Ringing the curtain down on Host

The last day of Cuochidupuntozero within Host includes two lessons. The first, held by Fabio Pisani, with Alessandro Negrini (who himself was the author of a lesson in Rho, three days ago, see here) co-chef at Aimo e Nadia. Second lesson: Fabrizio Ferrari of Porticciolo 84 in Lecco, also on the stage for the second time.

Pisani racked his brains about a Duck smoked on the spot in brown sugar cane, a dish inspired by a trip to Zanzibar, which included also a good dose of Italian character, the brand that has characterized the restaurant in Via Montecuccoli for the past 50 years. «The sugar cane is from Sicily. We will add sugar, lemon from Amalfi and various spices such as star anise, pepper, cloves and cinnamon to the sugar. Why the sugar and not the wood chips? Because it gives a pleasant acid flavour to the duck».

It’s ok to be Italian «but travelling is essential: if you don’t move around, you won’t discover cicerchie from my Apulia, for instance. How many people here know them?», he asks the audience. Very few, it turns out. Once the meat is cooked, it is left to rest so it won’t loose its juices. The same spices, put into the pan, will give extra freshness. The Italian character returns imposingly in the dish with a Cucumber mustard, a Chopped biscuit made with almonds and vin cotto and a Natural prickly-pear sorbet. This is a colourful dish with different flavours and textures: sweet, salty, acid.

Fabrizio Ferrari gets back on stage. He spent two years studying chemistry, «my passion», and also worked in a law firm in London before beginning to cook in Lecco. The problem is that his lessons are so intense and interesting, you should record and then transcribe then. The chef is a big fan of drying, as we already know, which defines one of the four dishes presented yesterday. At the beginning, there are the Crispy hake chips with tandoori spices and Chicharrones (boiled, cooled down, cut, dried and then fried pork skin), a snack so good it’s been mass-produced by the food industry.

Ferrari also introduces an interesting discussion on juice extraction, not that made with the centrifuge that destroys everything, but using a press that extracts the “pure” juice from any ingredient (including fish). Yesterday he prepared a Chawanmushi, not made with stock, but with the juices. Another snack was made to demonstrate how vacuum cooking can be made in an intelligent way. The premise: use the salt not to preserve but to disinfect. «Take some vegetables, add 2% of their weight in salt, a process which itself creates acidity». A mustard and turmeric sauce, which is a «powerful feast of flavours». Technique and the East.

The final applause at Host (though we should have mentioned him at the beginning, thanks to his Stakhanovism) goes to Domenico Della Salandra, the new chef at Taglio who, with his assistant Giulia Maia Serratto, every day has prepared hundreds of super-dishes for all the guests of Identità Golose’s Lounge in Rho. Every day there was a different dish: Sedanini Monograno Felicetti, dehydrated speck and sweet-salted egg or Sedanini Monograno Felicetti, toasted vegetables, aubergine caviar and Lodigiano fondue, Risotti creamed with Grana Padano…

All this, happened inside the Inoxpiù Arca, a kitchen-spaceship-truck that attracted people from all over the fair. A Paradise also populated by the lovely products of our sponsor, whom once again we thank: Grana Padano, Acqua Panna e S. Pellegrino, Birra Moretti,Lavazza, Fontanafredda wines, pasta Monograno Felicetti and the wines selected by the Merano Wine Festival. See you next year.