Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well (63 page)

a fish weighing between 300 and 350 grams (between about 10 1/2 and 12-1/4 ounces
)

200 grams (about 7 ounces) of rice

150 grams (about 5-1/4 ounces) of fresh mushrooms

300 grams (about 10-1/2 ounces) of green peas

50 grams (about 1-2/3 ounces) of toasted pine nuts

butter, as needed

Parmesan cheese

6 artichokes

2 eggs

Cook the rice in 40 grams (about 1-1/3 ounces) of butter with a quarter of a chopped onion and salt it. When it has cooked in the necessary amount of water, bind it with the two eggs and 30 grams (about 1 ounce) of Parmesan cheese.

Make a soffritto of onion, butter, celery, carrot, and parsley, and cook the sliced mushrooms, peas, and parboiled quartered artichokes in it. Finish cooking these ingredients with a few tablespoons of hot water and season with salt, pepper, and 50 grams (about 1-2/3 ounces) of grated Parmesan cheese after you remove it from the fire.

Cook the fish, which can be mullet, weever, or some other large fish, in a mixture of oil, garlic, parsley, and tomato sauce or tomato paste; season with salt and pepper. Remove the fish from the fire, strain the sauce, and stir in the pine nuts, which you have toasted and crushed. Remove the head, spine, and bones from the fish, cut it into small pieces, put it back in the broth, and add all the other ingredients except the rice.

Now that all the ingredients for the filling are ready, make the dough for the pie to contain it. Here are the proportions:

400 grams (about 14 ounces) of flour

80 grams (about 2-2/3 ounces) of butter

2 eggs

2 tablespoons white wine or Marsala

a pinch of salt

Roll out the dough and use it to line a mold greased with butter. Pour in first half of the rice, then all the filling, and finally the remaining rice over the filling; cover the top with more of the same dough. Bake in the oven, remove from the mold, and serve lukewarm or cold.

Made with the amounts indicated, this recipe serves twelve people.

The simplest way is to make them with a soffritto of olive oil, garlic, parsley, salt, and pepper, adding lemon juice when they are done. Instead of lemon, some people use tomato sauce, but lemon is preferable.

Never remove the eggs, which are the best part of the frog.

Immediately after the frogs have been killed, plunge them briefly in hot water, and then keep them in cool water until you are ready to cook them. Dry thoroughly between the folds of a kitchen towel, and dredge in flour. Place a pan on the fire with good olive oil, and
when it starts to sizzle, toss in the frogs. Season with salt and pepper, stirring frequently because they stick easily. When they have browned on both sides, pour over them beaten eggs seasoned with salt and pepper, and lemon juice if you like. Do not stir; let the eggs harden like a frittata and send them to the table in the pan.

The bile duct should always be removed from frogs.

If you want to fry them, dredge in flour, and before tossing in the pan leave them for a few hours in beaten egg seasoned with salt and pepper. Or, after flouring them, brown lightly on both sides and then dip them one by one in egg seasoned with salt, pepper, and lemon juice. Put back in the pan to finish cooking.

All you drinkers out there can put your forks down; this herring (
Clupea harengus
) is not for your jaded palates.

Ordinarily, people want the female herring because it is showier on account of the large amount of eggs; but the male, with its milky sperm sac, is more delicate and therefore preferable. Whether male or female, open the herring along the back, discard the head, and flatten it; then place it in scalded milk and let it sit for eight to ten hours. It would be well to change the milk once during this time. After drying it with a kitchen towel, cook on the grill like ordinary herring and season with oil and a very small amount of vinegar, or with oil and lemon juice if you prefer.

There is also another way to remove the salty flavor from herring. Place it on the fire in cold water, bring to a boil and simmer for three minutes, and then soak in cool water for a moment. Dry, discard the head, open along the back, and season as above.

Clupea harengus
is the most common variety of the very important family of the
Clupeidae
, which also includes alike shad, pilchards, anchovies, sardines, and the
Alosa vulgaris
, or
Clupea comune
, which is called “cheppia” (“shad”) in Tuscany. In the spring, they swim upriver to deposit their eggs; at this time they are caught even in the Arno River in Florence.

Herring live in huge numbers at the bottom of the seas at the outer reaches of Europe, and are seen on the surface only at mating
time—that is, during the months of April, May, and June. After they deposit their eggs they disappear into the depths of their usual abode. Sometimes the sea appears shimmering and translucent for several miles around because of the frenzy of the spawn and the scales that come loose during it. In England the herring run from July to September; the catch, done with round nets, is at times so abundant that on the shores of Yarmouth they have filled as many as five hundred thousand barrels with herrings.

“Baccalà” belong to the family of
Gadidae
, the most typical variety being cod. The most common species in our seas are the
Gadus minutus
and the
Merlucius esculentus
or hake, quite a bland fish but one that is easy to digest on account of its light flesh. It is good for convalescents, especially when poached and seasoned with oil and lemon juice.

The genus
Gadus morrhua
is the cod from the Arctic and Antarctic regions which, depending upon how it is prepared, is called either “baccalà” (salt cod) or “stoccafisso” (stockfish). As everyone knows, an oil used for medicinal purposes is extracted from the liver of this fish. It is fished with a hook; a single man can catch up to 500 in one day. It is perhaps the most fecund of all fish—nine million eggs have been counted in a single individual.

There are two well-known types of cod on the market, Gaspe and Labrador. The former comes from the Gaspe Peninsula, that is the Banks of Newfoundland (where every year more than 100 million kilograms of cod are caught); it is dry, tough, and difficult to soften. The latter, which is caught along the coast of Labrador, is fat and tender, perhaps on account of a more copious food supply; it softens easily and is much better tasting.

Salt cod enjoys a good reputation in Florence, and deservedly so, because the Florentines know how to soften it well, cleaning it
frequently with a little hard brush. Moreover, the cod consumed in Florence is usually the best Labrador cod, which is fatty by nature and relatively tender, considering the tough, fibrous flesh of this type of fish, which is not suited to weak stomachs. For this reason, I have never been able to digest it. On days of fasting, this salted fish competes on the market to great advantage with fresh fish, which is limited in quantity, high in price, and often not particularly fresh.

Cut the salt cod into pieces as wide as the palm of your hand and coat thoroughly with flour. Then put a large pan on the fire with a generous amount of oil and two or three whole garlic cloves, slightly crushed. When the garlic begins to brown, toss in the pieces of cod and brown on both sides, moving the fish around constantly to keep it from sticking. It is not necessary to add salt, or if you do, very little and only after tasting; but a pinch of pepper will not do any harm. At the end, pour in a few tablespoons of the tomato sauce from recipe 6, or tomato paste diluted in water. Boil a little longer and serve.

Cut into pieces as in the preceding recipe, and toss these just as they are into a large pan or skillet coated with oil. Sprinkle with chopped garlic and parsley and season with a few dashes of pepper, oil, and bits of butter. Cook over a high flame, turning slowly, because the fish breaks easily, since it has not been floured. When it is cooked, squeeze a lemon over it and send it to its fate.

Cook as in recipe 506, but without the garlic, and when it is browned on both sides, pour some sweet-and-sour sauce over it, boil a little longer, and serve hot.

Prepare the sweet-and-sour sauce beforehand in a glass. If the
cod weighs around 500 grams (about 1 pound), you will need a finger of strong vinegar, two fingers of water, a sufficient amount of sugar, and pine nuts and raisins in due proportion. It is not a bad idea to boil the sauce for a little while separately before pouring it over the cod. If it comes out right, you will find that it will please those who like this kind of dish.

You can cook salt cod over a slow fire on a strong sheet of oiled white paper so that it does not come out dry. Season with olive oil, pepper and, if you like, a few sprigs of rosemary.

The frying pan is an implement used for many lovely things in the kitchen; but, in my opinion, salt cod comes to a most deplorable end in it. This is because, since it has to be boiled first and then coated with batter, there is no seasoning that can give it a proper flavor. And yet some people, perhaps not knowing a better recipe, make the concoction that I am about to describe. To boil it, put it on the fire in cold water, and the moment it starts to boil, take it off the hearth, for it is already cooked. Without doing anything else, it can be eaten like this, seasoned with oil and vinegar.

But let’s return to the concoction I mentioned. Feel free to try it, or to send both the recipe and whoever wrote it to the devil. After you have boiled the cod, marinate it whole in red wine for several hours; then dry it with a kitchen towel and cut it into small pieces, removing the spine and bones. Coat lightly with flour and dip in a simple batter made with water, flour, and a drop of oil, with no salt. Fry in oil and sprinkle with sugar after it stopped sizzling. If eaten hot, the aroma of the wine is barely noticeable. If, however, you still find this to be an inferior dish, it is your fault for wanting to try it.

Since we are still talking about salt cod, do not expect anything special; but prepared in this way it will be less offensive than in the preceding recipe. If nothing else, it will please the eye with its golden brown appearance, resembling cutlets of milk-fed veal.

Boil as in the preceding recipe and for about 500 grams (about 1 pound) of cod, add two anchovies and a pinch of parsley, and chop everything very fine with a mezzaluna. Then add a few dashes of pepper, a handful of grated Parmesan cheese, two eggs and finally, to make the mixture softer, three or four tablespoons of a paste made with crustless bread, water and butter. Drop this mixture by the spoonful into bread crumbs, flatten with your hands to shape into cutlets, and dip into beaten egg and again in bread crumbs. Fry in oil and serve with lemon wedges or tomato sauce (recipe 125).

Half of this amount will make nine or ten cutlets.

400 grams (about 14 ounces) of softened salt cod

70 grams (about 2-1/3 ounces) of butter

30 grams (about 1 ounce) of flour

a potato weighing about 150 grams (about 5-1/4 ounces
)

3-1/2 deciliters (about 1-1/2 cups) of milk

Boil the cod and remove the skin, bones, and spine. Boil the potato as well, and cut it into rounds. Make a béchamel sauce with the milk and flour, and when it is cooked add a little chopped parsley, a dash of nutmeg, salt, and the potato. Then stir in the pieces of cod. After letting it rest a little, serve. It will be liked and praised.