Rustic Italian Food

August 15, 2011
This follow-up to 2008’s Il Viaggio Di Vetri, Philadelphia chef and restaurateur Vetri has a fairly defined scope. The emphasis is on old-school specialty skills like bread baking and pasta making, preparing charcuterie and preserving vegetables. It’s rustic as in “handcrafted,” not rustic as in “easy.” Mortadella pizza includes homemade dough and handmade lamb mortadella. Beef speck requires a four- to five-month process. The results, in dishes such as veal cannelloni with a porcini bechamel, amaretti semifreddo with chocolate sauce, and candele with a duck Bolognese are exquisitely worthwhile, if arduous to achieve. There are some simpler, rustic-as-in-easy pleasures, too, such as an escarole gratin with raisins and parmesan cheese; slow-roasted lamb shoulder, and Jewish-Roman-style fried artichokes. Vetri is an opinionated, authoritative guru whose carefully honed recipes inspire confidence. While it’s not for the casual cook, his collection will certainly appeal to home stunt chefs and anyone looking to deepen their knowledge about traditional techniques. Photos.

September 15, 2011

Noted Philadelphia chef and restaurateur Vetri follows up Il Viaggio di Vetri by focusing on handcrafted Italian breads, pastas, salumi, sauces, and accompaniments. While familiar recipes like Margherita Pizza and Fettuccine Pork Ragu may seem simple in terms of ingredients and instructions, they require considerable time and pre-preparation (for instance, an artichoke dish suggests an eight-hour refrigeration period between steps). Advanced cooks looking to master bread and pasta will value Vetri's patient, masterful explanation of underlying techniques. Highly recommended. Serious bread bakers will also enjoy Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice and Chad Robertson's Tartine Bread.

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