Everyday Italian: Mostaccioli
Remember this post about mostaccioli? I not only ordered olive forks, but I also ordered the missing ingredients to make the 'ancient' version from the website I found, and right now La Palmerosa smells amazing.
It all started with this bit from Scappi:
Di mostaccioli Napoletani, et romaneschi, di lauorie di marzapane in piu forme, pignoccati, pistacchio...
That roughly translates to:
Neapolitan and Roman mostaccioli, several shapes of marzipan, peanut paste, pistachio paste...
Which isn't really helpful, I realise. A quick search will tell you that modern mostaccioli are definitely biscuits (cookies, if you're North American) - every region in Italy has a version, some claim they invented them, but they are most decidedly sweet things. Digging a little deeper, they're mentioned in Scappi, but also earlier by Cato the Elder in his De agri cultura, dated to around 160 BCE. The key ingredient, and from whence these snacks get their name, is musto, or grape must - a syrup made from the leftover bits and bobs of the grape during winemaking. Boiled down, it makes a decent and apparently popular sweetener.
While it will lose me researcher points, I have not corroborated the recipe I used against Cato's original. I've just charged ahead with it in the hopes that it's interesting and flavourful.
The recipe from The Eternal Table is:
Ingredients:
* 200g all purpose flour
* 80g must
* 1 tsp aniseed, crushed
* 1/2 tsp cumin, crushed
* 1 blade mace, crushed
* 5 tbsp lard
* 3 tbsp grated pecorino romano
* 1/4 tsp salt
* Fresh laurel (bay) leaves
Production is fairly simple. Mix everything but the bay leaves into a dough, and let it rest for a half-hour. Roll it out (I aimed for about 2-3mm thickness) and cut into the desired shapes:
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| Rhomboid? Sure! |
Put a bay leaf (or half of a bay leaf, or a third of a bay leaf) on each cracker:
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| Fresh bay leaf. So perky! |
Then flip the whole mess over on to a baking sheet, and bake for 15 minutes:
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| So far, so good |
Stick them back into the oven for another 10 minutes, then shut it off and let them cool in place with the door propped open:
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| Cool, cool... |
When they've cooled, peel off the leaves, and off you go.
Modifications I made from this recipe were using gluten-free flour, because that's what I had, and only having 2 tbsp of lard, so filling out the rest with butter. This may have had an impact on the texture, which is a wonderful delicate crumb, similar to shortbread.
The end result is...quite tasty, actually. Insanely easy to make, all baking sheet flipping notwithstanding, and the texture is really quite delicate. They're not too sweet, you can barely taste the anise (this is an issue in my house), and I really want to put a schmear of chévre on one.
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