I am going to be hosting a culinary cruise throughout the Mediterranean in April ’09- leaving from Venice on April 26th and traveling to Dubrovnik, Greece, Istanbul and Bari, Italy. Before the cruise departs, I will be hosting a luncheon and wine tasting at one of my favorite restaurants in Venice (name to be announced) for cruise attendees.
In anticipation of this event I am going to give you a taste of some of the traditional recipes from Venice. We will be making some of these recipes on board during the culinary lessons.
The first traditional taste of Venice I would like to leave you with is a dish known as Rise e Bisi or Rice and Peas. This recipe is the traditional recipe to come out of Venice. I prefer to make mine with a lighter vegetable broth.
Oh… and while you are making this recipe if you are thinking about coming on the culinary cruise with me for more culinary lessons and wine tastings, send us an email to:
events@marialiberati.com
and we will email you all the info. Hope to see you there!!
Risi e Bisi
copyright, 2008. Maria Liberati
The Basic Art of Italian Cooking by Maria Liberati tm
Editor: Michela Pompeo
It’s difficult to define what kind of dish this is: is it minestra (= kind of soup) or risotto (= rice dish)? Probably a mixture of the two. What is certain is that since the 16th century ‘Risi e bisi’ has become a typical Venetian dish, especially prepared for 25th April, day of St Mark, patron saint of Venice.
The preparation is rather long because in order to cook rice, you’ll have to make meat broth before, and this takes a while.
Ingredients (for the meat broth):
1 lb beef
1 lb veal
1 lb chicken
1 onion
1 carrot
a stick of celery
1 tomato
some cloves
1 bay leaf
salt
pepper
Put the meat in a pot filled with abundant cold water and add a generous pinch of salt. Cook over medium heat and when water stats boiling add the onion (into which you will have inserted some cloves), carrot, celery, tomato, bay leaf, pepper. Boil moderately for about an hour and a half skimming regularly with a slotted spoon. Take then the meat out and filter the broth. When it is cold and it has formed a layer of fat on the surface, take it away with a wooden paddle.
Now that you have the broth you can prepare risi e bisi:
Ingredients:
1 lb rice ( arborio or carnaroli)
1 lb very fine and small peas
2 ounces bacon cut into small cubes
1 onion finely chopped
1 tblsp butter
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
¼ cup Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (grated)
salt to taste
a handful of chopped parsley
meat broth (it’s impossible to give exact quantities here, but you’ll need a liter of broth, more or less; it depends on the quality of the rice you use: meaning how much liquid the rice will absorb…)
For more recipes get your copy of the best selling book The Basic Art of Italian Cooking at https://www.marialiberati.com
Ciao for now,
Maria
