Spaghetti Aglio, Olio, e Pepperoncino (Spaghetti with Garlic, Oil and Red Pepper)

Name: Spaghetti Aglio, Olio, e Pepperoncino (Spaghetti with Garlic, Oil and Red Pepper)
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 20 min
Yield: 4 people
Ingredients: 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil; 5 cloves garlic; 1 teaspoon cracked red pepper (more or less, to taste); 1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper; 2 tablespoons white wine; 1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley; 3 ounces Parmigiano Reggiano cheese (grated); 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (for finishing); 1 pound spaghetti

2 Comments

November 8, 2017

How many Italian pasta sauces can you think of that do not include olive oil and garlic?

Precious few, I would guess!

This dish, classically Roman, elevates those two ingredients to center stage. You cannot hide bad olive oil or poorly cooked garlic in this dish. There are very few other flavors.

But simplicity has its virtues. It’s really hard to go wrong with this dish unless you use bad olive oil or not-so-stellar cheese or you burn the garlic.

You can make a case for cooking the garlic for a whole range of times, from mere seconds up until it is dark brown. For many years I even cooked three different batches of garlic, one until brown, one until golden, and one until just fragrant. There is an interesting depth of flavor from doing so but it’s not the classic technique.

My point is, unless you burn the garlic and make it bitter, you won’t ruin the dish. You may prefer the flavor of the garlic when it is more or less brown but that’s just a preference not an absolute.

**These little Italian peppers (“pepperoncino”) pack a nice flavor, not just heat**

My recipe diverges from the classic Roman recipe in two places.

While making dinner, I’m usually chatting…with my in-laws (on most nights), with my husband (when he’s not away on business), or with guests. While I know I can time everything to be ready at exactly the right moment, I ask, why stress about it? So, yes, I can time the sautéing of the garlic to be just right when the pasta is ready but there’s an easier way.

I get the garlic to exactly the spot I want and then stop the cooking by taking the pan off the heat and adding a splash of wine (or water, if you must). That’s not classically Roman but it sure makes it much easier to have a conversation and a cocktail or three while making dinner. As soon as I plan on draining the pasta, I turn the heat on under the garlic oil and boil away the liquid I’ve added. Let’s face it, how often do we get to stop time with no consequences?

The second divergence from classic technique is that I add cheese to the pasta while mixing it with the garlic oil rather than just adding it at the table. In my mind there is no doubt that this pasta needs cheese. Adding it at the final stage of preparation allows me to create a glossy sauce where there would otherwise only be garlic oil. Not that that is bad, but I’ve made a bit of a reputation for myself by turning out glossy sauces where there would often only be oil.

It’s not hard. It just takes a bit of practice and some understanding (minimal) of the chemistry involved. And let’s face it, if the sauce isn’t glossy, you’re the only one who’s going to know. Again, there’s no penalty involved!

In Italy this pasta is often prepared and eaten after a night of over-indulging in alcohol. At least that’s the reputation it has. However, this was a common dish put on the dinner table when I was growing up. It’s easy, quick, filling, and darn good. Oh, and for an entirely different flavor, try butter in place of the olive oil!

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Spaghetti Aglio, Olio, e Pepperoncino (Spaghetti with Garlic, Oil and Red Pepper)

I like to reduce last minute work, so I prep the garlic oil in advance and stop the cooking with a splash of wine. You can use water, if you wish, or, if you are sautéing the garlic as the pasta is cooking, some of the pasta-cooking liquid. As the pasta is nearing completion, I reheat the garlic oil, quickly boiling off the wine, and proceed. Use more or less garlic, to your taste. The same is true with the red pepper. For myself, I would use at least double this amount but that would be way too much for other folks.

Course

Pasta, Noodles, and Sauces

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

15 minutes

Cook Time

20 minutes

Servings

people

Ingredients

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
5 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon cracked red pepper more or less, to taste
1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
2 tablespoons white wine
1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley
3 ounces Parmigiano Reggiano cheese grated
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil for finishing
1 pound spaghetti

Course

Pasta, Noodles, and Sauces

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

15 minutes

Cook Time

20 minutes

Servings

people

Ingredients

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
5 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon cracked red pepper more or less, to taste
1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
2 tablespoons white wine
1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley
3 ounces Parmigiano Reggiano cheese grated
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil for finishing
1 pound spaghetti

Instructions

Slice off the hard base of each garlic clove.
Cut the cloves in half top to bottom.
Cut each half-clove of garlic crosswise into very thin slivers.
In a sauté pan large enough to hold all the cooked spaghetti comfortably heat 1/3 cup of olive oil over gentle heat.
Add the slivered garlic and sauté slowly and gently until golden brown. This should take 10-15 minutes if the heat is low enough.
Add the red pepper and black pepper and sauté for another minute.
Add the wine to stop cooking and remove the pan from the heat.
Bring 2 ½ quarts of water to a boil. Season with ¼ cup of salt.
Boil the spaghetti about two minutes less than the package indicates is needed for al dente.
As the pasta is nearing completion, reheat the garlic oil.
Just before removing the pasta from the boiling water, add 1 cup of pasta-cooking liquid to the garlic oil and turn the heat to medium high.
Reserve another cup of pasta-cooking liquid then drain the pasta.
Add the drained pasta to the pan with the garlic oil.
Cook over medium to medium-high heat, stirring frequently, until the pasta is al dente. Add some of the reserved pasta-cooking liquid from time to time as needed.
When the pasta is al dente, remove the pan from the heat. Sprinkle the parmesan cheese and parsley on top.
Mix well to create a sauce by melting the cheese and emulsifying the oil and water. Add more of the pasta-cooking water, if needed, to coat the pasta.
Stir in the 3 tablespoons of fruity or peppery extra-virgin olive oil for finishing.
Serve immediately with extra Parmesan cheese.

Recipe Notes

Since olive oil loses much of its distinctive flavor from heating, adding some at the end, when the dish is off the heat, improves the flavor. Usually I keep several types of olive oil that I just use for finishing in this way. They tend to have different flavor profiles. Usually I have a peppery one and a buttery one on hand. These oils are used in small quantities so their higher price tag is worth the flavor they add.

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Recipes

Melinda’s Drunken Prunes

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October 30, 2017

Italians love to put things in alcohol.

In the short life of this blog, we’ve already covered limoncello, cherries in brandy, and liquore al lauro.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that I love to put things in alcohol. If so, I’m not alone!

Melinda Orlando and I started working together in early 1989 when I moved to Chicago and became the Medical Director (Chief Medical Officer in today’s terminology) of Chicago-Read Mental Health Center, at the time a 600-bed psychiatric hospital with approximately 7000 admissions per year.

Melinda and I have worked together ever since. Most recently she and I were business partners in The Mihalik Group, LLC (TMG). Though we sold the company last year, we still do a limited amount of consulting.

In our twenty-odd years at TMG we traveled a lot and ate at a lot of restaurants. We frequently joked that we probably ate more dinners together during that time than either of us did with our spouses.

At Chicago-Read, Melinda and I bonded early-on over a love of good food, especially Italian. Chicago-Read was located adjacent to a large Italian-American community. There were some really good Italian restaurants, butchers, pasta shops, and grocery stores just minutes away. It wasn’t a struggle to maintain my weight in those days so eating lunch at one of the nearby restaurants happened often.

This recipe for drunken prunes came from Melinda’s Grandmother.

Melinda’s grandmother came to the US as a young wife with two children. A third, Melinda’s father, was born onboard the ship. After going through Ellis Island she traveled to Chicago by train to meet her husband.

At one point, Melinda’s grandmother rented an apartment on Grand Avenue and took in boarders. These were day laborers who were working to save enough to bring their families to this country. They slept on the floor of the apartment and used the toilet in the hall. Baths were taken by all at Hull House down the street. They paid “rent” and got sleeping space, breakfast (coffee and something baked) and dinner (always including pasta).

Melinda’s grandmother was frugal, eventually saving enough to buy a building in Elmwood Park, at the end of the trolley line out of the city. The building became home for her and her five children (her husband was out of the picture), a store (selling candy and cigarettes), and a “bar” (providing beer for a nickel and a free bowl of pasta). It had the only telephone booth in the area. Eventually there was a jukebox and it became a popular place on weekends.

Melinda’s grandmother served drunken prunes in a shot glass speared on a toothpick, with some of the grappa poured into the glass.

**Melinda’s Grandmother, center, and her five children including Melinda’s father, far right**

If not served at family events, the prunes generally accompanied a game of canasta among Grandma’s “women friends” and were intended to be nibbled on. Never were they eaten in a bite or two. Seconds were rare, though they did occur. (I’d love to know what the women said of those who had a second prune but that information is lost to history.)

**Christmas at Melinda’s Grandmother’s house**

Before canasta, there was always lunch, almost always pasta, and dessert, usually pound cake. Occasionally the pound cake was used to sop up the grappa in the bottom of the shot glass if it wasn’t consumed outright. A glass (single, of course) of wine was sipped all afternoon.

**Melinda’s Grandmother and Aunt Enes, the youngest of the five children. Enes and her husband gave up their house to live with Melinda’s Grandmother**

Drunken prunes were only served in the winter, never in the summer. As to what took their place for those summer canasta games, we’ll just need to wait for the next installment from Melinda!

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Melinda's Drunken Prunes

The amount of sugar will vary based on personal preference. I suggest starting with the smaller quantity and then adjusting after a month. Once you find your “sweet spot” you can put all the sugar in at the beginning.

Course

Beverages, Miscellaneous

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

5 minutes

Passive Time

4 months

Servings

quart

Ingredients

12 ounces pitted prunes
2 cups grappa or brandy
1/3 cup sugar plus up to 1/3 cup more based on taste

Course

Beverages, Miscellaneous

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

5 minutes

Passive Time

4 months

Servings

quart

Ingredients

12 ounces pitted prunes
2 cups grappa or brandy
1/3 cup sugar plus up to 1/3 cup more based on taste

Instructions

Place prunes in a one quart glass jar.
Add 1/3 cup sugar.
Add grappa.
Cover tightly.
Rotate the jar several times daily until the sugar dissolves.
Store the prunes in a cool spot out of direct sunlight.
After one month taste and add additional sugar to taste.
Allow the prunes to age for at least four months total before serving.
Serve the prunes individually in shot glasses with a toothpick. Pour some of the grappa over the prunes.
Nibble on the prunes holding them with the toothpick and sip the prune-infused grappa, preferably while playing canasta.

Recipe Notes

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Liquore al Lauro (Italian Bay Laurel Liqueur)

3 Comments

October 6, 2017

Making liqueurs at home is a time-honored Italian tradition. Limoncello is probably the most well-known but there are many others.

Many years ago at a now-shuttered artisanal Italian restaurant in the Andersonville neighborhood of Chicago I tasted house-made Liquore al Lauro, also referred to as Liquore Alloro.

I was hooked.

Every time I went to the restaurant, my meal ended with Liquore al Lauro.

Then the restaurant closed.

The Liquore al Lauro ended.

And I vowed to make it one day.

That day happened in late 2009 when our bay laurel plant was trimmed back for the winter. There was a pile of bay leaves on the kitchen counter. After I put a stash of them in the freezer for easy access during the winter (far, far better than dried!) I still had a pile that I couldn’t bear to discard.

Out came a book I bought on a previous trip to Italy with my in-laws. I think it’s the same trip where we brought back a copper polenta pot (which you can see in my Polenta post), a grape press, and a super-fancy (and super-heavy) brass faucet that is a gargoyle head with a sea-creature coming out of its mouth out of which the water comes, among other things.

The faucet was ultimately to be incorporated into a garden fountain. That hasn’t yet happened but I’m not giving up.

The book “How to Make Liqueurs at Home” (see the photo below) had a recipe for Liquore al Lauro.

It was an ill-fated first attempt, however. I was using California bay leaves instead of Mediterranean bay leaves. When cooking, recipes often specify using half the quantity of California bay as Mediterranean bay as they are more aromatic. I was prepared to dilute the liquore to determine the correct quantity of California bay leaves so that wasn’t the major issue.

The real issue is that after I put up three large batches of bay leaves to macerate in alcohol, one plain, one with cinnamon, and one with coffee beans, my company landed a consulting contract in the United Arab Emirates.

Late fall into winter 2009 became a whirlwind of activity culminating with my moving to Dubai in January 2010 for much of the year.

**A view from my apartment looking out at the Arabian Gulf and the man-made Palm Jumeriah island with the Atlantis hotel in the distance**

**Another view from the apartment looking at part of Dubai Marina, a 7 kilometer long man-made waterway**

Dubai Marina is a paradise for walkersThe bay leaves macerated for months upon months. When I finally got around to trying to finish the Liquore al Lauro the mixture had turned bitter from over-extraction.

I had to discard gallons of bay-infused alcohol.

A few years went by before I decided it was worth trying again.
This time, I reduced the bay leaves by half right up front and shortened the maceration to four days to avoid any chance of bitterness. I made plain and cinnamon-infused but have not, to date, gone back to the coffee bean experiment.

Because I want my recipes to be reproducible, I do my best to eliminate unnecessary variation. To that end, I weigh and measure ingredients precisely. For this recipe, I use a small metric scale that measures in hundredths of a gram (for the bay leaves and cinnamon), a large metric scale that measures in increments of one gram (for the sugar), and a graduated cylinder (for the water and alcohol). I can assure you that this does not happen in the average Italian household, nor does it need to happen in yours. The recipe app will convert the metric measures to US measures at the click of a button and I’ve provided an approximate count of bay leaves and inches of cinnamon stick that will work well.

**The small scale that I use for precise weights**

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Liquore al Lauro (Bay Leaf Liqueur)

Don’t be put off by the use of Everclear (or equivalent) the high proof is needed to extract the volatile oils in a reliable manner. The final liqueur ends up being about 63 proof, equivalent to most commercially produced liqueurs.

Course

Beverages

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

15 minutes

Passive Time

5 days

Servings

liters

Ingredients

15 grams fresh California bay leaves approximately 15-20 leaves
7 grams cinnamon stick approximately 3 inches (optional)
1250 ml of 151 proof alcohol such as Everclear
750 grams white sugar
1250 ml filtered water

Course

Beverages

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

15 minutes

Passive Time

5 days

Servings

liters

Ingredients

15 grams fresh California bay leaves approximately 15-20 leaves
7 grams cinnamon stick approximately 3 inches (optional)
1250 ml of 151 proof alcohol such as Everclear
750 grams white sugar
1250 ml filtered water

Instructions

Wash the leaves in cool water and dry gently.
In a jar with a tight-fitting lid that holds at least 2 quarts, combine the bay leaves, cinnamon (if using) and alcohol.
Cover the jar and swirl.
Put the jar in a cool spot out of direct sunlight for four days.
Swirl the contents once or twice daily.
On the third day, combine the sugar and water in a one-gallon jar (or other non-reactive container) with a tight-fitting lid.
Swirl the sugar and water mixture every few hours throughout the day, until the sugar has dissolved. It can take up to 24 hours for the sugar to fully dissolve.
On the fourth day, strain the bay-leaf-infused alcohol into the jar with the sugar water. The liquid may become cloudy but will become clear in about 24 hours with the occasional swirl.
After 24 hours, ladle the liqueur into smaller bottles, such as empty liquor bottles.
Seal tightly and store in a cool, dark place for one month before drinking.
Serve chilled or over ice or at room temperature based on your preference.

Recipe Notes

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Roasted Sweet Peppers

Mom’s Ravioli

2 Comments

September 27, 2017

My strongest olfactory memory of childhood is gradually waking up on Sunday morning to the smell (perfume is a better characterization as far as I’m concerned) of garlic being sautéed in olive oil.

That was how most Sundays started.

My mother would get up early and start making her long-simmered Southern Italian Tomato Sauce (referred to as Ragu or Sugo if one’s Italian roots were close, “Gravy” if one grew up in New York or nearby, and often just “Sauce”). We unceremoniously called it “Spaghetti Sauce” though it was used on much more than spaghetti!

I think the better part of my culinary-cultural history is represented by that sauce. Every Italian family’s sauce is different, even if stylistic similarities can be identified. The sauces made by my mother and her two sisters that I knew, Aunt Margie and Aunt Mamie, were clearly related but also different. Each was good but it’s not as if they didn’t deviate from my Grandmother’s recipe. They were similar in that garlic and meat were browned in oil; tomato products, water, and seasonings were added; and the whole thing simmered for hours. The meats varied, the tomato products (tomato paste, tomato puree, whole canned tomatoes, etc.) and the proportions of them definitely varied as did the seasonings and other aromatics.

My mother’s “Spaghetti Sauce” to call it by its “historic” name, a name that I no longer use, is, without doubt, my most precious culinary treasure. I have only ever given the recipe out twice. In the 1970’s I gave it to John Bowker and his wife Margaret Roper Bowker. John was the dean of Trinity College in Cambridge, England. Recently I gave it to Robert Reddington and John O’Malley in Palm Springs after Bob lamented the loss of the recipe for the long-simmered tomato sauce he learned to make while living in Chicago.

With my mother’s sauce as the near-constant backdrop to our Sunday dinners, the rest of the meal varied. The sauce could be served with spaghetti or some other cut of dry pasta, or with my mother’s home-made fettuccine, or with ravioli. Although my favorite pasta is gnocchi, we never had those on Sundays as my father didn’t like them. Gnocchi (always home-made) were reserved for a weeknight meal during the times that my father worked out of town.

The sauce has an abundant amount of meat in it, pork, always cut in big pieces, never ground or chopped. Nonetheless, the pasta was often accompanied by my mother’s slow-cooked roast pork or maybe a roast chicken.

It seems incongruous now, but in the 1960s, before the widespread use of antibiotics, chickens were expensive! (I’m not in favor of the prophylactic use of antibiotics but I’m just saying that’s why chickens are relatively inexpensive now.) I still have a handful of my mother’s “City Chicken” sticks from the 1960s. They are round, pointed sticks slimmer than a pencil but thicker than bamboo skewers. Pieces of pork and veal would be skewered in alternating fashion on the sticks, breaded, and fried like chicken drumsticks. This was less expensive than chicken!!

But back to Sundays…

Sometimes, after the sauce was bubbling away, my mother would make ravioli. Next to gnocchi, they are my favorite pasta, but manicotti and lasagna aren’t far behind.

We would eat our big meal around 1 PM on Sunday and my mother would get all of this done in time for that meal, including taking time to go to church, during which my Aunt Mamie, who lived upstairs, would be tasked with stirring the “Spaghetti Sauce.”

Making ravioli in a group is a lot more fun. I also find that making the ravioli on a different day from the day they are cooked and eaten means that I am not as tired and I enjoy them more. The pictures in this post are from a Sunday when I got together with Rich DePippo, Susan Vinci-Lucero, and my in-laws, Marisa and Frank Pieri, to make ravioli. I think we made about 30 dozen ravioli!

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Mom's Ravioli

The filling can be made a day in advance and refrigerated, tightly covered. Ravioli freeze well. To do so, lightly flour a sheet pan that will fit in your freezer and put the ravioli in a single layer. Freeze about 30-45 minutes, until firm. Quickly put the ravioli in a zipper-lock bag and return to the freezer. Repeat with the remaining ravioli. My mother always made her dough by hand but I use a kitchen mixer and the beater, not the dough hook. Years ago, ground meat was not labeled with the percent fat. My mother would select a cut of sirloin, have the butcher trim off all visible fat and then grind it. I find that 93% lean ground beef replicates the experience.

Course

Pasta, Noodles, and Sauces

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

2 hours

Passive Time

30 minutes

Servings

people

Ingredients

Filling

10 ounces frozen chopped spinach
1 pound ground beef 93% lean
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 clove garlic minced
1 egg lightly beaten
1/3 cup fine dry breadcrumbs additional if needed
salt to taste
black pepper freshly ground to taste

Dough

4 cups all purpose flour
1 egg
3 egg whites
1 cup water scant

Course

Pasta, Noodles, and Sauces

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

2 hours

Passive Time

30 minutes

Servings

people

Ingredients

Filling

10 ounces frozen chopped spinach
1 pound ground beef 93% lean
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 clove garlic minced
1 egg lightly beaten
1/3 cup fine dry breadcrumbs additional if needed
salt to taste
black pepper freshly ground to taste

Dough

4 cups all purpose flour
1 egg
3 egg whites
1 cup water scant

Instructions

Filling

Put the frozen spinach in a small saucepan. Add a few tablespoons of water. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until the spinach is completely thawed.
Pour the spinach into a large sieve.
After the spinach has cooled enough to handle, squeeze handfuls of the spinach to remove as much liquid as possible.
Heat the olive oil in a 12-inch sauté pan until shimmering. Add the beef.
Cook over high heat until the liquid has evaporated, breaking up the meat while cooking.
Reduce the heat to medium and add the garlic, 1 teaspoon of salt, and black pepper to taste. Continue to sauté for 2-3 minutes more.
Add the spinach to the beef.
Continue to cook over medium to medium-low heat while breaking up the spinach and completely combining it with the beef.
When the beef and spinach are well combined and no obvious liquid remains in the pan, add the beaten egg. Stir well and cook two minutes more. The egg should completely incorporate into the filling and no longer be visible.
Adjust salt and pepper.
On low heat, add 1/4-1/3 cup of breadcrumbs and combine well to absorb any remaining liquid or oil. If necessary to absorb any remaining liquid, add another tablespoon or two of breadcrumbs. If you cooked off all the liquid when browning the beef, and used lean beef, 1/3 cup of breadcrumbs should be enough.
Cool the filling to room temperature before filling the ravioli.

Dough

Put the flour, egg, and egg whites in the bowl of an electric mixer outfitted with a paddle.
Mix on low until combined.
Add the water, a little at a time, until the dough just comes together. The dough should not be the slightest bit tacky. You may not need all the water.
Remove the dough from the mixer and roll into a log. Cover with a kitchen towel and allow to rest for 15 to 30 minutes before rolling out.

Assembly

Set up your pasta machine, either a hand crank version or an attachment for your mixer.
Cut off a small handful of dough.
Flatten the dough, dust with flour, and run it through the pasta machine on the thickest setting.
If the dough is catching on the rollers it may be too wet. Sprinkle liberally with flour.
Run the dough through the same setting one more time.
Run the dough through the pasta machine narrowing the setting by one notch each time. If the dough is getting too long to cover much more than two lengths of the ravioli mold, cut off the excess and continue.
When rolling out the dough, use slow, even motion. If the dough is not rolling out to the full width of the machine, or at least wide enough to cover the width of the ravioli mold, fold it in half crosswise and run it through the machine again on whatever the last setting was.
If the dough is not rolling out smoothly, and the issue is not that it is too damp, run the dough through the machine again on the same setting.
On most pasta machines with five settings for thickness, you will want to stop rolling out the dough on the next-to-thinnest setting.
Put the rolled out dough on a lightly floured surface and cover with a kitchen towel. Repeat with 2 or 3 more portions of dough.
Allow the remaining dough to rest, covered, while filling and cutting the first batch of ravioli.
To fill the ravioli, take the rolled out dough and lay it across the ravioli mold.
Add a slightly rounded teaspoonful of filling to each ravioli. Do not overfill or the ravioli may break when being cooked.
Fold the dough over the top.
Lightly pat the top sheet of dough.
Using a rolling pin, cut the dough along the zig-zag edges. Be careful to fully cut through the dough around the edges as well as between each raviolo.
Remove the ravioli and place on a lightly floured surface. Cover lightly with a kitchen towel.
Repeat with the remaining dough and filling.
Cook, refrigerate, or freeze the ravioli.

Recipe Notes

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Recipes

Tiella (Southern Italian Vegetable and Pasta Casserole)

5 Comments

September 18, 2017

When I was growing up, we mostly socialized within the extended family plus a very few close family friends (that’s you, Joe and Betty Slivosky!).

It was a time (the 60’s) and place (small-town Western Pennsylvania) where it was rare to call in advance of a visit. One just showed up. This usually happened in the evening after dinner, though almost never on Monday or Thursday when the stores downtown were open until 9 PM and we dressed and went shopping after dinner.

Everyone would sit around (usually in the kitchen) drinking coffee (with caffeine), chatting…and smoking. Oh, the smoking! Occasionally the men would drink beer but unless it was a holiday or celebration of some sort, hard liquor was a rarity.

On Sundays, visiting frequently occurred (or at least started) in the afternoon and there might be two or three stops before heading home.

I can’t tell you how many times I heard the same stories. It’s one of the ways I developed a connection with family members, like my maternal grandparents, who died when I was very young.

To be sure, sometimes my cousin Donna and I would abandon the adults and pursue some childhood activity but we still hung out in the kitchen much of the time.

Often times the conversation would veer towards food; things my grandmother would make, the huge platters of cannoli one of my great aunts would make, what was eaten on holidays, and on and on.

There was the oft-repeated reminder of how my grandfather could come home late at night with a group of friends and how my grandmother would cook for them near midnight. There were stories of my grandmother cleaning and cooking chicken feet. My mother would talk about the time she killed a chicken in the basement and it got away from her and ran, headless, around the room. My father would remind everyone that the only food he didn’t like was gnocchi.

Food was a central feature of our lives.

So was conversation.

There were also times I would just sit in the kitchen and chat with my mother for hours. Relatives and food were common topics of conversation. There were dishes my grandmother made that I heard about over and over but never tasted because my mother never made them for some inexplicable reason. One of them was a quickly sautéed veal chop with a pan sauce made of the drippings in the pan, crushed canned tomatoes, peas, and seasonings. Back in the days when I cooked veal, I actually made it. Now I do it with pork chops.

The other dish that stands out in my memory from these conversations is Tiella. My mother talked of it frequently but never made it. The instructions were basic, a layer of pasta, a layer of potatoes, a layer of zucchini, and a can of tomatoes crushed by hand and poured on top. The whole thing was then baked. There wasn’t much of a discussion of which seasonings to use or proportions of ingredients. It was just assumed it would have garlic (of course it would have garlic) and the herbs that were commonly used in our family. Proportions…well…it just needed to look “right.”

For the number of times my mother rhapsodized about this dish, I can’t figure out why she never made it.

The first time I tried to make it was in the early 1990’s at our little house on Griffin Street in Santa Fe. That first time around, it didn’t live up to the hype, for sure, but it christened the house in an odd way.

In November 1992 my mother, my husband’s mother, and my husband’s grandmother traveled to Santa Fe with us for Thanksgiving week. We looked at property and fell for a little (1151 square foot) house on Griffin Street. My mother was terminally ill at the time. When we got back home, my mother insisted that we use her money for the down payment, which we did. She kept saying that she wanted to live long enough to return to that house in the spring. It didn’t happen. She died in early January.

All of the kitchen gear, china, and glassware for the house on Griffin came from my mother’s house. So, it was fitting that I should make this dish for the first time using my mother’s kitchenware in a house that we owned thanks to her.

It took me many years of working (off and on) on the seasonings and proportions to get it to taste great. (Well, I think it does.) The only real liberty I took with the dish is to use fresh tomatoes rather than canned when I make this in the summer.

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Tiella (Southern Italian Vegetable and Pasta Casserole)

This is a wonderful late summer dish when tomatoes are at their peak. If you make it at other times, use a 28 ounce can of whole tomatoes in place of the tomato puree and fresh tomatoes. Pour the liquid in the can over the potatoes instead of the puree. Crush the tomatoes by hand, add the seasonings described for fresh tomatoes, and arrange the crushed tomatoes on top.

Course

Mains, Sides, Vegetables, Vegetarian

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

1 hour

Cook Time

2 hours

Passive Time

30 minutes

Servings

people

Ingredients

5 ounces ditalini pasta
21 ounces russet potatoes peeled and sliced ¼ inch thick
22 ounces small zucchini peeled and sliced ½ inch thick
2 pounds ripe tomatoes sliced ⅓ inch thick
1 cup tomato puree preferably homemade (see note)
3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
4 cloves garlic crushed
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
4-5 cloves garlic minced
1 tablespoon minced fresh rosemary
3 tablespoons minced fresh oregano
1/4 cup fresh basil cut into chiffonade
1/4 cup minced fresh parsley
1 cup breadcrumbs made from day old Italian or French bread
salt
black pepper freshly ground

Course

Mains, Sides, Vegetables, Vegetarian

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

1 hour

Cook Time

2 hours

Passive Time

30 minutes

Servings

people

Ingredients

5 ounces ditalini pasta
21 ounces russet potatoes peeled and sliced ¼ inch thick
22 ounces small zucchini peeled and sliced ½ inch thick
2 pounds ripe tomatoes sliced ⅓ inch thick
1 cup tomato puree preferably homemade (see note)
3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
4 cloves garlic crushed
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
4-5 cloves garlic minced
1 tablespoon minced fresh rosemary
3 tablespoons minced fresh oregano
1/4 cup fresh basil cut into chiffonade
1/4 cup minced fresh parsley
1 cup breadcrumbs made from day old Italian or French bread
salt
black pepper freshly ground

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350°F.
Combine the olive oil and crushed garlic in a small sauté pan. Sauté garlic until lightly browned. Remove the garlic and reserve the oil.
Put the raw ditalini in the bottom of a deep, circular casserole, approximately 10 inches in diameter. The pasta should form a single layer with a fair amount of extra room for it to expand.
Add 2 tablespoons of Parmesan cheese, ¼ of the minced garlic, and 2 tablespoons of the garlic oil and mix well.
In a bowl, toss the sliced potatoes with half the rosemary, ⅓ of the oregano, ¼ of the basil, 2 tablespoons of Parmesan cheese, ¼ of the minced garlic, 2 tablespoons of the garlic oil, and a generous amount of salt and pepper.
Arrange the potatoes neatly in overlapping layers on top of the ditalini. Do not wash the bowl.
Season the tomato puree with salt and pour over the potatoes.
In the same bowl used for the potatoes, toss the zucchini with the remaining oregano, ¼ of the basil, the remaining rosemary, 2 tablespoons of Parmesan cheese, ¼ of the minced garlic, 2 tablespoons of the garlic oil, and a generous amount of salt and pepper.
Arrange the zucchini on top of the potatoes. Do not wash the bowl.
Neatly arrange half the tomatoes on top of the zucchini. Season with half the remaining minced garlic, half the remaining basil, and salt and pepper.
Arrange the remaining tomatoes on top and season with salt and pepper as well as the remaining garlic, basil, and all the parsley.
Put the tiella in the preheated oven.
Remove the crusts from several slices of day-old Italian or French bread. Whiz the bread in a food processor to make coarse crumbs.
While the tiella bakes, toss the breadcrumbs with the remaining garlic oil in the bowl used for the potatoes and zucchini.
After the tiella has baked for 90 minutes, sprinkle the oiled crumbs on top and bake till golden, approximately 30 minutes more.
Allow to rest at least 30 minutes before serving. The tiella can be served warm or at room temperature. It can also be reheated in the oven briefly before serving, if desired.

Recipe Notes

Here’s the link for my recipe for homemade tomato puree (passata di pomodoro).

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Recipes

Angie’s Pickled Hot Peppers

8 Comments

September 13, 2017

With one set of grandparents and many relatives hailing from Southern Italy, hot peppers and foods containing hot peppers were staple features of the cuisine I grew up eating.

Hot sausage, with fennel seed, was frequently on our table and, since it was often homemade by Uncle Joe Medile, it could be as hot as we wanted. When it wasn’t Uncle Joe’s sausage, it would typically have been from Lopresti’s Market in Geistown, a suburb of Johnstown, PA.

Spicy foods more often showed up at lunch, though. There was spicy salumi, including Calabrese salami, capocollo (of which there are several types but in our house it was always the spicy one), and sopressata, among others.

There were hot banana peppers fried until tender, usually with onions. The fried peppers could be a condiment or they could be used as the filling for a sandwich. Fried hot pepper sandwiches are still one of my favorite lunchtime treats!

There were various pickled, spicy vegetables like giardineria and pickled peppers of various types. These were usually store-bought except for my cousin Angie’s pickled hot peppers.

Angie is the daughter of my mother’s oldest sister. Angie, however, was born six months before my mother. It’s kind of interesting to think about the fact that my grandmother was pregnant with my mother at the same time that my grandmother’s daughter was pregnant with Angie.

Despite their inverted ages, Angie always called my mother Aunt Theresa.

Angie’s mom, my Aunt Rosie, died at a young age. I never knew her. Aunt Rosie’s husband, Uncle Dominic lived with their other daughter, Marie.

Uncle Dominic grew vegetables, including hot peppers, in the back yard. He’s the one who taught me about fried hot pepper sandwiches for which I am eternally grateful!

Usually I would make Angie’s Pickled Hot Peppers with Italian Banana Peppers but fresh New Mexico Green Chile is far more abundant in Santa Fe than Banana Peppers and the substitution works just fine. Years past, when we lived in Chicago and grew lots of peppers, I would even make these with jalapeno peppers.

These peppers are a breeze to make, just some slicing and dicing and pulling together a quick pickle. No actual canning or processing is required. They will keep for months and months in the refrigerator.

The recipe calls for a peck of peppers. A peck is an interesting measure. It is eight dry quarts. A dry quart, however, is not the same as a liquid quart (unless you use the British Imperial system in which case a dry quart and a liquid quart are the same volume but not the same volume as any quart used in America).

Confused? Oh how I wish we used the metric system!!!

A dry quart is slightly larger than a liquid quart. Eight dry quarts equals 9 1/3 liquid quarts. If you go to a farmers market, chances are you’ve seen produce displayed in baskets that are one peck in size. Not to worry, though. First off, the measurements aren’t that critical for this recipe, so plus or minus a quart (dry or liquid) isn’t a big deal. Second, if you have any type of large container, pot, or bucket marked in liquid measure, just fill it up a little beyond the 9 (liquid) quart mark and you’ll be good to go.

If you’re buying peppers in the supermarket and don’t want to carry a bucket to measure a peck, I suggest buying approximately four pounds of banana peppers. I found that amount of New Mexico Green Chile came very close to a peck when I measured it out.

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Angie's Pickled Hot Peppers

Though usually made with hot Italian Banana Peppers, I made this batch with hot New Mexico Green Chile which is far easier to source in Santa Fe than are large quantities of Banana Peppers. Four pounds of peppers should come pretty close to a peck. A peck is 8 dry quarts which is the equivalent of 9 1/3 liquid quarts. If there isn’t enough pickling liquid to fully submerge the peppers, make a little extra following the proportions in the recipe. These peppers will keep well in the refrigerator for many months. Try to let them mellow at least a couple of days before eating them…if you can!

Course

Canning and Preserving, Food Preservation

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

75 minutes

Passive Time

8 hours

Servings

quarts

Ingredients

1 peck hot banana peppers
6 stalks celery
1 quart apple cider vinegar
3 cups water
2 cups vegetable oil preferably canola
3 large cloves garlic minced
1/4 cup salt preferably canning and pickling salt
1/4 cup dry oregano

Course

Canning and Preserving, Food Preservation

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

75 minutes

Passive Time

8 hours

Servings

quarts

Ingredients

1 peck hot banana peppers
6 stalks celery
1 quart apple cider vinegar
3 cups water
2 cups vegetable oil preferably canola
3 large cloves garlic minced
1/4 cup salt preferably canning and pickling salt
1/4 cup dry oregano

Instructions

Wash and dry the peppers.
Cut off the stem ends.
Cut the peppers crosswise into rings a little more than 1/8 inch thick.
Cut the celery into ¼ inch dice.
In a non-reactive container large enough to hold all the ingredients, combine the vinegar, water, oil, garlic, salt, and oregano. Mix well.
Add the sliced peppers and diced celery.
Mix thoroughly. Cover and allow to sit at room temperature for 8 hours or overnight.
Using a slotted spoon, ladle the peppers and celery into clean jars.
Once the jars are filled, ladle the pickling liquid into the jars. Mix the liquid well with each ladleful so that you get the right proportions of vinegar/water and oil.
If there is not quite enough liquid to cover the peppers make a small amount more using the same proportions.
Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

Recipe Notes

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Recipes

Pasta con Salsa Cruda (Pasta with Uncooked Tomato Sauce)

Passata di Pomodoro (Homemade Tomato Puree)

4 Comments

September 4, 2017

Sometimes in the late summer my mother and Annie Castagnola would get together to “put up” tomatoes. I don’t really remember paying much attention to the process but I was fascinated by the jars and jars of red orbs sitting on an enamel table in Annie’s garage at the end of the day.

Annie lived in a jewel-box of a mid-century-modern house on a quiet residential street in Westmont, a suburb of Johnstown, PA where I grew up. She was always immaculately made-up, her hair coiffed, and frequently dressed in muumuus.

She was also a chain-smoker. There was a very large abalone shell on the coffee table on her side porch that served as a communal ashtray. I was always amazed at the number of cigarette butts that would collect in that shell over the course of a visit.

Though Annie was a very good cook, she was mostly known for her baking. Some of you may remember me mentioning her in an early blog about Totos, Italian Chocolate Spice Cookies.

Growing up we used a lot of canned tomatoes. My mother made her long-simmered Southern Italian Style Ragu most Sundays. Each batch used about a quart of canned tomatoes. The number of jars of tomatoes that my mother and Annie “put up” was nowhere near the 50 or so that would have been needed just to supply my family’s Sunday dinner table, let alone what Annie needed.

Those home-canned tomatoes, though, were a treat when they were used and a potent reminder of cultural heritage and a more agrarian family history.

These days I turn our home-grown tomatoes into passata (puree) rather than canning whole tomatoes. It’s easier. The results can be frozen successfully eliminating pressure canning at my 8000-foot elevation. And, since there aren’t enough home grown tomatoes to supply all of our tomato-product needs (canned tomatoes, tomato puree and tomato paste being the primary ones) I’ve opted for the most expedient option.

Though we had more tomato plants when we lived in Chicago, I still use the same field mix of canestrini, lunghi, and beefsteak tomatoes to make passata.

The canestrini, an heirloom variety, are grown from seeds that we brought back from Italy about 20 years ago. They were given to us by my husband’s Great Uncle Faliero (Great Aunt Fidalma’s husband). Every year, seeds are lovingly removed from several tomatoes, spread out on waxed paper, and allowed to dry. Since these are heirloom, and not hybrid, tomatoes, they breed true. The seeds are used to start the following year’s tomato seedlings.

Canestrini are meaty and don’t have an excess of jelly surrounding the seeds. They can also be ugly if one’s vision of a tomato is a perfectly formed red orb. The taste, however, is superior.

The lunghi seeds are imported from Italy and are available domestically as are the beefsteak tomato seeds. Mostly we grow the beefsteak tomatoes for eating but there are always more than enough so they get put into the field mix for the passata.

Making passata is really a breeze compared to canning whole tomatoes or making tomato paste. The tomatoes are washed, quartered, cored and coarsely chopped before being simmered into a pulp. They are then passed through an old-fashioned food mill, a step that only takes a few minutes, which eliminates the seeds and skin. They cook for about 2 ½ hours but it is mostly hands off other than the occasional stir.

Leaving the seeds and surrounding jelly in the chopped tomatoes means that the cooking time is a bit longer than it might otherwise be but there are two distinct advantages. Getting the tomatoes ready to cook is really quick. Perhaps more important, though, is that the jelly surrounding the seeds contains loads of naturally occurring glutamates which boost the savory “umami” quotient of the tomatoes.

If you have access to vine-ripe tomatoes, grab yourself 15 or 20 pounds and give this recipe a try. You won’t be sorry!

Click here for a video showing the process of making tomato puree.

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Passata di Pomodoro (Homemade Tomato Puree)

This easy-to-make tomato puree can be frozen for later use. It brings a blast of late-summer goodness to winter meals. Ten to 20 pounds of tomatoes is a good amount to start with. If you are planning on using more than 20 pounds, I would either divide the tomatoes among several pots or find an extra-wide rondeau (a wide shallow pot) so that there is enough surface area to foster evaporation.

Course

Canning and Preserving, Food Preservation

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

20 minutes

Cook Time

3 hours

Servings

quart

Ingredients

15-20 pounds vine-ripe tomatoes or however much you want
salt 1 teaspoon for each quart of chopped tomatoes

Course

Canning and Preserving, Food Preservation

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

20 minutes

Cook Time

3 hours

Servings

quart

Ingredients

15-20 pounds vine-ripe tomatoes or however much you want
salt 1 teaspoon for each quart of chopped tomatoes

Instructions

Wash and dry the tomatoes.
Cut the tomatoes into quarters from top to bottom.
Remove the hard bit where the stem attaches and any bad areas.
Coarsely chop the tomatoes.
Put the tomatoes into a heavy-bottomed, non-reactive pot (such as stainless steel).
Add one teaspoon of salt for every quart of chopped tomatoes.
Cover the pot and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. This will take approximately 10-20 minutes depending on volume of tomatoes.
Remove the cover. Stir the tomatoes.
Boil gently, uncovered, for 2 ½ to 2 ¾ hours, stirring every 15-20 minutes. It takes a bit of practice to estimate how much to concentrate the tomatoes to get the desired thickness of puree but don’t sweat it, the tomatoes can be cooked further.
Pass the cooked tomatoes through a food mill to remove skin and seeds.
If the puree seems too thin, return it to the pot and cook it a bit longer after passing it through the food mill.
Portion and freeze or use as desired.

Recipe Notes

A rondeau is useful if you are going to prepare more than 20 pounds of tomatoes as it provides more surface area for evaporation than a deep sauce pan.

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Recipes

Carne di Manzo in Umido (Thinly Sliced Beef in Tomato Caper Sauce)

9 Comments

August 30, 2017

As I am writing this, my husband’s Great Aunt Fidalma and cousin Massimo are visiting us from Tuscany. We’ve had quite a week of eating and drinking. Every night, actually, was something like a party. At the lowest head count we were 6, but more often 9, and once 20!

**From left to right: Massimo, me (holding Abby), my father-in-law, Zia Fidalma, Zia Ida, my mother-in-law.**

Last night I fried a bunch of zucchini flowers to accompany cocktails. Zia Fidalma made little elongated meatballs (polpette) with ground beef and mortadella seasoned with onions, garlic, and herbs. I made risotto with mushrooms and my mother-in-law made long-simmered green beans in tomato sauce, something like my green beans in tomato sauce with bacon.

**Risotto with Mushrooms, Meatballs, Green Beans in Tomato Sauce**

While we were sitting at the table after dinner doing what Italians do (talking about growing food, talking about preparing food, talking about food we’ve eaten, and talking about the next meal) Zia Fidalma started to describe a dish of thinly sliced beef cooked in tomato sauce with capers.

“Carne di Manzo in Umido!” I said. She concurred.

I told her that Carne di Manzo in Umido was, in fact, the long-planned blog post for Wednesday.

It is a dish I had at her home in Tuscany about 20 years ago. I wrote down the recipe in a combination of English and Italian and American and Metric measures sitting at her kitchen table. It took me a while to get it right but I think I’ve nailed it.

Here’s a quick rundown of the food we’ve had over the past week:

August 23rd: Pasta with Zucchini, Chicken Thighs braised in Red Wine and Balsamic Vinegar, Salad, Cherries in Brandy, Homemade Limoncello, and Homemade Bay Leaf Liqueur (being posted in October).

August 24th: Tiella (being posted in September), Grilled Hot and Sweet Italian Sausage, Grilled Broccolini drizzled with Olive Oil, and more Cherries in Brandy, Homemade Limoncello, and Homemade Bay Leaf Liqueur.

August 25th: Zia Fidalma’s Rouladen (German, I know, but Zia Fidalma lived in Germany for many years), Mashed Potatoes, Corn on the Cob and, you guessed it, more Cherries in Brandy, Homemade Limoncello, and Homemade Bay Leaf Liqueur.

**Zia Fidalma making the filling for her rouladen**

**A watchful eye on the cooking rouladen**

**Zia Fidalma and a platter of rouladen**

**Me making mashed potatoes (with a side of bourbon)**

August 26th (for 20 people): A Massive Antipasto Platter thanks to cousins Paul and Kim Phillips (and a shopping spree at Cheesemongers of Santa Fe), Baked Penne with Ham, Peas, Mushrooms and Roasted Garlic Besciamella, Porchetta, Corn Sautéed in Butter, Sformato di Spinaci, and Italian Almond Torta with Raspberries and Plum Crostata (thanks to Rich DePippo). Then there were those ever-present Cherries in Brandy, Homemade Limoncello, and Homemade Bay Leaf Liqueur.

**Kim and Paul fortify themselves at the Santa Fe Farmers Market before heading off to a marathon shopping session at Cheesemongers of Santa Fe**

**Baked Penne with Ham, Peas, Mushrooms and Roasted Garlic Besciamella**

**Almond Torta with Raspberries and Plum Crostata**

August 27th brought some sanity as we had leftovers from the 26th. (We could still feed a small army with the remains of Paul and Kim’s Antipasto Shopping Spree.)

August 28th: As described above, meatballs, risotto, and green beans.

I neglected to mention that we went through cases of wine and then there was a dark chocolate cake from Chocolate Maven Bakery in Santa Fe that kept making its appearance most nights right before we broke out those cherries.

Eating will slow down a bit now that the relatives have left. As I finish writing this the house is perfumed from a large pot of chicken broth that will get portioned and frozen ready to be pulled out of the freezer in the coming weeks for wave after wave of risotto made with the freshest vegetables the market has to offer.

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Carne di Manzo in Umido

Thinly sliced beef is browned and then simmered in the barest amount of tomato sauce with an array of herbs. A bit of capers round out the flavors.

Course

Mains, Meats

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

20 minutes

Cook Time

2 hours

Passive Time

1 hour

Servings

people

Ingredients

2 1/4 pounds sirloin or round steak sliced approximately 1/8 inch thick
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
4 cloves garlic
1 cup tomato puree
1/4 cup dry red wine
4-5 sage leaves preferably fresh
2 sprigs rosemary or 1/2 teaspoon dry
2 sprigs oregano or 1/2 teaspoon dry
1 teaspoon fresh nepita or substitute 1/3 teaspoon of dried thyme
2 bay leaves preferably fresh
3 1/2 teaspoons salt divided
black pepper freshly ground to taste
1-2 chile peppers optional
1/4 cup salted capers

Course

Mains, Meats

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

20 minutes

Cook Time

2 hours

Passive Time

1 hour

Servings

people

Ingredients

2 1/4 pounds sirloin or round steak sliced approximately 1/8 inch thick
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
4 cloves garlic
1 cup tomato puree
1/4 cup dry red wine
4-5 sage leaves preferably fresh
2 sprigs rosemary or 1/2 teaspoon dry
2 sprigs oregano or 1/2 teaspoon dry
1 teaspoon fresh nepita or substitute 1/3 teaspoon of dried thyme
2 bay leaves preferably fresh
3 1/2 teaspoons salt divided
black pepper freshly ground to taste
1-2 chile peppers optional
1/4 cup salted capers

Instructions

Herbs, clockwise from top right: nepita, bay leaf, sage, rosemary, oregano.
Combine the flour and 1 ½ teaspoons of salt. Mix well.
Pound the steak lightly with a mallet.
Season the steak with salt and pepper. Cut the pieces in half if they are too large after pounding.
Dredge the steak in the seasoned flour and reserve. It is best to do this about an hour in advance as the flour will adhere to the meat better.
Bruise the garlic with the side of a large chef’s knife.
Put a thin film of olive oil on the bottom of a very large sauté pan. Heat over medium high heat.
When hot, add as much of the beef as will fit without crowding in a single layer. Add half the garlic.
Sauté the meat and garlic until the meat is browned on both sides.
Remove the browned meat to a platter. Repeat with the remaining meat and garlic, in however many batches are needed.
If the garlic starts to turn dark brown, remove it or it will become bitter.
When all the meat is browned return it to the pan with any accumulated juices. Leave the cooking oil in the pan.
Try to arrange the meat so that the pieces overlap rather than putting one piece of meat directly on top of another.
Add all the other ingredients except the capers.
Cover and simmer gently until meat is tender flipping the meat every 20 minutes or so. It will take at about one and one-half to two hours to get the meat tender depending on the cut and your elevation.
Add water from time to time if the sauce boils away.
Rinse the salt off the capers and add them during last five minutes of cooking. Taste and adjust salt and pepper.
There should be a very small amount of sauce along with oil that is red from the tomato. Do not remove the oil, it adds significantly to the mouthfeel of the sauce.