Regarding The Olive Garden Restaurants

For some reason this spring I began to receive requests for the Olive Garden's Zuppa Toscana. I wasn't able to help because there aren't any Olive Garden Restaurants in Italy -- the chain seems to be American -- and their website just has pretty pictures, but no hints of a recipe. When I was in the US due to a family health crisis in June I went to the Olive Garden in the local mall. My reaction? Well, despite the décor, it's not Italian. The meal began with a heaping bowl of salad, which would have been Italian but for the pickled green peppers (Italians generally use peppers as they come from the plant in salads, and serve pickled peppers, sliced, with bland foods such as boiled chicken), and soft garlicky breadsticks of a kind I have never seen before. This was followed by a combination entrée consisting of fettuccine Alfredo, lasagna, and a fried breaded chicken breast with tomato and cheese slathered over it. Then dessert, with an espresso that had a twist of lemon in it. The wine was a woody California Cabernet that was rather like a bubble -- initially mouth filling but then collapsing to nothing.

To begin with, there's the order of the presentation: Italian meals begin with an antipasto (recipes on and off site), followed by a first course (pasta or soup) followed by an entrée with one or more side dishes, and dessert -- often fruit or cheese, even in restaurants. Salad (of that kind) counts as a side dish, and never appears to start things off. The combination platter was, well, unbalanced -- lots of carbohydrates, quite a bit of fat, some proteins, and no greens. It's true that there were greens in the meal, in the salad, but most Italians expect to have them with their main course. Also, there was much too much pasta -- either the lasagne or the fettuccine would have been quite sufficient. I could easily have forgone the dessert but it looked (and was) good, though thoroughly American. Coffee with a twist of lemon peel, if you're not used to it, is quite odd.

Getting down to the specifics of the entrée, the lasagna was ricotta based, and would have been fine had the tomato sauce not been quite sweet. The fettuccine Alfredo were very rich and I found them lacking -- a mild cream sauce with just a little cheese can be good with stuffed pasta where it complements the flavors of the ingredients in the filling, but for plain flat pasta it's really not enough. Some minced ham might have been nice, together with a lot more Parmigiano and a dusting of black pepper. The chicken breast? The tomato sauce was again too sweet. And I'm not sure what it or the cheese were doing there; the breast would have been more interesting had it been butterflied, pounded flat (it was rather thick), breaded, fried, and served with a lemon wedge and a sprig of parsley as a garnish.

Was the experience a total loss? No; the waiters were pleasant and courteous, and I've eaten much worse over here on occasion. But it wasn't Italian, any more than Aunt Jemima's is Vermont maple syrup.

Last thing: I did see Zuppa Toscana, and with Teresa's note saying "it contains spicy sausage, russet potatoes, and cavolo greens according to their menu,"I have what I need to see if I can track down the Italian soup that inspired it.

Vitello Tonnato

In the meantime, Lee recently wrote"How about Vitelo al Tonno? Not easy to find but so....delicious."Many thanks to him for reminding me; Vitello tonnato is one of THE classic summer dishes, and is also the traditional centerpiece of the Ferragosto dinner in Milano (Ascension Day, August 16).

This recipe is from Fabbri Editore's "Il Manuale delle Carni,"a compilation assembled by the editors of La Cucina Italiana, one of Italy's foremost food magazines. It takes a while to make but is well worth it.

To serve 6-8 you will need:

• 2 1/4 pounds boned veal, cut from the rump.
• 3/4 pounds tuna packed in oil
• 3 eggs
• 6 salted anchovies (the canned variety, sold by delicatessens)
• A handful of pickled capers
• 1/2 cup (approx.) olive oil
• 1 tablespoon white vinegar
• A bottle of dry white wine
• The juice of a lemon
• A rib of celery, thinly sliced crosswise
• A few leaves of sage
• 2 bay leaves
• 3 cloves (some people omit these)
• Salt
• A few more perfect capers, some lemon slices, and sprigs of parsley for garnishing

Put the meat in a bowl with the bay leaves, cloves, sage and celery, and pour the wine over it. Cover and marinate in the refrigerator for 24 hours, turning the meat occasionally. The next day place the meat in a Dutch oven. Strain the wine and add it to the meat, then add enough water to cover. Lightly salt the pot and simmer the meat for an hour. In the meantime, wash, scale and bone the anchovies. When the hour is up add them to the pot and continue boiling for another half hour; the liquid should be reduced by half.

Hard boil the eggs, run them under cold water, peel them, and extract the yolks (you can discard or fill the whites as you prefer). Rinse, squeeze dry, and mince the capers.

When the meat is fork-tender remove it from the pot and strain the broth into a bowl. Transfer the fish filets to a clean strainer and press them through it, together with the tuna and the yolks, into another bowl. Stir in the minced capers, the vinegar, the lemon juice and the olive oil, and then dilute the sauce to your taste with some of the reserved broth.

When the veal has cooled slice it finely and lay the slices out on one or more platters (you want just one layer). Spread the sauce over the meat, garnish the platters with the lemon slices, capers and parsley. Cover them with plastic wrap and chill them in the refrigerator before serving.

A printer friendly version of the recipe.

Millefoglie, or: Happy Birthday!

Winding down, Claudia recently wrote: "I've been looking for the name of and how to make a dessert I had while in Italy. It is a cake made from a philo type dough, and it has a layer of chocolate cream and a layer of vanilla cream. I don't remember if it had frosting though. I had it on my 13th birthday, and my 24th is coming up soon and I'd like to make it. Both my parents are from Italy, but neither can remember what it was called."

I replied that it sounds like Millefoglie, my brother-in-law's favorite birthday cake, and she said "Bingo!"So, wishing her the happiest of 24ths, here is a recipe from Fernanda Gosetti's "Il Dolcissimo"

You'll need:

• Frozen puff pastry dough, thawed according to the instructions on the package (or make your own using 2 1/2 cups flour, 1 1/4 cups butter, and a pinch of salt (James Beard gives excellent instructions, as does The Art of Eating well, my translation of Artusi).
• For the fillings and decorations:
• 1 1/3 cups very fresh cream, chilled
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup peeled almonds
• 3 yolks
• Some powdered sugar
• 5 tablespoons dry Marsala
• 4 Savoiardi cookies (you can use 8 ladyfingers if need be)
• A lightly buttered pan

Preparation time: About an hour, plus the time necessary for the cream and pastry to cool. Cooking time on the stove: 5 minutes. Baking time in 450 degree (220 C) oven: 20 minutes.

Begin by preheating oven to about 460 F. Cut the puff pastry into three equally sized pieces, and roll them out to somewhat less than a third of an inch -- the sheets can be round or square as you prefer. Since the sheets will shrink (widthwise) as they cook, roll them out somewhat larger than you want the finished cake to be. They'll shrink less if you let them rest a half hour before baking them. Once the first is ready, bake it for 20 minutes in the oven, and in the meantime prepare the next, then bake it and do the third. Let them cool, and dust the one that looks nicest with powdered sugar (it will go on top).

While the dough is baking you should begin preparing the filling: Mince the almonds and lightly toast them. Pour the three yolks into a small pot, preferably of untinned copper, stir in the sugar, and continue stirring with a wooden spoon until the mixture is almost white. Next, stir in the Marsala, a few drops at a time. Set the pot over a very low flame or on top of a double boiler and stir gently until the cream has thickened, then pour it into a clean bowl and let it cool, stirring occasionally.

Crush the savoiardi and combine them with the minced almonds. The next step is the assembly of the millefoglie; you should undertake it shortly before serving time lest the pastry absorb moisture and soften. Pour the cream into a bowl and whip it to firm snowy peaks, then gently fold it into the cream. Place the first sheet of puff pastry on the serving dish spread 1/3 third of the filling over it, lay the second sheet of pastry over it, and spread half the remaining filling over it. Cover with the third, sugary disk. Use a spatula to spread the remaining filling over the sides of the cake, then dust the sides with the almond-savoiardi mixture so as to cover the cream. Remove any stray crumbs from the serving plate and set the cake in a cool place until serving time.

Note: The cream suggested can be substituted by whatever custard you refer, or even simple whipped cream, which gains considerable grace with the addition of wild strawberries. Fernanda also suggests slicing the millefoglie into 1 by 2.5-inch slices with a very sharp knife, and serving them individually -- these are the classic millefoglie portions we often buy from the pastry shop around the corner when we're invited out to dinner and bring pastries.

A printer friendly version of the recipe.

Thanks for visiting, and have a wonderful day!
Kyle Phillips

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