As an adult, as I began my journey through different worlds of food, I learned a bit about Northern Italian food. It was similar to French with its wine and cream based sauces. It was within my comfort zone and I learned to love it. It was a far cry from my mother's spaghetti. But I never learned to embrace Southern style Italian, which still seemed to me just noodles and tomato sauce with cheese in various forms. Sure, I made the occasional lasagne or spaghetti, but I never went any further.
On my trip to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, I had the opportunity to work with Roseann, a REAL Italian cook, in her restaurant kitchen, Red Gravy. What an enlightenment! Two dishes in particular were so fabulous that I've tried to reproduce them at home. The first was the wonderful Ragu of Short Ribs that I posted about in March. The other - ohhh, the other - is a crunchy/creamy dish called Arancini. Often called 'rice balls', the name just doesn't do them justice. They are a ball of risotto, stuffed with cheese and other things of your choice, breaded, and deep fried. Whoa! When your fork (or your teeth) breaks through that crust and the filling oozes out, it's food porn on a plate.
Roseann makes food for her restaurant in quantities that I could never use (Thank goodness - if she only sold small quantities, she'd go broke!). So, I worked with leftovers. I had some risotto from 2 days ago, and braised beef from yesterday. When my tomatoes finished coming in last month, I made many jars of tomato sauce. Everything I needed! The result? Almost as good as hers.
Maybe I'll have to take another trip to New Orleans to see what else I can learn!
