Marcella and Mushrooms

Marcella has made some observations about porcini mushrooms, and also confirmed I can quote her. What a wonderfully kind and generous woman she is. The reference to 56 years is because in 1 month I will have been cooking Hazan food for 2 years.

Ciao Davide!

I am so glad you came around to making risotto with dried porcini. The best-kept secret about fresh mushrooms is that in scent and flavor they are quite mild, or to be charitable, subtle. Their great function is as vehicles, fabulous carriers of olive oil, chili pepper, garlic, parsley, very good tomatoes. In the case of porcini however, once they are dried, they are themselves the presence. They are in a league with the potent fragrances of chocolate (when the beans are being ground), coffee (when it is being brewed), tellicherry pepper (when it is being cracked), garlic and onion (when they are being sauteed), and bread (when it is being baked).

You have a long way to catch up with me. I have been cooking Hazan food for 56 years. But I shall never blog about it. As far as your blog, which I don't follow, I am hereby giving you blanket permission to cite any thing I put into our correspondence. If it lasts long enough, you are free to use it in a food memoir of your own if you ever want to write one.

Ciao, ciao. Marcella

Rack of lamb with mint

Well we have eaten well today. Risotto for lunch, rack of lamb with mint and garlic for dinner (along with a nice salad). This is from Giulano Hazan's How to Cook Italian.

The surprise was the juices on the roasting tray which were utterly delicious. I cooked it for 40 minutes at 220 degrees. Total prep time was about 5 minutes.

This one will be back.

Porcini risotto

Did I tell you that I have absolutely, unconditionally and permanently fallen in love with risotto?

I couldn't even cook it before I started this quest. In fact, I couldn't cook it successfully until Marcella herself told me how to cook it on facebook.

Hazan risotto, on song, is insane. It is magical. It is comforting. Exotic. Familiar at the same time. Moreish. Delightful. Intoxicating.

This is risotto with porcini mushrooms. I didn't really want to make it, as I prefer fresh food to dried. But Marcella has called this dish a classic of monumental statute, so I decided to give it a go.

And give it a go I did. I'm following Giulano Hazan's instructions on risotto from How to Cook Italian, as they are similar to Marcella's modern instructions on facebook, and I like that there is no vegetable oil or tablespoons of anything. Just butter and onion halves.

The only Marcella tip I used on this one was to soak the mushrooms for 30 minutes rather than 15.

Other than that I was away with the now very familar routine of butter, onions (make sure they are cooked properly!), vegetable, rice, broth and more butter and parmesan.

The mushrooms are exotic looking. They smell of the woods - somewhere you can't go. I was a little concerned as I'm sure i've used this in a chicken dish and it didn't work for me. I was worried the flavour would be too strong.

But it came together as I stirred. Creamy from the rice. Mushroomy from the mushroom water. Meat brothy from the meat broth. And the final, magical step with the butter and parmesan that has a long name starting with M that I can't recall. It transformed it into something very special indeed.

We ooed and arred as we ate this one. It was exotic and delicious. Not a grain of rice escaped. We were on a porcini high - we had never tasted anything like it.

I'll certainly be cooking this again.

Pork loin with leeks

I'm on a bit of a pork roll. I never used to cook pork. My brother does, in an open fire pit. And it is delicious. But I never do. Not many people do really. And if they do, it is with crackling. Nobody I know cooks it on the stove.

Except myself and the Hazans.

Like chicken, then lamb, then risotto, now that I've discovered it I'm enjoying cooking my through all of the Hazan pork recipes that take my fancy. To recap highlights have been:

- Pork and Vinegar (Essentials);

- Pork with Apples and Plumbs (How to Cook Italian); and

- Pork with Cabbage (Every Night Italian).

The glaring omission from all of this, of course, is Marcella's famous Pork with Milk. I'm trying to psyche myself up to that one.

Anyway, I have loved them all. The apples and plumbs one was an obvious hit - who doesn't like a sweet fruit sauce with pork? The vinegar and bay leaves was a real surprise, with a flavour that we didn't expect, but that was sophisticated and delicious. The cabbage was mopped up to the last drop.

But onto leeks (from How to Cook Italian). The process is like the others. It is a very simple way to cook pork. I was worried I had too many leeks, but it was fine, as it turns out.

I kept cooking for a little longer than was called for, to ensure the leeks turned into a delicious sauce and were no longer recognisable as bits of leek.

And how was it? For me, it was very good, but not quite as delicious as the others. The pork tasted of well pork (which is a good thing) and the leeks were a delicious leeky sauce like an onion sauce but without the sweetness. I'd cook it again for the hell of it if I spotted some leeks.

We certainly got into it.

As a side, I had a productive Hazan Saturday afternoon, also cooking:

- Tuscan Ragu (double batch) (How to Cook Italian) - to freeze;

- Meat Broth for risotto (Marcella Says) - also to freeze; and

- Roast chicken with rosemary and garlic (How to Cook Italian) - in the fridge.

It is a point Marcella makes in an earlier book. If you are cooking for a few hours, why not do a few dishes at once. That makes your life easier down the track.

Risotto

If you couldn't read the prior post, I said:


Dear MarcellaI thought of you watching Top Chef these last couple of weeks. One chef used cream in his risotto, to make it creamy, and clearly that would make any student of yours upset. Then Tom Colicchio said that if a risotto is not runny then it is not risotto. He went to write: "Risotto should be soupy. If you go to Italy, you'll... be served it that way; ditto, a good Italian restaurant here...The starch should go into the stock and the risotto should run on a flat plate and not hold its form at all." My risotto, which I learnt from your writings, holds its form. I'm not sure if it should, according to others, but I like it. Regards David

And Marcella said:


Ciao David,American chefs who go to Italy suffer from a Moses complex, they are always coming down from the mount with a tablet of rules for the unlearned. What he should have said is, "If you go to Venice ...". Yes, our Venetian risotto, w...hile not quite soupy unless it's made with peas, is indeed runny, and of course we love it. But in Bologna and in Piedmont, risotto is firmly clingy and it is not less delicious. As for the chef who adds cream, well, follow my example, pay no attention to chefs.Ciao, ciao. Marcella

Risotto

David DownieMarcella Hazan

Dear Marcella
I thought of you watching Top Chef these last couple of weeks. One chef used cream in his risotto, to make it creamy, and clearly that would make any student of yours upset. Then Tom Colicchio said that if a risotto is not runny then it is not risotto. He went to write: "Risotto should be soupy. If you go to Italy, you'll be served it that way; ditto, a good Italian restaurant here...The starch should go into the stock and the risotto should run on a flat plate and not hold its form at all." My risotto, which I learnt from your writings, holds its form. I'm not sure if it should, according to others, but I like it. Regards David

22 hours ago · · · See Friendship

• • 

    Marcella Hazan

    Ciao David,
    American chefs who go to Italy suffer from a Moses complex, they are always coming down from the mount with a tablet of rules for the unlearned. What he should have said is, "If you go to Venice ...". Yes, our Venetian risotto, while not quite soupy unless it's made with peas, is indeed runny, and of course we love it. But in Bologna and in Piedmont, risotto is firmly clingy and it is not less delicious. As for the chef who adds cream, well, follow my example, pay no attention to chefs.
    Ciao, ciao. Marcella

    about an hour ago ·

Pumpkin risotto

I didn't bother to shop today. Too knackered. It was a case of what's around the house, as we got hungry. An eggplant was spotted and baked for afternoon tea. Risotto was the verdict for dinner.

I had a look at my new crisper to see if the asparagus was still around. It had mysteriously disappeared. I spotted half a pumpkin (butternut squash) left over from Giuliano Hazan's wonderful pumpkin and bacon pasta (30 Minute Pasta) eaten earlier in the week.

I recalled a pumpkin risotto and tracked down the recipe from his Every Night Italian. Thankfully I had some Marcella Says meat broth in the freezer, and before I knew it I was settling into the now familiar risotto routine of cooking the onion well, adding the vegetable and then finishing with the rice stirring (and then really finishing with the butter and parmesan at the end).

It was an absolute cracker. It looked like a painting. It tasted of the most wonderful creamy pumpkin, and was consumed with much life affirming and trouble easing pleasure.

Thanks again to the Hazan family for their risotto technique.