La sbrisolona, a big crumbly tart, is popular in the Italian city of Mantova. (Image courtesy of Graham Gordon Ramsay.) In this lesson, you will learn:
How to prepare:
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Lesson 10
Watch three videos:
Lesson 10, Part 2: Ingredients and Cooking Instruction
Lesson 10, Part 3: Closing Lecture
La Torta Sbrisolona
- La torta sbrisolona is like a huge crumbly cookie. It is typical of the city of Mantova (Mantua, in Lombardia) and surroundings.
- Torta = any sort of cake, pie, tart
- Sbrisolona = Mantuan dialect for sbriciolona
- Briciola= crumb→sbriciolare = to crumble, and as we saw last week, -ona is an augmentative suffix.
- Therefore la torta sbrisolona can be translated as the big crumbling tart.
- Questa è la ricetta di mia nonna Lidia.
Buon appetito … e buona Festa del lavoro!
Ingredienti per 6 Persone
100 g = little less that 1/4 lb
- 100 g di farina bianca/white flour
- 100 g di farina gialla (literally “yellow flour”, corn meal)
- 100 g di burro a temperatura ambiente/butter at room temperature
- 100 g di zucchero/sugar
- 100 g di mandorle/almonds, o un misto/a mix di mandorle e nocciole/hazelnuts
- un uovo/one egg
- la buccia grattuggiata di un limone (literally “the grated peel of one lemon”)
- un pizzico di vaniglia (opzionale)/a pinch of vanilla — in powder or liquid
- un pizzico di sale (opzionale)/a pinch of salt, add it if you like some sweet/salty contrast)
Procedimento
- Preheat il forno (the oven) at 180 degrees C, about 350 degrees F.
- Chop le mandorle/the almonds. You want some of the almonds to be chopped roughly and some to be finely ground. If you like them, you can keep some almonds whole. In class we used a mixer/un robot da cucina. If you do not have one you can cover the almonds with paper towels and break them by beating them with a meat beater or something else heavy.
- Mescola/mix (2nd person sing.) all the dry ingredients/tutti gli ingredienti secchi.
- Aggiungi/add the grated lemon zest (grate only la parte gialla, perchè la parte bianca è amara, bitter) and the egg.
- Add the butter in clumps. You do not want to over mix or knead, simply try to join the ingredients and keep large (about 1/2 inch in diameter) crumbs
- Pour the briciole/crumbs in a baking pan covered with parchment paper (or covered with a thin layer of butter and farina gialla). You want to spread them to a thickness of one cm to 2.5 cm (about half to one inch).
- Bake until golden (typically it takes 30 to 60 minutes, based on the thickness).
- Let it cool down. When you serve it, break it with your hands…it will form a lot of briciole. It is perfect with a dessert wine, but for the next few years you should have it with milk or ice cream!
Lezione Numero Dieci/Lesson Number 10
Watch a video:
Lesson 10, Part 1:Opening Lecture
Introduction
L’altro ieri (literally “the other yesterday”, meaning the day before yesterday) era/it was mercoledì venticinque Aprile. Il 25 Aprile in Italia è festa, la festa della liberazione. È il giorno che rappresenta la fine dell’occupazione nazifascista e la fine della seconda guerra/war mondiale (25 Aprile millenovecento quarantacinque). È una festa nazionale: in molte città sono organizzati cortei/parades e commemorazioni memorials.
- Yesterday in class we baked la torta sbrisolona.
- In Italian a noun or adjective can be modified by taking the root and adding a suffix to express a particular quality.
- The suffix – ona/one (f/m) is used when something is big, or a lot. La sbrisolona, can be translated into something like “the very crumbly thing”.
- Let’s look at the most common examples of modifying suffixes (in reality there are a lot more — see e.g. http://italian.about.com/od/grammar/a/aa061108a.htm). Try to read them ad alta voce!!!!
Diminutivo (Conveys Smallness)
cucchiaio→cucchiaino
pomodori→pomodorini
piccolo→piccolino
polpetta→polpettina
Accrescitivo (Bigness/Largeness)
libro→librone
Paolo→Paolone
goloso/glutton→golosone
naso/nose→nasone
Vezzeggiativo (Small+Endearing)
Paola→Paoletta
casa→casetta
erba→erbetta
zii/uncles→zietti
Peggiorativo (Ugliness/Badness/Dirt)
pizza→pizzaccia
coltelli→coltellacci
parola/word→parolaccia/a bad word
fratello/brother→ fratellaccio
We use these suffixes a lot, sometimes even combined (colloquially, not in written):
- Che bella macchinettina!
- La mamma ha fatto una tortonaona (or tortonona) per il mio compleanno.
- Mi piace cucinare con l’erbettina del mio orto/kitchen garden.
- Che pomodorinaccio, è amarissimo (very amaro = bitter).
Esercizi/Exercises
Compiti/Assignments
- Prepare il tuo piatto preferito finora/your favorite dish (so far).
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Spring
2012
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