Text 6117, 158 rader
Skriven 2008-04-26 13:08:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av DAVE DRUM
Ärende: Chilli Man 211
======================
 DD> Apparently the no-bean version has some things not in the bean
 DD> version.

I wonder why the bean version doesn't have tomatoes.
That doesn't make a whole lot of sense, as beans and
tomatoes go pretty well together.

 DD> Fortunately I managed to whore up a pretty good version of a clone of
 DD> the original Chilli Man seasoning mix and, so long as I can continue to
 DD> find tamoline - can make it when necessary.
 ML> Pendery's, $9.20/lb + s/h.
 DD> Yeah, I know. It's not the same as the tamoline I get from Soulard
 DD> Market in St. Louis, though. Thanks anyway.

Pendery's calls its product chiltomaline and claims that
it was the original. Of course original doesn't necessarily
mean best, but it's certainly better than nada.

Falsomagro 
cat: Italian, main, big production
servings: 6

700 gr / 1.5 lb veal in wide but thin slices
300 gr / 0.75lb veal or pork ground meat 
50 gr / 2 oz mortadella or salami slices 
3 hard-boiled eggs to 4
1 egg 
parsley 
75 gr / 2 oz caciocavallo, pecorino, or parmesan
- finely grated
50 gr tuma, provola, caciocavallo, or fontina
- cut into sticks
1 carrot
2 onions 
celery 
400 gr / 1lb tomato puree 
1 glass red wine 
75 gr / 2 oz breadcrumbs 
1 cinnamon stick 
clove 
red chili pepper 
10 potatoes (or so)

Let's prepare the stuffing - ground meat, grated
cheese, breadcrumbs and, one egg.

Mix with your bare hands. No mixer please, that would una
mancanza di rispetto.

Flavor with the snipped parsley and combine into a ball.
Surprise, it holds together mostly thanks to the meat's
cohesive power.

Let's the fun begin. First make sure your guests are
safely busy in the den and lock the kitchen, so that
nobody will be able to barge in and catch you with an
half-exploded falsomagro. Lay a clean kitchen towel on
the table. I boiled this one a couple times with beef,
carrots and a pig's foot, hence the color. The point is
that it be clean and devoid of any detergent. Carefully
tile the veal slices so that they overlap a little. You
should aim for a rectangular shape. If your butcher was
lazy when he sliced the veal and your slices are too
thick, hammer them with a kitchen cleaver held flat.
Don't be shy, this is a Palermitan recipe, per carita! 

Spread the meat stuffing, leaving about 5cm/2" on every
side. Covers with the salami or mortadella or ham slices.

Let cut through the cheese - you need a full fat cheese
that will melt nicely, such a young caciocavallo or
fontina.

Spread one onion sliced thinly over the mortadella layer,
then tile the cheese sticks on top. It sounds less and
less magro (lean) as the layers go by. 

Now the hard boiled eggs. If you start sweating and
wonder how the hell you're going to close your
falsomagro, you won't be the first. But as the old
Sicilian saying goes, 'You'll be amazed what can fit
inside a farsumagru'.

Start tying salami-style. This is quite easy. Just tie
one of the end with a piece of string and do not cut it.
Then pull the string about 5cm/2" from where you made
your first loop and circle again around the falsomagro.
Pass the string inside the loop and pull. You'll need to
use all three pairs of hands for this. I'm not Vishnu and
my falsomagro exploded on its rear end, with two eggs
rolling out. But focus on the falsomagro's end you are
tying and just place what came out back inside.

Finished. Actually, the more you tie, the easier it gets,
and after a certain number of loops it looks really
solid. In Sicily they say that 'Do not judge the cook by
his falsomagro', but perhaps they say this only because
people actually do judge cooks by their falsomagros, and
want to remind themselves that size is not everything.
Who knows?

Let's bring a little olive oil to high heat, and then
roast the falsomagro on every side to flavor the veal
cuts.

Dice the onion, carrot and celery stick, then throw in
the pot.

Add the spices - cloves, chilies (my way of doing) and a
stick of cinammon.

Saute the vegetables.

Deglaze with a glass of red wine. How much is 'a glass of
red wine'? Ah, just look at the bottle. Enough to bathe
the bottom of the dish and dissolve any meat bits that
stuck to the pot before the wine is vaporized.

Add about 2 c tomatoes, either fresh, skinned and stemmed
tomatoes, or from a good quality can.

Add a little liquid or stock if you have some. The idea is
just to have enough liquid so that the sauce does not stick
during the long simmer.

To achieve that home-cooked, homey feel, I recommend you
boil some potatoes separately, then add them to the pot.
This is the way it was served to me in U Cascinari, an
amazing slow-food trattoria in Palermo for a most
memorable meal. If you go lazy and add the potatoes
uncooked, they might not be cooked through when the
falsomagro is ready, so better pre-boil them separately
before. 

Cover the pot and simmer for about an hour. If the sauce
is too chunky, you can use a potato ricer or straight out
plunging mixer to make it a bit smoother. 

Slice, remove the string and serve.

This is one amazing dish! It may not look like much, but
I served it to an audience of experienced home chefs the
other day, and they immediately endorsed it with cries of
'Jesus that's so good' or 'Hell, I'm going to remember
this for long, is there any left?' One nearly fainted,
and that was before I brought the Tangerine Sorbet for
the dessert. The meat stuffing has a strong hit-me-back
state due to the cheese, and the palate is pleasantly
surprised to find various morsels inside, each with its
own distinct and delicate flavor - cheese, onion or
mortadella. A real classic!

Source: fxcuisine.com


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