In an earlier Nonna’s Kitchen about Spaghetti and Meatballs, I recounted a story about having spaghetti for the first time at a friend’s house, and being horribly disappointed because it bore no resemblance to what I thought of as spaghetti. I remembered a similar story from my childhood when I was thinking about ravioli – one about my brother. When I was much younger, before supermarkets became the norm in Missoula, the Broadway Market served less as a source for specialty foods and more like a neighborhood market. In addition to the Italian staples that became the Market’s forte in later years, the shelves were filled with things like cleaning supplies, Wonder Bread, Chips Ahoy Cookies and a wide assortment of canned foods. Three of these cans were particular favorites of my brother, Greg – foods he’d eaten and loved at friends’ houses. They were Chef Boyardee Beef Ravioli, and Franco American SpaghettiOs and RavioliOs. EEEWWWWW! I hated them! Sickly sweet sauce, squishy pasta – I can’t even believe my grandparents had them on the shelves… My brother wanted them for lunch at every opportunity, and he was indulged sometimes. In fact, Nonno was known to have given Greg a can or two in his stocking at Christmas time when he was very young.
I just told this story to Christine, and she states that Franco American and Chef Boyardee are ENTIRELY different things; she admitted to eating Chef Boyardee ravioli cold out of the can in high school. Who are these people?
My mother only has one ravioli story, and it sort of illustrates the same point that I made about spaghetti – that there are as many recipes for spaghetti as there are people in Italy. Every family does something a little different, so that the word has come to mean filled pasta in sauce, whether stuffed with meat, or lobster, or pumpkin, or whatever. When my great grandmother – Bisnonna D’Orazi – made chicken cacciatore and ravioli, the sauce was so hot and filled with peppers that my mother could barely choke it down, and she cried the whole time. My family stopped cooking with hot peppers when my grandfather developed ulcers, so those recipes are lost now, much to my dismay. I add them to most things when I’m cooking for myself.
The recipes this week are for my grandmother’s traditional Chicken Cacciatore and her spinach ravioli – the only kind she ever made, to my knowledge. Ravioli are labor intensive, so they were most often reserved for some sort of celebration, and were always accompanied by Cacciatore; my mother insists that it’s the only sauce to be used with ravioli. However, I experiment with fillings and sauces, and I encourage you to do so once you have the basic techniques down. These are done entirely by hand – no dodgy little rolling pin or press to crimp the pasta shapes – and my mother still rolls the dough out by hand, too. You’re allowed to use a Kitchenaid pasta roller – I do – but don’t bother with the specialized tools – it’s faster by this method. When you decide to experiment with fillings and sauces, you can also play with shapes and sizes – some people’s ravioli are round, and some are nearly as large as potstickers – I like the smaller ones because the ratio of pasta to filling is more to my liking.
The Recipe:
Ravioli
Serves 6-8 as a first course
Pecorino Romano is a sheep’s milk cheese that is quite salty and sharp, where Parmesan is a more nutty flavor. Take the time to look for it but don’t drive yourself crazy – Asiago or Parmesan will certainly work in a pinch.
Total prep and cooking time: about 2 hours
Ingredients:
2 batches of homemade egg pasta (see Nonna’s Kitchen 1)
1/2 C. ground beef
1/2 C. Pecorino Romano cheese, finely grated
1 10 oz. box frozen chopped spinach, thawed and thoroughly drained
1/4 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste
1 large egg, beaten
Brown the ground beef in a large skillet, using a wooden spoon or other utensil to break the meat up into tiny bits. Cook for approximately 10 minutes, until thoroughly done. Allow to cool slightly, then add the cheese, spinach and nutmeg. Mix very well – use your hands – and then season to taste with salt and pepper. (Go easy on the salt, as the cheese is quite salty.) Mix in the egg and then refrigerate until cold. You can make the filling up to three days in advance, keeping it refrigerated until you’re ready to use it.
Divide the pasta into batches and roll into sheets as described in Nonna’s Kitchen 1. You want the pasta to be rolled to the thinnest setting on the machine, 1/16” if you’re rolling by hand. Using a sharp knife, cut the pasta into 1 1/2” squares – first cut long 1 1/2” strips, then cut rows of strips crosswise until you’ve got squares. You’re basically looking for something resembling a checkerboard, if that helps. When you’ve got the sheet of pasta cut, put a dollop of filling into the center of each square – about a teaspoon, slightly flattened. When you’ve got all of the squares covered, start folding – pull a square towards you, dip your finger in a bowl of water and wet three sides of the square, then fold in half - making a rectangle, not a triangle. Crimp the three edges with a fork, push to the side and move on to the next square. When you’ve finished the sheet, transfer all of the ravioli onto a floured cookie sheet and move on to the next batch of dough. I know, this sounds incredibly tedious, but it actually goes pretty fast, especially if you open a bottle of wine and draft a friend or two to help, working in assembly line fashion.
Cook the ravioli in salted boiling water, removing with a spider as they float to the top – about two minutes. Toss with Cacciatore sauce and serve, passing additional grated Romano cheese to be added at the table.
The Recipe:
Chicken Cacciatore
Serves 6-8 as a first course
Cacciatore is literally “Hunter’s Chicken” – recipes are often seen incorporating mushrooms, red and green peppers and red wine. This is my mother’s recipe, which is basically my great grandmother’s minus a few ingredients. The sauce can be used with any short pasta if you don’t want to make the ravioli – rigatoni work quite well. Faithful readers will recognize the method of cooking the tomatoes and chicken separately as the same one used for the crab spaghetti featured in Nonna’s Kitchen 13.
Total prep and cooking time – about 2 hours
Ingredients:
1/2 C. olive oil, divided
1 medium onion, finely diced
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 28 oz. can whole plum tomatoes
1 tsp. granulated sugar
1 frying chicken, cut into pieces, or 2 lb. breasts and thighs
salt and pepper to taste
In a large saucepan, heat 3 Tbsp. olive oil over medium heat. Add the tomatoes and their juice, breaking them up into coarse pieces with your hands or a wooden spoon, add the sugar and stir to incorporate. Cover and continue to cook, stirring occasionally.
After you’ve got the tomatoes going, start the chicken. Heat the remaining olive oil over medium low heat in a large Dutch oven, add the onion and garlic and sweat for about 5 minutes, or until softened but not browned. Add the chicken pieces, season liberally with salt and pepper, stir to distribute the onions and raise the heat to medium. Brown the chicken pieces on all sides, then add the tomatoes, stir to incorporate and continue to cook over low heat for at least one hour, or until the chicken is falling off the bone. Remove the chicken to a serving bowl, correct the seasoning of the sauce and serve with ravioli or pasta of your choice!
Variations: Bisnonna D’Orazi, as mentioned before, used a lot of peppers in her cooking. If you like things spicy, add about 1 tsp. of red pepper flakes to the tomatoes and otherwise cook as described.
Variation #2: Nonna’s traditional recipe – this differs from my mother’s in that it’s got, well, chicken guts. My mother picked them out as a child and gave them to her sister, and I picked them out as a child and hid them in my napkin or under my knife, so my mother leaves them out of her recipe. However, if you’re a chicken giblet and gizzard person, you may want to give this a try, as it changes the flavor significantly and is definitely more traditional. Follow the basic recipe, browning the chicken liver, heart, neck, gizzard and giblets with the chicken. Before adding the tomatoes, remove these pieces, set the liver aside and finely dice the others, adding back to the pot with the tomatoes. About ten minutes before serving, dice the liver and add it to the pot – it breaks down too much otherwise. Don’t be too upset if your kids hide the stray bits…
Mangia, mangia, fatte grande!
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Nonna's Kitchen 15: Antipasti - Appetizers and Party Food
Antipasti is the plural form of antipasto, literally “before the meal” in Italian. It is the first course brought to the table immediately after bread and wine, and signifies the beginning of the meal. The tradition probably started in the Renaissance era, when guests gathered around a communal table where small morsels of both sweet and savory foods were offered to consume after the ritual hand washing and before being seated for a meal. Restaurants in Italy often have a display case of antipasti offerings at the front of the restaurant, and antipasti can include things like olives, cured meats, marinated vegetables and especially seafood in Venice. The intent is to excite the palate, rather than fill up the diner. The French equivalent of antipasto is the amuse bouche – “mouth amuser” – a small, bite-sized offering served as a treat before dining, as opposed to the larger hors d’ouvres more commonly served as appetizers and cocktail party foods.
In common usage nowadays, antipasto has come to mean appetizer. Though it’s still traditional in many Italian restaurants both in this country and abroad to offer a communal plate of salami, cheeses, olives and peppers and such to be eaten with bread while perusing the menu, the term is now somewhat incorrectly applied to individually plated starter courses and Italian-American inventions like fried mozzarella sticks. It’s quite customary for restaurants to serve antipasto portions large enough for a whole meal, and we gluttonous Americans love to eat that way, so the trend will probably continue.
In my family, antipasti made very rare appearances, and were served primarily at holiday meals. For summer birthday and anniversary celebrations, we often had chunks of cantaloupe wrapped in prosciutto – sweet/salty and very refreshing. Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve are the only winter holidays where I can remember antipasti being served. On Christmas Eve, it’s customary to eat fish in Italian households, and The Feast of the Seven Fishes is a beloved tradition. My grandfather always prepared a large platter of smoked fish that was passed when we were seated for dinner, and it usually included smoked baby clams, oysters, sardines, and often eel and baby octopus. All came from small cans and jars sold in the store, preserved in olive oil. Nonno completed the platter with tuna salad with capers, onions and mayonnaise, and it all disappeared rapidly, eaten with bread and crackers.
The New Year’s Eve appetizer also went quickly, though I never actually liked it at all. New Year’s Eve has always been a big holiday in my family, with an enormous dinner served just after midnight; it’s one of my most cherished childhood memories. The tradition started in an unusual way; as my grandfather told it, the first year he and my grandmother were married, they went out on New Year’s Eve. It was 1943, and they decided to have dinner at the Café Montmartre, a swanky restaurant (with the attached Jungle Club cocktail lounge) in the basement of the now defunct Missoula Hotel located at the corner of Main and Ryman. My grandmother grew up in Missoula, and she was – and still is – a beautiful woman; as a result, she was quite popular with the dozens of soldiers and sailors on leave and home for the holidays. After what must have seemed like hours chasing off advances, my grandfather got angry and stated that next year, they’d have dinner at home for New Year’s. From then on, family and friends would gather around 11:30 p.m., snack on the aforementioned appetizer while drinking champagne, and ring in the New Year by sitting down to a full prime rib dinner at midnight. My grandmother would make steak tartare – small toast rounds (made from Wonder bread, for some unknown reason!) served with chopped raw beef and onion, topped with a dollop of caviar. They sold caviar in the store, and how they afforded the rest of it in the lean years I’ll never know. Still, for me at least, it was the perfect appetizer; salty caviar, the metallic flavor of raw beef and the bite of onion certainly excited my palate to eat something else!
I asked my mother about other antipasti served when she was younger, and she could only come up with one, served to dinner guests when she was very young and the Broadway Market was in its infancy. My grandfather would top a Ritz cracker (very popular and hard to find in the early ‘50s) with a thin slice of hard boiled egg and a sprinkle of paprika. These would go on a platter with a mound of olives in the center and rolled up slices of Genoa and wine-cured salami around the edges. This most closely resembles the traditional Italian concept of antipasto, and I’d never heard of it before yesterday; my mother recalls it with great fondness, especially the crackers!
Because antipasti weren’t really traditional when I was growing up, I’ve come to think of them primarily as party offerings – things to be eaten while sitting around chatting (and drinking) as the meal is being prepared. Most of my favorite antipasti hardly require recipes at all – the aforementioned prosciutto and melon being one example of this. In Italy, prosciutto is often served with fresh green figs, and they’re in season right now, making this an excellent time to try them if you haven’t before. Cut fresh ripe figs into quarters along their axis (from stem to end), cutting just short of all the way through. Spread them open a bit to expose the lush, pink flesh and plate with a twist of prosciutto nestled inside.
Bresaola – thinly sliced air cured salted beef, spiced with garlic, cinnamon and black pepper – is essentially the beef equivalent of prosciutto, and it’s an excellent alternative if you can find it. Costo carried it at one point, though I haven’t seen it there recently. Bresaola is best served laid out on a large platter, drizzled with extra virgin olive oil, a squeeze of lemon and fresh cracked black pepper; you can also add parmesan shavings and a mound of peppery arugula dressed with olive oil and lemon. Spear a slice of bresaola and a little arugula and eat it on a slice of crusty bread – YUM!
Insalata Caprese – sliced fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and basil dressed with olive oil, salt and pepper – is another excellent antipasto. A communal platter is quite pretty; alternate slices of fresh mozzarella, very ripe tomatoes and basil leaves on a plate, drizzle with extra virgin olive oil and season to taste. This can be passed around a table before a meal, or even served as a salad course. I recently made it finger-food friendly by taking ciliegine (cherry sized balls of fresh mozzarella, purchased in tubs of water and available in most supermarkets), wrapping each ball with a basil leaf and then skewering it on a toothpick with a grape tomato. When I had a whole platter of these, I dressed them with a quick drizzle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar – the result: salad you eat with your hands!
Bruschetta and crostini are somewhat interchangeable terms used to describe slices of toasted bread served with something on top. Bruschetta generally refers to bread topped with tomatoes, garlic and basil, and is quite simple – small slices of crusty bread are toasted in the oven, then rubbed with a cut raw garlic clove, topped with fresh tomatoes and basil and then drizzled with extra virgin olive oil. Crostini actually refers to the toasted bread itself, and can be served with nearly anything, from a smear of tapanade or a soft cheese like Brie, slices of salami and proscuitto, or my favorite, a salad of tuna and cannellini beans. Take one 15 oz. can of cannellini beans, drained and rinsed well, and toss them with one can of tuna packed in oil – the Italian Tonno brand is readily available (it’s owned by Chicken of the Sea, I think). Add a rib of celery, finely diced, and finish with chopped green onions or chives, fresh-squeezed lemon juice, finely minced Italian parsley and salt and pepper to taste. Mound up on the crostini and enjoy!
I also make a dip with cannellini beans which we often serve during gallery openings. In a food processor, mix one can of beans, drained and rinsed well, 2-4 cloves of garlic (depending on how much you like strong garlic flavor) the zest and juice of one lemon and a handful of fresh Italian parsley. Pulse several times to mix well, then turn the processor on and drizzle in about 1/4 cup of good extra-virgin olive oil until a creamy consistency is reached. Season with salt and pepper – it can take quite a bit of salt – and serve with just about anything – crostini, raw vegetables, pita chips, even tortilla chips.
Vegetables also make great antipasto. Giardiniera – pickled vegetables packed in oil and vinegar – is probably more Italian-American than Italian, but I still love it. Giardiniera usually contains carrots, onions, cauliflower, celery and green or red peppers, and it’s available in both hot and mild versions in nearly every supermarket. I’m sure you can make your own, though I’ve never actually bothered. Giardiniera is great eaten with salami and crusty bread, and it’s used as a condiment in Chicago on Italian beef sandwiches. Think of it as the Italian pickle! I’ve also served the egg-battered cauliflower I described in an earlier Nonna’s Kitchen article; it’s great cold, especially when accompanied by a garlicky mayonnaise. Roasted vegetables like chunks of zucchini and green beans make great starters, too – roast in the oven or on the barbecue with olive oil, salt and pepper and serve at room temperature. Asparagus are great this way as well, and are particularly nice wrapped with a slice of prosciutto.
I hope this gives you a good starting point for creating antipasti to call your own!
In common usage nowadays, antipasto has come to mean appetizer. Though it’s still traditional in many Italian restaurants both in this country and abroad to offer a communal plate of salami, cheeses, olives and peppers and such to be eaten with bread while perusing the menu, the term is now somewhat incorrectly applied to individually plated starter courses and Italian-American inventions like fried mozzarella sticks. It’s quite customary for restaurants to serve antipasto portions large enough for a whole meal, and we gluttonous Americans love to eat that way, so the trend will probably continue.
In my family, antipasti made very rare appearances, and were served primarily at holiday meals. For summer birthday and anniversary celebrations, we often had chunks of cantaloupe wrapped in prosciutto – sweet/salty and very refreshing. Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve are the only winter holidays where I can remember antipasti being served. On Christmas Eve, it’s customary to eat fish in Italian households, and The Feast of the Seven Fishes is a beloved tradition. My grandfather always prepared a large platter of smoked fish that was passed when we were seated for dinner, and it usually included smoked baby clams, oysters, sardines, and often eel and baby octopus. All came from small cans and jars sold in the store, preserved in olive oil. Nonno completed the platter with tuna salad with capers, onions and mayonnaise, and it all disappeared rapidly, eaten with bread and crackers.
The New Year’s Eve appetizer also went quickly, though I never actually liked it at all. New Year’s Eve has always been a big holiday in my family, with an enormous dinner served just after midnight; it’s one of my most cherished childhood memories. The tradition started in an unusual way; as my grandfather told it, the first year he and my grandmother were married, they went out on New Year’s Eve. It was 1943, and they decided to have dinner at the Café Montmartre, a swanky restaurant (with the attached Jungle Club cocktail lounge) in the basement of the now defunct Missoula Hotel located at the corner of Main and Ryman. My grandmother grew up in Missoula, and she was – and still is – a beautiful woman; as a result, she was quite popular with the dozens of soldiers and sailors on leave and home for the holidays. After what must have seemed like hours chasing off advances, my grandfather got angry and stated that next year, they’d have dinner at home for New Year’s. From then on, family and friends would gather around 11:30 p.m., snack on the aforementioned appetizer while drinking champagne, and ring in the New Year by sitting down to a full prime rib dinner at midnight. My grandmother would make steak tartare – small toast rounds (made from Wonder bread, for some unknown reason!) served with chopped raw beef and onion, topped with a dollop of caviar. They sold caviar in the store, and how they afforded the rest of it in the lean years I’ll never know. Still, for me at least, it was the perfect appetizer; salty caviar, the metallic flavor of raw beef and the bite of onion certainly excited my palate to eat something else!
I asked my mother about other antipasti served when she was younger, and she could only come up with one, served to dinner guests when she was very young and the Broadway Market was in its infancy. My grandfather would top a Ritz cracker (very popular and hard to find in the early ‘50s) with a thin slice of hard boiled egg and a sprinkle of paprika. These would go on a platter with a mound of olives in the center and rolled up slices of Genoa and wine-cured salami around the edges. This most closely resembles the traditional Italian concept of antipasto, and I’d never heard of it before yesterday; my mother recalls it with great fondness, especially the crackers!
Because antipasti weren’t really traditional when I was growing up, I’ve come to think of them primarily as party offerings – things to be eaten while sitting around chatting (and drinking) as the meal is being prepared. Most of my favorite antipasti hardly require recipes at all – the aforementioned prosciutto and melon being one example of this. In Italy, prosciutto is often served with fresh green figs, and they’re in season right now, making this an excellent time to try them if you haven’t before. Cut fresh ripe figs into quarters along their axis (from stem to end), cutting just short of all the way through. Spread them open a bit to expose the lush, pink flesh and plate with a twist of prosciutto nestled inside.
Bresaola – thinly sliced air cured salted beef, spiced with garlic, cinnamon and black pepper – is essentially the beef equivalent of prosciutto, and it’s an excellent alternative if you can find it. Costo carried it at one point, though I haven’t seen it there recently. Bresaola is best served laid out on a large platter, drizzled with extra virgin olive oil, a squeeze of lemon and fresh cracked black pepper; you can also add parmesan shavings and a mound of peppery arugula dressed with olive oil and lemon. Spear a slice of bresaola and a little arugula and eat it on a slice of crusty bread – YUM!
Insalata Caprese – sliced fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and basil dressed with olive oil, salt and pepper – is another excellent antipasto. A communal platter is quite pretty; alternate slices of fresh mozzarella, very ripe tomatoes and basil leaves on a plate, drizzle with extra virgin olive oil and season to taste. This can be passed around a table before a meal, or even served as a salad course. I recently made it finger-food friendly by taking ciliegine (cherry sized balls of fresh mozzarella, purchased in tubs of water and available in most supermarkets), wrapping each ball with a basil leaf and then skewering it on a toothpick with a grape tomato. When I had a whole platter of these, I dressed them with a quick drizzle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar – the result: salad you eat with your hands!
Bruschetta and crostini are somewhat interchangeable terms used to describe slices of toasted bread served with something on top. Bruschetta generally refers to bread topped with tomatoes, garlic and basil, and is quite simple – small slices of crusty bread are toasted in the oven, then rubbed with a cut raw garlic clove, topped with fresh tomatoes and basil and then drizzled with extra virgin olive oil. Crostini actually refers to the toasted bread itself, and can be served with nearly anything, from a smear of tapanade or a soft cheese like Brie, slices of salami and proscuitto, or my favorite, a salad of tuna and cannellini beans. Take one 15 oz. can of cannellini beans, drained and rinsed well, and toss them with one can of tuna packed in oil – the Italian Tonno brand is readily available (it’s owned by Chicken of the Sea, I think). Add a rib of celery, finely diced, and finish with chopped green onions or chives, fresh-squeezed lemon juice, finely minced Italian parsley and salt and pepper to taste. Mound up on the crostini and enjoy!
I also make a dip with cannellini beans which we often serve during gallery openings. In a food processor, mix one can of beans, drained and rinsed well, 2-4 cloves of garlic (depending on how much you like strong garlic flavor) the zest and juice of one lemon and a handful of fresh Italian parsley. Pulse several times to mix well, then turn the processor on and drizzle in about 1/4 cup of good extra-virgin olive oil until a creamy consistency is reached. Season with salt and pepper – it can take quite a bit of salt – and serve with just about anything – crostini, raw vegetables, pita chips, even tortilla chips.
Vegetables also make great antipasto. Giardiniera – pickled vegetables packed in oil and vinegar – is probably more Italian-American than Italian, but I still love it. Giardiniera usually contains carrots, onions, cauliflower, celery and green or red peppers, and it’s available in both hot and mild versions in nearly every supermarket. I’m sure you can make your own, though I’ve never actually bothered. Giardiniera is great eaten with salami and crusty bread, and it’s used as a condiment in Chicago on Italian beef sandwiches. Think of it as the Italian pickle! I’ve also served the egg-battered cauliflower I described in an earlier Nonna’s Kitchen article; it’s great cold, especially when accompanied by a garlicky mayonnaise. Roasted vegetables like chunks of zucchini and green beans make great starters, too – roast in the oven or on the barbecue with olive oil, salt and pepper and serve at room temperature. Asparagus are great this way as well, and are particularly nice wrapped with a slice of prosciutto.
I hope this gives you a good starting point for creating antipasti to call your own!
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Nonna's Kitchen 14 - Gnocci
The Preamble:
This week’s recipes for Gnocchi inspired me to start off with a small Italian pronunciation lesson. (I’m asking your forgiveness in advance, because I’m using phonetic sounds rather than correct typographical pronunciation symbols.) You see, there’s this very famous chef on the Food Network, quite well known for “kicking it up a notch.” He’s an entertaining guy, and he cooks great things, but over the years he’s done a few different versions of Gnocchi that I’ve seen, and he always calls them “NO-key.” AAARGH! In spoken Italian, the letter “g” is not silent, but adds a slight “y” sound to the consonant it precedes. For example, Pogliaghi - a very famous Italian bicycle builder - is pronounced “pole-YAH-gee,” and not “pogue-lee-AH-gee.” The city of Bologna is “bo-LOAN-yuh.” and Bagna Cauda, the famous Piedmontese anchovy/garlic/olive oil dip – translated literally as “hot bath” – is “BAHN-yuh COW-duh.” Seems pretty simple, right? SO, when you’re telling your guests what you’ve cooked for dinner, please say, “NYO-key.” I know, it’s a little harder because it’s at the front of the word, but I’m sure you’ll master it with a little practice.
In the interest of not boring you all to death, we’ll skip the various ways to pronounce the letter “c” in Italian until much later. Like maybe never…
Gnocchi, literally translated, means “dumpling.” There are many forms of gnocchi; they can be made from potatoes, breadcrumbs or cornmeal. They can be flavored with herbs or cheese, they may incorporate vegetables like spinach or pumpkin, and they can be savory or sweet. They’re generally cooked like pasta and served with a sauce, though not always. In essence, gnocchi are yet another way that poor Italian farmers and laborers stretched a little bit of meat or cheese by adding something starchy and filling, thereby feeding many mouths cheaply.
This doesn’t make gnocchi any less delicious! My family makes two basic categories of gnocchi: potato gnocchi and gnocchi alla romana, which are made with semolina. Gnocchi alla romana – “gnocchi in the Roman style” were always my grandfather’s favorite. My mother traditionally made them at Easter, and often for Nonno’s birthday in October. Potato gnocchi tended to be a fall thing, often eaten during duck hunting season, and as a post-Thanksgiving and post-Christmas meal. Why? Leftover mashed potatoes, of course! The best base for potato gnocchi is cold mashed potatoes; Nonna always served mashed potatoes with roast duck, and with turkey and capon at the holidays. Gnocchi are so beloved in my family that Nonna ALWAYS made many more potatoes than we could possibly eat; if she made a normal-sized batch, at least one of us would admonish everyone else to fill up on bread and not eat the potatoes so we could have gnocchi later!
The Recipe:
Gnocchi
Serves 4-6 as a first course
In my family, potato gnocchi are just “gnocchi” and are traditionally served with chicken cacciatore – chicken stewed in tomatoes. You can use any sauce, really, from simple browned butter and sage leaves to your favorite tomato sauce, though maybe not with a heavy Bolognese. Think of gnocchi as a slightly delicate pasta, and use your imagination.
Total prep and cooking time: about 45 minutes
Ingredients:
2 C. cold mashed potatoes (two medium Russet potatoes, roughly)
1 egg, slightly beaten
1 1/2 - 2 C. flour
salt to taste
Place a small saucepan of water on the stove and bring to just below a rolling boil. Mix the potatoes, the egg, a liberal dash of salt and 1 cup of the flour in a large bowl with a wooden spoon; turn out onto a well-floured surface and start to add additional flour, kneading with your hands as you incorporate enough flour to get a cohesive mixture. The final amount ultimately depends on how “wet” your mashed potatoes are; the texture you’re aiming for is somewhat softer than Play-Doh, like a good biscuit dough. When you think you’re close, pinch off a bit of dough about the size of a grape and drop it into the simmering water. When it rises to the surface, it’s cooked. If it disintegrated and totally lost its shape, you need more flour. If it’s gummy and practically chokes you, then you’ve got a little too much flour; incorporate a tablespoon or two of olive oil and try again. Though it sounds odd, you’ll know the correct texture in your mouth, and the trial and error method isn’t as intimidating as it may sound.
When you’ve got your dough at the desired consistency, bring a large pot of water to boil and begin to shape the gnocchi. Take a lump of dough and roll it out on your cutting board into a “snake” roughly the diameter of your thumb, then cut into 1” long pieces. The gnocchi need a little texture to hold the sauce; Nonna and my mother simply roll the pieces with a thumb, adding a small crease. You can roll them across the tines of a fork to make little ridges (they even make a wooden gnocchi paddle specifically for this) but we never bother.
Put the formed gnocchi on a cookie sheet dusted with flour and proceed with another lump until all of your gnocchi are formed. Cook them in batches in salted boiling water, removing them with a slotted spoon or spider as they rise to the surface, and toss them with your choice of sauces. Serve piping hot!
The Recipe:
Gnocchi alla romana
Serves 6-8 as a first course
This version of gnocchi is very rich, so small portions are a must!
approximate prep and cooking time – 1 hour plus 2 hours cooling time
Ingredients:
3 C. milk (don’t use skim!)
1/2 tsp. salt
liberal grating of nutmeg
1/2 tsp. finely ground pepper – white if you have it
3/4 C. semolina flour (available in most supermarkets)
7 Tbsp. butter, divided
1 C. grated Romano cheese, divided
2 eggs
Bring the milk to a boil (don’t let it scald) in a saucepan over medium high heat. Add the salt, pepper and nutmeg, then add the semolina in a slow stream, stirring constantly and not letting the temperature drop below a boil. When all of the semolina is incorporated, reduce the heat to medium and continue to cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture (which resembles Cream of Wheat) is thick enough that the spoon will stand up on its own – about 10 minutes. Remove from the heat. Stir in 2 Tbsp. of butter and allow the mixture to cool slightly. Beat the eggs with 3/4 cup of the Romano cheese and add slowly to the semolina mixture, stirring constantly; the fat in the butter and the cheese will keep the eggs from curdling if you go slowly enough.
Grease a rimmed cookie sheet or jelly roll pan with 1 Tbsp. of butter and pour the mixture out onto it, smoothing it into an even layer about 1/4” to 1/2” thick. Cool in the refrigerator for at least 90 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Grease a shallow oval or 9” x 13” rectangular baking dish with 1 Tbsp. of butter. Using a small glass, a cookie cutter or a sharp knife, cut the cooled semolina into 1 1/2” rounds and layer them in the baking dish, overlapping slightly. Neatness counts here, so layer evenly and make a pretty pattern! Melt the remaining 3 Tbsp. of butter and drizzle evenly over the top, then sprinkle with the remaining 1/4 cup of Romano cheese. Bake for 15 minutes; if you’re brave and willing to be constantly attentive, you can finish the dish by browning it slightly under a high broiler. Be careful, as there are only seconds between pretty and burned! Allow to cool for 5 minutes before serving.
Mangia, mangia, fatte grande!
This week’s recipes for Gnocchi inspired me to start off with a small Italian pronunciation lesson. (I’m asking your forgiveness in advance, because I’m using phonetic sounds rather than correct typographical pronunciation symbols.) You see, there’s this very famous chef on the Food Network, quite well known for “kicking it up a notch.” He’s an entertaining guy, and he cooks great things, but over the years he’s done a few different versions of Gnocchi that I’ve seen, and he always calls them “NO-key.” AAARGH! In spoken Italian, the letter “g” is not silent, but adds a slight “y” sound to the consonant it precedes. For example, Pogliaghi - a very famous Italian bicycle builder - is pronounced “pole-YAH-gee,” and not “pogue-lee-AH-gee.” The city of Bologna is “bo-LOAN-yuh.” and Bagna Cauda, the famous Piedmontese anchovy/garlic/olive oil dip – translated literally as “hot bath” – is “BAHN-yuh COW-duh.” Seems pretty simple, right? SO, when you’re telling your guests what you’ve cooked for dinner, please say, “NYO-key.” I know, it’s a little harder because it’s at the front of the word, but I’m sure you’ll master it with a little practice.
In the interest of not boring you all to death, we’ll skip the various ways to pronounce the letter “c” in Italian until much later. Like maybe never…
Gnocchi, literally translated, means “dumpling.” There are many forms of gnocchi; they can be made from potatoes, breadcrumbs or cornmeal. They can be flavored with herbs or cheese, they may incorporate vegetables like spinach or pumpkin, and they can be savory or sweet. They’re generally cooked like pasta and served with a sauce, though not always. In essence, gnocchi are yet another way that poor Italian farmers and laborers stretched a little bit of meat or cheese by adding something starchy and filling, thereby feeding many mouths cheaply.
This doesn’t make gnocchi any less delicious! My family makes two basic categories of gnocchi: potato gnocchi and gnocchi alla romana, which are made with semolina. Gnocchi alla romana – “gnocchi in the Roman style” were always my grandfather’s favorite. My mother traditionally made them at Easter, and often for Nonno’s birthday in October. Potato gnocchi tended to be a fall thing, often eaten during duck hunting season, and as a post-Thanksgiving and post-Christmas meal. Why? Leftover mashed potatoes, of course! The best base for potato gnocchi is cold mashed potatoes; Nonna always served mashed potatoes with roast duck, and with turkey and capon at the holidays. Gnocchi are so beloved in my family that Nonna ALWAYS made many more potatoes than we could possibly eat; if she made a normal-sized batch, at least one of us would admonish everyone else to fill up on bread and not eat the potatoes so we could have gnocchi later!
The Recipe:
Gnocchi
Serves 4-6 as a first course
In my family, potato gnocchi are just “gnocchi” and are traditionally served with chicken cacciatore – chicken stewed in tomatoes. You can use any sauce, really, from simple browned butter and sage leaves to your favorite tomato sauce, though maybe not with a heavy Bolognese. Think of gnocchi as a slightly delicate pasta, and use your imagination.
Total prep and cooking time: about 45 minutes
Ingredients:
2 C. cold mashed potatoes (two medium Russet potatoes, roughly)
1 egg, slightly beaten
1 1/2 - 2 C. flour
salt to taste
Place a small saucepan of water on the stove and bring to just below a rolling boil. Mix the potatoes, the egg, a liberal dash of salt and 1 cup of the flour in a large bowl with a wooden spoon; turn out onto a well-floured surface and start to add additional flour, kneading with your hands as you incorporate enough flour to get a cohesive mixture. The final amount ultimately depends on how “wet” your mashed potatoes are; the texture you’re aiming for is somewhat softer than Play-Doh, like a good biscuit dough. When you think you’re close, pinch off a bit of dough about the size of a grape and drop it into the simmering water. When it rises to the surface, it’s cooked. If it disintegrated and totally lost its shape, you need more flour. If it’s gummy and practically chokes you, then you’ve got a little too much flour; incorporate a tablespoon or two of olive oil and try again. Though it sounds odd, you’ll know the correct texture in your mouth, and the trial and error method isn’t as intimidating as it may sound.
When you’ve got your dough at the desired consistency, bring a large pot of water to boil and begin to shape the gnocchi. Take a lump of dough and roll it out on your cutting board into a “snake” roughly the diameter of your thumb, then cut into 1” long pieces. The gnocchi need a little texture to hold the sauce; Nonna and my mother simply roll the pieces with a thumb, adding a small crease. You can roll them across the tines of a fork to make little ridges (they even make a wooden gnocchi paddle specifically for this) but we never bother.
Put the formed gnocchi on a cookie sheet dusted with flour and proceed with another lump until all of your gnocchi are formed. Cook them in batches in salted boiling water, removing them with a slotted spoon or spider as they rise to the surface, and toss them with your choice of sauces. Serve piping hot!
The Recipe:
Gnocchi alla romana
Serves 6-8 as a first course
This version of gnocchi is very rich, so small portions are a must!
approximate prep and cooking time – 1 hour plus 2 hours cooling time
Ingredients:
3 C. milk (don’t use skim!)
1/2 tsp. salt
liberal grating of nutmeg
1/2 tsp. finely ground pepper – white if you have it
3/4 C. semolina flour (available in most supermarkets)
7 Tbsp. butter, divided
1 C. grated Romano cheese, divided
2 eggs
Bring the milk to a boil (don’t let it scald) in a saucepan over medium high heat. Add the salt, pepper and nutmeg, then add the semolina in a slow stream, stirring constantly and not letting the temperature drop below a boil. When all of the semolina is incorporated, reduce the heat to medium and continue to cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture (which resembles Cream of Wheat) is thick enough that the spoon will stand up on its own – about 10 minutes. Remove from the heat. Stir in 2 Tbsp. of butter and allow the mixture to cool slightly. Beat the eggs with 3/4 cup of the Romano cheese and add slowly to the semolina mixture, stirring constantly; the fat in the butter and the cheese will keep the eggs from curdling if you go slowly enough.
Grease a rimmed cookie sheet or jelly roll pan with 1 Tbsp. of butter and pour the mixture out onto it, smoothing it into an even layer about 1/4” to 1/2” thick. Cool in the refrigerator for at least 90 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Grease a shallow oval or 9” x 13” rectangular baking dish with 1 Tbsp. of butter. Using a small glass, a cookie cutter or a sharp knife, cut the cooled semolina into 1 1/2” rounds and layer them in the baking dish, overlapping slightly. Neatness counts here, so layer evenly and make a pretty pattern! Melt the remaining 3 Tbsp. of butter and drizzle evenly over the top, then sprinkle with the remaining 1/4 cup of Romano cheese. Bake for 15 minutes; if you’re brave and willing to be constantly attentive, you can finish the dish by browning it slightly under a high broiler. Be careful, as there are only seconds between pretty and burned! Allow to cool for 5 minutes before serving.
Mangia, mangia, fatte grande!
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Nonna's Kitchen 13 - Crab Spaghetti
My Uncle Denis' birthday was earlier this week. My mother’s only brother, Denis was a fixture in the Broadway Market for the last ten or so years that it was open. My grandmother basically stopped working in the store in the mid ‘90s, after her doctor told her she needed to rest a little more and not spend so much time on her feet. She took this as a prescription to not wait on customers unless absolutely necessary; both she and my grandfather were in their 80s at this point, and I think maybe she also lobbied to close the store around this time. My grandfather would hear nothing of it, and so he soldiered on with Denis shouldering most of the burden of the day to day operations. I don’t think Denis was particularly upset when the store finally closed in 2004, as he never really shared my grandfather’s love of the business and the interaction with the customers. Still, he faithfully worked every day, allowing my grandfather to keep the Broadway Market open much longer than he could have on his own.
The main recipe I’m sharing this week - crab spaghetti - isn’t particularly timely, since the best season for Dungeness crab is generally thought to be from November through June. Still, I saw crabs in the supermarket just the other day, and when I think of Denis and food, this is the first thing that comes to mind. We never had crab spaghetti for his birthday celebration, but I bet he would have chosen it if he could. I told the story of this messy meal in an earlier article; it was the second meal served to my father when he and my mother were dating. The crab is stewed in tomato sauce and served in the shell, and the generally accepted way to eat it is with one’s hands – you slurp off the sauce, break the shells with your teeth (or a nutcracker if you’re dainty) and then suck the sweet meat out of the shells. The shells get tossed into bowls on the table, and you move on to the next piece. Piles of napkins are a must, and when we were kids, there were plastic bibs, too – the disposable ones like you sometimes get at barbecue joints now.
Denis had an entirely different method of eating crab. He slurped the sauce off like everyone else, but then picked the meat out with the end of a leg, making a small mound of it on his plate. He’d clean his allotted portion (my Aunt Helen always counted legs, claws and stomachs and told everyone how much they were allowed to have) and ended up with a large mound of crab to which he’d add some reserved tomato sauce. At this point, the rest of us were just finishing up, wiping our hands, eating a little salad if we had room. Denis would then eat his crab slowly, with a fork, gloating while we looked on jealously. I tried to emulate his method a few times, but I lacked the patience, just like everyone else. Now that I’m older, I realize that the crab must have been completely cold by the time he was ready to eat, but that didn’t stop him. He always took full advantage, oohing and aahing and smacking his lips, hamming it up to the extreme.
The second recipe this week – Polenta Pie – is an easy, shortbread-like dessert that has always been one of my father’s specialties. Unlike Denis’ crab, this must be eaten warm; if it cools too much, it’s harder on your teeth than the crab shells!
The Recipe:
Crab Spaghetti
Serves 6
Like spaghetti and meatballs, this combination of pasta and accompanying protein needs only crusty bread and a nice salad to make a complete meal. If you’re celebrating a birthday or other occasion, start off with an appetizer of prosciutto and melon; cut a cantaloupe or other melon of your choice into large bite-sized chunks, wrap each chunk with a half slice of prosciutto and secure it with a toothpick (my grandmother always used the cute frilly ones.) The combination of salty and sweet is a great starter, and it’s not so rich as to compete with the crab.
Total prep and cooking time: about two hours – 30 minutes less if you have a fishmonger that will clean the crab for you!
Ingredients:
3 28 oz. cans whole plum tomatoes
1 Tbsp. sugar
3 Dungeness crabs, cleaned and broken into pieces (see below)
¼ C. olive oil
5-8 cloves garlic, minced
salt and pepper
1 ½ lbs. dried spaghetti or Fusilli Lunghi (long and curly spaghetti – very fun!)
Heat a large skillet or saucepan over medium heat, add the tomatoes and sugar, breaking the tomatoes up into large chunks with a wooden spoon. Bring to a boil, the reduce to a simmer, stirring occasionally.
Wash and clean your crab, if you weren’t able to buy it already cleaned. Rinse the crab under cold running water, then remove the back (top) shell by holding the base of the crab with one hand and pulling on the shell with the other. Rinse out the mushy yellow stuff and pull out the gills – finger sized pieces that look like latex gloves – and the intestine, which runs down the back. Pull off the legs and claws where they meet the body, then cut the body into quarters with a cleaver or large knife.
Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a very large dutch oven or heavy stock pot and sauté the garlic for three or four minutes, stirring frequently to avoid browning. Add the cut up crab pieces and stir or toss to coat with the garlic and oil, add several grinds of black pepper and a healthy sprinkle of salt, cook for ten minutes. Add the cooked tomatoes to this pot, stir to incorporate, then reduce heat to low and cover. Cook for about an hour, stirring occasionally – be gentle so that you don’t knock too much meat out of the quartered crab bodies.
Prepare pasta according to the package directions. Remove the crab from the sauce and place in a large serving bowl – covered if possible to retain the heat. Taste the sauce and correct seasoning as necessary with salt and pepper. Reserve 3-4 cups of sauce to serve at the table and toss the pasta with the remaining sauce. (Add a few tablespoons of butter if you’re feeling decadent – butter improves all sauces, in my opinion!) Serve and enjoy! If you feel the need to garnish, add a nice sprinkling of Italian parsley, but whatever you do, don’t serve Parmesan or Romano cheese with the spaghetti – it totally overpowers the flavors and makes it, well, weird!
The Recipe:
Pasticcino di Polenta – Polenta Pie
Serves 6-8
Experience has shown that the coarse cornmeal used for polenta is a little too rough for this dessert – regular cornmeal from a box is a better choice. Serve warm – we always had it plain, but fresh berries would be a nice accompaniment to dress things up a bit.
Total prep and baking time: 30 minutes, plus an additional 15 minutes to cool
Ingredients:
½ C. butter
½ C. granulated sugar
½ C. yellow cornmeal
1 C. flour
Preheat the oven to 400.
In a saucepan, melt the butter over a very low heat, stirring constantly to prevent browning. Add the remaining ingredients in the order listed, stirring briskly with a wooden spoon until the mixture is evenly grainy and well blended. Place in a lightly buttered, 8-inch pie tin. Smooth the top and press down firmly with the back of the spoon. Bake, uncovered, for 20 minutes, or until golden. Remove from the oven and cool for 10 minutes. Turn out on a plate or wooden board and let stand 5 minutes. Cut into small wedges and serve warm.
Mangia, mangia, fatte grande!
The main recipe I’m sharing this week - crab spaghetti - isn’t particularly timely, since the best season for Dungeness crab is generally thought to be from November through June. Still, I saw crabs in the supermarket just the other day, and when I think of Denis and food, this is the first thing that comes to mind. We never had crab spaghetti for his birthday celebration, but I bet he would have chosen it if he could. I told the story of this messy meal in an earlier article; it was the second meal served to my father when he and my mother were dating. The crab is stewed in tomato sauce and served in the shell, and the generally accepted way to eat it is with one’s hands – you slurp off the sauce, break the shells with your teeth (or a nutcracker if you’re dainty) and then suck the sweet meat out of the shells. The shells get tossed into bowls on the table, and you move on to the next piece. Piles of napkins are a must, and when we were kids, there were plastic bibs, too – the disposable ones like you sometimes get at barbecue joints now.
Denis had an entirely different method of eating crab. He slurped the sauce off like everyone else, but then picked the meat out with the end of a leg, making a small mound of it on his plate. He’d clean his allotted portion (my Aunt Helen always counted legs, claws and stomachs and told everyone how much they were allowed to have) and ended up with a large mound of crab to which he’d add some reserved tomato sauce. At this point, the rest of us were just finishing up, wiping our hands, eating a little salad if we had room. Denis would then eat his crab slowly, with a fork, gloating while we looked on jealously. I tried to emulate his method a few times, but I lacked the patience, just like everyone else. Now that I’m older, I realize that the crab must have been completely cold by the time he was ready to eat, but that didn’t stop him. He always took full advantage, oohing and aahing and smacking his lips, hamming it up to the extreme.
The second recipe this week – Polenta Pie – is an easy, shortbread-like dessert that has always been one of my father’s specialties. Unlike Denis’ crab, this must be eaten warm; if it cools too much, it’s harder on your teeth than the crab shells!
The Recipe:
Crab Spaghetti
Serves 6
Like spaghetti and meatballs, this combination of pasta and accompanying protein needs only crusty bread and a nice salad to make a complete meal. If you’re celebrating a birthday or other occasion, start off with an appetizer of prosciutto and melon; cut a cantaloupe or other melon of your choice into large bite-sized chunks, wrap each chunk with a half slice of prosciutto and secure it with a toothpick (my grandmother always used the cute frilly ones.) The combination of salty and sweet is a great starter, and it’s not so rich as to compete with the crab.
Total prep and cooking time: about two hours – 30 minutes less if you have a fishmonger that will clean the crab for you!
Ingredients:
3 28 oz. cans whole plum tomatoes
1 Tbsp. sugar
3 Dungeness crabs, cleaned and broken into pieces (see below)
¼ C. olive oil
5-8 cloves garlic, minced
salt and pepper
1 ½ lbs. dried spaghetti or Fusilli Lunghi (long and curly spaghetti – very fun!)
Heat a large skillet or saucepan over medium heat, add the tomatoes and sugar, breaking the tomatoes up into large chunks with a wooden spoon. Bring to a boil, the reduce to a simmer, stirring occasionally.
Wash and clean your crab, if you weren’t able to buy it already cleaned. Rinse the crab under cold running water, then remove the back (top) shell by holding the base of the crab with one hand and pulling on the shell with the other. Rinse out the mushy yellow stuff and pull out the gills – finger sized pieces that look like latex gloves – and the intestine, which runs down the back. Pull off the legs and claws where they meet the body, then cut the body into quarters with a cleaver or large knife.
Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a very large dutch oven or heavy stock pot and sauté the garlic for three or four minutes, stirring frequently to avoid browning. Add the cut up crab pieces and stir or toss to coat with the garlic and oil, add several grinds of black pepper and a healthy sprinkle of salt, cook for ten minutes. Add the cooked tomatoes to this pot, stir to incorporate, then reduce heat to low and cover. Cook for about an hour, stirring occasionally – be gentle so that you don’t knock too much meat out of the quartered crab bodies.
Prepare pasta according to the package directions. Remove the crab from the sauce and place in a large serving bowl – covered if possible to retain the heat. Taste the sauce and correct seasoning as necessary with salt and pepper. Reserve 3-4 cups of sauce to serve at the table and toss the pasta with the remaining sauce. (Add a few tablespoons of butter if you’re feeling decadent – butter improves all sauces, in my opinion!) Serve and enjoy! If you feel the need to garnish, add a nice sprinkling of Italian parsley, but whatever you do, don’t serve Parmesan or Romano cheese with the spaghetti – it totally overpowers the flavors and makes it, well, weird!
The Recipe:
Pasticcino di Polenta – Polenta Pie
Serves 6-8
Experience has shown that the coarse cornmeal used for polenta is a little too rough for this dessert – regular cornmeal from a box is a better choice. Serve warm – we always had it plain, but fresh berries would be a nice accompaniment to dress things up a bit.
Total prep and baking time: 30 minutes, plus an additional 15 minutes to cool
Ingredients:
½ C. butter
½ C. granulated sugar
½ C. yellow cornmeal
1 C. flour
Preheat the oven to 400.
In a saucepan, melt the butter over a very low heat, stirring constantly to prevent browning. Add the remaining ingredients in the order listed, stirring briskly with a wooden spoon until the mixture is evenly grainy and well blended. Place in a lightly buttered, 8-inch pie tin. Smooth the top and press down firmly with the back of the spoon. Bake, uncovered, for 20 minutes, or until golden. Remove from the oven and cool for 10 minutes. Turn out on a plate or wooden board and let stand 5 minutes. Cut into small wedges and serve warm.
Mangia, mangia, fatte grande!
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Nonna's Kitchen 12 - Cool Recipes for Hot Evenings
As I sit at the desk writing this week, the air conditioning repairman is traipsing in and out the back door, rooting around in the crawl space and working to tune up our air conditioner for the summer here at the gallery. Coincidentally, this week’s recipes are things we used to eat in the hot July and August months when nobody wanted to be inside. We’re so spoiled now – the gallery is a constant 72 degrees, and my house is in the trees and stays naturally cool all summer long. The Broadway Market? Not so much. It was and is an old building, built around the turn of the last century; the heat in the winter came from the gas heater in the back of the store (which allowed us to have roast chestnuts all winter long) and was barely adequate. The air conditioning was two open doors and several box fans. Even at that, the house and the store were always hot. The house my grandparents lived in was attached to the back of the store, and its only redeeming feature in the summer was the back yard. My grandfather converted what was a concrete parking space into a sheltered patio with café tables like you see outside trattorias in the summer; there was even a Cinzano umbrella for several years, lending that “just so” Italian touch. Big old box elder trees provided ample shade, and we ate Sunday dinner outside more often than not for most of the summer.
Nonna still cooked almost every night during the summer; the back door was right next to the stove, so she simply left it open and worked her magic in the heat. But there were times, especially on Sunday, when Nonno cooked. I have vivid memories of him out in his giardino (garden – what he called the back yard), grilling chicken attired in a ribbed white tank top that is universally known by a very non-PC name. I’m giving three recipes this week, one for his sublime barbecued chicken, the second for his bean salad, and the third for Ricotta pie – baked by my mother – his favorite dessert in the summer. More often than not, after we all finished our dessert and espresso Nonno polished off the remainder of the pie while watching the nightly news, so if you didn’t get enough right away, you were out of luck! When you serve the pie, be certain to cut yourself a sizeable slab first, just in case…
The Recipe:
Nonno’s Barbecued Chicken
Serves 8-10
The longer this chicken marinates, the better and more intense the flavor will be. Nonno always started it in the morning and let it marinate for several hours before cooking. Ingredients are very approximate – Nonno measured even less often than I do, so use this as a framework and taste as you go. He also used button mushrooms from a can, because it’s what they had in the store, but fresh ones are so much better now that they’re readily available, so I’ve substituted.
Total prep and cooking time: 15-20 minutes to prepare the marinade, 30 minutes active cooking time plus an additional 45-60 minutes additional cooking.
Ingredients:
2 roasting chickens, cut into pieces,
or 4 lbs. chicken breasts and thighs (bone in/skin on makes for better flavor)
1 bottle dry red wine (something you’d drink)
½ C. olive oil
6-10 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed or roughly chopped
2 Tbsp. (about as much as fits into your palm) dried rosemary
3 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper to taste
additional wine and/or chicken stock for braising (optional)
1 small bunch Italian parsley, coarsely chopped
1 lb. small Crimini mushrooms, wiped clean and cut in halves or quarters
Mix the wine, olive oil, garlic and Worcestershire sauce in a large glass bowl or baking dish big enough to hold all of the chicken. Crush the rosemary between your palms to release the essential oils, add this and several healthy grinds of pepper to the liquid. Taste, and then add additional salt, Worcestershire, pepper and garlic to taste. Add the chicken pieces, stir to coat and marinate (in the refrigerator, of course) for at least 4 hours, rotating the pieces occasionally so all are equally soaked. You will be reusing the marinade to braise the chicken, so reserve it when you remove the chicken pieces for barbecuing.
Prepare a charcoal barbecue to provide high heat for searing the chicken. Wipe the grill with olive oil and then cook the chicken pieces over direct flame until nicely marked – about 4 minutes per side, depending on the heat. Remove the chicken from the barbecue and place into a large covered roasting pan (a turkey roasting pan is ideal, so long as it fits inside your barbecue). Stir the coals, spreading them out to the edges of the barbecue to reduce the heat level significantly, pour the marinade over the top of the chicken and cook, covered, with the barbecue lid on, until desired doneness is reached, roughly 30-45 minutes. Check occasionally and add more wine, or maybe a little stock, if the pan starts to dry out; this shouldn’t happen if your roasting pan is tightly covered and your barbecue heat is low enough. About 20 minutes before serving, put the mushrooms in the pan, stirring to incorporate. Mix the parsley in just before serving.
The Recipe:
Nonno’s Bean Salad
Serves 6-8 as a side dish
In true Nonno fashion, this salad was slightly different every time he made it. The thing that makes it special is the dressing, pink and sweet from the ketchup. Start slowly with the olive oil and vinegar, tasting often until you like the flavor and consistency of the dressing. This is much better than the jarred stuff alone. Feel free to add fresh green beans or other vegetables to your liking.
Total prep time: 20 minutes, plus additional time for chilling
Ingredients:
1 large jar of prepared 3 Bean Salad, well drained
2 additional 15 oz. cans of beans – your choice of cannellini, kidney or garbanzo – drained and rinsed
3 ribs of celery, diced
1 medium onion (I prefer red ones) quartered and thinly sliced
½ C. mayonnaise
¼ C. ketchup
2 tsp. sugar
1-3 Tbsp olive oil
1-3 Tbsp. red wine vinegar
1 small bunch Italian parsley, finely chopped
salt and pepper to taste
Place the bean salad, beans, onion and celery into a large serving bowl, mix well to incorporate. Mix the mayonnaise, ketchup and sugar in a small bowl and then start adding the vinegar a splash at a time until the desired level of tartness is reached. Add olive oil until the consistency reaches that of heavy cream, then pour over the salad and mix well. Salt and pepper to taste, then chill for several hours. Just before serving, add the parsley and mix well.
The Recipe:
Ricotta Pie
Serves 6-8
My mother’s adaptation of a classic dessert. In typical Italian fashion, this pie is rich and dense, and not too sweet. Traditional recipes include the addition of raisins, candied orange peel and pine nuts, but my mother always omitted them. Best served chilled; fresh berries would be a nice accompaniment, if you wish.
Total prep and cooking time: about 2 hours
Ingredients:
For the crust:
1 C. flour
½ C. shortening (my mother uses lard)
¼ C. ice water
1 tsp. sugar
zest of one lemon, finely grated
Mix all ingredients in a bowl or food processor until well incorporated, roll into a ball and chill at least 30 minutes before rolling. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, then prepare the crust; reserve ¼ of the pastry, then roll the remaining ¾ to form a bottom crust for a large, deep pie plate or springform pan, finishing the edges however you wish. Return crust and reserved pastry to refrigerator while you prepare the filling.
For the filling:
5 C. (about 2 ½ lbs.) Ricotta cheese (full fat is best, of course!)
1 Tbsp. flour
pinch of salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract
zest of one orange, finely grated
confectioners’ sugar for serving
Place all of the ingredients into the work bowl of a food processor or stand mixer and mix until creamy. Pour the filling into the prepared pie crust, smooth out and then roll the remaining pastry out and cut into strips to form a lattice top for the pie. Bake 60-90 minutes, or until the top is slightly golden and a knife inserted into the center comes out completely clean. Some cracks may form in the surface of the filling – this is just fine. Chill for several hours, then dust with confectioners’ sugar and serve in small wedges.
Mangia, mangia, fatte grande!
Nonna still cooked almost every night during the summer; the back door was right next to the stove, so she simply left it open and worked her magic in the heat. But there were times, especially on Sunday, when Nonno cooked. I have vivid memories of him out in his giardino (garden – what he called the back yard), grilling chicken attired in a ribbed white tank top that is universally known by a very non-PC name. I’m giving three recipes this week, one for his sublime barbecued chicken, the second for his bean salad, and the third for Ricotta pie – baked by my mother – his favorite dessert in the summer. More often than not, after we all finished our dessert and espresso Nonno polished off the remainder of the pie while watching the nightly news, so if you didn’t get enough right away, you were out of luck! When you serve the pie, be certain to cut yourself a sizeable slab first, just in case…
The Recipe:
Nonno’s Barbecued Chicken
Serves 8-10
The longer this chicken marinates, the better and more intense the flavor will be. Nonno always started it in the morning and let it marinate for several hours before cooking. Ingredients are very approximate – Nonno measured even less often than I do, so use this as a framework and taste as you go. He also used button mushrooms from a can, because it’s what they had in the store, but fresh ones are so much better now that they’re readily available, so I’ve substituted.
Total prep and cooking time: 15-20 minutes to prepare the marinade, 30 minutes active cooking time plus an additional 45-60 minutes additional cooking.
Ingredients:
2 roasting chickens, cut into pieces,
or 4 lbs. chicken breasts and thighs (bone in/skin on makes for better flavor)
1 bottle dry red wine (something you’d drink)
½ C. olive oil
6-10 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed or roughly chopped
2 Tbsp. (about as much as fits into your palm) dried rosemary
3 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper to taste
additional wine and/or chicken stock for braising (optional)
1 small bunch Italian parsley, coarsely chopped
1 lb. small Crimini mushrooms, wiped clean and cut in halves or quarters
Mix the wine, olive oil, garlic and Worcestershire sauce in a large glass bowl or baking dish big enough to hold all of the chicken. Crush the rosemary between your palms to release the essential oils, add this and several healthy grinds of pepper to the liquid. Taste, and then add additional salt, Worcestershire, pepper and garlic to taste. Add the chicken pieces, stir to coat and marinate (in the refrigerator, of course) for at least 4 hours, rotating the pieces occasionally so all are equally soaked. You will be reusing the marinade to braise the chicken, so reserve it when you remove the chicken pieces for barbecuing.
Prepare a charcoal barbecue to provide high heat for searing the chicken. Wipe the grill with olive oil and then cook the chicken pieces over direct flame until nicely marked – about 4 minutes per side, depending on the heat. Remove the chicken from the barbecue and place into a large covered roasting pan (a turkey roasting pan is ideal, so long as it fits inside your barbecue). Stir the coals, spreading them out to the edges of the barbecue to reduce the heat level significantly, pour the marinade over the top of the chicken and cook, covered, with the barbecue lid on, until desired doneness is reached, roughly 30-45 minutes. Check occasionally and add more wine, or maybe a little stock, if the pan starts to dry out; this shouldn’t happen if your roasting pan is tightly covered and your barbecue heat is low enough. About 20 minutes before serving, put the mushrooms in the pan, stirring to incorporate. Mix the parsley in just before serving.
The Recipe:
Nonno’s Bean Salad
Serves 6-8 as a side dish
In true Nonno fashion, this salad was slightly different every time he made it. The thing that makes it special is the dressing, pink and sweet from the ketchup. Start slowly with the olive oil and vinegar, tasting often until you like the flavor and consistency of the dressing. This is much better than the jarred stuff alone. Feel free to add fresh green beans or other vegetables to your liking.
Total prep time: 20 minutes, plus additional time for chilling
Ingredients:
1 large jar of prepared 3 Bean Salad, well drained
2 additional 15 oz. cans of beans – your choice of cannellini, kidney or garbanzo – drained and rinsed
3 ribs of celery, diced
1 medium onion (I prefer red ones) quartered and thinly sliced
½ C. mayonnaise
¼ C. ketchup
2 tsp. sugar
1-3 Tbsp olive oil
1-3 Tbsp. red wine vinegar
1 small bunch Italian parsley, finely chopped
salt and pepper to taste
Place the bean salad, beans, onion and celery into a large serving bowl, mix well to incorporate. Mix the mayonnaise, ketchup and sugar in a small bowl and then start adding the vinegar a splash at a time until the desired level of tartness is reached. Add olive oil until the consistency reaches that of heavy cream, then pour over the salad and mix well. Salt and pepper to taste, then chill for several hours. Just before serving, add the parsley and mix well.
The Recipe:
Ricotta Pie
Serves 6-8
My mother’s adaptation of a classic dessert. In typical Italian fashion, this pie is rich and dense, and not too sweet. Traditional recipes include the addition of raisins, candied orange peel and pine nuts, but my mother always omitted them. Best served chilled; fresh berries would be a nice accompaniment, if you wish.
Total prep and cooking time: about 2 hours
Ingredients:
For the crust:
1 C. flour
½ C. shortening (my mother uses lard)
¼ C. ice water
1 tsp. sugar
zest of one lemon, finely grated
Mix all ingredients in a bowl or food processor until well incorporated, roll into a ball and chill at least 30 minutes before rolling. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, then prepare the crust; reserve ¼ of the pastry, then roll the remaining ¾ to form a bottom crust for a large, deep pie plate or springform pan, finishing the edges however you wish. Return crust and reserved pastry to refrigerator while you prepare the filling.
For the filling:
5 C. (about 2 ½ lbs.) Ricotta cheese (full fat is best, of course!)
1 Tbsp. flour
pinch of salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract
zest of one orange, finely grated
confectioners’ sugar for serving
Place all of the ingredients into the work bowl of a food processor or stand mixer and mix until creamy. Pour the filling into the prepared pie crust, smooth out and then roll the remaining pastry out and cut into strips to form a lattice top for the pie. Bake 60-90 minutes, or until the top is slightly golden and a knife inserted into the center comes out completely clean. Some cracks may form in the surface of the filling – this is just fine. Chill for several hours, then dust with confectioners’ sugar and serve in small wedges.
Mangia, mangia, fatte grande!
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Nonna's Kitchen 11 - Spinach Soup and Frittata
If you’ve been reading faithfully for the past few months, you might think that I had an idyllic childhood filled with culinary delights, and never a bad meal. The reality was, of course, somewhat different. Take Wednesday nights, for example. When I was a kid, Wednesday was Liver and Onions night. My paternal grandparents had a small farm in Missoula and raised a cow or two each year, so calves’ liver was fresh and…plentiful. Liver – Fegato – is a Venetian delicacy, most often sautéed with onions, white wine and sage and served with polenta. Not our liver – we had liver, quickly fried with onions, but not enough to disguise the taste. My brother and I would load ours up with ketchup and force it down, practically holding our noses. Clearly, liver is not one of my more fond childhood memories.
The funny thing is that we ate liver for literally YEARS because my parents each thought that the other loved it! My mother prepared it faithfully each week because she assumed that it was one of my father’s favorite foods, and he ate it each week because he thought it was one of her favorites. Much later, when I was in high school and the farm was no longer, calves’ liver became somewhat rare at the supermarket. One Wednesday my mother prepared something else and apologized to my father because we weren’t having liver. His reply was that she must be disappointed, and in true comedic fashion it finally came out that NOBODY particularly cared for liver, but nobody said anything about it! Except maybe my brother and I… (My parents recently celebrated their 44th anniversary, so they obviously learned to communicate at some point!)
Because Sunday dinner at Nonna’s was a pretty big deal when I was younger, undesirable foods seldom made an appearance, but Nonna cooked a few clunkers too, at least for my palate. One of them was tripe; for the uninitiated, tripe is the lining of a cow’s stomach. You might be familiar with it as the basis for Menudo – the Mexican soup, not the singing group. Tripe basically resembles a small volleyball net in color and texture (and probably flavor), and it’s considered a great delicacy in Italy. It’s most often stewed with tomatoes, and the one thing about it is that it’s pretty stinky; when I stopped in the store to say hello to my grandparents as a teenager, the smell would permeate the place and I knew immediately that I needed to fabricate an excuse to turn down the requisite dinner invitation.
The other thing of Nonna’s that I was never crazy about was runny eggs. On Fridays, if a good fish wasn’t available, the main course would often be a Frittata – sort of. Frittata is a classic Italian egg dish that incorporates vegetables, meats and sometimes cheese in what is essentially a baked omelet. It’s started in a pan, finished under the broiler or in the oven and wedges of it are often eaten cold or at room temperature. Sadly, Nonna’s frittata was nothing like this. She started with spinach, onions or mushrooms, sautéed in a pan, and a few minutes before dinner she added several beaten eggs and cooked them over very low heat, stirring frequently, until they were just barely set. I think Nonno must have liked his eggs this way, but not me; I’m perfectly happy with a runny yolk to dip my toast into at breakfast, but these eggs were basically raw. I always took as small a portion as possible and filled up on whatever else was on the table.
I actually make frittata pretty often, because it’s a great way to use up leftovers, and it’s quick and easy. For the fillings, you can use nearly anything, so feel free to experiment. Bell peppers – roasted or fresh – are great, as is spinach, or tomatoes and fresh basil, or maybe caramelized onions and a little gorgonzola. My mother’s choice? Leftover spaghetti, fried until slightly crispy, and then finished with eggs and parmesan.
The Spinach Soup would be a good accompaniment to frittata for a weeknight dinner, because it cooks in just as long as it takes to cook pasta. When I was growing up, we usually had it with Cassaoun, the spinach “ravioli” that I described in the article about vegetable sides. The pasta in the soup was the scraps leftover from making the cassaoun. This recipe uses store bought pasta, which is just fine.
The Recipe:
Spinach Soup
serves 4 as a first course
total prep and cooking time – about 30 minutes
Ingredients:
1 medium onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced or put through a garlic press
1 14 oz. can diced tomatoes
1 tsp. sugar (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste
1 small package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry, or
1 bag fresh spinach, roughly chopped
8 oz. egg pasta – country style noodles, broken into small pieces
Put a large pot of water on to boil for the pasta. In a large, deep sauté pan or Dutch oven, heat the olive oil over medium heat and sauté the onion and garlic until translucent – 5 minutes or so – being careful not to let them brown. Add the tomatoes and their juice, the sugar (if your tomatoes are particularly acidic – depends on the brand) season to taste with salt and pepper and reduce heat to low. When the water comes to a boil, cook the pasta – it will take as much as 20 minutes. About five minutes before the pasta is cooked, add the spinach to the tomatoes. When the pasta is finished, don’t drain it! Scoop it out of the cooking water with a slotted spoon or a spider and add it to the tomatoes, stirring to incorporate. Then start adding ladles of cooking water to the pan, stirring until you have a consistency that you like – you could use as few as 3 cups, or as many as 8, depending on how thin you want the soup to be. The starch released from the pasta makes this soup much more rich and silky that you might think. Correct the seasoning and serve with grated Parmesan cheese
The Recipe:
Frittata
Serves 4 as a main course, 6-8 as an appetizer
Total prep and cooking time – 20 minutes
The recipe that follows is for a basic vegetable frittata – feel free to experiment with ingredients as described previously, with one caveat. If you’re using a meat such as pancetta or bacon, be sure that it’s fully cooked before adding the eggs. Beyond that, the only limit is your imagination! If you don’t have an ovenproof frying pan, you can cover the plastic handle of any frying pan with two layers of aluminum foil – this is fine for occasional use. I cook my frittata until it’s thoroughly dry and set, but you can leave the center a little moist if you prefer.
Ingredients:
2 T. olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely slivered
1-2 small zucchini, sliced into 1/8” rounds
1 red pepper, cut into ¼” dice
1 tsp. dried oregano
Salt and pepper to taste
8 eggs
½ cup grated cheese – Parmesan, Romano or Asiago
Heat the olive oil in a 12” ovenproof frying pan – preferably nonstick – over medium heat, and add all of the vegetables at once. Cook to desired doneness – anywhere from nearly raw to thoroughly browned – your choice. Add the oregano, season with salt and pepper. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs with about half of the cheese and a healthy grind of pepper – beat them until frothy. Pour the eggs over the vegetables and stir a couple of times to distribute the ingredients, then cook for about five minutes or until the bottom and edges are slightly brown and set – lift the edges with a spatula to check. Sprinkle the remaining cheese over the top and finish in the oven under the broiler – set the rack about 8” from the top of the oven – until set and nicely browned. Serve in wedges. Can be eaten hot, room temperature or cold!
The funny thing is that we ate liver for literally YEARS because my parents each thought that the other loved it! My mother prepared it faithfully each week because she assumed that it was one of my father’s favorite foods, and he ate it each week because he thought it was one of her favorites. Much later, when I was in high school and the farm was no longer, calves’ liver became somewhat rare at the supermarket. One Wednesday my mother prepared something else and apologized to my father because we weren’t having liver. His reply was that she must be disappointed, and in true comedic fashion it finally came out that NOBODY particularly cared for liver, but nobody said anything about it! Except maybe my brother and I… (My parents recently celebrated their 44th anniversary, so they obviously learned to communicate at some point!)
Because Sunday dinner at Nonna’s was a pretty big deal when I was younger, undesirable foods seldom made an appearance, but Nonna cooked a few clunkers too, at least for my palate. One of them was tripe; for the uninitiated, tripe is the lining of a cow’s stomach. You might be familiar with it as the basis for Menudo – the Mexican soup, not the singing group. Tripe basically resembles a small volleyball net in color and texture (and probably flavor), and it’s considered a great delicacy in Italy. It’s most often stewed with tomatoes, and the one thing about it is that it’s pretty stinky; when I stopped in the store to say hello to my grandparents as a teenager, the smell would permeate the place and I knew immediately that I needed to fabricate an excuse to turn down the requisite dinner invitation.
The other thing of Nonna’s that I was never crazy about was runny eggs. On Fridays, if a good fish wasn’t available, the main course would often be a Frittata – sort of. Frittata is a classic Italian egg dish that incorporates vegetables, meats and sometimes cheese in what is essentially a baked omelet. It’s started in a pan, finished under the broiler or in the oven and wedges of it are often eaten cold or at room temperature. Sadly, Nonna’s frittata was nothing like this. She started with spinach, onions or mushrooms, sautéed in a pan, and a few minutes before dinner she added several beaten eggs and cooked them over very low heat, stirring frequently, until they were just barely set. I think Nonno must have liked his eggs this way, but not me; I’m perfectly happy with a runny yolk to dip my toast into at breakfast, but these eggs were basically raw. I always took as small a portion as possible and filled up on whatever else was on the table.
I actually make frittata pretty often, because it’s a great way to use up leftovers, and it’s quick and easy. For the fillings, you can use nearly anything, so feel free to experiment. Bell peppers – roasted or fresh – are great, as is spinach, or tomatoes and fresh basil, or maybe caramelized onions and a little gorgonzola. My mother’s choice? Leftover spaghetti, fried until slightly crispy, and then finished with eggs and parmesan.
The Spinach Soup would be a good accompaniment to frittata for a weeknight dinner, because it cooks in just as long as it takes to cook pasta. When I was growing up, we usually had it with Cassaoun, the spinach “ravioli” that I described in the article about vegetable sides. The pasta in the soup was the scraps leftover from making the cassaoun. This recipe uses store bought pasta, which is just fine.
The Recipe:
Spinach Soup
serves 4 as a first course
total prep and cooking time – about 30 minutes
Ingredients:
1 medium onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced or put through a garlic press
1 14 oz. can diced tomatoes
1 tsp. sugar (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste
1 small package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry, or
1 bag fresh spinach, roughly chopped
8 oz. egg pasta – country style noodles, broken into small pieces
Put a large pot of water on to boil for the pasta. In a large, deep sauté pan or Dutch oven, heat the olive oil over medium heat and sauté the onion and garlic until translucent – 5 minutes or so – being careful not to let them brown. Add the tomatoes and their juice, the sugar (if your tomatoes are particularly acidic – depends on the brand) season to taste with salt and pepper and reduce heat to low. When the water comes to a boil, cook the pasta – it will take as much as 20 minutes. About five minutes before the pasta is cooked, add the spinach to the tomatoes. When the pasta is finished, don’t drain it! Scoop it out of the cooking water with a slotted spoon or a spider and add it to the tomatoes, stirring to incorporate. Then start adding ladles of cooking water to the pan, stirring until you have a consistency that you like – you could use as few as 3 cups, or as many as 8, depending on how thin you want the soup to be. The starch released from the pasta makes this soup much more rich and silky that you might think. Correct the seasoning and serve with grated Parmesan cheese
The Recipe:
Frittata
Serves 4 as a main course, 6-8 as an appetizer
Total prep and cooking time – 20 minutes
The recipe that follows is for a basic vegetable frittata – feel free to experiment with ingredients as described previously, with one caveat. If you’re using a meat such as pancetta or bacon, be sure that it’s fully cooked before adding the eggs. Beyond that, the only limit is your imagination! If you don’t have an ovenproof frying pan, you can cover the plastic handle of any frying pan with two layers of aluminum foil – this is fine for occasional use. I cook my frittata until it’s thoroughly dry and set, but you can leave the center a little moist if you prefer.
Ingredients:
2 T. olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely slivered
1-2 small zucchini, sliced into 1/8” rounds
1 red pepper, cut into ¼” dice
1 tsp. dried oregano
Salt and pepper to taste
8 eggs
½ cup grated cheese – Parmesan, Romano or Asiago
Heat the olive oil in a 12” ovenproof frying pan – preferably nonstick – over medium heat, and add all of the vegetables at once. Cook to desired doneness – anywhere from nearly raw to thoroughly browned – your choice. Add the oregano, season with salt and pepper. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs with about half of the cheese and a healthy grind of pepper – beat them until frothy. Pour the eggs over the vegetables and stir a couple of times to distribute the ingredients, then cook for about five minutes or until the bottom and edges are slightly brown and set – lift the edges with a spatula to check. Sprinkle the remaining cheese over the top and finish in the oven under the broiler – set the rack about 8” from the top of the oven – until set and nicely browned. Serve in wedges. Can be eaten hot, room temperature or cold!
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Nonna's Kitchen 10 - Spaghetti and Meatballs
The vast majority of Americans, when asked about Italian cuisine, would most likely mention Pizza and Spaghetti and Meatballs. Both are thought of as the quintessential Italian food and yet both have their origins primarily in American cuisine. My grandmother used to make amazing homemade pizzas, so that will make an appearance in a later article – this week, we’re talking about Spaghetti. Polpetti – patties or balls made of seasoned ground meat – are certainly Italian, but it was most likely an Italian American in New York in the late 1800s who first paired them with sauce and pasta. Meat based sauces like the one I featured in Nonna’s Kitchen 4 are primarily paired with short, textured pastas like Rigatoni or Ziti, and with long pastas like Tagliatelle – much wider than spindly little Spaghetti. Irrespective of their origins, however, nearly everyone adores Spaghetti and Meatballs, and there are probably as many recipes for it as there are people in Italy (around 60 million at last count.) Chances are that you make it at home already, whether you start from scratch or simply open a bag of frozen Costco meatballs and a jar of Marinara sauce.
I distinctly remember the first time I had dinner at a friend’s house when I was a kid; I was in second grade, so it was around 1975. My friend, who shall remain nameless, was excited because his mom was making Spaghetti, and it was his favorite food. I was excited, too, because Spaghetti and Meatballs was Sunday Dinner at Nonna’s food – my mom didn’t make them at home until I was much older. So here I am, envisioning Nonna’s thick, flavorful sauce and plump, spicy meatballs the size of large plums – man, was I disappointed. We were presented with plates of plain, limp Spaghetti covered with oil (so they wouldn’t stick together) topped with a ladle of what looked to me like chili. I realize now that it was probably something like Hunt’s canned tomato sauce with hamburger added. The Parmesan cheese was in the ubiquitous green cardboard can, which I thought at the time was very, very cool; our Parmesan had to be scooped out of the little bowl with a spoon and at age seven I hadn’t quite mastered the even sprinkle. This stuff you could shake over your pasta with ease! And, of course, it tasted like…salt and sour milk, if I remember correctly – I sorta blocked that part out.
I think of Spaghetti and Meatballs as the perfect meal for a casual dinner party – one where everyone stands around the kitchen drinking wine and snacking while the cook turns a few simple ingredients into magic in just about an hour. My Spaghetti sauce doesn’t have to cook all day like Nonno’s meat sauce – the flavors are perfectly developed in the time that it takes to make the meatballs and cook the pasta. It’s also quite recession-friendly; if you get somebody else to bring the wine, you can feed four people pasta, salad and bread for about ten bucks. Genius!
I feel compelled to get a few ground rules out of the way before we get to the recipe. First of all, the cheese: Just Say No to the green cardboard can – we’ve covered this before. You don’t have to spend $18 per pound on authentic Parmigiano Reggiano; you can get perfectly decent cheese from Wisconsin in your supermarket for less than half as much, and it actually tastes good! Second, al dente – literally “to the teeth” – describes the texture of perfectly cooked pasta, and it’s probably less done than you think. Cook your pasta on the short end of the cooking time recommended on the package, and you’ll be pretty close – when you bite a strand of Spaghetti in half, there should still be a white center showing, and it shouldn’t appear to be cooked all the way through. Obviously, this is personal preference, but perfect pasta should still have a slightly chewy “mouth feel”, if that makes any sense. Third, pasta should always come to the table with the sauce fully incorporated, as opposed to serving naked noodles and pouring sauce over the top. For most authentic Italian recipes, the pasta is often removed from the cooking water when still slightly less than al dente, tossed into the sauce pan and allowed to finish over low heat in the sauce. Finally, Italians use much less sauce than we Americans do. Mario Batali puts it quite well: he says that Italians consider the sauce to be the condimento – the condiment, like mustard on a hot dog. The important thing is the flavor of the pasta itself, and the sauce just “greases it up” and changes the flavor profile slightly. Whenever I serve pasta, I always sauce in the Italian manner and then pass extra sauce at the table. This way, you can please everyone!
The Recipe:
Spaghetti and Meatballs
Serves 4
Total prep and cooking time: approximately one hour
I’m warning you now that this recipe will be a little disjointed, because my version is different from Nonna’s and because there are a few variations that are easier to understand in the body of the recipe than if they’re listed at the end.
Ingredients:
1 lb. dried Spaghetti
For the Sauce:
1-2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 medium onion, minced
3-4 cloves garlic, finely minced (optional)
1 tsp. red pepper flakes (optional)
28 oz. canned tomatoes (see below)
1 tsp. dried oregano (optional)
1 tsp. dried basil (optional)
salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp. sugar (optional)
For the Meatballs:
1 lb. ground beef
½ lb. bulk Italian Sausage (optional – see below)
½ of a medium onion, finely minced or grated
½ Cup dried breadcrumbs (canned are fine)
1 egg, lightly beaten
½ tsp. ground cinnamon
pinch of ground allspice
pinch of ground cloves
pinch of ground nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste
Olive oil for frying
1 Cup flour for dredging
Okay, about the somewhat vague ingredient list, starting from the top – Bisnonna D’Orazi made Spaghetti sauce with so many red peppers that my mother says she couldn’t eat it; both Mom and Nonna don’t use any red pepper flakes, but I do. 1 tsp. is a pretty sane amount. I also use both the basil and the oregano, even though Mom and Nonna leave both out – their sauce is flavored only with salt and pepper. For the tomatoes, one 28 oz. can of whole Italian plum tomatoes – crushed by hand – is traditional. Frankly, I use whatever is in the cupboard – usually organic no salt added diced tomatoes, and occasionally I’ll use one 14 oz. can of those and one of diced tomatoes with tomato puree – this makes a slightly richer sauce. I DON’T use stewed tomatoes, anything with basil or oregano in it, and definitely not canned tomato sauce – it’s best to start with mostly unadulterated tomatoes. The sugar is there if your sauce is too acidic, just as it was with Nonno’s meat sauce. For the meatballs, both Mom and Nonna use just one pound of beef for four people. I love Italian sausage, and I love meatballs, so I’ll frequently mix in the additional bulk sausage and have half again as many meatballs – how could more meatballs possibly be a bad thing? I’ve also been known to make just the beef meatballs, but then cook a package of hot Italian sausages – sliced in half – and serve them with everything else.
Okay, on to the cooking, finally! Start out with the sauce: heat the olive oil over medium heat in a 12” high-sided sauté pan or dutch oven. Add the onions and cook until translucent – about five minutes – being careful not to let them brown. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes if you’re using them, stir to incorporate and cook for two minutes. Add the tomatoes and their juice, the herbs if you’re using them, and a liberal grinding of pepper. Bring the sauce to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and cover it with a lid.
For the meatballs: put the ground meat in a large bowl, add all the other ingredients and mix with your hands to thoroughly incorporate. Some people say that if you overwork the mixture your meatballs will be tough – if you’re concerned about this, mix the onion, breadcrumbs, egg and seasonings thoroughly, then add the meat to the mixture and incorporate. Trust me on the cinnamon/allspice/etc. – it’s very traditional in Bisnonna’s and Nonna’s recipes, and it gives the meatballs a good deal of complexity, even though it might sound a little weird. Form the meatballs with your hands to the desired size – somewhere between golf ball and billiard ball size. Mine are on the large end of that range, and I generally get 12 or 13 out of a pound of meat. When all of the meatballs are formed, heat about ¼” of olive oil in a 10” frying pan over medium high heat, dredge the meatballs in flour and fry for 4-6 minutes, turning to brown all sides. You’re looking for a good sear for color and flavor, not cooking the meatballs through at this point, and you may have to work in batches. As the meatballs are cooked, add them to the sauce, turning them so they’re covered in sauce. If you’re making Italian sausages, cut them in half and brown on all sides in the same pan, then add them to the sauce as well. At this point, Nonna scrapes the remaining cooking oil and the brown bits into the sauce, stirring to incorporate. While I love the flavor this imparts, I find it makes the sauce just a little too oily for my taste. Stir everything well, and then stir the sauce occasionally while the pasta cooks; be gentle so you don’t break up the meatballs.
Cook the pasta according to the package directions. When it’s nearly done, remove the meatballs (and sausage) from the sauce and place them in a covered serving bowl. Check the seasoning of the sauce, adding salt and pepper to taste, then remove about 1 ½ cups of the sauce to a small serving bowl for passing at the table. Turn the drained pasta into the remaining sauce and toss to coat all of the strands. If you feel like there’s not enough sauce, add back in from the reserved portion until it meets your approval. Serve with good crusty bread and a green salad!
Mangia, mangia, fatte grande!
I distinctly remember the first time I had dinner at a friend’s house when I was a kid; I was in second grade, so it was around 1975. My friend, who shall remain nameless, was excited because his mom was making Spaghetti, and it was his favorite food. I was excited, too, because Spaghetti and Meatballs was Sunday Dinner at Nonna’s food – my mom didn’t make them at home until I was much older. So here I am, envisioning Nonna’s thick, flavorful sauce and plump, spicy meatballs the size of large plums – man, was I disappointed. We were presented with plates of plain, limp Spaghetti covered with oil (so they wouldn’t stick together) topped with a ladle of what looked to me like chili. I realize now that it was probably something like Hunt’s canned tomato sauce with hamburger added. The Parmesan cheese was in the ubiquitous green cardboard can, which I thought at the time was very, very cool; our Parmesan had to be scooped out of the little bowl with a spoon and at age seven I hadn’t quite mastered the even sprinkle. This stuff you could shake over your pasta with ease! And, of course, it tasted like…salt and sour milk, if I remember correctly – I sorta blocked that part out.
I think of Spaghetti and Meatballs as the perfect meal for a casual dinner party – one where everyone stands around the kitchen drinking wine and snacking while the cook turns a few simple ingredients into magic in just about an hour. My Spaghetti sauce doesn’t have to cook all day like Nonno’s meat sauce – the flavors are perfectly developed in the time that it takes to make the meatballs and cook the pasta. It’s also quite recession-friendly; if you get somebody else to bring the wine, you can feed four people pasta, salad and bread for about ten bucks. Genius!
I feel compelled to get a few ground rules out of the way before we get to the recipe. First of all, the cheese: Just Say No to the green cardboard can – we’ve covered this before. You don’t have to spend $18 per pound on authentic Parmigiano Reggiano; you can get perfectly decent cheese from Wisconsin in your supermarket for less than half as much, and it actually tastes good! Second, al dente – literally “to the teeth” – describes the texture of perfectly cooked pasta, and it’s probably less done than you think. Cook your pasta on the short end of the cooking time recommended on the package, and you’ll be pretty close – when you bite a strand of Spaghetti in half, there should still be a white center showing, and it shouldn’t appear to be cooked all the way through. Obviously, this is personal preference, but perfect pasta should still have a slightly chewy “mouth feel”, if that makes any sense. Third, pasta should always come to the table with the sauce fully incorporated, as opposed to serving naked noodles and pouring sauce over the top. For most authentic Italian recipes, the pasta is often removed from the cooking water when still slightly less than al dente, tossed into the sauce pan and allowed to finish over low heat in the sauce. Finally, Italians use much less sauce than we Americans do. Mario Batali puts it quite well: he says that Italians consider the sauce to be the condimento – the condiment, like mustard on a hot dog. The important thing is the flavor of the pasta itself, and the sauce just “greases it up” and changes the flavor profile slightly. Whenever I serve pasta, I always sauce in the Italian manner and then pass extra sauce at the table. This way, you can please everyone!
The Recipe:
Spaghetti and Meatballs
Serves 4
Total prep and cooking time: approximately one hour
I’m warning you now that this recipe will be a little disjointed, because my version is different from Nonna’s and because there are a few variations that are easier to understand in the body of the recipe than if they’re listed at the end.
Ingredients:
1 lb. dried Spaghetti
For the Sauce:
1-2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 medium onion, minced
3-4 cloves garlic, finely minced (optional)
1 tsp. red pepper flakes (optional)
28 oz. canned tomatoes (see below)
1 tsp. dried oregano (optional)
1 tsp. dried basil (optional)
salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp. sugar (optional)
For the Meatballs:
1 lb. ground beef
½ lb. bulk Italian Sausage (optional – see below)
½ of a medium onion, finely minced or grated
½ Cup dried breadcrumbs (canned are fine)
1 egg, lightly beaten
½ tsp. ground cinnamon
pinch of ground allspice
pinch of ground cloves
pinch of ground nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste
Olive oil for frying
1 Cup flour for dredging
Okay, about the somewhat vague ingredient list, starting from the top – Bisnonna D’Orazi made Spaghetti sauce with so many red peppers that my mother says she couldn’t eat it; both Mom and Nonna don’t use any red pepper flakes, but I do. 1 tsp. is a pretty sane amount. I also use both the basil and the oregano, even though Mom and Nonna leave both out – their sauce is flavored only with salt and pepper. For the tomatoes, one 28 oz. can of whole Italian plum tomatoes – crushed by hand – is traditional. Frankly, I use whatever is in the cupboard – usually organic no salt added diced tomatoes, and occasionally I’ll use one 14 oz. can of those and one of diced tomatoes with tomato puree – this makes a slightly richer sauce. I DON’T use stewed tomatoes, anything with basil or oregano in it, and definitely not canned tomato sauce – it’s best to start with mostly unadulterated tomatoes. The sugar is there if your sauce is too acidic, just as it was with Nonno’s meat sauce. For the meatballs, both Mom and Nonna use just one pound of beef for four people. I love Italian sausage, and I love meatballs, so I’ll frequently mix in the additional bulk sausage and have half again as many meatballs – how could more meatballs possibly be a bad thing? I’ve also been known to make just the beef meatballs, but then cook a package of hot Italian sausages – sliced in half – and serve them with everything else.
Okay, on to the cooking, finally! Start out with the sauce: heat the olive oil over medium heat in a 12” high-sided sauté pan or dutch oven. Add the onions and cook until translucent – about five minutes – being careful not to let them brown. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes if you’re using them, stir to incorporate and cook for two minutes. Add the tomatoes and their juice, the herbs if you’re using them, and a liberal grinding of pepper. Bring the sauce to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and cover it with a lid.
For the meatballs: put the ground meat in a large bowl, add all the other ingredients and mix with your hands to thoroughly incorporate. Some people say that if you overwork the mixture your meatballs will be tough – if you’re concerned about this, mix the onion, breadcrumbs, egg and seasonings thoroughly, then add the meat to the mixture and incorporate. Trust me on the cinnamon/allspice/etc. – it’s very traditional in Bisnonna’s and Nonna’s recipes, and it gives the meatballs a good deal of complexity, even though it might sound a little weird. Form the meatballs with your hands to the desired size – somewhere between golf ball and billiard ball size. Mine are on the large end of that range, and I generally get 12 or 13 out of a pound of meat. When all of the meatballs are formed, heat about ¼” of olive oil in a 10” frying pan over medium high heat, dredge the meatballs in flour and fry for 4-6 minutes, turning to brown all sides. You’re looking for a good sear for color and flavor, not cooking the meatballs through at this point, and you may have to work in batches. As the meatballs are cooked, add them to the sauce, turning them so they’re covered in sauce. If you’re making Italian sausages, cut them in half and brown on all sides in the same pan, then add them to the sauce as well. At this point, Nonna scrapes the remaining cooking oil and the brown bits into the sauce, stirring to incorporate. While I love the flavor this imparts, I find it makes the sauce just a little too oily for my taste. Stir everything well, and then stir the sauce occasionally while the pasta cooks; be gentle so you don’t break up the meatballs.
Cook the pasta according to the package directions. When it’s nearly done, remove the meatballs (and sausage) from the sauce and place them in a covered serving bowl. Check the seasoning of the sauce, adding salt and pepper to taste, then remove about 1 ½ cups of the sauce to a small serving bowl for passing at the table. Turn the drained pasta into the remaining sauce and toss to coat all of the strands. If you feel like there’s not enough sauce, add back in from the reserved portion until it meets your approval. Serve with good crusty bread and a green salad!
Mangia, mangia, fatte grande!
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Nonna's Kitchen 9 - Polenta and Spare Ribs
In the past few years, two major trends have redefined Italian cuisine as we know it, especially in Italy itself. The Slow Food movement has been garnering quite a lot of press lately - essentially, Slow Food promotes a diet of meals prepared slowly and carefully from ingredients of the highest quality. The Slow Food Movement began in Italy in 1986 as a direct response to the outrage Italians expressed at the opening of the first McDonald's in Italy - at the base of the Spanish Steps in the Piazza di Spagna in Rome - and now has over 100,000 members in 132 countries worldwide. Heirloom vegetables, artisanal cheeses, locally raised and organic proteins all feature prominently in the Slow Food movement. Members believe in celebrating traditional regional cuisines, supporting independent farmers over agribusiness and promoting responsible buying at supermarkets in addition to local farmers' markets and the like. All of these concepts are quite popular in the United States as well, particularly as we continue to recognize the benefits of a healthy diet. Slow Food is, at its core, a revolution against the homogenization of cuisine and culture that continues to spread as large fast food chains multiply their franchises worldwide. It's a stand against the "dumbing down" of our food.
The second food trend gaining prominence is that of Cucina Povera - literally "poor peoples' food." The basic tenet of Cucina Povera is a diet rich in vegetables both cooked and raw, grains and nuts, fresh fish where possible, olive oil, good bread and wine; with milk, cheese, butter and meat serving as seasonings or garnishes rather than staples. As the name implies, this diet is based upon that of poor farmers - people we perceive to be hearty, healthy working folk – and it’s the basis of the so-called "Mediterranean Diet." Cucina Povera's popularity is in some respects a reaction to the same health concerns that guide the Slow Food Movement. We know that a diet rich in fatty, over processed foods laden with sugar can lead to all sorts of health problems, especially when combined with the lack of exercise that modern life imposes on so many of us. Cucina Povera is both healthy and frugal, since produce in season is generally quite affordable.
Restaurateurs in Italy have discovered that nearly everyone - locals and tourists alike - have great affection for the recipes associated with Cucina Povera. Things like Tortellini and Cappelletti - small stuffed pastas most often served in broth - grace the menus of even the finest restaurants; these pastas originated in the Emilia-Romagna region of central Italy when humble farmers hoarded bits of cheese and scraps of meat to make a special meal for any number of religious festivals. The pasta and broth stretched tiny quantities of the pricier ingredients so everyone could have a taste. Even now, when ingredients are cheap and plentiful for those of us in the developed world, Cappelletti is served in our family only for Christmas and New Year's; we could have it any time, but we save it, insuring that it's special. The end result is that humble foods command big prices on menus as we celebrate the ways of our forefathers.
Bringing things full circle into the meals of my childhood, we come to polenta, a staple of Cucina Povera. Polenta, for the uninitiated, is most easily described as Italian grits. It is made from coarsely ground cornmeal, simmered in water or milk over the stovetop and served as the filling starch in many meals. Polenta is much more common than pasta in northern Italy, where corn was cultivated beginning in the 16th century. When I was growing up, we had polenta and pasta in nearly equal quantities, as my family's cuisine combined both that of my grandfather's Venetian heritage and my grandmother's Emilia-Romagna roots. Polenta is made from both white and yellow corn varieties and it is served in varied consistencies, from a soft mush to something resembling mashed potatoes to polenta so firm that it can be sliced and grilled or fried. Much like the risotto recipes I featured a few weeks ago, polenta isn't a start it and forget it food - it requires attentive and regular stirring, so some time at the stove is required. (Slow Foodies must love the stuff!) You can buy prepared polenta in the refrigerated cases of most grocery stores, but the flavor is a little chemical to my palate. And, just like oatmeal and potatoes, there's an instant version that cooks in just 5 minutes - please, don't bother, as the results are about the same - bland, nearly tasteless imitations of the real thing. Most of my Italian cookbooks state that it takes 45 minutes to an hour for polenta to cook, but in reality, it's ready to go in just 20 minutes if you modify the recipe a little. Polenta can be purchased in bulk in many organic food stores, and small packages are available in most supermarkets under the Bob's Red Mill brand.
Polenta can be served with just about anything, from sautéed mushrooms or vegetables to a hearty tomato sauce or Italian sausages. In my family, however, we had it most often with baccala - salt cod stewed in tomatoes (one of my favorite foods for which I'll share the recipe here someday) - and pot roast. Pot roast is a catch all term, and could be beef chuck, whole or cut up chicken, lamb shanks, short ribs or spare ribs. I'm featuring spare ribs here because they're my father's favorite; like many of my recipes, this is a basic cooking method that can be adapted to use with just about any protein, so long as it's one that will benefit from a low, slow braise. The herbs, garlic and cooking juices of the meat perfume the polenta when they're served together, and the result is comfort food at its finest!
The Recipe:
Polenta
Serves 4
Cooking time: approximately 30 minutes
Traditional Italian polenta is cooked in a copper pot; it's stirred constantly with a perforated wooden spoon until it readily pulls away from the sides of the pot - 45 minutes to an hour. It is placed into a large round bottomed bowl and allowed to cool and set for 10-15 minutes, then turned out onto a wooden cutting board and sliced with a string. In this updated method, a nonstick saucepan or wok pan and a bit of olive oil prevents the sticking so that the polenta is ready in as little as 20 minutes. Serving suggestions follow.
Ingredients:
1 C dried polenta
3 C water
1-2 tsp. olive oil
2 tsp. salt (more or less to taste)
Bring the water to a boil in a large nonstick saucepan, add the salt and olive oil, then add the polenta in a slow stream, stirring constantly to prevent lumps. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for at least 20 minutes, stirring regularly with a silicone spatula to prevent sticking to the sides and bottom of the pan. You'll know that you've got the heat correct when the polenta bubbles occasionally (like the mud pots in Yellowstone Park!) When you've reached the consistency of thick porridge, you have a few options for serving; you can pour it into a bowl and turn it out onto a cutting board to cut it with string in the traditional manner, or you can simply cover the pan and let it rest for ten minutes then serve it with a large spoon. Finally, you can pour the polenta out onto a large jelly roll pan greased liberally with olive oil, let the polenta cool for several hours until it's firm and then slice it into squares or triangles for grilling. This last method obviously requires some planning, but the charred bits can be particularly good, especially when the grilling is done on the barbecue.
Leftover polenta is the best breakfast in the world! Slice cold polenta into 1/2" thick slabs, fry it in butter until the outsides are crispy and lightly browned, then serve with warm maple syrup. I ALWAYS make extra so I can have leftovers. YUM!
The Recipe:
Pot Roasted Spare Ribs
Serves 4
Total prep and cooking time: 2-3 hours, depending on the cut of meat used
Beef spare ribs or Texas style ribs work well for this recipe. I use this recipe most frequently for chicken thighs, but really any hearty meat is fine. If you're using lamb, try changing the rosemary to oregano, mint and marjoram for a distinctly Greek flavor.
Ingredients:
2-3 lbs. spare ribs (this allows for normal portions when you take the weight of the bones into account)
5 large cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1/4 C. cooking olive oil
1 tsp. dried rosemary (or more to taste)
1/2 C. water or light chicken stock
salt and pepper to taste
Coat the bottom of a large Dutch oven or other heavy pot with olive oil and heat over medium high heat. Add the garlic, stirring frequently to prevent burning. (If you burn the garlic, throw it away, wash the pan and start over! The flavor will not make anyone happy.) Add the spare ribs and brown them slightly; you're not looking for a heavy seared crust, just a little color. Be sure and keep the ribs and garlic moving so the garlic doesn't burn! (Did I mention burnt garlic tastes lousy?) Add the rosemary, crushing the leaves in your palms to release the essential oils; salt and pepper the meat liberally, then stir to distribute the seasoning. Add the liquid - you can also add a splash of white wine if you like, though my mother never does - reduce the heat to the lowest setting, cover the pan and let it cook until the meat falls readily off the bone - probably around 2 hours. Don't let the pot dry out - check it occasionally and add a little liquid if necessary. Serve with a large spoon so you can pour a little of the cooking juices over your polenta.
Cut up chicken cooked with this method will generally take just 90 minutes, and it's best to plan on the full three hours with pork. This recipe is a staple for my mother because it's so simple, and little changes in the seasoning make big changes in the flavor. Leftovers are great, too, and this is a dish that you can prepare a day ahead and warm up on the stovetop when time is short.
Mangia, mangia, fatte grande!
The second food trend gaining prominence is that of Cucina Povera - literally "poor peoples' food." The basic tenet of Cucina Povera is a diet rich in vegetables both cooked and raw, grains and nuts, fresh fish where possible, olive oil, good bread and wine; with milk, cheese, butter and meat serving as seasonings or garnishes rather than staples. As the name implies, this diet is based upon that of poor farmers - people we perceive to be hearty, healthy working folk – and it’s the basis of the so-called "Mediterranean Diet." Cucina Povera's popularity is in some respects a reaction to the same health concerns that guide the Slow Food Movement. We know that a diet rich in fatty, over processed foods laden with sugar can lead to all sorts of health problems, especially when combined with the lack of exercise that modern life imposes on so many of us. Cucina Povera is both healthy and frugal, since produce in season is generally quite affordable.
Restaurateurs in Italy have discovered that nearly everyone - locals and tourists alike - have great affection for the recipes associated with Cucina Povera. Things like Tortellini and Cappelletti - small stuffed pastas most often served in broth - grace the menus of even the finest restaurants; these pastas originated in the Emilia-Romagna region of central Italy when humble farmers hoarded bits of cheese and scraps of meat to make a special meal for any number of religious festivals. The pasta and broth stretched tiny quantities of the pricier ingredients so everyone could have a taste. Even now, when ingredients are cheap and plentiful for those of us in the developed world, Cappelletti is served in our family only for Christmas and New Year's; we could have it any time, but we save it, insuring that it's special. The end result is that humble foods command big prices on menus as we celebrate the ways of our forefathers.
Bringing things full circle into the meals of my childhood, we come to polenta, a staple of Cucina Povera. Polenta, for the uninitiated, is most easily described as Italian grits. It is made from coarsely ground cornmeal, simmered in water or milk over the stovetop and served as the filling starch in many meals. Polenta is much more common than pasta in northern Italy, where corn was cultivated beginning in the 16th century. When I was growing up, we had polenta and pasta in nearly equal quantities, as my family's cuisine combined both that of my grandfather's Venetian heritage and my grandmother's Emilia-Romagna roots. Polenta is made from both white and yellow corn varieties and it is served in varied consistencies, from a soft mush to something resembling mashed potatoes to polenta so firm that it can be sliced and grilled or fried. Much like the risotto recipes I featured a few weeks ago, polenta isn't a start it and forget it food - it requires attentive and regular stirring, so some time at the stove is required. (Slow Foodies must love the stuff!) You can buy prepared polenta in the refrigerated cases of most grocery stores, but the flavor is a little chemical to my palate. And, just like oatmeal and potatoes, there's an instant version that cooks in just 5 minutes - please, don't bother, as the results are about the same - bland, nearly tasteless imitations of the real thing. Most of my Italian cookbooks state that it takes 45 minutes to an hour for polenta to cook, but in reality, it's ready to go in just 20 minutes if you modify the recipe a little. Polenta can be purchased in bulk in many organic food stores, and small packages are available in most supermarkets under the Bob's Red Mill brand.
Polenta can be served with just about anything, from sautéed mushrooms or vegetables to a hearty tomato sauce or Italian sausages. In my family, however, we had it most often with baccala - salt cod stewed in tomatoes (one of my favorite foods for which I'll share the recipe here someday) - and pot roast. Pot roast is a catch all term, and could be beef chuck, whole or cut up chicken, lamb shanks, short ribs or spare ribs. I'm featuring spare ribs here because they're my father's favorite; like many of my recipes, this is a basic cooking method that can be adapted to use with just about any protein, so long as it's one that will benefit from a low, slow braise. The herbs, garlic and cooking juices of the meat perfume the polenta when they're served together, and the result is comfort food at its finest!
The Recipe:
Polenta
Serves 4
Cooking time: approximately 30 minutes
Traditional Italian polenta is cooked in a copper pot; it's stirred constantly with a perforated wooden spoon until it readily pulls away from the sides of the pot - 45 minutes to an hour. It is placed into a large round bottomed bowl and allowed to cool and set for 10-15 minutes, then turned out onto a wooden cutting board and sliced with a string. In this updated method, a nonstick saucepan or wok pan and a bit of olive oil prevents the sticking so that the polenta is ready in as little as 20 minutes. Serving suggestions follow.
Ingredients:
1 C dried polenta
3 C water
1-2 tsp. olive oil
2 tsp. salt (more or less to taste)
Bring the water to a boil in a large nonstick saucepan, add the salt and olive oil, then add the polenta in a slow stream, stirring constantly to prevent lumps. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for at least 20 minutes, stirring regularly with a silicone spatula to prevent sticking to the sides and bottom of the pan. You'll know that you've got the heat correct when the polenta bubbles occasionally (like the mud pots in Yellowstone Park!) When you've reached the consistency of thick porridge, you have a few options for serving; you can pour it into a bowl and turn it out onto a cutting board to cut it with string in the traditional manner, or you can simply cover the pan and let it rest for ten minutes then serve it with a large spoon. Finally, you can pour the polenta out onto a large jelly roll pan greased liberally with olive oil, let the polenta cool for several hours until it's firm and then slice it into squares or triangles for grilling. This last method obviously requires some planning, but the charred bits can be particularly good, especially when the grilling is done on the barbecue.
Leftover polenta is the best breakfast in the world! Slice cold polenta into 1/2" thick slabs, fry it in butter until the outsides are crispy and lightly browned, then serve with warm maple syrup. I ALWAYS make extra so I can have leftovers. YUM!
The Recipe:
Pot Roasted Spare Ribs
Serves 4
Total prep and cooking time: 2-3 hours, depending on the cut of meat used
Beef spare ribs or Texas style ribs work well for this recipe. I use this recipe most frequently for chicken thighs, but really any hearty meat is fine. If you're using lamb, try changing the rosemary to oregano, mint and marjoram for a distinctly Greek flavor.
Ingredients:
2-3 lbs. spare ribs (this allows for normal portions when you take the weight of the bones into account)
5 large cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1/4 C. cooking olive oil
1 tsp. dried rosemary (or more to taste)
1/2 C. water or light chicken stock
salt and pepper to taste
Coat the bottom of a large Dutch oven or other heavy pot with olive oil and heat over medium high heat. Add the garlic, stirring frequently to prevent burning. (If you burn the garlic, throw it away, wash the pan and start over! The flavor will not make anyone happy.) Add the spare ribs and brown them slightly; you're not looking for a heavy seared crust, just a little color. Be sure and keep the ribs and garlic moving so the garlic doesn't burn! (Did I mention burnt garlic tastes lousy?) Add the rosemary, crushing the leaves in your palms to release the essential oils; salt and pepper the meat liberally, then stir to distribute the seasoning. Add the liquid - you can also add a splash of white wine if you like, though my mother never does - reduce the heat to the lowest setting, cover the pan and let it cook until the meat falls readily off the bone - probably around 2 hours. Don't let the pot dry out - check it occasionally and add a little liquid if necessary. Serve with a large spoon so you can pour a little of the cooking juices over your polenta.
Cut up chicken cooked with this method will generally take just 90 minutes, and it's best to plan on the full three hours with pork. This recipe is a staple for my mother because it's so simple, and little changes in the seasoning make big changes in the flavor. Leftovers are great, too, and this is a dish that you can prepare a day ahead and warm up on the stovetop when time is short.
Mangia, mangia, fatte grande!
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Nonna's Kitchen 8 - Nonno's American Birthday
My grandfather, Alfredo Cipolato (Nonno), arrived in the United States on April 25, 1940; he was 27 years old. He came to New York City to work as a waiter in the Italian Pavilion at the New York World’s Fair. The job was actually supposed to go to his brother Carlo, but Carlo joined the Italian cavalry instead, so Nonno came in his place. Nonno had a repertoire of stories that he told often, and the one about his first day in New York has always been one of my favorites. After being processed through Ellis Island, he went to Central Park where he was approached by a policeman on horseback.
“Hey, shorty!” the policeman yelled down to him. (My grandfather was not a big man.) “See that cart over there? Go get me two hot dogs, plenty of mustard, and a root beer.” He then handed some money down to my grandfather. Nonno spoke English fairly well, but his training and work history was at some of the finest hotels in Italy and France, where one assumes they must not have served hot dogs… As he retold the story, time and time again, he said that he knew what “hot” was, and he knew what “dog” was, just as he knew both “root” and “beer”, but he’d never heard the words used together like that. He was confused, and wondered to himself if Americans really ate dogs and drank beer made from tree parts.
“Hot dogs?” he repeated to the cop.
“Yeah, plenty mustard,” came the reply. “Get yourself one, too.” Nonno went to the stand, parroted the order and then enjoyed his first meal in the United States.
My grandfather never planned to stay in the US. When the World’s Fair closed in October 1941, he decided to visit other parts of the country until his work visa expired. He was in Florida when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, and when the US entered WWII he was classified as an “enemy alien” along with 600,000 other Italians living and working in the country. In early 1942 he was arrested and sent by train to Fort Missoula, which served as an internment camp for nearly 2000 Italian and Japanese nationals. After his release in 1943, he met my grandmother singing in the church choir, and they were married shortly thereafter. My grandmother still has his unused return ticket to Milan!
We have celebrated Nonno’s American Birthday for as long as I can remember, so I assumed that it had been a tradition for much longer than I’ve been around. However, when I asked my mother about the origins of this “holiday,” she told me that it just sort of happened some time around 1970, perhaps with the casual mention of Nonno’s having been in the United States for 30 years. At any rate, every year until his death in 2008 we observed Nonno’s American Birthday on April 25, the day he arrived in New York. The menu? Hot dogs and root beer, of course! I’m not kidding – every year, we had what Nonno joked was the most American of meals; hot dogs, boiled on the stovetop and served on gooey white buns with ketchup, mustard and relish. Baked beans from a can, potato chips and my mother’s potato salad rounded out the meal, and the beverage offerings did include beer for the adults, though Nonno always made a point to have a small glass of root beer. He would always tell the story of that first hot dog in Central Park, and we all listened with rapt attention, even though each of us could recite the story word for word.
It can’t be Nonna’s Kitchen without a recipe or two, so I’m including Nonna’s recipe for potato salad. It’s much drier and less “dressed” than deli potato salad, allowing the flavor of the potatoes to shine through. The other recipe is for Gold Cake, a dessert that found its way to the table only a handful of times each year. Gold Cake was reserved for my grandparents’ anniversary, my parents’ anniversary, Nonno’s American Birthday and occasionally Valentine’s Day, when Nonna would make a small Gold Cake for Nonno and cupcakes for the kids. My mother suspects that Gold Cake was invented by Grandma D’Orazi – Bisnonna – her maternal grandmother. It gets its name from the color (duh), a rich yellow hue that comes from the 12 egg yolks in the cake (Bisnonna raised chickens behind the house on Pine Street.) The anise flavoring is a very traditional Italian touch, as is the mild sweetness – Italians aren’t big on rich or sweet desserts as a rule. Most meals are completed with a piece of fruit or maybe a bit of chocolate, and things like Tiramisu are reserved for very special occasions. Gold Cake is dense and pretty dry, and it is almost always served with Bolla, a fruit and wine punch for which I’m also including the recipe. Gold Cake is great when dunked into the Bolla, and this is the preferred method for everybody except Nonna, who doesn’t like “bumps” in her wine.
The Recipe:
Nonna’s Potato Salad
Serves 8-10 as a side dish
Total prep and cooking time: approx. one hour
Ingredients:
5-6 large russet potatoes
2 stalks of celery
2 green onions
6 eggs
1/4 c mayo
1 Tbsp. sweet relish
1 tsp. yellow mustard
salt and pepper to taste
paprika for garnish
Boil potatoes in their skins until tender, but still firm. Over cooking will make a squishy salad. Hard boil eggs - usually 14-15 minutes at a simmer. Chop celery into bite sized pieces; slice the green onions into 1/8” rounds - use the green part also, as it gives good color. Place both into a large serving bowl. Rinse the potatoes in cold water until cool enough to handle, then peel and dice into ½” pieces; place into serving bowl and toss gently to incorporate the celery and onions. Peel the eggs and set aside one for garnish. Roughly chop the remaining five and place into the serving bowl. Mix the mayonnaise, relish, mustard (Dijon works also) in a small bowl, then pour over the potato mixture and fold in until all of the ingredients are coated with the dressing. Add extra mayonnaise if the salad seems too dry. Salt and pepper to taste. Slice the remaining egg into rounds, place on top of the potato salad and sprinkle liberally with paprika. Cover and refrigerate until ready to eat.
The Recipe:
Gold Cake
Serves 12
Nonna often served this cake with a drizzled icing made of confectioners’ sugar and milk, usually spelling out ”Happy Birthday” or Anniversary or whatever. Nonno, ever the jokester and imp, believed the best way to serve this cake was to tear pieces off by hand (much like rustic bread at dinner) and toss them to diners around the table. Of course, we especially loved this as kids…
Total prep and baking time: approx. one hour
Ingredients:
12 eggs, separated
4 Tbsp. (1/2 stick) butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 ½ C. sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. anise extract
½ tsp. vanilla extract
1/8 tsp. salt
1 ½ C. cake flour (my mother says regular unbleached flour is fine)
Preheat your oven to 325 degrees; grease and flour either a bundt pan, two 8” round cake pans or a 9 x 13 baking pan. (The rectangular pan is best if you insist on the authentic tearing method of serving!) Separate the eggs: place the yolks in a large mixing bowl, put four of the whites into a smaller bowl and set aside the remaining eight egg whites for another use. Using a whisk attachment, beat the egg yolks on medium high speed until pale yellow and creamy. Reduce the mixer speed to medium; gradually pour in the melted butter – work slowly so as not to curdle the egg yolks – then slowly add the sugar, ¼ cup at a time, until the mixture is smooth and the sugar is fully incorporated. Add the baking powder, anise and vanilla extracts and salt, allowing each to be mixed in for several seconds before adding the next one. Gradually add the flour – again ¼ cup at a time – until the entire mixture is thoroughly mixed and glossy. Beat the four egg whites to soft peak stage, then fold into the batter. It’s better to mix them in thoroughly (even if they deflate a little) than to have lumps of unincorporated egg white. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 40-45 minutes, or until the top is lightly browned and a cake tester comes out clean. Cool and serve!
The Recipe:
Bolla
Serves 8-12
Bolla is Italian for “bubble” – this wine punch is most often served in the summer when fruit is fresh and flavorful, but frozen berries are fine in the winter. Use wines you want to drink, but don’t break the bank – no need for vintage champagne or a fine white. $10 wines are great for this. Also, this is better served in wine glasses or wide champagne glasses rather than flutes, especially if you plan on dunking Gold Cake!
Ingredients:
1 bottle Prosecco or other dry sparkling wine, very cold
1 bottle Pinot Grigio, Frascati or other light white wine, very cold
2 C. strawberries, raspberries or peaches – fresh or frozen
If you’re using strawberries or peaches, cut them into bite-sized pieces. Place the fruit into the bottom of a large serving bowl or punch bowl, then pour the white wine over it. Gently pour in the Prosecco, stir with a ladle to incorporate and serve!
Mangia, mangia, fatte grande
“Hey, shorty!” the policeman yelled down to him. (My grandfather was not a big man.) “See that cart over there? Go get me two hot dogs, plenty of mustard, and a root beer.” He then handed some money down to my grandfather. Nonno spoke English fairly well, but his training and work history was at some of the finest hotels in Italy and France, where one assumes they must not have served hot dogs… As he retold the story, time and time again, he said that he knew what “hot” was, and he knew what “dog” was, just as he knew both “root” and “beer”, but he’d never heard the words used together like that. He was confused, and wondered to himself if Americans really ate dogs and drank beer made from tree parts.
“Hot dogs?” he repeated to the cop.
“Yeah, plenty mustard,” came the reply. “Get yourself one, too.” Nonno went to the stand, parroted the order and then enjoyed his first meal in the United States.
My grandfather never planned to stay in the US. When the World’s Fair closed in October 1941, he decided to visit other parts of the country until his work visa expired. He was in Florida when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, and when the US entered WWII he was classified as an “enemy alien” along with 600,000 other Italians living and working in the country. In early 1942 he was arrested and sent by train to Fort Missoula, which served as an internment camp for nearly 2000 Italian and Japanese nationals. After his release in 1943, he met my grandmother singing in the church choir, and they were married shortly thereafter. My grandmother still has his unused return ticket to Milan!
We have celebrated Nonno’s American Birthday for as long as I can remember, so I assumed that it had been a tradition for much longer than I’ve been around. However, when I asked my mother about the origins of this “holiday,” she told me that it just sort of happened some time around 1970, perhaps with the casual mention of Nonno’s having been in the United States for 30 years. At any rate, every year until his death in 2008 we observed Nonno’s American Birthday on April 25, the day he arrived in New York. The menu? Hot dogs and root beer, of course! I’m not kidding – every year, we had what Nonno joked was the most American of meals; hot dogs, boiled on the stovetop and served on gooey white buns with ketchup, mustard and relish. Baked beans from a can, potato chips and my mother’s potato salad rounded out the meal, and the beverage offerings did include beer for the adults, though Nonno always made a point to have a small glass of root beer. He would always tell the story of that first hot dog in Central Park, and we all listened with rapt attention, even though each of us could recite the story word for word.
It can’t be Nonna’s Kitchen without a recipe or two, so I’m including Nonna’s recipe for potato salad. It’s much drier and less “dressed” than deli potato salad, allowing the flavor of the potatoes to shine through. The other recipe is for Gold Cake, a dessert that found its way to the table only a handful of times each year. Gold Cake was reserved for my grandparents’ anniversary, my parents’ anniversary, Nonno’s American Birthday and occasionally Valentine’s Day, when Nonna would make a small Gold Cake for Nonno and cupcakes for the kids. My mother suspects that Gold Cake was invented by Grandma D’Orazi – Bisnonna – her maternal grandmother. It gets its name from the color (duh), a rich yellow hue that comes from the 12 egg yolks in the cake (Bisnonna raised chickens behind the house on Pine Street.) The anise flavoring is a very traditional Italian touch, as is the mild sweetness – Italians aren’t big on rich or sweet desserts as a rule. Most meals are completed with a piece of fruit or maybe a bit of chocolate, and things like Tiramisu are reserved for very special occasions. Gold Cake is dense and pretty dry, and it is almost always served with Bolla, a fruit and wine punch for which I’m also including the recipe. Gold Cake is great when dunked into the Bolla, and this is the preferred method for everybody except Nonna, who doesn’t like “bumps” in her wine.
The Recipe:
Nonna’s Potato Salad
Serves 8-10 as a side dish
Total prep and cooking time: approx. one hour
Ingredients:
5-6 large russet potatoes
2 stalks of celery
2 green onions
6 eggs
1/4 c mayo
1 Tbsp. sweet relish
1 tsp. yellow mustard
salt and pepper to taste
paprika for garnish
Boil potatoes in their skins until tender, but still firm. Over cooking will make a squishy salad. Hard boil eggs - usually 14-15 minutes at a simmer. Chop celery into bite sized pieces; slice the green onions into 1/8” rounds - use the green part also, as it gives good color. Place both into a large serving bowl. Rinse the potatoes in cold water until cool enough to handle, then peel and dice into ½” pieces; place into serving bowl and toss gently to incorporate the celery and onions. Peel the eggs and set aside one for garnish. Roughly chop the remaining five and place into the serving bowl. Mix the mayonnaise, relish, mustard (Dijon works also) in a small bowl, then pour over the potato mixture and fold in until all of the ingredients are coated with the dressing. Add extra mayonnaise if the salad seems too dry. Salt and pepper to taste. Slice the remaining egg into rounds, place on top of the potato salad and sprinkle liberally with paprika. Cover and refrigerate until ready to eat.
The Recipe:
Gold Cake
Serves 12
Nonna often served this cake with a drizzled icing made of confectioners’ sugar and milk, usually spelling out ”Happy Birthday” or Anniversary or whatever. Nonno, ever the jokester and imp, believed the best way to serve this cake was to tear pieces off by hand (much like rustic bread at dinner) and toss them to diners around the table. Of course, we especially loved this as kids…
Total prep and baking time: approx. one hour
Ingredients:
12 eggs, separated
4 Tbsp. (1/2 stick) butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 ½ C. sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. anise extract
½ tsp. vanilla extract
1/8 tsp. salt
1 ½ C. cake flour (my mother says regular unbleached flour is fine)
Preheat your oven to 325 degrees; grease and flour either a bundt pan, two 8” round cake pans or a 9 x 13 baking pan. (The rectangular pan is best if you insist on the authentic tearing method of serving!) Separate the eggs: place the yolks in a large mixing bowl, put four of the whites into a smaller bowl and set aside the remaining eight egg whites for another use. Using a whisk attachment, beat the egg yolks on medium high speed until pale yellow and creamy. Reduce the mixer speed to medium; gradually pour in the melted butter – work slowly so as not to curdle the egg yolks – then slowly add the sugar, ¼ cup at a time, until the mixture is smooth and the sugar is fully incorporated. Add the baking powder, anise and vanilla extracts and salt, allowing each to be mixed in for several seconds before adding the next one. Gradually add the flour – again ¼ cup at a time – until the entire mixture is thoroughly mixed and glossy. Beat the four egg whites to soft peak stage, then fold into the batter. It’s better to mix them in thoroughly (even if they deflate a little) than to have lumps of unincorporated egg white. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 40-45 minutes, or until the top is lightly browned and a cake tester comes out clean. Cool and serve!
The Recipe:
Bolla
Serves 8-12
Bolla is Italian for “bubble” – this wine punch is most often served in the summer when fruit is fresh and flavorful, but frozen berries are fine in the winter. Use wines you want to drink, but don’t break the bank – no need for vintage champagne or a fine white. $10 wines are great for this. Also, this is better served in wine glasses or wide champagne glasses rather than flutes, especially if you plan on dunking Gold Cake!
Ingredients:
1 bottle Prosecco or other dry sparkling wine, very cold
1 bottle Pinot Grigio, Frascati or other light white wine, very cold
2 C. strawberries, raspberries or peaches – fresh or frozen
If you’re using strawberries or peaches, cut them into bite-sized pieces. Place the fruit into the bottom of a large serving bowl or punch bowl, then pour the white wine over it. Gently pour in the Prosecco, stir with a ladle to incorporate and serve!
Mangia, mangia, fatte grande
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Nonna's Kitchen 7 - Wayne's Spinach Risotto
The Preamble:
My father Wayne isn’t Italian. His heritage is English/Dutch on his father’s side, and German/Hungarian on his mother’s. His maternal grandmother was a homesteading schoolteacher in the wilds of North Dakota, and his parents lived in the neighboring towns of Williston and Epping, ND; they came to Montana shortly after getting married. Dad was born in Glendive and raised in Livingston and Missoula on a diet of meat and potatoes, hot vegetables and amazing baked goods – simple, wholesome farming fare, and nothing that would be considered even remotely “ethnic” by today’s standards.
My parents met in high school, and prior to their first official “date”, my father was invited to the Cipolato home for Sunday dinner. My grandmother served lasagna; my father ate small portions, very politely, wielding his fork and knife with skill and refinement, doing his best to impress my mother’s family with his fine table manners. The second time my father was invited for dinner, my grandmother served crab spaghetti, a great delicacy – Dungeness crabs, separated into pieces and stewed in the shell with tomatoes and olive oil. The sauce is served over spaghetti, and the crab comes to the table in a giant bowl, dripping in sauce. Dad did fine with the pasta, though I don’t know to this day whether he attempted to twirl the spaghetti on his fork or committed the mortal sin of cutting it into smaller pieces. When the crab came out, he was mortified! It was a free-for-all, as it is to this day when crab is served; my mother’s siblings grabbed legs and claws out of the bowl with their hands and slurped the sauce off before cracking the shells to extract the crabmeat inside. My father sat at the foot of the table, petrified – think deer caught in the headlights – until my grandfather looked at him from the head of the table, leaned forward and said quietly, “You don’t eat, you don’t come back.” Dad gained about 40 pounds after my parents were married a few years later.
My father is an excellent cook, and after a trip to Venice about a decade ago, he started trying to duplicate the risottos they enjoyed so much. Rice never featured prominently in my grandmother’s cuisine; she made risi e bisi – a very wet Venetian dish of rice and peas to welcome Spring, and risotto with squid tentacles and ink when we had calamari, but that was about it. Dad has branched out significantly – his shrimp risotto is sublime, and for Christmas Eve this past year he served a smoked trout risotto, plated with a sprinkle of single malt scotch on top, that outshone anything I’ve ever had in any country. In spite of his heritage, Dad is the acclaimed risotto expert in the family, putting all the rest of us to shame. Spinach risotto is his specialty, holding court as the favorite meal of both Nonno and Nonna and my 6 year old nephew, Dylan. The recipe featured this week is his, reproduced in the form in which he sent it to me.
Despite rumors to the contrary, risotto just isn’t that hard. Yes, it takes about 30 minutes, and yes, you do have to stir it frequently, so it’s not a “start it and forget it” sort of a meal. However, provided you use the correct ingredients and follow the basic template, 30 minutes buys you an amazing first course – rich and flavorful, creamy, hot and comforting. A short-grained rice (Arborio is my choice) is imperative to release the appropriate amount of starch while still remaining intact. Your other ingredients should be of the highest quality, though this is true with anything you cook! Like most of the recipes I’ve presented here the variations are nearly endless, so you can experiment with wild abandon once you’ve mastered the basic technique. My favorite additions are asparagus, smoked salmon with scotch, fennel with shrimp and fresh tomato, Italian sausage with cauliflower, and red pepper puree. Coincidentally, this month’s Cook’s Illustrated magazine features a recipe for almost no-stir risotto; I can’t imagine why you’d bother.
The Recipe:
Spinach Risotto
Serves 4 generously
Following the ingredients list is a copy of the email from my father – he said that the recipe didn’t want to be written in the standard form when he was at the computer this time. With regards to the ingredients, clearly you won’t have access to my mother’s (Eletra’s) broth, but if at all possible, you should make your own from scratch. Again, it’s not that hard. In a pinch, many prepackaged organic broths including Swanson’s Natural Goodness are an acceptable substitute. Please, don’t use bouillon cubes, whatever you do!
Total prep and cooking time: 30 minutes
Ingredients:
1 ½ c. Arborio rice
1 Tbsp. butter
2-4 Tbsp. olive oil
¼ - ½ c. finely chopped onion
¼ c. dry white wine (something you’d like to drink, not “cooking” wine)
6-8 c. broth
½ c. spinach (see details below)
½ c. Parmesan cheese, grated
additional butter, to taste
salt and pepper to taste
From Wayne:
The standard rice is Arborio Superfino, not too difficult to find. Carnaroli is a step up but less available. What is necessary is a short grain rice able to absorb the liquid and still remain firm. Lundberg has a very serviceable, organic Arborio in bulk at the Good Food Store in Missoula.
Eletra's broth is essential to my results. Her chicken broth, sans tomato, slightly diluted is perfect for the smoked trout or salmon, or for risi bisi or asparagus. Diluted turkey broth is also excellent. If she adds tomatoes it creates a more complex taste but still works for vegetable risottos. Her hearty beef broth with tomatoes is perfect for less subtle vegetables like broccoli or spinach. For shrimp risotto I use a handful of shrimp plus the shells to make my own broth (with a bit of celery, carrot and onion). I've used a Kitchen Basics Seafood Stock diluted with equal amounts of water successfully. If the risotto is a main dish I may use a more concentrated stock. The broth is brought to a simmer in a saucepan.
I start with at least 1 Tbsp. of butter and several of olive oil over medium heat in a 3-4 qt saucepan. Many recipes call for butter only at this stage but I'd rather add it at the end if I want the flavor. A good quality pan allowing even distribution of heat on the bottom of the pot prevents the rice from sticking. Use a larger pan if you increase the amounts of the recipes so it will not take too long. Too large a pan will cook off the broth too quickly.
Minced onion, 1/4 to 1/2 cup, depending on the strength of the main ingredient, is softened for several minutes in the butter/oil but never allowed to brown. Garlic is added at this time if called for. I recall only using it for broccoli.
The rice is added and stirred for a minute, coating the grains until glistening. 1 ½ cups is usually called for, generously serving four. Every recipe I've seen talks about a wooden spoon. I think silicone spatulas are a huge improvement.
I start timing from this point. Many recipes call for 18 minutes. 20 minutes is probably more appropriate at our altitude. Eletra thinks it too al dente if I stick with the 18. I've seen Italian cookbooks call for 25 minutes. It may be a difference in the heat setting.
Add a generous 1/4 C of dry white wine and stir until it's absorbed. Adjust the heat so that the wine is absorbed fairly quickly-less than a minute. And pour yourself a glass. I truly enjoy the process of making risotto. The wonderful aromas and their synergy are part of the process; first the broth, then the butter and oil heating while mincing onions, the onion softening in the butter, the wine cooking off quickly. I'm salivating.
Start adding the broth, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring frequently to prevent sticking and develop the starch. Allow the broth to be almost completely absorbed before adding the next 1/2 cup but don't allow it to become dry. Same with the wine above. The rice should never be submerged. I look for the action to be more than a simmer but less than a boil.
Most defining ingredients are added in the last few minutes. Especially if precooked. For spinach risotto, 1/2 cup of cooked, well drained spinach (3/4 lb fresh or 10 oz box frozen) is pureed with sufficient broth. (For broccoli, I dice the stalks and add them after I start adding broth and cook the tips in the broth for five minutes and add them at the end.)
The rice should be tender but firm after 18-20 minutes. Take it off the heat. Add the spinach and 1/2 cup of grated parmesan cheese (a finishing pat of butter at this time if desired) and stir in well. The pureed spinach will add liquid while the cheese will firm things up. Nonno liked it more like a very thick soup served in a bowl than having a consistency capable of being served as a portion on the plate. Serve with extra parmesan.
This basic method works for most ingredients with slight variations depending on required seasonings. I rarely add salt relying on the broth and cheese. I add pepper to taste usually toward the end of the process.
Thanks, Dad!
Mangia, mangia, fatte grande!
My father Wayne isn’t Italian. His heritage is English/Dutch on his father’s side, and German/Hungarian on his mother’s. His maternal grandmother was a homesteading schoolteacher in the wilds of North Dakota, and his parents lived in the neighboring towns of Williston and Epping, ND; they came to Montana shortly after getting married. Dad was born in Glendive and raised in Livingston and Missoula on a diet of meat and potatoes, hot vegetables and amazing baked goods – simple, wholesome farming fare, and nothing that would be considered even remotely “ethnic” by today’s standards.
My parents met in high school, and prior to their first official “date”, my father was invited to the Cipolato home for Sunday dinner. My grandmother served lasagna; my father ate small portions, very politely, wielding his fork and knife with skill and refinement, doing his best to impress my mother’s family with his fine table manners. The second time my father was invited for dinner, my grandmother served crab spaghetti, a great delicacy – Dungeness crabs, separated into pieces and stewed in the shell with tomatoes and olive oil. The sauce is served over spaghetti, and the crab comes to the table in a giant bowl, dripping in sauce. Dad did fine with the pasta, though I don’t know to this day whether he attempted to twirl the spaghetti on his fork or committed the mortal sin of cutting it into smaller pieces. When the crab came out, he was mortified! It was a free-for-all, as it is to this day when crab is served; my mother’s siblings grabbed legs and claws out of the bowl with their hands and slurped the sauce off before cracking the shells to extract the crabmeat inside. My father sat at the foot of the table, petrified – think deer caught in the headlights – until my grandfather looked at him from the head of the table, leaned forward and said quietly, “You don’t eat, you don’t come back.” Dad gained about 40 pounds after my parents were married a few years later.
My father is an excellent cook, and after a trip to Venice about a decade ago, he started trying to duplicate the risottos they enjoyed so much. Rice never featured prominently in my grandmother’s cuisine; she made risi e bisi – a very wet Venetian dish of rice and peas to welcome Spring, and risotto with squid tentacles and ink when we had calamari, but that was about it. Dad has branched out significantly – his shrimp risotto is sublime, and for Christmas Eve this past year he served a smoked trout risotto, plated with a sprinkle of single malt scotch on top, that outshone anything I’ve ever had in any country. In spite of his heritage, Dad is the acclaimed risotto expert in the family, putting all the rest of us to shame. Spinach risotto is his specialty, holding court as the favorite meal of both Nonno and Nonna and my 6 year old nephew, Dylan. The recipe featured this week is his, reproduced in the form in which he sent it to me.
Despite rumors to the contrary, risotto just isn’t that hard. Yes, it takes about 30 minutes, and yes, you do have to stir it frequently, so it’s not a “start it and forget it” sort of a meal. However, provided you use the correct ingredients and follow the basic template, 30 minutes buys you an amazing first course – rich and flavorful, creamy, hot and comforting. A short-grained rice (Arborio is my choice) is imperative to release the appropriate amount of starch while still remaining intact. Your other ingredients should be of the highest quality, though this is true with anything you cook! Like most of the recipes I’ve presented here the variations are nearly endless, so you can experiment with wild abandon once you’ve mastered the basic technique. My favorite additions are asparagus, smoked salmon with scotch, fennel with shrimp and fresh tomato, Italian sausage with cauliflower, and red pepper puree. Coincidentally, this month’s Cook’s Illustrated magazine features a recipe for almost no-stir risotto; I can’t imagine why you’d bother.
The Recipe:
Spinach Risotto
Serves 4 generously
Following the ingredients list is a copy of the email from my father – he said that the recipe didn’t want to be written in the standard form when he was at the computer this time. With regards to the ingredients, clearly you won’t have access to my mother’s (Eletra’s) broth, but if at all possible, you should make your own from scratch. Again, it’s not that hard. In a pinch, many prepackaged organic broths including Swanson’s Natural Goodness are an acceptable substitute. Please, don’t use bouillon cubes, whatever you do!
Total prep and cooking time: 30 minutes
Ingredients:
1 ½ c. Arborio rice
1 Tbsp. butter
2-4 Tbsp. olive oil
¼ - ½ c. finely chopped onion
¼ c. dry white wine (something you’d like to drink, not “cooking” wine)
6-8 c. broth
½ c. spinach (see details below)
½ c. Parmesan cheese, grated
additional butter, to taste
salt and pepper to taste
From Wayne:
The standard rice is Arborio Superfino, not too difficult to find. Carnaroli is a step up but less available. What is necessary is a short grain rice able to absorb the liquid and still remain firm. Lundberg has a very serviceable, organic Arborio in bulk at the Good Food Store in Missoula.
Eletra's broth is essential to my results. Her chicken broth, sans tomato, slightly diluted is perfect for the smoked trout or salmon, or for risi bisi or asparagus. Diluted turkey broth is also excellent. If she adds tomatoes it creates a more complex taste but still works for vegetable risottos. Her hearty beef broth with tomatoes is perfect for less subtle vegetables like broccoli or spinach. For shrimp risotto I use a handful of shrimp plus the shells to make my own broth (with a bit of celery, carrot and onion). I've used a Kitchen Basics Seafood Stock diluted with equal amounts of water successfully. If the risotto is a main dish I may use a more concentrated stock. The broth is brought to a simmer in a saucepan.
I start with at least 1 Tbsp. of butter and several of olive oil over medium heat in a 3-4 qt saucepan. Many recipes call for butter only at this stage but I'd rather add it at the end if I want the flavor. A good quality pan allowing even distribution of heat on the bottom of the pot prevents the rice from sticking. Use a larger pan if you increase the amounts of the recipes so it will not take too long. Too large a pan will cook off the broth too quickly.
Minced onion, 1/4 to 1/2 cup, depending on the strength of the main ingredient, is softened for several minutes in the butter/oil but never allowed to brown. Garlic is added at this time if called for. I recall only using it for broccoli.
The rice is added and stirred for a minute, coating the grains until glistening. 1 ½ cups is usually called for, generously serving four. Every recipe I've seen talks about a wooden spoon. I think silicone spatulas are a huge improvement.
I start timing from this point. Many recipes call for 18 minutes. 20 minutes is probably more appropriate at our altitude. Eletra thinks it too al dente if I stick with the 18. I've seen Italian cookbooks call for 25 minutes. It may be a difference in the heat setting.
Add a generous 1/4 C of dry white wine and stir until it's absorbed. Adjust the heat so that the wine is absorbed fairly quickly-less than a minute. And pour yourself a glass. I truly enjoy the process of making risotto. The wonderful aromas and their synergy are part of the process; first the broth, then the butter and oil heating while mincing onions, the onion softening in the butter, the wine cooking off quickly. I'm salivating.
Start adding the broth, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring frequently to prevent sticking and develop the starch. Allow the broth to be almost completely absorbed before adding the next 1/2 cup but don't allow it to become dry. Same with the wine above. The rice should never be submerged. I look for the action to be more than a simmer but less than a boil.
Most defining ingredients are added in the last few minutes. Especially if precooked. For spinach risotto, 1/2 cup of cooked, well drained spinach (3/4 lb fresh or 10 oz box frozen) is pureed with sufficient broth. (For broccoli, I dice the stalks and add them after I start adding broth and cook the tips in the broth for five minutes and add them at the end.)
The rice should be tender but firm after 18-20 minutes. Take it off the heat. Add the spinach and 1/2 cup of grated parmesan cheese (a finishing pat of butter at this time if desired) and stir in well. The pureed spinach will add liquid while the cheese will firm things up. Nonno liked it more like a very thick soup served in a bowl than having a consistency capable of being served as a portion on the plate. Serve with extra parmesan.
This basic method works for most ingredients with slight variations depending on required seasonings. I rarely add salt relying on the broth and cheese. I add pepper to taste usually toward the end of the process.
Thanks, Dad!
Mangia, mangia, fatte grande!
Friday, April 9, 2010
Nonna's Kitchen 6 - Verdure: Vegetable Side Dishes
The Preamble:
I love Spring! There are obvious reasons, like warmer weather, blue skies instead of gray, and longer daylight hours to spend on a bicycle, in a kayak or out in the yard. But, there are the smaller things, too – like affordable asparagus! Sure, you can get asparagus at the store year ‘round in these days of global markets, but who wants to pay seven bucks a pound for the stuff? Starting in early to mid- March, you can find asparagus for around $1.49 per pound, making it an everyday dish instead of a splurge. It’s by far my favorite vegetable, and lately I’ve been eating it two or three times a week. This abundance of green, combined with a recent comment from a reader who wondered if I was ever going to do anything other than meats and pasta dishes, inspired me to share a few of my family’s favorite vegetable recipes.
I don’t have kids, so I’m hardly the authority on getting one’s children to eat their vegetables. Still, I’m always surprised when my friends complain about their kids’ poor eating habits. When I was a kid, we didn’t have a choice – you ate what was on the table, and you tried everything, or you went to bed hungry. As a result, I LOVE vegetables! Broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, squash, even Brussels sprouts and parsnips – I can’t actually think offhand of a vegetable I dislike. I now realize that much of this is because we lived pretty frugally when I was growing up, and vegetables are cheap if you eat the ones that are in season. They’re even cheaper if you grow them yourself, and a couple of these recipes in particular lend themselves to veggies that you have an overabundance of, like spinach or Swiss chard that has bolted, or zucchini in the late summer. Like many of the previous recipes, these can serve as a framework – a cooking method to be adapted to the vegetables of your choice. Enjoy, and think Spring!
The Recipe:
Oven Roasted Asparagus
Serves 4
This barely qualifies as a recipe, it’s so easy. Works especially well for Brussels sprouts (my second favorite vegetable), or for mixed veggies like onions, peppers, potatoes and zucchini – adjust cooking times as necessary, and season however you wish.
Total prep and cooking time: 15-20 minutes, depending on your desired level of doneness
Ingredients:
2 lbs. young green asparagus (roughly the diameter of a pencil)
2-4 Tbsp. olive oil
1-2 tsp. garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste
Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Wash the asparagus, and break or cut off the woody parts of the stems. Pour the olive oil on a sheet pan or cookie sheet with edges, spread out the asparagus, sprinkle with garlic powder, salt and pepper, then toss with your hands to coat all of the asparagus. Spread them out evenly on the sheet pan, then bake 8-15 minutes or until done to your liking. I like them still slightly crisp, but with browned and blistered skin. Don’t use fresh garlic with this recipe, as it will burn at these temperatures and lend an off flavor.
Variations:
If you like your asparagus particularly browned, try this under a hot broiler, reducing cooking times to 5 minutes or so. You can add herbs of your choice – rosemary and Herbes de Provence are particularly good. A liberal sprinkling of Parmesan cheese is also great (eliminate the salt.) If you don’t want the cheese to brown, add it halfway through the cooking time.
This also works quite well on a barbecue – substitute fresh garlic if you like, and toss all ingredients in a baking dish or a large plastic bag to coat. Turn the asparagus at least once when cooking on the grill. Serve hot, room temperature or cold, and feel free to add a dash of balsamic vinegar for a change. We’ve served these at the Spring Art Walk several times, to rave reviews.
The Recipe:
Cauliflower and Egg
Serves 4 as an appetizer or side dish
My favorite way to eat cauliflower. The egg makes this richer and more flavorful than Fritto Misto – the Italian version of tempura, used for fish and vegetables. This works equally well with broccoli and zucchini, but I use it pretty much exclusively for cauliflower. This is also quite good served room temperature or cold and unlike most of the things I cook, the flavor benefits greatly from a healthy sprinkling of salt. If you’re feeling particularly decadent, serve with mayonnaise flavored with fresh garlic, parsley or chopped sun dried tomatoes for dipping.
Total prep and cooking time: about an hour
Ingredients:
1 large head of cauliflower
2-3 eggs
1 cup flour
1 tsp. paprika
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil or vegetable oil for frying
Wash the cauliflower and cut into florets roughly two bites large – say, golf ball sized. Smaller is fine if you prefer, but you’ll end up wasting more of the stem parts. Steam the cauliflower for 2-4 minutes, either on the stovetop or in the microwave. You want it to be a little softer, but still have that raw flavor – it will finish cooking when you fry it. Cool until you’re able to handle it without burning yourself. Heat three to four inches of oil to about 375 degrees in a deep saucepan or deep fryer – I prefer cooking grade olive oil for the flavor, but you can use any oil you like if you’re on more of a budget. The larger your pan, the more cauliflower you can fry, thus shortening cooking time (but using more oil, obviously.) Mix the flour, paprika, salt and pepper in a small bowl, and beat the eggs in another small bowl – start with two, and add the third if you need it later. Dredge the cauliflower pieces in flour, shake off the excess, then give a quick dip in the egg and drop into the hot oil. Cook until golden brown – roughly four minutes – working in batches. Drain the cooked pieces on paper towels and sprinkle liberally with salt to taste while still hot. Eat with your hands!
The Recipe:
Peperonata
Serves 4-6 as a side dish
A classic Italian recipe with nearly infinite variations. This is my mother’s version, simple and excellent eaten at any temperature. Leftovers are especially good with eggs for breakfast!
Total prep and cooking time: 30-60 minutes, depending on desired doneness
Ingredients:
1 large yellow onion
2-3 bell peppers, any color (we always used green, but red will sweeten the dish significantly)
1 globe eggplant
2-3 zucchini, depending on size (about ½ lb. total)
1 14 oz. can diced tomatoes
3 Tbsp. olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a large saucepan or sauté pan with a tightly fitting lid. Cut the onion into large dice – roughly ¾” – and add to the pan. Stir occasionally – you want the vegetables to sauté, but not to brown too much. Seed and dice the peppers into roughly the same size as the onion, add to the pan, toss or stir to incorporate. Cut the eggplant into ½” dice, add to the pan, stir. Cut the zucchini in half lengthwise (and half again if you’re using giant late summer zukes), then cut into ¼” slices, add to pan, stir. Drain the liquid from the tomatoes, then add them to the pan. Bring everything up to temperature, add salt and pepper to taste, then reduce heat to low and cover. Simmer for up to 45 minutes – my grandmother always cooked this until all of the veggies were soft and shapeless, but I prefer if the zucchini still retain their shape. Correct the seasoning (this will take more salt than you might think, especially if you’re using organic no salt added tomatoes.)
Variations: Red pepper flakes sautéed with the onion add zing. Season with dried basil to taste, or add a handful of basil roughly torn fresh basil leaves near the end of the cooking time. Fresh minced garlic is a nice flavor – add with the tomatoes so it doesn’t brown and get bitter. I make a greatly simplified version of this using either just onions and zucchini, or onions, zucchini and peppers, and reduce the cooking time to as little as ten minutes, resulting in bright, crisp veggies – quick and easy. The versions without tomatoes and eggplant also lend themselves to adding eggs directly to the cooking pan – either stir them in and cook to desired doneness, or fry directly on top of the veggies for a great brunch or light supper entrée.
The Recipe:
Cassaoun
Serves 4 as an appetizer or side – approximately 4 per person
A classic dish from my grandmother’s family, these are basically very large fried spinach ravioli. I think it’s by far the best possible way to eat spinach or Swiss chard. Like last week’s indorata, nobody knows how this is spelled – it’s probably a word in some dialect from San Marino or Rome, and is pronounced to rhyme with “the noun.” No references anywhere, and nothing like it in any cookbook I’ve ever seen. Not that this makes them any less enjoyable! These are perfect served room temperature or cold at a picnic, and the flavor is particularly good when using rainbow chard – it’s much more complex than spinach. My mother and grandmother always made this with fresh egg pasta, but I’m totally lazy, and I go for the egg roll wrappers every time. The texture is a little different, but they’re still a huge hit, and last time I made them for my grandmother, she commented on the excellent quality of my dough!
Total prep and cooking time: one hour
Ingredients:
1 medium yellow onion
1 large bunch spinach or Swiss chard, or 1 large bag frozen chopped spinach
1 recipe fresh pasta dough (see Nonna’s Kitchen 1) or 1 package refrigerated egg roll wrappers
fresh grated nutmeg to taste
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil for frying
If you’re using fresh spinach, wash it thoroughly and drain in a colander, then chop roughly – stems and all. For chard, wash and drain, roughly chop the leaves and slice the stems into ¼” slices. For frozen spinach, thaw in the microwave then squeeze out as much water as possible using your hands and a mesh colander. Heat 3 Tbsp. olive oil over medium heat. Cut the onion into ½” dice and sauté in the oil for 4-5 minutes, along with the stem pieces if you’re using chard. Add the leaves and cook until thoroughly wilted (or heated through, if using frozen) – roughly 5 minutes more. Season liberally with freshly grated nutmeg, salt and pepper, stir to incorporate and remove from heat. Transfer to a large colander placed over a bowl to drain any liquid, cool to room temperature.
Heat 2” of olive oil over medium heat in a large high-sided saucepan. If you’re using fresh pasta, roll it out to the thinnest setting – approximately 1/16” – and cut into 5” rounds using a small plate as a guide. Place roughly 2 Tbsp. of the spinach mixture into the center of a round, moisten the edges with water, then fold over to make a half moon shape. Press out all of the air and distribute the filling to about ½” from the edges, then seal the packet by crimping with the tines of a fork. Fry two at a time in the oil, flipping once, until golden brown and crispy. Drain on paper towels, and try not to devour them while you’re cooking the rest!
Note: if you’re using egg roll wrappers and you can’t find round ones, you can either trim square wrappers into circles, or be lazy like me and just fold them crosswise to make triangles instead of half moons – they taste just the same!
Mangia, mangia, fatte grande!
I love Spring! There are obvious reasons, like warmer weather, blue skies instead of gray, and longer daylight hours to spend on a bicycle, in a kayak or out in the yard. But, there are the smaller things, too – like affordable asparagus! Sure, you can get asparagus at the store year ‘round in these days of global markets, but who wants to pay seven bucks a pound for the stuff? Starting in early to mid- March, you can find asparagus for around $1.49 per pound, making it an everyday dish instead of a splurge. It’s by far my favorite vegetable, and lately I’ve been eating it two or three times a week. This abundance of green, combined with a recent comment from a reader who wondered if I was ever going to do anything other than meats and pasta dishes, inspired me to share a few of my family’s favorite vegetable recipes.
I don’t have kids, so I’m hardly the authority on getting one’s children to eat their vegetables. Still, I’m always surprised when my friends complain about their kids’ poor eating habits. When I was a kid, we didn’t have a choice – you ate what was on the table, and you tried everything, or you went to bed hungry. As a result, I LOVE vegetables! Broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, squash, even Brussels sprouts and parsnips – I can’t actually think offhand of a vegetable I dislike. I now realize that much of this is because we lived pretty frugally when I was growing up, and vegetables are cheap if you eat the ones that are in season. They’re even cheaper if you grow them yourself, and a couple of these recipes in particular lend themselves to veggies that you have an overabundance of, like spinach or Swiss chard that has bolted, or zucchini in the late summer. Like many of the previous recipes, these can serve as a framework – a cooking method to be adapted to the vegetables of your choice. Enjoy, and think Spring!
The Recipe:
Oven Roasted Asparagus
Serves 4
This barely qualifies as a recipe, it’s so easy. Works especially well for Brussels sprouts (my second favorite vegetable), or for mixed veggies like onions, peppers, potatoes and zucchini – adjust cooking times as necessary, and season however you wish.
Total prep and cooking time: 15-20 minutes, depending on your desired level of doneness
Ingredients:
2 lbs. young green asparagus (roughly the diameter of a pencil)
2-4 Tbsp. olive oil
1-2 tsp. garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste
Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Wash the asparagus, and break or cut off the woody parts of the stems. Pour the olive oil on a sheet pan or cookie sheet with edges, spread out the asparagus, sprinkle with garlic powder, salt and pepper, then toss with your hands to coat all of the asparagus. Spread them out evenly on the sheet pan, then bake 8-15 minutes or until done to your liking. I like them still slightly crisp, but with browned and blistered skin. Don’t use fresh garlic with this recipe, as it will burn at these temperatures and lend an off flavor.
Variations:
If you like your asparagus particularly browned, try this under a hot broiler, reducing cooking times to 5 minutes or so. You can add herbs of your choice – rosemary and Herbes de Provence are particularly good. A liberal sprinkling of Parmesan cheese is also great (eliminate the salt.) If you don’t want the cheese to brown, add it halfway through the cooking time.
This also works quite well on a barbecue – substitute fresh garlic if you like, and toss all ingredients in a baking dish or a large plastic bag to coat. Turn the asparagus at least once when cooking on the grill. Serve hot, room temperature or cold, and feel free to add a dash of balsamic vinegar for a change. We’ve served these at the Spring Art Walk several times, to rave reviews.
The Recipe:
Cauliflower and Egg
Serves 4 as an appetizer or side dish
My favorite way to eat cauliflower. The egg makes this richer and more flavorful than Fritto Misto – the Italian version of tempura, used for fish and vegetables. This works equally well with broccoli and zucchini, but I use it pretty much exclusively for cauliflower. This is also quite good served room temperature or cold and unlike most of the things I cook, the flavor benefits greatly from a healthy sprinkling of salt. If you’re feeling particularly decadent, serve with mayonnaise flavored with fresh garlic, parsley or chopped sun dried tomatoes for dipping.
Total prep and cooking time: about an hour
Ingredients:
1 large head of cauliflower
2-3 eggs
1 cup flour
1 tsp. paprika
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil or vegetable oil for frying
Wash the cauliflower and cut into florets roughly two bites large – say, golf ball sized. Smaller is fine if you prefer, but you’ll end up wasting more of the stem parts. Steam the cauliflower for 2-4 minutes, either on the stovetop or in the microwave. You want it to be a little softer, but still have that raw flavor – it will finish cooking when you fry it. Cool until you’re able to handle it without burning yourself. Heat three to four inches of oil to about 375 degrees in a deep saucepan or deep fryer – I prefer cooking grade olive oil for the flavor, but you can use any oil you like if you’re on more of a budget. The larger your pan, the more cauliflower you can fry, thus shortening cooking time (but using more oil, obviously.) Mix the flour, paprika, salt and pepper in a small bowl, and beat the eggs in another small bowl – start with two, and add the third if you need it later. Dredge the cauliflower pieces in flour, shake off the excess, then give a quick dip in the egg and drop into the hot oil. Cook until golden brown – roughly four minutes – working in batches. Drain the cooked pieces on paper towels and sprinkle liberally with salt to taste while still hot. Eat with your hands!
The Recipe:
Peperonata
Serves 4-6 as a side dish
A classic Italian recipe with nearly infinite variations. This is my mother’s version, simple and excellent eaten at any temperature. Leftovers are especially good with eggs for breakfast!
Total prep and cooking time: 30-60 minutes, depending on desired doneness
Ingredients:
1 large yellow onion
2-3 bell peppers, any color (we always used green, but red will sweeten the dish significantly)
1 globe eggplant
2-3 zucchini, depending on size (about ½ lb. total)
1 14 oz. can diced tomatoes
3 Tbsp. olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a large saucepan or sauté pan with a tightly fitting lid. Cut the onion into large dice – roughly ¾” – and add to the pan. Stir occasionally – you want the vegetables to sauté, but not to brown too much. Seed and dice the peppers into roughly the same size as the onion, add to the pan, toss or stir to incorporate. Cut the eggplant into ½” dice, add to the pan, stir. Cut the zucchini in half lengthwise (and half again if you’re using giant late summer zukes), then cut into ¼” slices, add to pan, stir. Drain the liquid from the tomatoes, then add them to the pan. Bring everything up to temperature, add salt and pepper to taste, then reduce heat to low and cover. Simmer for up to 45 minutes – my grandmother always cooked this until all of the veggies were soft and shapeless, but I prefer if the zucchini still retain their shape. Correct the seasoning (this will take more salt than you might think, especially if you’re using organic no salt added tomatoes.)
Variations: Red pepper flakes sautéed with the onion add zing. Season with dried basil to taste, or add a handful of basil roughly torn fresh basil leaves near the end of the cooking time. Fresh minced garlic is a nice flavor – add with the tomatoes so it doesn’t brown and get bitter. I make a greatly simplified version of this using either just onions and zucchini, or onions, zucchini and peppers, and reduce the cooking time to as little as ten minutes, resulting in bright, crisp veggies – quick and easy. The versions without tomatoes and eggplant also lend themselves to adding eggs directly to the cooking pan – either stir them in and cook to desired doneness, or fry directly on top of the veggies for a great brunch or light supper entrée.
The Recipe:
Cassaoun
Serves 4 as an appetizer or side – approximately 4 per person
A classic dish from my grandmother’s family, these are basically very large fried spinach ravioli. I think it’s by far the best possible way to eat spinach or Swiss chard. Like last week’s indorata, nobody knows how this is spelled – it’s probably a word in some dialect from San Marino or Rome, and is pronounced to rhyme with “the noun.” No references anywhere, and nothing like it in any cookbook I’ve ever seen. Not that this makes them any less enjoyable! These are perfect served room temperature or cold at a picnic, and the flavor is particularly good when using rainbow chard – it’s much more complex than spinach. My mother and grandmother always made this with fresh egg pasta, but I’m totally lazy, and I go for the egg roll wrappers every time. The texture is a little different, but they’re still a huge hit, and last time I made them for my grandmother, she commented on the excellent quality of my dough!
Total prep and cooking time: one hour
Ingredients:
1 medium yellow onion
1 large bunch spinach or Swiss chard, or 1 large bag frozen chopped spinach
1 recipe fresh pasta dough (see Nonna’s Kitchen 1) or 1 package refrigerated egg roll wrappers
fresh grated nutmeg to taste
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil for frying
If you’re using fresh spinach, wash it thoroughly and drain in a colander, then chop roughly – stems and all. For chard, wash and drain, roughly chop the leaves and slice the stems into ¼” slices. For frozen spinach, thaw in the microwave then squeeze out as much water as possible using your hands and a mesh colander. Heat 3 Tbsp. olive oil over medium heat. Cut the onion into ½” dice and sauté in the oil for 4-5 minutes, along with the stem pieces if you’re using chard. Add the leaves and cook until thoroughly wilted (or heated through, if using frozen) – roughly 5 minutes more. Season liberally with freshly grated nutmeg, salt and pepper, stir to incorporate and remove from heat. Transfer to a large colander placed over a bowl to drain any liquid, cool to room temperature.
Heat 2” of olive oil over medium heat in a large high-sided saucepan. If you’re using fresh pasta, roll it out to the thinnest setting – approximately 1/16” – and cut into 5” rounds using a small plate as a guide. Place roughly 2 Tbsp. of the spinach mixture into the center of a round, moisten the edges with water, then fold over to make a half moon shape. Press out all of the air and distribute the filling to about ½” from the edges, then seal the packet by crimping with the tines of a fork. Fry two at a time in the oil, flipping once, until golden brown and crispy. Drain on paper towels, and try not to devour them while you’re cooking the rest!
Note: if you’re using egg roll wrappers and you can’t find round ones, you can either trim square wrappers into circles, or be lazy like me and just fold them crosswise to make triangles instead of half moons – they taste just the same!
Mangia, mangia, fatte grande!
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