41 gorgeous blocks

Team Eats: Novara

One more thing I like about the Team Eats series on JuventiKnows is that I get to learn about food from specific parts of Italy. La Piadina from the previous post was particularly a kind of street food in the northern region. So when the Novara game approached, we got rice as the main feature.

I was a little nervous about making Stuffed Tomatoes because it involved risotto, and I have zero experience with it. Well, there’s a first time for everything. Fortunately, my uncle was around to help and judge if the rice was cooked enough.

Two main changes from Mike DG’s take:
1. I used Japanese short-grained rice because I couldn’t find arborio anywhere, and I read somewhere that it’s just impossible to use long grains for risotto.
2. I added bacon to make it awesomer.

Japanese rice was an acceptable substitute, but it took twice as long to cook. It went past al dente as well, but my cousin said it wasn’t so bad—it tasted was just right, and the bacon made it more filling. I got some mixed reaction about the tomatoes. My nephew thought it was yummy, my cousin said she could do without it, and another cousin was just afraid of even trying it. Dad liked it, though, and I thought the sweetness of the tomatoes was a nice contrast to the slightly salty bacon risotto. But ugh, making the breadcrumbs stick to the tomatoes was just a pain. (Mike, I used the whole egg, but still! #IBlameAmauri.)

And the results of the game that night? STELLAR. The bianconeri totally dictated the match, even without regulars Leo Bonucci and Arturo Vidal, who were suspended for yellow card accumulations, and Mirko Vucinic, who was injured. That made room for Paolo De Ceglie, my hero Alessandro Del Piero, Emanuele Giaccherini, and (this one deserves a drumroll) Fabio Quagliarella. Paolino proved he deserved to be in the starting XI by setting up the Pepe goal at the fourth minute, and also getting a good chance at the goal a few minutes later. And at last, after almost a year of being out due to injury, ol’ Quags made an awesome comeback by driving a header at the 75th minute. GRINTA OH FUCK YEAH!

Alex had a lot of good chances himself, but he just couldn’t get the ball in and man, you could really feel his frustration. Everyone was setting him up, especially Pepe, who gave him two golden crosses. But still, Capitano, it was a joy to see you play for 64 minutes.

So, while waiting for this week’s recipe (Team Eats: Cagliari), I’ll be posting Pasta a la Udine for Team Eats: Udinese. I know, I totally skipped Roma, I was on vacation that weekend. I’ll try to make that for the upcoming Coppa Italia match instead.

Match photos from La Vecchia Signora