Macarone, you provoked me and I me you great. The famous phrase uttered by Alberto Sordi in the film "An American in Rome" fits perfectly to describe the recipe we want to talk about today, precisely macaroni and partridge cibreo, an excellent opportunity to tempt the gluttony and rediscover one of the oldest and most popular Florentine recipes. The cibreo has a very long tradition. Pellegrino Artusi, in his famous science in the kitchen and the art of eating well, provides this recipe: "Cibreo is a simple but delicate and gentle sauce, suitable for ladies with listless stomachs and convalescents. Take chicken livers (removing the gall bladder as indicated in n. 110), chicken crests and beans; peel the crests with boiling water, cut them into two or three pieces and the livers in two.
Put on the fire, with butter in proportion, first the crests, then the livers and finally the beans and season with salt and pepper, then broth if necessary to cook these things. According to the quantity, put in a saucepan a red or two of eggs with a teaspoon, or a half only, of flour, lemon sour and boiling broth, blending so that the egg does not go crazy. Pour this sauce into the giblets when they are cooked, boil a little and add more broth, if necessary, to make it more melted, and serve it. For three or four ridges, as many livers and six or seven beans, a portion sufficient for one person, an egg yolk, half a teaspoon of flour and half a lemon are enough".
Ancient passion
The particularity lies in the passion that Caterina de 'Medici, nephew of Lorenzo the Magnificent, had for this dish. She was greedy to say the least and after becoming queen of France in 1533, she brought the recipe to Florence. As a good gourmet, she was also an excellent cook, too bad that this passion of hers even made her risk her life. It is said, in fact, that Caterina swallowed a disproportionate amount of food on her thirtieth birthday, risking dying from indigestion.
Partridge meat
Partridge meat deserves a brief study, since it is not talked about so often. Very similar to the gray partridge, this species is characterized by a very bright color in the legs and a white spot on the throat. Normally the specimens that can be found on the market come from selected farms and for this reason they do not need any aging. In the case of real game, however, the meat in question requires to be fulled for 2 to 4 days. It is a very tasty game with a bright red color. The best yield is above all the one obtained when cooking this roasted or spit-roasted meat. As for the doses, however, we must adjust ourselves in this way: it is necessary to calculate a small partridge for each individual diner, while half is enough for the largest specimens. Cooking does not present major problems, in this case a maximum time of 20 minutes must be calculated for every 250 grams of weight.
The ingredients
Macaroni and partridge cibreo are a delicacy that deserves great attention, as it is able to conquer even the most demanding palate. Let's see in detail what are the ingredients to be exploited to obtain a mouth-watering result:
- 240 grams of macaroni
- 2 partridges
- shallot
- carrot
- celery
- rosemary
- sage
- laurel
- Juniper berries
- clove
- oil
- garlic
- 4 pizzutelli cherry tomatoes
- balsamic vinegar
- sale
- pepper
The procedure is soon said. The breasts and thighs of the partridge are prepared normally, leaving several trimmings, in addition to the fifth quarter, such as heart and livers. All these ingredients must be carefully beaten with a knife, before reducing each element into very small fragments. An important step is to brown the shallot together with the carrot, celery and then the various chopped herbs, therefore bay leaf, sage and rosemary. Furthermore, with juniper berries and cloves, an even more exceptional perfume is obtained. With a few pizzutelli tomatoes, two drops of balsamic vinegar, hot water, salt and pepper, all you have to do is add the raw macaroni. Cooking must take place over low heat, before the final addition of raw oil.
Etymology
A separate discussion must be made for the particular name of the sauce. Why do we say cibreo? The etymology of the word has long been debated. The first to try a solution was Napoleon Caix, who hypothesized a provenance from the vulgar Latin * cirbarius derived in turn from CIRBUS, intestinal network. Giovanni Alessio proposed a more noble (even if not attested) CIBUS REGIUS, royal food, but the Latin origin of this term is to be excluded, since its first attestations are very late, and therefore the proposal of to derive the word from * zingibereus (from the Latin ZINGIBER, ginger) advanced by Angelico Prati and repudiated by the same a few years later.