QUALITALY 142

October/November 2024 VIII MAGAZINE starter to taste the restaurant’s specialities. The sushi and carpaccio are our go-to dishes and in the Round Mix they are also accompanied by our focaccia. WHAT ROLE DOES THE SUPPLIER PLAY IN PROVIDING THE RIGHT GUARANTEES FOR A QUALITY PRODUCT? The supplier does a really important intermediary job and reduces our search time. He also helps us evaluate ingredients, advising us and proposing high quality ones thanks to his wide-ranging experience of the sector. WE ARE JUST AROUND THE CORNER FROM CHRISTMAS. WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE CHRISTMAS DISH? One of Abruzzo’s typical dishes for 25 December is brodo con la stracciatella. A flavoured chicken broth in which cardoons are cooked, after having been cleaned, boiled and seasoned with a mixture of egg and Parmesan cheese. Meatballs are also added to the broth and, just before serving at the table, pizza rustica, a kind of omelette with parsley chopped into the broth. On Christmas Eve, on the other hand, they eat lesso, or chicken cooked in the broth. WHAT IS THE PROFESSIONAL GIFT YOU WOULD LIKE TO FIND UNDER THE TREE THIS YEAR? For the future, I hope one day to be able to open my own restaurant. I think that is every chef’s dream. If I have to express a wish for this Christmas, I hope that our industry will improve and that there will be more protection for employees. WHAT DO YOU WISH FROM THE NEW YEAR? I hope to be able to balance work and private life better. When one chooses to become a chef, one is aware of the difficulties of the job, but it would be important for the industry to work towards a better work-life balance. WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO YOUNG PEOPLE LIKE YOU WHO DREAM OF BECOMING CHEFS? It’s not an easy path. It’s a profession in which you never stop learning and which requires many sacrifices. This is why passion is essential, the true and only weapon for starting and developing, as they say, a career. Tomorrow we young chefs will also need good employees, with a lot of passion and a desire to grow. So I advise young people to always nurture their love for this job. __________________________________ RECIPE The Caruso Cake The Caruso cake is an iconic dish of the Ristorante Braceria Pizzeria Caruso: an apple and cinnamon tart with crumbled shortcrust pastry, accompanied by a scoop of ice cream, born from an idea of Nadia Mancini to offer a pampering to customers. During the revamping of the menu a few years ago, the Caruso cake was also revised, but without making any major changes to the original recipe. Today, single-portion moulds are used and the ice cream is served on shortbread. To enhance the cinnamon, a mousse is made with a mousse to garnish the cake. ‘The recipe has been enhanced and preserved as much as possible without deviating too much from the original in order to continue to give the same emotion since 1996,’ says chef Antonio Di Lorenzo. ‘It is a cake that can be repeated all year round and is also suitable for the Christmas holidays. With its unmistakable cinnamon scent and the heady aroma of freshly baked apples, it just reminds us of the festive mood’. Ingredients for two cocottes: For the shortcrust pastry • 1 kg of flour • 500 g sugar • 4 eggs • 20 g vanilla For the filling • 1 kg apples, peeled and cored • 200 g brown sugar • 10 g cinnamon Preparation In the bowl of the mixer, pour in all the ingredients needed to make the pastry and knead at medium speed with the spiral hook until the dough is firm. Refrigerate for at least 6 hours. Roll out a thin sheet, cup and line the tartlet moulds. Meanwhile, peel the apples, cut them into cubes and pan-fry them with cinnamon sugar. They should be soft, not mushy. Stuff the tartlets with apples and bake in the oven at 165 °C for 15 minutes. For the ‘Caruso shortbread’ Bake the leftover tartlet dough in the oven at 170 °C. After cooling, blend it with cold butter, just enough, in a clutterer and store in the fridge. Serve the tartlet on the plate, decorated with apple foam and cinnamon. Place two spoonfuls of ‘Caruso shortbread’ next to it, accompanied by a scoop of vanilla ice cream. __________________________________ AT PAGE 28 DID YOU KNOW? Cooking wood: how to choose it? LEGAL REQUIREMENTS AND FUNCTIONAL CHARACTERISTICS HAVE TO GUIDE PIZZA MAKERS. BUT SUSTAINABILITY ALSO PLAYS AN INCREASING ROLE, AS CONFIRMED BY A DOSSIER BY PEFC ITALY AND THE UNIVERSITY OF GASTRONOMIC SCIENCES by Manuela Falchero It’s easy to mention pizza. To make one of the mainstays of Italian cuisine you need high-quality ingredients and professional expertise. But, not least, it is also necessary to use the right wood in the oven. A not insignificant aspect, on which the success of the dish may depend. But how should one choose this element? There are two main factors that can and should help guide restaurant managers. CERTIFIED SUPPLY CHAINS The first concerns the product’s sustainability characteristics, a topic that is now attracting the attention of an increasingly wide audience of consumers. And this starts from the moment of purchase: according to a study conducted by the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo in collaboration with PEFC Italy, more than 3 out of 10 interviewees declare that they are willing to pay as much as 10% more for a product made with wood from certified sources, i.e. from traceable supply chains, which excludes illegal logging. But that is not all. The same study notes that