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2023 Author: Cody Thornton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-24 11:20
Bright shoots on the branches. Extreme sleep. School groups on a trip with a high hormonal rate. Women's magazines that talk about detox diet. In short, it is spring.
The season of green, the anti-voracious color par excellence according to food chromotherapy: yet, try to maintain your composure in front of a risotto with wild herbs. Or expanding the discussion to the sampling of flavors that spring offers.
Well, if you can, a free seaweed centrifuge.
Let's put aside purifying fasts, after all, today is Sunday. Instead, let's do a sort of inventory of the main ones spring dishes divided by regions.
Veneto
Risotto with asparagus
We Venetians are waiting for spring to stuff ourselves with asparagus, of every shape and consistency. The issue is not so peaceful, because war is declared between whites and greens, even within the same color.
The Badoere asparagus drops two axes, (white and green, IGP); Cimadolmo and Bassano respond (white, Igp one and Dop the other).
If you don't want to hurt anyone, order the dish that celebrates them best: risotto. Whether white or green, the rice is mandatory, otherwise you have every right to get up from the table and report the chef, whose name will be dishonored in the public square.
Piedmont
Subrich
The name derives from the French "sur brich" that is on the brick, to indicate the cooking method. Soft texture and rounded shape, a few centimeters in diameter, these pancakes are a hymn to spring.
Herbs, spinach and asparagus are coarsely chopped by hand, then mixed with eggs, parmesan, oil and baked in the oven. They can also be fried, but tradition does not provide for it.
Liguria
Turtun of Castelvittorio
Even those who don't understand anything about mathematics light up as soon as they read the equation spring = savory pies. In Liguria they know a lot about this, so here is the turtun: a large vegetable pie with wild herbs, fresh goat or pecorino cheese, flour, eggs and extra virgin olive oil from Taggiasca.
The dough is rolled by hand and cooked without the pan, on the ciappa, the wood oven that gives the cake its characteristic aroma.
Lombardy
Supa de luvertis
To those who ask what luvertis are, a penance falls: gathering in shorts and sandals, in the midst of tall grasses.
Luvertis are the shoots of hops with which in Lombardy an exquisite soup is prepared together with potatoes and rice. Does the soup remind you of winter? Try this one. Those who still complain will be sent to collect honey with their bare hands.
Emilia Romagna
Pasta with strigoli
Stridoli, strigoli, carletti, bubbolini or tagliatelle della Madonna: the name varies but you surely know them for having made the flowers pop, as children, on the back of the hand (the bravest on the forehead). Wild grass, they have a slightly bitter taste.
The healthiest ones boil them or blanch them in water, to mix them with beaten eggs, pecorino cheese, pepper and then make meatballs.
In Emilia Romagna, on the other hand, they are fried with bacon, onion, oil and wine and seasoned with pasta, which seems to be thrown by itself from the pan directly into the pan.
Lazio
Vignarola
Green cubed for this dish from Velletri. The etymology would depend on the fact that the ingredients used were grown, in the past, among the rows of vines (others say, however, that the name derives from "vignaroli", that is, the gardeners).
It is a poor dish that uses artichokes, broad beans and peas (some also use escarole). There are two versions: one exclusively vegetarian, the other with the addition of bacon (or bacon).
The vegetables are cooked according to different cooking times, the consistency is slightly soupy. An excellent side dish: the risk is to turn it into an appetizer, pasta sauce, dessert …
Tuscany
Garmugia
Typical of the Lucca area, it is a soup, but like all dishes of peasant origins it becomes practically a single dish. Those who have in mind a light dish only of vegetables (albeit substantial: peas, asparagus tips, crispy artichokes, beans and broad beans) will have to change their mind.
In fact, beef or veal and bacon arrive to give a hand. It is forbidden to re-boil the broth, or it will lose all its qualities.
The ideal would be to eat it in a cottage overlooking the hills, but it is good in a city apartment.
Abruzzo
Stuffed Cupello artichoke
We are in the Vasto area and this thorny wonder is a variety that gives its best in spring. They also call it mazzaferrata, because the shape recalls the ancient medieval weapon. It has a pronounced flavor with a sweetish aftertaste and a tender, meaty texture.
The ideal recipe wants it stuffed with breadcrumbs, grated cheese, black pepper, finely chopped parsley and eggs (as well as salt and oil). Once it is well stuffed, it is boiled.
And practically you eat in one bite.
Campania
Cauraro
Ancient fishermen's soup, the cauraro, is a typical dish of Cilento. It is a spring soup with menaica vegetables and anchovies.
Practically a marriage between sea and countryside, between blue and green, a very poor recipe that is part of that large number of dishes of which today we say "ah, the genuine good things of the past". One thing that, according to the fishermen of the past, risked being put in brine together with anchovies.
Sicily
Frittedda
It has nothing to do with fried food. Here too broad beans, peas, artichokes for a dish that can become unique or be an appetizer, pasta sauce or side dish.
Each province has its own version: in Palermo it is sweet and sour by frying the vegetables, then cooking them over a very low heat.
Finally, over high heat, add sugar and vinegar until evaporation. The Enna variant enriches the dish with the addition of wild fennel.