Making my way through the little furry farm animals
September 14th - Lucca
Well our last night in Lucca and it's a gorgeous night, unlike last night for the soggy luminari festival. We head over to the Piazza Napoleone, the largest in Lucca to a place called Resturante Gigilo. This is a owned by the same people that own last nights favorite Buca San Antonio. I know that in this area that rabbit is a favorite and has been prepared in many different ways. When I see it on the menu here with polenta, I am ready. Actually it was rabbit brasied in a light tomato and white wine sauce with olives served over polenta. I think rabbit is a very underutilized food source. Very eco friendly for it's ability to turn grass into protein which is 10 times easier on the environment than beef. Needless to say it is probably all the references to the cute cuddly nature of bunny's that makes the US market squeamish about consuming them more. That said, my bunny arrives and he was delicious. It's a very mild flavor (no I won't say like chicken), but with the sauce and the saltiness of the olives was really great. The polenta is a great compliment. The way that they make polenta here in Italy (at least the times that we have had it), is significantly different than the way that you might see it in an upscale restaurant in the states. There, and I admit to doing this myself for my guests, make it with either lots of cream or butter and or parmesan cheese. I have to admit that it does make it tasty. Here it is only made with water. This makes it a fairly blank slate. A good vehicle for absorbing the sauce. That's what I did. After finishing the rabit and the olives the was still an amount of sauce left, so I stirred the remainder of the polenta up with the leftover sauce and made a kind of sauce thickend with the polenta. Linda had the spaghetti with clams which she really liked. I seemed to have broken her of the habit of asking for parmesan cheese with every pasta dishes. The Italians hate this especially with pasta and seafood, a major no no in Italy. It's like the americans ordering cappucino after lunch. That drives them crazy. Another great meal!!!
Well our last night in Lucca and it's a gorgeous night, unlike last night for the soggy luminari festival. We head over to the Piazza Napoleone, the largest in Lucca to a place called Resturante Gigilo. This is a owned by the same people that own last nights favorite Buca San Antonio. I know that in this area that rabbit is a favorite and has been prepared in many different ways. When I see it on the menu here with polenta, I am ready. Actually it was rabbit brasied in a light tomato and white wine sauce with olives served over polenta. I think rabbit is a very underutilized food source. Very eco friendly for it's ability to turn grass into protein which is 10 times easier on the environment than beef. Needless to say it is probably all the references to the cute cuddly nature of bunny's that makes the US market squeamish about consuming them more. That said, my bunny arrives and he was delicious. It's a very mild flavor (no I won't say like chicken), but with the sauce and the saltiness of the olives was really great. The polenta is a great compliment. The way that they make polenta here in Italy (at least the times that we have had it), is significantly different than the way that you might see it in an upscale restaurant in the states. There, and I admit to doing this myself for my guests, make it with either lots of cream or butter and or parmesan cheese. I have to admit that it does make it tasty. Here it is only made with water. This makes it a fairly blank slate. A good vehicle for absorbing the sauce. That's what I did. After finishing the rabit and the olives the was still an amount of sauce left, so I stirred the remainder of the polenta up with the leftover sauce and made a kind of sauce thickend with the polenta. Linda had the spaghetti with clams which she really liked. I seemed to have broken her of the habit of asking for parmesan cheese with every pasta dishes. The Italians hate this especially with pasta and seafood, a major no no in Italy. It's like the americans ordering cappucino after lunch. That drives them crazy. Another great meal!!!
Coniglio in umido con oliva e polenta
Spagetti al la vongole
Comments
Post a Comment