Caput Mundi Cibus

Spring time is lamb time!
I got hold of some pretty nice cuts of meat from milk-fed spring lamb.
Being very small, the fat cap isn’t as developed as on older ones, but the flavor and the texture of the meat is amazing – very tender and with a subtle lamb flavor.
I deboned the meat, cleaned it a bit and the rubbed it with my marinade.

For the marinade:

One big sprig of fresh rosemary
Some other fresh herbs of your choice eg. thyme, oregano, sage
A garlic clove
Lemon peel
5 small anchovies
Black pepper
Olive oil

Mix all the ingredients except lemon peel together in a pestle and mortar or in a blender to a thin paste. Grate the lemon
peel and add it to the paste. Spread the paste over your cuts of lamb and let it rest in the refrigerator for a couple of
hours.

For the spring vegetables I chose asparagus, green peas, agretti and taccole. The last two ones might be hard to find outside of Italy – but can easily be substituted with other green vegetables in season. The four of them are in season roughly at the same time, and together they make a very fresh and light vegetable pairing for the lamb. I blanched them all separately, whole, left them with still a bit of a crunch (al dente) and then quickly drenched them in ice water, making sure to drain them as soon as they cooled off.
I cut the vegetables into smaller pieces and when serving I sauteed them in a pan with some extra vergine olive oil, a knob of butter, some fresh chopped herbs, salt and pepper.

The lamb I fried, first skin side down, and then on all sides, in a skillet. Salted it and put it into a low heat oven until the internal temperature was around 58 degrees celsius (about 140 degrees fahrenheit).
Important now is to let the meat rest for a while. I would leave it for a couple of minutes on the kitchen counter uncovered – then wrap it in aluminum foil and let it rest while I prepared the other things.

To accompany the dish I made a simple froth of pecorino cheese (hard sheep’s milk cheese), with warm milk, finely grated cheese and soy lecithin. Start up the stick mixer and go!

Just before serving I would give the lamb a quick heating in the skillet on medium heat (mostly on the skin side) to give it new crispness.

I actually made this dish quite a while ago, when quince was still in season (because now it is not!) but never got around to put it up here. It’s a rather “contrasty” dish with sweet, sourish, peppery and perfumed extremes – all bound together by the richness of the duck liver.

Foie gras is often combined with just sweet sauces and sweet fruits or well, anything sweet. But it actually lends itself very well to be put in a spicy, fragrant and more “exotic” ambience.

Foie gras terrine filled with five spice marinated pigeon breast – garden cress, quince sheet, sweet gherkins

 
 
Terrina di fegato grasso d’anatra e petto di piccione marinato alle cinque spezie. Crescione, foglio di marmellata di mele cotogne e cetriolini in agrodolce

 

Italy’s Ministry of Health has passed a bill that bans the use of chemical additives and liquid nitrogen from restaurant kitchens.

What they want to achieve is to exclude the “chemical additives” used in “Molecular cuisine” (as referred to by the Italian Ministry of Health’s secretary Francesca Martini) from the restaurant food.
Video of Francesca Martini where she explains and signs the new act (only in italian)

Italy hereby says that “for the security of its citizens” it wants to eliminate, and make it no longer possible for restaurants to use certain additives (which will still be allowed in the industrial food processing though).
Many of these additives are commonly referred to as “powders” – of which one of the most famous brand is the “Texturas”-line from Albert and Ferran Adrià .

Italy’s cuisine is based on tradition, and tradition alone, so it definately can’t be considered a stronghold for avant-garde cuisine or innovative cooking.
The so-called molecular cuisine has been widely debated in national tv and a lot of Italy’s famous chefs hold a hostile attitude towards this “science based cooking” – accusing it of “ruining an already perfect cuisine”.

The government is also trying to ban the use of liquid nitrogen, calling it a “gaseous substance”.

Of course things like liquid nitrogen (used in the kitchen to freeze foods instantaneously by submerging into this extremely cold liquid) should always be handled with due care, but I can’t really see why the liquid nitrogen would be considered hazardous enough to be banned from the restaurant kitchens.
Unless accidentally stored in a sealed container (which would go KABOOM!) there’s no reason why liquid nitrogen would be any more dangerous than a pot of boiling hot oil for deep frying – something used everyday in Italy’s restaurant kitchens.

So that’s what they wanted to do, how unfortunate that the Health Ministery guys didn’t attend their chemistry lessons in school. The government tries to stop the use of liquid nitrogen by legislating against the “storage and use of any gaseous substance”.
Then too bad that for them that liquid nitrogen is, that’s right, a liquid! And if that’s not enough they accidentally excluded liquid nitrogen again from being banned with the small paragraph “it is prohibited to keep and use gaseous substances, except food additives”.
Within the European Union nitrogen is classified as a food additive, with its own code E941, therefore OK to use.
Seems logical?

And do they want to sweep the kitchens clean of any gases? There’s a variety of gases used in the kitchens today, the carbon dioxide used in the soda siphon, the butane used in the gas torch for the crème brûlée, and even the pan of boiling water produces gas.

The whole thing feels like an outrageous publicity stunt from the government in a country where tradition reigns supreme.
A way to regain people’s (and voters’) confidence promising them to protect italian products and have restaurants serve fresh and healthy food, pointing out the ones that embrace the latest techniques and new ingredients as the bad guys.
In the end it’s a bogus law made by people that do not understand.

Cheer up – the new law is only valid for less than a year anyway (its expiry date is on the 31st December 2010)!

Link to the official law text on the “Gazzetta Ufficiale della Repubblica Italiana”