“You can call anytime you want. From 6 AM Patrizia’s always here.”
Not all stories of food and passion are easy, fortunate or happy. In the case of Patrizia, for example, the road was anything but smooth. “I still have so much suffering inside.” Originally from Offida, in Le Marche, she moved to Abruzzo on January 1, 1969, where she worked for 23 years as an administrative employee. During that time, she met and married Marcello, owner of a farm in Colonnella, in the province of Teramo, and everything seemed to suggest they’d live happily ever after.
The birth of Zenobi
But they didn’t. An accident took Marcello from Patrizia when she was pregnant with their second child, who would take the name of his father. And in a short space of time, Patrizia found herself without a job. Anyone would have been desperate, but not her: alone with her three children, she rolled up her sleeves and decided to open a restaurant. “I had nothing but land with an old farmhouse to fix up, and I said to myself, ‘What can I do?’ So Patrizia started learning how to cook with her mother, and above all to study Abruzzese cuisine, which she says is truly never-ending. Then in 1994, in the house where she lives to this day, she opened Zenobi, after her husband’s family name, continuing to draw vital strength from the surrounding land, from which she sources products such as oil and wine. By her side are her children: Cristina in the kitchen and Marcello in the dining room, while Sandra, after working for 15 years with them, is studying photography in Rome, her great passion. “What matters most to me is that she’s at peace.” Over the years, there have been many, many awards, especially from the world of Slow Food, while more recently she became a part of the Lady Chefs of Abruzzo. Though Patrizia first opened the restaurant to live and work in the countryside, away from the people, today it’s the people who can’t do without her and her traditional Abruzzese cuisine, which tastes like home. One such dish is pallotte cace e ove.
Pallotte cace e ove
Eggs, cheese and bread. Patrizia Corradetti put her faith in these three basic ingredients, readily available to shepherds. In fact, she was the first to include pallotte cace e ova (“cheese and egg balls”) on her menu, among the appetizers, as it had always been considered a poor dish reserved for the home. In Abruzzo, these recipes are found almost everywhere as part of the region’s pastoral tradition, especially in mountainous areas such as the Maiella or Gran Sasso, where sheep are raised. But in actuality, a lot of the recipe comes from the countryside as well, calling for tomatoes and other ingredients that can’t grow at high altitudes. In short, it’s a dish that tells the varied story of Abruzzo’s landscape. The secret? The pecorino must be good, like that of young producer Daniele di Giuseppe dell’Arca, who works only with sheep’s milk. “Even if I wanted to take this dish off the menu, as I’ve tried doing to replace with something else, I can’t because everyone always asks me about the pallotte and nothing has the same success.”
The recipe for pallotte cace e ove
This recipe, directly from Patrizia herself, makes 6 servings. Sugo finto is a dialectal term in Abruzzo that means a meatless sauce (literally “fake sauce”).
Ingredients
14 oz stale breadcrumbs, 7 oz pecorino cheese, 7 oz Parmigiano cheese, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 sprig of parsley, 6 eggs; to taste: salt, pepper, nutmeg, milk, frying oil, breadcrumbs, flour, fresh tomatoes, celery, carrot, onion, basil
Instructions
Prepare a sauce with extra virgin olive oil, tomato, celery, carrot, onion, salt and basil. Wet the breadcrumbs with a little milk until they soften. Add the Parmigiano cheese, pecorino cheese and eggs, the finely chopped parsley and garlic, a pinch of pepper and a pinch of nutmeg. Do not add salt because the pecorino is already quite salty. Mix the dough well and let it rest in the fridge overnight. Form balls of about 1 1/2 ounces each, squishing them slightly. Coat them in flour, then in beaten eggs and breadcrumbs, then fry. Place on a serving dish and cover with the heated sauce.