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Recipe by: chef Ivan Tronci
Faced with his creations, one has the impression that Ivan Tronci, a Salento chef born in 1986, is one of the few capable of creating, through a skillful use of materials, dishes that border on stylistic perfection.
His art, transcending craftsmanship, finds its balance in the suspension between an impressive range of colors and sinuous forms that appear as fascinating interweaving of visual fragments.
Observing his works, as in the case of this: "Risotto-style spirals with pendulum tomatoes," the technique seems to become in Tronci a poetic metaphor—almost a sort of culinary adaptation of Gaudí's trencadís, where the fragments of majolica tiles used by the Catalan master are replaced with those of selected foods—that reveals its evocative power in a dazzling play of colors that recall the modernism of Parc Güell in Barcelona.
From his birthplace, Salento, Tronci borrows that "affliction" for the Baroque, common to almost all the greatest artists born in Terra d'Otranto. A stylistic signature that manifests itself through the superabundance and accumulation of matter which, as happens with the majestic stone facades of churches that extend imposingly toward the void, overloading it to its very saturation, nonetheless manages to maintain that perspective harmony embedded in the vertigo in which the perfect correspondence and balance of lights and shadows, of solids and voids is achieved.
Tronci is an extraordinary artistic talent and, at the same time, a profound connoisseur of the most varied culinary traditions, whose art should only be admired and, possibly, tasted, where providing a description of "how to do it" could take on the misleading meaning of a vain attempt at reproduction, an effect of the recent mania for mass cooking under the banner of "do-it-yourself" and the consequent overflowing proliferation of "recipes," which risks, ultimately, overshadowing a refined and inspired artistic gesture like his.
Having made this necessary premise, we report below a description of the dish, thanking the Chef for this tribute.
Ingredients for 4 people
- Friscous® to taste
- 500 g Eliche pasta "Benedetto Cavalieri"
- 300 g Winter tomatoes (Pendulum tomatoes)
- 300 g Cherry tomatoes (datterini)
- 50 g Sun-dried tomatoes
- 60 ml Agricola Tenore extra virgin olive oil
- Fresh basil to taste
- Maldon salt to taste
- Dried oregano to taste
- Dried chili pepper to taste
- Ground pepper to taste
- 80 g Pecorino romano
Procedure
Start with the winter tomato carpaccio. First, you need to blanch them for 10 seconds and then cool them in ice water, subsequently cutting them into four parts, taking care to remove the skin and seeds.
Having thus obtained the petals from the tomatoes, we will arrange them on the plate, using a circular pastry ring. Separately, we will start preparing half a liter of vegetable broth and heating about 30 ml of extra virgin olive oil.
When the oil is hot, we will add the pasta (which will be prepared risotto-style), the cherry tomatoes cut into small pieces and a ladle of vegetable broth.
This particular technique allows better fusion with the chosen seasoning, compared to a normal pasta dish, and is achieved through a cooking practice aimed at enhancing the flavor and consistency of the pasta.
The proposed cooking method, similar to that used for rice preparation, is able to retain the starch naturally contained in the pasta, to favor the bond between the pasta itself and the seasoning, giving the dish a soft and creamy consistency.
It should be added that compared to traditional preparation through boiling, this procedure requires longer times and constant monitoring, in order to prevent the pasta from overcooking.
During the pasta preparation, we will add a handful of winter tomatoes and sun-dried tomatoes, always being careful not to let the mixture dry out; gradually adding the vegetable broth.
Once the "Benedetto Cavalieri" eliche are cooked, we will cream them with pecorino romano, ground pepper, chili pepper, oregano and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.
We will plate by positioning the risotto-style eliche on the tomato carpaccio, previously prepared, and garnish with fresh basil and Friscous®.
by Alessandro Vincenti
