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Carciofi e Patate (Artichokes and Potatoes)

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January 13, 2021

January 7th is International Porchetta Day.

It was declared so by the participants in a charcuterie class at the Italian Culinary Institute in January 2019.

There is a private Facebook group of individuals who subscribe to the cult of porchetta.  We agree to make porchetta annually on January 7th.

The charcuterie class in question began on January 7, 2019, one week before my three-month Master of Italian Cuisine course began.  I made a point of getting to Italy early, really early, as I didn’t want to find myself in class with a sharp knife in my hand the day after landing, jetlagged from a 29-hour trip and an eight-hour time change.

A traditional porchetta at a street fair in Bagni di Lucca.

I arrived the evening of January 8th, almost a week before my course started. I was invited to go to dinner with the charcuterie class.  I described that first chaotic day in my first dispatch from Calabria.

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The next day, Chef John invited me to sit in on the charcuterie class.  Although not officially part of the class, I shared meals and course time with the group.

When International Porchetta Day was declared, with the date matching the first day of the charcuterie course, I became a member.

Traditionally porchetta is made with a whole pig, and not a small suckling pig, but a BIG one!

Roasted cauliflower is an easy and dramatic side dish.

When porchetta is made at home, it’s done with a smaller cut of meat.  I use the shoulder, aka Boston Butt.  At the Italian Culinary Institute, they use two cuts, the capo collo and a pork belly.  The capo collo is a long muscle group in the shoulder that, in essence, is a large cylinder.  The shoulder, and by extension the capo collo, contain beautiful marbling that makes a luscious roast.

At the Italian Culinary Institute, the belly is rolled around the capo collo.  The fat of the belly protects the capo collo.  It also makes a beautiful presentation.  It also adds about 8 pounds to the weight of the roast.  So, unless you’re cooking for a very large crowd, using the shoulder alone will more than likely be ample.

Given the limitations of the lock-down in Palm Springs where I’ve been sheltering in place, six of us, members of our COVID Pod, celebrated International Porchetta Day.

My porchetta ready for the serving platter.

Porchetta was obviously the centerpiece of the meal and I made my traditional version.  Here’s a link to my Porchetta recipe.

I focused on side dishes that would compliment the roast and settled on a whole roasted cauliflower and a Roman dish called Carciofi e Patate (artichokes and potatoes).  For dessert we had an Olive Oil Cake.

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Carciofi e Patate is traditionally made with whole artichokes, lots of them!  In season, one can buy 12 artichokes for €1 in Italy!  That’s right, about 10¢ each!!! I once used 12 artichokes when I made the dish as part of Easter Dinner.  I spent more than $50 on artichokes for that one dish.  Clearly when Italians describe the dish as “economical” they have no idea about artichoke prices in the United States.

Artichokes in a market in Calabria.

While I prefer the dish made with fresh artichokes, I won’t do that again until I’m in Italy during artichoke season.  Frozen artichokes work well and are much more budget-friendly.

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 Carciofi e Patate (Artichokes and Potatoes)
Carciofi e Patate is a classic Roman recipe. It pairs well with most roasts.
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Course Potatoes and Other Tubers, Vegetables
Cuisine Italian
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 45 minutes
Servings
people
Ingredients
Course Potatoes and Other Tubers, Vegetables
Cuisine Italian
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 45 minutes
Servings
people
Ingredients
Votes: 0
Rating: 0
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Instructions
  1. Peel potatoes and cut in 8 wedges unless the potatoes are very large or very small.
  2. Brown the potatoes in the three tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil in a large sauté pan over high heat.
  3. When the potatoes are well-browned, reduce the heat to medium. Add half the onions and garlic.
  4. Sauté until the onion is golden.
  5. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Add approximately ½ cup of water. Cover and cook on medium heat until cooked through, adding more water as needed, approximately 25 minutes. There should be no water left when the potatoes are cooked.
  6. Meanwhile, sauté the remaining onions and garlic in the remaining extra-virgin olive oil in a sauté pan.
  7. When the onions are golden, add the artichokes and salt and pepper to taste. Sauté briefly.
  8. Add white wine, cover and braise until barely tender, approximately 10 minutes. The artichokes will cook further with the potatoes so do not over-cook them.
  9. Add artichokes to the pan with the potatoes.
  10. Sauté, uncovered, about 10 minutes longer, to meld flavors. Adjust salt and pepper.
  11. Stir in parsley and serve.
Recipe Notes

Copyright © 2021 by Villa Sentieri, LLC. All rights reserved.

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Recipes

Mom’s Potatoes with Tomato Sauce

2 Comments

July 19, 2017

Pasta.  Potatoes.  Bread.

I crave carbohydrates.  I can go about three to four days without eating pasta before I start to really crave it.

Funny, because we only had pasta about once or twice a week while I was growing up.

We did, however, have potatoes on many of the intervening days.

Sometimes we’d have gnocchi (little pasta dumplings made with potatoes and flour) or pierogi (pasta stuffed with potatoes)!  Though there are many other pierogi fillings, potato and cheese was the preferred variation in our house.

Once, when I hadn’t been home from college for a while, I asked my mom to make either pierogi or baba (sometimes Anglicized to bubba) for me for dinner.  She made both.  There wasn’t a piece of meat in sight.  She knew me all too well.  Meanwhile, the two college friends who came home with me were aghast at the absence of meat…and vegetables for that matter!

Americans, by and large, are not protein deficient so the occasional meal without meat or another major protein source isn’t an issue.

My mom’s potatoes with tomato sauce were usually served alongside sausage.  Typically, it would be hot Italian fennel sausage that was browned in a skillet then braised slowly with some water to tenderize it.

If we were having kielbasa, the second most common sausage in our house, my mom would make a version of these potatoes without the tomato sauce.  She’d get the potatoes good and brown and then cover the pan for a bit to trap the moisture and tenderize the potatoes without making them mushy.

Since my mom made a big pot of slow-cooked Southern Italian sugo most every Sunday, there was a ready supply of homemade tomato sauce for these potatoes.  In my house, unfortunately, I don’t make that kind of sauce often enough (though I plan on changing that) and it always seems like a luxury to use some of it for these potatoes as opposed to putting the sauce on pasta.

I have found, however, that my uncooked pizza sauce works well.  In a pinch canned or bottled tomato puree is good too (or even one of those 8 ounce cans of tomato “sauce”).  If using canned puree, add a pinch or two of oregano for flavor.

While Italian versions of potatoes cooked in tomato sauce usually end up being more “saucy,” this Italian-American version turns the tomato sauce into little more than a coating on the potatoes.

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 Mom's Potatoes with Tomato Sauce
This variation on home-fried potatoes was common in our house. Cooking potatoes in tomato sauce is very Italian but this variation, which includes bell pepper and onion, and where the tomato sauce is basically cooked away, is more Italian-American. The tomato sauce could be leftover homemade pasta sauce (without meat) or pizza sauce. It can also be canned tomato puree. If using puree, I suggest adding a few pinches of dried oregano for flavor.
Votes: 1
Rating: 5
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Course Potatoes and Other Tubers, Sides
Cuisine Italian
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 75 minutes
Servings
people
Ingredients
Course Potatoes and Other Tubers, Sides
Cuisine Italian
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 75 minutes
Servings
people
Ingredients
Votes: 1
Rating: 5
You:
Rate this recipe!
Instructions
  1. Peel the potatoes. Cut them crosswise into ¼ inch thick slices.
  2. Cut the bell pepper into 1/3 inch dice.
  3. Dice the onion.
  4. Heat oil over medium-high heat in a 12 inch skillet.
  5. When the oil is hot, add the potatoes. The potatoes should start sizzling immediately. Season the potatoes with 1 teaspoon of salt and a generous amount of freshly ground black pepper. Do not stir the potatoes just yet.
  6. Allow the potatoes to brown on the bottom.
  7. These are getting browner on the bottom but not ready to turn yet.
  8. When the potatoes on the bottom have turned golden brown, use a spatula to flip and separate them.
  9. When approximately 1/3 of the potatoes are browned, add the bell pepper.
  11. Continue cooking, allowing the potatoes on the bottom to brown more before flipping and separating, until about ½ of the potatoes are browned and the bell pepper is just beginning to char.
  12. Add the onion.
  14. Continue cooking until the potatoes are nicely browned and the onion is golden. Adjust the heat as needed to prevent the potatoes and onions from burning, though a few dark spots won’t be a problem.
  15. Taste and adjust salt and pepper.
  16. Add the tomato sauce to the potatoes. Mix well.
  17. Reduce the heat to low and cook, uncovered, until the potatoes are tender, but not mushy, stirring occasionally. Approximately 45-60 minutes more. The tomato sauce should have pretty much completely evaporated, leaving the potatoes coated in red.
  18. The potatoes ready to serve.
Recipe Notes

Copyright © 2017 by VillaSentieri.com. All rights reserved.

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Recipes

Slovak Potato Cake (Baba or Bubba)

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June 7, 2017

Baba was a favorite food in our house.  We often joked that my mother should open a shop selling pizza and baba.  We were convinced it would be a success, as were a number of family friends.

Although Johnstown, Pennsylvania, where I grew up, was originally founded by Germans (everyone, regardless of ethnic background, had sauerkraut, sausages, and pork on New Year’s Day), Italians and Eastern Europeans were among the largest ethnic groups when I lived there.  So, a “fusion” shop selling pizza and baba wasn’t so far-fetched!

Baba means old woman in Slovak.  I can’t tell you how it came to be applied to this very specific type of potato cake and whether it was just in our family or more widespread, though I suspect the latter.

Other than the crispy skin of our Thanksgiving turkey, this is the only food my sister and I fought over.  This, however, was three-way guerilla warfare also involving my father.  Crispy turkey skin has an immediacy about it.  It needs to be eaten right away, hot and crispy, or it loses its appeal.  The fight is right out there in the open, a virtual “land grab.”

Baba is different.  As good as it is freshly made, we all preferred it after a day or two.  Any leftover baba would be wrapped in aluminum foil and put in the oven, which had a pilot light way back then.  That kept it ever so slightly warmer than room temperature.  The baba would become chewy.

The natural tension that developed was between letting the baba mature till it had the optimum chewiness versus losing out entirely if someone else ate it first.

We all kept our eyes on the oven which was conveniently located at eye-level.  If it looked like the package had been disturbed, we could swing into action, grabbing what was left and eating it even if it didn’t have the optimum chew.  “Any baba is better than no baba” was definitely the operative mentality.

There was always the chance, however, that the first person to go for the baba would eat all of it, especially if there were only a few pieces left.

There was also the chance (sometimes turned into reality) that someone could deftly open the package, remove a piece of baba, close the package, and put it back in the oven it in a way that made it look undisturbed.  Well implemented, this was a strategy for getting more baba since others could be lulled into complacency thinking the cache of baba was still available to them for the taking.

The ingredients of baba are pretty standard potato cake fare, potatoes, onions, salt, pepper, flour and, depending on the cook, egg.  Two things make it unusual in my experience: caraway seed and the cooking method.  To be sure, Slovaks put caraway seed in lots of foods but I have yet to find a recipe for Slovak potato cakes that contains caraway seed.

As for cooking method, baba is cooked in the oven in a rimmed baking sheet.  Remembering that my grandparents raised seven sons, who in later years were augmented by daughters-in-law and grandchildren, baba was made in large quantities.  When there wasn’t enough batter to fill another baking sheet “to the thickness of your finger,” as my Aunt Mary would say, the remaining batter would be turned into individual potato “pancakes” in a frying pan in shallow oil.

The proportions given here will nicely fill an 11” by 17” baking sheet.  If you prefer to fry the potato cakes rather than bake them, by all means do!

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 Slovak Potato Cake (Baba)
I remember watching my mother make this, and learning from her. Though it always tasted the same in the end, it seemed like the lack of precise measurements was an issue. My mother had no difficulty cooking her regular canon of Italian food without measurements. My suspicion is that the issue with Baba is that she didn’t make it all that often. I make it even less often (though I think that’s changing) which prompted me to carefully measure ingredients until I got a perfect batch and then stick with those measurements going forward. My mother put an egg in her Baba. My Aunt Mary did not. Aunt Mary, who lived next door to my Slovak grandparents for years, insists that Grandma never used egg. I have not tried it without the egg, being happy to stick with a recipe that works. Before food processors, the potatoes and onion were grated on the fine side of a box grater. The food processor eliminates the most tedious part of making Baba.
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Course Potatoes and Other Tubers, Sides
Cuisine Slovak
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour
Servings
people
Ingredients
Course Potatoes and Other Tubers, Sides
Cuisine Slovak
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour
Servings
people
Ingredients
Votes: 0
Rating: 0
You:
Rate this recipe!
Instructions
  1. Peel the potatoes. Rinse and dry them and cut into 1 inch cubes.
  2. Weigh out 1600 grams (3 ½ pounds) of potato cubes.
  3. Cut onion into 1 inch chunks.
  4. In two or three batches, depending on the size of your food processor, thoroughly grind the potato and onion, putting some potato and some onion in each batch.
  5. Put the ground potatoes and onions into a large mixing bowl. Add the lightly beaten egg, salt, black pepper, and caraway seed.
  6. Mix well.
  7. Stir in about ¾ of the flour. Add enough of the remaining flour to thickly coat a spoon. Chances are you will need all the flour. If in doubt, just add it.
  9. Very, very generously grease an 11” x 17” x 1” baking sheet with lard. After you think you’ve used enough, add more! Remember, most potato cakes are fried. These are baked. They definitely need some fat for texture.
  10. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Dot very generously with lard.
  11. Bake 425°F until browned on the bottom, about 30-40 minutes, turning the pan front to back after 20 minutes.
  12. When the bottom is brown, you’ll need to flip the Baba upside down. To do this, set another baking sheet of the same size on top of the Baba. The bottom of the baking sheet should be sitting on top of the Bubba.
  13. Flip the pans over. If you had enough lard in the pan, the Baba should release from the pan and be sitting, upside down, on the bottom of the other baking pan.
  14. Slide the Baba back into the original baking pan with the browned bottom now facing up.
  15. Bake another 20 minutes or so until browned on the bottom and thoroughly cooked.
  16. Turn out of the pan onto a large cutting board.
  17. Cut into 16 pieces. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Recipe Notes

Although you can use solid vegetable shortening in this recipe, I suggest you use lard for better taste and better health. You can find information about lard vs. vegetable shortening in this post.

Copyright © 2017 by VillaSentieri.com. All rights reserved.

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