POLYP MAYONNAISE

Ingredients:

2 Kg ‘Veraci’ Polyp	Anchovy fillets
Pinch of pepper	English mustard as required
Ample chopped parsley	A spoonful of pickled gherkins
Extra-virgin olive oil as required	Salt as required
Vinegar as required	Dry White Wine approx. half a glass
Cauliflower tips	Salt as required
Black olives from Gaeta
Mayonnaise as required

Preparation

This is a typical Neapolitan dish and, as required with Amalfi cooking, it is a course, tasty sailor’s dish.

It requires 2 Kg of rock polyp, which in Naples is known as ‘Polipi Veraci’ or ‘True Polyp’. It is easily recognisable, as it has two rows of suckers along the tentacles, instead of only one. After having cleaned the polyp well and removed the skin, continue cleaning them until they are bright white.

Boil a large saucepan of water, then add the salt and the polyp, ensuring that this is well covered by the water. Simmer until fully cooked. 
Once cooked, allow the polyp to cool in the same water. When it is cold, remove and cut into pieces each about two or three centimetres long. Season with pepper, plenty of parsley, oil, vinegar and a fair amount of dense mayonnaise.

In the meantime, boil a cauliflower, dividing it into many small heads. When it is cooked, season as above (in the same way as for the polyp).

The presentation should be as follows. Place half the cauliflower onto a plate, and onto this layer you should position the polyp, here and there adding the Gaeta black olives which you have previously stoned. Cover this with the other half of the cauliflower, giving the dish the form of a dome. Cover all this with the mayonnaise and decorate with a crown of black olives that should be laid out at the base of the dome, and a few fillets of anchovy placed on the actual dome.  

The preparation of the Mayonnaise requires two egg yolks and, as it should be a fairly spicy dish, you should add English mustard, which has to be melted in a minimal amount of water, and a fair amount of chopped, pickled gherkins.

The Dish

This should certainly be considered a ‘classy’ sailor’s dish, a second course that is ‘rich’ with flavours, but that have been mixed so wisely that they will be appreciated even by the most delicate of palates and even by those who do not like very strong flavours.

The spicy flavour of the anchovy fillets, the English mustard and the pickled gherkins tends to be toned down by the cauliflower. 
The choice of polyp is very important for the success of this dish. It must be the so-called ‘Polipi Veraci’.

The Wine

This is a unique dish for many reasons. It should be considered a ‘complex’ dish, with rich flavours that tend to be mostly spicy and tart. For this reason, it certainly requires a young white wine with a marked acidic presence that will combine perfectly with the acidulous taste of the mayonnaise, anchovy, mustard and gherkins. 
It cannot be too alcoholic because it must not contrast a strong structure, but it must have a certain aromatic presence, a sufficiently persistent flavour and, above all, it must be dry. A slightly bitter presence would work well with the lasting taste of the cauliflower.

It is certainly not easy to accompany this dish.  

Suggested wines

Valle d’Aosta: Nus Pinot Grigio
Lombardy: Capriano del Colle – Trebbiano – Tocai di San Martino della Battaglia
Trentino: Trentino Mullert-Thurgau – Trentino Nosiola – Trentino Riesling Italico – Trentino Riesling Renano – Valle Inarco – Pinot Grigio (Rulander) 
Veneto: Colli Euganei secco superiore
Friuli: Grave del Friuli Riesling renano – Isonzo del Friuli Pinot Grigio
Tuscany: Vernaccia di San Gimignano
Marches: Falerio dei Colli Ascolani – Verdicchio dei Casteli di Jesi – Verdicchio di Matelica
Campania: white Vesuvio
Apulia: white Castel del Monte
Sicily: Alcamo or white d’Alcamo – white Etna – Faro