Melanzane al Forno (Eggplant Baked with Parmesan Cheese)

Name: Melanzane al Forno (Eggplant Baked with Parmesan Cheese)
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 1 h
Yield: 6-8 people
Ingredients: 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil; 4 cloves garlic (bruised); 2-3 medium eggplant (approximately 1 pound each); salt (to taste); Freshly ground black pepper (to taste); 1 cup freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese (or to taste); 3 tablespoons unsalted butter (melted, plus more for buttering the pan)

7 Comments

January 4, 2020

Growing up I didn’t like eggplant. I didn’t much care for zucchini, either. Or kale.

Things are a whole lot different now.

As an adult, I basically haven’t met a vegetable I don’t like, though, naturally, I like some more than others.

As with zucchini, eggplants seem to defy the season. They’re available year-round and the quality is consistent. Just look for firm, shiny ones with no soft spots or wrinkled skin and you’re basically guaranteed of getting a good eggplant.

**Eggplants on the vine (Photo: Joydeep / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0).**

Eggplant is a versatile vegetable. It can be braised, baked, sautéed, fried and steamed … and probably cooked by any other method you can think of.

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Eggplant will sop up any flavor that you pair with it. It will also sop up large amounts of oil so one needs to be cautious about frying large pieces of eggplant in abundant oil. Thin slices of eggplant can be floured and fried to great advantage, however.

Years ago, eggplant could be bitter but that trait has basically been bred out of the modern varieties one commonly encounters. The bitterness led cooks to salt and drain the eggplant to remove bitter juices. While this is no longer strictly necessary for control of bitterness it is still a great technique to reduce moisture content which is useful for some preparations.

America’s Test Kitchen (the organization behind Cook’s Illustrated and Cook’s Country) has developed a method for removing water from eggplant using the microwave. I have lots of cooking equipment and have no qualms about using newer technology in place of older technology to simplify food prep. However, I want the newer technology be a natural evolution from the older technology as a way to preserve (but improve) traditional food preparation. For example, before food processors, one would “mush up” food as much as possible then put it through a sieve. Food processors do a much better (and faster) job of “mushing,” sometimes to the point that the sieving step isn’t necessary.

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To me, that’s evolutionary. It’s a more efficient way of getting to the same outcome but staying true to the traditional method. Blasting eggplant in the microwave in place of salting it is not.

**Beautiful eggplants ready to be made into something yummy.**

While I have great respect for the rigor of America’s Test Kitchen, some of their hacks and shortcuts really trouble me from the standpoint of maintaining and transmitting traditional foodways. Using V-8 juice in minestrone in place of tomato is an example.

With salting, rather than microwaving, we’ll proceed to today’s recipe, It’s a very straightforward baked eggplant with Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. Somehow it manages to be WAY more than the sum of its parts. I urge you to try it, even if you think you don’t like eggplant.

Melanzane al Forno (Eggplant Baked with Parmesan Cheese)

Eggplant can absorb huge quantities of oil. This method of cooking limits the amount of oil the eggplant absorbs, making it lighter. The eggplant finishes its cooking in the oven, which eliminates last minute frying just before serving dinner. Individual portions can be made by cutting the eggplant into rounds that fit inside of small ramekins.

Course

Sides, Vegetables

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

30 minutes

Cook Time

1 hour

Passive Time

1 hour

Servings

people

Ingredients

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
4 cloves garlic bruised
2-3 medium eggplant approximately 1 pound each
salt to taste
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 cup freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese or to taste
3 tablespoons unsalted butter melted, plus more for buttering the pan

Course

Sides, Vegetables

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

30 minutes

Cook Time

1 hour

Passive Time

1 hour

Servings

people

Ingredients

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
4 cloves garlic bruised
2-3 medium eggplant approximately 1 pound each
salt to taste
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 cup freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese or to taste
3 tablespoons unsalted butter melted, plus more for buttering the pan

Instructions

Peel the eggplant and cut crosswise into rounds ½ inch thick.
Liberally salt the eggplant slices on both slides and put them in a colander.
Set a weight on top of the egglant (such as a plate with a heavy can on top) and allow to drain for one hour.
Meanwhile, gently sauté the garlic in the olive oil on low heat until the garlic is golden brown.
Remove the oil from the heat. Discard the garlic and reserve the oil.
Rinse the eggplant. Blot dry.
Butter an ovenproof serving dish (or individual ramekins if making individual portions).
Coat the bottom of a large sauté pan with 1-2 tablespoons of the garlic-flavored oil. A non-stick pan works best but a well-seasoned ordinary sauté pan will work fine. When the oil is very hot add one layer of eggplant slices. Cook until nicely browned being careful not to burn the eggplant which will make it bitter.
When browned on one side turn the eggplant slices over. You may need to drizzle a little oil into the pan to keep the eggplant from sticking. The eggplant should still be firm in the center. It will complete its cooking in the oven.
When the second side is brown put the eggplant in a buttered ovenproof serving dish, preferably one with a cover.
Lightly salt the eggplant. Sprinkle with freshly ground black pepper to taste and some of the grated Parmigiano. Repeat layering eggplant, pepper and cheese until all the eggplant is used up.
Finish with grated Parmigiano. Drizzle with the melted butter.
Cover and bake at 350°F for approximately 30 minutes. Uncover and continue baking for 10-15 minutes to brown the top.

Recipe Notes

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Recipes

Zucchini in Umido

2 Comments

December 19, 2019

I try to cook seasonally.

That means no stone fruit or corn on the cob in the winter. For the most part that means no tomatoes either, though I do make an exception for cherry and grape tomatoes which seem to taste about the same year-round and provide a burst of color and sweetness—if not a robust tomato taste—in the dead of winter.

Certain things defy the season. Take zucchini. Yes, they’re the quintessential summer crop (sometimes growing to the size of baseball bats in the hands of inattentive growers) but they show up all year-round, much like bananas do.

**Zucchini in Umido bubbling away on Zia Fidalma’s stove in Tuscany.**

I know that means they get shipped from “somewhere else” when they’re not in season locally but, for the most part, they taste good all year (unlike, say, peaches which don’t usually taste good if not grown locally and in season).

There’s also a limit to the number of cold-season vegetables that one can eat through the winter.

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Part of the problem is solved by canning, preserving, and freezing and, if not your own or a friend’s, commercially available canned, preserved, and frozen produce. Let’s face it, eating seasonally traditionally included consuming all those products that were “put up” when they were at the height of season.

**Maria making a large batch of tomato puree (passata) at her home in Calabria.**

Though some of us conserve produce, few of us do enough to meet our needs throughout the lean winter months. I have no objection to using good quality commercially “conserved” foods. What I don’t use are convenience or premade foods.

Though I enjoy and prefer to make my own tomato puree (passata), we don’t produce enough of our own tomatoes to make a year’s supply (and I haven’t been overly impressed with what’s available in the market in sufficient and affordable quantity to make up the difference).

I do what I can, however, for example making passata when our tomatoes are at their best; candying citrus peels from the trees in our neighborhood in Palm Springs in the winter; making cherry leaf aperitif in the fall; and, in those rare years when Santa Fe has an abundance of peaches and apricots, making jam.

**The early stages of making cherry leaf aperitif.**

I “conserve” other produce as well like making hot chile oil (“olio santo”) when we have enough peperoncini, making limoncello and arancello from oranges and lemons in Palm Springs, and putting fresh (like cherries) and dried (like prunes) fruits in various types of spirits.

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My prohibition on using “prepared foods,” though is pretty definite. I’ll use good quality canned, peeled tomatoes from Italy but (unless my back is up against the wall as sometimes happens when I have limited shopping venues like when we’re on Fire Island) I don’t use canned commercial diced or crushed tomatoes or tomato puree. My view, and, granted, it might be wrong, is that the best quality tomatoes go into the cans of “whole, peeled” tomatoes, not into the ones that are ground, diced, or pureed.

In a matter of minutes, a can of whole peeled tomatoes can be turned into any of the other products. It also means that, other than tomato paste, I only need to stock up on one tomato product. OK, OK, so I have two types of peeled, whole tomatoes. Both are from Italy but one is San Marzano and the other is a plum tomato that’s not San Marzano. I use the less expensive non-San-Marzano-but-still-Italian tomatoes when the dish I am making would be indistinguishable with either type.

In December, zucchini are a welcome addition to mealtime, a situation that is difficult to imagine during the fall harvest season when zucchini seem to be coming from all directions.

Zucchini in Umido

Pommarola, a simple tomato sauce made with tomatoes, basil and garlic is ideal in this dish. See the notes section for a link to my Basic Tomato Sauce. If pommarola, or a similar simple tomato sauce is not available, substitute good-quality tomato puree. If using puree, I suggest adding a few basil leaves, finely chopped. Niepita is difficult to obtain outside of Italy but if you want to try to find seeds, look for it using the southern Italian name of "Mentuccia Romana" rather than the Tuscan name of niepita. Though the flavor is different, 1 teaspoon of dried oregano is a good alternative.

Course

Sides, Vegetables

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

15 minutes

Cook Time

30 minutes

Servings

persons

Ingredients

4 medium zucchini
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
4 cloves garlic coarsely chopped
1 tablespoon chopped fresh niepita or to taste
3/4 cup pommarola or other simple tomato sauce
1 1/2 cups water
salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Course

Sides, Vegetables

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

15 minutes

Cook Time

30 minutes

Servings

persons

Ingredients

4 medium zucchini
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
4 cloves garlic coarsely chopped
1 tablespoon chopped fresh niepita or to taste
3/4 cup pommarola or other simple tomato sauce
1 1/2 cups water
salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

Partially peel the zucchini, leaving alternating stripes of peel and no peel.
Cut the zucchini into largish pieces. You can do this by quartering them lengthwise and then cutting crosswise or by doing a rotating angular cut. You should have approximately 2 pounds of cut-up zucchini.
Sauté the garlic in olive oil until it begins to color.
Add zucchini. Season with salt, and pepper. Increase the heat to high and sauté until the garlic golden brown and the zucchini has turned from white to creamy in color, approximately 5 minutes.
Add the tomato sauce, water, niepita, and salt and pepper to taste.
Cook at a moderate boil, uncovered, until the sauce is thick and the zucchini is tender but not mushy. Adjust salt and pepper while cooking.

Recipe Notes

You can find my recipe for Basic Tomato Sauce here.

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Recipes

Sancarlin: A Cheese Spread from Piemonte

2 Comments

December 13, 2019

Back at home, after spending five months in Italy this year expanding my culinary skills and repertoire, we settled on a technique to keep the process going.

Each month we randomly select a region of Italy by pulling a slip of paper out of a jar. For a month, unless there is an overriding reason, I cook all our dinners using traditional recipes of that region.

**Small, dried spicy red peppers (peperoncini) from our garden add zip to many dishes.**

The first region we selected was Piemonte (Piedmont).

Piemonte is in far northwestern Italy. It borders France and the cuisine shows a definite French influence.

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Piemonte is one of the coldest regions of Italy. Since the climate is not conducive to growing olives, animal fats, such as butter and lard are commonly used. There are some dishes, however, that use olive oil based on historic trade between Piemonte and neighboring Liguria.

Piemontese foods tend to be hearty and rich, appropriate to the colder climate, especially in the mountainous areas.

**Two of the Piemontese cookbooks that I relied on for the month of cooking Piemontese food.**

Our month of eating the foods of Piemonte included:

Bagna Cauda (anchovy, butter and olive oil dip for vegetables)
Brasato di Manzo in Barolo (beef braised in barolo wine)
Budino Freddo Gianduia (chocolate hazelnut cakes… literally “pudding”)
Cipolline d’Ivrea (braised pearl onions with white wine and butter)
La Panissa (risotto made with borlotti beans and some sort of cured meat)
Patate ai Capperi (potatoes and capers)
Peperoni e Pomodori alla Bagna Cauda (sweet peppers and tomatoes with anchovies)
Polenta e Fontina in Torta (layers of sliced polenta and fontina cheese baked together)
Pollo con Acciughe e Peperoni Arostiti (chicken with anchovies and roasted peppers)
Pollo in Fricassea Bianca (chicken braised in milk)
Risotto al Gorgonzola (risotto with gorgonzola cheese)
Sancarlin (a cheese dip and/or sauce)
Spinaci alla Piemontese (spinach with anchovies and garlic)
Tajarin con Gorgonzola e Ricotta (long pasta with a sauce of ricotta and gorgonzola)
Tajarin e Zucchine (long pasta with zucchini, garlic, and Grana Padano cheese)

As you’ll note, these are almost all substantial dishes. And it’s not as if I purposely chose dishes that were hearty. Almost all of the cuisine of Piemonte shares this characteristic.

Piemonte is famous for truffles. I avoided dishes with truffles as they were out of season the month I cooked Piemontese food. Good ones are also very expensive. Plus, I ate mountains of them while at the Italian Culinary Institute this year.

**Two excellent regional Italian cookbooks. It’s amazing how different the array of recipes is for the same region.**

Piemonte is also known for hazelnuts and for the combination of hazelnuts and chocolate, the most famous brand of which is Nutella. Note that the one Piemontese dessert that I made during the month (only one because I’m still working off the weight I gained over five months in Italy earlier this year!) is a combination of chocolate and hazelnuts which is generally known as gianduja or gianduia.

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Piemonte is one of the great wine-producing regions of Italy. It is known for Barolo, Barbaresco, and Asti, among others.

Sancarlin (Piemontese dialect for San Carlo) is a spread or dip made from cheese. It’s great as part of an antipasto with grissini (breadsticks), another Piemontese food.

**If you cannot find artisanal ricotta (check a cheese shop), Polly-O is among the best of the supermarket brands that I have tasted.**

Sancarlin is also excellent tossed with diced boiled potatoes and served as a contorno (side dish). How many times can I say “hearty” in the same blog post?

If any of the Piemontese dishes that I mentioned above interests you, and you’d like me to post a recipe, just leave a note in the comment section below and I’ll schedule it.

**Though not traditional, goat cheese adds complexity to the Sancarlin that would otherwise be provided by the traditionally used sheep’s milk ricotta.**

Sancarlin: A Cheese Spread from Piemonte

Sancarlin is traditionally made with ricotta di pecora, sheep’s milk ricotta. It is nearly impossible to find sheep’s milk ricotta in the United States. You will get good results with a high-quality cow’s milk ricotta. Though not traditional, you can add an ounce or two of soft goat cheese to the recipe to increase the complexity of the dish. If you have access to sheep’s milk (which I don’t in northern New Mexico), and you feel ambitious, you can make your own ricotta! A link to my recipe is in the Notes section below. Adjust the amount of garlic and red pepper to taste. Serve with grissini, crostini, focaccia or tossed with boiled potatoes

Course

Spreads and Relishes

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

15 minutes

Servings

cup

Ingredients

8 ounces best quality ricotta preferably artisanal
2 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 dried hot red peppers preferably Italian
salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Course

Spreads and Relishes

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

15 minutes

Servings

cup

Ingredients

8 ounces best quality ricotta preferably artisanal
2 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 dried hot red peppers preferably Italian
salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

Finely mince the garlic and combine with the olive oil. You can do this by processing the garlic and oil in a small food processor.
If using the goat cheese, add it to the processor after the garlic has been minced and whiz to blend everything.
Finely crush the red peppers and blend with the garlic mixture.
Combine the garlic mixture with the ricotta and mix well.
Adjust salt and pepper to taste.
Refrigerate, tightly covered, for two days before using for the best flavor.

Recipe Notes

If you want to make your own ricotta, you can find my recipe here.

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Recipes

Spiedini (Italian Skewered Meat and Vegetables)

6 Comments

November 20, 2019

Spiedini means skewers. By extension it also refers to food cooked on skewers.

**Zia Fidalma’s spiedini ready to be served. The extra cut-up vegetables were roasted along with the spiedini.**

There is evidence that humans cooked food on skewers as far back as 300,000 years ago in an area that is encompassed by present-day Germany.

It’s an ancient cooking method. So, it’s not surprising that food cooked on skewers is found almost everywhere.

**Zia Fidalma cutting sausage for spiedini at her home in Benabbio.**

During my month of cooking in Tuscany with Zia Fidalma this past August, spiedini were on the lesson plan.

But first, there was the shopping. Onions and peppers came from the weekly market in Bagni di Lucca. Pork and sausage came from her favorite local butcher. Pancetta tesa came from yet another vendor. The pantry staples, including olive oil from her own olive grove, were on the ready at home.

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The sausage that Zia Fidalma used is Salsiccia Toscana, Tuscan Sausage. It does NOT have fennel seed. What it DOES have appeared to be a mystery, at least temporarily.

**Pancetta Tesa produced in the Garfagnana area of Tuscany.**

Butchers in Italy who make it say they don’t know because they buy the spice mix from a company. Whether or not this is completely true is also unknown, to me at least. Requests from friends and family in Tuscany also came up empty-handed.

A Google search, in Italian, turned up more useful information. As expected, there is a range of ingredients. Every recipe has salt and pepper. Most have garlic (minced, chopped, or in one recipe, rubbed on one’s hands before one mixes the sausage!). Many have a bit of wine, both white and red are called for. I found one recipe that indicated that finely minced sage could be added if desired but NOT fennel!

**Ingredients ready to be skewered in Zia Fidalma’s kitchen.**

So, basically, Tuscan sausage is very sparingly flavored with salt, pepper, garlic and maybe a bit of wine.

For a traditional Tuscan taste for these spiedini, purchase (or make) an “Italian” sausage without fennel and without red pepper or paprika. (Note, there is no such thing as “Italian” sausage in Italy. Like most foods in Italy, sausage is hyper-local and varies from region to region, province to province, and often town to town.)

**Zia Fidalma’s spiedini ready to be cooked.**

Nobody is going to complain, however, if you use sausage with fennel seed as I had to do when I was unable to find sausage without fennel after trying four markets in Santa Fe.

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Pancetta tesa (sometimes called pancetta stesa) may be more difficult to find than the correct sausage, however. Pancetta tesa is flat, not rolled. It is better to use for spiedini because it is easier to cut into shapes that facilitate skewering.

**On the same day that I made spiedini with Zia Fidalma, we looked at a house for sale in her village. I’m still smitten by the house and the views and the idea of spending summers there!**

While you might spend 30 to 45 minutes cutting up the meat and vegetables and threading them on a skewer, the cooking process is easy. Feel free to experiment with the herbs, but I’ve called for the herbs that are most commonly used in Tuscan cooking.

Spiedini (Italian Skewered Meat and Vegetables)

If you want a more elegant look, take the time to cut the ingredients to the same size, approximately 1-inch squares. For a more homestyle appearance, as shown in the pictures, some variability is fine as long as none of the pieces is extremely large or small. The exact sequence of how to skewer ingredients is up to you but I have provided a suggestion that worked well with the quantity of ingredients I had.

Course

Mains, Meats

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

45 minutes

Cook Time

30 minutes

Servings

people

Ingredients

3 links Tuscan-style sausage without fennel approximately 12 ounces
1 pound lean pork such as tenderloin or another cut that can be cooked quickly
36 pieces pancetta tesa approximately 1” x 1” x 3/16”
3 large bell peppers yellow and/or red and/or orange (not green)
1 large red onion
3 sprigs fresh rosemary
8-9 fresh sage leaves
2 fresh bay leaves
5-6 juniper berries lightly crushed
2-3 sprigs oregano or marjoram or thyme
5-6 cloves garlic very coarsely chopped
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil approximately
salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Course

Mains, Meats

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

45 minutes

Cook Time

30 minutes

Servings

people

Ingredients

3 links Tuscan-style sausage without fennel approximately 12 ounces
1 pound lean pork such as tenderloin or another cut that can be cooked quickly
36 pieces pancetta tesa approximately 1” x 1” x 3/16”
3 large bell peppers yellow and/or red and/or orange (not green)
1 large red onion
3 sprigs fresh rosemary
8-9 fresh sage leaves
2 fresh bay leaves
5-6 juniper berries lightly crushed
2-3 sprigs oregano or marjoram or thyme
5-6 cloves garlic very coarsely chopped
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil approximately
salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

Cut each link of sausage into four pieces.
Cut the pork into 24 pieces.
Cut the pancetta tesa into 36 pieces
Cut each pepper into 12 pieces.
Separate the onion into layers and cut 36 pieces of onion about the same size as the pepper pieces
Thread the meat and vegetables onto 12 skewers in the following order: Pepper, Pancetta, Onion, Pork, Pepper, Pancetta, Onion, Sausage, Pepper, Pancetta, Onion, Pork.
On the bottom of a shallow roasting pan large enough to hold the skewers in a single layer, put the rosemary, sage, bay leaves, oregano, juniper berries and garlic.
Put the skewers on top. Season generously with salt and pepper. Drizzle with olive oil.
Roast at 400°F until the meat is cooked, approximately 20 to 30 minutes, basting occasionally with the oil from the pan.
Arrange the skewers on a serving platter. Pour the oil over top being sure to add the cooked herbs and garlic. Serve immediately.

Recipe Notes

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Recipes

Thanksgiving Gravy

4 Comments

November 7, 2019

I’m not much of a turkey person.

If it were up to me, I’d probably never make turkey, except for the fact that turkey is a GREAT excuse to make killer stuffing and gravy.

OK, OK, those of you who know me know that I’m enough of a traditionalist that I’d probably still make turkey on Thanksgiving, with or without stuffing and gravy, because it’s, well, traditional.

Turkey aside, though, I absolutely LOVE stuffing and I LOVE gravy.

After Thanksgiving, I carefully hide the leftover stuffing in the fridge and keep it all for myself. There usually isn’t much leftover so I get maybe two days of snacking on cold stuffing. And it has to be cold, not warm, with a bit of added salt because the taste of salt is dulled by the coldness of the stuffing.

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As for the gravy, when I was a kid, I liked gravy so much that I would stir enough into my mashed potatoes that they became runny and spread out over my plate! I don’t do that anymore but I still love gravy.

I love gravy so much that I roast poultry specifically to make gravy then discard the poultry because I’ve browned it to a fare-thee-well to get a really flavorful gravy. But I only do that once a year—on Thanksgiving—hence the name Thanksgiving gravy.

When I was growing up, my parents hosted Thanksgiving dinner. My Aunt Margie and Uncle Joe hosted Christmas Eve dinner.

On Thanksgiving, while my mother and Aunt Margie were getting everything ready to bring to the table (everything included a full Italian meal with sausage, meatballs, lasagna, etcetera alongside a full traditional American Thanksgiving meal!) my Aunt Mamie would make gravy from the pan drippings.

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From my current vantage point, however, there is a very limited amount of gravy that can be made that way, otherwise it doesn’t have enough meaty goodness. Though I have to say that Aunt Mamie did a great job of making gravy. Hers was the one that I most often stirred into my mashed potatoes.

The search for lots of meaty-tasting gravy is what got me started on the path of roasting poultry a few days in advance simply to make a brown stock to use as the base for my gravy.

I guess, in reality, my gravy is more of a variation on French brown sauce (Sauce Espagnole) with added pan drippings than traditional American-style gravy but it packs the flavor that I expect from good gravy.

If there’s any leftover gravy, I warm it with some cream and sautéed mushrooms and then gently reheat leftover turkey in the sauce.

Thanksgiving Gravy

Roasting poultry to make a flavorful stock creates a gravy with an extra punch of flavor. Turkey wings and necks are ideal but chicken and Cornish hen work very well, too. Whatever poultry you use, cut it into lots of pieces to create more surface area for browning. I use a lot of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese and I put all the rinds in a container in the freezer. I use one whenever I make stock or broth, as I do for the stock for this gravy. It is not necessary to peel the onions and garlic.

Course

Savory Sauces and Marinades

Cuisine

American

Prep Time

30 minutes

Cook Time

11 hours

Passive Time

12 hours

Servings

cups

Ingredients

Brown Stock

2 1/2 pounds turkey parts such as necks and wings (or chicken parts or Cornish hens)
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil divided
garlic powder to taste
2 carrots thinly sliced
3 stalks celery thinly sliced
2 onions sliced
4 cloves garlic sliced
1/2 cup red wine
10 cups water approximately
1 fresh bay leaf
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary or 1 teaspoon dry
3 fresh sage leaves
5 sprigs of parsley leaves only
2 whole cloves
Parmigiano Reggiano cheese rind if available
1/2 teaspoon whole black peppercorns

Gravy

Course

Savory Sauces and Marinades

Cuisine

American

Prep Time

30 minutes

Cook Time

11 hours

Passive Time

12 hours

Servings

cups

Ingredients

Brown Stock

2 1/2 pounds turkey parts such as necks and wings (or chicken parts or Cornish hens)
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil divided
garlic powder to taste
2 carrots thinly sliced
3 stalks celery thinly sliced
2 onions sliced
4 cloves garlic sliced
1/2 cup red wine
10 cups water approximately
1 fresh bay leaf
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary or 1 teaspoon dry
3 fresh sage leaves
5 sprigs of parsley leaves only
2 whole cloves
Parmigiano Reggiano cheese rind if available
1/2 teaspoon whole black peppercorns

Gravy

Instructions

Brown Stock

Cut the turkey or other poultry into chunks. Put the cut-up turkey into a heavy roasting pan. Mix with ¼ cup of extra-virgin olive oil. Season generously with garlic powder and salt.
Roast the turkey at 425°F until dark brown, turning often, 1½ to 2 hours.
Meanwhile, in a heavy-bottomed stock pot, large enough to hold all the ingredients, sauté the carrots and celery in ¼ cup of extra-virgin olive oil over high heat.
As the carrots and celery begin to brown, add the onions and garlic.
Continue cooking, adjusting heat to medium if necessary, to create nicely browned vegetables and fond without burning.
When the vegetables are brown, add 1/2 cup of red wine and 1 cup of water to stop the cooking and set the pot aside until the turkey is ready.
When the turkey is brown, add it and any pan drippings to the stockpot with the vegetables.
Using some of the water, deglaze roasting pan and add the liquid to the stockpot. All these brown bits are important for flavor.
Add the bay leaf, rosemary, sage, parsley, whole cloves, Parmigiano Reggiano cheese rind, if using, black pepper, and enough water to cover generously. Bring to a simmer and simmer, partially covered for six hours, stirring occasionally.
Strain and refrigerate the stock. The stock may be made up to three days in advance.

Gravy

Skim the fat from the top of the stock. Heat the fat to cook off any water. Measure ¾ cup of melted fat and reserve. Add butter, if necessary, to make ¾ cup.
Gently boil the skimmed stock to reduce it to about six cups, if necessary.
Meanwhile, in a heavy-bottomed saucepan, gently brown the flour in the fat from the stock.
Add the six cups of hot stock, approximately ¾ cup at a time, stirring well after each addition, to avoid lumps.
After all the stock has been added, bring to a simmer. Add the wine. Season with 1 teaspoon salt and pepper to taste. (The drippings from the turkey can be fairly salty so the gravy should be under-salted until the final adjustment of seasoning.)
Simmer gently till thick, approximately 2 hours, stirring frequently. Set aside, covered, until the turkey is ready.
After removing the turkey from the oven, deglaze the roasting pan with water. Skim the fat from the deglazing liquid. Pour the defatted drippings into gravy and simmer briefly to achieve the desired consistency. Adjust seasoning.

Recipe Notes

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Recipes

Lupara

9 Comments

May 29, 2019

A Lupara is an 8mm sawn-off shotgun favored by La Cosa Nostra.

It’s also the name of a pasta dish.

**Lupara, the shotgun not the pasta. [Licensed from Bluedog, without changes].**

Interestingly, if you search for lupara recipes online you’ll only find a few and you’ll be hard-pressed to discover much commonality among the recipes. Some are spicy. Some are not. Some have sweet peppers. Some do not. Some have tomatoes. Some do not. And most of them will be made with spaghetti.

I learned to make lupara at the Italian Culinary Institute. It was among the first pasta dishes demonstrated during the early days of the three-month course. Made with short, cut pasta, like rigatoni, this rendition pays tribute to the shotgun for which it is named.

**Lupara, the pasta not the shotgun, as prepared at the Italian Culinary Institute.**

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This dish makes use of a Basic Tomato Sauce, just tomatoes and a few aromatics cooked briefly. You can make the tomato sauce in large batches and freeze it or you can make it as needed. Although the sauce can be used on its own in some dishes, it is deliberately not aggressively seasoned. This allows it to be used in a variety of preparations, with some final additional flavoring, without the sense that the same sauce is being used over and over.

I know this seems a little out of order, but I will publish the recipe for the Basic Tomato Sauce next week For my first blog post since returning from Italy, I wanted to feature a dish that grabbed my attention. This one did. It’s got a great story and a great flavor. Basic Tomato Sauce is good but it isn’t captivating (unlike a pasta dish named after the “Mob’s” favorite weapon!). Basic Tomato Sause is meant to play a supporting role in most situations and that’s just not the type of recipe that I wanted to start with.

**Lupara on the stove at the Italian Culinary Institute.**

This version of Lupara is intended to be spicy but spicy means different things to different people. There are two ways to build spice into this pasta. You can use one or both of them. The first method is to add dried, ground red pepper (peperoncino piccante in polvere, in Italian) during the final assembly of the pasta. The other is to add thinly sliced fresh hot pepper (peperoncino fresco) when sautéing the sausage. Getting authentic Italian peperoncino, powdered or fresh, is difficult in the States. You can substitute Cayenne pepper for the ground one and a variety of long, red (always red!) chile, such as Thai or Cayenne, for the fresh.

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This recipe also calls for fresh porcini mushrooms. These can be a challenge to find. Feel free to substitute thinly sliced portobello mushrooms. Though the flavor won’t be exactly the same, the dish will still be yummy! If you are lucky enough to find fresh porcini, I suggest buying a heap, thinly slicing them, and freezing them. They can be used in all sorts of cooked dishes, especially Trifulata which will hit the blog in the near future…as soon as I can find fresh porcini!! (You might notice portobello mushrooms in the pictures.)

This recipe requires a small amount of sausage. It’s not a major player though it does add a nice meaty background note to the sauce. Pick a good quality Italian-style sausage, sweet or hot. I think that sausage with fennel seed adds a nice flavor but that’s a matter of personal taste.

Buon appetito!!

Lupara

A lupara is an 8-gauge sawn-off shotgun associated with La Cosa Nostra (the “Mob”). Rigatoni resemble the barrel of a lupara. Adjust heat level to your taste. If you can’t find Italian powdered peperoncino piccante, substitute Cayenne pepper. For a different type of heat, add some thinly-sliced hot red chile when sautéing the sausage, instead of, or in addition to, the powered chile. If you can’t find fresh porcini, substitute portobello mushrooms. It is really important to use a very good quality Italian rigatoni, preferably an artisanal variety that is thicker than the usual boxed rigatoni to get the most benefit out of sautéing the pasta. If you want to make half as much pasta, freeze half the sauce. The recipe for Basic Tomato Sauce will be posted next week.

Course

Pasta, Noodles, and Sauces

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

30 minutes

Cook Time

30 minutes

Servings

people

Ingredients

Sauce

1 batch Basic Tomato Sauce
5 ounces Italian-style sausage casing removed and crumbled
1 1/3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
5 ounces fresh porcini thinly sliced
1 1/3 tablespoons butter
5 ounces dry wine red or white
5 ounces vegetable or chicken broth
4-5 leaves fresh basil chopped
Salt and pepper to taste

Assembly

2 1/4 pounds imported Italian rigatoni preferably artisinal
4 cloves garlic crushed
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3/4 cup heavy cream
Peperoncino piccante to taste (ground red pepper)
3 ounces Parmigiano Reggiano cheese freshly grated

For serving

Course

Pasta, Noodles, and Sauces

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

30 minutes

Cook Time

30 minutes

Servings

people

Ingredients

Sauce

1 batch Basic Tomato Sauce
5 ounces Italian-style sausage casing removed and crumbled
1 1/3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
5 ounces fresh porcini thinly sliced
1 1/3 tablespoons butter
5 ounces dry wine red or white
5 ounces vegetable or chicken broth
4-5 leaves fresh basil chopped
Salt and pepper to taste

Assembly

2 1/4 pounds imported Italian rigatoni preferably artisinal
4 cloves garlic crushed
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3/4 cup heavy cream
Peperoncino piccante to taste (ground red pepper)
3 ounces Parmigiano Reggiano cheese freshly grated

For serving

Instructions

Sauce

Using a heavy-bottomed pot, sauté the sausage in the olive oil until colored.
Add the porcini, butter, and fresh peperoncini, if desired, and sauté 5-7 minutes. During this time, the sausage should brown much more and the mushrooms should give up much of their liquid and take on some color.
Add the wine and evaporate completely over high heat.
Add the broth, partially cover, and simmer until completely evaporated.
Add the Basic Tomato Sauce, basil, and salt and pepper to taste. Simmer about 10 minutes. Reserve.

Assembly

Bring three quarts of heavily salted water (according to the Italians, it should taste like the sea) to a boil.
Meanwhile, sauté the garlic in the extra-virgin olive oil until light brown. Drain and reserve the oil.
Cook the rigatoni just until it no longer has a crunch in the center but is still far from done.
While the pasta is cooking, put the sauce in a large sauté pan and bring to a simmer along with peperoncino piccate to taste.
Drain the rigatoni, saving at least one quart of the pasta-cooking liquid.
Add the rigatoni to the sauce and increase the heat to medium to medium-high. Add pasta-cooking liquid, a ladle at a time, stirring the pasta frequently to finish cooking.
After adding a ladle or two of the pasta-cooking liquid, add the cream. Continue adding pasta-cooking liquid as needed until the pasta is just al dente and coated with a thick sauce.
Off the heat, mix in the Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, cream, and the reserved garlic oil. You may need to thin with a little more pasta-cooking liquid as the cheese will thicken and emulsify the sauce.
Divide the pasta among serving bowls. Garnish each with a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil and sprinklings of Pecorino Romano cheese and fresh basil chiffonade.

Recipe Notes

Here's my recipe for Basic Tomato Sauce.

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Recipes

Cotechino with Lentils

Pizza di Patate (Potato Pizza)

2 Comments

December 19, 2018

I remember it clearly! My love affair with Pizza di Patate began May 1992 in Rome.

All of my most favorite foods are carbohydrates: pasta, bread stuffing, mashed potatoes, pierogi, soft pretzels, and homemade bread, among them. The favorites among my favorites, though, combine two different carbohydrates in the same dish: potato gnocchi, bubba (and its relative, potato pancakes), potato pierogi, homemade bread rolls stuffed with mashed potatoes and rubbed with olive oil and garlic, and, of course, potato pizza.

When I first tasted potato pizza in Rome it immediately entered the highest level of my carbohydrate pantheon. I knew at some point I would need to learn to make it as I had never had anything like it in the States. I still haven’t unless it’s come out of my pizza oven, though there is a new breed of Roman Pizzerias cropping up around the country dangling the possibility that one, serving pizza di patate, might settle in near where I live.

May of 1992 was the month my (now) husband and I were to celebrate our fifth anniversary. I had been discussing with John Bowker, a friend, Anglican priest and the dean of Trinity College, Cambridge, England, coming to the UK for our anniversary. John had offered to perform a wedding ceremony (still not legally binding, of course) following the Anglican rite in the Trinity College Chapel with the Trinity College Choir there to sing.

After much thought, we decided against going to Cambridge for the ceremony. Although a few of our friends might have attended, we felt that most would not and we wanted to be surrounded by friends on that day.

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We opted, instead, to have a ceremony performed at our house by John Fortunato, a friend and Episcopal deacon. We had a calligrapher record our vows on parchment and signed by everyone present (in a nod to Quaker tradition) as an affirmation of our commitment to each other.

**Invitation to our fifth anniversary and commitment ceremony**

On our 25th anniversary, in 2012, we were actually married with 52 of our friends in attendance. The wedding and reception were held in a private dining room at Del Posto in New York City. But I digress…

In the early 1990’s Frank, my husband, and I were working full time but also attending Loyola University of Chicago studying for MBA degrees. Loyola decided to offer MBA classes for the first time at its Rome campus in May 1992. We jumped at the chance, leaving for Rome the day after our commitment ceremony. We treated the trip like the honeymoon we had never had though by then we were very experienced world travelers.

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A pleasant walk from the Loyola Campus (located in an old convent in Monte Mario) was a small shop that sold prepared Roman food and a dizzying array of pizza by the slice (pizza al taglio). Most nights we went there for dinner then went back to our dorm room to study. The shop had a few stools lined up along a narrow counter on one side but every patron, except us, picked up food to go.

**A funny moment during our wedding ceremony in 2012**

After a few days, our routine became clear to the shop owners. As soon as we walked through the doorway, without asking a question, one of them reached for a bottle of local red wine and handed it to us. We then ordered from the food on display and sat at the counter enjoying a wonderful meal.

Theirs was the first pizza di patate that I’d ever had. I ate it all over Rome on that trip.

It took me at least five years to try to make it, and at least another five years to perfect it. Now that we have a wood-burning oven in Santa Fe I almost always make at least one potato pizza on pizza nights (which don’t happen nearly often enough!).

Pizza di Patate (Potato Pizza)

I first tasted this in Rome in 1992 and fell in love with it. There are numerous variations, such as using potatoes that have been shredded on the teardrop shaped holes of a grater or topping the pizza with cheese. This simple version is my favorite. Making the pizza in a rectangular pan most resembles Roman pizza al taglio. The dough can be divided to make two round pizzas approximately 12 inches in diameter. See the Notes section for instructions on making the dough in a bread machine as well as directions for making the dough in advance. You can use bread flour if you wish but the dough will be really springy from the gluten making it a bit more difficult to stretch out. If using bread flour it is really a good idea to refrigerate the dough as described below.

Course

Pizza, Flatbreads, and Savory Tarts

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

65 minutes

Cook Time

20 minutes

Passive Time

4 hours

Servings

people

Ingredients

Dough

3 teaspoons active dry yeast or 2 packets
1 7/8 cup warm water
1/4 cup olive oil plus additional for oiling the dough and pan
2 1/4 teaspoons salt
5 3/4 cups all purpose flour

Topping

1/4 cup olive oil
2-3 cloves garlic crushed with the side of a chef’s knife
2-3 teaspoons minced fresh rosemary
3-4 medium russet potatoes
Coarse sea salt

Course

Pizza, Flatbreads, and Savory Tarts

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

65 minutes

Cook Time

20 minutes

Passive Time

4 hours

Servings

people

Ingredients

Dough

3 teaspoons active dry yeast or 2 packets
1 7/8 cup warm water
1/4 cup olive oil plus additional for oiling the dough and pan
2 1/4 teaspoons salt
5 3/4 cups all purpose flour

Topping

1/4 cup olive oil
2-3 cloves garlic crushed with the side of a chef’s knife
2-3 teaspoons minced fresh rosemary
3-4 medium russet potatoes
Coarse sea salt

Instructions

Warm the bowl and dough hook of an electric mixer with hot water. Drain and dry.
Add the warm water and yeast to warmed bowl. Blend briefly.
Allow the yeast and water to sit until creamy, approximately 10 minutes.
Add about half the flour and mix to combine.
With the motor running, add salt and drizzle in olive oil. Mix to combine.
Add the remaining flour.
Mix approximately 8-10 minutes after all the flour is added. The dough should be soft and slightly sticky.
Place the dough in an oiled bowl or container. Oil the top of the dough. Cover the bowl and allow the dough to rise until doubled.
Meanwhile, make the flavored oil. Sauté the bruised garlic in the oil over medium-low heat until light golden. Do not allow the garlic to turn brown.
Allow the oil to cool for a few minutes. Add the rosemary. The oil should be warm to release the flavor of the rosemary but not so hot that the rosemary begins to sizzle.
Allow the oil and rosemary to sit at room temperature to cool. When cool, remove and discard the garlic.
When dough has doubled, punch it down to remove all air pockets.
Using olive oil, oil an 11x17 inch rimmed baking sheet.
Press the dough into the pan. Allowing the dough to rest for five or ten minutes midway through pressing it into the pan will allow the gluten to relax making it easier to shape the dough.
Brush the dough lightly with some of the flavored olive oil.
Cover the dough with an inverted rimmed baking sheet and allow it to rise until doubled.
Meanwhile, scrub the potatoes and slice into very thin slices. A mandoline is best. If so, set it for 1/16 inch.
Cover the potato slices with cool water to remove excess starch and to keep them from turning brown.
When the dough has doubled, dry the potato slices thoroughly and put them on the top of the dough in a single layer that is slightly overlapping. You may have potato slices left over.
Brush the top of the pizza with the remaining flavored olive oil and sprinkle liberally with coarse sea salt.
Bake at 425°F for approximately 25 minutes, until the potatoes are tender and have golden edges and the dough is golden brown on the edges.

Recipe Notes

The dough can be made, with good results, in a bread machine on the dough cycle. Though I don’t add sugar when making the dough by hand or with a mixer, the shorter rise cycles used by a bread machine work better with sugar. Put the ingredients, above, into your bread machine following the manufacturers directions adding 1 tablespoon of sugar as well. When the dough cycle is finished, press the dough into a pan, as described above, or refrigerate as described below.

If I have time, I prefer to make the dough a day or two in advance. After it has risen as described above, put the dough in an oiled container with a tight-fitting lid. Oil the top of the dough and refrigerate. Remove the dough from the refrigerator at least 5 hours before you plan on making the pizza. Punch down the dough just before making the pizza and proceed as above.

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Recipes

Angie’s Marinated Pasta Salad

2 Comments

December 12, 2018

After driving a circuitous route for two days (I’ll explain why in a minute), I got home to Santa Fe from Palm Springs last Wednesday to a surprise.

My husband and I had plans to attend the holiday party for the Department of Psychiatry at the University of New Mexico, where he is Associate Professor, on Friday. The surprise was that the party was a potluck and we had to bring a dish.

So, there I was on Wednesday evening, exhausted after two days of driving, with no prior knowledge that I had to produce a dish for a Friday event, coupled with the logistic challenge that I had to leave home around noon on Friday and ultimately make it to the party in Albuquerque by 7:00 PM with a dish in tow that I could neither refrigerate nor heat up!

It didn’t take long before I settled on my cousin Angie Catanese’s Marinated Pasta Salad. This is a recipe that I’ve been making for about 45 years and it never fails to please. It has so much stuff in it besides pasta that it’s almost a misnomer to just refer to it as a pasta salad!

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I went grocery shopping on Thursday morning, assembled the salad Thursday afternoon, and the rest is history!

You might also enjoy my cousin Angie’s recipe for Pickled Hot Peppers.

**The availability of pasta in many different shapes has ballooned over the decades. Cavatappi makes a great replacement for shells in this pasta salad.**

Now, for an explanation as to why you haven’t heard from me in two months and what will be coming up for the blog…

In early October I went to Palm Springs to complete recipe testing for the Trio Restaurant Cookbook. One can’t really test recipes for a cookbook at 8,000 feet in elevation so I spent five weeks in Palm Springs testing and finalizing over 125 recipes for the cookbook. I had intended to continue posting to the blog during this time but very quickly found it impossible to fit in anything other than grocery shopping, recipe testing, and note-taking!

I got back to Santa Fe a few days before Thanksgiving then, less than a week after Thanksgiving was back on my way to California to go to the Consulate General of Italy in Los Angeles to apply for a visa.

In early January I am going to Italy to attend a three-month intensive course in Italian cuisine geared toward professional chefs at the Italian Culinary Institute. Because I’ll be in Italy more than 90 days I need a visa.

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My visa appointment was Friday and I was planning on spending the weekend in Palm Springs then driving back to Santa Fe on Tuesday. The consular official said my visa would be ready by Tuesday so, rather than trust my luck (and my passport) to FedEx, I decided to drive back to Los Angeles to retrieve my passport.

It took me 3 hours and 45 minutes to drive the 122 miles from our home in Palm Springs to the consulate! I got my passport in about 5 minutes then did some shopping at Eataly, conveniently located across the street from the Italian Consulate. (I’d love to know who was responsible for securing THAT location!) I then reversed course and started the drive back to Santa Fe, passing within a few miles of our home in Palm Springs where I had started the day. I spent the night in Payson, Arizona then finished the drive Wednesday (which is when this story began).

**The entrance to the Consulate General of Italy in Los Angeles which is conveniently located across the street from Eataly!**

While I’m in Italy I will most likely be posting fewer recipes than usual. I hope to chronicle some of my experiences at the Institute and pass on some tips and pointers on Italian food. I hope you’ll stick with me during that time. When I return, I’ll be back to my regular schedule of posting recipes.

Oh, and by the way, judging from how the pasta salad disappeared at the party, I think it was a hit!

Angie’s Marinated Pasta Salad

There is so much “stuff” in this that it could easily be the basis of a light meal with just some bread and cheese. Angie’s original recipe called for shells but other types of medium-size pasta work just as well. In fact, I think the cavatappi are especially nice given their unusual shape. If you are making this when tomatoes are at their peak, use three medium-sized tomatoes in place of the cherry and grape tomatoes. You can use 2 cups of purchased Italian salad dressing instead of the homemade dressing if you’re so inclined, though the flavor will obviously be somewhat different.

Course

Pasta and Grains, Pasta, Noodles, and Sauces, Salads, Slaws and Dressings, Sides

Cuisine

Italian-American

Prep Time

1 hour

Cook Time

10 minutes

Passive Time

16 hours

Servings

people

Ingredients

Salad Ingredients

1 pound dry pasta such as shells, farfalle or cavatappi
1 cup diced sweet red onion
2 Bell peppers diced (red, yellow and/or orange add a nice color contrast)
1 pound multicolor cherry and grape tomatoes diced
3 stalks celery diced
1/4 pound Genoa salami diced
1/4 pound pepperoni diced
1/4 pound Provolone cheese diced
1/3 cup chopped oil-cured olives

Dressing

1 1/3 cups olive oil
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
2 cloves garlic minced
1 tablespoon salt
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon dry basil
1/2 teaspoon dry oregano
1 pinch dry rosemary crushed
1/4 cup minced parsley

Course

Pasta and Grains, Pasta, Noodles, and Sauces, Salads, Slaws and Dressings, Sides

Cuisine

Italian-American

Prep Time

1 hour

Cook Time

10 minutes

Passive Time

16 hours

Servings

people

Ingredients

Salad Ingredients

1 pound dry pasta such as shells, farfalle or cavatappi
1 cup diced sweet red onion
2 Bell peppers diced (red, yellow and/or orange add a nice color contrast)
1 pound multicolor cherry and grape tomatoes diced
3 stalks celery diced
1/4 pound Genoa salami diced
1/4 pound pepperoni diced
1/4 pound Provolone cheese diced
1/3 cup chopped oil-cured olives

Dressing

1 1/3 cups olive oil
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
2 cloves garlic minced
1 tablespoon salt
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon dry basil
1/2 teaspoon dry oregano
1 pinch dry rosemary crushed
1/4 cup minced parsley

Instructions

In a large mixing bowl, combine all the dressing ingredients and set aside.
Cook the pasta in abundantly salted water until just cooked but still slightly al dente.
Meanwhile, cut-up all the ingredients.
Onion
Bell pepper
Tomatoes
Celery
Genoa salami
Pepperoni
Provolone
Oil-cured olives
When the pasta is cooked, drain and rinse in cool water to stop cooking.
Stir the pasta and diced onion into the dressing. Allow to cool to room temperature.
When the pasta is cool, stir in all remaining ingredients.
Refrigerate overnight before serving.