Nonna's Kitchen 4 - Nonno's Meat Sauce, Macaroni Pie and Lasagna

The Preamble:
Most of the cooking in my grandparents’ house was handled by my grandmother, but my grandfather had a handful of specialties that nobody else could come close to duplicating. His barbecued chicken was always a treat in the summer, stewing in red wine, garlic, mushrooms and rosemary on a charcoal grill. Bean soup cooked for hours in a giant cast iron pot in the colder months, and Fritoli, a deep fried Christmas pastry, was the thing I missed the most when I was away at college. Nonno also made a meat sauce – unusual, because his family was from the Veneto region of Italy, where tomato sauces are not much a part of the cuisine. This sauce most closely resembles a Bolognese sauce, rich and complex and cooked for hours. It’s a good Sunday project, needing most of an afternoon to fully develop. The order of the ingredients is a little unusual; instead of sautéing the aromatics first like many dishes, you start with the meat first and add ingredients from there. It seems a little strange, I know, but for some reason it just doesn’t taste the same unless you do it this way. Nonno cooked this sauce in an ancient pitted iron pot that was probably 16 or 20 quart capacity. If you’ve got a dutch oven or an enameled cast iron pot that’s at least 12 quart, that will work quite well. Me, I make it in the largest of the Farberware pots that I got when I first moved away from home, 24 years ago, so I know for certain that a cheap pot will work just fine.

Not much preamble this week – you get three recipes instead!

The Recipe:
Nonno’s Meat Sauce
Enough sauce for pasta for 8-10 people, two macaroni pies or one large lasagna

Total prep and cooking time: 45 minutes, plus 4-5 additional hours to simmer

Ingredients:
Olive oil – not extra virgin (see last issue for details on olive oil)
1 lb. ground beef – I use ground sirloin
1 large or two medium onions, finely chopped
2 carrots, minced (1/8” dice)
3 stalks celery, minced
2 large garlic cloves, finely minced or put through a garlic press
1-2 Tbsp. dried rosemary (don’t use fresh)
2 bay leaves
2 28 oz. cans whole peeled tomatoes, manually crushed (see below)
2 tsp. sugar
salt and pepper to taste

Heat 3-4 Tbsp. olive oil in a large pot over medium heat, then add the ground beef. Cook until all the pink color is gone – 5-8 minutes – breaking up with a wooden spoon or other utensil as it cooks. You want the beef to be in pretty small pieces before you add the next ingredients – Nonno used a giant wooden spoon, my mother employs a pastry cutter, I use a potato masher! Choose whatever works best for you. When the beef is cooked through, add the onions and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the carrots, then the celery, stirring and cooking each for 5 minutes before proceeding. Some liquid should form in the bottom of the pot – if your pot is dry and brown bits are sticking to it, your heat is a little too high. When the vegetables have cooked, add the garlic and stir to incorporate. Add a palm full of dried rosemary, crushing it between your palms to break it up and release the oils. Toss in the bay leaves and stir to thoroughly mix all ingredients, cook for 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes and their liquid. Nonno crushed the tomatoes with his hands after dumping them into the pot; if you find this a little risky, you can squeeze them while still in the can (messy) or simply run a sharp knife through the opened can several times to break the tomatoes into large chunks. Don’t worry if they’re not uniform – they’ll break down as the sauce cooks. Bring the sauce to a boil, then check the seasoning – I usually add several grinds of black pepper, and maybe 2 tsp. of salt. You can always go back and add more later. The sugar is optional – if you’re using Progresso or another Italian brand of tomatoes, it’s usually not necessary. I like Muir Glen Organic tomatoes, and find that the sugar helps to mellow them a bit. You don’t want your sauce to taste sweet at this point, but it shouldn’t be harsh or sour, either – if it has a bite, add the sugar.

When the sauce has come to a boil, reduce the heat to the lowest possible setting, cover it and simmer for 4-5 hours. Check on it every 30 minutes or so, stirring to reincorporate the juices. The finished sauce should be much more dry than, say, a bottled marinara sauce, so if it’s still really wet after two hours of cooking, leave a gap in the lid to allow some of the moisture to evaporate. When the sauce is a rich, deep red and the tomatoes are thoroughly dissolved, it’s ready! Salt and pepper to taste.

This sauce is great served with rigatoni or another large pasta that has some texture to hold onto the sauce – the recipe makes enough for 2 lbs. of pasta with some additional for serving. (Italians eat their pasta with much less sauce than most Americans – the flavor of the pasta is important, too.) I’m a sucker for butter, so I’ll toss 1 lb. of pasta with 2 Tbsp. butter just before adding half of the sauce – I freeze the other half for another meal.

The Recipe:
Macaroni Pie
Serves 6 as a first course

This is a specialty of my mother’s, and is a really fun dish for a dinner party – you bring a dish to the table that looks exactly like a dessert pie, then cut it to reveal…pasta!

Total prep and cooking time: 90 minutes

Ingredients:
½ lb. farfalle (bowties) or other medium sized dry pasta
2 c. Nonno’s meat sauce, plus extra for serving
¼ c. grated Romano cheese
1 c. unbleached white flour
½ c. (1 stick) salted butter, very cold
ice water

Make a pie crust using the butter, flour and ice water: you can get directions for this in about any cookbook if you haven’t made pastry before. It’s the butter that’s important – don’t use shortening or lard, because the flavor just isn’t the same. Roll the crust out into two large rounds, and use one to line a large Pyrex or other glass pie plate; cover the other with waxed paper and put both in the refrigerator to chill while you prepare the pasta. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Cook the pasta in salted water until it’s just about half cooked – it will continue to cook while the pie bakes – then drain and toss with 2 cups of sauce. This works best if the sauce is room temperature, because you don’t want the pasta to be piping hot when you add it to the pie crust. (Just this once, you could rinse the pasta with cold water if you really want to – the additional cooking time will allow more starch to release and bond with the sauce.) Turn the pasta into the prepared pie crust, spread it out evenly, toss the grated Romano cheese over it and then cover with the second crust, finishing the edges however you wish. Poke a few holes in the top crust to allow steam to escape, then bake at 400 degrees for ten minutes. Reduce the heat to 325 degrees and cook for an additional 40 minutes or until nicely browned. Allow the pie to cool for 10-15 minutes before cutting and serving. Pass a bowl of heated sauce for those who wish it.

The Recipe:
Lasagna
Makes one large lasagna (10x14), enough for 10-12 as a first course

Total prep and cooking time: 2 hours

Ingredients:
1 recipe Nonno’s meat sauce
1 box (12-16 oz.) dried lasagna noodles (don’t use the no-bake kind)
1 lb. mozzarella cheese, grated
½ lb. Parmesan or Romano cheese, grated

You’ll notice there’s no Ricotta cheese and no béchamel sauce in this recipe – we never used either one, and when I have lasagna with these ingredients, it just doesn’t taste right to me. Try it this way, and if you don’t like it, add them next time. And, while we’re on the subject of cheese, DON’T use the stuff in the green cardboard box! That’s not cheese, it’s chemicals. Costco has great cheese, as do most supermarkets at this point. Spend a little more and get something that’s actually edible, please.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Cook the lasagna noodles according to the directions on the box, then drain them and lay them out in a single layer on cookie sheets greased with a little olive oil. (My mother skips this step and simply grabs noodles out of the hot water as she needs them, but I’m not so brave.) Spread 2 ladles of sauce evenly over the bottom of a Pyrex or other glass baking dish, then place a layer of noodles, followed by a large handful of mozzarella and a small handful of Parmesan. Repeat until all the noodles are used up, making sure that the top layer is sauce and cheese. Bake for approximately 1 hour or until browned and bubbly. If the top browns too quickly, cover it with a sheet of aluminum foil until you get to the bubbly stage. Let it rest for 10-15 minutes before serving.

Mangia, mangia, fatte grande!