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!
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