{"id":6600,"date":"2019-03-24T16:57:29","date_gmt":"2019-03-24T22:57:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/villasentieri.com\/?p=6600"},"modified":"2023-04-26T17:54:35","modified_gmt":"2023-04-27T00:54:35","slug":"calabria-dispatch-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/villasentieri.com\/index.php\/2019\/03\/24\/calabria-dispatch-15\/","title":{"rendered":"Calabria Dispatch #15: Butter and Sugar and Lard, Oh My!"},"content":{"rendered":"

March 24, 2019<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve done a bit of bread and pastry throughout the course but for a week starting on March 11th that was our (nearly) exclusive focus.\u00a0 We also had four additional students join us.\u00a0 Annie, a pastry chef from the Philippines who was at the Italian Culinary Institute for Gelato Week, also stayed for Pastry Week.\u00a0 Three Air Force personnel came for Pastry Week.\u00a0 Each was a personal assistant, working for one, high-ranking Air Force officer.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Chef Juan demonstrating the preparation of the dough for Piadina.<\/span><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The personal assistants do all the tasks of an executive assistant, like maintaining schedules and organizing their bosses\u2019 activities, but they also maintain his\/her uniforms (and business suits if he\/she is required to wear civilian business attire as part of his\/her Air Force duties); keep all areas of their bosses\u2019 house that could be seen by guests in perfect shape; cook meals; and plan, execute, and serve dinner parties.\u00a0 They were a nice addition to our group.\u00a0 Their dedication and precision were awe-inspiring.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The view from the Pastry Lab. I can (and do) spend hours working in the pastry lab. I love the view.<\/span><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

They were always the first to volunteer to try out ANYTHING and they were meticulous to the point of near perfection\u2014even with tasks they had never attempted before (like laminating puff pastry and rolling it into a perfect rectangle!).<\/p>\n

\"\"
Having a bit of fun during a lesson.<\/span><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Apparently, when they go through culinary training in the Air Force, the accuracy of their dice is tested by passing diced vegetables through screens of various sizes to confirm that they are able to consistently create perfect diced vegetables.\u00a0 They were all really excited about incorporating Italian techniques and foods into their cooking.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Chef Juan holding dough for Mantovane, colored red with beet powder, and sporting his “serial killer” look.<\/span><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We had a crazy day of demonstrations and hands-on work on the 11th, including:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Pane Carasau, a crispy flat bread from Sardinia that I love and now know how to make<\/li>\n
  2. \u201cItalian\u201d Muffins (Chef John\u2019s take on \u201cEnglish\u201d Muffins\u2014not Italian at all but fun to make nonetheless\u2014and in a strange way not too dissimilar from Tuscan testarolli, of which there are several versions.)<\/li>\n
  3. Piadina, a flat bread (which we never finished because Chef Juan didn\u2019t like the way the dough turned out)<\/li>\n
  4. Rosette (Roman bread rolls incised with a \u201crose\u201d design on top)<\/li>\n
  5. Hot Dog and Hamburger buns (obviously also not Italian)<\/li>\n
  6. Mantovane<\/li>\n
  7. Pane Arabo<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    \"\"
    Pane Carasau, rolled and ready to bake.<\/span><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    Chef John also demonstrated, and then we ate for lunch, a Piemontese pasta called Tajarin (dialect for tagliolini) made with an absurd amount of egg yolk.\u00a0 It\u2019s something like 40 egg yolks for 2.2 pounds of flour.\u00a0 (It makes you wonder what all the whites were being used for.\u00a0 I vaguely remember from early in the course that the whites were used, a long time ago, for clarifying wine.)\u00a0 He also made Candereli, potato dumplings from Alto Adige that are basically the dough for a potato gnocchi stuffed with a meat filling.<\/p>\n

    \"\"
    Maestro Caridi making pasta frolla using the technique taught to him by his grandmother.<\/span><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    Maestro Paolo Caridi (Facebook<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>), one of Italy\u2019s top Pastry Chefs, joined us for two absolutely amazing days demonstrating how to make an amazing array of Italian pastries, sweet breads and confections, some pan-Italian and some local Calabrese treats.<\/p>\n

    \"\"
    You can make out the shape of the shell-on hard-boiled eggs encased in short crust pastry in Masetro Caridi’s “I Cudduraci.”<\/span><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    I was pleased to discover that my cannoli recipe was very similar to his (smile) though he has the advantage of being able to fill his cannoli with sweetened sheep\u2019s milk ricotta which is unavailable in Santa Fe.\u00a0 I\u2019ve even tried to buy sheep\u2019s milk in Santa Fe to make my own ricotta but can\u2019t find a source.<\/p>\n

    \"\"
    Salvatore Mauro gets to roll out dough for cannoli shells with lots of experts watching him!<\/span><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    He made egg-shaped confections (Uovo Sodo Goloso) consisting of a \u201cyolk\u201d of marzipan surrounded by a \u201cwhite\u201d of white chocolate and pistachio paste. Using almond paste would have produced a more appropriate color for the \u201cwhite\u201d but he likes pistachios and they are a typical Calabrian product.\u00a0 They also add an amazing flavor contrast to the marzipan center.\u00a0 It was topped with melted white chocolate.\u00a0 He made these treats by emptying out egg shells and filling them with the various mixtures.<\/p>\n

    \"\"
    Maestro Caridi pipes pistachio paste into egg shells for an Easter confection.<\/span><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    Colomba was, perhaps, the highlight of the two days.\u00a0 Essentially (this is an approximation but not far off) it is Panettone baked in the shape of a dove.\u00a0 Panettone is a very rich sweet bread with candied fruits and\/or raisins that is traditionally served at Christmas.\u00a0 Colomba is the Easter equivalent.\u00a0 This was a two-day project (mostly due to the multiple rises of the dough) that I feel I could execute where it not for the fact that I don\u2019t have Lievito Madre (Mother Yeast).<\/p>\n

    \"\"
    Maestro Caridi demonstrates the classic way to shape baba: flipping a mass of dough until a small round bubble is formed and squeezed off into the baba mold.<\/span><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    Mother Yeast is a pre-ferment made with natural yeast.\u00a0 It is similar to sourdough starter except that the final product isn\u2019t sour.\u00a0 Other types of pre-ferment are made with commercial yeast.\u00a0 If all goes well, it takes about a month to make a respectable Mother Yeast.\u00a0 Maestro Caridi demonstrated how to create and maintain one.\u00a0 He has been keeping his going for 25 years with DAILY\u2014yep, daily not weekly\u2014feedings.\u00a0 Try that without a staff of workers!\u00a0 You\u2019d have to take it on vacation with you.\u00a0 Explain THAT to TSA!<\/p>\n

    \"\"
    After its first 24 hour rise, the dough for colomba had quadrupled in size.<\/span><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    Apparently, there is no substitute for Lievito Madre in this particular product and it\u2019s not allowed to be called Colomba if commercial yeast is used.\u00a0 Nonetheless, I am going to totally hack this recipe and use commercial yeast for my first go-round.\u00a0 I\u2019m going to do this mostly because ratios of eggs and butter to flour are exceedingly high.\u00a0 It\u2019s possible that the whole dough might just separate.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to have spent a month cultivating Lievito Madre only to have the bread dough turn into a disaster.<\/p>\n

    \"\"
    Despite the massive amounts of butter and eggs in colomba dough, the dough must have enough gluten to pass the “windowpane” test. That is, it must be able to be stretched thin enough to see through without breaking.<\/span><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    If the colomba, and by association panettone and pandoro (which is like panettone but without dried or candied fruit) work out, it might be what finally compels me to maintain my own natural yeast starter.<\/p>\n

    \"\"
    Three possible ways to fill colomba molds, clockwise from top: three pieces of dough, two pieces of dough overlapped, one piece of dough down the middle which will fill the “wings” as it rises.<\/span><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    In addition, Maestro Caridi demonstrated the following:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. I Cudduraci, a sweet short crust pastry filled with shell-on hardboiled eggs, covered with another layer of crust, and lavishly decorated.\u00a0 Apparently, this is a traditional Calabrese pastry that a woman makes for her fianc\u00e9.\u00a0 The size of the pastry and number of eggs is supposed to correlate with the degree of \u201camore!\u201d<\/li>\n
    2. La pitta ‘mpigliata, a traditional Calabrian sweetbread stuffed with candied fruits and spices.\u00a0 It is very rich.\u00a0 Traditionally it is given by a man to his fianc\u00e9.\u00a0 You guessed it, the larger it is\u2026<\/li>\n
    3. Agnello al forno, an almond short crust pastry in the shape of a lamb filled with candied fruits and nuts.<\/li>\n
    4. Agnello di marzapane, a lamb made out of marzipan.\u00a0 This is Italy, near Easter, after all, hence all the lamb shapes and Easter breads.<\/li>\n
    5. Bab\u00e0, small yeast-risen breads soaked in rum syrup.<\/li>\n
    6. Bocconotto, small filled pastries.\u00a0 In this case, Masetro Caridi used a cream filling.<\/li>\n
    7. Fraguni, open-faced pastries filled with ricotta and salame that were originally carried as lunch for workers in Calabria.<\/li>\n
    8. Croccante, basically almond brittle<\/li>\n
    9. Torrone, Similar to croccante but without the sugar being cooked as dark.<\/li>\n
    10. Marzipan sweets, basically marzipan stabilized with a little flour, butter and egg white then rolled and baked.\u00a0 Adding a little baking powder makes them crunchy.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
      \"\"
      The dough for colomba is almost a goo due to the proportion of butter and eggs.<\/span><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

      After Maestro Caridi finished his two days, we had a crazy day in the Pastry Kitchen with Chef John and Chef Juan doing a tag team performance\u2026er, demonstration.\u00a0 They were simultaneously preparing dishes with instructions being shouted out between them like a yodel bouncing back from a facing hillside.<\/p>\n

      \"\"
      One of the Air Force personal assistants made this wonderful hazelnut and chocolate “pie” for pie day.<\/span><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

      It was almost impossible to keep my notes straight but after weeks of practice with Chef John cooking multiple dishes as the same time, with me flipping back and forth between pages to get the instructions associated with the correct recipe, I just had to adjust my technique to directions being shouted out almost simultaneously for two different recipes from two different chefs.\u00a0 Also, since Chef John hates down time, he would start yet another recipe while waiting for the previous one.\u00a0 I often had three or four recipes being recorded at the same time.<\/p>\n

      \"\"
      Maestro Caridi has a collection of lamb molds some of which are 200 years old. He brought a few for his lesson.<\/span><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

      That day we got experience with:<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Pasta Sfoglia (puff pastry)<\/li>\n
      2. Italian meringue<\/li>\n
      3. Italian buttercream in two flavors, one vanilla and one hazelnut<\/li>\n
      4. Pizzette (tiny pizza to be served as a snack)<\/li>\n
      5. A brownie-like creation with abundant nuts but no flour<\/li>\n
      6. Cornetti, the Italian version of croissants but definitely different<\/li>\n
      7. Pasta Frolla, a short crust pastry for tarts<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
        \"\"
        Maestro Caridi soaking baba in rum syrup.<\/span><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

        Friday morning was a market day, as usual.\u00a0 The weekly open-air market in Soverato has really been picking up over the past few weeks:\u00a0 more vendors, a larger array of produce, more customers.\u00a0 I will definitely miss the array of foods available once I get home.\u00a0 I\u2019m even enjoying the chaos of the market.\u00a0 Though I don\u2019t speak much Italian, and I can\u2019t understand a word of the local dialect, I know enough to make a purchase and occasionally trade a sentence or two back and forth with a vendor.<\/p>\n

        \"\"
        Gerard and Tommy discover that it isn’t so easy to shape baba using the traditional method.<\/span><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

        Friday afternoon there were a few demonstrations back at school:\u00a0 Frollini (a sweet pastry that can be baked on its own or filled), Chocolate Mousse, Chocolate Ganache and a range of Monoportion Cakes (basically, in this instance, thin sponge cakes cut into shapes and layered with buttercream and covered with glaze (or not).<\/p>\n

        \"\"
        Maestro Caridi’s Fraguni: worker’s pastry filled with ricotta cheese and salame.<\/span><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

        Afterwards, we each had to make a batch of pasta sfoglia (puff pastry).\u00a0 I don\u2019t imagine that I\u2019m likely to make it again but I felt like I did a credible job, never having done it before.\u00a0 The first step is rolling butter into a perfect square, which I did by placing it on parchment paper then folding the edges of the paper over to make a square.\u00a0 It was then pretty easy to roll the butter to the folded edges creating a perfect square.<\/p>\n

        \"\"
        Four of the possible ways to enclose the butter when making pasta sfoglia.<\/span><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

        The butter went into the refrigerator while I rolled out the dough into a much larger square.\u00a0 The sides of the square of dough had to be the length of the butter measured from corner to corner so that when the butter was put on the dough rotated 45 degrees, the four corners of dough could be folded over encasing the butter but not overlapping.<\/p>\n

        \"\"
        Mixing colomba in our workhorse of a mixer. Certain breads cannot be made without a machine. Whether that machine is powered by electricity or not is a different issue but there were machines before electricity.<\/span><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

        It\u2019s then a matter of putting the butter on the dough, folding the dough over the butter then going through a series of successive folds of the whole thing, rolling and chilling between each, to achieve a block of pastry with 576 different layers after four successive folds.\u00a0 With one more fold, you\u2019d end up with 2304 layers but by then there is a real risk of having each layer be so thin that the butter leaks out.<\/p>\n

        \"\"
        During pastry week we were joined by an alumnus of the program, Chef Jordan. Jordan made an amazing fried chicken dinner for us.<\/span><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

        There were no further plans to use the pasta sfoglia.\u00a0 We were to just have the experience of making it.\u00a0 It all got put in the freezer while we took a one-day break.\u00a0 However, the pastry came in very handy during the menu execution that started the day after Pastry Week ended after Chef John made a last minute \u201csuggestion\u201d to improve one of our dishes.<\/p>\n

        \"\"
        Colomba cut to reveal the very irregular holes that result from using Lievito Madre. This is one of the ways to distinguish artisan colomba from mass-produced colomba.<\/span><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

        Stay tuned\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        March 24, 2019 We\u2019ve done a bit of bread and pastry throughout the course but for a week starting on March 11th that was our (nearly) exclusive focus.\u00a0 We also had four additional students join us.\u00a0 Annie, a pastry chef from the Philippines who was at the Italian Culinary Institute for Gelato Week, also stayed … Continue reading Calabria Dispatch #15: Butter and Sugar and Lard, Oh My!<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6603,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","wpupg_custom_link":[],"wpupg_custom_link_behaviour":["default"],"wpupg_custom_link_nofollow":[],"wpupg_custom_image":[],"wpupg_custom_image_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[363],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people-and-places"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/villasentieri.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/villasentieri.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/villasentieri.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/villasentieri.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/villasentieri.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6600"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"http:\/\/villasentieri.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7474,"href":"http:\/\/villasentieri.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6600\/revisions\/7474"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/villasentieri.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/villasentieri.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/villasentieri.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/villasentieri.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}