about a cup of dipping sauce, with vegetables for 6 appetizer servings
Notes
Bagna cauda is one of Piemonte’s best known dishes. The name means “warm bath” and that’s what it is: a sauce of garlic, butter, oil and anchovy heated in a deep earthen ware container set on the table over a little flame, like a fondue pot. Also on the table are arrayed a great variety of cut vegetables, raw and cooked, to be dipped in the piping hot sauce, eaten and savored. In Piemonte, bagna cauda will always include some of the fabulous vegetables for which the region is renowned, such as cardi gobbi from Nizza Monferrato and the gorgeous, long peppers of Carmagnola.
I’ve listed a variety of vegetables that I enjoy with bagna cauda at home. This is a great starter on the table or for a buffet. To make more sauce for a crowd, simply multiply the ingredient amounts given in the recipe.
Ingredients
- For the dipping sauce
- 4 to 6 plump garlic cloves, peeled
- 6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil plus more as needed
- A 2-ounce can anchovy fillets packed in olive oil, drained (2 tablespoons packed)
- 4 tablespoons butter
- Vegetables for dipping
- Freshly squeezed juice of one lemon
- 2 celery stalks, cut in ¼-inch sticks
- 1 medium carrot, cut in ¼-inch sticks
- 1 fresh sweet pepper, red or yellow, cut in 1-inch sticks
- 1 pound raw cardoon, trimmed and peeled (see page 000), cut in ½ -inch sticks
- ½ pound raw Jerusalem artichoke, peeled and cut in ¼-inch slices
- 1 cup raw cauliflower florets
- ½ pound fingerling potatoes, boiled and peeled (or larger potatoes, boiled, peeled and sliced in ¼-inch thick rounds)
- 4 tender center leaves of raw Savoy cabbage, cut in 2-inch shreds
- 1 medium turnip, cooked or raw, peeled and cut in thin sticks
Directions
In a mortar and pestle or mini-chopper, mash the garlic cloves and 1 tablespoon of olive oil into a smooth paste and transfer to a small bowl. Mash (or chop) the anchovy fillets into a smooth paste. (Alternatively, chop or slice the garlic and anchovy by hand.)
Put the garlic (crushed, chopped or sliced) in the saucepan with the butter and set over medium-low heat or a table-top heat source. Cook slowly until the garlic is thoroughly softened and melted in the butter. Stir in the anchovies and the remaining olive oil and keep it in a deep earthenware saucepan or terra-cotta fondue pot over a low flame, mashing the anchovies with a back of a spoon until thorough disintegrated.
Before cutting the vegetables, mix the lemon juice with 1 quart cold water. Immerse cardoon, Jerusalem artichoke, turnip and other raw vegetable pieces in the acidulated water to prevent oxidation.
When the bagna cauda is piping hot, whisk the sauce briefly to blend and emulsify and serve with the cut vegetables alongside.
