Hello group.
As promised, here is the recipe for the Bagna Cauda,
kindly provided by my boyfriend Davide.
Pandora.
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BAGNA CAUDA [literal: "Warm Sauce"]
by Davide Pastore, 2005
Pronunciation: something like "Baa?ah Kaawdah", where the "?"
stands for the peculiar letter group "gn" that has a totally
different sound in English (where you will pronounce it as it
were two well-separate letters g+n) than in Italian (where it
has a single, smooth sound, vaguely similar to the noise of
a fast passing car along a highway: "GGGNnnnnnn...."). If you
are familiar with French you probably already know how to
pronounce "Bagna", otherwise I'm at loss to explain it.
PHILOSOPHICAL PREFACE
Bagna Cauda (abbreviated as "BC" thereafter) is one of the
typical Piedmontese dishes. It is considered the "dish of
friendship", basically because you really can't stand the
proximity of a BC-eating folk if you are not a VERY good
friend of him! By the same token, you usually can't stand
being at the same table with BC-eating people if you don't
taste it (you need the first mouthful of BC to overcome
the garlic scent). It is usually a dinner dish, late in the
evening.
INGREDIENTS
1) Anchovies (I use the ones preserved in oil, although 99%
of the recipes require salted ones)
2) Garlic
3) Some kind of Fat, could be either: Olive Oil and/or Butter
and/or Milk and/or Cream, according to different schools of
thoughts. I use 50% oil and 50% butter. I will not recommend
Seed Oil or other fatty stuff, but you can experiment.
4) A LOT of assorted vegetables.
QUANTITIES
Anchovies and garlic - in the same weight, or about 3oz.-4oz.
[100g] of each for person for a full-size preparation (i.e. a
single dish, full-meal). You will obtain about enough BC to
fill a cup. For a first experiment, just-for-the-taste-of-it,
better to try with just 1oz. [25g] anchovies plus 1oz. [25g]
garlic, per person.
[note: real addicted people here require much more]
Oil etc. - "at least" the same weight as anchovies or garlic,
i.e. 3oz.-4 oz. [100g] for king-size, and 1oz. [25g] for first
tentative; "not more than" twice that quantity (i.e. 6oz.-8oz.
[200g] or 2oz. [50g]), per person. Exact weight is a matter of
fine alchemy and individual taste (see preparation below).
[note: if you want to use salted anchovies, you will need
somewhat more oil]
Vegetables - a lot, in the region of 1lb-2lb [500g-1kg] per
person. See below for details.
INITIAL PREPARATION
ANCHOVIES - the ones preserved in oil require really little
work: just open the can.
On the other hand, the salted ones require ACCURATE washing.
You need to totally eliminate any trace whatsoever of salt,
which will have soaked the anchovies. Wash, wash, wash, and
then wash a little more (and they will taste salted anyway).
If the anchovies come with their bones, these of course
have to be accurately eliminated as well.
[note: the traditional recipe requires salted anchovies for
the simple reason that a couple of centuries ago there was
no way of preserving them, short of salt]
GARLIC - eliminate the external skin of each clove, then cut
the clove in two in the "long" sense. You will note the
presence of an internal "anima" ("soul") somewhat separated
from the pulp (and maybe green-coloured, if the garlic is
a bit too old). Eliminate it, since it has a bitter taste,
leaves a "bad mouth" for days thereafter, and is difficult
to digest.
Cut and/or crush the remaining part of the cloves in little
pieces, then put them into a dish/cup/bowl and cover them
with milk. The scope of this action is "smoothing" the taste
of the garlic. Leave in the milk bath for some time (the
more the better! At the very least, a couple of hours) then
throw away the liquid. Don't add this liquid in the cooking
bowl, since by now its taste will be sour.
[note: this milk is in addition to the quantity of milk/
/oil/butter/cream listed above]
VEGETABLES - You don't exactly "eat" BC, you actually eat
the vegetables dipped into it. You can dip just anything,
we mainly use:
- red or yellow peppers, raw (or roasted over the fire,
according to taste), sliced.
- cauliflower, boiled, cut to pieces.
- potatoes, boiled, de-skinned and cut to pieces.
- cardoons (eliminate the hardest parts and put the softer
"heart" parts into a bowl, under water and a little lemon
juice).
- topinanbur (I really don't know how this ones are called
in English. In the first picture listed below they are the
yellowish-brown funny things in the foreground, on the
centre-right).
- salad, lettuce, cabbage, radish, etc.
and any other dippable, commestible thing that strikes your
fancy, including of course bread (you will strongly need
bread in the last phase, when you will feel a strong urge
to clean your dish from any remaining atom of BC).
[note: a typical local hors d'oeuvre is sliced roasted
peppers with a little BC over them. And try it on chips!]
COOKING
The scent of the cooking will inevitably permeate your
kitchen for some days thereafter. You will probably NOT
note it the morning after, but any guy who didn't have
previously tasted BC will!!! Maybe you want to do the
cooking outdoor, if you can (and maybe have the entire
meal outdoor, like a barbecue).
BC should be cooked only in its typical pottery bowl
called "Diàn" (prn. "Deeaan!"), with its characteristic
chocolate-brown exterior. I don't know if it can be found
in your country: it's a kind of little frying pan about
8in [20cm] diameter and 2in [5cm] high, in a single piece
with its pottery panhandle. Any sort of pottery bowl able
to stand the fire will do; as a last resort, try a metal
one, but I do nor guarantee the result (pottery has an
altogether different way of transmitting heat).
Put "a little" oil/butter in the bowl and start the fire.
Keep the fire VERY low!! When the oil is warm and/or the
butter is liquid, add the anchovies and the pieces of garlic.
From this time, the cooking is a matter of EYE! You will
stir constantly, never stopping, with your WOODEN spoon,
breaking and amalgamating anchovies and garlic with the
frying oil/butter/milk/cream, poured in the bowl little
by little as required. You need to obtain a soft, dense,
smooth, HOMOGENEOUS cream: too little oil and it will burn
(same if fire is too hot), too much oil and the result will
be a "hot oil soup", with some islands of BC sadly floating
into a sea of fat - not a very pleasant sight. Add oil
any time the sauce seems to "dry", and stir for some time
before adding it again.
Remember, you need a dense sauce, not a liquid soup.
[note: if something went wrong, and in the end there is
an obvious lake of oil inside your bowl, better eliminate
it with a spoon before serving in table]
At some time during the stirring (say, after 10-20 minutes
of cooking) you will note that the colour of the BC
(initially anchovy-brown) will more or less suddenly turn
to grey. This indicates that the cooking is done, and the
bowl can be served in table.
ON TABLE
BC has to be tasted hot or at least very warm, period.
It is served in ad-hoc pottery structures that contains
an upper floor for the sauce, and a lover floor for a
candle to keep it warm (see pictures). If you can't find
them, put at least a candle fire on the table under the
main bowl, and serve in each dish just a little hot BC
each time.
The vegetables will be distributed in the middle of the
table, for everyone to choose what he likes and dip it
into his own dish. In case of DEEP friendship or REAL
love amongst guests, you can eliminate the intermediate
step and just dip things all together into the main bowl!!
WINE
A strong Piedmontese dish, BC requires a strong
Piedmontese red wine. The choice is restricted to:
- Barbera
- Dolcetto
- Nebbiolo (or Nebiolo)
Barbera is usually the first choice, being the "normal",
"common" (and cheapest, and a bit "rude") wine here.
Dolcetto is somewhat more noble (and a bit more costly);
Nebbiolo is nobler and costlier still. Since the strong
garlic presence will by and large mask anything else, it
is useless to use a more precious wine than these three.
[note: the exceptionally good Barolo is actually made
with the very same Nebbiolo grapevine. However, it can
be called Barolo only if it grows in a very restricted
geographical zone. So, 99% of people will probably not
find much difference between a 100$ Barolo bottle and
a 10$ Nebbiolo bottle]
PICTURES
I have found on the Web these pictures, to give some idea
of the final result:
http://www.regione.piemonte.it/agri/...frutta/bcauda/
http://www.piemonte-online.com/cucin...bagnacauda.htm
http://www.mangiarebene.com/accademi...gna_cauda.html
http://www.taccuinistorici.it/ricett...ricetta_dove=3
I have also found another BC recipe in English:
www.italianmade.com/recipes/recipe75.cfm
Buon Appetito! (have a good meal!)
Davide