Winter Skies, Kitchen Aglow

On a cool autumn's morning, there are few more comforts than hearing rain outside as you are bundled up in the warmth of your home. What amplifies this warmth and joy-making is baking bread. You will all know the delights of freshly-baked bread, so I hardly need be too detailed to convince you to bake a loaf or two (even those who are gluten-intolerant may have gorgeous associations with bread baking, and I know of some clever ones that have found ways of adapting bread receipes so that they do not have to miss out).

Personally, I prefer breads with a developed taste. To get this more nuanced flavour, you need to make a starter, whether it be a sponge, poolish, biga or old dough. Not only do starters give great depth to the taste of your bread, they add to the texture of it - adding both airiness and heft. In some Italian breads, a biga is used - this is a quickly kneaded starter that ferments for the better part of a day. It is then added to the rest of the bread ingredients. As the word "starter" indicates, the biga needs at least 12 hours before it can be used.

For today's recipe, a bread that is commonly made in Puglia, Italy, the biga needs to be made at least 15 hours before baking.

Pan Pugliese
(from Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid's Home Baking: The Artful Mix of Flour and Traditions from Around the World)

For the biga:

1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast
1/2 cup lukewarm water
1 cup all-purpose flour

1) Dissolve the yeast in the water.
2) Add flour and stir to combine.
3) Knead briefly in a bowl until a soft dough has been formed.
4) Cover the bowl with cling-film, and let stand at room temperature for 12-24 hours (or for up to three days in the fridge).

For the bread:
1 teaspoon active dry yeast
3 cups lukewarm water
biga, as above
5-6 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tablespoons salt
1 cup wholewheat flour (or wholewheat pastry flour)

1) In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in water.
2) Cut biga into 5 pieces and stir into the water, breaking it up with a spoon, loosening it (practically to the extent of dissolving it, but this is not fully achievable).
3) Stir in one cup of all-purpose flour and the salt.
4) Add wholewheat flour, stirring to combine, then add three more cups of all-purpose, one cup at a time, and stirring all the while.
5) Keep one hand dry and one hand wet with warm water for stps 6-. Stir the dough with your wet hand, manoeuvre it like a paddle and turn the dough around on itself, like figure 8s.
6) Add another cup of all-purpose flour with your dry hand. Stir and mix with wet hand for 3-5 minutes, keeping an eye on the consistency, which should be wet but clinging together. If the dough is too liquid, add another 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour and continue stirring.
7) Cover the bowl with cling-film and let the dough stand for at least 3 hours (even overnight). It will rise a bit but will not double in volume.
8) Preheat oven to 250 C/500 F and do not open oven door until 20 minutes after oven has reached this temperature. Place a baking sheet on the lower rack.
9) Open oven door. With wet hands, break dough in half, shape into a mound (tucking edges underneath to smooth out and tighten the surface), then drop onto baking sheet.
10) Decrease temperature to 225 C/450 F after ten minutes.
11) All to bake for a further 20-25 minutes, until bread is well browned (it will also sound hollow when you tap the base).
12) Raise temperature to 250 C/500 F before baking other half of the dough.
13) Let cool for thirty minutes before slicing.

Some breads freeze really well, so you can always pull a pre-baked loaf out the freezer the night before and defrost it on the counter overnight. Some wet breads, though, do not freeze well, for their crusts can become quite tough and tear away as they are sliced, which is the case of today's Pan Pugliese.

This is a bread best eaten the day it has come out of the oven (or even the next day). And who can resist freshly baked bread?

Labels: Bread, Italian, Puglia

For the interested/serious homecook, there are many culinary milestones. Most of these milestones involve learning and honing a technical skill (such as boning a chicken or mincing garlic with the back of a knife at a breakneck speed - a vital skill that I have yet to accomplish) or making a certain dish or component of one. In that which concerns the latter, something that my angelheart Eric and I have long wanted to do is make pasta at home. Accompanied by my good friends the sassy sauciere queen Lily and the gardenia-loving epicure Titaina on a day of bone-chilling breezes and distant Winter light, I crossed a culinary goal off my list.

While dried pasta is a great convenience and shop-bought fresh pasta is typically of good quality, apparently nothing holds a candle to pasta made simply and quickly at home. The options are limitless for he or she who has long crossed the pasta-making divide before me. One can use almost any type of flour with almost any type of flavouring. But first things first, the following recounts our baby-steps into the world of making pasta from scratch (but for the milling of the flour and the gathering of eggs; however, this is as close to "from scratch" as most of us ever get, and technically, this is the spirit of the expression), as taught by the sassy sauciere queen Lily. (Funnily enough, the pasta-making machine was a gift to the sassy sauciere queen Lily from the gardenia-loving epicure Titaina, who probably had an ulterior motive at the time, but I'm sure she didn't expect it to take a good year or two before finding herself invited over for homemade pasta!)

The following amount of dough makes enough for four (that said, we had no pasta left over, but we were especially hungry and were so enamoured of our first group effort that there somehow managed to be more room for pasta in our bellies than usual).

Homemade Pasta

2 1/2 - 3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 eggs

Yes, that's it!

1) In a medium-sized bowl, stir salt into 2 1/2 cups of the flour to combine well.
2) Add the eggs.
3) Combine with a fork until granules are formed. If the mixture is too dry, add water by 1 tablespoon increments. If the mixture is too moist, add extra flour by one tablespoon increments.
4) On a very lightly-floured surface, knead the granules into a ball.
5) Cover with cling-film and allow to rest for 30 minutes (it was a cool day, so we let the dough rest at room temperature for 20 minutes).
6) Most hand-cranked pasta machines have two sets of rollers: one to roll out the pasta dough, the other to cut the dough into a desire shape. We separated our ball of dough into 5 smaller balls.
7) Take one of the small balls, flatten with the palm of your hand.
8) Set the machine at the widest setting (number 1 on the sassy sauciere queen Lily's Marcato - made in Padua) and feed the flattened dough through it, turning the crank slowly. Fold the dough in three (as one did up until the late-90s when preparing letters for envelopes), and pass through again. Repeat once more.
9) Increase the setting by increments of one, passing the pasta dough once each time (you no longer need to fold the dough). The higher the setting, the narrower the setting becomes, creating very flat dough (the highest setting on our machine is 7). You will find that the pasta dough becomes shinier and that you have to pull it gently - otherwise it will fold and/or tear (only dust lightly with flour if you feel that the dough is too soft and is likely to stick to the machine).
9) Choose desired rollers for cutting the pasta (we chose fettuccine - long flat ribbons), and pass your long, flattened dough through the cutters. Place in a pile, with a mere pinch of flour to prevent sticking.
10) Repeat steps 7 to 9 with the remaining small balls.

One only needs to cook the pasta for two to three minutes until it is al dente. To ensure this is a quick process, bring a large pan or pot of heavily-salted water to a rolling boil before adding the pasta. If is is not boiling rapidly, there is a possibility of the pasta becoming water-logged and viscid.

The possibilities for pasta are endless with this egg dough. Instead of cutting it into fettuccine, the dough can be adapted for all types of pasta: other long pastas, such as pappardelle (wide ribbons) and tagliatelle; short pasta, such as garganelli and penne (both tubular pastas); flat pasta, such as lasagne and cannelloni; and filled pastas, such as tortelloni (large parcels), ravioli (square-filled pasta with fluted edges) and cappelletti (little hats). Apart from shapes, there are endless variations on flavourings also. One of the most intriguing to my mind is Stephane's semolina dough flavoured with beetroot and squid ink, which he combined into striped ravioli cases, "zebravioli". Clearly, you can let you imagination run free.

We, on the other hand, kept it simple with a topping a rustically grated parmesan after tumbling our fettuccine into a ragù (a meat sauce, which for us was made by sweating down an onion and two small bulbs on fennel in olive oil with thyme, to which was added two 450g/14oz cans of tomatoes plus 3/4 of its juice, 1 cup of beef broth and one bay leaf, brought to the boil and left at a steady simmer for 40 minutes, by which time the liquid was mostly absorbed by the mince). Homemade pasta is silken, light, and a joy to behold. We all felt like we were taking part in a time-honoured tradition, albeit with steel rolling pins and cranks to make life easier. That said, there is a great sense of accomplishment that comes from making pasta oneself. I would not recommend it when preparing for a crowd, but for a small lunch for three or four, it seems no big deal, especially when one can rope friends in for assistance. Seconds, ladies?

Labels: Fettuccine, Italian, Pasta

Sometimes being in between seasons is a bother. Do you carry an umbrella on a day that appears to be sunny? Do you leave behind a sweater because it might not be that cold? Do you risk going outdoors at all? Being in a liminal space such as this forces one to second guess. The same applies to cooking at these times of the year. I had one last, good Summer aubergine on hand, but I didn't want baba ghanouj or a smoky aubergine with barbecued meat...I decided to take the best of the Summer and combine it it with something that hints at the colder climes: a touch of cream.

I suppose today's offering is not only a "changing seasons" dish but is one that builds on the notion of compromise, for it marries northern and southern Italian ingredients - well, in my canvas of broad strokes it does.

Aubergine is very popular in Sicilian cooking, where it is used to carry and not compete with the salty and sweet combinations for which the glorious island of volcanic rock is famous: capers, chilis, vinegar, marsala...Aubergine is a recognised ingredient largely because of the international popularity of the Sicilian dishes: pasta alla Norma, a combination of aubergine, ricotta, tomatoes, basil and preferably either of these two pastas maccheroni or paccheri - the dish is named after the grandest work of Sicilian composer Bellini, Norma; and caponata, a fiery relish of fried aubergine and peppers mixed with celery, capers and olives bound with a bittersweet sauce of vinegar and sugar. What I largely associate with southern Italian preparations of pasta are tomatoes. And while tomatoes are also used in northern pastas, I tend to be lulled by the creaminess of their pasta dishes more than anything else - made so usually on account of cheese or cream itself.

Today is one of those grey but not cold days, where there is an autumnal chill in the air, enough of one to make you put on an extra layer, but it is not so cold that you're pining for stew and wearing two pairs of socks. A marriage of summery aubergine and a touch of comforting cream. (And I am sure by now, but especially following my post from 1 March, 2008, you know that fettuccine is my favourite pasta - you use whichever long pasta you prefer.) In the interest of meeting halfway, the hinge of all good and long-lasting relationships, I've added fennel seeds and fronds, which are popular in Roman cooking - the best fennel, itself, is purportedly from Florence, but that is only a minor detail of - remember? - generalisations.

The following recipe can serve four. As is typical of most of my recipes, I give you the steps in the order that I do things, so that the ingredients come together at once, which is easy if this is all you're preparing, which would be more than adequate for lunch.

Aubergine and Fennel Seed Fettuccine

2 tablespoons olive oil, divided use
1 1/2 tablespoons fennel seeds
500g/16oz aubergine, cut into bite-size pieces
salt & pepper
150ml/5fl. oz cream/heavy cream
1/4 cup parmesan, grated
1 1/2 tablespoons fennel fronds, chopped
350g/12oz fettuccine
extra parmesan (prepared with a vegetable peeler) and fennel fronds (chopped)

1) Boil water that is heavily seasoned with salt in a large pot.
2) Heat 1/2 tablespoon olive oil over medium heat. Add fennel seeds.
3) When the seeds give off an aroma, add the rest of the olive oil and the aubergine pieces. Toss together and cook until aubergine is very soft - 10 to 15 minutes.
4) In the meantime, the water should be boiling, so add pasta to the water. Follow the instructions of the pasta your purchase, if you do not make it yourself, as to when your chosen pasta should be al dente, or to your liking if you prefer it without the slightest resistance.
5) Season aubergine with salt and pepper.
6) Add the cream and parmesan over a very low heat.
7) When the cream bubbles lightly, remove from the heat and add fennel fronds. Stir to combine.
8) By now the pasta should be ready, so drain it in a colander and then add it to the creamy aubergine. Toss together and serve with shavings of parmesan and a scattering of chopped fennel fronds.

Bravissimo!

Well, only if you enjoy the aroma and finish attributed to anethole as I do - fennel, licorice, star anise, sambuca, you name it. Luscious, earthy, smacking of early Autumn in Oceania, this comforts without any gastronomic suffocation. Of course, the perfect match is Sicilian nero d'avola, which is typically medium of body with notes of figs and pepper.

While I eagerly anticipate the Fall bounty to come, I particularly love being caught in-between seasons and blurring boundaries.

Labels: Aubergine, Fennel fronds, Fennel seeds, Italian, Pasta, Sicily

Leftovers are a lifesaver for a cook who is short on time. They get you out of a bind in a jiffy, most of the work having already been done. My angelheart Eric and I often cook more than we need so that there is something for lunch or the beginnings of the following night's dinner. I often turn leftover roasted vegetables into soup with the addition of chicken or vegetable stock, but that is as far as I usually go in order to revamp. The Italians, on the other hand, are adept at refining leftovers. They are renowned for their recipes that incorporate leftovers, creating entirely different and delicious dishes out of them. The current infatutuation with la cucina povera is testament to this.

Arancini does not pass for dinner in Sicily, but it suffices as a snack or as part of a lunch. I do not typically have leftover risotto but everyone had already eaten when I cooked up Beetroot Risotto two days ago - and I ate as much as I could! To feed more, of course you would need more than my measly cup of leftovers, but I wasn't going to waste it.

I didn't go whole hog either, for there was not enough leftovers to merit going to the effort of deep-frying, which though faster than what I did, requires waiting around time for a vat of oil to reach the required temperature (around 190 C/375 F). If you want proper arancini, which is to say a "little orange", then deep-frying is the only way to achieve a ball of golden crust that completely encases the balls of risotto and cheese.

The following recipe makes 4 arancini, enough for 2 as a snack or 1 for lunch.

Arancini

1 cup leftover risotto (I had Beetroot Risotto, the recipe for which is here)
1 egg
3/4 cup breadcrumbs, divided use
1 tablespoon parsley, chopped, divided use
1/4 cup grated cheddar (feel free to be more traditional and cube mozzarella)
Red bran oil (or substitute with your frying fave: canola, olive or vegetable oil)
salt

1) Heat enough oil to come half-way up the balls of risotto, approximately 3cm/1.2".
2) Mix together the risotto, egg, 1/2 cup of breadcrumbs and 1 teaspoon parsley in a bowl.
3) Combine the remaining breadcrumbs and parsley on a flat plat and reserve. The balls will be rolled in this mixture before frying.
4) Use two tablespoons or the risotto mix per ball. Flatten out in the palm of your hand and sprinkle some grated cheese in the centre (or a cube of mozzarella). Close the risotto mix around the cheese.
5) Toss the ball from one hand to the next, gently forming a squat ball - a rounder meat patty.
6) Roll the balls in the breadcrumbs.
7) Fry until browned and heated through, approximately 4 mintues.
8) Drain on a paper towel and sprinkle with salt.
9) Serve after 2 minutes or else they will be too hot to eat.

This is a beautifully simple recipe to follow, and the result is rather incredible! It was good to use a relatively adventurous risotto, which has a bold flavour of sweet and savoury components. This complexity in initial flavour allows for more play with the crispy exterior - and more interesting bites, too! The cheese was gooey in the centre, as it should be. Each bite was sheer perfection. I'm beginning to think it isn't such a bad idea to make risotto for the purpose of making arancini. If that is not a sign of the genius of Italian cookery, turning leftovers into taste sensations, then I don't know what is.

Labels: Arancini, Beetroot, Beets, Italian, Risotto

This is an after the fact entry commemorating the last dinner my angelheart Eric and I cooked before I returned to New Zealand this week after a two month trip to the US. Goodbyes are always heartbreaking, hellish even - each one saltier than the last. Recalling this Umbrian chicken preparation, though, vaunts the sweeter moments of the time with my angelheart Eric over the sadder ones.

This year's September issue of Food & Wine magazine is all about Italy. Broken up by region, there are articles aplenty waxing lyrical on food, wine and travel. This is an incredible primer on the regions of Italy for the page-flipping public of short attention span (and some days that includes me). Amongst the many dog-ear-mark-worthy articles, my angelheart Eric and I were intrigued by Nancy Harmon Jenkins' piece on contemporary trattorias.

Trattorias are to Italy are what bistros are to Paris. They are the heart and soul of a town, a continuation of lineage. With a firm hand on tradition, trattorias offer comfort food. In some parts of Italy, particularly Umbria, the area with which Harmon Jenkins in concerned, there is a rebirth of trattorias that provide sophisticated and modern twists on traditional fare.

In an effort to understand the relationship between ingredients better, I gravitate towards recipes that appear simple. That is to say, ingredients are pared down and the method is assumed to bring out the best in the chosen protein or vegetable. When my angelheart Eric pointed out the dish, not only was I keen to try another version of spatch-cocked chicken (that is to say, a whole chicken flattened once its backbone has been removed, which cuts down on cooking time), but I was also intrigued by the notion of a Pollo alla Diavola that didn't only rely on dried red peppers and black pepper as its seasoning condimento. My interest was also piqued by what Salvatore Denaro (the regional human subject of the quiet culinary movement) was substituting to amp up the flavour: a rosemary-spiked acidic marinade.

Salvatore Denaro's twist to Umbrian delights is the integration of flavours from the grand Italian islands of Sardignia and Sicily. In the following recipe, Ms. Harmon Jenkins replaces Salvatore Denaro's powder of Sicilian myrtle and Turkish Bay Leaf for dried sage. I have to say that I am not the biggest fan of sage, finding it very astringent (which, I know, is rich coming from he who loves juniper berries), but I was game nonetheless. The only change I made was to keep the quantity of ingredients for one chicken as opposed to two, for Eric and I wanted maximum flavour, knowing sometimes that magazine writers sometimes offer conservative amounts of seasonings for mass appeal. Just bear in mind that you will need to start two days in advance for maximum flavour (it shouldn't be difficult as the only advanced preparation requires that you combine a liquid and a dried herb).

Pollo alla Diavola
(closely following Nancy Harmon Jenkins' adaptation of Salvatore Denaro's recipe in Food & Wine, September 2007)

1/2 cup white wine
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 3-3 1/4 pound (1 1/2-1 3/4kg) whole chicken
2 teaspoons dried sage
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper (or 1 teaspoon piment d'Espelette or Aleppo pepper)
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
1/2 teaspoon black pepper, freshly ground

1) In a bowl or small jar, combine white wine and dried oregano. Cover and leave at room temperature for two days.
2) Strain into a bowl and stir in the olive oil.
3) Remove the wing tips and backbone from the chicken with either poultry shears or a chef's knife.
4) Skin-side up on a baking sheet lined with aluminium foil, press down on the breastbone quite firmly to flatten the chicken.
5) Score the chicken to the bone with the tip of a chef's knife.
6) Drizzle over the chicken all but two tablespoons of the olive oil marinade. Rub into the flesh. Cover and refrigerate for one hour.
7) In a small bowl, combine the sage, salt, pepper, rosemary and black pepper. Rub all over the chicken. Feel free to use a pastry brush to pick up any spilled-over liquid. Get it into every crevice.
8) Leave at room temperature for 30 minutes to allow the flavours to meld.
9) Preheat oven to 220 C/425 F.
10) Roast chicken skin-side up in upper third of the oven until done, which is when it registers 75 C/165 F at the thickest part of the chicken, approximately 45 minutes. Baste with the remaining two tablespoons of olive oil half-way through the roasting procedure.
11) Preheat broiler.
12) Pour pan juices into a small saucepan and keep warm over a low heat.
13) Broil chicken 10cm/4" from the heat, rotating the pan until brown and crisp, approximately 3 minutes.
14) Carve chicken, pour warm pan juices over it and serve.

My inveterate skill as a failed food stylist aside, this is an incredibly tasty chicken. In fact, it doesn't bop you over with head. I find that the inclusion of wine actually creates a deeply savoury marinade, which is potentially akin to the result of Chef Denaro's myrtle and bay leaf condimento. Served with a creamy avocado and cherry tomato salad, this is a substantial Summer dish that doesn't require much fiddling about in a warm kitchen. Most importantly, the flavours are sophisticated and the chicken is tender and flavourful on either side of the bone.

Labels: Chicken, Italian, Rosemary, Spatch-cock Chicken

Susan over at The Well-Seasoned Cook, my absolute favourite blog, is hosting an event for which one is to cook a dish from a film: Food in Film. For those of you who have read my previous post, one can see that the difference between the two food events is that this one is more specific insofar as a strong connection must exist between the dish one is making and the film that inspired the dish. I sought the advice of my angelheart Eric, my constant soundboard, because I was stumped.

I thought of making Chinese takeout, perhaps to eat in bed out of wire-handled cardboard-containers à la Woody Allen's Manhattan. My angelheart Eric pulled out every DVD we had and recounted directly a dish eaten in the film or a dish that is referred to in an important scene. Our hearts melted as soon as he pulled out The Apartment.

In this Hollywood classic from 1960, Jack Lemmon plays C.C. Baxter, career guy with a conscience. On account of making available his apartment to his superiors for their conjugal extra-marital relations, he climbs the ladder rather quickly - no one seriously climbs the ladder through actually working hard, do they? After getting pneumonia from sleeping in Central Park one night, Baxter decides enough is enough and no longer wants to loan out his apartment. Unbeknownst to him, his rapid rise through the ranks catches the attention of philandering chief executive, J.D. Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray), who inquires about using the apartment. Baxter's career aspirations win out over his conscience, which, as Hollywood movies often tell us, leads to a life lesson for him to learn about selling out.

One night during the Christmas season, he returns to his apartment and finds one of the sassy yet sweet elevator girls, Fran (Shirley Maclaine), has attempted suicide. After having her stomach pumped, she is ordered to stay with Baxter for 24 hours until she is given the all-clear. As far as Baxter is concerned, they are 24 magical hours, in which he redeems himself, made tangible by doting on the adorable Fran, whose heart is badly broken by Sheldrake.

During these 24 hours, Fran cleans Baxter's socks (only finding 3.5 pairs), his apartment, and comes across a tennis racquet in the kitchen. She asks him about this unusual piece amongst the batterie de cuisine, and it turns out he uses it as a pasta strainer. With the hope of winning Fran's heart, Baxter sets about making his specialty, meatballs served with spagehtti and meat sauce.

Meatballs and spaghetti are a Neapolitan classic. I have, however, made my ragù according to a Bolognese recipe, for it is less spicy and, for me, more aromatic. It is meat overkill to make both ragù and meatballs, but it is was Baxter served to Fran. The ragù seems a little fiddly for only one pound of pasta, so feel free to multiply the given quantities for a larger yeild. I only made one change in the recipe and that was to substitute bison for beef with 15% fat content. Depending on the size of your palms, Mario Batali's Polpette alla Napoletana recipe yields 12-15 meatballs.

Ragù alla Bolognese, Ricetta Antica
(From Lidia Matticchio Bastianich's Lidia's Family Table)

For one pound of spaghetti, use:
5oz ground bison
5oz ground pork
1/3 cup white wine
1oz bacon, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 fat clove garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/3 medium onion, finely chopped
1/3 stalk celery, finely chopped
1/6 carrot, shredded
salt
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2/3 cup milk
nutmeg
1/3 cup hot water (you could use turkey broth) - may not be required
black pepper, freshly ground

1) In a large mixing bowl, crumble up and loosen the meats with your fingers.
2) Pour white wine over the meat, combine until evently moistened.
3) Make a pestata: in a food processor, mince together the bacon and garlic until a paste in formed.
4) Put 1/3 tablespoon olive oil in heavy-bottomed saucepan that will be wide enough to accomodate your meat. Over medium-high heat, add the pestata and cook until aromatic and the fat has been rendered.
5) Add another 1/3 tablespoon of olive oil, then throw in the onion and leave to sweat, approximately 4 minutes.
6) Add final 1/3 tablespoon of olive oil, and add carrot and celery. Cook until they have broken down/wilted and are golden in colour.
7) Turn heat up to high, move vegetables to a cool spot in the pan, and add the meat and liquid. Brown the beat and evaporate all of the liquid. This took me approximately 15 minutes. Add salt for seasoning.
8) In a separate pan, scald the milk, then shut off the heat, move off the element, and cover to keep warm.
9) On a hot spot in the pan with the meat, toast the tablespoon of tomato paste, before stirring it into the meat and aromatics.
10) Ladle 1/3 of the milk into the saucepan, mostly covering the meat. Grate nutmeg of preferred quantity (for me, half a teaspoon) into the pan and stir into the meat. When an active simmer is reached, put heat on low and cover.
11) From here the ragù should cook for approximately one hour (if using more meat, say 4 pounds total, this could take as long as three hours). Check every 20 minutes, ladle more milk to cover the meat. If you find more instead of less additions of liquid are required, not only prepare to heat water (or turkey broth), but think to reduce heat further also. If you find no liquid is required after every twenty minute interval, turn the heat up. Stir well after every addition of liquid.
12) The final result should be just a hint of liquid pooling around the meat. Crank one tablespoon of black pepper over the meat and cook for a couple of minutes.
13) If using immediately, spoon out the fat or stir it into the meat (which is the traditional way). If you are not using it immediately, let it cool before chilling it, after which you can remove the solidified fat and store the ragu in the fridge for several days or in the freezer for a few months.

Polpette alla Napoletana
(From Mario Batali's Molto Italiano)

3 cups of 1-inch cubes of day-old bread
1 1/4 pounds ground beef
3 eggs, lightly beaten
3 cloves garlic, minced
3/4 pecorino romano, freshly grated
1/4 cup parsley, finely chopped
1/4 cup pine nuts, toasted
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper, freshly ground
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1) In a shallow bowl, soak bread cubes in water to cover for 20 minutes. Drain the cubes and squeeze out excess water.
2) In a large bowl, combine soaked bread cubes with the rest of the ingredients, except the olive oil. Form meatballs with wet hands to prevent sticking.
3) In a heavy-bottom frying pan/skillet, heat olive oil over high, almost to smoking point, and cook meatballs until deep golden brown. Cook in batches to prevent overcrowding, which will result in steaming the meatballs and which won't allow for crust to form on the exterior of the meatballs. It should take approximately 10 minutes to brown each meatball.

Served with one pound of pasta, the ragù and the meatballs definitely were too much. The ragù in fact was a little dry once it had been worked into the spaghetti, which I think is on account of using meat with a low percentage of fat. Furthermore, though it smelled great when simmering, the ragù was spread quite thin, and I think it would have been best to use the Ricetta Tradizionale, which incorporates tomatoes. The polpette, on the other hand, were richly flavoured - the combination of pecorino romano and pine nuts is earthy and nutty.

Sadly, Baxter and Fran never get around to eating the meatballs and spaghetti, but I won't spoil the end of the film for you. Watch The Apartment for yourself to see if they end up together.

Post script See the round-up of Susan's food blog event, Food In Film.

Labels: Beef, Bison, Italian, Lidia Matticchio Bastianich, Mario Batali, Meatballs, Pasta