Important: Safety Warning
This recipe calls for animal brains or related nervous-system tissue. Cattle brain and spinal tissue can transmit bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), the cause of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans, which is fatal and has no treatment.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
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Bohemia of the Present: Gianduja
This was the case with us, one day when we were over at 1549 Stockton street, near Washington Square, at the Gianduja. The proper pronunciation of this is as if it were spelled Zhan-du-ya. This is one of the good Italian restaurants of the Latin quarter. At the Gianduja you get the two prime essentials to a good mealgood cooking and excellent service. It matters not whether you take their thirty-five cent luncheon or order a most elaborate meal, you will find that the service is just what it ought to be. We asked Brenti what he considered his most famous dish, and like all other proprietors, he shrugged his shoulders and said, with hands emphasizing his words: "We have so many fine dishes." "Of course we know that, but what do you consider the very best?" "There is no one the 'very best'. I could give you two." "Let it be two, then," was our immediate rejoinder, and here is what he gave us as the best recipes of the Gianduja.
First, let us give you an idea of the difficulty under which we secured these recipes by printing them just as he wrote them down for us, and then we shall elaborate a little and show the result of skillful questioning. This is the way he wrote the recipe for Risotto Milanaise: "Onions chop fine-marrow and little butter-rice-saffron-chicken brothwen cook add fresh butter and Parmesan cheese seasoned.
RISOTTO A LA MILANAISE What was embodied in the words "wen cook" was the essential of the recipe and here is the way we got it: Chop one large onion fine. Cut a beef marrow into small dice and stir it with the chopped onion. Put a small piece of butter in a frying pan and into this put the onion and marrow and fry to a delicate brown. Now add one scant cup of rice, stirring constantly, and into this put a pinch of saffron that has been bruised. When the rice takes on a brown color add, slowly, chicken broth as needed, until the rice is thoroughly cooked. Then add a lump of fresh butter about the size of a walnut, and sprinkle liberally with grated Parmesan cheese, seasoning to taste with pepper and salt. This is to be served with chicken or veal.
The second recipe was for Fritto Misto, and he wrote it as follows: -- FRITTO MISTO "Lamb chops and brains breadedsweetbreads - escallop of veal fresh mushrooms-Italian squash when in season-asparagus or cauliflower-fried in fresh butter-dipped in beaten eggs-lime jus." "Fritto Misto" means fried mixture, and the recipe as we finally elucidated it is as follows:
Take a lamb chop, a piece of calf brain, one sweetbread, a slice of veal, a fresh mushroom, sliced Italian squash, a piece of asparagus or of cauliflower and dip these into a batter made of an egg well beaten with a little flour. Sprinkle these with a little lime juice and fry to a delicate brown in butter, adding salt and pepper to taste.
At the Gianduja, as at all other Italian restaurants not much affected by Americans, you will find an atmosphere of unconventionality that is delightful to the Bohemian. There is no irksome espionage on the part of other patrons, all of whom are there for the purpose of attending strictly to their own business, and the affairs of other diners are of no conse- IN THE HEART quence to them. There is freedom of expression and unconsciousness, most pleasing after having experienced those other restaurants where OF ITALY it seems to be the business of all the rest of the guests to know just what you are eating and drinking. There is little of the obnoxious posing that one finds in restaurants of the down-town districts, for while Italians, in common with all other Latins, are natural born poseurs, they are not offensive in it, but rather impress you with the same feeling as the antics of a child.
Two restaurant recipes rescued from a proprietor's shorthand, and both still work — the risotto in particular is a textbook Milanese, marrow and all. A few things need translating.
- The hinge: add the broth slowlyBrenti's "wen cook" hides the whole technique. The stock goes in a ladleful at a time, with near-constant stirring, each addition absorbed before the next; dumping it all in at once gives boiled rice, not risotto. Figure on roughly 3 to 3 1/2 cups hot chicken broth for the scant cup of rice, kept at a bare simmer in a second pan.
- The riceUse a short-grain Italian rice: Arborio, Carnaroli or Vialone Nano (the last two are post-war varieties). Long-grain rice will not release the starch that makes the dish creamy. What rice the Gianduja's kitchen actually used is not recorded.
- "When the rice takes on a brown color"Take this loosely. The grains should turn translucent at the edges with a chalky white center and smell faintly toasted, two or three minutes; actual browning means the pan is too hot.
- Beef marrowAsk a butcher for marrow bones and scoop the raw marrow out with a knife handle, or buy it cut. About 2 tablespoons diced is right for one cup of rice. Chilling the bones firms the marrow enough to dice cleanly.
- Saffron"A pinch" bruised means crushed threads — about a generous pinch, 15 to 20 threads. Steep them in a few tablespoons of the hot broth for ten minutes and add the liquid with the first ladleful; scattering dry threads into the pan gives uneven color.
- FinishingThe walnut-sized lump of butter and the cheese go in off the heat, beaten in hard — the mantecatura. The risotto should slump slowly when spooned onto a plate, not hold a mound. As written this serves two as a side to chicken or veal.
- "Lime jus"Almost certainly lemon. Italian limone is lemon, and lemon is what accompanies a fritto misto; squeeze it over the finished fry rather than before frying, as the recipe implies, or the coating goes soggy.
- Frying in butterWhole butter burns well before breaded veal and sweetbreads cook through. Use clarified butter, or butter cut with a neutral oil, at about 350F. The batter is thin — an egg beaten with a little flour — so it clings rather than puffs.
- Calf brainsBovine brain and spinal tissue from older cattle are classed as specified risk material and excluded from the food supply because of BSE -- over 30 months in the United States, over 12 months in the EU and UK -- so supply is restricted and rules vary by country; brain from young calves is still sold in some markets. If you leave it out, the fritto misto is complete without it; sweetbreads, veal, mushroom, squash and cauliflower carry the dish.
- SweetbreadsThey need soaking in several changes of cold water, then a brief poach, then peeling of the membrane and pressing under a weight before they are ready to bread. The original assumes a professional kitchen has already done this.
The Gianduja stood at 1549 Stockton Street on the edge of Washington Square, in the North Beach Italian quarter that Clarence Edwords was cataloguing for Bohemian San Francisco in 1914 — a city rebuilt after 1906 and eating better than ever. The name is Piedmontese: Gianduja is the masked stock character of Turin's carnival, and the same name attaches to the hazelnut-and-chocolate paste of that region, so the sign over the door announced a northern Italian house before a diner read the menu. Risotto alla milanese, yellow with saffron and enriched with beef marrow, is Milan's civic dish, traditionally served alongside osso buco rather than as a course of its own — hence the note in Edwords's worked-out version that it goes with chicken or veal. Fritto misto, literally "mixed fry," is found throughout Italy, including seafood versions on the coasts; every region kept its own roster, and the Piedmontese version ran heavily to sweetbreads, brains and lamb. Edwords's decision to print the proprietor's own scrawl before the worked-out version is the most valuable thing on the page: it shows what a restaurant recipe actually was in 1914, a list of nouns for a cook who already knew the method.