With Christmas less than two weeks away this is a good time to encourage anybody who is interested in having a traditional Southern Italian all fish Christmas Eve Dinner to check out our Feast of the Seven Fishes menu. We first published this menu, with dishes like the Fried Calamari pictured above, on The Italian Chef in 2007, and will try and update it every year with at least one new recipe. It is not a hard set menu, just some suggestions with the goal of giving you a lot of options so you can mix it up to your own taste. This year we have a nice addition to the antipasti choices, Insalata Frutta di Mare.

Italian Christmas Eve Dinner

 

In the cookbook Seafood alla Siciliana: Recipes and Stories from a Living Tradition, author Toni Lydecker takes us with her on a trek through Sicily in which she visits fishermen, fishmongers, restaurant chefs and home cooks all over the Island.  The result is a comprehensive and evocative volume on the rich culinary tradition of Sicilian Seafood that not only gives us great recipes, but an insight on how history and tradition have shaped the wonderfully eclectic cooking of the island.

Lydecker gives us well written and easy to follow recipes for classic Sicilian dishes such as Pasta con le Sarde, Involltini di Pesce Spada (she gives us two variations of these typically Sicilian stuffed swordfish rolls, including a wonderful pistachio-crusted one with an escarole filling), and Tuna with Sweet-Sour Onions alongside more modern riffs on Sicilian flavors such as Aromatic Salmon Steamed in Foil and Braised Grouper Over Sweet Pea Puree.  Interspersed throughout the book are great stories about the people and traditions she encountered as she explored Sicily, including  a nice section on some of the more memorable meals she enjoyed while putting together the book.

One thing I was not expecting to get out of a book on Sicilian Seafood was great sandwich ideas, but the chapter on Savory Pies and Panini surprsed me with recipes like Pizza-Panino with Anchovies and Fresh Tomatoes and Sardine Sandwiches with Grilled Eggplant.  That chapter and a one page listing of Antipasti, Presto or quick appetizers such as tuna crostini and roasted red peppers rolled up with anchovies are just two of the extra little touches that help make this one of my favorite cookbooks of the year.

Recipes:

Aromatic Salmon Steamed In Foil
Seared Tuna With Sweet-Sour Onions

Tortellini alla Panna is a classic Northern Italian preparation of meat filled Tortellini tossed in a cream sauce. My father used to serve a Tortellini Pasticcio that consisted of Tortellini alla Panna layered with Bolognese Sauce and then baked in the oven. I have been wanting to make this at home for a quite a while, but for whatever reason never got around to it until now. While eating it my wife had one question for me, “Why have we never had this before?”

I always liked the presentation for this in my father’s restaurant. Each one was cooked to order in individual metal plates that went in the oven, with a circle of Bolognese sauce on top in the center of the white Tortellini in the cream sauce. The metal plates were then placed on top of serving dishes and brought to the table (with a warning to be careful of the hot metal plates, of course). The individual metal plates are not an ideal solution for the home cook, but you can still achieve a great presentation with a round or oval ceramic baking dish served family style.

Tortellini Pasticcio

Serves 4-6

4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1-1/2 cups heavy cream
salt to taste
1 pound of tortellini
3/4 cup freshly grated Parmagiano-Reggiano cheese
1-1/2 cups bolognese sauce

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F.
2. Add the butter, cream and salt to a large sauté pan, turn the heat on to medium and melt the butter into the cream. Bring to a simmer and cook until slightly thickened, about 1 minute. Take off the heat.
3. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and add the tortellini. Cook until the tortellini are slightly underdone, 3-5 minutes. Drain well.
4. Place pan with butter and cream back over medium heat. Add the tortellini and Parmagiano-Reggiano cheese and stir gently until cheese is melted and tortellini are well coated with the sauce.
5. Coat the bottom of a round or oval baking dish with 1 cup of the bolognese sauce. Add the tortellini with the cream sauce to the dish, then make a circle on top of the tortellini in the center with the remaining half cup of bolognese sauce, leaving about 1 inch around the edges uncovered.
6. Place the baking dish in the oven and cook for 15 minutes, until the cream sauce is starting to bubble around the edges.

A few months ago I was invited to join a new website called Springpad. Springpad is a free online personal organizer that helps people get things done. From food and entertainment to parenting and managing the day-to-day, Springpad makes it easy for you to collect, use and share content from bloggers, brands and trusted friends to help organize your life. To date, the Springpad community of hundreds of food bloggers and thousands of members have already collected and shared more than 50,000 recipes and created more than 15,000 weekly meal plans.

They asked me to join because they were launching a new feature, Weekly Recipe Planner, which allows Springpad users use their web clipper tool or click on their partners’ “save it!” buttons to collect recipes from across the web. Once in Springpad, users can personalize and share their recipes by adding notes, photos and video and automatically generate shopping lists. Springpad also has a mobile web app that allows you to access your recipes, shopping lists and meal plans on the go.

I have updated all of the recipes on this blog with a Springpad “save it!” button:

 

When you click on this button a popup window will allow you to save the recipe to your Springpad (if you are a registered user) without leaving The Italian Chef. All recipes going forward will have the “save it!” button and I am working to add it to all of the legacy recipes on italianchef.com.  I am excited to be adding this new functionality to our recipes because I think Springpad is a very nice application. It is quite easy to use and can really help you organize your online life.

In addition to our own original recipes, we like to feature recipes from some of our favorite cookbooks on The Italian Chef from time to time. Urban Italian: Simple Recipes and True Stories from a Life in Food by Andrew Carmellini and Gwen Hyman had been sitting on my bookshelf for a while before I finally cracked it open and started leafing through it this summer (it was published in Oct 2008). The book, which chronicles Carmellini’s culinary journey from boyhood to becoming a top chef in New York, is very well written with great, accessible recipes that add a modern touch to classic Italian fare. The recipe we were given permission to reprint is Black Bass with Sicilian Style Pesto.  In the photo above, I actually substituted some nice cod, since my local fish market did not have black bass at the time.

Recipe:

Black Bass with Sicilian Style Pesto

There are several things that differentiate Lasagna Bolognese from the Southern Italian style Lasagna that is more familiar to Americans. The most noticeable differences are the use of Béchamel Sauce instead of ricotta cheese, and the absence of mozzarella–only Parmagianno-Reggiano cheese is sprinkled on each layer–which results in a more delicate lasagna.

Lasagna Bolognese should be made using an authentic slow cooked Ragu alla Bolognese (Bolognese Sauce).  Marinara sauce mixed with browned ground beef just won’t do here.  Finally, fresh egg pasta should always be used, not dried lasagna noodles.  Most typically, but not required, it is prepared with green pasta made with spinach.  When made with the spinach pasta the dish can also be called Lasagna Verde Bolognese.

When boiling the sheets of pasta it is very important not to overcook them, because they will cook more when baking the lasagna and you don’t want to end up with mushy noodles that fall apart.  Cook them in the boiling water for no longer than 1 minute,  just so they are soft enough to work with, and rinse them with cold water quickly to stop the cooking.

Lasagna Verde Bolognese

Serves 8

For the Bolognese Sauce:
1/4 cup olive oil
1 small onion, chopped fine
1 carrot, chopped fine
1 celery stalk, chopped fine
1/4 pound pancetta, chopped coarsely
3 pounds ground beef, preferably chuck
1 35 ounce can imported Italian plum tomatoes
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 cup meat broth, hot
salt and pepper to taste

For the Béchamel Sauce:
6 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup all purpose flour
3 cups whole milk
1/2 teaspoon salt

To assemble the lasagna:
1-1/2 pounds fresh green lasagna noodles
2/3 cup freshly grated Parmagiano-Reggiano cheese

To prepare the Bolognese sauce:

1. In a large deep sauce pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion, carrot and celery, cook stirring occasionally until translucent, about 10minutes.
2. Add the pancetta and ground beef, turn heat to high and cook, stirring occasionally until browned about 15 minutes.
3. While the meat is cooking run the tomatoes through a food mill into a bowl. Add the tomatoes, tomato paste and meat broth, and season with salt and pepper. Let come to a boil, then lower the heat to low and simmer for 2 hours, stirring occasionally.

To prepare the Béchamel:

1. Melt the butter in a medium sauce pan over low heat. Add the flour and stir with a wire whisk until it forms a paste.
2. Meanwhile, heat the milk in a separate sauce pan just to the verge of boiling. Add the milk to the butter and flour mixture 1 cup at a time, whisking until smoothly combined.
3. Add the salt and continue to cook over low heat, stirring occasionally until the mixture is thick and smooth, it should coat the back of a spoon.

To finish the lasagna:

1. Preheat the oven to 375 Degrees F.
2. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. In 3 batches add the lasagna sheets to the boiling water and cook briefly, about 1 minute. Remove the sheets from the pot using a slotted spoon, place in a colander, rinse under cold water to stop the cooking and spread out on clean kitchen towels.
3. Spread a thin layer of Bolognese sauce on the bottom of a 13×9 baking pan and sprinkle with Parmigiano cheese. Cover with a layer of pasta, overlapping the pasta where necessary. Cover the pasta with a thin layer of béchamel, spread a layer of bolognese on top of that, then sprinkle with cheese. Repeat until you place 4th layer of pasta on top.
4. Mix the remaining bechamel and bolognese sauce together, spread thinly over top layer of pasta and sprinkle with the remaining cheese. Place pan in oven and bake for approximately 30 minutes, the top should be slightly browned and the sauces should be bubbling.

I wanted to make a pasta dish Sunday for dinner and since I had just recently made and frozen a large batch of Italian sausage, Sandy suggested I defrost a few and make pasta with sausage. Great idea! I used sweet sausage for this but if you want to go spicier you can use hot sausage or increase the amount of red pepper flakes.

Serves 4-6

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium sweet onion, diced
1 pound sweet Italian sausage meat (stuffing from 4 links)
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
salt to taste
1 35oz can of imported Italian tomatoes
6 fresh basil leaves
1 pound mezzi rigatoni

1. Heat olive oil in a medium sauce pan over medium-high heat. Add onion and sautè, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon until softened and translucent, about 5 minutes.
2. Add sausage meat, red pepper and salt to taste. Cook, stirring occasionally until sausage is browned approximately 10 minutes.
3. In a large bowl, crush the tomatoes with your hands then add them with their juices to the pan. Add 1/2 cup of water and bring to a simmer. Turn heat to low and let simmer until thickened, about 45 minutes. At the very end of cooking, tear 2 of the basil leaves into pieces with your hands and stir into the sauce.
4. While sauce is cooking, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and add the mezzi rigatoni. Cook uncovered over high heat until al dente.
5. Drain the pasta and toss with half of the sauce. Dish pasta out into individual serving plates, top with a little more sauce, garnish with the remaining basil leaves torn by hand and serve.

I have been making my own sausage for a few years now, ever since I picked up the book Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn.  Charcuterie is probably my favorite cookbook, even though the only recipes from the book I have actually made are several of the fresh sausages (the Spicy Roasted Poblano Sausage is awesome) and smoked bacon.  Those few recipes, however, have given me immense satisfaction, and I am always picking it up, flipping through it and planning on eventually branching out to more advanced projects like dry cured sausages, pancetta and bresaola.

My Fresh Italian Sausage recipe is actually a hybrid of the Sweet Italian Sausage recipe in Charcuterie and the Fresh Italian Sausage recipe from another book in my library, Cooking by Hand by Paul Bertolli.  I like the combination of herbs and spices in Bertolli’s recipe but use the ratio of meat to fat and the measurements of the ingredients the two have in common from Charcuterie.  Even though cayenne pepper is an ingredient in this recipe, I still consider it to be a “sweet” sausage, because the cayenne is not enough to make it hot, it just adds a tiny bit of spice. 

There several keys to making a good sausage that both books share.  The first key is keeping your meat and fat cold.  If it gets too warm during the process, the fat will separate from the meat and you will end up with a crumbly sausage.  Tips that I picked up from both books are putting the meat in the freezer after I cut it up until it’s almost frozen, putting the auger, dies, blades, etc from your grinder in the freezer to get cold before grinding, and grinding the meat into a bowl set in ice. 

Also very important is the addition of fat.  Fat makes the sausage juicy, and a good Italian sausage must have a certain percentage of fat.  Back fat is not an easy ingredient to get a hold of, so you may be tempted to exclude it from this recipe and just use 5 pounds of pork shoulder, but trust me I have tried it and the results just aren’t the same.  Talk to your butcher and see if they can special order it for you, or you can order it online from a source like Niman Ranch. Speaking of sources, you can get the hog casings from Butcher & Packer.

The last key to a good sausage is after it is made; cooking the final product.  A lot of people have a tendency to overcook sausage.  A sausage should be cooked to a temperature of 150 degrees.  Charcuterie suggests using a meat thermometer to check the temperature.  I would never tell you to stand there like a dork at your grill sticking a meat thermometer in individual sausages.  Just use common sense and judgment, if it’s cooked a little over 150 it’s no big deal, but you can tell when you are absolutely killing it… just stop yourself.

As far as equipment goes, I use the meat grinder attachment for my KitchenAide stand mixer to grind the meat, into the mixer bowl, then mix the ground meat with the ice cold liquid using the paddle attachment.  I initially used the sausage stuffer that attaches to the grinder, but was not happy with that for several reasons, not the least of which is that going through the auger  heats it up and increases your risk of “breaking” the sausage.  I ended up buying this 5 pound sausage stuffer and the process is so much easier.  If you are intimidated by stuffing the sausage, or just not ready to buy the special equipment, you could start out by just making sausage patties and skip it altogether.

Fresh Italian Sausage

Adapted from Charcuterie and Cooking by Hand

Makes 5 pounds of sausage

4 pounds/800 grams boneless pork shoulder butt
1 pound/450 grams pork back fat
3 tablespoons kosher salt
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 teaspoons minced garlic
2 tablespoons fennel seeds, toasted
2 teaspoons coarsely ground black pepper
1-1/2 tablespoons dried sage
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 cup ice water

10 feet hog casings, soaked in tepid water for at least 30 minutes, then flushed with running water

1. Cut the pork and fat into roughly 1 inch dice, and mix together in a bowl. Cover the bowl and place it in the freezer for approximately 30 minutes, it will feel nearly frozen.
2. Remove the meat from the freezer and combine well with the rest of the ingredients, except the water.
3. Grind the meat through a 1/4 inch plate, the large die if you are using the KitchenAide grinder attachment, into a bowl set in ice.
4. Add the water to the meat mixture and mix with the paddle attachment of the stand mixer for about 1 minute on medium speed. The mixture should be thoroughly combined and quite sticky.
5. Immediately stuff the sausage into the hog casings, pinch and and twist to form 6-inch links.  Alternately, you can shape the sausage into patties. The sausage can now be refrigerated or wrapped well and frozen until ready to cook.