Combining unusual flavours, inventing apparently extravagant combinations, exploring new gastronomic avenues that create amazement. At a superficial view it could appear as the extremes of a kitchen always looking for novelties to surprise the public and make news. However, this is not the case when it comes to “Let's eat” – European Authentic Taste” a project that aims at improve the level of knowledge of the merits of the Union's agri-food products and increase their competitiveness and consumption, within three selected target countries: Italy, France and Belgium.
Specifically, the ongoing campaign which has a three-year duration (2021-2024) and benefits from co-financing by the European Commission (Information and promotion actions for agricultural products on the internal market) is aimed at consumers, the media and professionals, to promote a cultural change towards cured meats and increase the consumption of fruit and vegetables in the context of correct and balanced eating habits, a priority of the European Union. The products are presented and promoted outside their classic context of consumption mixed together to produce a new, fresh and glamorous idea of a quality energy break with an Authentic European Taste.
At the “Identità Golose” conference which recently took place in Milan under the banner of the theme “Ladies and gentlemen, the revolution is served” as a stimulus for the restaurant world, after the pandemic crisis, to open up to the new "bearing in mind Paolo Marchi explained - that we will never stop looking for quality, wherever it is. We don't let ourselves be influenced by circumstances, by clichés, by traditions”. chef Pasquale Caliri of the Marina del Nettuno Yachting Club presented in this "revolutionary" perspective a dish that combines speck and cherries as envisaged in the project co-financed by the European Community. There could not be a more suitable person than Caliri, Silver Plate of the Italian Academy of Cuisine, member of Eurotoques, Ambassador of Taste, but at the same time aristocratic and ironic protagonist of a gastronomic philosophy of thought that aims at explore creative and innovative contributions that enhance the value and flavor of the material combined with tradition, to interpret the meaning of the program “Let's eat”– European Authentic Taste”.
The raw tuna cannolo, presented by the chef of the Marina Del Nettuno, has a Tuma filling worked with wild fennel, with cherry mustard and speck on a sea urchin cream base; dish completed on a crunchy Pecorino and squid ink tuna, tuma cheese and cherries, a dish that contains "encloses all possible Sicilianity"
“The cannolo – explains Caliri – is iconic in Sicilian cuisine. The proposal contains the quintessence of the island cuisine including equally characteristic ingredients: from tuna, to Tuma, to wild fennel, to Pecorino often proposed in the fish dishes of the island, and again to citrus fruits and olive oil.
This concentrate of sicilianity is "married" with two unusual ingredients but which in the preparation enhance its taste and characteristic: Speck whose sapidity and crunchiness combine well with the softness of the sheep's cheese filling and its soft scents; the cherries in mostarda give, apart from a very pleasant chromaticity, a "spicy" boost which enhances the combination with raw food like wasabi in oriental cuisine. The sea urchin sauce enriches the preparation with an iodized note that completes bites of the sea that do not leave out the taste of the earth.
What to say? All that remains is to try and savor this harmony of apparently antinomian flavours.
The tuna cannoli recipe
Cut the tuna into thin slices, flavor it with extra virgin olive oil and lemon and orange peel. Roll up on a mat filling with Tuma previously blended with a little cream to make the mixture creamy, add the wild fennel.
For the cuttlefish ink Pecorino crumble:
50 g. of stale bread
25 g. of Sicilian Pecorino
25 g of butter
10 g. of cuttlefish ink
Mix and bake at 140° for about 20 minutes
For the crunchy Speck:
Cut the cured meat to obtain thin "spaghetti", fry by immersion in oil
For the sea urchin cream:
50 gr of boiled potato
20 g of sea urchins
10 g of orange and lemon juice
Salt to taste
Emulsify
For the cherry mustard:
100 g. of cherries
20 gr. of sugar
Juice of a quarter of a lemon
Two tablespoons of dry white wine
2 drops of mustard essence
Cook the ingredients, add the mustard at the end and leave the mixture to cool Assemble the dish by placing the cannoli on the crumble, arrange the cherries cut in half, the crispy speck and wild fennel on a strip of sea urchin cream.
