Gnocchi alla Sorrentina

I'm back! Antonio is back from his visit to the States and today I asked him what he would like for lunch and he said - Gnocchi alla Sorrentina.
I first tasted this recipe when our first "pizzaiolo" (pizza man) at Tre Pozzi (the restaurant I ran) made it for the staff for dinner one of the first nights he was there. I have since seen it in other restaurants and I have read different recipes, but his remains my favorite! If you have the time, make homemade gnocchi - they melt in your mouth! Otherwise, do like I did today and buy them at the supermarket!
 I don't know if they really make gnocchi this way in Sorrento, but they do come delicious!
So here we go with the recipe!


Ingredients for 2 to 3 portions:
1 lb fresh gnocchi
1 can plum tomatoes
A couple of handfuls of pitted black olives
1 small fresh mozzarella
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Extra virgin olive oil
Garlic, fresh basil, salt and pepper to taste

You may ask why I always make my sauce in a frying pan and not in the classic sauce pan. Simple, it cooks faster, there is a larger heated surface and the food cooks faster. Since I am always in a hurry, time is of the essence!!
Ok, let's make the sauce..
Heat a couple of tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil in a large fry pan, add a couple of peeled garlic cloves and let them sauté for a few minutes.





Crush the pitted black olives in your fist and add to the hot oil and garlic. Sauté for several minutes. In the meantime, open the can of tomatoes, pour them into a shallow dish and break up the tomatoes with a fork.

Add the tomatoes and basil to the pan. Salt and pepper to taste, lower the heat to medium, cover and  cook for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
While the sauce is cooking, bring a large pot of water to boil.

 Coarsely chop the mozzarella and grate about 1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese.You should also have time to wash up the dishes and utensils you used to make the sauce.

 When the water comes to a boil, put the gnocchi in to cook. They will only take a couple of minutes.

 While the gnocchi are cooking, remove the lid from the sauce and lower the heat. This is what it should look like after about 10 minutes of cooking.

 When the gnocchi float to the top they are cooked. Carefully remove them from the water with a slotted spoon. If you drain them in a colander be careful because they break up easily.

 Put the gnoocchi directly into the sauce as you remove them from the pot and drain them with the slotted spoon.

 Gently toss the gnocchi in the pan so that they are coated with the sauce. If you can do this without the help of a spoon, your gnocchi will remain whole. If you can't toss them by making them "saltare" in the pan, the gently fold them into the sauce with a rubber spatula.

 Add the mozzarella, cover for a minute or two so the mozzarella melts.

Sprinkle with the grated Parmesan and garnish with fresh basil leaves. That's it! Serve them while they are hot. I guarantee that you will have no leftovers! Kids love this recipe!

And... as Julia Child would have said had she spoken Italian...


             BUON APPETITO!

Spätzle in brodo finto

This week between 70 pages of train specs to translate, 2 blogs (when I do something I usually get carried away!), knitting, etc.. yesterday I did not go to the grocery store, so this morning I really had to rack my brain to come up with something for "pranzo"! Of course the stereotype of the Italian-american always brings spaghetti and meatballs to mind for Sunday dinner... this may be the case in the many Italian-american households, but it is not the case in Italy! Each region has several provinces and each province has many "comuni" or cities and so while there are broad schemes as to who eats what for Sunday dinner, in truth there are a myriad of dishes and variations of dishes! In the south the tomato - although not native to Italy but brought here by Columbus from America - reigns supreme. And so, on any given Sunday if you walk through the streets of Lecce or Bari or Naples or Palermo, you will probably get a whiff of some kind of tomato sauce being prepared for the Sunday "pranzo". We lived in the Marche region for many years, and the Sunday staple was "cappelletti in brodo". Little meat filled hat shaped pasta in a delicious meat broth made with 3 or 4 types of meat. Sometimes the cappelletti are replaced by "passatelli" - little dumplings made with bread crumbs, eggs and parmesan cheese in their "poorer" version or enriched with minced meat in a richer version. The tradition of a clear soup with some kind of pasta in it extends through the Marche and Emilia Romagna where cappelletti, tortellini or passatelli are served in broth on special occasions and.. on Sundays. And so it goes with each region. Recently we have been vacationing in Trentino-Altoadige, the region of Italy that borders on Austria. One of the recipes I have picked up from this beautiful region is for "spätzle". If you are familiar with Pennsylvania Dutch cooking or with German cooking I am sure you know what spätzle are: those tiny, tender dumplings made with flour, eggs and milk.


In Trentino they add spinach to the mix and serve them with gorgonzola cheese or with butter and speck. They serve the white spätzle with butter and cheese as a side dish with meat. And they can also be enjoyed with a fresh tomato sauce and grated cheese.
Well, today I am going to make them in "brodo finto" or fake broth. Fake because there is no meat in the broth, just vegetables. My family is not big on chicken broth or meat broth in general, so I usually make plain vegetable broth. I am cooking it traditionally, for about an hour or so, but if you are really in a hurry you can do it in about 15 or 20 minutes in a pressure cooker!


So, without further ado here is how I make brodo finto con spätzle. For the broth you will need a 4 quart pot. 

Any mix of vegetables will do, as long as it includes onion, garlic, carrot and celery. In addition to these I used 1 zucchini, a large peeled potato (I peeled it because I will puree the vegetables to serve as a rich soup tomorrow), swiss chard, a few small tomatoes and a few stalks of parsley.





 Cut the vegetables up in large pieces and put them in the 4 qt. pot. 

 Cover with water (about 1 1/2 quarts of water), add about a teaspoon of coarse kosher type salt (regular table salt will do), and a couple of tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. Cover and bring to a boil. When it comes to a boil, lower the heat and simmer for about an hour. 

If you are using the pressure cooker method, follow the manufacturer instructions for filling your pressure cooker and cooking the vegetables for making stock vegetable stock.

If you are using the traditional method, after about an hour this is what your soup should look like.  

At this point, remove the vegetables with a slotted spoon or a skimmer.

Taste your broth, season to taste with salt and pepper. Set aside.


About 20 minutes before you want to serve your soup, start making the spätzle.

You will need a "spatzlehobel" - or a spätzle maker and an 8 quart pot. Fill the pot 2/3 with water and put it on to boil.

If you don't have one of these, you can use a colander with large holes or a potato ricer (messy).

• The other ingredients you will need are:1 cup all purpose flour
• 1/4 cup of milk
• 2 whole eggs
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
• 1 pinch freshly ground white pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 
  
•  

Measure the flour into the bowl. Add the salt, pepper and nutmeg.

Break the eggs into the bowl and start to whisk the ingredients together. Before the ingredients are well-blended, add the milk and continue to whisk until the batter is smooth and falls in a "sheet" from a tablespoon.

By now the water is boiling. Salt it as if you were cooking pasta. Rest the spätzle maker on the top of the pot. Fill the carriage with batter and start to move the carriage back and forth over the boiling water so that the spätzle fall into the boiling water. (SEE VIDEO)

As the spätzle cook, the will float to the top. When you have used up all of the batter. Stir the spätzle several times. Remove from heat. Use a slotted spoon or skimmer to remove the little dumplings from the water to a colander. Allow them to drain well before transferring them to the broth.

Serve with freshly grated parmesan cheese.

Finish off your meal with a sandwich and a tossed salad... 

and as Julia would have said, had she spoken Italian..

BUON APPETITO!

what's cooking in Lucca....

For years I have been toying with the idea of teaching people how to cook "Italian" - not in the most common sense of this term (i.e. learning how to make pasta, a variety of sauces, and bla bla) but in what I consider the real sense of cooking Italian (i.e. cooking like someone who lives, cooks and eats in Italy every day)

I have had some experience in teaching people how to cook and some great unsolicited publicity in the Philadelphia Daily News and on philly.com as well!

During my Cagli experience I was also mentioned in an article by Afi-Odelia E. Scruggs on NPR.com

Now I think I have reached a moment in my life where I am ready to start this adventure through blogging! I hope you will enjoy reading and making my recipes!