• Some Good Italian Beef, Shrooms & Sausage Lesson ;)
 

Hey Everyone, been traveling around europe for about 2 weeks or so now and really been a bit too busy to post all that much but having an early night tonight so I figured why not... lol.

So apparently the italians don't season their steaks all that much. Mostly only when it comes out the frying pan with just salt or so I'm told... :crazy: Anyways I decided to light a huge fakkin fire in this cave of darkness to give my family up here a bit of light on the topic! I met the local butcher my aunt uses who's family has been butchers for 3 generations and got a sausage lesson (awesome). You could feel the pride in the air as he showed off! It was really amazing. He didn't speak a word of english but was amazed that someone would actually want to come in the back room and see what he did. I was in Italy when I was younger and I was amazed how "in and out" Italy had become and I know if he didn't have customers coming "in and out" of his small shop he would have showed me everything he could do for the entire day. I was really honored... but enough rambling on... here are a couple shots of the lesson and then the cook.

He was showing me how he made his in house sausage (to be hung and dried)
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Well to thank him for the lesson I figured I'd buy some of his stuff and picked some ribeyes... When he was cutting them I had to ask him to go thicker about three times (i guess they like their steaks thin here) :crazy: when he finally cut the thickness I wanted he just looked up at me and smiled :heh: looked at his wife and said something... I didn't have to understand to know what he said lol. He approved! ANYWAYS, I digress...

I paid for the steaks and some other fresh sausages and went home get them started. I seasoned them with salt and pepper and very little of my rub I brought for my aunt and set them aside... and lit a proper oak fire as a steak fire should be!!
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My aunts friend grew up in the mountains behind us and knows them as she should, she brought over some fresh mushrooms she gathered yesterday about an hour climb up the mountain (she's gonna take me next week! I can't wait... these were the biggest and best I've ever seen, No joke. I knew they were destined for garlic so I got right to that.
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Did up some potato for the evening as well with some garlic, onion, bacon, parsley out the garden and some good parmesan...
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By this time the fire was ready with a nice hot coal bed. I started the steaks off a little high off the coal bed then lowered them for a nice sear.
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I plated them up with the garlic potatoes and shrooms on top all messy as a steak plate should be! :becky::heh::thumb:
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Ok my italian is chit but my aunt was telling me later that they weren't being rude but they forgot to speak english at the table for a bit but they were all saying that not even the expensive restaurants in the area cook steak and sides like this and that it was the best they've had. Now I'm sure it was half flattery but I had to stop them when they started talking about doing some catering gigs with me while I'm here... :heh: But I'm thinking about it... haha.

Sorry for all the rambling on but I'm having a great time and I'm enjoying all the experiences as Phu should know all too well! :heh: I'm easy! I just want to do something new, whatever it is I don't care!! And that's exactly what I'm doing... and doing it proper!

Well thanks for reading through all this chit for those of you that made it and thanks for looking for those that didn't feel reading.. Haha! :heh::heh::heh::thumb:

Cheers!

Wow, very nice!

Is there anything you CAN'T cook??? :-P

BTW, those mushrooms are bonkers... :crazy:

Beautiful meat and fungus!!! Excellent!

Awesome man! It's like a vacation on steroids. Sounds like a great time. The jealous mod is kicking hard over here right now. Keep the adventures coming for sure. :thumb:

Good show! Thanks for the post.

Awesome.................do you deliver............:thumb:

Great cook and delicious looking food!

KC

I have eaten a lot of good meals on my trips to Europe, but have never had the chance to cook for Europeans. I think they would like GOOD American cooking, as much as I enjoy GOOD European cooking. Good food is good food. anywhere.

It looks like you got to eat some good Italian food, and feed some Italians some good food. Awesome!

CD

The mushrooms were out of this world good! I eat a lot of mushrooms but it was like the first time I tasted home cured bacon... you just feel cheated all your life. The shrooms was the only thing I had seconds of...

Lol Thanks Brother, Trust me! The get-a-way is well needed. I'm definitely making the best of it... It's more like a pilgrimage, a personal retreat, just plain old fakking off and getting away for a bit... Finding some of my roots and seeing a small bit of the world. :thumb:

Cheers

That's awesome Phrasty. :thumb:

I agree with you brother! They SO do! When I go somewhere different and go to a restaurant I don't order a thing myself.... I ask what is fresh, what is local... just to let them get an idea of where my head is at then I ask them to recommend something. 8/10 times its amazing!!! and the other 2 times its just a local thing and probably very sentimental to the people there and thats a good thing in itself.

Food is one of the very very very few things that crosses boundaries, as you said, good food is just plain and simply good fakking food! So american, italian, african food etc. is all the same to me. Especially in the extremely mixed society that I'm from. :wink::thumb: As a Jamaican i learn an italian trick that I like... awesome, to an Italian I show them something cool, no matter where its from as long as it's good you gain a couple points in their book. Learn and let learn! :thumb::becky:

Cheers CD

That's the only way I'd care to visit abroad.
Follow around on a scheduled tour like a herd of cattle??? No thanks.

BTW, your plate looks fantastic!

Now that's how you do a steak dinner!

Very nice indeed!

I envy you on this. You got to trade good food for good food. I'd love to cook up a serious Texas chicken-fried steak with mashed potatoes and fried okra for someone who cooked me an authentic paella. You get to share good food, and share food culture.

I love eating local foods in other countries, and I hate to think that anyone from another country would think that American food is what you get at McDonald's.

CD