Damiano

Damiano works for an International Hotel chain which means that he travels around the world. Cooking at home for his family and friends is the way that Damiano relaxes.

He is passionate about travelling, cooking healthy food and drinking good wine. Damiano showed me how to cook one of his Venetian fish recipes that is very special to him as he left Venice 25 years ago.

Once Damiano showed me a beautiful notebook that was full of recipes that his Grandmother Liliana gave to him. The notebook is full of recipes that resonate of Damiano’s childhood flavours.

The food that Damiano cooks is so simple, he only uses the ingredients that are absolutely necessary and in every dish you could taste every single ingredient.

This is Damiano’s kitchen, a simple but sophisticated way of cooking where flavors are intensified by drinking selected wines that he explains to you carefully. You will never find a cheap wine on Damiano’s table.

We started our day cooking together by researching fresh fish.
First of all Damiano explained me the

4 rules to tell if a fish is fresh:

• look at the eye’s brightness and colour,
• smell the fish (you have to smell the scent of the sea),
• check the consistency of the flesh,
• ask for the fish’s origin.

We decided to go to Dolfi’s fish shop at Mercato Centrale in Florence where Fausto sold us amazing squid (they don’t look great but they taste good) for Damiano’s dish:

squid ink’s spaghetti.

Fausto cleaned our squid and Damiano asked him to put on a side the little ink saks necessary for our recipe. After buying a few more ingredients for our recipe, fresh marjoram, garlic and lemon, we went back Damiano’s home listening to The Chaffeur by Duran Duran.

Ingredients

• 1kg squid,
• 1 glass of white wine,
• garlic,
• lemon,
• fresh majoram. Majoran is not present in the original recipe but Damiano likes it and add it to his version of the recipe.

Method

• Wash the squid and cut them in slivers;
• put a clove of garlic in a pan to warm in olive oil;
• put the squid and cook them until all the water has come out;
• add a glass of white wine;
• add the peel of a lemon wedge and leave on the stove to brown a bit;
• add the minced majoram;
• add the squid ink that you will have previously taken off its sacks and melted in little warm water;
• lower the stove temperature, a pinch of salt and let it cook for about one hour.

Taste it and if the squid is supple it means that it is ready!

How to take off the squid’s ink:

put the sacks in a bowl, add little warm water and immerse your fingers into the little sacks, brake it with your fingers, squeeze the sacks very well in order to take off all the ink and mix everything well (ink + empty ink’s saks + warm water). If you don’t want to dirty your hands, you can use a fork.

Cook your spaghetti, seasoning with the squid and be ready to eat your Squid ink’s Spaghetti!

I cannot describe the amazing smell that was all over that kitchen. We cooked during a sunny October’s day so we took our plate and went to have lunch on the grass in front of the sun with, of course, a good glass of white wine!
For this plate Damiano suggests a Pinot Grigio (this one in particular) or a Soave but also a light Lagrein’s red wine. Cheers everybody!

Porcelain bowls by keramiek on demand