A Few “Fritti” From Various Parts of Italy
Stuffed Olives Ascolana Style
Ingredients:
A pound (400 g) of very large mild olives, packed in brine
4 ounces (100 g) fresh mild pork sausage
4 ounces (100 g) ground veal
1/2 cup meat broth (bouillon is fine)
2 ounces (50 g) diced cured lard (or use pancetta or prosciutto fat)
10 ounces (250 g) fine bread crumbs (this will be about 2 1/2 cups)
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 cup (50 g) freshly grated Parmigiano
2 eggs
2 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon minced parsley
A pinch of freshly ground nutmeg
Oil for frying
Preparation:
Don't overstuff the olives lest the stuffing expand as it cooks and split the olives, and keep in mind that the oil should be hot but not smoking, lest the outsides of the olives burn before the stuffing is done. If you do decide to taste one to test for doneness have a glass of water handy because the inside could still be quite hot even if you have blown on it.
The above ingredients will serve 4, or make a pleasant bowlful for a party.
Finely dice the veal, crumble the sausage, and sauté them in the butter. When they have browned, sprinkle the wine over them, let it evaporate, stir in the diced lard, and continue sautéing gently for 5-10 minutes (you want the meat to brown but not burn). Stir in the broth and simmer for five minutes, then remove the meats to a bowl with a slotted spoon, leaving the drippings in the pot.
Stir two heaping tablespoons of the bread crumbs into the drippings. Grind the meat mixture and combine it with the breadcrumbs you stirred into the drippings, then lightly beat one of the eggs and work it into the filling too, with the parsley, grated cheese, and nutmeg. Check seasoning and let the filling rest for a half hour.
Pit the olives if they weren't already pitted, and fill them.
The easiest way to do this is to put the filling in a pastry bag or syringe of the kind used for frosting, with a fairly fine nozzle, and squirt the filling into the holes.
Lightly beat the remaining egg. Roll the filled olives in flour, then in the egg, and then in the bread crumbs. Fry them in abundant oil for 15-20 minutes, drain them well, and serve them.
Mixed Fried Fish
Ingredients:
Lots of fish (see below for kinds)
Oil for frying
Lemon wedges
Flour, or, if you want, batter (see below)
Salt
Preparation:
...a fritto di paranza, which is just very small (2 inch long including head and tail) fish rolled in flour, fried, and served with lemon wedges. You eat them heads and all (unless they're a little larger than normal), and purists frown on cleaning the fish because the intestines provide a slightly sharp flavor contrast. I prefer my fish cleaned and you may well too. But if the heads are small they're pleasingly crunchy, and the tails are perfect handles.
In any case, to make a fritto di paranza to serve six you'll need about 2 pounds (1 k) of assorted tiny, minnow-sized fish.
To make a more standard fritto di mare you'll need 2 1/2 pounds (1.2 k) of mixed small fish, including fresh sardines and anchovies, baby squid, baby cuttlefish, small crabs, scampi and other assorted crustaceans, reef mullet and tiny whiting, sole, and whatever else your fishmonger suggests.
You'll also need 2 cups flour for rolling the fish, abundant oil (it's best to fry in several pots so what fries first will still be hot when the last things are cooked), salt, several lemons cut into wedges, and sprigs of fresh parsley to serve as garnish.
Wash, clean and pat the fish dry. You can bone the minnows, opening up like a book to remove the spines, but it's not indispensable. If you are using something like sole, filet it.
Cut away the mouth parts of the squid and cuttlefish, remove the innards without breaking the ink sacks (you can use them to make a risotto with squid ink), and remove the bones from the cuttlefish (give them to a friend who keeps caged birds). Cut the bodies of the mollusks into rings, and keep the tentacles together in bunches. Shell or don't shell the crustaceans depending upon how hard their shells are.
Coat the fish thoroughly with flour and fry it, beginning with the mollusks and then the crustaceans, followed by the larger and then the smaller fish. As the fish rise to the surface and turn golden remove them with a strainer and drain them on absorbent paper. Transfer the fish to a platter, season it with salt, garnish it with parsley, and serve it with the lemon wedges and a chilled bottle of Trebbiano di Romagna or Castelli Romani.
Fried Mozzarella
Ingredients:
2 mozzarella (ideally, made from water buffalo milk) balls about 3 inches (7.5 cm) across
2 eggs
Flour
Breadcrumbs
Oil for frying
Preparation:
Beat the eggs in a bowl, and set the oil to heating.
Cut the mozzarella into fairly thick slices and flour them. Dredge them in the beaten egg, coat them well with breadcrumbs, and fry them until golden. Drain them, dust them with a little salt, and serve at once.
Fried Mozzarella
Ingredients:
Canned tuna (see below)
Milk
Butter
Flour
Parmigiano
An egg
Oil for frying
Preparation:
Continuing the introduction, many of the solutions for eating protein during meatless periods are based on baccalà, dried, salted cod, or stoccafisso, which is plain dried cod. But there are other solutions as well. In Versilia, the coastal plain north of Pisa, they also make fish balls using canned tuna.
Take a quarter pound (100 g drained weight) of tuna packed in oil and put it in a bowl, adding equal volumes of milk and water to cover. Let it sit for 2 hours. In the meantime, prepare a thick béchamel sauce by heating 1/2 tablespoon of butter with a half tablespoon of flour, whisking gently, and when the mixture becomes golden, whisking in a cup of milk, adding the milk in a thin stream and stirring briskly to avoid the formation of lumps. Continue stirring until the sauce thickens.
Shortly before the meal, drain the tuna and shred it. Combine it with the béchamel sauce, and stir in 1 heaping tablespoon of freshly grated Parmigiano, a pinch each of salt and pepper, an egg yolk (reserve the white), and a tablespoon of breadcrumbs; should the mixture be lumpy put it through a strainer. Beat the reserved white to firm peaks. Make so many balls the size of small walnuts from the tuna mixture, dip them in the egg white, roll them in breadcrumbs, and fry them. Drain them on absorbent paper, and keep them hot until you serve them.
Buon appetito!
