Directions
The discovery of a new dish brings more happiness to humanity than the discovery of a new star.” These are the words of the eighteenth-century intellectual Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, the man who, with his book “The physiology of taste,” gave the renewal impulse to French cuisine to rejuvenate itself from Renaissance practices and thus enter the bourgeois era, for some lines very similar to our Pellegrino Artusi.
In honor of him, a dish was created, the savarin, in fact, a dessert, very similar to the donut with a hole in the middle, of leavened dough soaked in rum and served with custard or cream, but which can also be salty, as in this one case.
Rice savarin is a classic dish from Parma, heir to the French domination that has influenced cuisine, traditions, and language for centuries. We turned to a historic restaurant in the Parma area for the original recipe of rice savarin, made with tongue and porcini mushrooms. The recipe is perfect for Christmas lunch or an elegant dinner and requires good effort to prepare all the phases with care.
Let’s see how to prepare the perfect rice savarin! If you don’t like the tongue, you can substitute it with cooked or smoked ham.
Ingredients for the rice savarin with tongue and porcini mushrooms
- 500 grams of Carnaroli rice
- 1.5 liters of broth
- 100 grams of Parmigiano Reggiano
- 100 grams of butter
- 100 grams of mushrooms, if you don’t find them fresh, use the dry ones
- 300 grams of ground beef
- 100 grams of tomato sauce
- 1 onion
For the tongue
- 1 beef tongue
- 12 grams of salt
- 5 grams of cloves
- 8 juniper berries
- 2 bay leaves
How to prepare rice savarin with tongue and porcini mushrooms
The recipe seems laborious, but it is not difficult. You need an excellent organization to ensure that all the dishes are prepared simultaneously. Otherwise, to make the recipe’s preparation more manageable, the mushroom sauce with meatballs can be prepared in advance, and the same goes for the tongue, which you can also boil the day before.
Cook the tongue in boiling salted water for 1 hour and 30 minutes, with 2 bay leaves, half an onion, a tablespoon of vinegar, 3 cloves, and a few grains of juniper, and let it cool in its cooking liquid. Remove it, peel it and cut it into slices. Since a whole tongue is usually cooked, there will be many leftovers for other dishes.
Make a sauce with the onion, let it fry in a spoonful of butter for 10 minutes over low heat, then pour in the tomato, the previously soaked porcini mushrooms (if they are dry) and cook for 15 minutes.
Shape the meat into small balls, fry them in a thin layer of butter and finish cooking them in the mushroom sauce for about 5 minutes. Once ready, keep the sauce warm.
Prepare a regular risotto alla parmigiana, and when ready, cut the tongue into thin slices, line a savarin mold, and fill the mold with the risotto.
Turn over onto the plate and serve with a couple of tablespoons of mushroom sauce, meatballs, and plenty of grated Parmigiano Reggiano alongside and inside.
Which wine to pair with the Savarin of rice with cured tongue and porcini mushrooms?
Let’s choose a soft, enveloping red wine, rightly tannic like the Teroldego from the Cobelli winery. Its grace will amaze you!
If you want to accompany a cocktail, Manhattan is the right choice.
Recipe courtesy of the Stella d’Oro restaurant, via Mazzini, 8, Soragna (PR)
