Here the Patavina Confraternity of Baccalà was christened, and Giulio Muratori, architect and passionate gastronome to whom we must have saved from oblivion, an ancient recipe in use in Paduan convents, the Capuchin cod, the one with anchovies, raisins and pine nuts, he was elected Rector. The history of the ancient Ballotta restaurant in Torreglia, a historic town nestled in the Regional Park of the Euganean Hills, which preserves some beautiful Venetian residential houses, given its birth a few centuries ago. We must go back to the 1600s when there is mention of a rustic outbuilding of a convent on the hillock of the "Mirabello", run in the XNUMXth century by the Augustinian friars of Monteortone. It was a small farm with a small annexed building which was transformed into an inn after the friars gave it to a private individual who served local food with the already famous wine from the Euganean hillsides. Galileo Galilei would have stopped here, when during a break from his teachings in Padua, he went to Abano Terme to see one of his trusted butchers. And Giacomo Casanova, an exile in Venice, in his wanderings in search of hospitality in the noble villas of the mainland, happened upon the post station located nearby, he would have refreshed himself in the old tavern. Over time the fame of the cuisine of the Osteria di Torreglia grew so much that it was also consecrated by Orio Vergani, journalist and founder of the Italian Academy of Cuisine who defined it as a temple of Euganean food and wine. And it was right at the tables of the Osteria then managed by Toni Carta, known as “Ballotta” due to his not quite filiform forms, that Vergani sketched out the founding lines of his Academy. The nickname of Ballotta has since then become an integral part of the name of the Osteria registered in the register of Historic Places of Italy today passed from the hands of the Legnaro family, passionate custodian of so much history and careful to safeguard its gastronomic traditions of the place.
The cod alla cappuccina with anchovies, raisins and pine nuts from the Mirabello monks was heir to the relations that were established between the Republic of Venice and the islands of Norway after the adventure of the Venetian patrician Pietro Querini who set sail on 25 April 1431 towards Flanders with a load of 800 barrels of Malvasia, spices, cotton, wax, rock alum and other valuable merchandise, equal to about 500 tons, which surprised with its crew by a sea storm and shipwrecked on the desert island of Sandøy in the Norwegian archipelago of Lofoten.
Querini and his companions spent eleven days bivouacked on the coast, feeding on limpets and lighting fires to keep warm. These were spotted by fishermen from the island of Røst, dedicated to fishing and drying cod, who came to their aid and hosted them in their homes. The Venetians remained on the island for about four months, and Querini wrote a detailed report for the Senate, now kept in the Vatican Apostolic Library. Finally, on 15 May 1432 Querini left again for Venice bringing with him 60 dried stockfish. The success was immediate, the stockfish was immediately appreciated for its gastronomic goodness, for its characteristics of long-life food very useful both in sea and land travels, but above all for the characteristic of being a "lean food", so as to become one of the recommended dishes in the more than 200 lean days, fixed, together with the foods, on December 4, 1563, the date of the XXV and last session of the Council of Trent. What happened next is our everyday story.
The recipe for Cappuccina cod from the Paduan monks
Ingredients
500 g of soaked stockfish
1 onion
1/2 glass of extra virgin olive oil
8 anchovy fillets
50 g of raisins
50 g pine nuts
flour
salt and pepper
cinnamon
3 teaspoons of sugar
Bread crumbs
Method
Clean the well soaked cod and cut it into pieces which you will pass to the salted flour. Then brown them on all sides in a light brown sauce with a large chopped onion, browned in half a glass of olive oil, the anchovy fillets, the raisins and pine nuts, a pinch of pepper and one of cinnamon and three teaspoons of sugar. Let it simmer until the liquid has almost been absorbed, adding salt and pepper. Then sprinkle some fine breadcrumbs that you will sprinkle with the cooking liquid and you will pass in the oven for a light browning. Send it to the table piping hot.
Antica Trattoria Ballotta
Via Romana 57
35038 Torreglia (PD)
Tel. 0495212970
