San Gimignano
-visit the Collegiata with frescoes including Domenico Ghirlandaio’s life of local Saint Fina
-from 31:00 we’re in the kitchen making asparagus risotto
Thank y’all so much for being here it’s good to see everybody it’s been a while um I’m glad to be back I keep getting messages from people wondering if they’ve fallen off my mailing list I’m like no no no the mailing list is intact it’s just that um things have gotten
Super busy with um cooking classes and T stuff and trips to Italy if anybody wants to take a trip check out um the website Lorenzo if you want to put that up Elan tr.com and um we have a couple trips starting at next month actually
And then um we have some trips on the books for next year too and then of course olive oil is taking a lot of time I think yall have heard from me on that front so um we’re going to make a good recipe a good Springtime recipe using
Our Sicilian olive oil so but first let’s get started we’re going to make a little quick visit to um s jimano let me share my screen so y’all can see what we’re doing okay say I have to get this set properly okay good okay so we are going
To go to San jimana which you can see here on the map um which is in Tuscany you can see that on the uh inset on the right hand side so where I live at the Castell poiano is actually um it’s not um too far away from San jimano so I’m
Coming to you from my kitchen here at the castle of poano so this is where I live this is um the castle of poano here on the hill and then this is my house Springtime everything’s just starting to bloom the lady Banks is out um so if you
Drive about 45 minutes you get to San jimano and I actually did that on Palm Sunday I made a little visit to um uh s jimano together with my boyfriend Dominico who wanted to go see a work of art um in the duo and actually we’re
Going to look at some of the works of art in the DMO today um San jimano is this tiny little town there’s about 7,500 residents and ex potentially more tourist so you really have to kind of if you go there it’s like going on an archaeological excavation because you
Have to dig real hard to get underneath the hordes of tourists and all the souvenir shops and they’re all selling the same thing like the same cutting boards the same little piece of cheese with truffles in it and we kind of zipped in and zipped out because we knew
What we wanted to see um so it is a cute town but it’s kind of Tourism hasn’t been managed very well and I think a lot of y’all have probably been there and probably dealt with that so um um again as long as you kind of have a
Goal you can get in and out of there um but it is a cute uh cute town and it’s um it kind of has preserved its medieval aspect for um very good reason it was first documented in 929 ad it uh was on the Via franina so that’s the pilgrimage
Route that went from canterberry to Rome and the Archbishop of canterberry actually wrote about it and thought that it was a good place to go visit so I guess people have been visiting for a really long time that’s the 900 ad so um it’s been kind of the place to go visit
Ever since then um their economy from that period up into the Medieval Age was based on trade of local products such as saffron um which is still grown there today it’s sold locally and back in the day it was literally sold as far away as Syria and Egypt they also had money
Flowing into the economy from Financial speculation there were a lot of user usurers um in in town so this wealth that was created was expressed red um by the residents who were sort of earning money that became kind of a minor aristocracy they expressed their social and political power by building these
Really impossibly tall tower houses and that’s kind of what a lot of people go to see today aristocratic families tended to do this in other towns as well lots of little villages in Tuscany oreto Florence bolognia even bolognia actually has some talls towers still standing um in other Villages they were lowered for
Um by decrees from the municipality often to try and keep the peace they said okay everybody Loop your Tower off at whatever height just so every we’re all even kind of reset you know reset the dynamic a little bit here um because there were so many difficulties during the
1300s the town really able was able to preserve its medieval aspect so in that period during the 1300s um there was a lot of infighting um the the plague hit there were a couple of outbreaks of the Bubonic plague they lost a large amount of their population the Via franina that
Pilgrimage route actually changed um its uh route so it didn’t go through town anymore and in the end they lost their independence they capitulated to Florence and the town was just basically marginalized and it was left to its own devices and therefore was able to retain its medieval aspect which you really
Still see when you go to town so we’re going to visit um today we’re going to go into the dwo which is you see the facade here of the church um it was consecrated in the year 1148 so it’s a Romanesque building it has a main Nave
And two slide aisles as you can see the bell tower is in one of these old Towers it’s an old Tower housee turned into the bell tower this is the entrance I was there on Palm Sunday um like I mentioned and here in Italy they don’t use palms for
Palm Sunday they use olive branches so here’s a couple on you see it on the right baskets of um blessed Olive branches so everybody can take one a lot of people hang them up in their houses right so you go home with your blessed Olive Branch and you kind of tack it up
In the house so that’s what was going on on the entrance to the church and then when you walk in this is the the aspect of the Interior again you can see I’m in standing inside of of the first aisle and then here’s the main Nave and
Another side aisle um it is painted floor to ceiling and there are lots of works of art in here and I think I mentioned we’re experimenting with a new format today and um instead of looking um at every work of art and going super in depth on all these artists we are
Going to concentrate on um one Monument so I’ll show you briefly what’s going on on the left and right hand walls and then we’re going to concentrate on a monument that is dedicated to um kind of their local hero a local Saint who is
From s jimano so as you can see here the walls on the left and right going down um towards the this is called the contro fata are covered with frescos and they represent scenes from the new and Old Testament and I’m showing you the New Testament series first because it was
Actually painted first so these were painted in 1340 uh around 1340 we’re actually not totally sure who painted them we think perhaps an artist called leoi and any event it was somebody from the circle of Simone Martini who was the main proponent of Cen painting in this period
And these this is an extremely involved uh Fresco cycle there would have been lots of hands working here so a workshop would have come in and you know the the main Master probably worked with somebody in the church to figure out what scenes were going to go wear um the
Head guy might have laid them out and then his Workshop team came in to um actually um you know finish each composition the way that this is laid out so we’re looking at scenes from the New Testament this covers the entire wall of the church so you have these
Kind of arches one after another Each of which has various scenes in it so there’s three registers the top register is in this case there’s a Lunette you can kind of make out that there is a an an Annunciation to the Virgin up there the angel Gabriel has come down to
Tell Mary she’s pregnant with the Son of God and she’s probably going like that um second register is Red from left to right and you’re seeing for example here this is Christ’s entrance into Jerusalem which of course happened on Palm Sunday remember Christ is riding a donkey um you know a poor
Man with his poor followers on you know kind of the animal the Workhorse animal and he’s welcomed into Jerusalem you know the people welcomed him welcomed him as if he were a king laying down the cloak so that his donkey could um um you sort like rolling out the red carpet as
He approached Jerusalem and then on the lower register um these are actually read from right to left so as you walk up and down the hallway the aisle of the church it’s literally like you’re being taught Bible stories and the church was in fact painted in this fashion to teach
The pop the um parishioners who were illiterate so they couldn’t read the Bible so these stories were done um in this fashion literally so that everybody could have an understanding of all the Bible stories and they chose to do it in this way with each scene in its own
Little composition and it’s kind of like a slideshow right it’s like you know you’re just seeing the images of these different um Bible stories kind of um Crossing before your eyes um so again these are uh this is a cenes painter the cenes painters tended to remain very faithful to conservative Gothic
Pictorial ideal the figures are quite graceful the compositions are very um decorative ative there’s lots of kind of nice color moving your eye around you can see here kind of these greens and pinks for example um the florentines were already moving into a different style and we’ll see
That uh in the last work that we’re going to look at but um the walls here were painted by the cenes Masters so they have that more kind of decorative type of um type of composition here you’re seeing um Judas who is accepting the blood money so he’s to turn Christ
In here’s judish literally in the moment of taking taking the blood money and they’re uh this kind of cabal of sinister men and you can see how they’re if you can see their faces they’re they’re literally kind of depicted kind of borish sinister criminal type they’re placed in this really dainty little um
Relatively shaky looking um kind of Niche with these beautiful Gothic troil windows in the background so again very delicate kind of elegant even though what we’re looking at is the moment that Judith takes the the blood money but this again is very much that CN Style on the other wall the Old
Testament stories are represented these were painted about 30 40 years later 1367 by an artist called Balo def FR he was also a CN painter um he moved around a lot though and was exposed to Florentine painters particularly in Pisa where he kind of picked up some techniques and some ideas for making
Compositions he also had a really kind of lively narrative style so I mean he’s um each each little square here is just full of all sorts of detail so he’s recounting Old Testament things and there’s so many that are so cute but this this is one of those the kind of
Thing that’s really rewarded with looking very closely because you just all can pick out all sorts of great little details this is the dream of Joseph and I don’t think I’ve made a highlight of it but you can actually see Joseph in his bedroom which at this
Point again we’ve got a an artist who’s painting about 60 years later he’s had touch he’s had contact with florentines notice the Arches here are the Roman arches so he’s trying to place this guy in kind of a cross vaated Niche Roman arches he’s not using the little pointy
Gothic tray foil and the kind’s everyday detail is great so Joseph is laying it under his little plaid coverlet when which I think is just they really had plaid in the 1360 I mean I guess so so um what I chose to highlight here though
Is a a scene from the stories of job um you know the trials of job have been um shown here in all their gory detail we’re looking at um on the right there is a banquet scene and in the upper lefthand corner God and the devil are
Debating the fate of job so it’s kind of a big moment but what you’re looking at is this great banquet scene and and there’s lots of great detail in here there’s dogs on the floor kind of nibbling up all the little bits that have fallen down off the table their
Kids up at the top leaning over the ballister trying to see what’s going on and there’s a band on the right which is just great here’s a better view of it the band the guys were blowing the horns their cheeks are puffed out um there’s somebody playing kind of a liar harp
Type of thing and then I love the drums and the drummer he got his drumstick I’ve never seen drums like that but apparently that’s what they used to drum on so so these again so these are the Old Testament I’m scen so again if you’re just walking up and down the
Aisles of the church you’re really getting um kind of inundated with all of these different stories from from the Bible um again this is 1360s um the church is this is the main church so it’s their dwo it was um heavily decorated over various centuries so into the 1400s um
We are looking at now this Monument to the Local Hero Santa finina this is a chapel that was put up right sort of in at the Crossing of the church and it’s dedicated to the Saint who hails from Jano it was commissioned um the town hall so we’re we’re in a
Church but the town hall commissioned this work from Juliano do mayano so he’s an architect who is from mayano which is a little town by f up above Florence so basically a Florentine he was paid 11 L and six SOI to come and do this chapel and he is working here in perfect
High Renaissance style so what you’re looking at is a barrel vault which actually goes back into space and it is held up by this very classicizing cornice and there are fluted pilasters with Corinthian capitals that are holding up um the structure basically so he created this space to include the
Altar of Santa finina which is straight ahead and then on either wall are the story of of Fresco of the story of Santa finina his brother is benedetto D mayano and he was brought in to do the he’s a sculpter he was brought in to do the carving on the altar so he’s
Responsible for the Madonna and that you see up here flanked by Saints and this very kind of elaborate altar here uh you can see the doors of the Tabernacle are closed when they’re open Santa’s bust is there so interestingly again the town hall um commissioned to the work so this
Is a Civic commission and the idea is they’re trying to promote the idea of gaining sainthood for their local hero the santaa she um was beatified she was actually never canonized so she isn’t actually a saint but that was the idea here was this was
Kind of a PR move on the part of s jimano they really wanted to um have her canonized out of sort of civic pride and you that would s bring a lot to their town right I look our Local Heroes and Saint so that’s what they were working
For um so the town hall paid for the works but it was supervised um by the religious Authorities on site of the church so we have the chapel with the very kind of elaborate carved uh marble Altar and then there’s actually her relics are actually down here and a tomb underneath
And then paintings on either side and you can kind of see how that looks here there’s a a painting here on the side um the story of her life then is Illustrated in frescos there on the sad walls of the chapel and it was done by Dominico Giro Dominico gandio is a
Painter working in Florence he was here in the 1470s late 1470s working here um in the chapel of Santa finina he was a relatively young painter he had made a trip to Rome so he’s here now working after a trip to Rome I think literally the next year after this trip
To Rome this is his first big commission so this is interesting because we can sort of see how he’s working to develop what becomes his mature style and he is known as a genius of Fresco painting he became the head of what was the most important Workshop in Florence and there
Are works of art by Dominico Gand diome and his Workshop throughout Florence and the provinces he employed a large number of artists and he brought in a large number of apprentices as well including Michelangelo so Michelangelo at age 13 cycled through the um Workshop of Dominico gero so he
Has been tasked with illustrating thingss from the life of Santa finina and interestingly instead of the kind of slideshow operation like we saw on the walls of the church he’s decided to combine several different moments of this story into this one large composition so he’s effectively um
Telling a story but in such a way that it’s a lot less chaotic than all those little scenes stack up on top of on one another and in this way it actually kind of works to encourage contemplation which by this point the church um was trying to do they were sort of hoping
That you would spend some time actually contemplating the life of this saint and how she lived her life and think about you how she acted on her faith so the story of Santa finina is told here um in various moments in one very simple space girand Dio has used a very rational
Depiction of space he’s used onepoint perspective to construct what is this very intimate interior of the Humble Home of santena so her story is that she was born in the 12 30s and she was a very Pious child she was known to wear a hair shirt or so they say um she spent
Her home at her time at home and mostly in prayer at age 10 she developed a debilitating illness that left her in such pain that she could not move she could only move her head and so she was basically paralyzed and immobile and she chose instead of you know laying on on
On her bed she decided to lay on a wooden board and spend her time this way and you can see that’s what’s happening here she’s on the floor on a wooden board and she did this in order to increase her suffering so it’s to be
Closer to Christ so this is how she was sort of living this um kind of AIC life the villagers of San jimana knew about her trials and tribulations they knew that she was giving thanks to God for her suffering she was known for this while she was still alive very young so
Remember she’s 10 when she gets sick um while she’s sick her parents die and she’s left an orphan and two two um local women come to kind of help care for her and become her nursemaids and their names are bonaventura and beldia and it’s pretty amazing we know their
Names and we have this because there’s a very strong oral history in s jimano that was written down in 1300 so not much time passed when um a local priest interviewed everybody and wrote all this stuff down so we actually have you know facts so very you know interesting small
Details Like This Woman’s name is beldia um and her job was to uh nurse um Santa finina and hold up her head which she’s doing here you can see the hand of beldia is there holding up the head of Santa finina so Santa finina remains on this board for five years
Apparently her body actually started to Decay the board became infected with worms and mice apparently ate away at the body of fanta finina um girand Dio has chosen not to go gory here um he has alluded to this by depicting there’s a mouse here under this bench uh in the
Shadows and another mouse here under um under the board so again this is part of this oral history which seems really weird something must have happened with the mouse because otherwise they wouldn’t bother and then interestingly um you know other people use this imagery this is an anonymous
Painting from 1320 it’s in the same church if you look up which I just happened to do this is not a famous paint you know it’s not one of the big famous things you go there to see I just looked up and you can see how sort of
Busy all of that geometric detail is in all of those spaces in the upper reaches of the church and then in that Lunette is another Vision another image of Santa finina laying on the board the me are closing in and uh beldia is there with her hand under you think Bia would be
Swatting those mice away so something happened with the mice but um it can’t possibly as bad as they’re thinking it is so she spends time on the board five years she is just literally you know basically paralyzed laying on this board and she has starts to have Vision she’s
Also not eating she’s you know going into some surely In and Out Of Consciousness um she has a vision St Gregory the Great kind of floats in from the garden there you see and He blesses her and he says I am here to announce your death you will die in one week on
My feast day which is the which is 12 March and that is in fact what happened so this for Fina was um you know the final relief basically she he and Gregory said to her you are you know you’re going to get your wish you’re finally going to die you will go to
Heaven and you know and and you’ll be with Christ so that’s um and this is what is written right here there’s like a lapidary here and that happens to be if you draw out the sight lines for the onepoint perspective that’s exactly where they take you they
Take you right here to um the quote of St Gregory so St Gregory tells her in a week your suffering is going to be over um at the moment that she dies on 12th of March in 1253 um two things happen one her soul is borne a loft By Angels and taken into
Heaven and the board that she’s lying on miraculously Sprout little fragrant white flowers so here we remember we’re talking about we’re trying to get the saint canonized right so we need to actually record her Miracles um that’s you know part of the that needs to happen so that you can go
Through with your with canonization so that’s the kind of the story of the suffering of santaa on the other wall Dominico G Ando Paints the sort of funeral and wake of Santa finina he’s done it in the same way it’s one single scene as opposed to all the
Little tiny scenes he’s combined several things here into one uh composition um he has shown the recumbent Saint equally in both compositions so they’re kind of very harmoniously uh mirror each other but this is a very public event where the um previous Fresco is very much a
Private view of the interior of her house this is a very kind of public um event we’ve got the kind of crowds at the funeral of Santa finina it’s being held in the apps of a church remember Gand Dio has just come back from Rome and you can see he’s just constructed
This very Monumental um classicizing app of this church with the Corinthian columns and the you know very elaborate cornice and whatnot um so we see the interior of this apps and then on either side you actually get an exterior View and clearly we’re in San Jim andana
Right so all this that happened it happened in San jimano and you know that because you can see all those towers and those Towers would have been easily identified back to specific families for sure so let’s take a little bit of a closer look zoom into the center of the
Painting here so Santa is now at rest her eyes are closed she’s wearing a Halo she’s not a saint but they’ve given her a Halo this is interesting um I’m not sure how the Vatican felt about that when they came to check all this out but um again Dominico gandio is painting
Um he certainly is in charge of kind of creating the composition but there are Church authorities who were saying things like we need to get a couple of miracles in here so for example beldia the nursaid who held up the head of Santa finina all those years her hand became
Cramped and lame by holding up the head for so long so she had this lame hand is uh on the um while Fina is laying on her beer beldia slides her hand in between the hands of the Dead Saint and her hand miraculously is restored to full
Function and also look at the feet of Santa finina there is a young boy who’s blind he touches his face to her feet and his sight is restored this is just two of various Miracles that um were attributed to the Saint um many of them um healing um people in the town who
Were ill and again this is all stuff that has been handed down you know very specifically in this oral history um and then took part in um kind of trying to help with her canonization here is a view of the left and right side of the painting
Um and you’re seeing the groups of people who are present at the funeral and um on the left you can see a group of clergy and and they are very specific portraits we do not know today who these people represent the guy in the white miter is certainly the bishop of San
Jimano who’s conducting the rights um Dominico gandio becomes very well known um for his ability to um create these portraits of the people you know commission the people who commissioned the work of art the works of art that he painted um their allies and whatnot and
Then just for the way that he um is able to depict kind of a variet of human expression without ever um kind of relying on just kind of rote repetition and look at the ultra boys for example on the right they’re all kind of doing their own thing some some of them are
Kind of staring off into space right their little kids they’re like okay we’re so bored um some of them are very intent on their job they’re all just kind of they all have their own kind of individual thing going on and then the three men on the right the far right are
Certainly members of the city council who are responsible for the commissioning of the painting they may have even been the guys who actually put up the money for this um again we don’t know who they are but interestingly they each have a tower behind their head like
You’re supposed to avoid that when you take a picture you know they that Tower coming out of their head um but most likely that’s identifying these people I mean back in the day they would have known just by looking at the tower what family these guys belonged to that’s
Been lost to us um lots of very specific detail has not been lost to us but that little bit has and there’s two more um Miracles here look on the left there’s Angel who is flying up to uh the bell tower of a church so when santena died
The flowers sprouted on uh her the the wooden board that she had been lying on and miraculously the church bells started to ring and nobody’s pulling the Rope the church bells start to ring in town at the moment of her death and it wasn’t the we know that we also know
Though that it was not the death nail and I don’t know if you’ve ever heard a the a church bell you know preparing for a funeral Dong Dong it wasn’t that at all it was more like Easter Sunday ding ding ding ding ding ding ding when all
Of the Bells were going off and it’s like you know it’s sort of the more kind of joyous type of bell ringing and that’s what happened miraculously the moment that Sant died so Gand di is alluding to that by showing an angel because it was the angel who was ringing
The bells right it wasn’t the sacristan who was down there pulling the rops and then on the right you can see um um the um excuse me I’m making a mess um top of this Tower um has sprouted these little yellow flowers and that happens every year in
March um in San jimano they’re called VI D Santa finina these little VI these flowers Sprout and they sprout on the walls of the um Towers themselves and here you can see that um and it makes the news right oh that they bloomed again this year like
It’s the miracle that never stops so um they celebrate the Feast Day of Santa finina on her death the day of her death which is the 12th of uh March and they also celebrate her feast day just because I got to get do it twice might
As well the first Sunday of August which represents um a day when she is credited with saving the town from the bubanic plague um so if you go to sanana you can hit um two of her feast days on uh in March and in um in August so also um uh spontaneously
Growing in these days is asparagus and so we’re about to make some asparagus rizoto me stop sharing my screen okay so Len your okay okay good so we are going to make RTO with asparagus and um the first step in making rotto is toasting the rice which
I’ve actually done just to get kind of a start uh little little bit of a head start and you can see just rice this is plain rice um toasted with a little bit of olive oil and I’m going to add a little bit more because it soaks it
Up and I’m using I mentioned in the beginning I think most of y’all know that I make olive oil I’m using the oil that is called Loria it is a sicilian olive oil and it really is um fruity and lightly spicy and goes really well with these spring flavors so I’m using this
Today with the asparagus reso and I’m also making a baked Racha which will come out of the oven in a few minutes um so those flavors are really highlighted well by the Sicilian oil so I’m just toasting the rice and when you make RTO um first of all you want to choose a
Rice that has a very small grain and see if you can see that it’s not like it’s not a long grain rice it’s a really short grain rice and this is one that’s called the Alona Nano Loreno might put that into the chat um it’s my favorite
One because it tends to get really creamy but you can also use Arborio or ceroli or any other version of a short grain rice um we use these because they cook relatively slowly they absorb a lot of liquid and they release a lot of starch so that’s how you end up with
That nice creamy uh consistency when your risoto is cooked so I’ve toasted the rice for a couple of minutes just with some olive oil that actually helps it release its starch even more slowly um I’m going to do kind of a particular procedure here with the asparagus because I want them
To stay I want to keep the nice fresh asparagus flavor um if I were using for example Rosemary and sausage or something I would have already cooked the sausage in here and I would probably add some garlic I’m going to do that in a different way though because I’m
Trying to maintain the really fresh spring flavors so I’ve toasted the rice and then I’m going to just add liquid very slowly kind of a label full at a time and the first go round is in this instance I’m gonna add just add some white wine and this just gives kind of another
Layer of flavor kind of wine it’s a white wine also from Sicily by the way and I chose it because I thought it would go good with the um with the asparagus you pref you prefer a dry wine or or a floral wine this is dry but it’s pretty fruity this
Is a catato from Sicily by um baraco and if y’all come on a Sicily trip with me we can go there and visit he has great Vineyards that are literally right on on the uh right on the ocean right on the sea right on the Mediterranean lovely so as soon as the
Alcohol burns off and you can kind of smell that going to start adding a little bit of broth and I made a vegetable broth and I actually used the ends of the asparagus and I’ll show you in a minutes I just used a little bit of fresh new onion um carrot celery
And the hard ends of the asparagus that you don’t eat the part that you bust off I made I made the broth with that so there’s some good aspar arus flavor in the broth as well so I’m going to add just enough liquid to kind of cover the rice it’s on
Pretty high heat you can hear it bubbling kind of sizzling you want to keep your broth hot so that the rice never stops cooking you don’t want to add cold liquid to the rice so I added a good bit of uh liquid it’s kind of just covered the rice
And I’m going to just let that bubble and the rice will start slowly absorbing liquid so we’re going to use Ela sorry Linda asked to specific the name of the olive oil this is called La Storia and the oil is oo DEA Don this is my production and
It’s backwards because that’s the way my camera reads it Lorenzo you can put the name of the website maybe up into the chat Rod dead.com um if you go there you’ll see how to make an order from me directly or uh where to find it from us retailers
Such as oot too on the line with us tonight hello Lan um and it goes really so this is the Sicilian oil goes very well with asparagus resultto so these are the little wild asparagus that I find when I go out walking in The Vineyards and in
The olive Groves um I’m not using them tonight because um I couldn’t find enough of them to actually make a whole out of them and you also treat them kind of differently they’re really really tough and you only use about this much at the top so I would treat them a
Little bit differently so for tonight’s Roto I’m using you know regular cultivated asparagus which are a little bit medor as you can see so as you know um when you prepare asparagus um you want to use the tender part and not the the hard part and wherever it breaks naturally is this is
The part you use and this is the part that I made broth out of so this no long it’s so fibrous no longer how no matter how long you cook it it’s never going to be edible and so then this is the part that you would actually that we’re going
To eat so with the tender parts I steamed them so I just put them in a steamer basket um steamed them so that they’re um they’re still they still have some consistency to them and they’re still very nice and bright green as you can
See um I going to so remember I said the rice um absorbs liquid I want it to really absorb some good asparagus flavor so I’m going to make a cream out of the asparagus STS I’m going to reserve the little tips of the asparagus though and
I’m going to sort of um flavor them up and add them in at the very end so I’m going to cut off the chps of the asparagus and save them in a little fry pan but you really can’t do this with those wild asparagus they’re just too
Woody they have a really um intense asparagus flavor though they’re interesting for that but you can’t make a cream out of them so all the tips go over here so the rice had absorbed almost all the liquid El to toasted the rice you don’t use onion it’s why it’s because you
Don’t like it or with the asparagus doesn’t work very the taste of with onion and asparagus doesn’t work I do use onion sometimes if I’m making a certain kind of Roto depends on the Roto that I’m making I would use garlic with um asparagus as opposed to onion and I’m
Going to use garlic but I’m going to I’m not going to cook it the entire time it just it changes flavor I’m really trying to preserve the really nice bright Springtime flavors and I’m um doing that with the um asparagus by adding it in late I’m
Not adding it in now you when you cook an asparagus for a long time it turns gray I’m trying to avoid that I want it to stay nice and bright green that also preserves that nice bright flavor and I’m going to use instead of regular garlic or onion I’m using um green
Garlic this is fresh garlic you could also use a scallion here if you wanted to or maybe even a shallot um I’m GNA I have this now this is a very short season um I can find green garlic for sort of you know two or three weeks out
Of the Year and I love it so I use it whenever I can and it goes really well with these really nice fresh spring flavors so I’ve taken up the these are just the stalks the steamed um nice stalks of the um asparagus I’m going to add a little bit of my asparagus
Broth and I’m going to make a cream with an immersion blender so this is now basically a liquid that I’m going to add to the risoto so the risoto is slowly but L absorbing liquid and absorbing flavor I added wine as one of my additions of liquid I’ve been adding vegetable broth
As an additions of liquid and as it Cooks further I’m going to actually add this as another addition of liquid so the rice is going to absorb um that much more um that much asparagus flavor and hopefully it’s not going to turn that awful gray color
Right so I’m not putting in at the beginning because I think it’ll just overcook so I’m going to wait and put this in sort of at the halfway point or just after the halfway point um so that the asparagus itself does not get overcooked so this will be an a liquid
Addition and then with the tips of the asparagus I’m going to stir them in at the very end and I’m going to flavor them up with the green garlic and sauté them with the green garlic in olive oil and I’m going to use about half of this you kind of
Use it as if it were a leak so I mean it’s good it’s good up to about here where that first Leaf starts to Branch off I don’t want to overdo it so I’m just going to use again just use about half you can kind of cut it as if it were a
Leak too it doesn’t have to be finely mined as if it were smashed or whatever you can actually cut it into strips or little chunks and then I’m G to saut with some of the olive oil oh sorry I was covering up my visual I’m going to add a little bit of
Salt and at the end we’ll add some lemon parmesan and I think we’re gonna use white pepper for this I pulled out the white pepper again I’m kind of going for these nice um kind of gentle spring flavors I’m going to put a little extra olive oil in here the oil really
Absorbs the flavors of stuff that it you cook with it so it’s going to be kind of nice and garlicky Ela I have two question for the uh boiling of the asparagus you use only water or you put some other things like carrots or other vegetables only oh for the the broth for
The broth the broth is Carrot onion celery parsley and asparagus stems this a classical broth with a little bit of salt like a it’s like a classic vegetable broth a little bit of salt and the the the the only addition here is the asparagus and and you have boiled the
Asparagus in another pot or you put or you don’t boil it before I steamed the asparagus I just wanted to get them soft enough that they would um turn into a cream so I steamed them in the steamer basket which okay with steam I steamed them no I just steamed
Them there just for a few minutes or the flavor sort of five or six minutes yeah just yeah exactly okay so this is going on the next addition of the rice is kind of really getting there on the next Edition I’m going to add the asparagus
Cream I’m going to let this go on relatively high but I don’t want to burn that garlic so I’m gonna kind of keep it bubbling but I’m not going to let the garlic burn okay Chris um ask if for the basa to The Toasted rice
We you use only oil only oil is the same that I asked you before without onion this this time no nothing nothing just oil I I really don’t want I didn’t want to kind of cover up the nice fresh asparagus flavor so I used oil and then
I immedately added a little bit of wine which kind of gives a little bit of a nice undertone um without kind of covering up like the onion or garlic would do and and looking really good and in Italy we don’t use but to toast to toast
The rice butter is only to manura I don’t know the English word for manura but is only at the end but usually add I’m not even adding butter at the end because I’m going to add all of this yummy um fresh garlic oil with the lemon
Over here so I’m going to use that to kind of stir in um a lot of times and mostly north of here they will use some butter at the very end just to make it a little bit creamier but some first of all the rice ought to be creamy enough
And this is theone Nano rice which to me is makes the creamiest consistency of all of the rotra Rices and in fact it is actually quite creamy I don’t want to burn myself showing this to you but I’m gonna try I mean can you already see like how like it’s it’s definitely not
Separate rice grain there might be too much steam but it’s definitely getting creamy so I’m going to go ahead and add the asparagus cream and then while that’s um absorbing I’ll show you the baked recot which is another really good kind of spring treat um the sheep have been uh LED out of
The barns into the field with lots of fresh um fresh grass and so the fresh cheeses now are just heavenly very rich and flavorful can y’all see how green that is isn’t that great don’t want graay reso okay so I’m just going to let the rice now absorb this on super low
Heat here’s the ricotta so I’ve baked the ricotta may have seen me do this before I do this all the time the ricotta is a little baby form of Ricotta and I baked it on top of lemon leaves so that it just it kind of turns into kind of a
Custardy consistency and it just perfumed with lemon so I’m G to um transfer that a little serving platter and I’m actually going to a dinner this evening and I’m going to bring this as uh the appetizer so just it’s plaed right off on its lemon leafes and I’m going to just kind of
Dress it with um black pepper you could use hot pepper if you wanted I’m going to use black pepper tonight and oregano lots of oregano El lemon z uh we have a um Linda say that the uh the asparagus creams seems more solid this is very good thing
To say that is better to don’t put a lot of broth or a lot of uh liquid part in the rotto because it’s is best to add other broth more and more not all in one solution because you can you cannot control the the the cooking time for
Roto if it’s it’s there’s or liquid so it’s better to put no exactly yeah you want to add um liquid slowly so you don’t overcook the rice and you don’t want it to be Scoopy you want it to just be creamy um so on purpose I made I made
The um asparagus cream relatively thick and then I could always if I needed more broth I could always add it which in fact I did not um and the rice is done it’s very creamy and I’m about to stir in the um asparagus beers little tips
And we’ll be done so I’m going to finish my ricotta a little bit of salt and then a good dting of olive oil and this is um so here’s your appetizer appetizer is ricotta just warm and kind of custardy with tons of nice spicy oil and a
Oregano and then let’s serve up the rice so the rice is incredibly creamy you can kind of see how I think you can kind of see the consistency of How It’s fallen off of the um the spatula I’m going to very just gently add the garlic rizoto and there’s a little bit
Of lemon zest all up in here with this olive oil so it’s just very flavorful the oil will have absorbed flavor the flavors of the green garlic very bright kind of garlicky but very bright flavors I’m going to add some white pepper to keep it mellow and not too
Spicy and then I’ll just put some Parmesan on the top let me get it in here and then I’ll show it to you I’m so happy with this color um that beautiful green again I did I kind of everything I did was to make sure that it didn’t turn
Gray and then of course it retains that nice uh great fresh asparagus flavor isn’t that pretty and sprinky so there we go epater first course um if y’all have any more questions yeah yeah a lot of so oh good okay tell me Jean ask is anything added to the
Rotta like eggs or other no it’s not cream no the ricotta just came out of I’ll show you it’s little chest feno um I bought the ricotta from the chees maker and it came in one of these and I just dumped it out so it’s just plain
Ricotta yeah turned over on top of the lemon leav and you can use other herbs instead of oregano Marlene say you you can put Rosemary for example why not you can use yeah you can use anything yeah absolutely I was thinking of the Southern I was thinking of the Southern
The the Sicilian flavors so I went with the oregano but you could use basil hot pepper you could use anything have in the garden margam thy all of that no it all be very good and Michael say when is you don’t have the green garlic what you
Use instead you can use you can use regular garlic I would just again I would I would do it the way I did it which is saute it slowly with a little tips of the asparagus um The Garlic once it’s cooked for a very long time it just
Kind of changes flavor it’s not quite as bright and what we were going for here was bright so we were just trying to Main maintain the brightness so I didn’t cook it too I didn’t I didn’t cook it too long so you can use regular garlic
You might just smash a clove and then put it in there with the um with the olive oil and the asparagus tips okay we Linda say you you just worn the ricot in the in the oven or not no I put it I put it in the oven was in the
Oven it was in the oven for kind of 35 minutes on on 350s so I’ll send you the recipe for that tomorrow yeah no it baked I’m sorry I didn’t make that very clear it came out of the oven it was in the oven for 35 minutes at 350 and it
Just kind of It kind of solidifies a little bit it turns into kind of a it’s kind of a custardy consistency yeah I’ll show you a piece hang on let me get a here I’ll show you I’ll cut it could you cut I will may I
Eat if you were here you could Lorenzo ditched us tonight so here’s how the ricotta looks when it comes out of the oven it’s just very I mean it’s slightly warm and squeeze a little bit squeeze a little bit I’m squeezing I’m squeezing okay see how it it hangs together if you
Make the same with the fresh rotta you’d have it would crumble out of my computer yeah it just gets to be a little bit more consistent and yeah um Jen asked if you send the recipe so yes recipes recipes will go out tomorrow all people everybody who registered for the class
Will get a recipe so if you did not register go in and register or send me an email and I’ll make sure that I send you the recipes so so I think two good vegetarian recipes I just was looking at the list Brenda’s on the line Brenda
You’re happy we have no no meat anywhere so all good um vegetarian recipes it’s for this that I I am not at your your home I at my home he was invited he was invited for supper but when he only vegetables I have to come with my my Association my ham myy bone
Stick yeah Lorenzo arounds with the fatting stuff right exactly y’all thanks so much for being here it was great to see everybody I will be in touch um tomorrow with recipes okay bye thanks again bye