No, it’s not mealworms, as one of my readers on my Instagram page suggested. They’re passatelli, a specialty from the regions of Le Marche and Emilia Romagna, where my mother is from. They’re considered a pasta, but there’s no flour in the dough — unless you count the bread crumbs. In addition to bread crumbs, they’re made with parmesan cheese and eggs, and they’re typically served in a chicken or beef broth. I used a recipe from Pasta Grannies Cookbook and there’s even a video of one of the grannies making passatelli here. You mix all the ingredients together until you have a stiff dough that you can roll into a ball. I used leftover bread crusts from mostly whole wheat bread, hence the brown color. If you prefer a lighter color, use only the interior of white bread that’s been dried on the counter for a while until it crumbles easily in a food processor. After adding the parmesan cheese and egg, it will be a lighter beige, or pale yellow color.
You then press it through a potato ricer, or passatelli maker. I used to have a wimpy ricer and unfortunately, the metal bent much too easily with a stiff dough. But since buying this new one from Fante’s in Philadelphia (they do mail order), it’s not a problem. Alternately, if you have a meat grinder, use that, as one reader of my Instagram page suggested. Still, the dough was so stiff I found it hard to push it through the ricer, until I moved the ricer handles to the edge of my table and used my body weight to press down on it. I kept a plate on the chair below to catch the passatelli as they came out.
I ended up with this amount, perfect for two people.
Drop them into gently simmering chicken broth (if it’s a vigorous boil, they’re likely to disintegrate), and cook only a minute or two, until the passatelli pop up to the surface.
Serve at once, with more grated parmesan cheese on the side. It’s comfort food on steroids, what my husband claims hits him at “the cellular level.”
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There are days when you have no idea what to eat until an hour before dinner when you open the refrigerator to see what’s languishing in its depths. This recipe springs from such a day, when I had defrosted the pork chops and found some mushrooms in the fridge, on the brink of spoiling. Hunting around for the other ingredients was easy since there’s always wine and chicken broth in the house. If you haven’t got any chicken broth go ahead and substitute a little water instead. If you haven’t got white wine, dry sherry or marsala could easily be substituted, although the taste would be dramatically different with the sweetness of marsala. Get the rice going before you start this dish though, because it will take you only a half hour start to finish.
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I’ve been wanting to make one of these eggy treats – called Dutch baby or German pancake –for quite a while and it wasn’t until I saw it being made on America’s Test Kitchen that I finally got around to it. Well, that’s not exactly true. I tried making one about a year ago and it wasn’t exactly photogenic, unless you consider this a beauty (which I don’t).
But I should have had a bit more faith, since the center started to deflate after a minute or two of removing it from the oven, bringing in the sides to form a high ridge above the custardy center. I was starting to become a believer. By the time I spooned all the apples to the interior, it was a vision of deliciousness and we couldn’t wait to dive in.
The key to this Dutch baby’s success has a lot to do with an unusual approach to oven temperature. It seems counter intuitive, but you start it in a cold oven, cranking it to 375 degrees only after you place the pan in the oven. Starting it in a cold oven allows for a slower build-up of heat, so the center can start to set before the oven reaches the temperature necessary to give the highest lift to the rim (which takes about 25 -30 minutes). A lot of Dutch babies have a very thin base, but this technique allows for a thicker center, which is more satisfying to eat and better able to serve as a base for the apple topping. It slipped out very easily from the cast iron skillet I used onto a serving platter.
This apple Dutch baby recipe also calls for the apples to be cooked separately in a saucepan, rather than cooked with the batter, ensuring that you don’t end up with a heavy, leaden pancake.
Spoon the apples over the Dutch baby, then either sprinkle with powdered sugar or serve with maple syrup. Cut a slice or two for yourself. It would be a delicious way to start the new year.
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Looking for a last minute gift for friends, neighbors or relatives? You still have time to make this, and it’s really great to give away — not just because it’s delicious and a nice thing to do at holiday time, but also because it’s so darn addictive, you’ll have to get it out of the house before you eat it all. It makes a lot, so you’ll have plenty for passing to sweets lovers.
The hardest part is making the toffee, because it can easily burn if you’re not keeping an eye on it. Conversely, if you don’t cook it enough, it will be too soft and won’t have that crunch you associate with toffee. If you have a candy thermometer, you’re one step ahead of the game. I found mine broken in a drawer, so I had to rely on another way to gauge whether it was ready — dropping a bit from a wooden spoon into a glass of ice water. If it’s still pliable after you’ve dropped it in the water, it’s not done. If it snaps crisply, it’s done, so you can pour the syrup over the nuts and chocolate.
Spread half of the nuts (toasted to bring out the best flavor) over a sheet of parchment paper, then spread half of the chocolate that you’ve broken up either by hand or in a food processor. Pour the syrup over everything.
After you’ve poured the syrup over the nuts and chocolate, then spread the remaining chocolate over the syrup. Wait a few minutes for the chocolate to soften, then smooth it over the candy with a spatula. Sprinkle the remaining nuts on top and wait for it to cool.
Take a knife, and cut into pieces. If you’re like me, you’ll have a lot of loose bits that won’t look too great as gifts, so save those for yourself to eat out of hand, or for using as an ice cream topping.
Place into attractive boxes, tins or jars, and spread some good cheer to others before you eat it all.
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1 teaspoon espresso powder, optional; for enhanced flavor
3 tablespoons (43g) water
1 tablespoon (21g) light corn syrup
1 teaspoon baking soda, optional (see "tips," below)
2 cups (227g) diced pecans or slivered almonds, toasted
2⅔ cups (454g) semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped; or chocolate chips
Instructions
In a large, deep (3 quart) saucepan, melt the butter.
Stir in the salt, sugar, espresso powder, water, and corn syrup, and bring the mixture to a boil.
Boil gently over medium heat, without stirring, until the mixture reaches hard-crack stage (300°F on an instant-read or candy thermometer; you'll be taking it off the heat a few degrees sooner).
The syrup will bubble without seeming to change much for awhile, but be patient; all of a sudden it will darken, and at that point you need to take its temperature and see if it's ready.
(If you don't have a thermometer, test a dollop in ice water; it should immediately harden to a brittleness sufficient that you'll be able to snap it in two, without any bending or softness).
This whole process should take about 10 to 12 minutes.
Pay attention; too long on the heat, and the syrup will burn.
While the sugar is boiling, spread half of the nuts in an even, closely packed layer on a parchment-lined 9" x 13" pan.
Top the nuts with half the chocolate.
When the syrup has reached 295°F, remove from the heat and stir in the baking soda; it will foam up, so use caution.
Pour the syrup quickly and evenly over the nuts and chocolate.
Top with the remaining chocolate and let sit for 2 to 3 minutes, until it softens; spread the chocolate with an offset spatula in an even layer and immediately sprinkle the remaining nuts on top.
While the candy is still slightly warm, pull it out of the pan and use a thin spatula to loosen it from the parchment.
If there’s a holiday or special occasion in my household, ravioli are bound to be on the menu. They’re my husband’s favorite pasta, conjuring childhood memories of helping his mother by pressing a fork into the edges of each pillow of dough to help secure the filling.
But when I thought about making them last week to help my dad usher in his 99th orbit around the sun, I realized I’d never really blogged about the basic ravioli in tomato sauce that is the hands-down favorite in my family. I’m here to correct that now, with this bountiful platter of ricotta and parmesan cheese-filled ravioli. I sometimes deviate slightly and add greens to the traditional cheese filling (spinach, swiss chard or even the wild greens I forage for in the spring and freeze) and I’ve included that in the recipe below. Whether I add the greens or just fill them with the cheese, they disappear from the platter before you can say abbondanza.
Let me show you how I make them and hopefully get you inspired. If you take it in steps and make the sauce ahead of time, it won’t seem so daunting. I usually make a big pot of sauce with meatballs and sausage every couple of months, and freeze enough for four or five meals. It’s easy to pull a container from the freezer and just concentrate on the pasta-making itself. For the basic meatballs and sauce recipe, click here.
The dough can be made a day or two ahead of time too, and stored in the refrigerator in plastic wrap. I used to make it the old-fashioned way, by forming a mound of flour, then making a well, adding the eggs, and kneading it until smooth. But years ago, I started using the food processor to do most of the work, and haven’t looked back since. You still have to knead it a little when you remove it from the food processor, but it’s very little labor compared to doing it all by hand. It does need to rest at least a half hour before you proceed to roll it out and shape it into ravioli.
You can roll it out by hand with a rolling pin if you’re a purist (or a masochist), or you can get one of these hand-cranked pasta machines. I’ve had mine for 50 years (yea, I’m old) and it still works great. I keep it at the shore house for when I’m inspired during the summer.
The rest of the year, I roll out the pasta with the attachment to my KitchenAid mixer, which makes things go a lot quicker.
I have the filling all ready to go though, before starting to roll the pasta. Make sure to drain the ricotta a few hours or overnight. I have used cheesecloth, or even coffee filters to hold the ricotta, with weights on the top. You’d be surprised at how much water comes out. And I always buy the full-fat ricotta cheese. Don’t skimp on the calories here please. The filling in the photo contains wild greens, but as I said, you can omit the greens and just go with the cheeses.
Here’s another nifty tool that I started using a few years ago. It makes much more uniform ravioli, plus you won’t be likely to have ravioli with too much dough around the edges, as you might if you formed them by hand. But this too, is totally unnecessary, and in some ways, the hand-formed ones have a certain nostalgic charm, bringing back more vivid memories from my childhood, as I watched my mother shape them at the kitchen table.
Here you can see what to do when you make the ravioli using the form. I generally spray the form first with PAM, or brush lightly with oil. Then you place a sheet of the dough over the form, add a spoonful of the filling, wet the edges of the dough with water, and place a second sheet of pasta over the filling.
Press down carefully, starting from the center, to eliminate any air bubbles. Cut off the excess dough from the edges, then flip it out, and cut between each raviolo.
You’ll have perfect, uniform ravioli this way.
Alternately, if you don’t have the ravioli form, place a sheet of dough directly on your counter or board, add dollops of filling, and moisten between the filling with a brush of water, before adding a second sheet of pasta and helping it to adhere.
Then press down gently to eliminate air bubbles, and use a rolling cutter, or a knife, to cut between the individual ravioli.
You don’t really need to make the fork indentations if you’ve sealed between the layers of dough and pressed down properly, but my husband likes this job, and it’s a little more “insurance” to keep the ravioli from bursting open when you cook them in water. By the way, after they come to an initial boil in the water, lower them to a simmer, since a vigorous boil could also cause them to rupture.
With the leftover scraps, I roll out the dough again, but the more you add the leftover scraps together and reroll them, the tougher they get. So I cut them into small “quadretti” to use in soups, where the texture is less important.
I made the ravioli last week to bring to my dad, who lives about an hour away, with his wife. (I also kept a bunch for my husband or there would have been mutiny). My dad was recovering from some dental work and could eat only soft foods, but it was also part of my gift to him to celebrate his birthday. It’s hard to fathom that he was born nearly 100 years ago — the year Warren Harding was inaugurated president of the U.S.; the year Babe Ruth achieved 139 home runs; the year of the first Miss America contest in Atlantic City; and the year that the police in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, issued an edict requiring women to wear skirts at least 4 inches below the knee! Until the pandemic, he was still occasionally playing golf and beating guys much younger than he. I hope I’m as nimble and sharp-witted when (and if) I get to be his age!
I love making pasta, I love maintaining family food traditions, and I love my dad.
I hope you make ravioli for someone you love too.
It’s a win-win for everyone — including you, especially if you give yourself a big serving!
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1 pound whole milk ricotta cheese, drained overnight if possible
1 cup parmesan cheese
a few sprigs of parsley, finely minced
optional - ¾ cup chopped spinach or wild greens, or broccoli rape, cooked and squeezed tight of liquid
salt, pepper
nutmeg
FOR THE PASTA:
1½- 2 cups flour, adding more as needed
pinch of salt
3 eggs
Instructions
Mix the ingredients for the filling. If using frozen spinach, don't cook it. Let it thaw, then squeeze all the liquid, or as much as possible from the spinach. If using wild greens or broccoli rape, cook in water until tender, then drain, cool, and squeeze out all water possible. Mince and mix with other filling ingredients.
For the pasta, blend everything in a food processor. It's best to start with less flour and add more as you need, since it's much more difficult if you have too much flour and not enough liquid. Blend everything until the dough comes together in a ball. If it's too wet, add more flour. Knead a little more on a floured surface until it's very smooth, like a baby's bottom. Cover with plastic wrap and let it rest at least a half hour.
After it has rested, roll it through a pasta machine, starting with the thickest setting and ending up about two settings short of the thinnest setting. Try to roll it out so that you have an evenly long piece of dough that will fit across your ravioli form. If you're not using a ravioli form, just lay out the dough on the counter, drop about a tablespoon of filling, evenly spaced across the dough, then cover with another layer of dough. Spread a little water with your finger, along the edges, to help the sealing. Starting from the middle, press down on the spaces between the ravioli, working out to the edges. Using a pasta/pastry crimper (or a knife if you don't have one), crimp the dough between the filling, then separate the ravioli, and use a fork to crimp along the edges, ensuring the ravioli don't open when boiled.
When cooking in the boiling water, lower the temperature so that the ravioli just come to a low simmer, or low boil. If they boil too vigorously, you risk bursting the ravioli.
Need a coffee break after all that shopping and wrapping gifts? Ma certo! And you’ll need something to go with that, no? These crumiri cookies, traditional in Italy’s Piedmont region, are the perfect treat to accompany a good cup of espresso. They’re sweet, but not overly sweet. In fact, a sprinkling of powdered sugar or drizzle of chocolate adds just the right touch to make these cookies stand out. They’d also make a great gift to ship to some of those friends and relatives you can’t see due to the Covid pandemic.
The hardest part is squeezing the dough through a piping bag. After my initial attempt, when I put all of the dough in the piping bag, I realized it would be easier if I put only about 1/4 of the dough at a time. It was pretty easy after that adjustment. But if you don’t have a piping bag, you can just roll the dough into logs, then shape into “horseshoes” and bake that way.
You won’t get the ridges that give the cookies the distinctive shape that comes with a piping tip, but they’ll still be delicious. I used white cornmeal because that’s the only type I had on hand, but if you have yellow cornmeal, they’ll be a prettier color and closer to the traditional crumiri you see in Italy.
To drizzle with chocolate, just melt a few squares of dark chocolate (or milk chocolate, if you prefer), and scoop it into a pastry bag. You don’t need a special tip, just snip a bit off the bottom of the bag.
Then drizzle some, and leave others just coated with confectioners’ sugar.
Don’t forget to get the espresso brewing!
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Are you “pumpkined-out?” I can’t blame you if you are since you’ve probably been gobbling the remaining leftovers since Thanksgiving — and I know for a fact that some folks (you know who you are) have even raided the refrigerator for a pumpkin pie breakfast. Still, this recipe (adapted from Everydaypie.com) is so delicious I just couldn’t wait until next Thanksgiving to share it. There’s no shame in baking another pumpkin pie before the season is out. I used a “cheese pumpkin” for this recipe, which gave it an exceptional flavor, but you can certainly use canned pumpkin instead. Actually, you could even make this pie with different squashes too, or even pureed sweet potatoes. Whatever you do, make sure you prick the crust and blind bake it before filling it or you’ll end up with a wet bottom — and who wants that?
To blind bake the crust, I usually butter one side of a piece of aluminum foil and place it into the uncooked pie crust, then gently pour in some beans to weigh it down. These beans have been reused countless times over the decades. They’re at least thirty years old, if not older. I just store them in a tin until I need them again. Follow the instructions in the recipe below.
Place dollops of the mascarpone filling atop the pumpkin, then swirl them in using a knife, or chopstick. Since I was using some pumpkin I had leftover from another recipe, I had only about 1 1/2 cups and it really didn’t fill the crust as high as I would have liked. Try to use about 2 cups of pumpkin, which is what you’ll get from a 15 ounce can.
I have to say that this was really one of the best pumpkin pies I’ve ever eaten, and I don’t know if it was because of using the cheese pumpkin, the addition of mascarpone, the mixture of spices, the perfectly baked crust or a combination of all of them. I do know that I’ll be making this again and I won’t wait for next Thanksgiving to do so. I hope you try it too. Don’t forget to add the whipped cream on top!
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1–9″ pie crust, homemade or purchased, blind baked (see instructions below)
1 cup (8 ounces; 227 grams) mascarpone cheese, room temperature
¼ cup (50 grams) granulated sugar
4 large eggs, divided
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (This turned the mascarpone a beige color, so I might eliminate it next time and just add the vanilla to the pumpkin instead.)
½ cup packed (100 grams) light brown sugar
1–½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon nutmeg, freshly grated
Pinch cloves
1 (15 ounce) can 100% pumpkin puree (I used 1½ cups of freshly cooked and drained pumpkin but 2 cups would have been better)
heavy cream for whipping and decorating the top of pie
Instructions
TO ROLL AND BLIND BAKE THE PIE CRUST:
Roll out the pie dough to an 11″ circle and line a 9” pie plate, crimping the edges as desired.
Prick the bottom of the dough all over with a fork to let steam escape during baking. Place the pie in the freezer for 30 minutes to let the pie dough chill.
While dough is chilling, preheat oven to 375ºF.
Remove the pie from freezer and line the pie dough with a parchment round piece of paper (or aluminum foil that is greased on the side that touches the pie dough) and then add pie weights (or dry rice or beans or lentils) to fill the pie shell, making sure to push pie weights to the edges.
Bake for 20 minutes on the lower rack, then remove from oven and remove the parchment and pie weights.
Return to oven and bake for an additional 10 minutes.
Set aside until ready to use. Lower the oven to 325ºF.
ASSEMBLE THE FILLING:
Using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat the mascarpone and the sugar, until smooth.
Add in 1 egg and beat until thoroughly combined.
Scoop out ½ cup of the mascarpone mixture and set aside.
Then, add to the mascarpone mixture the remaining eggs, vanilla, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and pumpkin puree.
Beat together until fully combined.
Add half of the pumpkin filling to the fully baked pie crust.
Spoon in a few dollops of the set aside mascarpone filling to the pumpkin mixture.
Then, pour the remaining pumpkin mixture over the top. Spoon drops of the remaining mascarpone mixture.
Using a knife, chopstick or toothpick gently swirl through all layers of the pumpkin filling to achieve a marble effect.
TO BAKE:
Bake the pie on the middle rack for 45-55 minutes, or until the pie reaches a temperature of 180ºF and the outer edges have started to puff up but the center is still slightly wobbly.
Remove from the oven and let cool at room temperature before placing in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours to finish firming up.
OK, now if this pasta dish has you drooling, let me tell you it’s really easy to make and so delicious you’ll be eating seconds and thirds and fending off marriage proposals from anyone who tries it. Of course, that assumes you make your own pappardelle, following the instructions here. But if you don’t have the time or inclination to make your own pasta and instead buy a good quality pappardelle, and serve this ragù as the accompaniment, you’re still likely to have suitors filling up your dance card after they fill their stomachs.
It all starts with that beef stew I recently posted. I asked you to put some aside in the freezer for a reason (before adding the peas and carrots.)
When you defrost it, add a 1/2 can of Italian cherry tomatoes with the juices. It’s not the same with fresh cherry tomatoes, so make sure you buy the canned ones. If it’s hard to find canned cherry tomatoes where you live, you can buy them online at many places, including here. By the way, I have no financial interest in this brand or any other, so choose whatever brand you like.
After you’ve added the tomatoes, some wine, chestnuts and a little seasoning, let everything simmer for another 1/2 hour to 45 minutes to blend the flavors. You’ll get a thick and flavorful ragù that is just begging for some pasta to keep it company.
I was lucky to find fresh chestnuts from Italy in the produce section at my local grocery store. You’ll see plenty of sealed bags of chestnuts on the shelves that are already peeled and cooked, but they come from China, and I’m leery of the quality control, so I always seek out the Italian ones. The fresh ones are not that hard to cook and clean. Just cut a slit or make a cross cut in each chestnut; place them in a pan with cold water; let it come to a boil; boil for two or three minutes, then drain the water and roast the chestnuts in a 425 degree oven for about 15-20 minutes. They should be fully cooked by then. It’s easier to peel them when they’re hot, and some of the skins will peel off easily. Others are a little more resistant, but for this recipe it doesn’t matter if the chestnuts come off in one piece. You’ll be breaking them up to put in the sauce anyway. (But munch a few with a good glass of wine while you’re peeling them too!)
Get the pasta water boiling (“Butta la pasta,” as we say in Italian) and add the pappardelle, then toss the pasta with the sauce.
My mouth is watering just looking at this dish. By the way, you can freeze any of those chestnuts if you’ve cooked more than you need for this recipe. With chestnut season so short, you’ll be glad you did. As the dish below says, take your photo first, then dig in.
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2 cups leftover beef stew (without carrots or peas or potatoes - just the meat and the sauce)
1 cup canned cherry tomatoes with the juice (1/2 of a 14 oz. can)
½ cup red wine
1 teaspoon of finely minced fresh rosemary
1 cup cooked chestnuts, broken into pieces
pappardelle (about 1 lb.)
Instructions
Take the leftover beef stew, and cut, or shred the chunks of beef into small pieces.
Place the beef in a saucepan with the canned cherry tomatoes, the wine, the chestnuts and the rosemary and let it all simmer for about ½ hour to 45 minutes.
Boil the pasta until it is cooked and toss gently with the sauce.
Although we’ve had warm, nearly 80-degree days here in New Jersey recently, it’s most unusual for this time of year. Cold weather in November is as predictable as election results on the first Tuesday of the month (oh wait………. well, let’s not go there).
And when the down comforter comes out, and the fireplace kicks in, so does my need for comfort food. One of my favorite meals to make (and eat) when the temperature drops, is this beef stew. You may like potatoes in your beef stew, and if so, feel free to add them. But I prefer mine served over creamy, cheesy, soft polenta. And this polenta doesn’t require stirring over a stove for an hour since you make it in the oven, stirring only once every twenty minutes. If you prefer, you can also serve the stew over mashed potatoes, buttered noodles or rice.
Another reason I omit potatoes from beef stew (aside from the fact that reheated potatoes never taste that good) is because I like to set aside some of the beef stew (before the addition of peas and carrots) to use in another recipe, one that I’ll write about in an upcoming blog post. Without divulging that recipe right now, suffice it to say that it’s worth making this beef stew just to have the leftovers. I know you’ll thank me for it later. For now, the beef stew and polenta is pretty darn comforting too.
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¼ cup olive oil, or more as needed to brown the cubes
one large onion, minced
2 garlic cloves, minced
½ cup red wine
2 cups beef broth
1 cup water
1 cup canned cherry tomatoes, (or crushed tomatoes if you can't find the cherry tomatoes)
salt, pepper
1 sprig of fresh rosemary, minced
2 T. minced fresh sage
1 cup frozen peas
1 or 2 carrots, peeled and sliced
1 squirt of "kitchen bouquet" (if you can find it - it helps make everything a richer brown color)
FOR THE OVEN BAKED POLENTA:
1 cup cornmeal
3 cups water
2 cups milk
1 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons butter
½ cup parmesan cheese
Instructions
If the beef cubes are large, cut them into smaller pieces, about ½" to ¾."
Dust the cubes with flour, salt and pepper.
Saute the cubes in the olive oil, in one layer, repeating as necessary, and turning on each side until browned,
Remove the beef cubes from the pot, add more olive oil, if needed, and cook the onions over low heat until translucent.
Add the garlic cloves and cook for another couple of minutes
Put the beef cubes back into the pan, and pour in the red wine.
Let it cook for a minute, then add the canned tomatoes, beef broth and water, and season with salt, pepper, paprika, rosemary and sage.
Place the lid on the pot and place in the oven at 325 degrees for 2 - 3 hours, or until the meat is fork tender.
Place the frozen peas in the pot about ½ hour before removing it from oven.
Boil the sliced carrots in water and when nearly done, remove the carrots from the water and add to the beef stew in the oven, stirring to blend everything,
If you can find "Kitchen Bouquet," add about 1 teaspoon to the pot.
It will give it a rich, brown color.
If the liquid in the beef stew is not thick enough, remove the cover, and cook on top of the stove for a bit, until some of the liquid has evaporated and thickened.
Serve over polenta, noodles or mashed potatoes.
FOR THE POLENTA:
Whisk together the cornmeal, milk, water and salt.
Place in the oven, uncovered, with the beef stew during its last hour of cooking.
Whisk or sttir every 20 minutes.
If it looks like it needs more liquid, add more water or milk.
After an hour, it should be thickened enough. It will thicken some more when you add the cheese.
If it's still not thickened enough, return to the oven for another 20 minutes,
Add the butter and stir.
Remove from the heat, and stir in the parmesan cheese.
Fazzoletti (the Italian word for handkerchiefs) is a pasta I’ve been wanting to make for a long time, after eating it years ago at Le Virtù, a favorite Philadelphia restaurant. I finally got in the fazzoletti-making mode a couple of weeks ago and decided to channel fall flavors, with sausage and mushrooms in the sauce. But to kick it up a further notch, I added saffron to the dough. Saffron is expensive here in the states, but a little goes a long way. It’s a lot less expensive in Italy, and it’s much fresher if you buy it near the source (Abruzzo is famous for its saffron from Navelli). So whenever I’m in Italy, I buy saffron, whether in a pretty little ceramic container, as I bought in Santo Stefano di Sessanio, or in paper packages, that you can find in any supermarket in the country. One of my very favorite ways to use it is in the classic risotto alla Milanese, a recipe I wrote about here.
The dough is made with OO flour, the gold standard when making pasta, with its fine, soft grain and high gluten content. I added two of the small glassine envelopes of saffron to the dough, after dissolving it in a tablespoon of warm water. And yes, you can taste the saffron in the pasta, although it is subtle. Dump everything into a food processor, leaving some of the flour aside because when you’re making an egg/flour pasta, it’s much easier to add more flour to a wet mixture than add more eggs to a dry pasta mixture. Feel free to mix it on the countertop, but you’ll need a lot more muscle. Even with the food processor, take it out and knead it on the counter, adding more flour if it’s too sticky, and kneading it until it’s as soft as a baby’s bottom. Cover it and set aside for at least a half hour, which gives the gluten time to relax and do its thing. It’ll be much easier to work with as a result.
This is the amount of pasta I made using the recipe below. As you can see, I made about a dozen fazzoletti, that each measured 4″ x 4″, plus a lot of pappardelle that I plan to use in a separate recipe. Of course, you can always buy packaged pasta, or even fresh pasta in the refrigerated section, but you’ll have a hard time finding fazzoletti pasta, and there’s nothing quite so delicious as home made. I had a few scraps left over and cut them into thin spaghetti that I’ll most likely use in chicken soup.
The sauce comes together quite quickly, with some olive oil, herbs, sausage, shallots and mushrooms, all cooked in one pot.
Lift the cooked fazzoletti from the boiling water directly into the sauce, letting some of the water come along with it. Stir and mix everything together gently so you don’t rip the pasta. Add more of the pasta water, if needed.
Serve on a large platter, sprinkled with a drizzle of olive oil, some parmesan cheese and minced parsley.
Wait till you bite into this toothsome, yet silky pasta with these complementary flavors. If you’re like me, you’ll have a hard time stopping at one bowl.
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