Sunday, January 11, 2009

Pesce

I decided I'll alternate a food post with a picture post from this trip, which is getting to an end. So, today's post will describe the delicious food that I ate with my aunt and uncle at the restaurant 'Risto` Civassa' (Via Martiniana, Torino) -- they deserve the advertisement, it is probably the best restaurant as for fish that I tried in Torino. I started with this 'trittico di carpaccio':
Carpaccio is raw thin slices of meat, which in this case was fish: swordfish, tuna and salmon. They seasoned it with just olive oil and green peppercorns, and a bit of parsley as decoration. It was delicious.
Then, my entree was this 'trofie con cannolicchi'.
Trofie are a typical ligurian pasta handmade, without eggs. I made it once with some friends, and I have explained how to make it here. Cannolicchi are molluscs (razor clams), served in this dish already shelled (luckily, given that the shell edges supposedly are as sharp as razors, hence the English name). These trofie were really wonderful.
I also had some of my aunt's entree: chitarrini all'astice.
Chitarrini are another hand-made pasta, similar to spaghetti but much thicker, and with a square section. Astice is lobster. Well, my aunt knows what to choose. :)
And, the other entree that we had was my uncle's 'spaghetti allo scoglio'
These spaghetti contained everything that you can find on the 'scogli', i.e. the rocks that are close to the sea. Prawns, shrimp, clams, crab, shells, scampi... just name one of these shellfish and molluscs, and it was there. It was really really good, and there was so much that we had to help him finish it.
So, I hope I made you hungry. Once I'm back in the US, I want to try to reproduce something like these dishes. I love fish and seashells, and I miss these pastas in Berkeley. So stay tuned for the recipes..
Here is a link that can be useful if you go to Italy and want to order some fish -- or viceversa, if you're an Italian in the US and want to know about fish names.. or in France, Spain or Germany!

3 comments:

Rosa's Yummy Yums said...

Wow, all that yummy Italian food is making me hungry!!!

Cheers,

Rosa

... said...

"riccio di mare" also? ;)

annathenice said...

Ciao, sono passata per caso dal tuo blog. E' molto interessante e penso che ti seguiro. Ho anch'io un blog di cucina e pensieri, e aspiro a 'ripulire' dalle contaminazioni i piatti della mia cucina locale, per ritrovare vecchi sapori. E' meraviglioso conoscere, imparare, assaggiare e apprezzare tutto il possibile, sia in senso gastronomico che in un tutti gli altri sensi, ma proprio per questo è bene salvaguardare l'originalità della nostra splendida cucina.
Brava, il tuo blog è davvero bello. A presto Anna