La Finanziera is a – possibly the – signature dish of Italy’s Piedmontese cuisine: a mélange of formerly humble meats, now a great gastronomical prize. Tom and I discovered it while traveling in the region, many years ago. It was so impressive that, back home, we developed our own version, using ingredients available here, for our first cookbook, La Tavola Italiana.
For a dinner party we’d be giving this week, Tom had a special magnum of 25-year-old Barolo that he wanted to serve, and a Finanziera would be its perfect accompaniment. It’s a very labor-intensive dish to make, but not at all difficult once the ingredients are prepared. So we set to it. From the butcher we acquired veal stew meat, a veal sweetbread, a veal kidney, a chicken breast, and chicken livers. (Fully authentic versions also use cockscombs and various calf giblets that aren’t sold in this country.)
Working together, Tom and I started preparations in the early afternoon of the dinner party day. Below are a half-pound chicken breast, half a pound of chicken livers, a three-quarter-pound kidney, and a one-pound sweetbread.
.
.
The chicken needed only to be cut into strips. The livers needed only some trimming. The sweetbread had to be blanched before being cut into bite-size chunks. The kidney needed extensive knife work to dislodge the knobs of fat and connective tissue at the core before being cut into the same size chunks.
The stewing veal was destined for meatballs. We ground it to a paste in a food processor along with two ounces of prosciutto and a large shallot; mixed it by hand with a slice of white bread, salt, pepper, nutmeg, parsley, and an egg; and rolled it into one-inch balls. Below are the meatballs, meats, and two additional ingredients from jars: three ounces of cornichon pickles and six ounces of marinated porcini mushrooms.
.
.
Then came the cooking itself. One after another, I floured a batch of the meats and passed each of the nuggets to Tom. He browned them quickly in hot butter and oil in a skillet, then transferred them to a wide, deep pan in which a cup of homemade broth was simmering. More butter and oil for the skillet, then the next batch of meats. When they were all in the large pan, we deglazed the skillet with wine vinegar, poured its contents over the meats, and stirred in the cornichons and porcini.
.
.
The pan needed only ten minutes of gentle simmering, covered, and then it could be moved to the back of the stove and left there until the evening. Whew!
.
While our guests were finishing the appetizer course (asparagus croûtes, which I’ve written about here), all I had to do for the Finanziera was bring the pan back to a simmer, stir in ½ cup of wine vinegar and ⅓ cup of dry Marsala wine, and cook it uncovered for a final 5 minutes.
.
.
That Finanziera was heavenly, if I do say so myself. Not that I needed to: the guests fully agreed. It’s a dish so complex as to be almost indescribable. Each meat retained its own particular flavor, but all were enriched by the blended essences of the others, piqued by the tang of vinegar and pickles, and sweetened by the lush Marsala. Each bite was a tiny palatal adventure – such as the effect of a bit of porcini and a bit of sweetbread nestling together on a fork. Many such combinations created almost a kaleidoscope of taste pleasures.
The 1999 Barolo was a superb wine to accompany these multiplex flavors. It offered its own kaleidoscope to match them. Tom has written about this great Barolo on his blog.
It all would have been perfect if I’d only been able to get cockscombs!
A number of years ago I was in Alba with Tom and he ordered La Finanziera which included the cockscombs. The young waitress kept on saying “are you sure you want this sir” and Tom said “yes”. She then described the dish. Then Tom said “Yes I am sure” and she walked away shaking her head.
Sounds terrific, but much too much work for me. So I will enjoy it vicariously though your post
Looks absolutely terrific. Can’t wait to make it. Hope I can find the marinated porcini mushrooms locally.
I don’t know where you live, Kirsten, but the Eataly store in Manhattan carries them — a brand called Previdi.