Aroma Cucina

Spaghetti Puttanesca: Good Spaghetti with the Bad Girl Name

  A simple spaghetti puttanesca, or as it could be translated from Italian:“ slut’s spaghetti” is a combination of homey ingredients that results in pure alchemy. Combine tomatoes, olives, capers, some anchovies, garlic, oregano and these rustic ingredients turn into soothing, comforting, delicious goodness.

 Why name something so purely wonderful after a whore? As with all hand-me-down recipes there are as many theories as there are tangled noodles on my plate.  It was called a call-girl’s spaghetti because:

·       it was quick enough to make and eat between clients

·       it was quick enough to serve to clients when they were hungry

·       prostitutes usually aren’t very rich, e so it’s what they could afford to eat

·       in the 1950’s Sandro Petti, owner of the famous Ischia restaurant Rancio Fellone claimed he invented the sauce when hungry friends arrived after hours and begged  "Facci una puttanata qualsiasi" which roughly translates as “make any bloody thing!”

·       another name for this dish invokes the “figlio d'una buona donna” as in pasta of the son of a good woman, except the meaning of the good woman is ….the same as a puttana and her offspring

·       perhaps the salty, fishy flavor of the sauce is reminiscent of other pleasures.

 

You can ponder the origins of the name while you cook the sauce, which is another one of those “in the time it takes to cook the pasta” sauces.

 All quantities for this recipe are very, very flexible; it’s all about using up what’s on hand. (Don’t you just love a good innuendo?)

 

Spaghetti Puttanesca

1 cup tomato: puree, sauce, canned, chopped or fresh

½ medium yellow onion, diced (In Italy, they are known as cipolla dura, or hard onion, but that might be just too much innuendo)

2-3 cloves of garlic, minced

5-10 roughly chopped olives

1 T of capers

2-3 salted anchovy filets that have been rinsed

½ t dried oregano

Some chili peppers…you be the judge how hot you want your whore’s spaghetti.

1 T butter

olive oil, salt & pepper to taste

 

Put the pasta water on to boil. Don’t forget to salt the pasta water.

Now prep your onions, olives, garlic, and anchovies.

 Soften the onions in a few tablespoons of olive oil ((it’s the only time I’ll use the word soft, ok?), then add everything else except the butter.

 

Cook your pasta, when it’s done and right before you are ready to drain the pasta, add the butter to the tomato sauce and mix well.

(Question: why do recipe instructions always tell you to drain the pasta…what you are going to do, serve it in the cooking water? If you don’t know enough to drain the pasta, I would suggest that someone else be in charge of making dinner.)

 

Place your drained spaghetti in a bowl, add the sauce, grate a little cheese and you are good to go. What you choose to wear while serving spaghetti puttanesca is your call.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Olive & Grape Compote Da Vinci Style

A recipe handed down through the centuries, emerging from the swirling mists of Tuscan history drifted into my kitchen. OK, maybe not really, but I did get inspired by the olive and grape recipe found in “Signora da Vinci” a fictional novel about DaVinci’s mama. If you can suspend belief and surrender to the central concept that it’s written from Leonardo’s mother’s perspective, it’s a fine read. Who wouldn’t enjoy spending some time with the Medici’s and their friends?  All through the book there is mention of this wonderful olive and grape compote and at the end, the author, Robin Maxwell, kindly supplies the recipe.

 

I tweaked it a bit, and it’s a good thing to have a batch stashed in the fridge for visitors, a quick snack, apperitivo time, a holiday cheese tray or a midnight nibble.  Guess you could call it versatile.

 

Olive & Grape Compote

½ pound of red seedless grapes

¼ pound black pitted Kalamata style olives

1 fresh thyme sprig

2 cracked cloves of garlic

1 tiny chili pepper (optional, if you go the chili pepper route, you want just a wisp of heat to mingle with the sweet and salty, it’s all about balance now isn’t it?)

Olive oil, salt, balsamic vinegar

 

Slice the grapes in half; rough chop the olives and place in a roasting dish. Remove the skins from the garlic and give the cloves a good smushing crack with the side of your knife, and toss in with the fruit. Add the crumbled dried chili pepper if you are using it. Strip the thyme branch of its little leaves and sprinkle over the grapes and olives. Add a tiny sprinkle of salt, splash of olive oil and roast in a 325F/165C oven and bake until the grapes and olives have collapsed, about 40 minutes.

*Edit to add: As per Ms. Maxwells' suggestion: add some balsamic vinegar to the compote if it needs a little acid or if it seems dry, add extra olive oil and a bit more vinegar. 

I roast this compote in a a clay pot so it tends to stay juicer and if you're grapes are tart...be careful with that vinegar.

 If you pack the hot compote into very clean canning jars you can then store the compote in the fridge for a few weeks to have on hand for emergency feedings. Or put into a regular jar and eat it quicker.

 

To serve:

Warm up the compote by placing it in a small oven proof dish in a cold oven, turn the oven on to 250F/120C and remove when it’s warm….about 10 minutes, depends on how quickly your oven heats up.

Serve on thin slices of toasted garlic bread. Slice the bread, and place in the oven at the same time as the compote. When the bread is crisp, remove, lightly rub with a peeled garlic clove and drizzle the bread with a bit of olive oil. Serve on the side with the compote.

A bit of soft goat cheese would be pretty tasty with this compote.

 

It’s delicious and think how happy Leonardo would be knowing you made his mama’s compote?

I’m dreaming of a white…..lasagne…..

 

‘Tis the season for funghi and salsiccia (mushrooms and sausage), they just taste right this time of year as the fog sticks around longer, the night comes quicker, the smell of wood smoke fills the air, and I wonder where on earth did I put my gloves. We’ve already been wearing thick neck scarves for over a month because the threat of cold air is particularly deadly in Italy, ask any Italian and they will issue dire warnings about having cool air on your neck.

 

It’s also a good time of year for al forno pasta, or pasta baked in the oven, because not only does the house smell good, but it warms up my chilly kitchen.

You’ll need:

½ kilo of mixed mushrooms: fresh, dried, frozen

8 sausage links, good, rustic pork sausage, not that effete chicken & apple sausage, ok?

1-liter porcini béchamel sauce (don’t worry, see below, its not hard)

750 g ricotta di pecora (huh? See below)

1 medium onion, finely chopped

250g grated parmigiana, the real thing, not out of a green can

1/2 kilo of lasagne pasta

2 cups milk

8T butter

6 T flour

Olive oil, salt, pepper

I used euro weights just to get you in an Italian state of mind. You need about a pound of mushrooms and sausage, a quart of béchamel, 26 oz of ricotta, but if it comes in a 32 oz container, use the 32 ounces.  Ricotta di pecora is sheep’s milk ricotta and if you can find it, use it, if not…demand it! And just in case you don’t have a field of sheep ready to produce, use regular cow’s milk ricotta. 250g grated parmigiana is about two good handfuls. You need about a pound of pasta.

 

The trick to lasagne is to prep all the ingredients before you move on to assembly. Everything should be right in front of you, neatly arranged in bowls, you need to “mise your place” or things get very messy.

 

1)   Slit open the sausages, turn the meat out into a bowl and break it up with a fork. Then gently sauté the meat until done, all the way mashing it with the fork to break it up into crumbles.

2)   Mushrooms: I like to use a mix of dried porcini, frozen mixed mushrooms, and fresh ‘champignon’ or white button mushrooms. Dried porcini add depth to the overall mushroom flavor, and fresh porcini cost a bundle, so if you get fresh, then eat them raw in a salad and don’t waste them on a lasagne!  Put a good handful of dried porcini into a quart glass jar and fill with 2 cups of lukewarm water, letting the dried ‘shrooms steep. You’re going to be using that porcini water for the béchamel, so don’t throw it out!

Thaw out your frozen mushrooms in a bowl of warm water. Thinly slice the fresh mushrooms. Gently sauté all of the mushrooms, along with the finely chopped onion. (Gently means use medium heat. I’m not suggesting you use a soft spatula and massage the little funghi, you can be as rough as you like it with the mushrooms, just keep the heat low enough that you don’t scorch anything). Drain the dried porcini and add them last, reserving the porcini water

3)   Put on a big pot of water to par boil your lasagne

4)   Porcini béchamel: 2 cups of milk, 2 cups of the dried porcini water, 8 T of butter and 6T of flour.  Melt the butter in a heavy bottomed saucepan (heavy bottom distributes the heat better so you don’t get super hot spots), and then add all of the flour and start stirring with a whisk. You want the flour to get a light caramel color, and you do not want the flour/butter mixture to splash onto your hand because it will burn like napalm. When the flour smells appealing, slowly add the porcini water, still mixing constantly, then add the milk and cook until it thickens into a sauce, about 5 minutes of stirring time.  Don't get all righteous, 5 minutes of bechamel stirring doesn't mean you don't have to go to the gym that day.

5)   Nearly there. It’s assembly time. Working in small batches, par boil your lasagne pasta until its’ pliable. Here you have options: fresh pasta requires just a dunk in the salted water, there’s some pre-boiled lasagne pasta available, follow the directions on the package, dried lasagne noodles should boil for about 2-3 minutes, you want them pliable, not falling apart.

6)   Assembly time: With a ladle, pour a small amount of the béchamel into the pan and spread it around. Now a layer of noodles, bit of béchamel, then all of the sausage, noodles…you get the idea. I like a 3 layer lasagne with all of each ingredient used per layer, so one full layer of ricotta, one of mushrooms, one of sausage and each layer gets a dose of béchamel.  Add the last of the béchamel on top and then add the parmigiana.

 

7)   Bake at 350F/150C for about 45 minutes or until everything is bubbly and brown on top. You can make this in individual pans and freeze it because if you are going to go to this much trouble, it’s nice to have it stashed for a quick meal later in the week. 

      8)    Variations: Our friends recently served an outstanding variation: asparagus, mushrooms & sausages, or you could go with mushrooms and sautéed pancetta or prosciutto. Fool around, have some fun with different combinations. Tell me your favorites.

 

Great with a full bodied white wine or a light red. And remember to wear a scarf when you go outside.

 

 

 

Beer is everywhere, even in my bread

Beer. Birra. Ale. Porter.  Micro-brew. Home Brew. Brewer’s Festivals. My son brings me bottles of his first batch of home brew: a smoked chocolate concoction that is intriguingly flavorful. Beer is hot these days.  The only thing missing is a beer movie that can make beer drinking chic instead of synonymous with college keg parties.

 

Even though, I’m not a beer drinker, I have found a great use for beer: it goes into my bread dough. The bread comes out with a crackling crust and an incredible foamy head. OK, you got me, my bread doesn’t really have a foamy head; it’s just good bread.

 

700 g bread flour

600 g mother (starter)

50 g rye, whole wheat or spelt flour

150g ale

350g water

15g salt

 

Combine the bread & rye flour in a bowl where your mother has been resting and allowed to come to room temperature. A mother is the ferment, or natural yeast dough starter that contains the yeast you need for this bread. For me, the mother is the heart of the bread, it gives it character and attitude. Not unlike what my flesh and blood mother gave me.

Using either a bread scraper (soft flexible piece of plastic) or a knife, cut the mother up into small chunks, incorporating the dry flour. When you’ve gotten to the point where the mother isn’t one big clump, add the ale, then start adding the water until you get the bread fully hydrated. Add the ale or beer first because that is a consistent measure, whereas the final quantity of water added will be dependant on how your bread dough feels. You want it loose enough to knead, but it should be a sticky mass when you turn the dough out onto the table to knead. Yes, knead your bread. It’s good for the mind, body and soul to knead bread, skipping this step is like sex without foreplay. You get to the end result, but without the fun part.

 

Do not add flour to the bread, and do not flour the table. Just start kneading. One of the wonderful things about this bread is how quickly it will come together, which I believe is a factor of using a mother and beer; they just start having fun together right away. After about 5 minutes of kneading, the bread will come cleanly away from the table and it is time to add the salt. I slap the bread down on the table and gently spread it out, then layer the salt on and roll it up and continue kneading for another 5 minutes or so. You’ll literally feel the dough come alive in your hands, and once you can no longer feel any salt crystals and the bread is bouncy in your fingers, make it into a ball and place in a clean bowl. Cover the bowl with a cotton or linen towel, place in a warm spot in the kitchen and let it rest and rise for a good hour or so. After the hour, give it a turn in the bowl (expose the bottom side of the ball to the air), cover and let rest for about 2 hours. At this point it’s time to shape the loaf into any size that warms your heart: long baguette, round boule, or regular slicing loaf. Turn the oven on as hot as it will get, and let the bread rise again as the oven warms. I aim for about 500F, which takes about ½ hour with my oven.

 

If you bake bread often, then you probably have a stone and know what you are doing at this point. If you are a novice, place the loaves on a good cookie sheet that has been lined with oven paper (carta al forno as we say here in the old country, it’s that white paper that comes in rolls and you bake on it. I honestly forget what its called in the States….!).  I don’t have a stone here in Italy,  so I use the baking sheet method and I get good bread, so don’t get all twitchy if you don’t have a stone. But, you do need a water spritzer bottle.  Spritz the bread dough before it goes into the oven and before you slash the loaf, spritz the pan, give the bread a good dousing. This helps to create that crackling crust.  Slash the bread to give it some breathing space and quickly get it into the oven. I mean quick. Don’t keep the oven door open a second longer than you have to. Wait 3-4 minutes, crack the oven door open and spritz everything all over, avoiding the light bulb in the back of the oven.

Let the loaf bake for about 20 minutes, then rotate the pan, spritz and reduce the heat to around 400F and bake until the loaf is golden brown and sounds hollow when you knock on it. Let cool for at least an hour, then eat!  Would probably taste great with a hearty cheddar cheese and a nice glass of home brew, but, I know it tastes great with some parmigiana and a glass of red wine.

 

 

Kitchen Real Estate: Clay Pot Cookery

Do you know anyone who has open, empty kitchen cabinets yearning to be filled? No, me either, so if I’m going to devote storage space to something, it better be good.  Clay pots are worth every inch of space, secondo me.

I use the deep cooking pots on my stovetop, directly on the flame. As long as you start out at a low heat and gradually warm up the pot, you have no worries about cracking the pot.  Clay pots also solve the problem of stovetops that don’t have a low enough heat setting. When making a sauce, like spaghetti Bolognese, you don’t want any more than a few little bubbles working their way up to the top, and most stoves are just too hot.  I make my Bolognese sauce in the oven, and the problem is solved. Set the oven at a low temp and you are good to go. Clay pots seem to cook more evenly, probably because the entire vessel cooks the food, while with traditional stovetop cooking, only the part closest to the heat source is cooking the food. I also think clay pots add a depth of  flavor and they look beautiful right on the table.  Which means one less plate to wash.

I don’t recommend searing or frying food in a clay pot, as that sort of intense heat needs a good metal pan. Then again exploding ceramics could be considered an art form, so that’s a decision you’ll have to make (and clean up after).

Paula Wolfert, the doyenne of slow clay pot cooking is coming out with a new cookery book, Mediterranean Clay Pot Cooking, and if there is anyone that knows her way around a clay pot, it’s Ms. Wolfert. I can’t wait to read it, and find an excuse to buy one more clay pot.

Orgasmic Baked Potato

I wouldn’t call it that if it weren’t true. Maybe calling it the Orgasmic Truffle Baked Potato would explain the reaction. 

Although having some truffle butter on hand is essential for the ultimate orgasmic potato, there are some titillating variations.

1-2 whole roasted potatoes, either an Idaho or good sized russet

Titillating Variations: Truffle butter, Caviar and sour cream, basil and garlic, parmigiano and pancetta

Basic technique: Thoroughly wash a whole, unpeeled potato, and then pierce it a few times. If you forget the piercing part, you risk having the potato blow up in the oven because the interior steam cannot escape. You will only ever make this mistake once.

Roast the potato at 350F until it’s soft, could be 45 minutes, could be a bit longer, depends on the size of your potato.

 

When it’s done, using oven mitts, remove the potato, cut in half and scoop out the inside.

Place the empty shells back in the oven until they get crisp and crunchy, about 10 minutes. In the meantime, using the scooped out hot potato insides,  blend in a decadent amount of the titillating variation of your choice.

Once the shell is crispy, crunchy, place the sinful potato back in the oven to get a little brownage on top and to be sure the potato puree is hot.

That’s all.

What you do while eating the potato is strictly private.

 

Easy Whole Roasted Fish

  A whole fish, with all of its bones still inside where they belong, is going to taste better than a filet. This is the whole truth and nothing but the truth. You can adapt this recipe by laying 2 filets on top of each other, but its nowhere near as much fun.

 

Ingredients:

All the fresh herbs you can lay your hands on: parsley, marjoram, oregano, thyme, sage, mint (yes, a little mint is a wonderful addition), rosemary.

1 fish, such as an orata, small sea bass, red snapper

Tiniest sprinkle of salt

Some tin foil

 That’s it.

 Take your clean and gutted whole fish and lay it on a sheet of tin foil large enough to wrap the fish, stuff all the fresh herbs into the cavity. Sprinkle both sides of the fish with a little bit of salt.  If you are using filets, place the herbs between the two fillets.

Wrap the fish up, taking care to keep the seams of the foil wrap facing up. Add another layer of foil, also facing up. This keeps the juices from dripping out, and makes it easier to unwrap and eat later.

Now you have choices. This is a wonderful preparation for the grill. Place the fish packages (one fish per package) on the grill and turn once or twice.

Or you can roast the fish in a preheated oven, 350F, for approximately 30 minutes, depending on the size of the fish. Filets should take about 20 minutes.  This is a forgiving recipe, so if you are worried about the fish being done, turn the oven off and leave the fish in the oven for another 10 minutes, it won’t dry out because you’ve sealed in all the juices in the foil.

A variation on this preparation is to include a few tomatoes and potatoes and then you have an all in one dish and very little cleanup, which totally works for me! Dice the potatoes into small bite size pieces and par boil for about 5 minutes. Lay on top of the fish along with small tomatoes, sliced in half. 

You can either wrap the fish in foil as above, or in oven parchment paper, but if  you use paper, then don’t cook the fish on the grill, ok?

 

Simple, delicious and an excellent choice for that quick and easy summer, don’t-want-to-be-in-the-kitchen mood.

In the time it takes to boil water: Pasta with Shrimp and Bottarga

 It’s summertime and I don’t want to spend any more time in the kitchen than I have to.

400 g shrimp

3 cloves of garlic, minced

½ cup diced fresh tomatoes

1 thinly sliced shallot

2 T finely chopped parsley

A bit of finely spiced fresh chili pepper, depends on how hot you like it and how hot your chilies are

Shaved bottarga*

*Bottarga is compressed, dried fish roe, usually either mullet or tuna. You can find at Italian specialty stores or buy some from the fine people at Gustiamo. I recommend the whole bottagra, not pre-grated.

Put your pasta water on to boil.

 Start chopping up your garlic, tomatoes, shallot, parsley, and chili pepper.

Once the pasta water has come to a boil, you’ve salted it, added the pasta and stirred, get out a sauté pan large enough to hold all of the shrimp laying flat, not piled on top of each other.

Add 1-2 T olive oil to the sauté pan and when its good and hot, add the shrimp. Cook for 1-2 minutes, turning the shrimp.

 

Based on 8 minute cooking time for the pasta, you are about halfway ready to eat. Another 4 minutes and you're done.

 

Add all of the chopped ingredients to the shrimp pan and toss thoroughly. 1-2 minutes cooking time.

Drain the pasta.

Place the pasta in a pretty bowl, and grate 3 T of bottarga over the pasta. Place the shrimp on the pasta, but before you pour the sauce over the pasta, melt a good sized knob of butter in the pan, scraping up any brown bits. Now pour the sauce over the pasta and bring it to the table so everyone can oooh and ahhh over the shrimp, then toss everything together really well.

 Have paper napkins on hand for sticky fingers because all these shrimp are in their shell and you have to peel them and get deliciously messy. Don’t even think about peeling the shrimp first, and I know you would never, ever buy pre-peeled shrimp.

 

A nice cold white wine. A little tomato salad, and you are all set. This is our first beefsteak tomato, sprinkled with some fresh basil and marjoram, salt and a few drips of olive oil. Now that is summer on a plate.

 

Super Quick Tomato & Basil Sauce

Warning: For those in the North East US, suffering from a lack of tomatoes due to the tomato fungus, do not read this blog post, it will cause you undue pain and suffering.

For the rest of us who have an abundance of tomatoes, read on!

Our tomatoes are coming in quicker than we can eat them, but not enough to set up the canning equipment. Fortunately our basil plants are also producing.  We have a particular basil plant that was given to us by our friend Jane, and due to its gargantuan size even as a youngster, we call him Arnie. Well, Jane, Arnie is now thigh high! The thing thinks it’s a shrub!

This tomato sauce can be made in the time it takes to cook your pasta….and I’m talking thin spaghetti. I can even go out and get the basil and tomatoes while the pasta water is coming to a boil which is not as easy as it sounds, this being Italy and with bella figura and all that. Bella figura is the Italian way of life that says you must look good whenever you leave your front door. There’s more to it than that, but we can talk about bella figura another day. So, I have to makes sure I’m appropriately dressed, hair brushed, a little lip gloss and decent shoes before I head out to the garden. Then it’s out onto the street, quick chat with the ladies who congregate on the church steps, through the stone tunnel, up the street, up the set of steps, unlock the garden gate, check to make sure the Montone Due house is still standing, gather the basil, get some tomatoes, make noises at Tina’s cat (one day I’ll get close enough to pet that cat!) and then reverse the procedure and head home. At any moment, there is the possibility some neighbor will come along to either offer advice on garden growing or need to chat about some other earth shaking gossip so there is an art to getting home unseen.

Once safely back in the house, the pasta water has nearly come to a boil.

 

At this point, it’s time to make the sauce. 

 

½ onion, thinly sliced, preferably a white or yellow hard onion

1 cup or so of ‘tomato sauce’ or plain pureed tomatoes

1 knob of butter

1-2 T olive oil

Salt

Lots of basil

Lots of roughly chopped tomatoes

Soften the sliced onion in the olive oil, taking care not to brown the onion. After 1-2 minutes add the fresh tomatoes, the tomato puree, and the basil. For this sauce I like to shred the basil leaves by hand so that you get a rough texture. Add just enough of the tomato puree to give some liquidity to the sauce, but you don’t want to drown the pasta in it. This sauce is all about highlighting the fresh tomato and basil. Once everything is coming to a boil, turn the heat down as low as possible and add the knob of butter. Add a pinch of salt.

 

Somewhere in the time you were making the sauce, the pasta water came to a boil, you added salt and cooked the pasta.  Just in case: use a large pot of water, bring to a boil, as it starts to bubble, add a small fist full of salt, then add the pasta, stirring occasionally to keep the pasta from clumping.

 

Once the pasta is done, the sauce is done. You are barely cooking those tomatoes, the basil will have wilted but not lost its pungency. 

 

Drain the pasta, top with the sauce, take your shoes off and eat. Yes, take your shoes off, its summertime and that’s what you are supposed to do.

Tomato Tart

  We have officially reached critical mass in the orto. This means that for the first time, I hauled in more tomatoes than we could eat in a day! The tomato plants are actually taller than me, although that's not really a lot to brag about given my 'stature'!  Our first ‘cuore di bue’ or oxheart tomatoes were ready, a bunch of San Marzanos, and a ton of the little guys. The small cherry and ‘pachieri’ tomatoes are literally so sweet that they taste like dessert, which made me just itch to make a tart.

 

Very Simple Tomato Tart

Lots of little tomatoes, enough tomatoes that when you slice them in have, you have sufficient to fully cover the crust

1 very thin layer of thinly sliced onion

Salt, Pepper, Drizzle of Olive Oil

 

Pate Brise type crust

Click here for a basic Pate Brise recipe. I can buy very good quality pate brise, meaning it has no funny ingredients, already rolled out. I keep it around for quickie tarts and treats. Find a good source and stick with it, stay away from anything with hydrogenated oils, it leaves an oil slick on the roof of your mouth besides other nasty stuff.)

After you’ve rolled out the crust, very, very thinly slice the onions, thin as a sheet of paper, and lay them on the crust, next arrange your cut tomatoes, cut side facing up, small sprinkle of salt, a few twists of pepper and a tiny drizzle of olive oil. That’s it. Resist all temptation to add anything else. No basil. No oregano. Stop right with the tiny touch of salt and pepper!

Bake in a 350F oven until the crust is brown, about 25-30 minutes.

 

I served this with a ricotta and basil ‘cream’. Take fresh ricotta, throw in some basil leaves and puree until smooth and creamy.

 

When the tart comes out of the oven a few drips of good quality, syrupy balsamic vinegar would taste very nice. But only use that really expensive, thick as molasses balsamic or you’ll just have a warm tomato salad on your hands!

 

The tart was as good as I wanted it to be, and it was made all the better because the tomatoes came from our orto. My Dad would be so proud….he was the Tomato King!