Italian Food Lovers

Good news never come alone - after announcing the new look for our Italian Food Lovers blog, we are happy to announce also the new redesign of the Academia Barilla official website. Same URL (www.academiabarilla.com) for a completely new website, that now offers several content features and a new web experience worth exploring.

Read more…

How do you like our new blog design? We like it very much!!!

We have been around in the blogosphere with our Italian food culture blog posts, gourmet recipes, news from the food industry, a gourmet chef network and a lot of blogging passion since back in December 2006, almost two years ago (our birthday is December 21)!

So we thought it was about time to give our beloved Italian Food Lovers blog a new design - not only from a mere design standpoint, but also from a content usability / accessibility angle. Read more…

Before we all forget the Thanksgiving weekend and the nice warm time we had with our families and friends, we want to share something else we found at BIGAB, the Academia Barilla Gastronomic Library in Parma, Italy.

With more than 8,000 titles of gastronomy art, italian and international food culture, and everything cuisine, BIGAB is also proud to treasure culinary and recipe books, hand-written volumes and rare gastronomy treats, some of them dating back to the 16th century.

At the beginning of last year Academia Barilla and BIGAB acquired an historic and rare menus collection we already blogged about, and thanks to our BIGAB friends we managed to select two special historic menus from the collection that are in tune with the Season: Historic Thanksgiving Menus from the US Embassy in Rome’s official Thanksgiving dinners in 1927 and 1929.

The US Embassy in Rome booked for the events a very exclusive locations in Rome such as the Hotel Excelsior, in the heart of Via Veneto that, with the cinema industry boom 30 years later, would have become the heart of the Roman Dolce Vita.

A special VIP dinner followed by a gala dance, as in the Thanksgiving 1927 event, and of course plenty of gourmet food, American gourmet reinterpreted by the Italian Chefs at the Excelsior.

This last picture, from the Thanksgiving 1929 menu, doesn’t really show how precious the invitation is - the US flag crossing a missing flag (the Italian flag, that unfortunately has been lost before BIGAB’s acquisition) is a real little flag with the actual pole and flag fabric!

Also the menu is balanced and, of course, gourmet American: Ox tail, Cheese Straws and Tomato Soup, followed by Turbot Washington, and Stuffed Turkey with a side of Cranberry Sauce, Excelsior Potatoes, Texas Salad, and Asparagus Chantilly. Roosevelt Mandarines, the traditional Pumpkin Pie and Fruits closed the gala dinner and, we are sure, opened the gala dance as in the previous Thanksgiving event!

Now that we posted this last Thanksgiving post we can look forward and start getting in the Christmas mood!

Last week we published a couple of gourmet recipes using chicken as a main ingredient, Chicken Breast stuffed with Herb and Cheese, and Chicken Scaloppine with Lemon and Caper Sauce, but since this is Thanksgiving week, we switch to turkey, the traditional Thanksgiving meal.

Today we share with you a traditional recipe for your Traditional Thanksgiving Turkey that we found browsing the Academia Barilla Gastronomic Library in Parma, Italy. The cookbook we found is “America e la sua grande cucina” (America’s Great Cuisine), by Philip Stephen Schulz, published in Italy by Rizzoli in 1990.

Cookbook author Philip Stephen Schulz explores in this cookbook the traditional cuisine of all US States and, when it comes to the culinary traditions of Connecticut, he proposes the traditional local recipe for Roast Thanksgiving Turkey with Cornbread Stuffing.

Ready? Let’s go to the kitchen!

ROAST THANKSGIVING TURKEY WITH CORNBREAD STUFFING
A recipe by Philip Stephen Schulz
(serves 8-10)

INGREDIENTS

- 1 (22 lb) fresh turkey
- 2 large crushed garlic cloves
- salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

INGREDIENTS FOR STUFFING

- 3 bacon strips, chopped
- 1/2 cup dried white wine
- 4 cups water
- 1 onion
- 1 stalk celery, thinly sliced
- 3 parsley sprigs, plus additional sprigs for garnish
- 1/4 tablespoon salt
- 4 black peppercorns
- 1 1/2 tablespoon flour
- 1/4 cup cream

PREPARATION

Preheat oven at 330°F. Remove giblets from turkey and if desired set aside for the gravy. Clean turkey inside and outside with a wet kitchen towel and rub with 1 crushed garlic clove, salt and pepper. Fill cavity of turkey with stuffing. Tie it. Wrap up the breast with bacon.

Place turkey in a roasting pan, cover with a netting previously soaked in wine. Pour some wine onto it. Cook in oven for 30 minutes.

In the meantime, put the giblets (not the liver) in a large saucepan, add water, onion, celery, the remaining part of garlic clove, parsley, salt and peppercorn. Boil, then turn the heat down and simmer, without lid, until the broth reduces to 2 cups. Sieve.

Dip the turkey in broth and keep cooking by adding broth every 30 minutes, until drumsticks are easy to move up and, if you prick the meat sauce comes out, cook for about 5 1/2 - 6 hours totally. During the last 30 minutes of cooking time, remove the netting by sprinkling it with wine.

Heat oven to 375°F in order to obtain a crisper skin. Remove the turkey from oven and let it cool down for 15 minutes. In the meantime, sieve the sauce of the turkey, skimming off the fat if necessary.

In a saucepan melt butter over medium-low heat. Add flour continuously mixing. Cook for 2 minutes by keeping mix. Add cream and simmer for 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Garnish turkey with the remaining part of parsley. Serve with the sauce and the stuffing.

CORNBREAD STUFFING
(Cornbread has to be prepared 1 or 2 days before Thanksgiving)
Ingredients for a 22 lb turkey

- 8.75 oz sweet Italian sausage
- 1/2 cup melted butter
- 1 large onion
- 2 celery stalk, minced
- 1 little red or green pepper, removed from seeds and minced
- 1/2 cup parsley, minced
- 2 cups open oysters, not drained
- 1 corn bread squarely (7.9 inch)
- 1 tablespoon fresh sage minced or ¼ tablespoon sage powdered
- salt and freshly ground black pepper

CORNBREAD STUFFING PREPARATION

In a large saucepan brown the sausage over medium heat for 10 about minutes, by mixing until sausage washes and is of a golden-brown colour. Put in a stock pot.

From the same saucepan remove the sausage fat. Add 1/4 cup melted butter, onion, celery and pepper. Cook for 10 minutes by keep mixing. Remove from heat and add parsley. Pour forth the oysters keeping the liquid, then add to vegetables.

In a mixing bowl crumble the corn bread with the sausage. Add vegetables and oysters, sage, salt and pepper. Mix well.

Add slowly the oysters liquid and the remaining part of butter, keep mixing until the dough results humid, not wet. Let it cool down, then stuff the roast turkey.

Thank you to the Academia Barilla Gastronomic Library team for providing us with this traditional Thanksgiving recipe. This week we will publish more Thanksgiving recipes also from the gourmet Chef of the Italian Food Lovers Chef Network; stay tuned with us this week for more gourmet Thanksgiving recipes every day!

After publishing Chef James McNair’s Chicken Breast stuffed with Herbs and Cheese recipe a couple of days ago, we offer you today another chicken recipe from the same “Chicken” cookbook we received from the Academia Barilla Gastronomic Library.

The cookbook is written by Chef James McNair for San Francisco’s Chronicle Books and the images in this post, as in the previous post, are by photographer Patricia Brabant.

Today’s recipe is Chicken Scaloppine with Lemon and Capers Sauce, a poultry variation on a traditional Italian veal preparation.

Ready? Let’s cook it!

CHICKEN SCALOPPINE WITH LEMON AND CAPERS SAUCE
A recipe by Chef James McNair
(serves 4-6)

INGREDIENTS

- 6 boned and skinned chicken breast halves
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
- salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 2 to 3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1 to 2 teaspoons drained capers
- 2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
- thin lemon slices for gamish
- parsley leaflets, preferably flat-leaf Italian type, for gamish

PREPARATION

Discard the tendons and any connecting tissue or fat from the chicken breasts; separate the little fillet and use it for another purpose or leave it attached and tuck it under the larger muscle. Leave small breasts whole; slice thicker ones in half horizontally.

Place breast pieces between 2 sheets of waxed paper and pound with a mallet or other flat instrument to a uniform thickness of about 1/8 inch. Set aside.

Heat the oil and 2 tablespoons of the butter in a sauté pan or skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken scallops and sauté, turning once, until browned, about 4 to 5 minutes total cooking time. Remove chicken to a warm platter, season to taste with salt and pepper, and reserve.

Add the lemon juice and capers to the pan and heat, scraping the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon to loosen browned bits. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter and stir until melted. Stir in the minced parsley and pour the sauce over the scallops.

Garnish with lemon slices and parsley leaflets.

Thank you again BIGAB, and of course thank you also to celebrity Chef James McNair for this gourmet recipe.