Seeing him so peaceful you can't imagine the thousand lives they've led Alberto Ragoni from a tiny town in the Tuscan hinterland to the high-ranking kitchens of The Terrace & The Garden at Hotel Eden in Rome next to a Michelin star like Fabio Ciervo to cook for the greats of the earth
Chef Alberto Ragoni
Albert Ragoni, class 93 of Cerreto Guidi, small Borgo Medicior in the Florentine hills, famous for the large villa that Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, had built to relax with hunting and long walks in the midst of unspoiled nature to forget the daily stress of the power struggles of nearby Florence , cooking has been in his blood since he was a youngster. Already in elementary school he was having fun making snack biscuits for his classmates, who appreciated them very much.
As a consequence for him it was, when he became older, to enroll in the F. Martini Hotel Institute of Montecatini Terme, the same attended by Enrico Bartolini the most multi-starred chef in Italy and Simone Rugiati chef who became a real television celebrity, author of numerous publications, successful entrepreneur.
He was only 14 when he entered the kitchen at the PS Ristorante (now Michelin Green Star) of Stefano Pinciaroli, considered a sort of virtuous ambassador of the products of the Empolese Valdelsa. The following summer we find him at Arnolfo's in Gaetano Trovato's two-Michelin-starred restaurant. Hence the passage in the brigade of Federico Vannini, a true lover of raw materials and small producers of excellence, one of Ezio Santin's disciples at the Relais Chateaux Villa Cora in Florence.
Having established the foundations of his culinary construction, Ragoni crosses the Atlantic Ocean and finds himself in San Francisco at the Californian avant-garde's Coi Restaurant Daniel Patterson (2 Michelin Stars and included in the prestigious list of 50 Best Restaurants).
By now his name began to circulate and shortly thereafter he received and accepted the offer of Chef Peter Brune to join the team of the Borgo San Jacopo restaurant in Florence who will conquer the Michelin star in the following eight months with a cuisine based on potatoes and recovery.
2016 opens another important chapter in his professional life, Matthew Lorenzini, solid French school and eight years since great Ducasse in France call him at Sesto on Arno at the Westin Excelsior: with him he will learn the great French rigor and will be involved in events and travels until arriving in Moscow for some gala dinners at Casa Damiani.
But the great opportunity of life, at the age of just 23 presents him with the great numbers of New York, alongside Jean Francois Bruel ed Eddie Leroux neDaniel Boulud's Restaurant Daniel where, in addition to the French grandeur, it enters a dimension of planetary management of large brigades and many seats: 160 employees for 250 seats per evening. And finally the call from Rome arrives, Fabio Ciervo wants him at the Hotel Eden in Rome, where a vision of modern, light cuisine with avant-garde techniques is affirmed.
Red could be black: First Plate of the Fields 2022 winner
It is precisely the culinary knowledge accumulated in important experiences in Italy and abroad that have allowed him to create "Red could be Black” the dish that we offer this week to the readers of Mondo Food, which ranked first this year in the Primo Piatto dei Campi 2022 competition, an initiative signed by 50 Top Italy and Pastificio dei Campi
This year's theme was Pasta and Pomodoro, a great classic of Italian cuisine and always a symbol of conviviality and Italian spirit, projected into the future, specifically Ragoni's proposal makes pasta an actress and protagonist, often considered only a vehicle for transporting the seasoning.
Thanks to the use of the most modern techniques, a total tomato subtraction is obtained, without wasting any part, not even the stems; a dark tomato sauce at the base, which recalls the smell of the stems on the braziers where the canned tomato is cooked; a very concentrated water, which enhances the acidity of the tomato; a red tomato sauce reduced in a vacuum without applying heat, to obtain the sweet and fruity part. Finally there is a nebulization of distillate from the stems to enhance the herbaceous smell. Finally, it should be noted that there is no addition of salt, as the umami contained in the fruit is extremes, to obtain the right flavor of the dish.
The recipe for Red could be Black by Alberto Ragoni: the mafaldona that tastes like innovation
Ingredients for people 4
• 300 g of Mafaldone of Gragnano Pastificio dei Campic
• 2.5 kg of Piennolo tomatoes
• 50 g of basil leaves
• 50 ml of Leccino extra virgin olive oil
• 30 g of Alpine butter
• 100 ml of pure alcohol
• 200 g of stalks of tomato and grass
Preparation
For the black tomato sauce
Weigh 800 g of tomatoes and place them in the OCOO for 12 hours in order to carry out a thorough fermentation and a caramelisation of the sugars, for the colour. Blend with the pacojet until you get a thick and dark cream.
For the red raw tomato paste sauce
Vacuum marinate 1,2 kg of chopped tomatoes (together with the basil) for 12 hours. Then pass them through an extractor at low speed and reduce everything in the Genevac Rocket for 30 hour and 200 minutes until obtaining about XNUMX g of mixture. Reserve scraps.
For the tomato water
Blend the remaining 500 g of tomatoes and separate the water from them using a gravitational centrifuge. Reduce the water obtained in the Genevac Rocket for 40 minutes, until one third is obtained.
For the powdered freeze-dried tomato
Freeze-dry the waste obtained from the extractor for 10 hours. Pulverize with the use of the bimby.
For the stalk distillate
Combine the stems, alcohol and herb together in the Rotovapor. Distill at 97 millibars at 30°C for 4 hours.
Composition of the dish
Cook the mafaldona for about 6 minutes in the water. Drain and sauté for another 3 minutes, together with the tomato water. Stir in a knob of butter and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. On the base of the dish, place the black tomato sauce (slightly heated). Press the freeze-dried tomato powder on just one edge of the pasta and lay the pasta on the black tomato sauce, forming a spiral. Spray the dish with the tomato stalk distillate. Serve by pouring the red tomato concentrate diluted at 40°C on the plate.
