The Traditional Roman Saturday Feast

Whether it was by book or by local friend, I somehow came across the fact that many Romans use Saturday afternoons and evenings, once the kids get out of school of course (Saturday morning sessions are typical here), as a time to meet with family or friends and spend the entire afternoon socializing over a wonderful feast of dishes.

So while the kids are out at school, mom and dad or grandmother and grandfather can be found at the nearest market buying the best looking vegetables, fruits, fish, meats and pastas all to be consumed that afternoon.

In the spirit of this tradition my expert and I joined our friends, Graham and Francesca, to live that Saturday as the Romans do.  So right around noon we met up in a neighborhood by the Vatican City called Prati and went to the largest market in Rome, Trionfale Mercato.  See my post titled The Market Scene if you want to learn more about that.

We agreed to go there with no plans of what to cook later that day.  We would take a look at all the stalls and see what looks good to eat and go from there!  So we made our way around the maze of stalls and found some great items.  What should we eat?

How about some fresh Skate wing?  Pretty sure the top right manta ray look-alike is a Skate Fish.

There is no doubt in my mind this Porchetta would delight our taste buds.  Look for a post in the near future dedicated to my newest favorite food in Italy.

We could always make things easier and just eat all of these delicious pastries and cookies for lunch.

Or, we could cook fresh horse meat.  For anyone that didn't know, horse meat is not a popular item to eat in the U.S.

Although eating our horsey friends would have been a more than adventurous experience, we ended up buying some wonderful looking steaks (from cows).

... along with makings for an arugula salad tossed with a delightful mixture of fresh olive oil combined with fresh lemon zest and juice, parmesan cheese, and pepper. Add some dried porcini mushrooms for a porcini risotto. And let's not forget our aperitivo of whole green olives and sfuso primitivo vino (sfuso is draught wine.  This kind happens to be Primitivo wine and you buy it from a vendor who has a number of large metal containers (each probably holds 50 gallons of liquid of various varietals) and then he fills up a sanitized bottle.  Often, it's cheaper than buying a single bottle, you get twice to 3 times as much wine, and it's still very good table wine.

The first course.

 Once the first course was completed, we moved back in the kitchen to cook the steaks and make a porcini mushroom, red wine and herb reduction to top everything off.

If only your computer had smell-o-vision right now.

The second course.  We let the steaks rest for about 5-10 minutes, ensuring the juices would remain in the tender meat rather than all over our plates.

Oh yeah.  Perfect medium rare. At first I thought it looked more rare than I expected but the touch was a warm center.  Rare is close to that color, but cool in the center.

The herby, mushroomy, winey reduction added all sorts of wonderful flavors to the steak.  In my book, we scored extra points on this second course because we were able to buy a cheaper cut of meat knowing the reduction would add levels of deliciousness.

Fun fact about VASGO? You will rarely see him eating a good cut of steak such as strip steak or filet, or both!!! (a porterhouse), with toppings because he believes those cuts are best flavored by themselves, with only sea salt and fresh ground pepper to season it.

Fun fact #2 about VASGO?  You will never see him decline a steak topped with lump crab meat, or gorgonzola, or reductions, or anything else that goes with steak if that is all he is offered.

Buon appetito my friends!  Unplanned meals with your friends can make the best memories as you all buy and cook the food together.  I highly recommend trying it out!