National Pasta Month!

Well, I don't know how the inauguration of this month-long event slipped by me, but I just discovered that October is National Pasta Month!  Not that I really need an excuse to eat more pasta; I don't know if it's possible to eat *more* of it than we already do ;)

But it certainly warrants a mention and a few recipes in its honor, don't you think?

To kick it off, we broke out the hand-crank cavatelli maker that I ordered from eBay.  The little macchinetta is a classic, conceived by an Italian immigrant to Cleveland, Ohio who started the Vitantonio Company and built a business of providing pasta-making products to the Little Italy community. 


It's a very simple contraption:  you make up the pasta dough, roll it into ropes, and feed it into the machine while turning the handle.  Out pop perfectly-formed cavatelli, ready to to be boiled and topped with sugo!

My cousin Celia turned me on to this little gem; she has become something of a cavatelli collector.  Her dad has a real beauty, one of the original cast iron oldies, still in perfect working condition.

Yesterday was the first trial run for our newly-acquired macchinetta.  It performed very well, I'm happy to say.  Cavatelli transport us right to the Motherland, as it is one of the most common pastas found in Basilicata.  They are made from farina di semola, hard durum wheat which is milled more finely than the semolina flour you usually find in the US, salt and water.  It's not an egg pasta.

What is your favorite pasta type or shape?

Olive all'Ascolana Part II

If you missed the introduction and background about this delicacy, be sure to ready Part I.

Olive all'Ascolana (pronounced oh-LEE-vay) - Ascoli-style Stuffed Olives

I have eaten an uncountable quantity of these critters while living in Ascoli Piceno, and watched them being prepared, had verbal recipes recited to me, along with a couple of sketchy hand-written instructions. I decided to take the two most reliable recipes, one provided to me by my friend Linda Ancona, and the other from my former landlady, Dorina, as the best ones, and adapted them.

A few notes before you begin.
*This is by far the most "complicated" recipe I've ever posted on La Cucina. While it's pretty straight-forward, it is time-consuming to make them so allow plenty of time. Make a decent quantity (as discussed in Part I) and freeze them. It is nice to have them on hand ready to fry for a future aperitivo party or antipasto.

*In Ascoli, the meat mixture is traditionally made with chunks of meat, then ground in a meat grinder after cooking. It does actually make a difference in taste and texture to prepare it this way, rather than starting with pre-ground meats (but I admit that I use the pre-ground because I don't have a meat grinder; I whirled the meat in a food processor before stuffing the olives.)  If you do have a meat-grinder, though, make it the traditional way, as it truly tastes better.

*The Ascolani have a set system for making their olive all'ascolana:  1) Hand-pit the olives; 2) Prepare the meat mixture and make it into marble-sized meatballs; 3) Stuff the olives; 4) Bread them and let them sit (or freeze them) before 5) Frying them. This routine works because they hand-cut the olive off the pit in a spiral fashion and reconstruct the olive around the meatball. I slices my pitted olives open and stuffed the ball inside, but Janie of Panini Girl recommends piping the meat into the olive with a pastry bag (a sensible idea!).

*Finally, the olives. It can be difficult to find large pitted olives that are not already stuffed with something. The Cerignola is a mild, large olive, but I have only found them whole. (A cherry pitter would work if you want to pit them yourself.) The tenera ascolana is cured in a very mild brine of sea salt and water, so you don't get a "pucker factor" from them.  I found that most jarred olives tend to be much more strongly brined, so they will need to be soaked for a couple of hours to slake off some of the brine flavor before you stuff them.

                          About 100 olives - stuffed and breaded and ready to freeze

Authentic Olive all'Ascolana

Filling:

1 onion, minced

1/3 pound ground chicken (or chicken breast)
1/3 pound ground pork (or chunks of pork)
4 to 5 slices prosciutto crudo, minced
1 carrot, cut into 3-4 large pieces
1 celery stalk, cut into 3-4 large pieces
salt and pepper
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 cup grated parmigiano or pecorino cheese
1 egg
zest from 1/2 lemon
dash or two of nutmeg

Heat about 1 TBSP of olive oil in a large skillet, and saute the onion until soft. Add the meats and saute until cooked, using a fork to mash it and keep the meat as fine-textured as possible. (If you're using chunks, just brown them and saute until cooked through.) Add the carrot and celery, season with salt and pepper, and then add the wine. Cook until the wine has evaporated. Remove from heat, take out the celery and carrot pieces, and cool.

If you are using chunks of meat, grind them in the meat grinder. If you used ground meat, put it in a food processor and pulse to get a finer texture.

To the ground meat, add the parmigiano or pecorino, the lemon zest, nutmeg and egg. (Dorina cautions to use a light hand with the lemon zest and nutmeg, as too much will overpower evertyhing.) Mix well, like you would a meatloaf mixture.

Fill the olives with the meat.  To do this you can roll the meat into marble-sized balls, as is traditional, or use a pastry bag to pipe it into the olives.


To Prepare the Olives:

Flour
3 eggs
Fine Breadcrumbs

In a shallow bowl, beat the eggs. Place flour in one bowl, the breadcrumbs in another. Dip the olives in the flour, then the eggs, then the breadcrumbs to coat evenly. Put them on a plate. Refrigerate at least 1/2 hour before frying. Note:  You can prepare the olives up to this point and freeze them for future use.

To Fry:

Heat olive oil in a saucepan. Fry olives a few at a time, turning to fry them evenly, until golden. Drain on paper towels.

Italians use olio da friggere, a liquid frying oil that is made of a blend of seed oils (peanut, sunflower, grapeseed and olive oil, I think). They do not use hydrogenated fat for frying! I use olive oil (sometimes pouring in a bit of grapeseed oil which has a higher smoke point).

Makes about 200 olives.

Enjoy with a Piceno wine like Pecorino, Falerio, or Rosso Piceno.

Olive all'Ascolana Part I

Part I of a two-part series.

The local specialty food of Ascoli Piceno is an addictive one: gigantic olives that are stuffed with meat and deep-fried. It may sound odd, but they are very good. In fact, Bryan loves them, and he normally does not eat olives! Around the Piceno, no party or antipasto plate is complete without them.

The Ascolani say that this tradition actually dates back to Roman times, but, like most things in this part of the country, it came into its own during the Medieval period. It is a rather ingenious dish, utilizing the most common (some may say 'humble') products at hand and turning them into a delicacy.

It was originally a way to use up scraps of meat and cheese. The local olive variety, found only in this part of the country, is called the tenera ascolana. It is a behemoth as far as olives are concerned, very large ovals that are very 'meaty'. The olive is a D.O.P. item, as is the final dish of olive all'ascolana (a special certification for the authenticity of specialty regional products).

Local tradition dictates the olives be pitted by hand a spirale, in a spiral around the pit. The olive is then "reconstructed" around the little balls of meat before being breaded and fried. Special curved olive-pitting knives are sold in the local cutlery shops, some embossed with the Ascoli Piceno emblem, making them nice souvenirs. I once watched my former landlord pit about 300 olives this way and quickly decided that buying pre-pitted olives in tubs would be just fine for an americana like me!

The tenera ascolana olives are also unique in that they are cured in a light brine of water and sea salt instead of vinegar. This makes a huge difference in the taste; they are very mild, so there is no 'pucker factor' with these olives.

The meats selected always include pork and chicken; from that base other "scelte" are added according to taste. Indeed, each person I know in Ascoli Piceno makes their stuffed olives slightly differently. Some add a bit of beef or veal to the mix; others insist it must have some prosciutto. I've run across a few that include mortadella, and one man who used pancetta. As for the cheese, most use grana padano, but local, aged pecorino is popular, too. Odori (spices) vary, as well; some cooks add celery and carrot to the pot of cooking meat (pulling it out before proceeding); some like nutmeg, others say it overpowers the flavor. Little arguments break out over the "correct" way to make them, with everyone always referring back to the authoritative, "Well, that is the way my grandmother made them!" Since this was cucina povera, whatever was at hand was what they used, which is why everyone's nonna makes it her own way!

Next time I'll post the recipe, which was a little labor of love to translate and adapt, let me tell you! My friends' recipes required measurement conversions (something I'm still not adept at, even after three years), and frankly the quantities were huge! Dorina, my former landlord, told me, "If you're going to make them, you may as well make 300 of them, because why go to all that work for just a few? She had a point. My recipe will make about 200. Once they are prepared and breaded, they can be frozen until you're ready to fry them.

Prossimamente...la ricetta!

PART II - Recipe and Preparation of Authentic Olive all'Ascolana

Peperoni Cruschi

On recent forays into the Motherland of Lucania (the region of Basilicata, which locals still refer to by its ancient name) I became quite enamored by the local delicacy of peperoni cruschi. The dialect name is paparul crushk, a word that sounds more German than Italian to my ears, but spells delicious whatever way they prefer to pronounce it. The strings of peppers that one sees hanging in the sun to dry are not as fiery as you might think. While they do like the piccanti variety, those are distinctly smaller and not revered as highly as these babies. The longer red peppers are, in fact, a variety of sweet peppers that are strung up much like the chile ristras so common around New Mexico, left to harden in the southern sun.


Once dry they are carefully removed from their stems and fried in extra virgin olive oil, tended to carefully so as not to scorch them. They are then served as an antipasto, and delicious they are, too! Sweet and smoky at the same time, the crunchy treats compliment the local cheese and prosciutto nicely.

Once they are fried, the peperoni cruschi are also crumbled and added to sautéed breadcrumbs then sprinkled over pasta, such as the locally-loved orecchiette.

Back to the hot chile, the slender pods are also dried, but are then preserved in a unique way. They, too, are fried in extra virgin olive oil and then crumbled. They are put in a jar and then the oil used to fry them is poured over the top. Simple, but it infuses the oil with spice as well as the unusual smoky-hot flavor. It is drizzled on cavatelli, on roasted potatoes, and on the local semolina bread.

We just returned from a trip to Basilicata; my cousin there went knocking on doors to rustle up some strings of peperoni for me to bring home. They are drying, but when they're ready I'll fry some up and add some photos.
c 2007 Valerie Schneider

Italian Food Myths (Debunked)

Everyone loves Italian cuisine, right? It’s the age-old classic, the restaurant stand-by for untold Americans, the cuisine everyone can agree on when dining out with a group. Trouble is, most Italian food as it is known in America isn’t really la vera cucina Italiana. Let’s debunk a few myths.

Spaghetti and Meatballs, the real classic dish
Actually, no. Sure, you find spaghetti all over the peninsula. It can be topped with the well-known tomato sauce (called a ragu) or with a plentitude of other tasty options. But with a helping of meatballs nestled on top? Never. You might find meatballs on a menu if you are in a rural, down-home kind of place, or dining a casa with a friend. But never the twain shall meet when it come to serving up the duo insieme.

Fettucine Alfredo
Never seen it in these parts. The fat-laden, creamy sauce globbed on so many plates across America is not to be found here. When I tried to explain this sauce to chef friend, Giorgio, he was very confused. “But, who is Alfredo?” he kept asking. Nobody, Gio. There is no one named Alfredo. It’s a made-up dish. “But why?” If you figure out the answer, let me know.

Caesar Salad
This one really confuses us, because it is ubiquitous in so-called Italian restaurants, even those claiming true Italian roots. But the origins of this salad come from a restaurant in Tijuana, Mexico. Go figure. Again, unless you are in a tourist trap in Florence, you won’t find this among the offerings in Italy. In fact, you won’t find any other dressing option except olive oil and vinegar.

Espresso wires you for days
While it’s thick and concentrated-tasting, espresso actually contains less caffeine that a cup of drip-brewed coffee, according to an article in National Geographic (January, 2005). It tastes better, too. The only downside is you down it in about three seconds, so there is no lingering over a cup of joe around here.

Pass the butter
Bread is put on the table as a tool…to soak up sauces and to help you push things onto your fork. Butter or dipping bowls of oil are not provided. And the bread is almost always at room temperature. No warmed bread as a prelude to the meal; no garlic toast either. Sorry to disappoint you.

Grate on the cheese
In the fancy (and mid-range) American Italian restaurants, the waiters come out with the wheely cheese graters to offer you a heaping helping of “parmesan”. Here you don’t get such service but they do bring a dish of pre-grated Parmigiano (or Pecorino, depending on what region you’re in). Unless of course you order a primo dish with seafood in it. You’re not allowed to have cheese on top of spaghetti with clam sauce or shrimp risotto. I think they say it masks the flavors of the delicate fish though I’m not positive on this one; I only know that it is against the rules.

Pizza
Forget everything you *think* you know about pizza. It should never come with an inch (or more) thick crust. And while we’re at it, the crust should never be stuffed with anything. And it absolutely ought to be cooked in a wood-fired oven. Peperoni is not a meat; they’re sweet bell peppers. Roman pizza is very thin and crispy-crusted with minimal toppings…only enough to taste every flavor. It’s true that Napolitana pizza boasts a bit thicker and chewier crust, but not at all like most American pizza. They are usually served on a plate uncut, leaving you with the likes of a butter knife to tear through the pie and get it to your mouth. But once it’s reached the lips, its oh-so-good. (Yep, a butter knife but no butter provided for the bread. It's a mystery.)

So there you have it. The truth about some of America’s popular notions regarding Italian food. I hope you’re not disappointed. Believe me, the real deal is far better than you could expect based on your experiences at home. We’ve never seen a disappointed face when they’ve tasted their first bite of true cooking here.

copyright 2007 Valerie Schneider

A Menu To Remember

A couple of weeks ago we traveled into remote Basilicata accompanied by two cousins. It was an astounding trip in many respects, not the least of which because we connected with distant family members there in my great-grandfather’s hometown. Michele and his wife Milena, generous and welcoming, treated us to a feast the likes of which I had never experienced before. This was a meal to remember which lasted for three and a half hours. We sat and dined for three and a half hours! Such gluttony! I felt like we’d stepped into the film, Big Night (a worthy rental if you’ve never seen it). Platters laden with food arrived constantly. It was amazing! So, without further adieu, here is the menu.

Prosciutto and coppacolla. Grilled veggies delicately seasoned. Anchovy-stuffed hot peppers that put a fire into even my mouth, a seasoned New Mexican chile-eater. Air-dried sweet peppers that were fried to a crisp in olive oil. Another type of prosciutto and a seasoned lard (the only piece of food that day that I didn’t care for), cured sausages laced with fennel. Olives, three cheeses, and semolina bread. And that was just the antipasto!

Out came a heaping bowl of cavatelli, the pillowy-soft pasta melt-in-the-mouth delicious, topped simply with those air-dried peppers, breadcrumbs and peppery olive oil. More forks and a bowl of ravioli, the ricotta cheese having been made that morning “or last night at the latest,” Melina informed us, slightly laced with mint and the lightest of tomato sauces. More forks and a huge platter of stewed lamb over top of oven-roasted and perfectly seasoned potatoes. All of this was, of course, accompanied by home-made wine and bottles of water that came from Monte Vulture, probably the food item that traveled the longest distance to reach our table. More forks and I was about to roll out of my chair when Michele assured us it was simply for fruit, not a heavy dessert. “Just fruit” was an enormous platter of the most beautifully arranged, luscious produce that it should have been placed on a banquet table in front of a dignitary. I later realized that we were considered the dignitaries, the American family come to Basilicata.

Cousin Rose reminisced throughout the meal, as each plate brought a childhood memory and her face showed the joy of it all. We reveled in these dishes, which sound so simple but were so utterly delicious, I’d make the trip again in a heartbeat just to taste the goodness of those items.
Read more about the trip in my monthly column on Slow Travel and on my 2 Baci blog.

Rosemary

I have a gigantic rosemary bush in my back courtyard. It has been hacked at several times but always grows out of control again. It provides a nice vibrant green next to the house, and a gives off its fragrant aroma whenever we brush past it.

But what to do with the overgrowing herb other than using bits of it at a time to flavor dishes? I cut branches and put them in a vase as greenery with my cut roses. But for cooking, I like to use it in several ways. I often cut three or four branches and use them together to baste roasting chicken. It imparts a subtle flavor. I also use branches, stripped of all the needles, as skewers. They're perfect for grilling sausages. So if you find yourself with an abundance of rosemary, fire up the grill and give it a try.