Clams in Cartoccio

Last weekend, I reached for my copy of Italian Grill once again. I don’t actually eat much red meat, so I’ve been cooking from the fish and shellfish section. I have read through all of it, however, and Mario is just fantastic. I noticed in the pizza section that his dough includes white wine. Interesting. I’m going to have to try that too.

The clams in cartoccio couldn’t be simpler to prepare. Pancetta is browned, and garlic, crushed red pepper, and diced sweet peppers are added. All of this is bathed in white wine and then allowed to cool. This mixture is spooned over clams that have been placed in foil packets, and the packets are sent to the grill.

As I just mentioned, I don’t eat much red meat, but Mario suggested the use of pancetta, and so be it. I included it because I sensed the flavor was important here, and the pork nuggets were easily avoided while eating the dish. It’s a grey area. My reason for not eating red meat is that I just don’t really enjoy it. Little tastes slip by here and there, but I’m not drawn to it. For instance, paella isn’t paella without the flavor from chorizo. But, my attention is on the chicken and shellfish and the sausage pieces get moved to the side of the plate. This isn’t my only food issue, and maybe I’ll change my mind some day. I won’t even attempt to explain my thing with onions.

Kurt has no meat eating issues and was very pleased with the clams and the pancetta. The clams were perfectly tender, and the resulting broth was indescribably good. Grilled bread was used as a vehicle for it; although, I could have drunk from the parchment-lined foil. The clams and pancetta provided the only source of salt, and it was just the right amount. Mario wrote that when the foil packets are opened at the table, your guests will experience a piscatorial facial. I would like to steal his term and refer to the broth as heavenly piscatorial nectar. I highly recommend it, and eating or not eating the pancetta is entirely up to you.
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Spiedini

On Saturday evening, I tried a couple of recipes from Mario’s latest, Italian Grill, with mixed results.

The Calamari Spiedini in Lemon Leaves looked delicious on the page, and I had Meyer lemons and leaves at the ready. In real life, it looked good, smelled good, tasted good, but the texture wasn’t perfect throughout. The problem could have been that some of the calamari tubes I purchased were thicker than others. Also, I may have packed too much onto each skewer thereby preventing good heat transfer to all the pieces stacked together. Some of the tube pieces could have used one more minute on the grill. The flavor was fantastic, and the texture of the thinner tubes and that of the tentacles was fine. I served this dish with a garden fresh arugula salad, and the peppery greens were a nice complement to the marinated squid.

Up next was Charred Tuna Spiedini with Spicy Peppers. The spicy peppers included red and yellow bell peppers and jalapenos which were sautéed and then served as a bed for the tuna spiedini. Turns out the jalapenos were both large and piquant this weekend and managed to completely overpower all other flavors. The tuna was to have been dusted with a combination of fennel pollen and dried oregano and then seared briefly on the grill. First, Austin has no fennel pollen. Huge oversight, Austin! Second, to get a good char on the tuna, I really should have turned it in oil rather than just drizzling. While delicious itself, the tuna suffered from the very spicy, jalapeno-forward pepper mélange.

Our conclusions were that while I quite enjoyed the marinated calamari and had less chewy pieces than Kurt did, Kurt was happier with the tuna but wished the pepper pile hadn’t disappointed so.
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