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In the meantime though, they seem to have vanished from the shelves something I suspect has to do with those mushrooms having become quite trendy and therefore the production being poached early by chefs, with very little reaching retail.
But I found some last Thursday so decided to attempt to recreate a Roman classic dish, coda alla vaccinara, in a vegan/vegetarian key.
After all, if Obelix was able to understand directions for “Sanglier à la crème” as being “the same as for ‘fraises à la crème’ but with boar instead”, I
ought to be able to wing it in quite the same manner. Right?
RIGHT.
The recipe is fairly long because it start with making a “soffritto”, i.e. the basis for a lot of Italian savory dishes, in particular stews.
You need to take a carrot, one or two celery branches (mine were small so I used two), and an onion, all diced finely and slow cooked in oil (about an hour) in a heavy pan.
This will give you more than you need for the recipe but you can freeze any leftover in small portions for a next time (this amount of soffritto should be good for four dishes).
Once this is done and you only have a fourth of the soffritto in your pan, you can add some more oil (or butter) and fry your cardoncelli which you will have cut in two lengthwise. Fry them on the cut side.
Once they have coloured, add a glass of dry white wine, a teaspoon of tomato paste, two glasses of (vegetable) broth, pepper, a dash of cinnamon, and some nutmeg. If you broth is already salted, no need to add salt at this stage. If it isn’t, then add a little.
This will need to cook slowly for at least an hour (an hour and a half?) in the covered dish and you will need to check to see if the juices have not reduced too much. If they have, add a little water or broth.
After that time, put the mushroom on a plate and add half a teaspoon of dark cocoa to the liquid and partially liquidize/emulsify the sauce with an immersion blender (it’s better if you transfer the juices into a tall recipient as otherwise the sauce tends to splatter). Taste. Add salt and pepper to taste.
You can then return the sauce and mushrooms to the heavy dish and warm them up/keep them warm until serving time.
The sauce is extremely tasty so you’ll want to have something neutral to go with your cardoncelli. Like mashed potatoes or white beans, plain rice or broad flat pasta. You could even go mad and use this as the basis for lasagna.
