The Cook Massimiliano Alajmo (Padua, 1974) he obtained his third Michelin star at just 28 years of age, becoming the youngest chef to obtain the guide’s highest distinction. It should be noted, however, that the restaurant whose kitchens he runs, Le Calandre, already has a long history.
Massimiliano, together with his brother Raffaele and his sister Laura, represents the third generation from a family of restaurateurs who, in recent years, have been struggling to transform their modest restaurant on the outskirts of Padua into one of the best in the world.
Alajmo has been one of the first highlights of Madrid Fusión with a presentation in which he showed his interpretation of two of the most iconic dishes of Italian cuisine: pasta and rice.
A layered risotto
At Le Calandre they use rice from the carnaroli variety, the most typical for rissotto, but of the purest variety, which releases much more starch. “In recent years, rice has suffered a lot of contamination and there are 1,000 types of carnaroli”, explains the cook. “This is the original, it extracts a lot of starch.”
The most curious thing is that, to respect all the greatness of the rice itself, he cooks it only with water. “The important part is how it is roasted,” he explains. “It has to get to 200 degrees for it to be crispy on the outside. And the water is added little by little, wetting the edges. This allows us not to burn, because starch tends to stick. We want a completely white rice. If we added broth the grain would be violent and would tend to burst. It has to be hard and crunchy, it doesn’t have to stick to your teeth. This is how you can see the characteristic of rice”.
Once at its point, the rice buttered with extra virgin olive oil, Parmesan cheese and lemon zest. It is served accompanied by a light smoked liver mayonnaise, with ponzu, chilli pepper and aromatic herbs; some sardines infused with sweet and hot peppers; a cuttlefish stew in its own ink; Spirulina; and lastly, fried leek, which gives it a crunchy texture.
“It is a dish that stratify the structures, concludes the chef. “It has rice at the base, neutral, which can be tasted grain by grain, and then the sauces.”
A pasta with tomato and coffee
The second course that Alajmo has presented arises from a mistake in the restaurant. Making a classic tomato sauce they mistakenly used the wrong oil, which they had infused with coffee beans. It was tasty, and they had the idea of combining two of the fundamental foods of Neapolitan culture on a plate: coffee and pummarolaits classic tomato sauce.
Coffee is even present in the cooking of the pasta, which is done with half water and half distilled coffee. when they are almost al dente, the paccheri (a kind of giant macaroni) are sautéed with more coffee distillate and capers. “In Italy we call this process rice rice,” explains the cook. “An emulsion is created that lacquer the paste”.
Medio Paccheri Bronze dies – 2 packages of 500gr – tot. 1KG Carla Latini
These brilliant paccheri, cooked in brown, are accompanied by a tomato sauce cooked with the coffee infused olive oil, garlic, basil, chilli and lavender flower. To finish, a lot of grated Parmesan cheese mixed with coffee powder.
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