I've had a couple three e-mails from people who have all asked the same question after reading my Italian Beef Recipe, "What is giardiniera?"
Giardiniera (pronounced JAR-din-era, or if you're really Italian it's ZJAR-din-era) is nothing more than pickled vegetables in vegetable oil (or olive oil). The primary ingredients are chopped baby carrots, green olives, cauliflower, celery and peppers - both sweet red peppers and the hot little bastards that really give giardiniera its zip.
The giardiniera you find in Chicago and the Midwest isn't exactly like true Italian giardiniera, but everybody calls it Italian. It was developed in the 1920's in Chicago by Pasquale (Frank) Scala, an Italian immigrant who worked at a bakery/deli. It is as Chicago as the Cubs, Sears Tower or Michigan Ave. Real Italian giardiniera doesn't use hot peppers or green olives, but they use onions and pickle the vegetables in pure white vinegar.
Pascuale Scala in the Lucca Bakery and Deli, 1925
It's primarily used as a topping on Italian sandwiches, but I've heard that some people like to throw it on top of a slice of pizza, too. I've never done that and as much as I do like giardiniera, it's something I don't know if I'd like it on pizza.
There are a number of companies in the Chicago area (and elsewhere) that manufacture mild and hot giardiniera - Marconi, Dell'Alpe, Scala's, Tenuta's, Il Primo, and Racconto, to name a few . You can generally find giardiniera in the pickle aisle of most Midwestern grocery stores. The mild giardiniera has a bit of a bite to it, but I like the hot better. They add some of those little hot "sport peppers" (also known as "piquant peppers, found mainly in the Balkin region of Southeastern Europe) all chopped up in the concoction. Sport peppers are the little peppers that they throw on Chicago-style hot dogs to give them that hot and spicy flavor.
Years ago I worked with this old guy, Ben Klouda, would make his own hot giardiniera. Except he would use jalapenos and those sweet cherry peppers in there instead of sport peppers, plus he would also throw in cubed up pieces of summer and Thuringer sausage. Oh, man!!! Was that stuff ever good! Everytime he'd bring in a huge jar of that stuff, it would be gone in an hour.
The problem with giardiniera is that if you let a jar that has been opened sit long enough, the oil starts to kind of crystalize and it really loses it's flavor. I'd say that once you open a jar of giardiniera, it has less than 30 days of a shelf life in a fridge.
I found a recipe once where you empty a jar of mild giardiniera and a jar of hot giardiniera in with a 4 to 5 lb beef roast in a crock pot and let it cook for about seven hours. Oh man! My stomach is doing jumping jacks just thinking about that!
But giardiniera is a great condiment to use on Italian beef sandwiches. If you can't find any in your area, you can order directly from the manufacturer's whose links I've provided above.
Geez, Italian beef sandwiches. That sounds great for dinner!
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