18 Good Taste Tuesday, June 22, 2010 ● Try this at home ● ● Good Taste ● Edited by Chloe Scott [email protected] Risotto with peas and bacon cream by Enrico and Roberto Cerea 1. In a large pot of water, blanch onion in 1tsp olive oil until soft. 6. Drain the remaining peas and 300g fresh peas, then drain and Add 320g Carnaroli risotto rice stir in with 50g butter and 60g chill in iced water. and stir with the onion until Grana Padano cheese. 2. Blitz 150g of the chilled and the rice is toasted. Add 7. To serve, divide drained peas in a blender with 120ml white wine, equally between Italians are 500ml beef stock and 6 mint stirring until 4 serving plates leaves until smooth. evaporated, then and squeeze 3. Finely chop 50g pancetta or add 500ml beef over some of the bacon and add to 100g double stock a little at bacon cream. The culinary new wave: cream. Bring the mixture to the a time. For the past decade, Spain boil and simmer for 10 minutes. 5. When the rice Enrico and Roberto Pass through a sieve, squeezing is three quarters Cerea are chef/ has been at the cutting edge with the back of a spoon to ensure cooked, add the proprietors of the three- of world gastronomy. But all bacon flavour remains in the pea, stock and mint Michelin-starred Ristorante cream. Pour into a soda siphon blend. Stir constantly until the da Vittorio near Bergamo, Italy. the Italians are shaking off and set aside. mixture develops a thick and Tel: 00 39 035 681024. their traditional image and 4. In a saucepan, fry ½ a chopped creamy texture. www.davittorio.com challenging the world’s finest for their crowns BY ANDY LYNES

t L’Atelier des Chefs cookery school in central London, chef Davide Scabin of Michelin-starred ACombal.Zero in Turin is serving sushi to a crowd of press and foodies. But there’s not a grain of rice in sight. Instead, Scabin serves slices of raw fish on large shells of high- quality Selezioni Monograno pasta. An Italian chef dishing up fusion food? It’s only one of many eye-opening events of the recent Identità International Chef Congress that showcased some of the biggest names in modern Italian cuisine. ‘There is no one Italian cuisine,’ says chef Massimo Bottura from the Identità demonstration stage at Vinopolis near London Bridge. ‘Ciccio Sultano of Il Duomo is cooking his own stuff in Sicily as Davide Scabin is doing in Piedmonte. So we have a very interesting mixture: our past and our experience projected on the future.’ Bottura (inset bottom) is poster boy for the Italian new wave; his two-Michelin- starred Osteria Francescana restaurant in Modena has recently been voted No.6 in the San Pellegrino World’s 50 Best list, which includes a further four Italian restaurants – Le Calandre, Combal.Zero, Dal Pescatore and Il Canto – that were all new or rising entries this year. While clever PR has doubtless played its part in bringing the restaurants to the notice of the list’s judges, it’s unquestionably an exciting time for Italian food. prompting to explain a new dish. ‘It started in the past ten years or so,’ Known as an iconoclast, Bottura often says Identità organiser and food journalist looks outside the world of cookery for Paolo Marchi. ‘We had our own food, of ideas, citing legendary jazz musician course, but Thelonious Monk and German artist fine dining and sculptor Joseph Beuys as was always inspiration for dishes such as French. In Snow Reflects The the second Sun, made with half of the a dazzling 1990s, we saw how array of good the new Spanish ingredients cuisine was and realised it is possible including blended to do good food without it being French.’ semi-raw potatoes, Marchi (bottom right) staged the first creamed Jerusalem artichokes, toasted Identità Golose congress in Milan in hazelnuts, black truffle, ground coffee 2005, modelled on the Madrid Fusión beans, snails and sweet garlic foam. culinary summit, which helped put ‘My way of cooking is global, with cutting-edge Spanish chefs such as Ferran your feet on the Earth and flying with Adrià of El Bulli and Andoni Aduriz your mind. Knowing everything and of Mugaritz at the forefront of forgetting about everything: this global cuisine. Since then, the is avant garde,’ says Bottura. line-up of international chefs has ‘Knowing everything means to grown from 18 to 54, and this travel a lot and be open to all the year Marchi took the format to different techniques, then bring London and Shanghai. them back and act locally.’ ‘It was the right time to create His latest creation is inspired the congress, a theatre to allow by Argentinian installation Italian chefs to explain their ideas,’ artist Leandro Erlich’s says Marchi. work Swimming Pool, Bottura needs little which uses a layer of Tuesday, June 22, 2010 Good Taste 19

Celebrate Wimbledon fortnight in style with a limited-edition Best of the blogs bottle of Lanson Black Label NV champagne, complete with themed cooler. Available at Sainsbury’s and Tesco, £28.99 Julia Parsons, founder of the which are often inspired by Diana blog,’ says Parsons. Ramsden UK Food Bloggers Association, Henry’s Gastro Pub Cookbook. describes himself as ‘a hungry picks her favourite food blogs. www.aroundbritainwith British guy exploring and sampling apaunch.blogspot.com the edible bits of UK culture.’ 101 Cookbooks Cannelle Et Vanille www.jamesramsden. ‘One of the more established blogs, ‘Stunning photography and mouth- wordpress.com on the rise with beautifully composed posts watering recipes,’ says Parsons. Lucy’s Kitchen Notebook and original recipes,’ says Parsons. Freelance food writer, stylist and ‘This is one of the blogs I’ve Blogger Heidi Swanson says she photographer Aran Goyoaga blogs been reading since the early focuses ‘primarily on natural, whole ‘recipes, travels and life stories’. days. Evocative stories and foods and ingredients – good A recent post included recipes photographs of a life in France.’ for you and for the planet’. for fava and quinoa salad and Author and photographer Lucy www.101cookbooks.com a gluten-free plum, oat and Vanel’s recent blogs include menu Around Britain rosemary crisp. ideas for blueberries. With A Paunch www.cannelle-vanille. www.kitchen-notebook. ‘A culinary adventure,’ says blogspot.com blogspot.com Parsons. Couple Jonathan James Ramsden Parsons blogs at

Picture: 2010 Brambilla-Serrani and Cowie blog their trips ‘I love James’s videos and www.asliceofcherrypie.com. around Britain ‘in search fun personality, which Her first book, A Slice Of of a good meal or two’, shines through on his Cherry Pie, is out later this year

Master of fusion: Davide Scabin of Combal.Zero in Turin combines traditional with modern acrylic to suspend water above an empty white spaghetti with a sauce of confit full-sized pool to create the illusion of tomatoes, basil, anchovy and burrata people walking and breathing underwater. cheese (inset left) at his pasta demo. In Bottura’s version, a layer of water is ‘Pasta is usually drowned in sauce. I semi-frozen in the bottom of a serving want to taste the pasta first. You pay more dish then pierced and drained to leave a attention if there is less sauce. The same thin layer of suspended ice under which with salt: the maximum quantity of salt he injects oyster water. He arranges North per litre of cooking water should be 2g.’ Adriatic seafood on top in order to imitate Before Scabin leaves to catch a plane the fish stands of the Riviera. back to Turin, he just has time to predict Scabin is equally innovative but hasn’t a bright future for Italian cuisine. ‘The completely turned his back on tradition. higher level of Italian gastronomy is ‘I work a lot with simplicity and in that having a magic moment. If all the Italian simplicity you find Italian heritage,’ he chefs can work together they can lead says, after serving up stripes of black and the world.’ Paolo Marchi’s top five

■ Combal.Zero, Piazza Tel: 00 39 049 630303. Mafalda di Savoia, www.calandre.com Rivoli, Torino. ■ Torre del Saracino, Via Tel: 00 39 011 956 5225. Torretta, 9 Marina d’Equa, www.combal.org Vico Equense, Naples. ■ Osteria Francescana, Tel: 00 39 081 802 8555. Via Stella 22, Modena. www.torredelsaracino.it Tel: 00 39 059 210118. ■ Il Duomo, Via www.osteriafrancescana.it Capitano Bocchieri, ■ Le Calandre, Via 31, Ragusa, Sicily. Liguria 1, Sarmeola Tel: 00 39 093 265 1265. di Rubano, Padova. www.ristoranteduomo.it