Giardiniera
After our last film of the year at our film society last night, we went to our friends' house for nibbles and drinks and to catch up. And Monika, a most wonderful cook, served up, amongst other things, some giardiniera - home-made of course. They were utterly scrumptious and so I thought I would make them the subject of my blog.
I also thought I would make some of my own and blithely said that I had lots of recipes at home. I have perused my library and my database of old delicious recipes and found, in fact, that I do not have a single one - neither in my various Italian cookbooks, the massive compendiums like Stephanie;s book, books on vegetables and books on preserving. Not one. I am amazed.
So I started looking online and of course there are lots of them, but they all vary slightly so I am now confused, although I also found a couple of interesting things about it.
So what is it? Well it's a vegetable pickle. Opinion seems to vary on whether giardiniera means a 'female gardener' or 'from the garden'. Having learnt Italian for the last few years I incline towards the former, though why female I have no idea. Although I suppose the female generally made the pickle. The gardener might have been male though. Anyway it doesn't really matter.
Although I found references to Piedmont and/or Sicily as the originating provinces of Italy, I also found that, really, every province has its own version. And like every 'classic' peasant dish - for this is obviously a peasant dish, contrived to preserve the garden's vegetable for the winter months - the variations are endless. The variations fall into two or three different categories though.
First of all the vegetables themselves. Well really they can be anything to hand. The most common seem to be peppers (although these would obviously have been a later thing as they didn't arrive in Italy until the 15th/16th centiuries), cauliflower, beans, celery, zucchini, carrots. There seems to be some controversy about olives. Some giardiniera are hot with chillies and some have none. Then how you cut them up also seems to be a matter of personal choice. Diced, chunks, big or small, slices long or short, lengthways or horizontal. Find a way and you can do it but they do all seem to agree that they should be of a similar size. Below are some finished jars, demonstrating some of the variety.
Then the recipes diverge quite a bit. The various methods described include soaking the vegetables in cold water, or a brine (length of time also varies), heating in a spiced vinegar - or not - draining and marinading in a spiced oily mix - or not, putting in the sterilised jar and covering with oil or vinegar or a mix of each, or simply putting the cut vegetables straight into the jars and covering with spiced vinegar. The permutations are potentially endless. I think Monika soaked, cooked and covered with oil. I have asked for the recipe because her version was scrumptious.
The interesting thing that I discovered is that giardiniera has really become a Chicago thing. It seems that the people of Chicago are basically addicted to it and put it on everything, but most famously on a roast beef sandwich - as below. But they put it on pizza too. Their version also tends to be hot and spicy.
There are, of course, a lot of Italians in Chicago, but there are in Melbourne too, so why hasn't it become quite so ubiquitous here? You can buy it in the supermarket, but it's not a big thing. And there are lots of Italians in New York too. Isn't it interesting? It might just be that one family decided to make it commercially and it caught on. Or one chef made the inspired leap to use it in a beef sandwich. Who knows.
In some ways it doesn't leap out at you as being something you would want to use. Because of the pickling process the colours of the vegetables become a little duller perhaps. It looks a bit bitty, and squashy - the opposite of crunchy which we discovered yesterday has innate appeal. But trust me, it tastes delicious. When I have the recipe I shall post it here. In the meantime you could try this one from Jamie Oliver - it seemed the closest to Monika's. Though he doesn't call it Giardiniera - just 'amazing pickled and marinated vegetables'. Which is a bit typical of Jamie.
MONIKA'S RECIPE
Apparently it's from an old Women's Weekly booklet on tapas and mezze and things. Obviously you can vary the vegetables according to taste. The ones below seem to add up to 2kg.
2 medium red capsicums (400g)
1 litre (4 cups) white vinegar
2 cups (500ml) water
6 black peppercorns
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon sea salt flakes
1 small eggplant (230g), quartered lengthways, cut into 1 cm slices
1/2 small cauliflower (200g), cut into florets
2 medium carrots (240g), sliced thinly diagonally
2 stalks celery (300g), trimmed, sliced thickly diagonally
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
2 cups (500ml) olive oil
2 cloves garlic, sliced thinly
Preheat oven to 200ºC/180º fan-forced. Sterilise 1.5 litre (6 cup) jar and lid (or several smaller ones)
Quarter capsicums, discard seeds and membranes. Roast capsicum, skin side up, until skin blisters and blackens. Cover capsicum with plastic or paper for 5 minutes, peel away skin and slice thickly.
Meanwhile, combine vinegar, the water, peppercorns, bay leaf and half the salt in a large saucepan, heat without boiling. Add eggplant, cauliflower, carrot and celery, bring to the boil. Reduce heat, simmer, uncovered, about 5 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Drain vegetables, discard liquid.
Combine hot vegetables, capsicum, herbs and remaining salt in a large heatproof bowl. Spoon vegetable mixture into sterilised jar(s).
Heat oil and garlic in small saucepan, strain into large heatproof jug, discard garlic. Carefully pour hot oil over vegetables in jar(s) co completely cover vegetables, leaving a 1 cm space between vegetables and top of jar. Seal while hot.
Store in refrigerator for up to three months. Other just say a cool, dark place. But once opened keep in refrigerator for a week or so. Jamie recommends small jars so that they don't all go off.
