Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking - Marcella Hazan [11]
BUFFALO-MILK MOZZARELLA
Mozzarella di Bufala
At one time, all mozzarella was di bufala, made from water buffalo milk. The buffalos graze on the pastures of Campania, the southern region of which Naples is the capital. Their milk is much creamier than cow’s milk, and the cheese it produces is velvety in texture, pleasingly fragrant and, unlike other mozzarella, it has decided flavor, being sweet and, at the same time, delicately savory.
Pizza, when it was created in Naples, was always made with mozzarella di bufala. It is too expensive an ingredient today for commercial pizza, but it will immeasurably enhance homemade pizza, and such preparations as parmigiana di melanzane. It is, moreover, the mozzarella to choose, if you have the choice, for a caprese salad, which consists of mozzarella slices, sliced ripe tomatoes, and basil.
NUTMEG
Noce Moscata
We probably have the Venetians to thank for making nutmeg, along with other Eastern spices, available in Italy, but it is in Bolognese cooking that it has put its most tenacious roots. Nutmeg is indispensable to Bolognese meat sauce, and to the stuffings for its homemade pasta. It is used elsewhere too, such as in sauces with spinach and ricotta, in certain savory vegetable pies, in some desserts. One must use it carefully because, if a shade too much is added, the warmth of its musky flavor is lost in a dominant sensation of bitterness.
Use only whole nutmegs, which you can store in a tightly closed glass jar in a kitchen cabinet. Grate the nutmeg when needed, easily done on its special, small, curved grater. Any grater with very fine holes will do the job, however.
EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL
Olio d’Oliva Extra Vergine
Of all the grades of oil that can be marketed as olive oil, the only one a careful cook should look for is “extra virgin.” To qualify as “virgin” an olive oil must be cold-processed, produced solely by the mechanical crushing of the whole olive and its pit, wholly excluding the use of chemical solvents or any other technique of extraction. The varying degrees of “virginity” are determined by the percentage of oleic acid contained. The highest grade, “extra virgin,” is reserved for oils with 1 percent oleic acid or less. If the percentage of acid exceeds 4 percent, the oil must be rectified to lower the acid content and then it may no longer be labeled “virgin.” Up until 1991, it was sold as “pure,” a term that may have been technically accurate but did not seem to be an appropriate handle for the lowest marketable grade of olive oil.
Choosing an extra virgin olive oil Italian oils offer such a broad range of aromas and flavors that, when a representative selection is available, one can experiment with a view to choosing the oil that best supports one’s own style of cooking. The oils produced on the Veneto side of Lake Garda and on the hills north of Verona are probably Italy’s finest, certainly its most elegant: sweetly fragrant, nutty, with a gossamer touch on the palate. Those from Liguria are shier of flavor, but they have a thicker, more viscous feel. The oils from central Italy—of Tuscany and Umbria—are penetratingly fruity and, those of Tuscany in particular, even spicy and scratchy. The oils that come from further south have the scent of Mediterranean herbs—rosemary, oregano, thyme, with appley, almost sweet, pronouncedly fruity flavor. The only way to determine which one pleases one’s palate most is to try as many as possible. The tasting qualities to look for, no matter what the other characteristics of the oil may be, are sensations of liveliness, freshness, and lightness. Avoid oils that taste fat, that feel sticky, that have earthy or moldy odors.
Storing olive oil Olive oil is perishable, sensitive to air, light, and heat.