Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking
Page 27
The best-known shape of Apulian pasta is orecchiette, “little ears,” small disks of dough given their ear-like shape by a rotary pressure of the thumb. In the recipe that follows, hard-wheat flour is mixed with standard, unbleached flour to make a dough easier to work.
For 6 servings
1 cup semolina, the yellow flour from hard wheat, ground very fine
2 cups all-purpose unbleached flour
½ teaspoon salt
Up to 1 cup lukewarm water
1. Combine the semolina, the all-purpose flour, and salt on your work counter, making a mound with a well in the center. Add a few tablespoons of water at a time, incorporating it with the flour until it has absorbed as much water as it can without becoming stiff and dry. The consistency must not be sticky, but it can be somewhat softer than egg pasta.
2. Scrape away any crumbs of flour from the work surface, wash and dry your hands, and knead the mass for about 8 minutes, until it is smooth and elastic. Refer to the description of hand kneading pasta dough.
3. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let it rest about 15 minutes.
4. Pull off a ball about the size of a lemon from the kneaded mass, rewrapping the rest of the dough. Roll the ball into a sausage-like roll about ½ inch thick. Slice it into very thin disks, about 1/16 inch, if you are able. Place a disk in the cupped palm of one hand, and with a rotary pressure of the thumb of the other hand, make a hollow in the center, broadening the disk to a width of about 1 inch. The shape should resemble a shallow mushroom cap, slightly thicker at its edges than at its center. Repeat the procedure until you have used up all the dough.
5. If you are not using the orecchiette immediately, spread them out to dry on clean, dry cloth towels, turning them over from time to time. When they are fully dry, after about 24 hours, you can store them in a box in a kitchen cupboard for a month or more. They are cooked like any other pasta but will take longer than conventional fresh egg pasta.
Recommended sauce The most suitable is the Broccoli and Anchovy Sauce. Other good choices are Tomato and Anchovy Sauce, and Cauliflower Sauce with Garlic, Oil, and Chili Pepper.
Matching Pasta to Sauce
THE SHAPES pasta takes are numbered in the hundreds, and the sauces that can be devised for them are beyond numbering, but the principles that bring pasta and sauce together in satisfying style are few and simple. They cannot be ignored by anyone who wants to achieve the full and harmonious expression of flavor of which Italian cooking is capable.
Even if you have done everything else right when producing a dish of pasta—you have carefully made fine fresh pasta at home or bought the choicest quality imported Italian boxed, dry pasta; you have cooked a ravishing sauce from the freshest ingredients; you have boiled the pasta in lots of hot water, drained it perfectly al dente, deftly tossed it with sauce—your dish might not be completely successful unless you have given thought to matching pasta type and shape to a congenial sauce.
The two basic pasta types you’ll be considering are the boxed, factory-made, eggless dry kind and homemade, fresh, egg pasta. When well made, one is quite as good as the other, but what you can do with the former you would not necessarily want to do with the latter.
The exceptional firmness, the compact body, the grainier texture of factory-made pasta makes it the first choice when a sauce is based on olive oil, such as most seafood sauces and the great variety of light, vegetable sauces. That is not to say, however, that you must pass up all butter-based sauces. Boxed, dry pasta can establish a most enjoyable liaison with some of them, but the result will be different, weightier, more substantial.
When you use factory-made pasta, your choice of sauce will be affected by the shape. Spaghettini, thin spaghetti, is usually the best vehicle for an olive oil-based seafood sauce. Many tomato sauces, particularly when made with butter, work better with thicker spaghetti, in some cases with the hollow strands known as bucatini or perciatelli. Meat sauces or other chunky sauces nest best in larger hollow tubes such as rigatoni and penne, or in the cupped shape of conchiglie. Fusilli are marvelous with a dense, creamy sauce, such as the Sausages and Cream Sauce, which clings to all its twists and curls.
Factory-made pasta carries sauce firmly and boldly; homemade pasta absorbs it deeply. Good, fresh pasta made at home has a gossamer touch on the palate, it feels light and buoyant in the mouth. Most olive oil sauces obliterate its fine texture, making it slick, and strong flavors deaden it. Its most pleasing match is with subtly constituted sauces, be they with seafood, meat, or vegetable, generally based on butter and often enriched by cream or milk.
The following table illustrates some of the pleasing combinations that the sauces appearing in this volume lend themselves to with a variety of pasta types.
Factory-Made Boxed, Dry Pasta
PASTA SHAPE RECOMMENDED SAUCE
bucatini (also known as perciatelli) (thick, hollow strands)
• Tomato with Olive Oil and Chopped Vegetables, Variation with Marjoram and Two Cheeses
• Tomato with Sautéed Vegetables and Olive Oil
• Amatriciana: Tomato with Pancetta and Chili Pepper
• Sicilian Sardine
ruote di carro (cartwheels), conchiglie (shells), fusilli (corkscrews, either short and stubby or long and thin)
• Tomato with Olive Oil and Chopped Vegetables, Variation with Rosemary and Pancetta
• Amatriciana: Tomato with Pancetta and Chili Pepper
• Tomato with Porcini Mushrooms
• Mushroom with Ham and Tomato
• Peas, Bacon, and Ricotta
• Broccoli and Anchovy
• Sausages and Cream
• Bolognese Meat
• Eggplant and Ricotta, Sicilian Style
Also specially good with fusilli:
• Fried Zucchini with Garlic and Basil
• Zucchini with Basil and Beaten Egg Yolk
maccheroncini (short, narrow tubes), and penne (quills)
• Tomato with Onion and Butter
• Tomato with Olive Oil and Chopped Vegetables
• Tomato with Sautéed Vegetables and Olive Oil
• Amatriciana: Tomato with Pancetta and Chili Pepper
maccheroncini and penne
• Tomato with Porcini Mushrooms
• Mushroom with Ham and Tomato
• Spinach with Ricotta and Ham
• Peas, Peppers, and Prosciutto with Cream
• Roasted Red and Yellow Pepper with Garlic and Basil
• Cauliflower with Garlic, Oil, and Chili Pepper
• Tuna with Tomatoes and Garlic
• Fish
• Gorgonzola
• Asparagus with Ham and Cream
• Prosciutto and Cream
rigatoni (broad, short tubes)
• Tomato with Onion and Butter
• Tomato with Sautéed Vegetables and Olive Oil
• Amatriciana: Tomato with Pancetta and Chili Pepper
• Eggplant and Ricotta, Sicilian Style
• Spinach with Ricotta and Ham
• Peas, Bacon, and Ricotta
• Roasted Red and Yellow Pepper with Garlic and Basil
• Tuna with Tomatoes and Garlic
• Fish
• Gorgonzola
• Red and Yellow Bell Pepper with Sausages
• Prosciutto and Cream
• With Bolognese Meat Sauce
spaghetti, sometimes known as vermicelli
• Tomato with Onion and Butter
• Tomato with Olive Oil and Chopped Vegetables, Variation with Marjoram and Two Cheeses
• Eggplant and Ricotta, Sicilian Style
• Fried Zucchini with Garlic and Basil
• Smothered Onions
• Butter and Rosemary
• Aio c Oio : Roman Garlic and Oil
• Pesto
• Pesto with Ricotta
• Tuna with Tomatoes and Garlic
• Scallop with Olive Oi
l, Garlic, and Hot Pepper
• Fish
• Butter and Parmesan Cheese
• Carbonara
spaghettini, thin spaghetti, sometimes known as vermicellini
• Tomatoes with Olive Oil and Chopped Vegetables
• Tomato with Garlic and Basil
• Eggplant with Tomato and Red Chili Pepper
• Aio e Oio, Raw Version, with Fresh Tomatoes and Basil
• Tomato and Anchovy
• Black Truffle
• Clam with Tomatoes
• White Clam
• Sardinian Bottarga
• Scallop with Olive Oil, Garlic, and Hot Pepper
ziti (narrow, short tubes), see penne, above
Homemade Fresh* Pasta
*Note When, in this book, the word “fresh” is applied to pasta, it means pasta produced by home techniques, almost invariably using a dough that contains eggs. It does not mean pasta kept artificially soft with cornmeal or through vacuum-packaging or by other methods. Fresh pasta may indeed be quite dry, and good, naturally dried fresh pasta is absolutely to be preferred to the spuriously soft variety available commercially.
PASTA SHAPE
RECOMMENDED SAUCE
capelli d’angelo, angel hair
In Italy, these very thin noodles are served only in meat or chicken broth
cappellacci, pumpkin-filled ravioli
• Butter and Parmesan Cheese
• Cream and Butter
fettuccine
• Fried Zucchini with Garlic and Basil
• Butter and Rosemary
• Pesto
• White Clam
• Pink Shrimp with Cream
• Butter and Sage
• Cream and Butter
• Gorgonzola
• Mushroom, Ham, and Cream
• Prosciutto and Cream
garganelli, hand-turned macaroni
• Peas, Peppers, and Prosciutto with Cream
• Gorgonzola
• Asparagus with Ham and Cream
lasagne
• With Meat Sauce, Bolognese Style
• With Mushrooms and Ham
• With Artichokes
• With Ricotta Pesto
maltagliati, short, irregularly cut soup noodles
• With all soups that call for pasta, and particularly apt with pasta e fagioli, Pasta and Beans
orecchiette pappardelle, broad noodles
• Broccoli and Anchovy
• Tomato with Porcini Mushrooms
• Pink Shrimp with Cream
• Red and Yellow Bell Pepper with Sausages
• Cranberry Beans, Sage, and Rosemary
• Chicken Liver
pizzoccheri, short buckwheat noodles
• Tossed with sage, and garlic, and gratinéed with soft cheese
tagliatelle noodles, broader than fettuccine
• Bolognese Meat Sauce
tonnarelli, thick, square noodles
• Tomato with Porcini Mushrooms
• Smothered Onions
• Butter and Rosemary
• Pesto
• Sardinian Bottarga
• Prosciutto and Cream
tortellini
• Tomato with Heavy Cream
• Pink Shrimp with Cream (when the tortellini is filled with fish)
• Cream and Butter
• Prosciutto and Cream (most desirable with green tortellini)
• Bolognese Meat Sauce
• When it is the classic meat-filled tortellini made with yellow dough, the traditional service is in meat broth
tortelloni
• Tomato with Heavy Cream
• Butter and Parmesan Cheese
• Butter and Sage
Here are some varieties of cut pasta.
maltagliati
pappardelle
quadrucci
tonnarelli
fettuccine
tagliatelle
RISOTTO
Defining risotto The risotto technique exploits the uncommon properties of certain Italian rice varieties whose kernel is enveloped by a soft starch known as amylopectin. When it is subjected to the appropriate cooking method, that starch dissolves, creamily binding the kernels together and fusing them, at the same time, with the vegetables, meat, fish, or other ingredients in the flavor base. The resulting dish is a risotto.
The flavor base Virtually anything edible can become the flavor base of a risotto: cheese, fish, meat, vegetables, legumes, even fruit. Such ingredients are usually there to contribute more flavor than texture, flavor that must be bound to the rice as the grains’ soft starch dissolves during the special cooking process.
In most instances, the ingredients of the base are put in before the rice. When making risotto with Parmesan, however, the cheese goes in during the final stage of cooking. Occasionally there may be an ingredient that one must protect from overcooking. The most obvious example is clams or mussels. In that circumstance, the juices of the seafood must be extracted in advance and incorporated into the flavor base from the beginning, while the clam or mussel meat itself can be stirred into the rice when it is nearly done.
The cooking method The ingredients of a risotto’s flavor base usually rest on a foundation of chopped onion sautéed in butter. In some infrequent instances, olive oil replaces the butter, and garlic may be added.
Raw, unwashed Italian rice is added to the hot butter or oil base, and it is lightly toasted in it. Immediately thereafter, a ladleful of cooking liquid is added to the pot. The rice is stirred until the liquid is gone, partly through absorption, partly through evaporation. More liquid is added, and the procedure is repeated, until the rice is done.
It is only through the gradual administration of small quantities of liquid, through its simultaneous absorption and evaporation, and through constant stirring, that the rice’s soft starch is transformed into a clinging agent, pulling the grains together and fastening on them the taste of the flavor base. Rice that is not stirred, that stews in too much liquid, that cooks in a covered pot, may turn into a perfectly agreeable dish, but it is not risotto, and will not taste like risotto.
The cooking liquid All the flavors that the cooking liquid starts out with become more concentrated and intense as it evaporates. Bearing that in mind, when the recipe requires broth you will use a fine, mild meat broth made by boiling mainly beef and veal, with next to no bones and very little chicken. Pure chicken broth becomes distractingly sharp, and so does stock produced in the French manner. Neither is a desirable vehicle for cooking risotto.
Water is the best choice for seafood risotto. Fish fumets, or broths enriched with shellfish carcasses, become too emphatic as they cook down, thus upsetting a risotto’s balance of flavors.
Liquids that issue from the ingredients in the flavor base should be retained, such as the juices released by clams or mussels, the water used to reconstitute dried mushrooms, and the vegetable-flavored liquid left from the preliminary blanching of asparagus or other greens.
Wine may be added, but it must not be the sole liquid used.
Note The quantity of liquid suggested in the recipes that follow is approximate. In actual cooking, you should be prepared to use more, or sometimes less, as the risotto itself requires. When cooking with broth, if you have used up the broth before the rice is fully cooked, continue with water.
How long to cook Some Italian cooks like the grains in risotto to be exceptionally firm, and suggest cooking times between 18 and 20 minutes. At that stage, the center of the kernel is chalky hard. If you find a chalky sensation unappealing, as I do, expect to cook the rice another 5 to 10 minutes, for a total of 25 minutes to half an hour.
The pace at which risotto cooks can vary considerably, however. It is affected by the receptivity to moisture of the specific rice you are using, by the amount of liquid you add at a time, by the speed at which the liquid evaporates.
It is prudent to begi
n to taste the rice after 20 minutes’ cooking, so you can begin to judge how much further it has to go, and how much more liquid you are going to need. Never cook rice until it is soft at the center. It should be tender, but still firm to the bite.
The pot It must transmit and retain sufficient heat to cook the rice at a very lively pace without scorching it. Pure aluminum and other light-weight ware are not suitable. Heavy-bottomed pots made of steel-jacketed alloys are the sturdiest, and the most practical for professional cooking, but for home use an enameled cast-iron pot is a pleasure to work with.
Rice varieties Imported Italian varieties are the only ones on which one can rely for a completely successful risotto. Of the many that are grown, the best are Arborio, Vialone Nano, and Carnaroli. See the section on ingredients for a detailed description of their individual characteristics.
Risotto styles All risotto can be grouped into two basic styles that differ in the consistency at which they aim. There is the compact, more tightly knit, somewhat stickier style of Piedmont, Lombardy, and Emilia-Romagna and the looser, runny style of the Veneto, known as all’onda, “wavy.” You obtain the former by evaporating all the cooking liquid as the rice finishes cooking, and the latter by bringing the rice to the desired degree of doneness while it is still rather moist.