Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking - Marcella Hazan [16]
Slicing prosciutto Skillfully cured prosciutto balances savoriness with sweetness, firmness with moistness. To maintain that balance, each slice ought to maintain the same proportions of fat and lean meat that characterized the ham when it left the curing house. The regrettable practice of stripping away the fat from prosciutto subverts a carefully achieved balance of flavors and textures and elevates the salty over the sweet, the dry over the moist.
Sliced prosciutto ought to be consumed as soon as possible because, once cut, it quickly loses much of its alluring fragrance. If it must be kept for a length of time, each slice or each single layer of slices must be covered with wax paper or plastic wrap and the whole then tightly wrapped in aluminum foil. Plan on using it within the following twenty-four hours, if possible, and remove from the refrigerator at least a full hour before serving.
Cooking with prosciutto Prosciutto contributes huskier flavor to pasta sauces, vegetables, and meat dishes than any other ham. It also contributes salt, and one must be very judicious with what salt one adds when cooking with prosciutto. Sometimes none is needed. What is true when serving sliced prosciutto is even more pertinent when cooking with it: Do not discard any of the sweet, moist fat.
RADICCHIO
The crisp, bright-red vegetable responsible for adding the word radicchio to Americans’ salad vocabulary is a part of the large chicory family, among whose many members are Belgian endive, escarole, and that bitter cooking green with long, loose saw-toothed leaves that resembles dandelion, catalogna or Catalonia. The familiar tight, round, colorful head vaguely resembling a cabbage, known in Italy as radicchio rosso di Verona, or rosa di Chioggia, is one of several varieties of red radicchio from the Veneto region. Another variety similar in shape, but with looser leaves of a mottled, marbleized pink hue is called radicchio di Castelfranco. Both the above are usually consumed raw, in salads. Those whose palate finds the bitterness of chicory that cooking brings out agreeably bracing, may also use them in soups, sauces, or as braised vegetables. A third radicchio is quite different in shape, somewhat resembling a Romaine lettuce, with loosely clustered, long, tapering, mottled red leaves. It is known as radicchio di Treviso or variegato di Treviso. It matures later than the previous two, usually in November; it is far less bitter than they are when cooked, hence, although it is frequently served as salad, it is also used in risotto, or in pasta sauces, or it is served on its own, either grilled or baked, basted liberally with olive oil. Another version is commonly known as tardivo di Treviso, “late-maturing” Treviso radicchio, and its season is end of November through January. Its long leaves are loosely spread and exceptionally narrow, more like slender stalks than leaves, with sharply pointed tips curled inwards. The stalk-like ribs are a dazzling white, their leafy fringes deep purple, and they spring away from the root like tongues of fire. It is an exceedingly beautiful vegetable. Tardivo di Treviso is the sweetest radicchio of all, a highly prized—and steeply priced—delicacy used either to make a luxuriously delicious salad or, best of all, cooked like radicchio di Treviso as described above.
Note If you cannot find either of the Treviso varieties, in any recipe that calls for cooking them you can satisfactorily substitute Belgian endive.
The striking red hues of Venetian radicchios are achieved by blanching in the field. If left to grow naturally, radicchio would be green with rust-brown spots and it would be very bitter. Midway through its development, however, it is covered with loose soil, or straw, or dried leaves, or even sheets of black plastic. As it continues to grow in the absence of light, the lighter portions of the leaves become white and the darker, red.
Buying radicchio Radicchio is sweetest late in the year, most bitter in the summer. The stunted, small heads one sometimes sees in