And lunch yesterday. And today. And dinner tonight.
We were at Mercato San Ambrogio Saturday, getting some food for the first time in a week, with the intention of only picking up a few things so as not to overload the refrigerator before heading back to the states next week. But we thought we might get some meat and since duck was the same price as chicken got a duck. Then we were offered a really good price on some porcini's, but only if we would buy a kilo. Added together with the riccotta al forno Lauren got excited about, apples and a small pile of green and crunchy things the walk home ended up being pretty hard on the arms. Plus, we had a pile of porcinis which needed to be eaten.
Now, we usually have lunch as a fairly light affair: some bread and olives with a bit of salami or prosciutto. But we were going to be in San Casciano doing a concert for the opening of a restored tabernacle in the afternoon, followed by a choir dinner at a pizzaria, so cooking real food in the middle of the day seemed like the best way to deal with the mushrooms. When we first got fresh porcini's last fall Marco and Antonella at
Buca del Vino recommended cooking them straight and having the resulting goo on pasta to fully revel in the excellence that is fresh porcini (I'm paraphrasing a bit, but that was the general gist). Which we decided to do again, more or less, since it's both pretty quick and full of awesome (and uses a generous helping of the buggers).
Sauteed 2 medium sized mushrooms (probably a bit less than half a pound, but I'm really not sure) with some onion, a clove of garlic and some diced pancetta until the porcinis had become thoroughly soft, then poured in a bit (in the vicinity of a quarter of a cup) of the pasta water and let the fresh pasta macerate with the sauce for a minute or so before serving.
Because we had a duck (which is exciting) we decided to do the whole Italian deal -- primo and secondo -- and pan seared a breast, then put it under the broiler until the skin was crispy and did a little pan gravy with the juices and some IGT Panzanello, which has been one of our favorite vino sfuzzos for the past couple of months.
We were at Mercato San Ambrogio Saturday, getting some food for the first time in a week, with the intention of only picking up a few things so as not to overload the refrigerator before heading back to the states next week. But we thought we might get some meat and since duck was the same price as chicken got a duck. Then we were offered a really good price on some porcini's, but only if we would buy a kilo. Added together with the riccotta al forno Lauren got excited about, apples and a small pile of green and crunchy things the walk home ended up being pretty hard on the arms. Plus, we had a pile of porcinis which needed to be eaten. 
Now, we usually have lunch as a fairly light affair: some bread and olives with a bit of salami or prosciutto. But we were going to be in San Casciano doing a concert for the opening of a restored tabernacle in the afternoon, followed by a choir dinner at a pizzaria, so cooking real food in the middle of the day seemed like the best way to deal with the mushrooms. When we first got fresh porcini's last fall Marco and Antonella at Buca del Vino recommended cooking them straight and having the resulting goo on pasta to fully revel in the excellence that is fresh porcini (I'm paraphrasing a bit, but that was the general gist). Which we decided to do again, more or less, since it's both pretty quick and full of awesome (and uses a generous helping of the buggers). 
Sauteed 2 medium sized mushrooms (probably a bit less than half a pound, but I'm really not sure) with some onion, a clove of garlic and some diced pancetta until the porcinis had become thoroughly soft, then poured in a bit (in the vicinity of a quarter of a cup) of the pasta water and let the fresh pasta macerate with the sauce for a minute or so before serving. 
Because we had a duck (which is exciting) we decided to do the whole Italian deal -- primo and secondo -- and pan seared a breast, then put it under the broiler until the skin was crispy and did a little pan gravy with the juices and some IGT Panzanello, which has been one of our favorite vino sfuzzos for the past couple of months. 
No comments:
Post a Comment