Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking - Marcella Hazan [27]
• For risotto, I recommend either enameled cast iron, which retains heat evenly for the 25 minutes or so risotto needs to cook, or heavy steel ware in whose bottom several layers of metal are bonded together.
• Italian roasts are more frequently cooked on top of the stove than in the oven. The most practical shape of pot is an oval casserole that hugs the shape of the roast, with no waste of cooking liquid, such as broth or wine, and no waste of heat. Enameled cast iron is excellent material for this purpose, or heavy-bottomed, thick steel ware.
• An assortment of oven-to-table ware in various sizes and depths is needed for vegetables, for some fish dishes, and of course, for lasagne.
THE FOOD MILL
I don’t recall ever seeing a kitchen in Italy that didn’t have a food mill, not even the most modest peasant kitchen. What the food mill does, no other tool can equal. It purées cooked vegetables, legumes, fish, and other soft ingredients, separating unwanted seeds, skins, strings, and fish bones from the food being pulped through its perforated disks. Nor does it entirely break down the texture of that pulp, as the food processor would; instead, it preserves the lively, differentiated consistency so desirable for Italian dishes. Food mills come with fixed perforated disks, or with interchangeable disks. The fixed disk usually has very small holes that make it useless for most Italian cooking. Of the interchangeable disks, the one you will need most often is the one with the largest holes, which is supplied only with those mills that have three disks. This is the only kind of food mill you should get, preferably made of stainless steel and fitted with very useful fold-away clamps on the bottom that let you rest the mill securely over a bowl or pot while you mash food through it.
OTHER TOOLS
• A Parmesan grater whose holes are neither so fine as to pulverize the cheese, nor so broad that it makes shreds or pellets of the Parmesan.
• A four-sided grater with different-size holes, including very fine ones for nutmeg.
• A peeler whose blade pivots on pins set at each end. The flesh of vegetables skinned with a peeler rather than by blanching or roasting is firmer and less watery and better for sautéing.
• Slotted spoons and spatulas. Immensely practical for removing food from a pan without any of the cooking fat, or for lifting food away temporarily from cooking juices that need to be boiled down.
• Long wooden spoons. Essential for stirring homemade pasta, particularly delicate stuffed pasta. Useful for all stirring, especially sauces, for mashing food while it is cooking, and for scraping tasty residues from the bottom of pans. Take care never to leave the spoon in the pan while food is cooking. Have several so you can discard those that become worn and hard to clean.
• Meat pounder. For flattening scaloppine, braciole, or chops. The best designed is the one that consists of a thick, heavy, stainless-steel disk with a short handle attached perpendicularly to its center.
BAKING NECESSITIES
• A single, large, heavy baking stone for bread, pizza, sfinciuni, and focaccia. Even when you are baking focaccia in a pan, as in this book, you will get better results if you slide the pan on top of a hot stone. The most practical size is one that is as large as your oven rack, or as close to it in size as possible.
• The wooden baker’s peel for pizza and bread. I had always thought of it as a paddle, which is what it looks like, but I have found that real bakers call it a peel. Although you can improvise with a sheet of masonite or stiff cardboard or an unrimmed baking sheet, a paddle (peel) is easier and more fun to use. Mine is 16 by 14 inches, with an 8-inch handle. If you are going to have one, there is no point in getting a smaller one.
• For focaccia, rectangular baking pans made of dark carbon steel in two sizes, both the commonly available 9- by 13-inch size, and the professional-size one, 19 by 13 inches.
• Scrapers. The rectangular steel one with a large