charities) to give the cardinal many thousands of dollars to rebuild a large school destroyed by a severe earthquake.

15 ounces long-grain rice

2 peeled medium onions, thinly sliced

4 tablespoons peanut oil or olive oil

1 large peeled clove garlic, minced

1 green bell pepper, roasted, seeded, pith removed, and julienned

2½ ounces shelled almonds

Pinch of salt

½ tablespoon cinnamon

¼ teaspoon hot cayenne pepper (powdered)

2 ounces raisins soaked in warm water for ½ hour, drained

Salt and pepper to taste

Place the rice in a large pot. Under cold running water, mix with your fingers to release some of the starch. Rinse in a colander. Replace in pot and add cold water two inches above the rice. Bring to a slow boil. Adjust heat to low and simmer covered for fifteen minutes. Meanwhile, sauté the onions in a small skillet in 2 tablespoons of oil on gentle heat for five minutes. Add garlic and roasted pepper and sauté another five minutes. Set aside. In another small skillet, sauté the almonds in the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil on high heat for five minutes. Drain the almonds and cut into slivers. Now add the cinnamon, the cayenne pepper, raisins, and almond slivers to the first skillet. Stir well and empty skillet into cooked rice. Stir vigorously. Transfer to deep serving bowl and bring to table.
Proprio Arabo-Siculo!
(Really Arab-Sicilian!)

RECOMMENDED WINES:

ROSSO DI SICILIA, PRIMITIVO

 

Budino di Riso con Uova

(RICE PUDDING WITH EGGS)

SERVES 4

Don't let the word “pudding” fool you. This is most definitely not a dessert. Neither is Yorkshire pudding, for that matter. This is a beautiful baked rice main course that is replete with eggs, parsley, and two kinds of cheese. “'Tis a bonnie puddin, 'tis.”

4 quarts water with 1 teaspoon salt

15 ounces long-grain rice

3 tablespoons butter

4 egg yolks

Pinch nutmeg

1 cup fresh flat leaf parsley, chopped

1 heaping tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese

1 heaping tablespoon grated Gruyère or Swiss cheese

Salt and pepper to taste

2 tablespoons plain breadcrumbs

4 ounces prosciutto or boiled ham, julienned

Preheat oven to 350°. Bring water to boil in a 6-quart pan. Stir in rice and return to boil. Cook uncovered for eighteen minutes. Drain rice in colander. Pour into large mixing bowl. Dot with 1½ tablespoons of butter, stir, add egg yolks, pinch of nutmeg, parsley, and grated cheeses. Season with salt and pepper. Stir vigorously.