Benno and Cracco, how delicious

The awaited turn of Jonathan Benno and Carlo Cracco, protagonists of the first lecture at Identità New York 6, on day 3, has arrived. It starts with the chef from restaurant Lincoln waving a filet of salmon: «It’s from Ora King, we get it from New Zealand because we’re sure they farm it in a sustainable way».

Its belly is marinated for around one hour in sugar, lemon, water, lime and orange zest. This is the start to an interesting terrine, with thin slices of salmon spaced out with stripes of mousse made with cheese cream, crème fraiche, lemon juice and zest, fennel pollen and chopped dill. The terrine is paired, at the end of the plate, with a standing marinated quail egg and a mousse made with lightly smoked egg yolk, mayonnaise, mashed garlic, mustard, red wine vinegar, extra virgin olive oil. «This is a simplified version of a dish we serve at our restaurant».

Carlo Cracco gets on stage with his effective English. He brings two dishes. The first is an emblem of his cuisine, risotto. «I was born in Vicenza: where I live, the risotto has always been more popular than pasta. It’s always been considered a much more creative dish, a heritage I still have». Today’s risotto is very Italian: «First of all, it has to be white. We don’t colour flavours and aromas. In this case we add tomato, mozzarella and lemon» with just one exotic element, namely cumin (toasted and ground in a mortar), and an ingredient that has traditionally been much loved by the chef, scallion, the starting point to the sautéed vegetables for his risotto, «a more elegant and less acid start, compared to the classic risotto with onion».

Rice is toasted for 2-3 minutes with the scallion, a little white wine and then the water is added. The tomato is in three versions: beefsteak tomato and a sauce made with blended and confit date tomatoes. The lemon adds a very pleasant final citric note and the powdered cumin an extra twist that is not just colour. A great risotto, a strongpoint in the current tasting menu in Milan.

There’s also time for a second dish by Cracco: Salted codfish marinated with coffee, with buffalo milk stracciatella, capers and lemon. «Salted and dried cod are a religion to me, we never use it fresh because we don’t have it in the Adriatic sea. The texture is very different». Off with the preparation: «We marinate the cod for 3 hours. We do so because it would otherwise become too soft and would break into pieces. In this case it is marinate so it has more texture, and we then steam it and marinate it with a little honey to caramelise».

Why coffee (Lavazza) then? «Because I use it as a spice, not as a drink, in this way it adds a pleasant bitter note». Steamed salted codfish with stracciatella and two savoury powders, capers and lemons: «Taste buds become ecstatic thanks to the meeting of a fat component on one side, and a very dry second component on the other». We agree. And there’s time for a brilliant aphorism to close the lesson: «As chefs we can have many ideas but they’re useless if we don’t know how to convey them on the dish».