Anyone who takes even the briefest glance at our body of work on this blog cannot fail to notice that we have a definite proclivity towards the porcine, and so it is that this top five is perhaps the most hotly contested monthly selection thus far.

The pig is, in our humble opinion, the greatest animal on earth, and picking only five products made from its wondrous bounty was a difficult thing. Beatific smiles spread across our faces as we considered our porky love and suggested different products and cuts of the beast, but, after much debate, a surprising consensus form between us, with only two points of disagreement.

Let us know what your favorite pork products are and win a package of pork-related kitchen goodies.

Amy & Jonny’s Top Five Pork Products:
1. guanciale (cured pig’s jowls) - Jonny: switch out for Spanish cured lomo
2. chorizo (pimenton flavored cured sausage)
3. jamon iberico (special Spanish ham)
4. chicharrones (fried pork rinds)
5. scrapple (a Philadelphia tradition made with lots of bits of pig and cornmeal) - Jonny: switch out for unsmoked English back bacon rashers

It’s nearly a year now since we were in Madrid, and while during that time we’ve managed to shed some of the excess poundage we gained there, we’ve lost none of our longing to be back there. And, it’s a strange thing about longing that all your memories become more vivid, and you remember even the smallest details.

So, on Sunday morning, we sought to recreate what, while in Madrid, seemed like a comparatively minor facet of our stay – breakfast. In Spain, as in other parts of southern Europe, a typical breakfast is characterized by three things: sugar, caffeine and nicotine, but it would unfair to suggest there is no greater variety than the, admittedly delicious, combo of pastries, coffee and strong cigarettes.

Roommate Mario (our hotel, not an actual person), in the Opera district of the city (not far from the magnificent Palacio Real – see above), was a small, boutiquey-type place and not, by any means, the type of hotel we’d commonly stay in. And, apart from the unusually reasonably-priced room, what convinced us to pick this hotel was its renowned “free” breakfast.

Research suggested that not only was it sumptious and delicious, but that it was served until noon, which, given that we like to sleep on vacation and would be eating and drinking later than normal to fit in with the insomniacal Madrileño lifestyle, was another bonus. I’ve always found it despicable and somehow mean that most hotels only serve breakfast until 10am, so that people who actually on vacation nearly always miss it.

Our typical breakfast at Roommate Mario was, of course, a tongue-tinglingly powerful cup of café solo or “capuchino”, a tiny glass of freshly-squeezed and enjoyably sour orange juice, and several triangles of the most perfect tortilla española layered on fresh, crusty bread with slices of manchego and lomo – cured loin of pork delicately flavored with pimenton – and topped with a drizzle of golden Andalucian olive oil and, our new favorite condiment, grated tomato. I know it doesn’t sound like a wildly exotic or even a very exciting breakfast (especially to our Spanish readers), but to us, who usually only shove down a slice of toast before hurrying out of the door of an average morning, it was out of this world.

So, this past weekend, as you can see from the pictures, in a flood of nostalgia, and flush with many of the requisite ingredients, we recreated our Madrid breakfasts in our Brooklyn apartment – courtesy of a very kind deli counter worker at Union Market (69cents for six slices of jamon iberico!) and through the good graces of our friend Nuría Farregut at Spanish Recipes and the miracle of vacuum-packing. In fact, so thoughtful and kind is Nuría that yesterday, just as we were mourning the last of the chorizo de bellota she sent us from La Boquería over the summer, another package arrived with some magnificent-looking dry salami/salchichon! It’s as if we managed to telepathically transmit our longing for Spain to Nuría in Barcelona. I mean, we’re still desperate to return, but at least our stomachs are temporarily satisfied! Thank you so, so much, Nuría! Una amiga en jamón, es una amiga por la vida!

Have you ever eaten something so fabulous, so lucious, so decadent that you almost felt the need to run to confession (to confess your indulgent food “sins”), say three Hail Mary’s (that’s for you Catholics out there) and pray really hard that you can zip your jeans up again? Ok, a bit exaggerated, but looking back, this is a bit how my first real taste of lardo made me feel.

Now many of you may be scratching your head wondering, “Lardo? Wait, did she mean to write that? Maybe she mean Lardons? Surely she’s not talking about Lard?” Well, kids, hold on to your Spanx-controlled muffin-top, I am talking about lard. But lardo ain’t just any old lard… it’s special lard. Very, very, very special lard.

In our few trips to Italy over the past couple of years, lardo graced our palates a few times, but only in very small quantites (as it should!). The first time we ate it – in Modena, Italy – we were, sadly, so fiercely hungover that we couldn’t really appreciate it. However, this saved us from eating what was an obscene amount of it – slathered in thin ribbons over a beautiful 12 inch thin-crust pizza and topped with the town’s famous aged balsamic.

Apologies for the awful, 1970s plate. I’m blaming the in-laws.

Pearly-white inside and darker and grainy at the edges, lardo, which is basically salt-cured pig fat flavored with rosemary (and occasionally other herbs), is made throughout Italy, though the most famous – lardo di Colonata – is produced only in Colonata, a small, isolated Tuscan town, where the pigs are fed on a steady diet of acorns to better flavor their fat.

In some areas of northern Italy, lardo is used as the cooking fat in which soffrito is sauteed in the preparation of a sugo or ragu, but like other salume, it is often eaten in thin, bite-sized pieces and allowed to melt on the tongue, before being washed down with an effervescent white wine. Which is how, if you can find yourself some, you should try it for the first time. Yes, that’s right, cured pigs’ fat straight-up. No crackers, no bread, no olives. Just fat and your tongue in perfect harmony. It really does melt.

It’s unlikely that we ate lardo di Colonata that day, as the real thing is almost as expensive as the most highly-prized prosciutto, but what we had was still beautifully perfumed of bacon & rosemary, and incredibly rich & luscious tasting, and probably quite pricey in its own right. With the crackle of the pizza crust underneath and the honey sweetness of an ancient balsamic, it was one of the most texturally amazing things I’ve ever put in my mouth, sober, drunk or hungover.

Occasionally, in the intervening year, we’ve complained of a lack of lardo in our lives, but we were completely shocked to find it at a local specialty foods store over the summer – and it was cheap too! They had about half a pound left, and we bought the whole thing, fearing that we might not find it ever again outside of Italy. Fortunately, because it’s cured, it has a good long shelf-life, so we’re taking it easy to make sure we don’t drop dead from cholesterol-related disease before we’re done eating it.

I think we need to do more research into recipes that call for lardo, because apart from taking it neat, so far we’ve only recreated that decadent pizza from Modena. There’s a recipe below, but the sad thing is, if you don’t have any lardo or anywhere that sells it, and you don’t have a 25 year old balsamic vinegar to top it with, that recipe might not be much use. Still, you can aspire to collect these ingredients, and trust me, when you find them, make this pizza and you’ll be glad you waited for it. It might be the most incredible pizza that ever passes your lips.

Lardo Pizza with Wilted Radicchio & Onion

For an absolutely tried & tested, nailed-on recipe for the perfect thin-crust pizza dough read this previous post: Remembering Italy with Thin-Crust Pizza. To get the finest aged balsamic vinegar available in North American delivered to your door, click here, or if you don’t want to buy the good stuff, you can reduce the ordinary kind in a saucepan until consistency resembles molasses.

Unfortunately, Italian lardo is not exported to America. The American Department of Agriculture wants it heated to 156 F (69 C) before it is sold to consumers, but at that point, the fat would start melting, and it would no longer be lardo. However, we found some domestically produced lardo completely by chance in a local store, so you may get lucky somewhere along the line. And while it is widely thought that Italian lardo is greatly superior to any made domestically because it is aged for so much longer, we found US lardo to be very acceptable indeed. Your best bet if you don’t have any awesome gourmet food stores nearby, and this may be even trickier, is to get friendly with your local organic hog farmer and have him save you some back fat from best fed pig on his farm, then cure your own pig fat! Why not? Good luck!

Ingredients & Recipe

1lb fresh pizza dough

1/2 head of radicchio di Chioggia (regular round, red radicchio), shredded finely

1/2 spanish (yellow) onion, finely sliced

2tbsp good olive oil

1 pinch kosher salt

- Sweat radicchio and onion until soft and decorate your pizza with it.

- Then, place thinly-sliced lardo on top and fire pizza in the oven. Remove and dress immediately with balsamic vinegar.

- Savor every mouthful.

I tweaked the original Bon Appetit recipe a bit and only had a piece of puff pastry in the freezer and some pie crusts. I will write the recipe asking you to use only puff pastry, but feel free to do what we did and roll out defrosted pie crusts, shape into a rectangle and line the outside of the tart with strips of puff pastry. It works just as well!

The taste of this tart was light and chewy. Using various different veggies and ricotta over all eggs helped me convince myself that I was eating healthy. Even after a few helpings, I knew I was kidding myself but I’ve never been one of those fools that really believed that “a moment on the lips is a lifetime on the hips”. If I did I’d be much thinner and this blog would not exist, clearly!

Btw… thanks to our friend at Serious Eats who featured this post in their “Blogwatch” section recently.   Gracias!

ASPARAGUS, CREMINI AND TOMATO TART WITH RICOTTA AND PETITE JURASSIC CHEESE

Ingredients:

• 2 sheet of thawed puff pastry (1/2 of a 17.3 oz. package)
• 1 egg, beaten
• about 10 to 12 asparagus spears
• 6-8 grape tomatoes, sliced in half
• 6-8 cremini mushrooms (or white/brown mushrooms), sliced in half
• 1/2 cup whole-milk ricotta cheese
• 4 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
• pinch of salt
• 6 slices of thinly-sliced genoa salami, soppressata or other sliced cured meat of your choice
• 2/3 cup grated Petite Jurassic cheese (or Gruyere, Swiss or Comte cheese)

What to do:

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Roll out puff pastry on floured surface and roll into a large rectangle (about the size of a long baking sheet). Cut 1/2 inch of puff pastry from each side and brush the sides with a bit of the beaten egg. Place 1/2 inch pieces all along the edges of the puff pastry tart so that the egg is the binding ingredient. Transfer to a baking sheet.
• Steam asparagus until so it’s crisp-tender – about 2 to 3 minutes. Shock in an ice bath to keep color and texture. Chop the bottom 2 inches of the asparagus off and puree these in a food processor along with the rest of the beaten egg, ricotta, the olive oil and pinch of salt. Transfer to bowl.
• Spread the asparagus puree on the bottom of your tart, reserving a few tablespoons. It will fill up to about 1/8 of an inch high. Make sure it is coated evenly. Nestle the pieces of salami into the puree in random places around the tart. Sprinkle your cheese around the tart as well and put your remaining tablespoons of asparagus puree over the pieces of salami (so to cover them).
• Add your sliced grape tomatoes, asparagus spears and mushrooms to the top of the tart – make it look pretty, why not.
• Drizzle some olive oil over the top and bake about 25 to 30 minutes or until the filling is set. Serve warm or cold along with a salad or for breakfast with a runny egg.

Check out some other posts you may enjoy:

• Lemongrass Beef Shortribs
  
• Watercress & Ricotta Ravioli with Radicchio Butter Sauce
• Ensalada de Cabrales (Thin Sliced Apple Salad with Cabrales Cheese & Chive)
• Parsley, Parmigiano and Garlic Roasted Artichokes

This review won’t be long, and I won’t make it fancy. It’s been almost 24 hours since I left A Voce, the upscale modern Italian eatery in a strange part of the Flatiron district of Manhattan run by a former chef at Cafe Boulud, Andrew Carmellini. My body may have left there at 11PM Saturday, but my mind is still there right now. A Voce actually took my voice away at moment. Only long enough to concentrate on each delicious bite of food.

We are not a couple who are able to afford many of the trendy/upscale restaurants in Manhattan. When my parent’s decided to come up for the weekend and treat us to dinner, we decided on to pick a place that we probably wouldn’t be able to afford alone. The reviews online of A Voce were mixed. So mixed that I was very close to canceling the reservations I made over a month ago. See, my father has a slight bit of a hearing problem (one he likes to think he doesn’t have) and about 85% of the review I read online talked more about the stupid chairs and the noise level of the restaurant instead of the food. Now, I know that city restaurants are loud, but the way some of these reviewers talked about the “insane noise” and (my favorite quote from a Chowhound.com user) how the “noise level is horrendous and conversing in normal tones becomes nearly impossible”, kind of scared me. Conversing in normal tones almost impossible!? Dem some strong words! I even read a review that talked about one of them losing their voice after a night eating there. If the food is excellent, how important is the conversation? To me, well, I’m Italian American. In my family, silence at the dinner table is worse than not going to Confession after you’ve talked back to your mother. Anyways, I am happy to report that even my partially deaf father conversed just fine with the three of us all throughout dinner. Maybe it was our table, maybe it’s cause we’re a loud family? Regardless, the noise level at A Voce was similar to any bustling NYC joint on a busy Saturday night.

Now, on to the food. I could cry thinking about it. I’m salivating thinking about it. It was excellent. Unfortunately, we only sampled a very small bit of the menu because both my mom and dad weren’t super hungry. It’s white truffle season and a few moments after we were seated, our waiter came around with a box containing three medium-sized ones to view, smell and ogle over. My mom told me she almost took one and put it in her mouth like an appetizer because she didn’t know what it was. Gotta love her (but I would’ve slinked under the table if she did that!). Supposedly, truffles are going for $3000/lb these days. HA! I’ll take 2 pounds, thank you very much.

There were some additions to the menu that were not listed on their website. One was the starter I had – Steak Tartare. I can not explain to you how beautiful and delicious this dish was. It was chopped meat, lightly seasoned and flavored with some white truffle and shaving of fresh Parmigiano laid on top. On the side was two toasted pieces of bread with a piece of lardo melting into it. I think I closed my eyes and moaned with each bite.

My husband started with the Coppa di Testa (or sliced headcheese). It was basically like a thinly sliced chunky pate cut in rounds. He enjoyed this thoroughly. My father had a side order of broccoli rabe sauteed in garlic. He’s basically a connoisseur of broccoli rabe and thought it was excellent. The antipasti sizes were pretty large, although prices aren’t low. Mine cost $17, the husband’s was $9 and my dad’s side dish was $8.

For our mains, my mother and I had the Pappardelle with Lamb Ragu. The ragu was sweet and chunky with some carrots and onions. The pasta was fresh and the portion size wasn’t too bad ($24). There was a dollop of homemade ricotta to round out the dish. My father had Crab Ravioli in a light tomato cream sauce. Fresh, homemade and excellent. Finally, my husband ordered the Country-Style Tuscan Tripe. This was presented in a beautiful copper pot with a fried duck egg on top. It was hearty and reminded us of the many tripe dishes we ate this summer in Tuscany. The egg was a really nice touch and the sauce was ‘chooped’ up with lots of the fresh bread they kept bringing to the table.

I can not wait to go back (after we save some money) to A Voce and try some of their other dishes like the octopus, tonno bianco and the duck. Their meatballs are supposedly top-notch as well. I highly recommend A Voce!

**Sorry these pictures are such crap, all we had was our camera phone.

Check out the rest of our restaurant reviews by clicking the tab above.

You see, we are as open-minded as the next person, perhaps more so, on the subject of sandwiches and their various forms – rolls, sliced-bread, open-faced, toasted/untoasted, buttered or not, hot/cold fillings, etc., and the point we were trying to make in previous posts was that there are a lot of bad or average, overpriced sandwiches around that pale in comparison to a hearty lunch of last night’s leftovers. However, we admit that point may have been made clumsily or, indeed, not at all. Great sandwiches abound in America, which while is not the “dish’s” birthplace, is arguably the country in which one can find the most variety of fillings, and is definitely the place for the sandwiches’ two most famous incarnations, the hamburger and the hotdog.

Living in the north-east US there are a great variety of sandwiches, breads and fillings to choose from, even if we’re just talking about typical local foods and not those imported from other areas of the country or from overseas. In the last six months, my wife and I have hit several of the sandwich high-spots in our part of the world, eating lobster rolls in Rhode Island, Pat’s cheesesteaks in Philadelphia, and most recently, the giant Italian and meatball subs at the famous White House in Atlantic City, and we know there are many more great sandwiches out there to try.

Instant gratification may be the watchword in Atlantic City where the simple pull of a one-armed bandit or roll of a dice can yield unimaginable joy, but White House is clearly the exception to this rule. There it seems, the customer has to wait for their enjoyment. It is a widely held belief that if it’s worth having, it’s worth waiting for, and indeed, after spending most of an hour in line watching sandwich after sandwich being made, we were slavering at the prospect of finally sinking out teeth into one of these famous subs. So much so, in fact, that when we were told that the sausage-parmiggiano sandwich we had ordered would take 15-20 minutes to prepare, we caved in and switched our order to the much more speedy hot meatball sub instead – see above.

Quite apart from the wait to order, allowing you to figure out who many of the local and national celebrities are in the pictures lining the wall (check out the price of a sub in 1946 – 50cents! In fact, today they range from $5 to $7 for a over-stuffed “half”), there is a methodical process in the construction of a White House sub that was simultaneously fascinating and frustrating to watch. The careful layering of cold meats, cheeses and tomato slices on the more than 2 foot long Italian sub, followed by the practiced art of turning the edges of the fillings in on themselves with a long, flat knife, before cutting and wrapping was a sight to behold (and should be copied by every deli where as soon as you bite into the sandwich all the filling shoots out the other side!) but the pace of it was agonizing!

During our time in line, we discovered that even people who rang in their orders over the phone to collect later were told that there was at least a two hour wait, which probably would have been even more infuriating than showing up and having to queue. That said, the wait was quite enjoyable. There was a general sense of bonhomie present, as we all eagerly awaited our sandwiches. People in line were joking with each other and making fun of the celebrity hairstyles from the 80s and 90s, and comparing notes on how long they had to wait last time, while all the time glancing jealously at those people already enjoying their subs at one of the handful of booths.

When we finally got our sandwiches we were mightily impressed. Not only were they a far cry from the pre-made and soggy filth that is so prevalent in the city, but they were a gourmet treat, in their own way. The bread had more in common with a standard French baguette than with much of the soft, sweet, doughy long rolls that pass for “Italian bread” in American, being, as it was, firm and chewy. The mayonnaise was light and not overdone and the cold cuts were fresh, unbelievably plentiful, and filling, while not overwhelming the flavor and texture of the bread. Even the lettuce, which was the traditional iceberg variety, was well done. It wasn’t shredded like in normal delis but torn into crescent, half-moon shapes that fit perfectly, yet artfully, into the roll, and required the eater to bite them rather than suck them up as is the norm. All in all, a very fine sandwich, which lasted a wopping three days, and would have put many more recently-made subs to shame even in its final hour.

Then came the meatball sub. I have a very soft spot for warm, gooey, saucey sandwiches, and so had been very excited at the prospect of the sausage-parm sub. I was therefore dismayed upon learning that we’d have to wait even longer to get one, but if this meatball sub was my second choice that day, it would certainly be my choice for champion of the meatball sandwiches I’ve eaten. It was cheesy enough, but not too much so that it was stringy and too rich. The sauce was sweet without being sugary, and still retained some texture of the tomatoes in it. The meatballs were light and fell apart in your mouth, and weren’t held together by anything but meat, unlike the very mealy, floury meatballs you often find in subs. The sauce had soaked into the bread and, was, frankly, a beautiful thing, especially as we enjoyed it in sight of the architectural wonder that is the Trump Plaza!

Altogether, the atmosphere of the hallowed White House, combined with the anticipation, would have been a fine experience by itself, but the quality of the sandwiches really made it all worth it. I would encourage anyone passing through AC to visit the White House and sample any of their several enormous sandwiches, but to be aware that they close at 10:00p.m. on the nail every night — we’ve missed out before because of that curfew, so make sure you visit before you go gambling. For more details on the White House, it’s location, and some very appetizing pics, click here.

Next time we go, we’re going out of season (hopefully reducing the wait) and will try to remain patient enough to finally get the sausage parm sub. Also on the menu will be the White House cheesesteak, supposedly the best anywhere outside of South Philly.