Mushroom

Guazzetti are sauces made by slowly simmering meat, game, or poultry in stock, creating a velvety texture that coats pasta wonderfully. Traditionally, a guazzetto got its great flavor from bones with little flesh, but it works with meaty cuts too. Country ribs can be so meaty you’ll have more pork than you need for the sauce, so enjoy it in sandwiches or salads or as a ravioli stuffing.

This is a great vegetarian sauce, very complex and satisfying. It’s excellent for pasta, baked in a lasagna or polenta pasticciata, cooked into risotto or as a condiment for grilled steak or fish. The mushrooms you can buy at the supermarket will make a fine sauce; if you have fresh wild mushrooms it will be even better. In either case, dried porcini provide a key element in this sauce (and many others). On using dried porcini, see box on facing page.

Savoy cabbage is the base of this flavorful and hearty wintertime sauce. The cabbage, bacon, and mushrooms are simmered gently for several hours, until the cabbage attains an almost melting texture. The sauce will be thick—and delicious as is with polenta, or loosened in some pasta water to serve with pasta.

You don’t have to wait for primavera—springtime—to make this quick skillet sauce. You probably have most of the ingredients in your pantry and refrigerator all year: canned tomatoes, onions, garlic, a few perennially fresh vegetables like broccoli, mushrooms, and zucchini, and sweet peas from the freezer. (The recipe lists the vegetables I prefer, but don’t be afraid to use others, if that’s what you have on hand.) A key step here is parboiling the firm green vegetables and shocking them in ice water. Then they will only need to heat briefly in the tomato sauce and will keep their own colors, flavors, and textures. This recipe yields about 5 cups or more of sauce, depending on the vegetables. If that looks like more than you need for the amount of pasta you are cooking, take the extra sauce out of the skillet before you toss in the pasta. (See box, page 97.) Refrigerate the reserved sauce and use within 2 or 3 days, or freeze it for a few weeks (it will still taste good, although the color of the vegetables changes a bit in reheating it).

As with pizza or focaccia, the bread base of the gratinate can be covered with all manner of savories. A big batch of sliced mushrooms sautéed with lots of garlic and herbs makes a great topping. Use wild mushrooms if you have some or a mixture of wild and cultivated (see box on page 139 for suggestions). Use a whole-grain country bread as a base for a more gutsy flavor.

I love custards—when they are properly baked, that is, so each spoonful feels like velvet and truly melts on the tongue, releasing all its flavors. This is one of the most basic pleasures of eating, one that my family enjoys and that I want to share with you. Here is a custard that has everything: lots of the flavor of fresh mushrooms, dried porcini, sage, garlic, and leeks, all concentrated and deepened in the skillet, and a creamy custard that holds all these flavors in suspension. When a spoonful of this melts on your tongue, you’ll understand why I love custards. Serve it as a first course at a special dinner, or as the centerpiece of a holiday brunch. This recipe is for eight small custards and is easily multiplied to make more. The recipe details the important steps in making any custard, so, if you haven’t made one particularly successfully before, pay special attention. For uniform baking, I recommend that you use identical molds to bake up a batch, if possible. If you don’t have any, I encourage you to buy a set of inexpensive 1/2-cup ceramic molds—get eight or a dozen; either a small shallow soufflé shape or the taller traditional custard cup is fine. You’ll use them forever, I hope.

We have all seen countless dishes called al Marsala on the menus of Italian-American restaurants. Too often, I have found, they disappoint me. The pork scaloppine I enjoyed at the Ferdinando brothers’ trattoria reminded me that this simple preparation depends so much on the quality of the wine that is splashed into the skillet. And I was not surprised to learn that the superb sauce coating the meat was made with a carefully chosen Marsala, dry and aromatic. After all, the town of Marsala lies just a few hours west of Palermo, and from that western tip of the island comes all authentic Marsala, in a wide range of vintages, colors, and degrees of sweetness. The finest Marsalas, aged a minimum of 10 years, are ranked with the great fortified wines of the world—sipping one of these is a pleasure you shouldn’t miss. But for good cooking, I recommend a moderately priced Superiore (aged 2 years) or Superiore Riserva (aged 4 years). I always prefer dry (secco) Marsala, even for desserts like Espresso Zabaglione (page 156); for these scaloppine, secco is a must.

Tortelli are ravioli by another name—a square, filled pasta. And though they vary greatly, like all pastas, tortelli often are filled with fresh ricotta and spinach or other greens, herbs, or vegetables. In Maremma, where carnivorous appetites rule, such a meatless approach is not typical. As you’ll find in this set of recipes, tortelli maremmani have meat inside and outside—and lots of it. Fried chopped chicken livers plump up the tortelli, in addition to ricotta and spinach. Once cooked, the tortelli are dressed with a typical ragù maremmano, made with three chopped meats slowly cooked in tomatoes. My friend Alma likes best boar, chicken, and pork, but here I call for veal, pork, and sausage, because I find that combination comes close to the complexity of the boar. Of course, if you can get boar, by all means use it. This is a great pasta, and worth all the stirring and stuffing. However, it is not necessary to make everything here and put the ingredients together in just one way. The components of tortelli maremmani give many options for delicious meals (and convenient advance preparation). For instance, it’s fine to make the filling and the pasta for the tortelli and leave the ragù for another day. You can sauce your tortelli simply with sage butter, pages 49–50, or just shower them with Tuscan olive oil and Pecorino Toscano. On the other hand, go right to the ragù recipe—skip the tortelli—and make this marvelous sauce to dress any pasta, fresh or dry, or polenta or gnocchi. Indeed, the ragù recipe makes enough for two or more meals. Toss a couple of cups of ragù with spaghetti for a fabulous (and fast) supper one night, and freeze the rest. It will still be perfect whenever you do get a chance to roll and fill those plump tortelli maremmani.

Crespelle (Italian for “crêpes”) are easy, delicious, and versatile. You can fill and bake them with almost any stuffing. Here’s a favorite of mine, crespelle filled with a creamy mushroom ragù, as they do it in Maremma. Many wonderful dishes can be made using crespelle in place of pasta. If you have all the ingredients for a filling for lasagna, for example, but do not want to make pasta, crêpes are ideal.

This hearty vegetarian soup gets superb flavor and texture from the long-cooking chickpeas and dried and fresh mushrooms. But the secret to the great taste is the paste (pestata) of aromatic vegetables and herbs, ground in the food processor. Before adding it to the soup however, you give the pestata even more flavor by browning it in a skillet—which makes it, in culinary Italian, a soffritto. As you will see in the coming pages, this pestata/soffritto step is used in many Maremma recipes, in sauces and stews as well as soups. In the country, such a soup is often served with grilled bread, making a whole meal. Adding rice or small pasta to the soup pot during the final 10 minutes of cooking is another way to enhance it. Or drop some good Italian sausages into soup for the last 20 minutes of cooking. Slice them right into the soup, or serve the sausages separately as a second course.

When you have a white truffle, enjoy it just as they do in Alba, with golden tajarin. If fresh truffle is unavailable, packaged truffle butter makes a nice dressing for the pasta too (see Sources, page 340). Should you have no truffle at all, tajarin with only butter and Grana Padano or Parmigiano-Reggiano will be simply luxurious, if not quite ethereal.

This is one of the simplest recipes in this book, and it is one of the most sublime. Yes, truffles add a mystique—but even without them this is my favorite way to cook eggs. Essential to this procedure is never to allow the olive oil to reach temperatures at which heat alters and degrades the flavors. Hence, you will ultimately have the full presence of fresh olive oil in a natural state intermingled with the egg and truffle flavors. Thus, the quality of the olive oil is paramount here, more than in most cooked dishes. I like using lighter and more vegetal olive oils from the Lago di Garda district, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, or Istria. Another important point is to keep the curd of the egg large and soft. The steady but gentle dragging of the curds—strapazzati means “dragged”—and controlled heat prevents any part from cooking solid, and in this moist state all the natural flavor of the egg comes through. As with olive oil, the best quality eggs are essential—as fresh as can be, and organic if possible. There is a basic lesson to be learned in this recipe that applies to Italian cooking—for that matter, to all cooking—get the best ingredients, do not overcrowd the flavors, and work the food as little as possible. Along with this lesson, I am sure, you’ll get some of the best scrambled eggs you’ve ever tasted—even without truffles.

Makaruni are traditional in Istria, a kind of pasta made when there was no time to roll, cut, and shape it. Rolling little pieces of dough between the palms of one’s hands was quick and effective. My grandmother and other women of her generation were expert makaruni-makers. In no time, they would take a big batch of pasta dough and turn it into slim little noodles. Instead of rolling the bits of dough back and forth for a second or two, my grandmother could compress and stretch a piece of dough into a perfect makaruni with one swipe of her hands—and flick it right onto her floured tray in the same movement. Forming makaruni is truly simple, and once you start rolling, you’ll quickly become proficient. Today, as when I was a child, the whole process is fun, so get the family to help and the makaruni will be done fast. And in a few minutes you’ll enjoy the great taste and texture of your handiwork. This delicious sauce is traditionally made with gallinacci, or chanterelles, though other mushrooms can be used. Makaruni are also wonderful with the amatriciana sauce of tomato and bacon on page 228.

GINA Set out a unique dip to get this cheer rolling in! No one ever really expects you to go to the trouble of making something as special as a warm crab dip—but they sure are happy if you do. It adds a festive, caring quality to the party in the same way a great piece of jewelry can make a whole outfit special.

PAT This being Happy Hour, we’ve gotta have crab-stuffed mushrooms. And any time I can get Gina to eat mushrooms with me, I do! (Guys, let me tell you, I’ve been told mushrooms are an aphrodisiac, so when the guests leave it might be time for your Happy Hour!)

This beautiful fall dish is a study in silken textures, from the velvety purée to the creamy interior of the ivory scallops. Quick searing gives the scallops a crispy, caramelized exterior that is well matched to the sweetness of the pear in the purée, while the chanterelles add texture, depth, and a luscious, buttery flavor. Although there are three separate parts to this recipe, it’s still relatively straightforward to prepare. Make the purée first, then hold it at room temperature; the searing and sautéing take no more than five minutes.