Pandora wrote:

> Hello group.
> As promised, here is the recipe for the Bagna Cauda,
> kindly provided by my boyfriend Davide.
>
> Pandora.
>
> -----------------------------------------
>
> BAGNA CAUDA [literal: "Warm Sauce"]
> by Davide Pastore, 2005
>
> Pronunciation: something like "Baa?ah Kaawdah", where the "?"

bah-nya cow-dah

> 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....").

This is a funny comparison. I can see adults standing on the side of a
road trying to make that noise...

> 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.

From where my grandparents came. It was a monthly dinner with us for
decades. Over time, they adapted it to the vegetables most readily
available where we lived in New Jersey. They also extended what went
with it and how to eat it.

> 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.

The ceremony of eating it is in the spirit of a fondue.

> INGREDIENTS
>
> 1) Anchovies (I use the ones preserved in oil, although 99%
> of the recipes require salted ones)

Traditionally, salted anchovies were a condiment in their own right and
seen as a salt substitute with an extra little flavor element.

> 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.

50-50 butter and a milder olive oil in our house. We found all butter or
all oil not flavored in as balanced a way. Some of our relatives use
cream in theirs, but I find it a bit too bland. Just my tastes, though.

> 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]

One ounce of garlic cloves is about 5 of them (I just weighed some).

Anchovies will come in a package that tells you the weight contained.
You can estimate from there.

> 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).

For oil, figure roughly one ounce per ounce (although it's actually
slightly less). That is if you need 4 ounces by weight, 4 ounces by
volume is close enough. Butter is easier; the packages tell you the weights.

> [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.

I'd say 1 1/2 pounds total weight per person assuming all adults. Kids
and older people will eat less. Football players, stonecutters and
loggers will eat more.

> 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).

Salted ones as mentioned here are the dry-salted anchovies. They're
available in the U.S., but oil-packed ones are much more common.

> 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]

And because people like that salty note in food. My Sicilian
grandparents used dry-salted anchovies in their cooking with just a
quick rinse.

> 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.

A bit too fastidious, I'd say. For all the garlic I've eaten, I don't
recall ever having "a "bad mouth" for days thereafter." YMMV

> 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]

My grandmother did this with raw milk from our cows, cream still in it.
She cooked the milk after straining the garlic out and reduced it to
about 1/4 of the original volume. It went into other dishes, most often
creamy sauces for pasta or over polenta piled with stewed chicken as a
flavoring ingredient.

She was a school teacher in Italy and he was a blacksmith before they
came to the U.S., both from frugal peasant stock. Waste nothing.

> 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).

Cardoons are related to artichokes but are rather rare in the U.S.

> - 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).

Jerusalem artichokes.
For a similar, crunchy texture, try water chestnuts or slices of jicama.

> - salad, lettuce, cabbage, radish, etc.

Steamed broccoli florets
Endive leaves

> and any other dippable, comestible 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!]

And in our house, the BC isn't just a dip. It's also spooned over other
foods. There's always a bowl of pasta (macaroni of some sort, cooked,
drained, buttered, hot to table), cold poached shrimp, breads (usually a
crusty one and another like a foccacia with olives baked into it or one
with salt, basil and rosemary), meatballs (veal with very little
seasoning); occasionally - hot baked clams or pieces of fish, grilled
slices of eggplant and zucchini, chunks of lobster tail and claw meat
(we got them ourselves at their summer place on the ocean back in the day).

> 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).

This is a bit strong a description. It's highly scented, but mine
doesn't seem to be quite this pungent.

> 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).

A good, heavy metal fondue pot or ceramic caquelin as for cheese fondue
will work.

> 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.

Heat really needs to be VERY low, as Davide says. Otherwise you scorch
the garlic and it becomes very bitter.

> 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.

In recent years, I've taken to using a wand blender to break up the
pieces so the cooking goes more easily. I still cook it long enough, but
that constant stirring is minimized a bit. The finished dip is smoother
this way and, as far as I can see, doesn't damage or reduce the quality
or mouthfeel. It still tastes good and it feels good with the other
foods. And it will pull together a mixture with a small amount too much
oil and spare you the puddle problem.

> [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 lower 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.

Any *adjustable* rechaud for fondue can work if you set it at its lowest
heat. You're not cooking at table, merely sustaining the heat already in
there. A candle as for a chocolate fondue is better. Stir it to prevent
even the slightest scorching.

> 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!!

This is how we do it in our family. No double-dipping. No fingers in the
BC.

For guests, we put out small dishes that look like Japanese soup bowls
and let guests spoon some of the BC into theirs. That bowl sits on
another, larger flat dish onto which people can put whatever they want
from the trays in the center of the table. For example, spoon some pasta
on the plate and drizzle a little BC over top. Parmesan or not as they
choose.

> 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]

My grandfather (and his friends, all at least in their 60's by the time
I knew them, called themselves "gli ragazzi" - the boys) made all the
wines we drank. For this meal, it was almost always a slightly rough
one. The intensity of the flavors of the foods meant that subtle, fine
wines would be wasted, as Davide says.

> 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!)

Wonderful post. A good glimpse into a different way of looking at food
than is usually the case in the U.S. (and most any other country I've
been to).

Mille grazie...

Pastorio