For the Michelin Guide it is a milestone in Italian gastronomic history, for everyone it is a true legend of excellent Italian cuisine. This legend alternates names that arouse awe and respect and that have made Italian catering grow and make it famous at home and abroad.
The adventure of the restaurant San Dominic of Imola starts from the spring of 50 years ago when Gianni Morini, great viveur, decides to set up a place, refined and sought after right from the start, for its fabrics on the walls, its porcelains, its glassware, its silverware, where to create a cuisine that does not follow fashions and trends but points to its deepest and most genuine soul. The next step is the meeting with a legend of the restaurant industry, nino bergese, the cook of kings and powerful, who in 1926, at the age of only 22, had prepared lunch for Umberto di Savoia's twenty-second birthday: the Florentine layered chocolate cake that the prince wanted for three days in a row and which then he is called to cook for the greatest families of the Italian aristocracy, for the nomenclature that counts in high administration and industry. In the kitchen with Bergese is a young boy, sixteen years old, Valentino Marcattilii who in a few years devoured everything there was to learn and who would later take over from Bergese, becoming in turn a point of reference for Italian cuisine abroad.
His fame grew rapidly, he was called for consultancy at the Monterey Plaza in California, at the Donatello restaurant in San Francisco, at the Restaurant La Main à La Pâte in Paris, at the Palm Bay Hotel restaurant in Miami and at the Conrad Hilton in Hong Kong. He participates in and conducts programs for the BBC and World Class (Channel 4) and when the San Domenico opens an office in New York, at 240 Central Park South he moves bag and baggage to the Big Apple immediately awarded three stars by the authoritative New York critic York Times, Brian Miller.
His inheritance has now been taken up by his nephew Maximilian Mascia, who has breathed the air of San Domenico since he was a fifteen-year-old boy with the strong determination, which has never wavered, that one day he would be at the head of those prestigious and historic stoves and that he would proudly wear the Michelin star on his chest , actually two, to respect the family tradition. Just like his uncle, Massimiliano Mascia also feels the urgency of enriching his cultural background with a series of courses abroad, from France to the United States, which will broaden his views and obviously he will take care to deepen his knowledge of biodiversity in Italy raw material passing from the great Vissani to the Roman Restaurant in Viareggio.
“In the United States he declares – I learned to work at an always high pace and I understood the importance of work organization. In France I studied cooking techniques and perceived the great value of gastronomic history and culture. In Italy I carefully studied the raw material, a raw material that has no equal in the world in terms of quality”. The proposal of the chef Massimiliano Mascia dell'Rabbit roast with porcini mushrooms it is the testimony of a cuisine dedicated to the territory, in search of quality raw materials prepared with new and constantly evolving techniques. The decision to create this dish starts from the assumption that rabbit is very often present in Emilia-Romagna homes and the recipe incorporates the autumn flavors of mushrooms into the Emilia-Romagna tradition
The recipe for roast rabbit and porcini mushrooms
Ingredients
1 saddle of rabbit (loins and ribs)
porcini mushrooms
½ shallot
rosemary
Thyme;
extra virgin olive oil
sale
blueberries
Method
Bone the rabbit by separating the two loins and ribs, being careful not to break them. Marinate with oil, rosemary and thyme for a quarter of an hour; then, roast the rabbit in a pan in hot oil over high heat. Finish the preparation by passing it in a hot oven at 180°C for 3-5 minutes, greasing the surface with a drizzle of oil and seasoning with salt.
Then cut the mushrooms into small pieces, and chop half a shallot. Fry it in a pan, add a sprig of thyme and immediately after the mushrooms. Add a pinch of salt and cook for 3 minutes.
Finally, cut some blueberries in half and proceed with the plating.
