Wine and swine – so good together, they even rhyme! This week we welcomed the dynamic duo, Nick Macri of La Divisa Meats and Mitch Skwer of The Wine Merchant, into COOK for another edition of their wildly popular wine and swine dinner. Our guests were carried off to the southern Italian region that is home to Rome and bordered by the Tyrrhenian Sea – Lazio! Chef-turned-butcher Nick Macri highlighted cuisine traditional to the region while explaining the differences between Lazio and the rest of Italy. While “Meat Man Macri” was cooking up each course in front of our 16 guests, Mitch poured out and described the Lazio wine pairing he chose for each dish. Read on to see how the two came together and learn about the under-appreciated cuisine of the Lazio region!

Upon arrival everyone was greeted with a glass of Prosecco and taglio alla Amatriciana (pizza topped with a pasta sauce originating from the town of Amatrice in the Lazio region). Nick explained that Amatriciana is one of the four major Roman pasta sauces, the others being cacio e pepe, carbonara, and gricia. Since Nick was showcasing gricia in his pasta dish for the second course he opted to top a slice of pizza with Amatriciana, which consists of tomato, guanciale, pecorino and often onions. You may be asking yourself, what is guanciale? Used in three of the four mentioned sauces, guanciale is cured pork jowl. Along with pancetta, these two pork products are widely used in Lazio cooking.

As I mentioned, Nick cooked up a pasta dish “alla Gricia” to showcase the lesser known of the four Roman sauces. For whatever reason many Americans are familiar with carbonara and cacio e pepe but have never heard of Gricia. This is especially strange considering that Gricia is the oldest recipe of the sauces and eventually gave way to form the other two! Nick tossed rigatoni in butter, olive oil, pecorino cheese and guanciale until a thick sauce emulsified. The rigatoni he used was dried because dried pasta is common in southern Italy opposed to fresh pasta in the north. Generally the south is poorer than the north so they tend to use more inexpensive dried pasta, which Nick prefers as it’s more versatile than fresh pasta. To go along with this salty cheesy course, Mitch paired with it Monastero Suore Cistercensi Coenobium, a white wine produced in Lazio by nuns! According to Mitch about 90 minutes north of Rome is a winery where around 80 nuns make around 1,000 bottles of this wine a year. Comprised of Malvasia, Trebbiano and Verdicchio grapes, this wine is a bit funky and has texture which cuts through the gooey cheesy pasta.

The showstopper of the dinner was certainly the head-on porchetta with milk braised fennel. Porchetta is pork that is deboned, wrapped in skin or skin-on belly and roasted in the oven for hours resulting in moist, tender cuts. Nick said that it took him about 15 tedious minutes to remove the bones from the porchetta. He then seasoned it with garlic, fennel and black pepper which is common, but spices vary by region. Each plate had a massive slice of pork topped with a fennel, milk, chicken stock, and garlic, chilies and salt puree garnished with parsley.

In Italy limoncello is commonly served at the end of a meal as a digestif. Because of this and the fact that it paired so well with Nick’s ricotta crostata with citrus, Mitch chose Arvero Limoncello as the dessert pairing. Limoncello is created by soaking either whole lemons and/or lemon zest in grappa, which is made from the skins, pulp, seeds and stems left over from the winemaking process.

A small cordial and a slice of ricotta pie concluded another fantastic wine and swine feast! Keep your eyes peeled for the next porky adventure coming soon to COOK. Saluti!