Chopping Tomatoes

I arrived at Peirluigi a little before 10 this morning and things were just getting started in the kitchen: veggies being chopped, final pans being cleaned, various broths being prepared for general use etc. Antonio had told me to be there at 10 and I was a little early and thought I could help out a bit, but I was wrong, he sent me to have a cup of coffee in the dining room as he got his area set up. I was quickly escorted back into the kitchen by Lorenzo's aunt to watch the pastry chef make Crem Caramels. This was a pleasant surprise and he, like everyone else there, was incredibly accomdating and explained everything he was doing. The recipe seemed pretty easy when he did it but I'm sure it will prove much harder when I give it a try.

When we finished that Antonio was ready to get to work. The two tasks at hand were Crema di Scampi and a basic tomato sauce, he makes these every three days or so as needed. He said you can keep them for up to days if they are always in the fridge, but they go through them much quicker, he said the scampi we made would probably be enough for a hundred, or about three days for them. As the restaurant was not open things were a lot more relaxed and Antonio put me to work first shelling all the scampi. When they were all shelled we put them together with some scallops and garlic cloves and sent everything through the grinder (I think a cusinart would do just as well). From there we cooked the mashed up fish meat and added some congac, canned tomatoes and then cream. I'll put in a more detailed recipe when I give it a try and have a better sense of how to make it on a smaller scale. This was quite different for the recipe Cherif had explained to me last week, so it'll be fun to compare the two, interesting how one kitchen can have two very different recipes for the same dish, the end result must be very similar.

We also made the tomato sauce that everyone in the kitchen uses. This was very simple but took a bit of time. In a large pot Antonio heated some olive oil (very very hot) and then added red and white onions in equal parts. Those cooked for about 5-6 minutes and then he dumped in three 2 kilogram tins of peeled whole tomatoes and a large handful of uncut basil leaves. The whole mixutre simmered for about half an hour or maybe longer on high heat.

As that was cooking I was busy cutting a large bin of small tomatoes in half and chatting with Antonio a bit. He's from Lucana in the Campania region of Italy (south of Naples but before you get to the toe) and he will tell you pridefully (and jokingly at the same time) that Francis Ford Coppola was his next door neighbor. Whether they lived next door to each other is muched disputed in the kitchen, but the Coppola family if from his town. He asked if I had any experience with restaurants and I said nothing formally but my father used to own one in New York, but didn't any more. His instantenous response was magari which roughly translates to 'if only' or 'I wish' ('maybe' in a less emphatic context). Apparently its a dream of his to work in a restaurant in New York, Peirluigi NYC some day?

At 11:30 work stopped in the kitchen and everyone sat down to have lunch, a first course, simple fresh tomato and basil sauce with spaghetti (which Antonio and I cooked), then a main dish with potatoes, red onions, large tomatoes and tuna, and of course a glass of wine, which Antonio asked if I wanted and when I hesitated for a second he dumped what was left of the bottle in my glass. I sat with Antonio, Daniela (the restaurants administrator or sorts, she deals with email and group events and such) and Lorenzo's aunt whose name I can't remember. She spent the entire meal complaining about how she has to go in for blood work tomorrow so she can't eat any fruit or seafood and can't drink coffee (the biggest problem of all) and that tomorrow she won't be able to eat at all. In true Italian fashion all of these things needed to be repeated over and over again as if no one understood what she said the first time around, when even I followed the conversation and got it the first time.

Sadly, I had to leave right after we ate as I had to teach in the afternoon but I'll be back in the kitchen on Friday and am not teaching until later in the afternoon so I can stick around for all of lunch.