On Apr 29, 4:40�am, Mike Tommasi wrote:
IanH wrote:

I was trolling around looking to enlarge my range of mussel recipes
when I happened upon Patrick Chazalet's site and his mussel "risotto"
recipe. I was pleased to see yours! And sufficiently amused to see the
outraged "who is this guy daring to criticise P.C." comments �that I
wrote in myself. I had wanted to do it tonight, but Jacquie has said a
very firm "no", so I shall be cooking a more conventional mouclade but
with a touch of saffron, and (dragging this kicking and screaming back
on topic) serving it with a Mikulski 2002 Meursault-Genevri�res.
--
All the best
Fatty from Forges

Dear FfF

I am great friends with P.C., but like to intervene whenever he proposes
overly francisized (?) versions of italian cuisine... :-)

Cooking should be something that gives free reign to the imagination, so
far be it from me to bring up dogmatic notions of tradition and so on,
but... there is a limit. Imagination will be enhanced, rather than
hindered, if one has a minimum of "culture" about a cooking genre.
Keeping in mind that I am an italian living in France by choice, and
that I love much of french culture and cuisine, here a

My Pet Peeves about the French Rearranging Italian Recipes

Risotto - italian rice (the japonica type, also found spain, egypt,
japan) has a definite cooking time, you need not taste for "doneness" as
the french recommend, only for taste and salt, as vialone rice cooks to
perfection in 15 minutes, carnaroli and arborio in 17. Plus or minus 1
minute according to how "al dente" you like it. The french tend to like
it not al dente at all, so they cook it beyond recognition for 20 or
more minutes. In italian this is referred to as soup, or gelatin.

Risotto II - italian rice becomes creamy thanks to the starch it
releases. This is the reason why you never rinse rice (like the japanese
do) for risotto. The french think the creaminess comes by adding cr�me
fra�che. If you are going to cook risotto in a funny way and add cream,
call it something else, call it riso gallico or something. It might even
be good, but it is too far off to be called risotto. BTW, japanese
koshihikari rice makes great risotto, try it with shiitake mushrooms
prepared like you would a risotto di porcini.

Spaghetti carbonara - this staple that has kept many a student alive
through his studies is extremely simple and fast to prepare. You quickly
drain the cooked pasta, and while hot (but not over the fire) you pour
onto it egg yolks and fried bacon bits with lots of pepper and grated
pecorino or parmigiano and some olive oil, letting the heat of the pasta
gently cook the egg until it's creamy. The trick is to get it creamy, if
you miss it will dry up. In France, somebody has decided that one needs
to put lots of onions and... guess what! Cr�me fra�che again! No
guessing with how much to cook the egg yolk, just throw cream. And with
the onions and cream and egg, it looks like somebody threw up on your
plate. Most unattractive and unpleasant in the mouth.

Polenta - with the discovery of maize in America, polenta quickly spread
to Italy and singlehandedly solved famine problems (but not vitamin
deficiencies). It is by definition something that accompanies other
foods, you would not eat bread or potatoes alone... So polenta typically
goes along with roast meats or grilled fish, and much like bread or
potatoes you use it to soak up the juices of the meat. It consists of
cornmeal, water and salt. PERIOD. Leave it to the french to a) make it
runny, b) add cheese, pepper and all kinds of flavours. This is
seriously missing the point. The flavour comes from the other items on
the plate, the polenta must remain fairly neutral, other than its
peculiar aroma of slightly burnt maize.

Cappuccino - in France, short of being in a real hip place, you will get
a coffee with a pile of whipped cream on top. Definitely not cappuccino,
which is made by foaming milk under a steam jet and adding it to the coffee.

--
Mike Tommasi - Six Fours, France
email linkhttp://www.tommasi.org/mymail

great post.
Mark, ordered a bottle of the Argiles, you made it sound tempting!