Irene in Rome

We continue. Lunch being over, Barbee and I roll our way out the door and into the van so we can take a look at the nearby town of Rieti. The upside (one of many) of paying for cooking school is that you don’t have to do the dishes. Rieti, like many towns in Italy has its charm concentrated in its old city center. Susan shows us the marker which denotes the very “center of Italy”, an old church with a lovingly restored crypt area, and she points out to us other interesting little tidbits as we walk along; the benefit of having a local person as your tour guide. After stopping at a grocery store for pignoli (pine nuts) which Chef asked us to pick up, and a wine shop where all three of us purchase several bottles each, we head back to the house for our dinner lesson.

Upon arrival there is Chef Maurizio again waiting for us with all ingredients for dinner laid out. We start by making an orzo and chick pea soup. This is not the pasta orzo as I know the word “orzo” to be. It is a grain similar to pearl barley. And of course he does not use canned beans. Susan has been presoaking dried chick peas and kidney beans overnight as per his instructions. He has already cooked the presoaked beans over a low flame for about 45 minutes with a little salt. In a soup pot over high heat, sauté chopped onion, carrot and celery in extra virgin olive oil along with a whole garlic clove, and half of a dried chili pepper. Set a tea kettle of water on the stove to boil. When the vegetables begin to brown, add 2 large ladles of stewed tomatoes to the pot. Add 150 grams of orzo, about a cup of hot water and some salt. Lower the heat to simmer. After about 20 minutes, add another cup of hot water. When a lot of the water is absorbed, add the cooked beans with their cooking liquid. After simmering another 15-20 min, add another 2 cups of water. Simmer and taste for seasoning.

Next up on the menu is Pollo alle erbe Sabinese or Chicken with Herbs Sabine Style. This was my favorite dish. See the recipe column for details. I was so excited to make this when I came back, but I must admit I was a little disappointed when I did. I’m having a hard time finding canned stewed tomatoes. Every time I think I’ve bought them, when I open the can, they turn out to be little cubes of tomato with lots of sauce thereby changing the texture of the dish I’m trying to make. When I made this it tasted good, but ended up being a pasta sauce rather than a stew, and it definitely tasted better the next day. I will keep searching for stewed tomatoes but even if I don’t find them, I would make this again.

Our side dishes were grilled pumpkin and swiss chard. The pumpkin, he simply sliced about ¼ in thick (takes a sharp knife and lots of muscle), grilled on the stovetop, and drizzled with olive oil (what else?) just before serving. The swiss chard was very interesting. I always thought chard was a bitter thing, one step worse than cooked spinach. Turns out, it’s quite mild, and when cooked the way Chef Maurizio did, it’s become one of my favorite new veggies. I made it last week and it turned out great.

I went to my local veg market and found a gigantic bundle of swiss chard. I asked to buy half of it. The vendor looked at me like I was crazy and simply shook his head “no”, stuffed the whole thing in a big plastic bag, and charged me a whopping 95 centimes for it (about $1.25). Upon bringing it home, Dennis undid the tie holding it together and it exploded into what appeared to be enough swiss chard for about 20 people. Dennis diligently washed it all…..it being very dirty…….a sign of being fresh from the field, and sliced it crosswise into about one inch strips. It took two large bowls to hold it all. It looked like we were going to be eating swiss chard for a week. I boiled a pot of water, and as I added handful after handful of chopped chard to the water, it shrank and shrank just like spinach does. I needed to serve 5 people for dinner, and there was barely enough!

After it wilts, strain through a colander, and press out the excess liquid. In a small saucepan, bring some water to a boil, throw in a handful of raisins, and remove from the heat to let the raisins soften and plump up. Drain. In a skillet, over high heat, melt some butter, (no olive oil!) add in the drained raisins and a handful of pine nuts. Saute to brown the pine nuts a little, being careful not to let them burn. Turn down the heat, and add the well-drained swiss chard. Stir it around to warm it up, and that’s it. The chard is soft, the pine nuts are crunchy, the raisins are sweet….it’s a lovely combination of goodness. And the nice thing is you can cook the swiss chard ahead, and do the reheating with raisins and pine nuts when your guests arrive. Just be sure you buy enough chard.

Well, Barbee and I managed to eat all of the above, along with bread and wine, on top of the lunch which I discussed in last week’s blog. Truly, a phenomenal eating day! We really felt that we could never eat again. But the next day was our pasta making lesson! And once again, we were expected to eat what we made.

Next week:

Barbee and Irene hit the pasta table with broomsticks. Really!