Baccalà mantecato

A not-so-distant cousin of Provençale brandade de morue, baccalà mantecato is one of the signature dishes of Venetian cuisine and a staple of those wonderful hidden-away Venetian bacari, or wine bars.

The name of the dish comes from the verb mantecare, which is a culinary term meaning to 'beat' or 'whip' or simply to 'stir vigorously' so as to create a creamy consistency. It is the same word used to describe the final stage of making a risotto, when you stir the rice vigorously to incorporate grated cheese and butter, to creating that luscious creamy consistency that we all know and love. The technique serves the same purpose here, but in a wholly different context.

Ingredients (for 4-6 servings)

250g (1/2 lb.) salt cod, soaked for 24 hours and cleaned of any stray bones
1 clove garlic, very finely chopped (optional)
Olive oil, about 100g or as much as you need
Salt and pepper, to taste
chopped parsley

Directions

Cut the salt cod into manageable pieces and place them in a saucepan. Cover with water and bring to a gentle simmer. Add a small pinch of salt, a slice or two of lemon and a bay leaf. Continue to simmer for 20 minutes, until tender but not yet falling apart. When done, transfer the pieces of salt cod to a large bowl with a slotted spoon.

Start to break up the salt cod pieces with a sturdy wooden spoon. When the fish has broken up into shreds, add the garlic (if using) and then start to drizzle the oil into the fish. Stir with the wooden spoon, incorporating the oil slowly into the fish as you stir, as if you were making mayonnaise. Continue like this until the fish has formed a nice, but not entirely smooth paste. There should still be small bits of fish here and there. If you find the paste a bit too thick, you can add a spoonful or two of the cooking water. Taste and adjust for seasoning—you may not need any salt, but you probably will, as salt cod can be surprisingly bland after it has soaked. Mix in some chopped parsley.

Baccalà mantecato should be served at room temperature, typically on top of crostini di polenta as shown in the picture above. In Venice, polenta blanca or white polenta is the most autentic choice, but yellow polenta as shown will certainly do fine if you, like me, you don't have any of the white variety on hand. It can also be served with soft, hot polenta for a more substantial dish

NOTES: To make crostini di polenta, simply make a batch of polenta using the usual method, pour it out on a wooden board or baking sheet, in a thinnish layer, to cool completely. It will have hardened enough to cut into rectangles or square pieces. Grill or griddle your crostini on each side until lightly spottled. These crostini have many other uses—they are perfectly delicious slathered with gorgonzola cheese, for example.

If you are being a bit lazy, you can—if you must—blend the salt cod in a food processor,  drizzling the olive oil through the spout as you use the pulse function to avoid overblending. Of course, this method does not produce a dish with quite as much character but it will certainly save you some effort. What you should avoid, however, is using a blender, which will purée the fish rather than producing the typically 'rough' texture that characterizes the dish.

The recipe given here is from the Dogale Confraternita del Baccalà Mantecato, one of the many confraternita or associations (literally 'brotherhoods') in Italy charged as guardians of the most significant traditional local dishes. This one is, of course, based in Venice. The original recipe calls for stoccafisso, or stockfish, which is another form of preserved codfish, wind-dried rather than salt-cured and so much harder. It requires several days of soaking. It is a rarity in the US, but salt cod is a perfectly acceptable substitute, in my humble opinion. The original recipe does not call for garlic, but most recipes (even Italian ones) will include it these days. For a more assertive flavor, some recipes call for a fillet or two of anchovy.

Many recipes you will find, perhaps most, call for a mixture of milk and oil, often in a 50:50 ratio but sometimes mostly milk (or even cream) and only a bit of olive oil.  I have read—though I can't find the source now for the life of me—that the all-oil version is typical of Venice itself, while the milk and oil version comes from the inland areas around Vicenza. In the old days, olive oil was probitively expensive outside areas where olive tree grew, which meant most of northern Italy outside Liguria. Venice, itself, however, was lucky enough to have olive oil production nearby, where a micro-climate allowed for it. I now begin to doubt this explanation, however, as  its seems that there is olive oil production in several areas in the Veneto (something I never knew until I looked into it) including around Vicenza. In fact, olive oil from the Veneto has its own DOP designation. In any event, the oil you use should not be too fruity. A lighter Ligurian or Provençale olive oil (assuming you don't have access to the local variety!) would probably be the best choices. Avoid those fruity Puglian or Sicilian oils which, as wonderful as they are, would be too 'heavy' for this dish.

Slow Cooker Polenta with Sausage Ragù

Some of you will have read in a recent post that I finally broke down and bought a slow cooker, a kitchen device also known in the States—to those of you who are old enough—as a 'Crock Pot'. The thought of owning one had never really occurred to me before. The Crock Pot craze of the '70s, which brought us some pretty awful cooking (a can of this, a can of that...) was still seared into my memory banks.

But I started hearing about 'slow cookers' from cooks that I liked and admired. Then came Michele Scicolone's Italian Slow Cooker cookbook and my resolve began to waiver. And then I started reading Ad Hoc At Home, by perhaps American's most respected chef, Thomas Keller, in which he mentions the slow cooker as one of his prized kitchen tools, in particular for beans. Well, that did it. I had to see what everyone was talking about. (By the way, if you don't have these books, I would heartily recommend both of them!)

I have promised you, dear readers, to share with you my impressions, so here goes.

I realize now that a slow cooker, though marketed as a convenience tool—usually the kiss of death in my book—is really just another way to achieve the kind of gentle most cooking that most cooks will do in a Dutch oven or, in Italy, a terracotta pot. All kinds of dishes that you would want to simmer for hours on end: rich sauces, broths and, yes, beans—all come out wonderfully in a slow cooker. And, yes, it is also convenient: it frees up your stove for other uses, can be left on all day if you like, and will keep your food warm indefinitely. What it is not, as the name implies, is quick. But once you're down with the initial steps (in the Italian context, that mean making a soffritto and the rosolatura of the main ingredient) you can leave whatever you're making unattended until it's done.

So far, I've had excellent results with broth, beans (look out for coming posts!) and, as I will get to in a moment, polenta and ragù. Not everything I've made so far has been a smashing success, however. Stews and pot roasts, for example, have not turned out as I would have liked. I tried to make a brasato al vino rosso, for example—the very first dish I tried in my new slow cooker—and found the meat rather stringy and the sauce thin and bland.

That brings me to an important point when it comes to slow cooking: as when cooking in a pressure cooker, there is very little evaporation and therefore very little concentration of flavors. So you need to use much less liquid than you ordinarily would. And those dishes that requires evaporation to work will not work very well in a slow cooker. I tried making a spezzatino di pollo, for example, with vinegar. Made in the conventional way, the vinegar evaporates and its flavor mellows to the point where you would probably not know it was even there (unless you're the cook, that is!) In a slow cooker, the vinegar flavor is as strong when the dish is done as when you started, and that's not a good thing. So it's back to the drawing board for me on stews and pot roasts. I'll report back to you, kind readers, when I've figured out the best way to handle them.

In any event, on to our recipes!

SLOW COOKER POLENTA

Makingn real polenta is a laborious job, as we all know, involving a lot of stirring over a good 45 minutes or more to reach the right, creamy consistency. Italians have developed any number of tricks to make the job a bit easier, as I have outlined in my post on How to Make Polenta. The slow cooker provides yet another easy (if not very quick) way to make polenta.

Ingredients

1 part polenta (by volume)
5 parts water (by volume)
A pinch of salt

(NB: I made a batch from 1 cup of polenta mixed with 5 cups of water.)

Directions

You mix the polenta and cold water together in your slow cooker with a whisk or wooden spoon. Then spinkle the mixture with a pinch of salt. Turn on your slow cooker to high and let it go at it for 3 hours. Stir after two hours or, if you prefer, every hour. (Recipes vary.) If the polenta is getting too thick, you can add some water, but not too much—remember, you can't count on evaporation to thicken the polenta by more than a very marginal amount.

The polenta will stay smooth and soft for several hours if left on 'warm'.

NOTES: Made this way, the polenta turned out fine. Was the texture quite a fine as the hand-stirred variety made in a traditional paiolo? No, not really. But it was certainly acceptable—more than acceptable, in fact. The difference was subtle, not one that would be obvious to anyone other than the true cognoscenti. 

Three hours is a sort of awkward time. Too long to be 'quick', but not long enough, say, to make in the morning before work and have it ready by the time you get home. For that, you can cook your polenta over low heat for double the time (6 hours). I have not tried this variation but it would seem to work.

(NB: There is a general rule for slow cooking, which says that you can cook must about anything for x hours on high or 2x hours on low. I have yet to find an explanation of what difference, if any, it makes to the final outcome.)


SLOW COOKER SAUSAGE RAGÙ

You would think that a slow cooker would be the ideal implement for making a Sunday Sauce and, indeed, it would seem to be ideal for all sorts of long simmering sauces. To accompany this polenta, I made a variation on the classic Roman dish, polenta con salsiccia e spuntature (polenta with sausages and spareribs), which we've featured on this blog. I just left out the spareribs, since I couldn't find any in my freezer and there was just too much snow outside to make a dash to the market. The result was still delicious.

You simply proceed as you would normally do, using the classic recipe. Brown your sausages (or both sausages and spareribs) in olive oil (or lard) a skillet, transferring them to the slow cooker when they are nicely browned. Then sauté your onions and garlic in the grease left in the skillet until you have a nice soffritto. Deglaze the skillet with red wine and add it all to the slow cooker. making sure to scrape out all that goodness at the bottom with a spatula. Then pour over enough puréed canned tomato to cover the meats well. Season with salt and pepper, and let your ragù simmer on low for at least six hours, more if you like. Serve the meat and a bit of sauce over your polenta as pictured above.

NOTES: Obviously, unless you have two slow cookers, you will need to make the ragù the day before—which is fine, since like most slow-cooked foods, a ragù benefits from a day's rest.

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Post scriptum: You can use any leftover polenta and ragù to make a heart-warming polenta pasticciata:

Slather your leftover polenta on a baking sheet and let it cool. It will harden into a sliceable mass. (You can also just pour it into a glass or other container if you prefer, which is my usual method.)

The next day, or whenever you want to use your leftovers, take some terracotta bowls (or a single casserole if you prefer) and grease the bottoms well with a bit of olive oil. Lay over some slices of polenta, then some of the meats from the ragù, which you will have sliced or chopped into bite-sized pieces. Then spoon over a bit of your leftover ragù, and then some béchamel sauce. (If you like, you can melt some grated or sliced cheese into the béchamel for extra flavor. This time, instead of the usual parmigiano, I used slices of young asiago). Repeat until you have used up your ingredients or filled up your baking vessels. Finish with the béchamel, into which you can swirl some more ragù for color. Sprinkle over some cheese if you like (I didn't) and drizzle with some olive oil.

Bake in a hot oven (200°C, 400°F) for about 25 minutes or so, until the mixture is bubbly and nicely browned on top. Let it cool off for a few minutes before serving.

Polenta pasticciata con fagioli e verza

It's a shame to throw away leftover polenta. There are so many delicious ways to use it. As mentioned in an earlier post on how to make polenta, it hardens as it cools and can be sliced into squares or other shapes, then grilled or fried. But my favorite way to use leftover polenta is to layer polenta slices with sauce and baked them like a kind of rustic lasagne. This polenta pasticciata uses a kind of polenta that I have not yet blogged about: polenta that is made in the usual way, but about halfway through cooking, you add Savoy cabbage that has been shredded and sweated in butter with some finely sliced onion until quite soft. Then, just a few minutes before serving, you stir in some boiled beans (preferably borlotti, but I used some cannellini that I had on hand). It is one of my favorite of the 'flavored' polentas. This polenta is so flavorful that it needs no sauce. 

When using leftover polenta to make polenta pasticciata con fagioli e verza, you place a layer of polenta at the bottom of a buttered baking dish, then top it with a generous layer of béchamel sprinkled with a bit of grated parmesan cheese. Repeat until you've used up your ingredients and end with a nice layer of béchamel topped with a generous sprinkling of grated parmesan cheese. Bake in a hot oven (200C, 400F) for about 15-20 minutes, until the top is nicely browned and the sauce and cheese are bubbling merrily along. Let the polenta rest a few minutes to cool off and 'settle' before serving. 

NOTES: I rather like making this polenta pasticciata in individual terracotta bowls, of the kind that you eat minestrone or French onion soup in. If you do, placing all the bowls on cookie sheet, so they can all be put in and taken out of the oven at one time, will save you some time and trouble. It also makes for a lovely presentation, as each diner gets to dig into their crusty polenta themselves. 

If you like, use another kind of cheese, such as a fontina or a gruyère, instead of or in addition to the parmesan. 

There are many types of polenta pasticciata: Perhaps the most popular is to layer your polenta is like lasagna alla bolognese, with alternating layers of béchamel and ragù. But there are other ways to make polenta pasticciata, alla lombara, for example: layered with fontina cheese and topped with lots of melted cheese before baking in a hot oven until golden brown or alla tirolese—Tyrolean baked polenta—layered with anchovy butter. 

There are also many types of flavored polentas, including a Tuscan one, very similar to this one, called polenta con fagioli e cavolo nero, made with beans and 'black kale', usually called Tuscan kale in English. Tuscan kale is a typically Tuscan green that is used in countless soups and other dishes. I have occasionally found it in farmer's markets and even, once or twice, in my local supermarket. Its leaves are rather flatter and longer, and more tender, than the curly kale you are likely to find elsewhere. But I digress… we have another month or two of cold weather, and many polenta dishes to blog about!

 

 

Polenta con salsicce e spuntature

Rome is not especially known for its love of polenta, perhaps because its winters are relatively mild compared with those up in true polenta country skirting the southern rim of the Alps, but there is one polenta dish you are bound to find if you visit Rome in the cold weather months, polenta with sausages and spareribs simmered in tomato sauce. 

You make the sugo very much as if you were making a southern-style ragù, only you use only 'sweet' sausages and pork spareribs. Start out, as usual, with a soffritto, this one of onion and, if you like, a bit of garlic sautéed gently in olive oil or (better) lard until soft and translucent. Turn up the heat a bit and add your sausages and spareribs. (I fine that one rib and one sausage per person is a healthy portion for a moderate appetite, but you may want to a add few more of each in case someone wants seconds.) Allow the meat to brown lightly. Depending on the size of the pot and how much meat you are using, you may need to do the browning in batches to avoid crowding them. Once lightly browned, season with salt and pepper, and then pour over a nice slurp of red wine and allow it to evaporate. Then add enough tomato purée (in the US, use 'crushed' canned tomatoes or whole canned tomatoes passed through the largest holes of a food mill) to cover the meat. Lower the heat and cover. Let the sugo simmer for a good hour or more, until the meat is tender and the sauce is nice and thick and rich. 

Meanwhile, make your polenta in the usual fashion. 

When you are ready to eat, pour the polenta on to a large serving bowl or—if you really want to eat it in the traditional manner—on a wooden board. Make a small well in the center with a wooden spoon and into the well place your meat, covered with a generous lathering of sugo. Serve with grated pecorino cheese. 

NOTES: You can use white wine instead of red if you prefer (or simply omit the wine altogether if you like). Some recipes call for a soffritto of the 'holy trinity' of onion, carrot and celery, but I prefer this onion and garlic only version. If you like, you can also add some parsley to the soffritto. Some recipes also call for adding a bit of tomato paste (a tablespoon or two) for added flavor. Some recipes also call for some optional peperoncino. 

A number of sources will tell you to use fioretto type polenta, which results in a rather soft polenta. It is true that in central and southern Italy—Lazio, Abruzzo and Campania in particular—there is a preference for softer polenta than is normally eaten in the North. (My grandmother Angelina's polenta was quite soft indeed, almost like a porridge.) But I personally find that this hearty sauce goes better with 'normal' bramata type polenta, cooked rather stiff. Of course, the choice is yours.

How to Make Polenta

Polenta is one of the most emblematic dishes of the northern Italian cuisines from the Veneto to Lombardia to Piemonte. It is also one of the oldest foods eaten in Italy, dating back at least to 990 BCE. In its original form, polenta—known to the ancient Romans as pulmentum—was a porridge made from spelt. In later ages other grains such as barley and millet as well as pulses and even chestnuts were used to make various kinds of gruels eaten generally by the poor. It is said to have originally been an Etruscan dish, which the Romans adopted and spread throughout the Empire, although today polenta is not particularly important in the cooking of Tuscany or (with one exception) Lazio. In the 1600s, after maize, a New World grain, was introduced into Italy by the Venetians, polenta took on the form we know today.

Polenta, as befits la cucina povera, is quite simple to make but requires patience and care. Polenta was traditionally made by the fire, cooked in a copper pot known as a paiolo, hung close to the fireplace and stirred  with a wooden stick known as a tarai (or tarel in some areas). Polenta today is usually made on top of a stove, and besides the traditional method, some modern methods have been developed.

Traditional method for making polenta: In a paiolo or other large pot, preferably made of copper, bring some lightly salted water to the simmer. I find that a ratio of 1 liter (1 quart) of water for 250g (1/2 lb.) of polenta flour works well. Have some more water on hand, simmering in a saucepan or kettle at the back of the stove:

When the water in paiolo has come to the simmer, add the polenta in a constant but gradual stream—in Italian they say 'a pioggia' or like rain—stirring the pot all the while with a whisk or wooden spoon in one direction until all the polenta has been incorporated into the water:

NB: This technique should avoid the awful fate of badly made polenta: the formation of unpleasant lumps or grumi. (I find the use of a whisk, while unconventional, is particularly helpful.) But don't be surprised if you wind up with a few lumps on your first few attempts to make polenta; it is part of the learning process.

The polenta will soon thicken. Turn down the heat to low immediately; be careful, as polenta has a tendency to spatter if it 'boils'. If this happens, take the paiolo off heat for a moment and add some water. That will stop the sputtering, and you can return to the heat and continue to stir:

 

If you have been using a whisk, you will eventually need toswitch to a wooden spoon as the polenta thickens. Continue stirring and, when the polenta gets too thick to stir without great effort, add some of the hot water you have kept in reserve and continue to stir:

Although some recipes call for you to stir constantly throughout the cooking period to avoid scorching the bottom, I find that if the heat is low enough and you keep the polenta rather loose by adding water from time to time, you only need to stir every so often—say every 5 minutes or so. The polenta should simmer like this for at least 45 minutes, and it is even better after an hour. Some recipes even call for cooking the polenta for 90 minutes—something I've never had the patience to do.

The polenta is done when it is perfectly creamy and has attained the consistency you desire. The polenta should pull away from the pot when you run your spoon across the bottom of the pot:

Depending on your tastes and the use you will be making of the polenta, it can be either all'onda, or rather soft like a risotto, or quite stiff. (More on this later.) If you want a stiff polenta, stop adding water for the last 15-20 minutes or so, and allow the polenta to thicken; you will need to stir more during this final period.

 
A nice thick polenta 

Pressure cooker method: The traditional method, even without constant stirring, is quite a job. If you want to cut down both on time and effort, you can make polenta in a pressure cooker. To avoid scorching the bottom, use more water than you normally would (say 25% more) and as soon as the polenta begins to thicken a bit, close the lid and bring the pot up to pressure. Turn down the heat to the barest flame, just enough to maintain the pressure, and cook for 20 minutes. Release the pressure, either gradually by just letting it come down by itself off heat, or 'forcing' the pressure down by opening the valve and/or running the pot under cold water in the sink. Remove the lid. Bring the pot back to the stove and over gentle heat begin stirring your polenta. Depending on the consistency you want, add some more water to loosen the polenta or, if it is already rather looser than you want your final product to be, just keep stirring as the polenta thickens.

Slow cooker/rice cooker method: Although I don't own a slow cooker and only occasionally use a rice cooker, I find this method attractive. You mix your polenta flour with cold water (like the pressure cooker, use about 25% more than you would normally) and a pinch of salt in the cooker, close the lid and proceed to cook according to the instructions for your machine (usually 6 hours on low, 3 hours on high). Some recipes call for you to grease the inside of the cooker with a bit of butter or oil to prevent scorching.

Oven method: This is one I've never tried, but it is said that you can make polenta by mixing cold water and polenta flour in a casserole and placing it in moderate oven (180°C, 350°F) to bake for about 45 minutes, stirring it at least once towards the end of the cooking period. 

Electric polenta pot: My favorite method back in Italy was to use an electric paiolo or polenta pot. After the initial addition of polenta flour, as soon as the polenta began to thicken, you attached a paddle with an electric motor to the top of the pot and plugged it in. The paddle would rotate slowly, stirring the polenta, for as long as you wished to cook it. It is a wonderful invention but I had to give it away before leaving Italy, because of the difference in current. Despite having looked high and low, I have not managed to find anything comparable in the US.

Instant polenta: Even in Italy, partially pre-cooked 'instant' polenta,  sometimes called polenta lampo or 'lightning polenta', which can be eaten after only 5-10 minutes of simmering, is quite popular. Of course, it goes without saying that both taste and texture suffer when compared to 'real' polenta. But the result is acceptable in some dishes where the polenta is paired with an especially hearty condimento, like the Roman classic, polenta con spuntature e salsicce.

NOTES: Polenta is traditionally served heaped onto a large wooden board, in the middle of which a shallow well is formed to hold the sauce or other condimento to go with it. Served this way, polenta is paired with a broad variety of dishes from meat to vegetables to fish. Traditionally, polenta was cut with a heavy string, served with wooden spoons and eaten on wooden plates, as contact with metal was said to ruin its flavor. (This was the original reason for cooking polenta in copper pot, since unlike other metals copper was said not to have this deleterious effect.) These days, a serving platter will do, and the advent of stainless steel has rendered these precautions unnecessary, although like many, I still use copper and wood implements. It just feels right…

There are other ways to serve polenta. While still warm, thickly cooked polenta (either leftover or made for the purpose) can be spread in a shallow layer on a plate or cookie sheet or other flat surface and left to cool; the polenta hardens as it cools and is then cut into squares or other shapes. These can be fried or grilled and used as a kind of contorno, or as the bed of a crostino. The polenta squares can also be arranged in a casserole with béchamel, cheese and sauce like lasagne to make a 'polenta pasticciata'.

There are various types of polenta flour you should use according to the region and dish you are making, as well as your personal taste. The most common type of polenta flour is called bramata, a medium-coarse, yellow cornmeal. It is used for rustic polenta dishes and is well suited for chilling and grilling or baking. It is the kind most often found both inside and (especially) outside Italy. You can use it as a kind of 'all purpose' polenta flour. For a finer texture, which results in a softer, more refined polenta, use the kind of polenta known as fioretto, which is very finely ground. In parts of northern Italy, particularly in the Veneto, a finely ground white cornmeal called polenta bianca is quite commonly used to accompany local dishes like baccalà alla vicentina. A rather unusual, but delicious polenta is made with a mixture of buckwheat and cornmeal, called polenta taragna, both very coarsely ground. It is very typical of the Valtellina—the Alpine area of Lombardia which is home to the buckwheat pasta known as pizzoccheri—and also eaten a further to the south, in the areas around Brescia and Bergamo. Rather than a sauce, copious amounts of cheese and butter are usually added just before serving this kind of polenta.

Although polenta is typically thought of (and is) a northern dish, polenta is eaten all over Italy. And although Rome is not really polenta country, in the winter the aforementioned hearty dish of polenta with sausages and spareribs is much appreciated there. Angelina also made polenta, rather soft, served with a simple sugo di pomodoro or with ragu. In my family the story goes that she learned to make polenta to please my grandfather, who had fought in the First World War against the Austrians and, while up north, developed a taste for the stuff. (Following an long tradition, as puls was the usual ration for Roman soldiers in ancient times.) The story may be apocryphal, however, as polenta is also popular in the area she came from around Benevento and Avellino, perhaps a holdover from the times when polenta was enjoyed all over the Roman world.