Recipes from great chefs. Four dishes by Giuseppe D'Aquino

Giuseppe D'Aquino

Giuseppe D’Aquino is a chef from southern Italy, but he breathed in a great deal of French and American air before settling in the hills that dominate Lake Garda. At the wine resort, Villa Cordevigo, he leads the kitchens of L’Oseleta. From here he looks out at the world with a Mediterranean soul and modern curiosity, aiming for the best. “Mine is a kilometer zero kitchen, but here zero means the world,” joked Giuseppe. The chef has given us four of his recipes and many advices to pair the dishes with wines.

Foie gras, tuna, rhubarb sherbet, beets, soy and veal sauce

Ingredients for 4 servings

4 foie gras slices 50 g each

120 g fresh tuna

4 cooked beet cubes

40 ml veal broth

16 ml soy sauce

2 kg rhubarb

480 g water

400 g sugar

168 g dextrose

168 g glucose

extra-virgin olive oil

Maldon salt

Pepper

For the sherbet, wash and clean fresh rhubarb. Insert in Pacojet container. Prepare a syrup with water, sugar, glucose and dextrose. Add to fruit in Pacojet and mix after cooling to -20°C.

Heat slices of foie gras on both sides for one minute in very hot non-stick pan.

Following foie gras shape, cut tuna in slices. Season with Maldon salt, olive oil and pepper.

Earlier, prepare a classic veal broth with veal belly and tail, chicken wings and herbs. Reduce to 1/10 and strain. Add soy sauce in indicated proportions and reduce further.

Assemble dish, garnishing with a pea sprout and beets. Lastly, cover with well-heated sauce.

Spaghetti with piennolo tomato sauce, burrata, lemon peel

Ingredients for 4 servings

400 g spaghetti

500 g piennolo tomatoes

200 g burrata

2 garlic cloves

2 cl anchovy colatura from Cetara

grated yellow peel 1 lemon

extra-virgin olive oil

basil

Sauté together olive oil, garlic, basil stems without leaves. Add air-dried tomatoes (piennolo) and turn off heat, but cover so heat completes cooking.

Boil pasta in water without salt but adding anchovy colatura. Drain while still al dente. Reserve some cooking water. Reheat tomatoes, add pasta and, little by little, pasta water, stirring for about 2 minutes. Add basil leaves at end. Serve, finishing plate with burrata and grated lemon peel

Red mullet, Romesco sauce, watercress

Ingredients for 4 servings

4 red mullet 150 g each

5 l water

200 g celery

200 g carrot

200 g onion

40 g tomato paste

For the Romesco sauce

4 tomatoes

4 red bell peppers

200 ml extra-virgin olive oil

100 ml red wine vinegar

16 peeled almonds

16 peeled hazelnuts

4 garlic cloves, chopped

2 slices day-old bread

Chili pepper, salt, pepper

Clean and fillet mullet, but leave tail whole. Prepare broth, adding bones and head to sautéed celery, carrot, onion. Add tomato paste and simmer for 5 minutes. Add water and cook for 3 hours over low heat. Strain and reduce further until consistency is right.

For the Romesco sauce, wash peppers and tomatoes. Dry with cloth and grill at highest heat for about 10 minutes, turning every 2-4 minutes to avoid burning skins, just loosening them. When tomato skin is slightly toasted, remove from oven and place immediately in paper bag. Continue cooking peppers for 5 minutes more, turning twice. Place them in paper bag. Close hermetically and wait 10 or more minutes. The steam from the peppers and tomatoes will soften toasted skins and make them easier to remove. Take vegetables out of bag, eliminate skins, stems, seeds, and filaments from both. Toast almonds and hazelnuts for 2 minutes over medium heat, then chop.

Remove crusts and cut bread into cubes. Sauté in 2 tbsps olive oil. Dry on paper towel. In a mortar, pound together peppers, tomatoes, chopped garlic, chili pepper, hazelnuts and almonds, gradually adding olive oil to obtain a puree. When preferred density is obtained, add more oil and vinegar. Mix carefully and leave to rest for 4 hours.

Place mullets on a wire baking rack. Heat olive oil to 180°C (355°F). Ladle oil delicately over fish several times. Bake fish in 170°C (340°F) oven for about 3 minutes. Serve.

Chocolate and raspberry

Ingredients for 4 servings

For the crisp base:

80 g bittersweet chocolate 55%

16.5 g cocoa butter

386 g hazelnut paste

200 g di pailleté feuilletine

For the chocolate mousse

250 g whipped cream

172 g bittersweet chocolate 55%

125 g milk

15 g rehydrated gelatin

For the raspberry gelatin

250 g raspberry pulp

50 g sugar

45 g rehydrated gelatin

For the crisp base, melt chocolate and cocoa butter, blend with hazelnut paste and add the pailleté. (lacy crépe bits). Place a thin layer of the mixture in a baking pan with high sides.

For the mousse, heat milk to boiling point, pour over chocolate and blend with hand-held blender. Add gelatin to milk, blend in whipped cream. Spread mousse mixture over crisp base and place in blast chiller.

For the gelatin, heat raspberry pulp with sugar, add gelatin, spread on solidified mousse and leave to harden.

For the chocolate cupola, melt and stir, spread on an acetate sheet and draw lines with a rake. Wait until it hardens, then shape into a cylinder.

Cut the mousse into rectangles in the baking pan. Plate, covering with chocolate cupola and flowers.

Foie gras, fresh tuna, rhubarb sherbet, beets, veal and soy sauce

Le Demisec s.a. | Laurent Perrier | Tours sur Marne | tel. (33) 326 589 122 | www.laurent-perrier.com

A fresh, rich and intense wine made from chardonnay (45%), pinot nero (35%) and pinot meunier (20%) grapes, it ages for at least 3 years and has a sugar dosage of 40g/l. This Champagne is a reminder of flavors from another time, and goes well with both sweet and savory dishes. Its intense bouquet, rich in notes of almonds, hazelnuts and toasty, slightly burned aromas, makes it suitable to pair with foie gras and this highly complex dish.

Spaghetti with piennolo tomato sauce, burrata, lemon peel

Bardolino Cl. Vigna Morlongo 2014 | Vigneti Villabella | Bardolino (VR) | www.vignetivillabella.com

A pairing that celebrates the Tre Bicchieri won in the latest edition of Gambero Rosso’s Vini d’Italia. An exceptional wine with an enviable price/quality rapport (8 euros in Italian wine shops). “Fabulous,” said our panel. “The color is properly pale, aromas fine and intense, dominated by the marriage between wild fruit and pepper, with a delightful hint of mixed herbs in the background.” Complexity and elegance right for a highly complex dish.

Red mullet, Romesco sauce, watercress

Villa Cordevigo Bianco 2013 | Vigneti Villabella | Bardolino (VR) | www.vignetivillabella.com

A home-grown pairing. The wine is a blend of garganega (75%) and sauvignon blanc: mineral, savory and floral at the same time, evoking aromas of apple, citrus fruit and sage. It spends 8 months in 30-hectoliter oak barrels after fermentation in stainless steel. It is a wine that sustains well the very particular character of the mullet and the rich sauce that accompanies it.

Chocolate and raspberry

Trentino Moscato Rosa 2011 | Cantine Letrari | Rovereto (TN) | tel. 0464 480 200 | www.letrari.it

Nello Letrari is the over-eighty patriarch of Trentino wine. His daughter, Lucia, an enologist has inherited his wisdom. She focuses more and more on sparkling wines. This Moscato is red (not pink, like many others.) and joins the floral perfume of yellow roses to the presence of tannin. It is perfect with chocolate-cream-cocoa butter and with the raspberries.

L’Oseleta di Villa Cordevigo Wine Relais | Cavaion Veronese (VR) | loc. Cordevigo | tel. 045 723 5287 | www.ristoranteoseleta.it