Katsuobushi... made with veal

Sannio, Japan. From Telese Terme to Tokyo it’s 9,802 kilometres as the crow flies, yet in fact distances seem to get shorter. This is also thanks to cooking, which uses an increasingly global language. Like the one used by Giuseppe Iannotti, of Kresios, and his sous chef Tadashi Takayama to understand each other at once.

We met Iannotti a few days ago in a beautiful location, namely Priceless, Mastercard’s temporary restaurant on the roofs of Piazza alla Scala in Milan. The view of the pinnacles and the gallery was almost distracting us as the chef announced the third course of a menu that was perfectly capable of recreating the charms of a meal in Sannio: «Tuna belly, chards and veal katsuobushi broth». Veal katsuobushi? Chef, what are you talking about?

«Everything starts when we shared opinions with Tadashi, with whom I’ve begun to study Japanese tradition, to get some ideas to transfer to our cuisine». No cut-and-paste intended, though: «We’re not looking for fusion, we want to acquire techniques and make them our own». Of course: fermentations, smoking, meat and fish preservation techniques are also part of the Italian heritage. Yet Iannotti is looking for a surprising touch, «something never experimented before». Like katsuobushi, but made with meat.

“Katsuobushi is the Japanese name for dried, fermented, and smoked skipjack tuna”, sums up Wikipedia. It is a very important ingredient in Japanese cuisine. In this case, however, there’s no tuna but veal, «we even made tests with pork, turkey… The outcome is not as good», while in this case it is extraordinary: the resulting broth is charming, with smoky notes and a perfect umami sapidity. It is very similar to granny’s style broth, but with a stronger complexity and a longer echo.

During the rooftop dinner, Iannotti poured this broth over some raw tuna belly wrapped in chards, «a way of recalling the original katsuobushi but also the recipe for veal in tuna sauce. I chose the belly because it is a little fat, so it is perfectly matched by the smoky notes of the broth and the herbaceous tones of the chards», which in this case have the same role of the kombu weeds in dashi.

But how do you make such a katsuobushi? «Let’s start from the classic ageing, marinading the meat with salt, in this case veal round. We then cook it in vacuum, to seal the cut, and smoke it for a month, in a special room I created, with beach and oak wood». One month? «Exactly, the meat needs to get as hard as a piece of wood, it must release all sorts of humidity. The smoke makes the surface dark but preserves it from inner oxidation. We then move everything to the cellar, where we expose it to a little humidity from time to time, so as to create some external mould: we leave it to rest for 4 or 5 months, we clean it and then new mould arrives. In the end, the katsuobushi is ready and can last even 7 years without any problem. When you want to use it, you grate some with sandpaper, then you shave it with the special tool, to create the flakes».