Cold summer meatloaf with vegetables and tomato salsa

Polpettone freddo con verdure. This is a really nice summery dish and would be perfect for a picnic. When I cooked it, I couldn’t find minced veal so I used 50/50 pork and beef with good results. Serves 4 hungry people as a main course. It could be used as an antipasto too.

Summer meatloaf ingredients

• 200g minced veal
• 200g minced beef
• 150g minced pork
• 200g ricotta
• 2 eggs
• 50g grana padano, grated
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1 sprig of marjoram (or 1/2 tsp dried)
• 1 carrot
• 150g french beans
• 100g frozen peas
• 3 large vine tomatoes (or 200g tinned chopped tomatoes, drained)
• 10 fresh basil leaves
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• Salt & Pepper

1. Wash and top and tail the beans. Peel the carrot and chop into batons. Parboil the veg in salted water for 3-4 minutes.
2. Mix together the meat, the eggs, half the clove of garlic (finely chopped), the marjoram, the ricotta and the grana. Season with salt and pepper.
3. Lay a piece of grease proof paper flat on the work surface. Spread the meat mixture out so that you get a rectangle about 2cm deep.
4. Arrange the vegetables on top and, using the paper to help, roll up to form a meatloaf (like you would for a swiss roll). Press together firmly and make sure the ends are closed.


Summer meatloaf ready to cook

5. Transfer to a baking tin, cover with foil and bake at 200°C for an hour. Remove the foil 15 minutes before the end of cooking to allow the loaf to brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.
6. Make the salsa by deseeding and chopping the tomatoes with the basil and the other 1/2 clove of garlic. Stir in the oil and season with salt and pepper.
7. When ready to serve, slice the meatloaf into 1-2cm rounds and spoon a little of the salsa onto each slice

Summer meatloaf with salsa

The best baked ziti ever!

IMHO Pasta al forno Pugliese. Baked pasta is popular all over Italy. This version comes from Puglia. It uses Scamorza cheese instead of mozzarella. If you can’t find scamorza you can use mozzarella, but make sure it’s not too fresh as it will make the dish too wet. Actually, that probably wouldn’t be a problem outside Italy It is traditionally made with pecorino, but nowadays most people use parmesan. There is a lighter meatless version that leaves out the meatballs. Thanks to Grazia and Tiziana for the advice. Serves 6

Baked ziti ingredients

• 500g mezzi ziti or rigatoni
• 200g scamorza cheese, finely diced
• 50g pecorino Romano or parmesan
• 800g passata
• 1 onion
• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper

For the meatballs:

Meatballs ingredients

• 250g minced beef
• 50g pecorino Romano or parmesan
• 1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp breadcrumbs
• 2 medium eggs
• sprig of parsley, finely chopped
• Salt and pepper

1. Make a tomato sauce by frying the onion for a few minutes in plenty of olive oil. Add the passata, season and cook over a low heat for about 30 minutes.
2. Make the meatballs by mixing all the ingredients together. Form into small balls about the size of a hazelnut. Fry in olive oil until well browned. Drain on kitchen paper.


fried meatballs

3. Boil the pasta until it is very al dente, two or three minutes less than the usual cooking time.  Dress with a couple of ladles of the tomato sauce and half the parmesan.
4. To assemble the dish take a high sided baking tray and put a layer of the pasta in the bottom. Cover with tomato sauce and sprinkle with meatballs, diced scamorza, and parmesan.


Partially assembled dish

5. Continue until you have used up all the pasta. The last layer should be pasta covered with tomato sauce. Sprinkle the top with parmesan


Assembled dish

6. Bake in a hot oven for 25 minutes.

Baked ziti

Fettuccine Alfredo – Authentic recipe

I was curious to find out exactly what fettuccine Alfredo is. I’ve frequently heard it mentioned in American TV shows and movies, but I’ve never found anyone in Italy who has heard of it. So I did a little research and came up with this.

Alfredo's restaurant

Fettuccine dressed with butter and parmesan has been eaten for hundreds of years in Italy. The story goes that in 1914 Alfredo di Lelio

Alfredo

had the bright idea to add a lot more butter. Apparently he thought it might help his heavily pregnant wife keep her lunch down. Just what you need when you’re feeling queasy, half a pound of butter With the help of a bit of nifty PR (courtesy of Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford), the dish became popular in the US. Alfredo’s restaurant still exists in Rome and enjoys a great deal of custom from American tourists. Alfredo’s now also has three restaurants in the states. Over the years American chefs have amended the recipe to include cream.

This is the original recipe from Alfredo’s restaurant. The recipe is for 4 portions, but it’s sooo heavy, I reckon 6 would be nearer the mark.

By the way, it does taste very nice, but I think I can feel my arteries hardening as I type

Fettuccine Alfredo ingredients

• 450g fresh fettuccine
• 170g unsalted butter at room temperature.
• 170g Parmesan, grated

1. Beat the butter and cheese together in a bowl until you get a smooth paste.
2. Cook the fettuccine for  3 minutes.
3. Drain the pasta quickly and add to the bowl with the cheese and butter. You should allow a little of the cooking water to cling to the pasta.
4. Toss the pasta in the sauce and serve.

Fettuccine Alfredo

Lasagne Bolognese – Authentic recipe

Lasagne Bolognese. There isn’t one authentic recipe for lasagne Bolognese, but there are lots of things you can do to make an inauthentic one. One of my friends in Bari is still in shock from the time he was served a lasagne in Newcastle which included sweetcorn

Sweetcorn aside, the main difference between lasagne Bolognese served in Italy and those commonly served in other countries is that the Italians use far less cheese and usually have only about four layers of pasta.

This recipe uses fresh homemade pasta. I really recommend trying it with fresh lasagne, you’ll really notice the difference. The next best choice would be shop bought fresh lasagne, then dried egg lasagne which you need to precook and last, and definitly least, dried lasagne that needs no precooking.  Serves 4-6

• 1 quantity Ragù for baked pasta
• 1 quantity Basic white sauce
• 1/2 quantity Pasta dough
• 25g butter
• 70g parmesan cheese

1. Roll out the pasta into sheets. They need to be a little thicker than for tagliatelle. On my pasta machine I use the setting which is two up from the thinnest.
2. Cut the pasta into rectangles which are roughly 10cm by 8cm.


Lasagne sheets

3. Cook the lasagne, a few at a time, in plenty of salted boiling water. About 2-3 minutes. If you add a little oil to the water it helps to stop them sticking together.  Drain and lay them on a damp tea towel.
4. Grease a lasagne dish with a little butter.
5. Arrange a layer of lasagne on the bottom of the dish. Spread one third of the ragù on top, spoon on some white sauce and sprinkle with a little cheese. Dot with some of the butter.  Cover with a layer of lasagne.
6. Repeat until you have used all of the ragù, finishing with a layer of lasagne. Cover with the rest of the white sauce.
7. Bake in an oven preheated to 200°C for 30 minutes. Be careful not to let the top get too brown.
8. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes before dividing into portions.

Lasagne Bolognese

Ragù for baked pasta

Ragù per pasta al forno. This is used for many dishes – lasagne, baked ziti etc. There are many recipes, but the proportion of meat to tomato is always similar. One of the most common mistakes people make is to add too much tomato. If you have time, the flavour improves if you make it the day before and leave it in the fridge overnight. Enough for 4-6 portions of pasta.

• 300g minced beef
• 75g carrot, finely chopped
• 75g onion, finely chopped
• 50g celery, finely chopped
• 100ml dry white wine
• 250g passata
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• Salt and pepper

1. Heat the oil in a pan and add the onion, carrot and celery. Fry gently for a few minutes until the onions start to go translucent.
2. Add the meat and break up with a wooden spoon. Cook until it is well browned.
3. Add the wine and continue cooking until it has almost completely evaporated.
4. Add the passata, season with salt and cover.
5. Cook very slowly for at least 2 hours. Add a little water if it starts to dry out.
6. At the end of cooking, season with freshly ground black pepper.

Ragù for baked pasta

Basic white sauce (Béchamel)

Besciamella

White sauce ingredients

• 50g butter
• 50g plain flour
• 500ml milk (or half milk half water)
• a few grates of nutmeg (optional)
• salt and pepper

1. Melt the butter in a pan over a medium heat.
2. Add the flour and stir quickly with a wooden spoon until smooth.
3. Add add a little of the milk and beat until smooth.
4. Continue in this way until all the milk is added.
5. Bring to a very low simmer and cook for around 15 minutes, stirring frequently to stop the sauce catching on the bottom of the pan.
6. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg

White sauce (béchamel)

Red wine risotto

Risotto al Vino Rosso. You need to use a good, full bodied red wine – the best you can afford. The basic rule applies. if you wouldn’t drink it, don’t cook with it I used a Primitivo di Maduria , but next time I’m flush, I’ll try it with a Barolo.

Red wine risotto ingredients

Serves 4

• 400g risotto rice
• 2 glasses full bodied red wine
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• About 1 1/2 litres vegetable sock
• 40g parmesan, grated
• 25g butter
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• Salt and pepper

1. Fry the onion in the olive oil until they start to become transparent.
2. Add the rice and stir for few moments.
3. Add the red wine and cook over a medium heat, stirring all the time, until the wine has been absorbed.
4. Add a ladle of hot stock and continue cooking as per the standard risotto recipe.
5. When the rice is cooked al dente , remove from the heat, season and stir in the butter and parmesan.
6. Allow to rest for a few minutes before serving.

Red wine risotto

Puttanesca authentic recipe

Pasta alla puttanesca from Campania. The translation of the title of this dish is “whore’s pasta”! There are a lot of stories as to how it got it’s name, but one of the most common is that it was a dish that the working girls could quickly prepare between customers. Another version is that is was cooked in brothels so customers would be lured in by the enticing aromas. I don’t really buy that one. I think food would be the last thing on the customers minds It is a relatively modern dish, probably dating back to the end of the second world war. Both Lazio and Campania claim it as their own. This is the Campania version. The recipe comes from Accademia Italiana della Cucina.

A note about the olives. Use the best you can find. Don’t use pitted black olives as properly matured olives are too soft to have their stones removed mechanically, so they will almost certainly be green olives which have been dyed with ferrous glucomate (E151, a synthetic coal tar).

Puttanesca ingredients

Serves 5

• 500g bucatini, linguine, spaghetti or similar
• 500g peeled tomatoes (fresh or tinned)
• 2 anchovy fillets (salted or in oil)
• 100g good quality olives, rinsed. The recipe calls for Gaeta olives, which of course can be green or black, but I have only ever seen this dish prepared with black olives. You can leave them whole or stone them and roughly chop. I prefer half and half.
• 50g capers, rinsed and roughly chopped. The recipe doesn’t stipulate salted or in brine. I prefer the salted variety
• 100g olive oil. This seems a lot but you need a fair amount to allow the anchovy fillets to dissolve properly. Use less if you wish
• 1 clove of garlic, peeled and lightly crushed
• 1 chilli (fresh, dried or a good pinch of chilli flakes)
• Chopped parsley

1. Gently fry the garlic, chilli and anchovy fillets in the oil. Mash the anchovies with a wooden spoon until they have completely dissolved.
2. Remove the garlic. You can also remove the chilli if you don’t like it too hot. If you prefer a really fiery dish, crush or finely chop the chilli before frying.
3. Add the tomatoes, olives and capers. Mash the tomatoes thoroughly with a fork and cook over a medium high heat for 15 to 20 minutes.
4. Cook the pasta until al dente, drain and add to the pan with the sauce. Toss the pasta with the sauce and heat gently for a couple of minutes.
5. Sprinkle with parsley and serve.

Pasta Puttanesca

Rabbit alla cacciatore

Coniglio alla Cacciatore or Huntsman’s Rabbit. When I lived in Bergamo the Sunday lunch was usually roast rabbit with polenta. I was regularly woken at seven in the morning by my neighbour grinding his polenta under my bedroom window. I’m sure he did it on purpose (we didn’t get on that well ) I see that rabbit is coming back into fashion in the UK, so I thought I’d share this recipe. It’s not roast rabbit, but another common Bergamasco dish. You can use any type of mushroom, even porcini if your bank balance will stand it. Serves 4

Rabbit with mushrooms ingredients

• 1 rabbit cut into portions
• 400g mushrooms
• 100g passato
• 1 carrot
• 1 stick celery
• 1 onion
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1 tbsp chopped parsley
• 1 tbsp flour
• 100 ml chicken stock
• 1 glass dry white wine
• 5 tbsp olive oil
• Salt and pepper

1. Chop the carrot and celery into small strips and thinly slice the onion.
2. Add to a pan with 3 tbsp of olive oil and cook over a medium heat until the onions start to go translucent.
3. Add the rabbit pieces and brown. Sprinkle them with the flour.
4. Thinly slice the mushrooms and sautè them in a separate pan with the rest of the olive oil and the whole, lightly crushed clove of garlic. Cook until they are well coloured and start to give off their juice.
5. Add to the pan with the rabbit and add the wine. Cook over a high heat until the wine has reduced by half.
6. Add the passata and stock, season with salt and pepper. Cover and cook for about and hour over a low to medium heat.
7. Sprinkle with the parsley and serve with polenta.

Rabbit with mushrooms

Tomato sauce

This is a really simple recipe for an Italian style tomato sauce.  In the UK we tend to dress our pasta with a lot more sauce than the Italians do (dare I say too much?   ). If you can’t find really ripe fresh tomatoes, use tinned. You won’t get good results with supermarket ‘bounceable’  toms. This recipe is makes enough sauce to dress 4 portions of pasta. Really! Trust me!  On this occasion I served the sauce with linguine, but it goes equally well with many other short or long pastas (e.g. spaghetti, bucatini , sedani, penne, cavatelli etc.)

Tomato sauce ingredients

• 250g tinned tomatoes or peeled fresh tomatoes
• A pinch of sugar (optional)
• 2 cloves of garlic, lightly crushed
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 10 fresh basil leaves, torn
• salt

1. Put the tomatoes and their juice into a saucepan along with the garlic, sugar and a good pinch of salt. Cover and heat gently for about 30 minutes without stirring.
2. Remove the garlic and mash the the tomatoes with a wooden spoon. If you’re using tinned tomatoes cook uncovered for a further 15 minutes  until the sauce has reduced.
3. Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly.
4. Immediately before serving, stir in the olive oil and the basil.
5. Use to dress pasta

Tomato sauce

Linguine with tomato sauce

Black cuttlefish risotto

Risotto nero con le seppie. From Venice. This is quite a spectacular dish, but probably not to everyone’s taste. If you can’t find cuttlefish you can use squid. The tricky part is removing the ink sac when you clean them. I have to admit that I chickened out and bought a preprepared sachet. 50c well spent in my opinion. The recipe called for fish stock, but I used water as the cuttlefish has quite a strong flavour and I don’t think you’d be able to taste the difference.

Black cuttlefish risotto ingredients

Serves 4.

• 1kg cuttlefish, cleaned and the ink sacs reserved
• 1 litre fish stock or water
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 1 small clove garlic, finely chopped
• 175ml dry white wine mixed with 150ml water
• 350g risotto rice
• 25g butter
• salt and pepper

1. Cut the cuttlefish into strips or dice.
2. Heat the oil in a saucepan. Add the onion and garlic and cook over a low heat for a few minutes, stirring from time to time.
3. Add the cuttlefish and season with salt and pepper. Go easy on the salt as cuttlefish can be quite salty. Cook until the pieces have turned white.
4. Add the wine and water, cover and simmer over alow heat until tender. Timing depends on the size of the strips, but it’l probably be around 20 minutes.
5. Stir in the rice and cook for a few minutes, stirring frequently until most of the liquid has been absorbed.
6. Add a ladle of hot stock (or water) and continue according to the standard risotto method.
7. When the risotto is ready stir in the butter and serve.

Black risotto

Black tagliatelle with prawns

Tagliatelle nere con gamberi. From Campania. You can get black tagliatelle in larger supermarkets or good delis. I made my own. Just add a sachet of cuttlefish ink to the basic pasta recipe.

Black tagliatelle with prawns ingredients

Black tagliatelle

Serves 4

• 350g black taglatelle (dried)
• 450g chopped tomatoes or tomato pulp
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and lightly crushed
• 400g prawns, shelled weight
• a handful of rocket, chopped
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• salt and pepper

1. Fry the garlic cloves in the oil until lightly browned. Remove the garlic and discard.
2. Add the chopped tomatoes, season with salt and pepper and cook over a high heat for about 10 minutes.
3. Add the prawns and cook until the prawns are done. Not too long as you don’t want them to shrivel.
4. Stir in the rocket and serve with the cooked pasta.

Black taglatelle with prawns

Authentic tortellini bolognese

Fresh filled pasta takes a bit of time to prepare, but it’s really not that difficult, especially if you have a pasta machine. Ravioli are probably the least fiddly to make, but tortellini look more impressive . Once you’ve made the first couple it gets easier. This recipe comes from Accademia Italiana della cucina. It was registered with the Bologna Chamber of Commerce on the 7th of December 1974. An authentic tortellino bolognese must have the following filling. Makes about 800g or 100 tortellini.

Tortellini ingredients

Serves 6

• 100g loin of pork
• 100g mortadella sausage (It MUST come from Bologna of course )
• 100g parma ham (actually, they don’t specify that it has to come from Parma.It seems any raw ham will do)
• 150g parmesan (parmigiano reggiano)
• 1 egg
• A few grates of nutmeg

You will also need one quantity of pasta dough.

1. Make the filling by frying the pork loin gently in a little butter. Chop roughly and whiz together with the other ingredients  in a food processor until you get a smooth paste.


Tortellini filling

2. Roll out the pasta as thin as you can.
3. Use a pastry cutter or a glass to stamp out 7cm diameter discs or cut into 7cm squares.
4. Place a small amount of filling on the centre of each disc (about 5g)


Tortellini with filling

5. Moisten one edge and fold in half to make half moons. Be careful to avoid air pockets.
6. Using your finger and thumbs bring the edges (at the widest part) towards each other so that the dampened corners stick together.


Finished tortellino

7. Allow to dry for about an hour before cooking.


Tortellini ready to cook

8. Tortellini are traditionally served poached in meat broth. On this occasion I served then dressed in a little butter and topped with parmesan.

Tortellini finished dish

Here’s a video from Youtube that shows the whole process.