Think On It

Zuppa Gallurese: how she longs to be pretty

but she is not and she is also not really a soup.

When something tastes this good and is this easy to make, looks shouldn’t count. I even threw a rosemary sprig at her, but it didn’t help, and I didn’t want to sprinkle something all over that would alter the flavor. This is a traditional dish of Sardinia again, and again it is just the kind of thing you need to know how to make if people come in for meals at intervals or at odd hours. It takes five or ten minutes to put it on the table if the ingredients are at hand.

I hope someone will try making it with lavash, because I think that will work but I can’t buy lavash here.

This is another dish made with Pane Carasau– see below. It sounds a bit unpromising, but once you have the box in the kitchen, you really do have to try all the ways to use it. Don’t you? It turns out that this first course vegetarian main dish is delicious enough to warrant buying the box in the first place. The most difficult part of making it was deciding which cheeses would work the best. The ones I used were terrific and I suspect that anything you choose may be terrific too. Recipe after the

Zuppa Gallurese

Pane Carasau, about 1 to 1-1/2 sheets for 2 portions
formaggio fresco/fresh cheese, anything from Kraft Philadelphia on up, about 2 ounces (60 g) for two
Pecorino not very aged, grated on the big holes of the grater (about 2 ounces for 2)
Pecorino stagionato quite aged and gratable like Parmigiano, or use any grana including Parmigiano– about 1 ounce or 30 g for two
a few leaves and sprigs of herbs, such as bay, rosemary, thyme or sage
boiling hot reduced broth or stock, enough to cover, about one pint for two.

In a pot that will hold the amount you want to make, make a layer of pieces of Pane Carasau on the bottom. Using a spoon, add a few dollops of the fresh cheese on top, then sprinkle with the grated soft cheese, then grate the hard cheese over that. Add a few pieces of herbs. Continue with another layer of everything, in the same order, but you must end up with a layer of the crispy bread.

Now pour boiling hot broth over it until it is just covered. Let it sit for a minute or so until it is moistened, then serve. This is the step that gives her her name. Soaking the dish in broth is to inzuppare, and so it is called zuppa even though as you can see, it is not soup. Black pepper is a very nice addition. You really won’t believe what this tastes like!

I gave you an estimated amount for two portions, but that could change if your pot were wider or narrower. My pot was about 7″ wide and I made 3 cheese layers surrounded with bread layers. By simply layering up more I could have made many more servings. In a 10″ pot I could easily have made servings for 10 people. I could have made it richer by using more cheese. I could have made it less rich by using stronger cheeses but less of them– although you do need the soft cheese to combine with the broth, so don’t alter that one. The broth both melts the cheeses and becomes milky itself, and that is why there are two fairly young cheeses in the dish. If you were to use more aged cheeses, that effect would lessen. It would probably still be mighty good, however. I don’t really see how it could ever fail as long as you use tasty cheeses.

I picked the herb bits out as I ate this. They definitely flavored the dish, so I would never leave them out, but all the herbs mentioned are woody and stemmy and I can’t see eating them. All in all, this is another surprising dish from Sardinia, a place that has a talent for surprising me in the nicest possible ways. Let’s see if we can surprise Ruth at Presto Pasta Night with it.

7 comments March 16th, 2008

South Beach at Northern Umbria

Today alisonk came to lunch. She is doing a low carbohydrate regime, so I had to whip up some flour-free goodies. For a first course in place of pasta or risotto, we had a mushroom soup. I made the basic soup a day ago because most soups get better for sitting. When I reheated it I added the part that might not have refrigerated well.

As you can see, it is very dark and filled with mushrooms. The following recipe made soup for two.

No Carbohydrate Mushroom Soup

1 pound (.5 kilo) champignon or button mushrooms, cleaned and sliced. stems chopped
2 tablespoons butter
about .75 quart or liter of strong beef broth

salt to taste
heavy cream to taste

In a heavy pot I sautéed the mushrooms in the butter until they were quite browned and almost dried. Then I added the beef broth. I allowed this to cook and cook down several times, adding water to bring it up to level each time. Because I used “Better Than Bouillon” for the broth I added and needed no salt. When the whole thing was thoroughly infused, I poured it into a container and refrigerated it.

Today, a few minutes before I needed it, I warmed it up almost to a simmer and then added heavy cream, stirring it in, until it tasted balanced and rich. I ladled it into two deep bowl/cups and this is what happened. The verdict was “Good!”

For main course, or secondo, we ate Pollo fra Diavolo from this page.

With it we ate a cabbage dish from Puglia that I once had made into a pasta, but today served it as it was meant to be. Because there is no chance at bread, pasta or dessert, I changed the fat used from oil to duck fat, but it will be good without it if you are not as lucky as we are.

Cavolo Pugliese or Pugliese cabbage

This would have been enough for four people normally, but this was a slender menu indeed.

about 3 cups of slivered fresh cabbage
2 small hot red peppers peperoncini
about 2 tablespoons oil or fat
salt to taste
5 cherry tomatoes, quartered

Heat a big frying pan with the fat you will use. Crumble the pepper into it (or take a pinch from a jar of crushed red pepper.) Add the cabbage and toss it about a bit to get the fat distributed. Continue to cook it, stirring once in a while, until some of the edges start to brown and there are no really hard parts left. Add about 1/2 teaspoon or a decent sized pinch of salt, stir and taste. Add salt until it seems right to you. Toss in the tomato pieces and stir until they wilt a bit. Serve.

I had prepared a salad, but there was no room left for it. We had eaten well.

1 comment March 4th, 2008