Saba

Saba

The Wife was nosing around the Egg Store and found a bottle of Saba.



It was like $13 the bottle, so she bought it.

Saba is cooked must, in the case of this particular bottle the unfermented by-product of Trebbiano grape processing. At some point, they hit it with a little balsamic vinegar, and it's aged for maybe a year or so.

It’s syrup, a lot like blackstrap molasses, not anywhere near as vinegar-y as I thought it might be, actually quite sweet, without much bite, though good on a strong cheese. I could see eating it on a steak, maybe including it in some BBQ sauce.

Hammond

David Hammond wrote:The Wife was nosing around the Egg Store and found a bottle of Saba.

Hammond,

Sounds like Saba is something I'd like to try, as well as a first visit the Egg Store. Interesting post, as always.

Enjoy,
Gary

When I was in NYC last June, I had lunch at Lupa - owned by the orange clog clad Mario Batali - where chef de cuisine Mark Ladner paired grilled treviso radicchio with a drizzle of saba, olive oil, toasted hazelnuts and pecorino romano. Fabulous flavors...

But when saba was paired with Puntarelle, a classic Roman dish of baby chicory, frisee, anchovy, garlic, red chili, lemon and olive oil, the sweet, sour, bitter and hot (not to mention umami) flavors all combined to transform it into something greater than the sum of the parts...

When I close my eyes and concentrate I can still "taste" both dishes...

Saba is also teriffic drizzled on grilled or sauteed fish, especially on something like skin-on striped bass. With the skin thoroughly dry, hit it with a good dose of salt and pepper and then carmelize until crispy. For this dish there may be no better condiments than a drizzle of saba and a splash of a peppery olive oil...

Marc

The Egg Store?

Mhays wrote:The Egg Store?

7065 Cermak Rd
Berwyn
773.284.8704

We've had our bottle of saba sitting around largely unusued...until tonight. I made up a couple of burgers for The Wife and me, and did up a side of zucchini and green onions, with a few generous splashes of saba, simply sauteed. The sweet/sour of the saba on the squash proved a good counterpoint to the burger.

I do intend to try it on fish, though honestly, I forgot I had this interesting sauce until tonight. It happens.

I believe I've had fried green tomatoes almost every day for the last week or so -- we have an abundance of fruit that I pulled in before last week's threatened frost. Today, trying to find a way to make today's batch interesting, I excavated the saba and found it an excellent accompaniment, the sweetness working well with the acidity of the tomato and the fried egg-breadcrumb crust.

Anyone have recent intelligence on where to locate Saba?

thaiobsessed wrote:Anyone have recent intelligence on where to locate Saba?

Online source: http://www.dididavisfood.com/pspproducts/v2saba.html

Is there a recipe you want to use that calls for saba?

Thanks, I'm hoping for a local source (I'm impatient) but I will check this out. A couple recipes in the Zuni cafe cookbook call for a saba. I was eying the 'piccolo fritto' with fennel, onion and zante grapes with a drizzle of saba.

I'd suggest calling local Italian-type markets. Caputo's is a possibility.