Italian · Piedmont · sauce/condiment

Bagna Càuda

Bagna Càuda reads umami 6.1, richness 6.0 and salinity 5.3 on Palate's 0–10 flavor X-ray — a Italian · Piedmont sauce/condiment, about 1 hr 13 min. Measured from the recipe itself: ingredients and technique.

The flavor X-ray — six axes, 0–10

• Umami & Savory — 7.5 / 10
• Sweet & Fruity — 3.6 / 10
• Sour & Bright — 1.4 / 10
• Bitter & Earthy — 1.9 / 10
• Rich & Fat — 7.5 / 10
• Aromatic & Spice — 4.7 / 10

The measured notes (of 18)

Umami 6.1 · Richness 6.0 · Salinity 5.3 · Nutty 5.1 · Funk & Ferment 4.6 · Allium 4.4 · Marine & Briny 4.0 · Sweetness 3.2 · Earthy 1.6 · Herbaceous 1.6 · Fruity 1.6 · Bitterness 1.5 · Sourness 1.0 · Citrus 1.0 · Warm Spice 1.0 · Heat 0.5

What's in it (9)

• garlic — 100 g
• regular milk — 250 g
• anchovies — 150 g
• extra virgin olive oil — 230 g
• unsalted butter — 100 g
• walnut oil — 18 g
• cardoons — 400 g
• red peppers — 400 g
• jerusalem artichokes — 200 g

Time & effort: about 1 hr 13 min · effort: medium

Nutrition (per 100 g, engine-estimated): 99.9 kcal, 8.6 g protein, 7.1 g fat, 11.4 g carbs

Dietary: Contains meat · Contains seafood · Contains dairy — engine-derived; double-check anything allergy-critical.

How it's cooked (8 steps)

1. Simmer the halved garlic cloves in the milk over the lowest heat for 25 to 30 minutes, until a knife goes through with no resistance. Drain and discard the milk. Piedmontese cooks argue endlessly about this step, but it is what turns the sauce from something that fights you into something you can eat a bowl of.
2. Put the softened garlic in a small heavy pan or an earthenware tegamino, crush it to a paste with a fork, and add the anchovies and the olive oil.
3. Cook over the very lowest heat you can manage for 30 to 40 minutes, stirring often with a wooden spoon and never letting it come near a simmer. The anchovies will dissolve completely and the sauce will go from oily and separated to a smooth, dull-gold cream. If it fries, it is far too hot: the whole method is bagna càuda, hot bath, not hot fry.
4. Take it off the heat and beat in the butter a cube at a time, and the walnut oil if using, which softens the salt and gives the sauce its final gloss.
5. Serve it in the traditional way, in a fojot, the small earthenware pot set over a tealight in the middle of the table, so it stays warm without cooking further.
6. Around it put the raw vegetables for dipping: the cardoons above all, which in Nizza Monferrato are earthed up so they grow crooked, white and free of bitterness and are eaten raw, plus the raw pepper strips and the sliced Jerusalem artichokes. Cardoons are a winter vegetable from Italian greengrocers; if you cannot find them, celery hearts are the honest stand-in and should be named as such.
7. The Piedmontese finish: when the sauce is nearly gone, break an egg into the pot, stir it into what is left and scrape it out with bread.
8. Substitutions: celery hearts can stand in for the cardoons.

Dishes with a similar flavor shape

• Thai Cashew Chicken Stir-Fry — Thai
• Ohn No Khao Swe (Coconut Chicken Noodles) — Burmese
• Shrimp Teriyaki Stir-Fry — Japanese
• Shrimp Fried Rice — Chinese-American
• Shrimp Lo Mein — Chinese-American

Keep reading: what umami, richness, salinity mean in the flavor lexicon · the world's cuisines, by flavor.

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Every number above is Palate's engine-measured estimate, computed from this recipe's ingredients and techniques — not human-tasted ratings or reviews.