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A French Cook in Venice: Fegato alla Veneziana

Published by Jonell Galloway + Sunday, March 6, 2016 Permalink 1

fegato alla veneziana, venetian calf's liver and onions, What to Eat in Venice, Venetian cooking

Franco-Venetian Cuisine

What to Eat in Venice: Fegato alla Veneziana, or Venetian-style Calf’s Liver with Caramelized Onions

Many say this is the ultimate Venetian specialty, but considering that Venetians eat mainly fish, one could easily argue that point. A good fegato can be the highlight of a day or weekend, however.

Everyone loves caramelized onions, but some people dislike even the idea of eating liver. Calf’s liver is finer than beef or chicken, and when it’s topped with sweet onions, it is indeed a highly refined dish.

You’ll see the influence of my background in French cuisine; I went a bit heavy on the white wine when deglazing the pan, but it renders a succulent sauce.

One of the crucial elements to the success of this dish is that the liver be of exceptional quality and thinly sliced. Thick slabs simply don’t work and take away from the refined aspect of this dish.

Another secret is to slow cook the onions and to just seize the liver, no more. If you cook it more and on slow heat, it will become leathery.

Recipe

Ingredients

400 g onions
3-4 tablespoons olive oil
400 g calf’s liver cut in extra-thin slices
1-2 cups white wine
Salt and pepper to taste
Italian parsley, chopped
Skillet large enough to spread liver in a single layer
White polenta

Venetian Hours: French Venice

Published by Jonell Galloway + Thursday, February 25, 2016 Permalink 1

Fondaco-dei-Tedeschi--Canaletto-LVMH-Benetton-Rialto Bridge-Venice-Venezia

Venetian Hours: Franco-Venice and French Cuisine

French Food in Venice

The Venetians might have ruled much of the refined sugar trade in Europe, but by the eighteenth century, they were importing French pastry techniques. “Count Cavour, the first prime minister of a united Italy,” sent his personal chef to be trained in France, while the Italian royal family was eating macaroni à la Parisienne.

Today, the French influence is best seen at the Tonolo pasticceria in the San Polo neighborhood, which won a gold medal in Paris for its sweet focaccia in 1909 and has some of the best coffee in Venice. To say this is a Venetian establishment would be grossly understating it. And it wasn’t the Paris-Brest that hooked me on Tonolo so many years ago: it was the quality of absolutely everything they make, from their coffee to their Venetian pastries to their cream-filled pastries. It was the extreme care taken with the presentation and visual aspects — something many Venetian pastry chefs lack, despite the good taste. After living in France for so long, I immediately felt right at home in Tonolo, so familiar, reminding of my youth when I discovered mille-feuilles and éclairs and tried new pastries every day.

Venetian Hours: Venice Carnival in Blue

Published by Jonell Galloway + Tuesday, February 9, 2016 Permalink 0

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Venetian Hours

Published by Jonell Galloway + Monday, February 1, 2016 Permalink 1

San Marco and Doge's Palace in Venice, Italy

Lost in Venice

by Jonell Galloway

I was looking for a new home. Home used to be Kentucky, with its hot hot sun, heady smell of horse sweat, and burly bouquet of drying tobacco; then it was France where I wolfed down tons of good food and fine wine, and Switzerland, with its snow-capped mountains, always there, hugging me and making me feel secure like a mother’s embrace.

After my mother died last year, I no longer knew where to call home. Home became an abstraction, because without Mama’s heart beating in Kentucky, it no longer fit the description. Even with the horse sweat and Burley tobacco.

Kentucky tobacco drying barn, near Hardinsburg, Kentucky

I used to say I’d call my imaginary memoir From Biscuits to Baguettes, so much did I feel like France was my second home, even though the first time I set foot in Venice over 30 years ago, I felt I’d come home. How that could be I still don’t know, since I don’t have an ounce of Italian or Venetian blood in my veins. I’ve visited it many times for both short and long periods, and every time, I’ve felt the same, so after my mother’s death, it was a natural enough decision to spend six months here and try it out.

Venice in Mind: Ponte di Gheto Novo

Published by Jonell Galloway + Monday, March 23, 2015 Permalink 1

by Jonell Galloway

Reflections of the sestiere of Canareggio in the canal, taken from the Ponte di Gheto Novo, literally the “new ghetto bridge,” leading from Canareggio to perhaps the oldest Jewish ghetto in the world.

Venice in Mind: View from Supermarket

Published by Jonell Galloway + Saturday, March 7, 2015 Permalink 1

by Jonell Galloway

It’s worth it to move to Venice just to have a view like this when you walk out of the supermarket. This is in Canaregio, one of the six sestiere or districts of Venice.