May 072018
 

Dear Hungry Reader,

Because so many of you have written to me to ask for stories and recipes that were first published in the now defunct Zester Daily (sadly gone the way of so many other high quality food publications), I’ll be posting them here. Subscribe to my blog (on this page, upper right) if you haven’t already and little by little, they’ll all come your way.

Sincerely,

Julia

Illustration Copyright Laura Cornell 1981 for The Discriminating Diner, my weekly restaurant review and food column in the 1980s for Suburbia Today, a Gannett publication.

You can always judge the quality of a cook or a restaurant by roast chicken.

So wrote Julia Child in Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It was a bold statement, but it reflected a certain historic reverence for the fowl, which in France has historically been considered “the best of all birds covered by the name of poultry,” as 20th-century French culinary authority André Simon put it in his A Concise Encyclopedia of Gastronomy. Even my mother, a fine Italian cook, raved about the delicious roast chicken in France. After visiting our relations in Paris, she would speculate about what it was that made the chicken so tasty and delicate. The poultry for sale in butcher shops there were plump without being fatty, their flesh pink, not yellow. Try as she would, she couldn’t reproduce the same results with the commodity chickens (“machine-made,” as they were known in our family) she faced back home in New York.

Illustration Copyright Laura Cornell, 1981 for Julia della Croce’s Discriminating Diner column a 1980s Gannett publication.

Illustration Copyright Laura Cornell 1981 for The Discriminating Diner, my weekly restaurant review and food column in the 1980s for Suburbia Today, a Gannett publication.The first secret of the famous roast chickens of France concerns their feed and rearing. Take the famous poulet Bresse, a “controlled” breed that is considered the most flavorful in the world. The birds roam freely, happily pecking and scratching in the grass, their foraged food supplemented with milk and corn. These prime specimens carry their own official appellation d’origine contrôlée, a set of regulations that guarantees their authenticity, much like wine. In the past, to acquire chickens of similar quality here in the States, you needed to know a good local farmer or raise them yourself; today, however, wholesome poultry has become commonplace in American markets, and I am convinced that anyone who starts out with a well-fed, free-range bird can duplicate the delicious poulet rôti.

Illustration Copyright Laura Cornell, 1981 for Julia della Croce’s Discriminating Diner column a 1980s Gannett publication.

The other secret to roast chicken is the size and freshness of the bird, along with a few roasting techniques that are traditionally practiced by French home cooks and professionals alike. “Too small a bird does not roast well in the oven because its flesh is cooked before its skin has time to turn the expected appetizing golden color,” French chef and teacher Madeleine Kamman explained in her authoritative The Making of a Cook. On the other hand, a bird weighing larger than three to four pounds takes longer to cook through to the bone, by which time the breast is overcooked. Most chefs concur that a six-month bird weighing in at four pounds, the smallest in the so-named “roaster” category, is ideal. At that weight, the bird has more meat on it than younger, so-called “fryers,” and it is still tender.

As for roasting, I learned the method early on at Peter Kump’s New York Cooking School, which taught classic French cuisine. Years later, when Italian cooking became all the rage, I would spend many happy hours teaching there, but when I first met Peter, I was a young food writer with an assignment to write an instructive article on proper roasting techniques. When I called him with some questions, he invited me to sit in on a class he taught devoted entirely to roasting chicken. The results were a revelation, and even now, I can say that the chicken I ate that evening was one of the most delicious I have ever tasted: crusty-skinned and juicy. Even the breast, which I usually avoid, was moist and tasty, saturated with the flavors of butter and tarragon. I was initiated. The recipe became a keeper in my otherwise largely Italian repertoire.

The classic, straight oven-roasting method involves starting at a fairly high temperature to sear and brown the skin, then lowering the heat to cook the meat through. The technique follows, unaltered over the years save for a few tweaks — the most important being pre-salting and then air-chilling the bird before cooking, a simple step that keeps the moisture in and results in astonishing flavor and crispy skin.

One of my motives for this writing this story is to bring to light the whimsical watercolors by Laura Cornell, the first drafts of several different illustrations she came up with for my original story in 1981. Because the art director decided to use a different illustration for the piece, they are published here for the first time.

Illustration Copyright Laura Cornell, 1981 for Julia della Croce’s Discriminating Diner column a 1980s Gannett publication.

French-Roast Chicken with Herbs, Garlic and Pan Gravy

Prep Time: 30 minutes, plus 8-48 hours for chilling

Cooking Time: approximately 1 hr, 15  minutes

Total Time: about 2 hours

Yield: serves 6

One of the most important roasting tricks is to select a pan that will prevent the bird from steaming rather than roasting. It should be just large enough to fit the bird easily, no larger. For a 4-pounder, the appropriate size is 8 x 11 inches, and no more than 2 inches high, fitted with a V-rack that will cradle the bird and elevate it above the sides of the pan. The trick to keeping it moist and juicy during roasting is to truss the chicken well, plumping it up and manipulating it into a snug ball before securing it with kitchen twine. See Golden rules for poulet rôti, below,  for essential cook’s tips.

4 large cloves garlic

3 tablespoons soft unsalted butter, plus additional melted butter or good olive oil for basting

1 4-pound free-range chicken

Fine sea salt

Freshly ground pepper

1 bunch fresh tarragon sprigs; alternatively, rosemary or thyme if you prefer

3-4 teaspoons kosher salt

Suggested equipment: 8 x 11 x 2-inch baking pan, V-rack to fit the pan, instant-read meat thermometer, cotton kitchen twine

  1. Grate one garlic clove finely, preferably with a microplane grater, and blend it with the soft butter. Holding the chicken over a sink, drain any liquid out of the cavity and remove any giblets. Use paper towels to blot the chicken well inside and out until it is absolutely dry (no need to wash it). Remove excess fat from the chicken, taking care not to tear the skin. Sprinkle the cavity lightly with salt and pepper and slip in the remaining garlic cloves and some of the herb sprigs of your choice. Gently and carefully separate the skin from the flesh of the breast and thighs without tearing, using your fingers or the rounded end of a wooden spoon. With your fingers, insert the garlic butter into the pockets, smearing as much of the flesh as you can. Push in the remaining herb. Rub the inside of the neck cavity with any garlic butter that remains. Sprinkle kosher salt and pepper on the skin, covering all surfaces. Transfer the bird, breast side up, to a rack on a platter to allow air circulation and chill, loosely covered with a thin cotton dish towel, for 8 to 48 hours.
  2. Before cooking, bring the bird to room temperature for 1 hour. Preheat an oven to 450 degrees F (425 degrees F convection) for at least 20 minutes. Preheat the roasting pan.
  3. Make sure that the skin is completely dry. Truss the chicken using cotton kitchen twine, drawing the legs close to the breast to plump up the bird, and tying the ankles together securely. Tuck the wings under the back; alternatively, pass string around its girth and tie the wings securely. Brush melted butter or olive oil on the entire surface of the bird and place it breast-up on a cold oiled V-rack in the pre-heated roasting pan.
  4. Slide the pan onto the middle oven rack, legs facing the oven rear where the temperature is hotter. Roast for 15 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and reduce the oven temperature to 375 degrees F (350 degrees F for convection) Turn the bird on one side and baste with butter [or olive oil]. Return it to the oven and roast for 20 minutes. Then repeat the procedure for the other side, roasting for 20 minutes more. Take the chicken out to check the internal temperature, inserting the instant-read thermometer into the thigh at the thickest part, away from the bone. It should register at 170 degrees F.  If it is not cooked through, flip the bird on its back and return it to the oven for 5-minute increments until it reaches the right temperature. It should be a uniform golden color with crisp, taut skin. Transfer the bird to a carving board with a gutter that will capture its juices. Remove the strings and let it rest for 30 minutes in a warm place.
  5. While the bird is resting, make the gravy. Use a wooden spoon to dislodge any bits of meat stuck to the bottom of the roasting pan. Add 3-4 tablespoons water to the drippings. Warm the roasting pan on the stovetop over medium heat. Simmer to reduce the liquid to about 1/2 cup, then pour through a fine mesh strainer. Separate the grease from the natural juices using a spoon or a fat separator. Check for seasoning.
  6. When the bird has rested, detach the wings and legs at the joints. Use a very sharp carving knife to cut the breast into thin slices. Arrange all nicely on a warm platter. Discard the herbs in the cavity. Add any juices that have collected during carving to the gravy you have made. Pour a little of the gravy over the carved chicken and pass the rest at the table.

Golden rules for poulet rôti:

Preparing the bird:

  • To keep the juices in, truss the bird using cotton kitchen twine, tying the ankles together and drawing them close to the breast.
  • You can either tuck the wings under the back or tie a string around the girth to fasten them.

The roasting pan and other equipment:

  • To prevent the bird from steaming rather than roasting, select a pan not more than 2 inches deep. The pan shape and size should be just large enough to fit the bird easily and no larger. For a 4-pound bird, it should be 8×11 inches fitted with a V-rack that elevates the bird above the sides of the pan.
  • An alternative to a rack is to elevate the chicken on a single layer of thickly sliced carrots and onions (or lemon slices, if you like).
  • Fowl takes on the flavor of all the other ingredients in the roasting pan. Carrots and onions are the classic aromatics. If the vegetables are permitted to burn (which is likely if the pan is too large for the bird), the roast will take on their bitterness.
  • Use a good meat thermometer to test doneness. Cheap ones lose their accuracy after a few uses.
  • If you make stuffing, bake it in a separate buttered dish.

Turning and basting:

  • While everyone would probably agree that the best way to ensure a juicy bird with crisp skin is to spit-roast it, turning and basting in the home oven simulates the rotisserie principle. Use melted butter, good olive oil or a mixture of the two for basting, not broth — it makes the skin flabby.
  • Each time you remove the bird from the oven to turn and baste, shut the oven door immediately. Even a minute with the door open will throw off the temperature and cooking time.
  • Allow the chicken to rest 20-30 minutes before carving. This helps the bird to retain its juices; instead of immediately running out at the point of a knife, they will retreat into the tissues of the bird and stay there.
May 012017
 

Chef Massimo Bottura of Osteria Francescana in Modena, on a winning streak. | Photo: Julia della Croce/Forktales 2017

Back in the day when nouvelle cuisine was firing up the new chefs of Europe, I wrote in the introduction to my first cookbook, published in 1986, that Italy, a country that has complained about the excesses of French cooking since the 16th century, would never succumb to it. Take, as an example, the words of Gerolamo Zanetti, a 16th century Venetian, which are still uttered by modern Italians:

French cooks have ruined Venetian stomachs with so [many] sauces, broths, extracts… in every dish… meat and fish transformed to such a point that they are scarcely recognizable by the time they get to the table,” wrote Gerolamo Zanetti, a 16th century Venetian. “Everything is masked and mixed with a hundred herbs, spices, sauces.”

I’ve had to eat my words many times since I embarked on that introduction, most recently after descending on Milan for a gastronomical summit arranged by the Italian Trade Agency, the Conzorzio of Grana Padano producers, Berlucchi sparkling wines, and Identità Golose (literally, “Identity, Gluttonous”), the elite, Milan-based  fellowship of cooks, chefs, pizzaioli, pastry-makers, food producers, critics, and food experts.

Identità Golose founder Paolo Marchi, left, announces the Chef-of-the-Year, Riccardo Camanini. | Photo: Julia della Croce/Forktales 2017

For three days glitterati of the Italian food world gathered in the city famous for, among other things, panettone and its eponymous veal chop, to smash the tired national stereotypes and further advance the notion of the nuova cucina italiana, an idea that was born at the turn of the millennium on the heels of French nouvelle cuisine. “[Our mission] is to make the world realize that the cucina italiana [of] pizza, pasta, risotto, and smiles, is a folkloristic stereotype that can be erased through excellent products and chefs who… break with the past,” said conference founder Paolo Marchi who, along with his disciples, feels that Italy’s cooking has been limited for far too long by tired traditions and provincial tastes. “We have to overcome [this]… [because] when people speak in absolute terms and truths… they close themselves off… Even what today is tradition is now innovation.”

Tagliolini in the glass case at Peck, Milan. | Photo: Julia della Croce/Forktales 2017

Risotto and Revolution 

Risotto alla Marchesi. Photo: Marchesi alla Scala, Milan

Just what is nuova cucina? For an answer, we need to step back into the 20th century to Gualtiero Marchesi, iconoclast, pioneer, painter, and pianist descended from five generations of performers at Teatro alla Scala, and chefs that cooked for kings, queens, and artistic royalty in a city reknowned for opera, food, and fashion. The most famous of Marchesi’s masterpieces, risotto made with edible gold and saffron, which we inhaled at his restaurant inside the city’s La Scala opera house, is a thing of beauty, delicacy, and taste. The chef, who first learned to cook at his family’s Milan hotel restaurant where he was born, in situ, in 1930, struck out for France in the 1980s in the ferment of nouvelle cuisine, learning from the master chefs of the era’s legendary Michelin-starred restaurants. He returned to Milan with a clear vision for a revolutionary restaurant of his own where he would bring to his food not only artistic refinement, but the application of science.

“Italian cuisine was essentially domestic cooking… too vulgar, too common,” he told the Wall Street Journal in a 2010 interview. He was awarded a Michelin star early in the first year he opened on Bonvesin de la Riva in 1977, and another the following year.  Seven years later, he became the first chef outside of France to earn three Michelin stars—a distinction rarely achieved by any chef in a lifetime—only to return the awards in 1985.

Gualtieri took Italian cooking to meteoric heights with dishes that stupefied, like “quattro pasta,” four different pastas served up on a mirror in homage to Andy Warhol; or “dripping di Pesce,” a baby squid dish that takes after a Jackson Pollock canvas. At a private dinner I attended in 2007 at Alma, a cooking academy in the peripheries of Parma where he presided as dean, he presented a dish of pressed edible blossoms that astonished for its beauty and success in preserving the flowers’ natural flavor despite the transformation it underwent.

Chef Carlo Cracco with his sous chefs performing at Identità Golose Milan. | Photo: Julia della Croce/Forktales 2017

Chef Paolo LoPriore.

Fast forward to the 21st century, and other boundary-pushing figures, like Carlo Cracco, Paolo LoPriore, and perhaps most familiar to Americans, Massimo Bottura of Osteria Francescana in Modena, who took three Michelin stars in 2011 and first place in the 2016 World’s 50 Best Restaurants competition with dishes like compressed pasta e fagioli.

At the summit, Paolo LoPriore talked about preserving “the beauty of the past, changing only what has to be changed” while at the same time he masterfully butchered and filleted a sweet water fish, the focus of his lesson. “The Lenten rules imposed by the Church for meatless meals gave great potential to [piscatory] cuisine,” he said.

Destructed “taroz.”

Such figures in the Marchesi mould continue to “smash the folkloristic stereotypes” by deconstructing familiar dishes. A case in point: the reformed “taroz” we were presented with the day after at La Présef, a Michelin-star restaurant at La Fiorida Agriturismo in Lombardy’s Valtellina region. Master Chefs Gianni Tarrabini and Franco Aliberti prepared traditional and reconstructed versions of the recipe, a dumpling of potato, green beans, onion, pancetta, and the local Bitto DOP cow’s milk cheese. If the first was heavy and rustic, the new version was a revelation: light and brimming with the flavors of the mountain terroir.

“Travel Around the World With Your Eyes and Ears Open”

So began Bottura, reflecting the convention’s 2017 theme, “The Journey.” If Marchesi conquered France and brought back nouvelle cuisine, his disciples are criss-crossing the globe. While American chefs are leading a charge to grow and advocate for local ingredients and celebrate regional differences on their menus—a movement that was inspired by the ancient food culture of this land–the overarching message of the summit was the cross-fertilization of ideas.

Lamb riblet in the style of “La Milanese” over lemon potato puree at Seta at Mandarino Oriental, Milan. | Photo: Julia della Croce/Forktales 2017

“It’s a renaissance we’re going through now, a rebirth from the dead, a cross-contamination of ideas such as Nordic… nouvelle cuisine… Spanish,” said Bottura. “Basta with these risotti!… We’re becoming aware of our own past…. The most important ingredient for cooks of the future is culture.”

Chef Massimo Bottura.

Throughout Italy today, raw fish is the rage. In Milan’s cutting edge restaurants, costolette alla milanese is ancient history: You’re more likely to find raw lamb riblets flash-fried with a golden coating than golden, crumb-coated, butter-fried veal chops; or to encounter high-wire acts like rigatoni over lamb’s lettuce anointed with licorice and grated oil butter; iced sea water puffs with oregano ice cream on the side; foreign-inspired dishes like suckling pig with guacamole.

To quote Marchi, “Tiramisù has invaded the world and [Italy was] invaded by sushi.”

Rare blue lobster, raw, with savory zabaione, mushrooms and cardoons Gobbo di Nizza Monferrato IGP, at Seta at Mandarino Oriental, Milan. | Photo: Julia della Croce/Forktales 2017

What About Your Grandmother’s Pasta e Ceci?

Keeping up with the collapsing of gastronomical borders and explosion of ideas that characterize the new Italian cuisine is nothing if not dizzying. While professionals “learn how to cook clean, concentrated, and organized” in the French restaurant tradition, there is something very different happening on the home front. Women, once the keepers of those arts, are running board meetings and performing surgeries; fewer and fewer are in the kitchen making ragù. And the nonnas padding around the kitchen in their slippers making gnocchi are largely on their way out. The result is a shrinking of critical cooking skills, even an acceptance of convenience foods offered in the supermarkets that increasingly edge out local farmers markets that were once the heart and soul of every town.

Butcher Angelo Dossena with the proper veal chops for true costolette alla milanese for sale at Peck in Milano. | Photo: Julia della Croce/Forktales 2017

“La Milanese”

In this city on the cutting edge of everything from art to finance, fashion to lighting, furniture design to cuisine, we soaked up an orgy of ideas and flavors, grateful for the opportunity to rub elbows with the great chefs of Europe. On our last night in Milan, my friends and I headed over to a fine little trattoria a few paces from Gualtieri’s alter at La Scala for our last supper of pizza with a side order of costolette alla milanese. It made me think of chefs at New York’s tony Per Se who’ve told me they hit the good food trucks after they change out of their “whites” and head home after a three-star performance. Sometimes, smiles are good enough.

The Duomo of Milan with its campanile, designed by Leonardo Da Vinci, Donato Bramante, and other architects. | Photo: Julia della Croce/Forktales 2017

 

Oct 102016
 
Undiscovered Venice May 15-21: Glide Away With Me

A marvelous program, a priceless exploration of some of the secrets of this most secretive of cities. I wish I were fit and free enough to jump aboard. —Victor Hazan Victor Hazan, who lived in Venice with Marcella, his wife and Italian cookbook legend, knows: Few outsiders ever get to see the real Venice.  You have to get off the tourist route and even off the map to seek out the city’s nooks and crannies, her hidden waterways and odd corners. Along with native Venetian Mauro Stoppa, our host and skipper, I will take you there, fork in hand. Now you can […more…]

Aug 252016
 
A Meal to Meditate: Spaghetti all'amatriciana

The quake struck Amatrice and the surrounding area at 3:36 a.m. — amazingly, almost the exact same time as the one that devastated L’Aquila and Abruzzi in 2009, which killed over 300. Some of the dead, this time, were tourists. Travelers go to Amatrice in August for the mild climate, an evening stroll and spaghetti all’amatriciana — a dish famous all over the world, invented by local shepherds in the Middle Ages. This week, the town was getting ready for the 50th annual festival dedicated to the celebrated sauce. Luckily, most visitors had left for the night. But the Hotel […more…]

Aug 232016
 
Italy's Sweetest Little Salsa: "Exploded Tomatoes"

I’ve had a stellar crop of cherry tomatoes this year and they’re ripening on the vine faster than I can pick them, never mind eat them. Time for one of Italy’s sweetest little tomato sauces —pomodorini scoppiati, literally, “exploded cherry tomatoes.” The recipe and story just out in Zester Daily today, here.  

Aug 192016
 
Consider Venice's Golden Cookies

Zaletti are one of Venice’s favorite biscotti. Made with the region’s favorite grain, corn polenta, and often served with a fruit sauce for dipping, you could call them Venice-in-a-cookie. My ever curious friend, James Beard award winning author, chef, and master baker Greg Patent was intrigued when I told him that I like to have them for breakfast alongside a cup of cappuccino. So he made them and wrote up the recipe with step-by-step photos for his terrific blog, The Baking Wizard, here. Their name comes from the Venetian word for yellow, “zalo.” Ground corn, or polenta, substitutes for wheat throughout […more…]

Jun 302016
 
Tour Unknown Venice with Me: Sign Up for Our May, 2017 Culinary Cruise!

Almost in the very middle of this little sea, enclosed between the water and the sky, lies Venice, a fairy vision, risen as if by miracle out of the water that surrounds it and like green shining ribbons, cuts through its beautiful body. So wrote Giulio Lorenzetti, in his famous 1926 guidebook, Venice and its Lagoon: A Historical and Artistic Guide (updated in 1994 and still the most authoritative source). Yet there it is, the ancient “Serenissima,” a glittering city decorated with gold, arising out of the lagoon, firm and fixed. We can barely grasp how architects could have imagined its plan and […more…]

Mar 262016
 
The Olive Oil Scandals: Italy Fights Back

A trip to Rome at this time of year is usually timed for a feast on the region’s spring vegetables that overflow in the market stalls and somehow seem to taste better in the Eternal City than they do anywhere else. But this year, I was in Rome on a mission to hear what the Italian government had to say about the state of the country’s olive oil production, whose reputation has been damaged by scandal after scandal in recent years—and the bad publicity just doesn’t seem to let up. Here’s my report from a high-powered conference called by government officials and the country’s consortium of […more…]