Bon Appetit!
So many Top 5 Lists! Must get to them!
First, from empressearwig:
*I just wanted to say that I PAM the shit out of every pan I use, so just assume that step.
In no particular order, but this first is what *my mother* has called my signature dish. I’ve posted it in my journal before, but anyway...
Roast Chicken (Mediterranean Style
1 whole chicken, about 5 lbs, cleaned well and patted dry
1 stick of butter (softened but not melted)
About 3/4 cup feta cheese
About 2 teaspoons each dried rosemary, thyme, oregano (or by all means use fresh herbs if you've got them)
Salt and pepper, as much as you like (I like less salt, more pepper)
About 1/2 lb potatoes, cut into bite sized pieces (I like baby reds)
About 1/2 lb carrots (or less- I like baby carrots, cut in half)
1 yellow onion, sliced (I know it really doesn’t matter, but I never use white onions. NEVER.)
1 or 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
Olive oil (extra virgin, nothing less, ha)
2 or 3 bay leaves (optional)
Mash up the feta, butter herbs, and a dash of S&P together in a bowl and set aside.
When the chicken is cleaned, inside and out (make sure you pull the gizzard out, don’t just rinse it under the faucet), lay it breast side up on a rack in a roasting pan. Peel back the skin from the bottom of the breast (you can use a butter knife or metal spoon), peel it up and as much away from the skin of the legs and breast as you can without breaking it. Spoon in the butter mixture under the skin. It's easier to user your hands actually, and once you 'chunk it in', kind of massage it in to spread it around. If you have any leftover, you can rub it all over the outside of the chicken, too. You can truss the chicken with butcher twine, or you can make a tiny cut in the at the tail of the chicken and tuck the legs into that. I would say you don’t necessarily *have* to truss this chicken- it stays very moist, and I personally like the skin on the drumsticks to be quite crispy, but it’s entirely up to you.
Around the chicken, place the mixed vegetables and garlic. It’s also nice to add two or three bay leaves over the vegetables. I am an herb-whore. Yes, yes I said it. Also, I’ve noticed that these vegetables go pretty great with any meat dish, especially roasts. Sprinkle S&P over the whole thing, to your taste, and drizzle olive oil (EVOO!!) over everything, enough to coat the vegetables, not so much over the chicken. Cover it with tin foil, and bake in the oven at 450 for about an hour.
After an hour, take off the tin foil to brown it, and baste. (If you don't have a baster, probably try to get someone to tip the pan for you. I tried. It looked kind of dangerous.) Baste again about a half hour later (maybe less). When you baste the second time, check to see if it's done. Use a meat thermometer if you have one, it should read about 160 (at least). If it's done, broil it for about 5 minutes, maybe even less. Keep an eye on it.
Carve it out, tip the juices and vegetables onto a serving platter and enjoy!
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Gravy & Meatballs (With Baked Ziti and Chicken Parmigian’)
Or, as we call it in my family, pasta tray. I don’t usually make all of these together (it’s a lot of work, but here’s a couple of options).
Gravy-
3 28 oz cans peeled tomatoes (or crushed, or pureed...I notice I can never find 3 cans of one type...FYI, I like Pastene products when it comes to my gravy)
1 6 oz can tomato paste (Pastene, once again)
1 yellow onion (or sometimes I like to use 2 shallots)
3 cloves of garlic (if they’re super huge, 2 would probably be okay...but I would still probably put 3 in, because I just love garlic...)
8-10 basil leaves (it’s about the amount of a small packet...at least the way it’s sold in my grocery store)
2 cups red wine, a little less (you’ll see what I mean)
extra virgin olive oil
Okay, here’s the deal. To make my gravy, and the gravy my mom taught me to make, you have to have a gravy strainer. Or *food mill*, if you must. Either way, we don’t like gravy to have seeds or skins, or be chunky. I have a theory on this. Because Sicily was the poorest region of Italy, I feel like people watered their gravy down to make it last longer, and in the north, you would find the gravy to be thicker and chunkier. Because my mother always made it strained and thinner (because her mother and aunts made it that way, etc.), this is the way *I* like my gravy. Also, this is something you make in huge quantities. I don’t know how to make ‘a little‘ gravy. So be prepared for a houseful of guests, or you can just freeze small portions of it. (It lasts forever. My mother and I routinely make the gravy and meatballs for Christmas day some time in October.) ALSO, this takes all day (or at least 4 hours for the gravy, and more if you’re making ‘stuff’ to go with it), so don’t plan to do this in an hour when you get home from work.
Okay! So first, strain the three cans of tomatoes into your biggest stockpot. Once you’ve got it all strained (and this is kind of the lengthiest part of the prep, you will get a decent arm workout). Take one of the cans and fill it half up with water and pour that in. Grab your red wine and fill the can up halfway and pour that in. (This is a step that my mother skips, but she’s admitted to liking it when I do it.)
Rinse and pat-dry your basil. I like to rip up the leaves (not chop, but rip into pieces about the size of a dime), but my mom throws the leaves in whole. Sprinkle in a little pepper, and put it on the stove, uncovered, at the lowest heat.
Once you’ve got that on the stove (it will take a good while to start simmering), mince your onion and garlic. And I do mean mince. Really, I’m quite a child about this. I DO NOT like big chunks of vegetables in my gravy. You can toss them in the food processor to make life easy for yourselves, but keep them separate, because...
You brown the onions first. Oh! Pour about two table spoons of EVOO into a ten inch saute pan (you can use something smaller if you’ve got it, but ten inches is pretty comfortable for this) and turn the heat on medium-high. Also, open up your tomato paste and work a teaspoon in there (the kind you would eat cereal with, not the baking kind). That stuff is thick, and it can take a little bit to get it out of the can. Once the olive oil starts shimmering on the surface, dump in your onions, stir them around for about five minutes to get them soft. Then add in your garlic, and let that brown for a couple of minutes. You’ll see, garlic browns pretty quickly. (Also, enjoy your kitchen, because nothing in the WORLD smells as good or homey to me as frying garlic and onion.)
Once everything looks more or less the same texture and color, dump in your tomato paste, and stir everything together. It’s not going to want to combine at first, but just keep working with it. (The onions shouldn’t be frying in the pan for any longer than 12-15 minutes.)
Carefully, pour the tomato paste-onion-garlic into the stockpot with the strained tomatoes, scraping the frying pan. Turn up the heat on the stockpot, and bring it all to a boil. Give it a little taste and adjust the S&P as you like. (I really never add salt to my cooking, as I’m pretty sensitive to it, and I feel there are much better ways to season food, but that’s your call.) Once it’s boiling, turn the heat to low, and cover it.
Now it’s time to make the meatballs (make sure you stir the gravy every ten minutes or so)...
Meatballs
2 lbs ground beef (or you can do a mixture, with ground veal and ground pork, but my mother always used just beef)
2 eggs (or 3 if it feels dry...)
Oh jeez Louise, amounts...I’m horrible at this. Well, let me try to just talk you through it, the way it was taught to me. But make sure you have: salt, pepper, pecorino romano cheese (probably most recipes will call for parmesan, but we always used romano in my house), Italian breadcrumbs (once again, I like Pastene), and dried parsley.
Okay, so get your meat in a bowl. Some people try to mix up meatballs with a fork or tongs- no good. Get your hands in there. Crack your eggs in, and then at this point I would go wash my hands so you can work with all the dry ingredients. Now, here’s where things get a little...confusing, because this is the way it was taught to me, and it didn’t make sense until I started making meatballs for myself. Take the parsley and pour some into your palm and dump it over the meat...enough to cover the top. *Enough To Cover The Top* is kind of the key. Let’s call it about 3/4 of a cup, but you be the judge. Then, the romano. Enough to cover the top...and a little bit more. Then, the breadcrumbs (my favorite part of the seasoning). Enough to cover the top...you get the idea. Then a pinch each (like a Mario Batali sized pinch...don’t you love Mario? I do) of S&P. Now, here’s the fun, play-doh portion of the recipe. Mix it all up. And roll it into balls a little smaller than a ping-pong ball.
Then...you have a couple of options. Some people throw them into the gravy, raw, just like that. (Um...I...no.) Some people, like my godfather, brown them in the frying pan, and then dump them in the gravy. This is a little labor-intensive, and kind of makes a mess (and you’ve already got enough mess to clean up). I spray a cookie sheet with Pam, and dot the meatballs out, and bake for about 35 minutes at 375. After the time is up, take them out and cut into one of the thicker-looking ones. If it’s cooked through, eat it, burn your tongue and sigh in happiness.
And then dump them into the gravy. Let the pot simmer for at least two more hours, stirring every five to ten minutes. (Make sure you're getting the bottom and sides of the pan.) I also really love pepperoni in my gravy, and you basically just take a length of pepperoni, give it a quick boil to get some of the fat off (don’t worry, there’s still LOTS of flavor) and dump it in, whole.
I always think gravy is better the second day. So, let’s pretend, you’ve let the pot cook for three hours, took it off the stove, let it cool enough to touch and put it in the fridge overnight. See how thick it’s gotten? Lovely.
Chicken Parmigiana
8 thinly sliced boneless skinless chicken cutlets
2 eggs
Italian breadcrumbs
Romano cheese
Dried Parsley
Pepper
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Gravy
Shredded mozzarella cheese (it’s just easier to work with, but you can certainly slice up fresh mozzarella if you’d like)
Oregano
Now, there’s two ways to do this. I will put *about a handful* of parsley on a plate, and then *about a handful plus a little more* cheese over it, and then *ditto* breadcrumbs, and then a dash of pepper and mix that up so it’s all combined. Crack the two eggs into a bowl and beat them together. Your assembly line should go: chicken, eggs, breadcrumb mixture, clean plate. My mother puts the parsley and cheese in with the eggs and leaves out the pepper. Your call.
So start dipping. Wash the breast in the egg, dip it in the breadcrumbs, make sure it’s *super generously* coated, put it on the plate. Repeat. Look at your hands. If they’re not totally disgusting, you haven’t done it right.
Pour about two tablespoons EVOO (or enough to coat the bottom of the pan...a little bit more) into your trusty, ten-inch frying pan. Let the oil get *hot*. Like, you should see wisps of smoke rising over it before you drop any meat onto that pan. Fry each piece, I’d say, it should take about 4 minutes on each side (but this will go faster with the last couple of pieces because the oil will be really hot by then).
As you’re transferring the chicken out of the frying pan, put it on a plate lined with paper towels, and layer paper towels over it (you will probably get two layers of chicken, unless you have a really big plate).
Footnote, you can also peel and slice an eggplant (the round way, not the long way) and fry it just like this. It’s my favorite appetizer. And at this point, you really might as well fry everything in the house, right? Also, you can fry these cutlets the night before, and keep them in tupperware overnight, if you just want to get most of the messy cooking out of the way.
Get your gravy and mozzarella cheese ready (and some romano too). Get a glass baking pan (PAM it), and coat the bottom with a little gravy, and lay the chicken in rows. Spoon gravy over each piece, and cover with mozzarella cheese (to your taste). Sprinkle a little romano over it all, too, if you want. *I* like to sprinkle oregano over the tops too. I love oregano SO MUCH.
Bake it at 350 for about 20 minutes. It might not even take that long, because you’re not actually cooking anything, just warming it through and melting the cheese. Keep an eye on it.
Or....you could make...
Pasta Tray (Baked Ziti)
2 lbs pasta, ziti or rigatoni, or some other short, hollow pasta
Gravy
32 oz ricotta cheese (I use Dragone, part skim)
Mozzarella cheese
Romano cheese
Dried Parsley
2 eggs
Oregano (optional)
Boil and drain the pasta. Maybe don’t cook it *all the way through* as it’s going to cook for a long time in the oven, too. Run it through cold water so it doesn’t start to cook the eggs when you have to crack them in. Dump in the can of ricotta, and work that through the pasta (just use your hands). Then, start ladling in the gravy. Keep going until it’s a nice, solid orange color, not a pale pink. *About a handful of parsley.* Crack in your eggs, and mozzarella cheese, romano, to your taste. Work that through with your hands.
Coat the bottom of a glass baking dish with gravy, and spoon the pasta in, packing it into the bottom and corners. Get yourself a good thick layer. Once it’s all in. Ladle a little more gravy over it all, and cover with mozzarella. Sprinkle with romano. (Noticing a pattern?) And you can sprinkle oregano over the top if you like, which I like, but my mother says it makes it smell like pizza.
Bake it at 350 for about two hours (seriously, but check it), and then let it stand for at least a half hour, tented with tinfoil.
And now, you are ready to start your Sopranos marathon....
* * *
Zuppa di Pesce
There’s a lazy way to make it and there’s a very impressive way to make it. To be honest, I usually make it the lazy way. Lazy way is with frozen seafood, that’s already blanched. The impressive way is to fuck up your kitchen with bearding mussels and veining shrimp and *stuff*, and a lot of multi-tasking in the last few minutes of making this dish. Up to you.
1 lb pasta, your choice (I like long pasta with this dish, but up to you)
14 oz can crushed or peeled tomatoes (Pastene)
1 pt Roma tomatoes (optional), cut in half or quarters
about a combined 1 1/2-2 lbs shrimp, mussels and calamari (you can probably buy a frozen bag at the fish counter....wash it and drain it in a colander....or ‘scollapasta’, if you’re me)
White wine
1 yellow onion (or 2 shallots)
2 cloves of garlic (3 if they’re small)
2 Tbsp oregano, or 1 of oregano and 1 of marjoram, if you’ve got it (Marjoram is awesome...I might love it more than oregano.)
EVOO
Mince the onion and garlic. 2 tablespoons of EVOO in the frying pan, medium heat. Brown the onion. Brown the garlic. (Sound familiar?)
Pour in the white wine, maybe half a cup. (Enough to *float*.) Stir everything around, let it come to a little boil. Smell your kitchen. Turn the heat down (not all the way down).
Dump in the canned tomatoes, and the chopped Romas. (Don’t worry about straining with this dish, we’re going a different route.) Add in your herbs, maybe a dash of S&P if you’d like. Let it cook for about 15 minutes.
While this is doing its thing, boil the pasta. Throw in a bit of salt (the one time I do add salt) and olive oil into the water before it’s boiling. About 9 minutes is good for al dente.
In the last few minutes of cooking your sauce, throw in the frozen seafood. It’s already cooked, so you’re really just warming it through. Don’t let it get rubbery, especially those squids.
Drain the pasta, and put it back in the stockpot. Easier to combine in there, rather than the saute pan. *Carefully* pour the sauce, with the tomatoes and seafood in with the pasta, scraping the bottom of the pan. Stir to combine.
This is a nice meal for when you’re having a dinner party with people you don’t have to entertain much (i.e. people you’re very comfortable with) or you don’t mind people watching you cook. It can be nerve wracking with some guests, I know.
* * *
I should do a dessert, huh? This is my father’s favorite, and he has sat and quietly eaten the entire pie before dinner, without telling anyone (thus not sharing it with anyone either).
Key Lime Pie (with some lemony stuff added in)
9 graham crackers
1/3 cup melted butter
1/3 cup sugar
At least....mmmmm....6 limes, to be on the safe side (wash the outside of them)
1 can condensed milk (oh, I always confuse condensed and evaporated....the sweet, thick, syrupy one)
2 egg yolks
Limoncello (optional)
Crush up the graham crackers. You can do this in a food processor, or you can put them in a ziplock bag and bang the shit out of it. This is a much more fun way.
Put it in a bowl with the sugar, and pour the butter over it. Stir to combine. It won’t really stick together like dough, it will be crumbly, but you’ll notice the difference in texture. Pat it into a pie plate. I like to use the tinfoil ones, easy enough to throw away when you’re done. I like a decently thick crust too, so make sure you pat it pretty well onto the sides of the plate.
Bake it at 350 for about 15 minutes. Check it. Lift the plate slightly and drop it and if the crust mostly stays in place it’s done. If it totally fucks it up, take the plate out, fix the crust and let it bake a little longer.
15 minutes is just about enough time to make the filling...
First thing you want to do, zest at least 4 limes. If you’ve got any lemons around, zest a little bit of that too, why not? You need at least a good heaping table spoon of it, and as far as I’m concerned, the more zest, the better. Zest over a bowl.
Then, roll up your sleeves and start squeezing those limes. You need *at least* a good half a cup of lime juice, and a little more never hurt anyone. If you’re juicing into a cup (oh jeez, that sounds filthy) pour the cup into the bowl with the zest.
Separate your egg yolks. Just the yolks in this one. Pour the yolks in with the zest and juice, stir to combine.
Add in the condensed milk. If you’ve got a mixer (which I don’t), this will be easier, but just a regular old spoon will be fine too. Get that all combined really good. Feeling adventurous? Do ya, punk? Throw in a shot of limoncello. (Card at the door, if you must.)
Pour the filling into the pie crust, smoothing it out with a spoon or spatula. (Go on and lick the spoon, too, I won’t tell anyone.) Bake it at 350. Time varies, in some people’s kitchen it’s done in like 20 minutes, I’ve always had to bake it for at least 45.
Here’s what you’re looking for:
-the middle and top isn’t jiggly
-the ‘knife test’ (stick a knife in, and if it comes up clean, it’s done)
-I like it to get very lightly golden-brown on top
Serve with whipped cream. Wanna whip your own? It’s a great arm work out (or nothing at all with a mixer).
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 tbsp powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
Basically, just whip the shit out of it, until it looks like whipped cream. (Pssst....more often than not, I just buy the canned shit. Nobody knows the difference. But *never* Cool Whip.)
That was eleven pages. I’m spent.
Be back with another soon!
First, from empressearwig:
*I just wanted to say that I PAM the shit out of every pan I use, so just assume that step.
In no particular order, but this first is what *my mother* has called my signature dish. I’ve posted it in my journal before, but anyway...
Roast Chicken (Mediterranean Style
1 whole chicken, about 5 lbs, cleaned well and patted dry
1 stick of butter (softened but not melted)
About 3/4 cup feta cheese
About 2 teaspoons each dried rosemary, thyme, oregano (or by all means use fresh herbs if you've got them)
Salt and pepper, as much as you like (I like less salt, more pepper)
About 1/2 lb potatoes, cut into bite sized pieces (I like baby reds)
About 1/2 lb carrots (or less- I like baby carrots, cut in half)
1 yellow onion, sliced (I know it really doesn’t matter, but I never use white onions. NEVER.)
1 or 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
Olive oil (extra virgin, nothing less, ha)
2 or 3 bay leaves (optional)
Mash up the feta, butter herbs, and a dash of S&P together in a bowl and set aside.
When the chicken is cleaned, inside and out (make sure you pull the gizzard out, don’t just rinse it under the faucet), lay it breast side up on a rack in a roasting pan. Peel back the skin from the bottom of the breast (you can use a butter knife or metal spoon), peel it up and as much away from the skin of the legs and breast as you can without breaking it. Spoon in the butter mixture under the skin. It's easier to user your hands actually, and once you 'chunk it in', kind of massage it in to spread it around. If you have any leftover, you can rub it all over the outside of the chicken, too. You can truss the chicken with butcher twine, or you can make a tiny cut in the at the tail of the chicken and tuck the legs into that. I would say you don’t necessarily *have* to truss this chicken- it stays very moist, and I personally like the skin on the drumsticks to be quite crispy, but it’s entirely up to you.
Around the chicken, place the mixed vegetables and garlic. It’s also nice to add two or three bay leaves over the vegetables. I am an herb-whore. Yes, yes I said it. Also, I’ve noticed that these vegetables go pretty great with any meat dish, especially roasts. Sprinkle S&P over the whole thing, to your taste, and drizzle olive oil (EVOO!!) over everything, enough to coat the vegetables, not so much over the chicken. Cover it with tin foil, and bake in the oven at 450 for about an hour.
After an hour, take off the tin foil to brown it, and baste. (If you don't have a baster, probably try to get someone to tip the pan for you. I tried. It looked kind of dangerous.) Baste again about a half hour later (maybe less). When you baste the second time, check to see if it's done. Use a meat thermometer if you have one, it should read about 160 (at least). If it's done, broil it for about 5 minutes, maybe even less. Keep an eye on it.
Carve it out, tip the juices and vegetables onto a serving platter and enjoy!
* * *
Gravy & Meatballs (With Baked Ziti and Chicken Parmigian’)
Or, as we call it in my family, pasta tray. I don’t usually make all of these together (it’s a lot of work, but here’s a couple of options).
Gravy-
3 28 oz cans peeled tomatoes (or crushed, or pureed...I notice I can never find 3 cans of one type...FYI, I like Pastene products when it comes to my gravy)
1 6 oz can tomato paste (Pastene, once again)
1 yellow onion (or sometimes I like to use 2 shallots)
3 cloves of garlic (if they’re super huge, 2 would probably be okay...but I would still probably put 3 in, because I just love garlic...)
8-10 basil leaves (it’s about the amount of a small packet...at least the way it’s sold in my grocery store)
2 cups red wine, a little less (you’ll see what I mean)
extra virgin olive oil
Okay, here’s the deal. To make my gravy, and the gravy my mom taught me to make, you have to have a gravy strainer. Or *food mill*, if you must. Either way, we don’t like gravy to have seeds or skins, or be chunky. I have a theory on this. Because Sicily was the poorest region of Italy, I feel like people watered their gravy down to make it last longer, and in the north, you would find the gravy to be thicker and chunkier. Because my mother always made it strained and thinner (because her mother and aunts made it that way, etc.), this is the way *I* like my gravy. Also, this is something you make in huge quantities. I don’t know how to make ‘a little‘ gravy. So be prepared for a houseful of guests, or you can just freeze small portions of it. (It lasts forever. My mother and I routinely make the gravy and meatballs for Christmas day some time in October.) ALSO, this takes all day (or at least 4 hours for the gravy, and more if you’re making ‘stuff’ to go with it), so don’t plan to do this in an hour when you get home from work.
Okay! So first, strain the three cans of tomatoes into your biggest stockpot. Once you’ve got it all strained (and this is kind of the lengthiest part of the prep, you will get a decent arm workout). Take one of the cans and fill it half up with water and pour that in. Grab your red wine and fill the can up halfway and pour that in. (This is a step that my mother skips, but she’s admitted to liking it when I do it.)
Rinse and pat-dry your basil. I like to rip up the leaves (not chop, but rip into pieces about the size of a dime), but my mom throws the leaves in whole. Sprinkle in a little pepper, and put it on the stove, uncovered, at the lowest heat.
Once you’ve got that on the stove (it will take a good while to start simmering), mince your onion and garlic. And I do mean mince. Really, I’m quite a child about this. I DO NOT like big chunks of vegetables in my gravy. You can toss them in the food processor to make life easy for yourselves, but keep them separate, because...
You brown the onions first. Oh! Pour about two table spoons of EVOO into a ten inch saute pan (you can use something smaller if you’ve got it, but ten inches is pretty comfortable for this) and turn the heat on medium-high. Also, open up your tomato paste and work a teaspoon in there (the kind you would eat cereal with, not the baking kind). That stuff is thick, and it can take a little bit to get it out of the can. Once the olive oil starts shimmering on the surface, dump in your onions, stir them around for about five minutes to get them soft. Then add in your garlic, and let that brown for a couple of minutes. You’ll see, garlic browns pretty quickly. (Also, enjoy your kitchen, because nothing in the WORLD smells as good or homey to me as frying garlic and onion.)
Once everything looks more or less the same texture and color, dump in your tomato paste, and stir everything together. It’s not going to want to combine at first, but just keep working with it. (The onions shouldn’t be frying in the pan for any longer than 12-15 minutes.)
Carefully, pour the tomato paste-onion-garlic into the stockpot with the strained tomatoes, scraping the frying pan. Turn up the heat on the stockpot, and bring it all to a boil. Give it a little taste and adjust the S&P as you like. (I really never add salt to my cooking, as I’m pretty sensitive to it, and I feel there are much better ways to season food, but that’s your call.) Once it’s boiling, turn the heat to low, and cover it.
Now it’s time to make the meatballs (make sure you stir the gravy every ten minutes or so)...
Meatballs
2 lbs ground beef (or you can do a mixture, with ground veal and ground pork, but my mother always used just beef)
2 eggs (or 3 if it feels dry...)
Oh jeez Louise, amounts...I’m horrible at this. Well, let me try to just talk you through it, the way it was taught to me. But make sure you have: salt, pepper, pecorino romano cheese (probably most recipes will call for parmesan, but we always used romano in my house), Italian breadcrumbs (once again, I like Pastene), and dried parsley.
Okay, so get your meat in a bowl. Some people try to mix up meatballs with a fork or tongs- no good. Get your hands in there. Crack your eggs in, and then at this point I would go wash my hands so you can work with all the dry ingredients. Now, here’s where things get a little...confusing, because this is the way it was taught to me, and it didn’t make sense until I started making meatballs for myself. Take the parsley and pour some into your palm and dump it over the meat...enough to cover the top. *Enough To Cover The Top* is kind of the key. Let’s call it about 3/4 of a cup, but you be the judge. Then, the romano. Enough to cover the top...and a little bit more. Then, the breadcrumbs (my favorite part of the seasoning). Enough to cover the top...you get the idea. Then a pinch each (like a Mario Batali sized pinch...don’t you love Mario? I do) of S&P. Now, here’s the fun, play-doh portion of the recipe. Mix it all up. And roll it into balls a little smaller than a ping-pong ball.
Then...you have a couple of options. Some people throw them into the gravy, raw, just like that. (Um...I...no.) Some people, like my godfather, brown them in the frying pan, and then dump them in the gravy. This is a little labor-intensive, and kind of makes a mess (and you’ve already got enough mess to clean up). I spray a cookie sheet with Pam, and dot the meatballs out, and bake for about 35 minutes at 375. After the time is up, take them out and cut into one of the thicker-looking ones. If it’s cooked through, eat it, burn your tongue and sigh in happiness.
And then dump them into the gravy. Let the pot simmer for at least two more hours, stirring every five to ten minutes. (Make sure you're getting the bottom and sides of the pan.) I also really love pepperoni in my gravy, and you basically just take a length of pepperoni, give it a quick boil to get some of the fat off (don’t worry, there’s still LOTS of flavor) and dump it in, whole.
I always think gravy is better the second day. So, let’s pretend, you’ve let the pot cook for three hours, took it off the stove, let it cool enough to touch and put it in the fridge overnight. See how thick it’s gotten? Lovely.
Chicken Parmigiana
8 thinly sliced boneless skinless chicken cutlets
2 eggs
Italian breadcrumbs
Romano cheese
Dried Parsley
Pepper
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Gravy
Shredded mozzarella cheese (it’s just easier to work with, but you can certainly slice up fresh mozzarella if you’d like)
Oregano
Now, there’s two ways to do this. I will put *about a handful* of parsley on a plate, and then *about a handful plus a little more* cheese over it, and then *ditto* breadcrumbs, and then a dash of pepper and mix that up so it’s all combined. Crack the two eggs into a bowl and beat them together. Your assembly line should go: chicken, eggs, breadcrumb mixture, clean plate. My mother puts the parsley and cheese in with the eggs and leaves out the pepper. Your call.
So start dipping. Wash the breast in the egg, dip it in the breadcrumbs, make sure it’s *super generously* coated, put it on the plate. Repeat. Look at your hands. If they’re not totally disgusting, you haven’t done it right.
Pour about two tablespoons EVOO (or enough to coat the bottom of the pan...a little bit more) into your trusty, ten-inch frying pan. Let the oil get *hot*. Like, you should see wisps of smoke rising over it before you drop any meat onto that pan. Fry each piece, I’d say, it should take about 4 minutes on each side (but this will go faster with the last couple of pieces because the oil will be really hot by then).
As you’re transferring the chicken out of the frying pan, put it on a plate lined with paper towels, and layer paper towels over it (you will probably get two layers of chicken, unless you have a really big plate).
Footnote, you can also peel and slice an eggplant (the round way, not the long way) and fry it just like this. It’s my favorite appetizer. And at this point, you really might as well fry everything in the house, right? Also, you can fry these cutlets the night before, and keep them in tupperware overnight, if you just want to get most of the messy cooking out of the way.
Get your gravy and mozzarella cheese ready (and some romano too). Get a glass baking pan (PAM it), and coat the bottom with a little gravy, and lay the chicken in rows. Spoon gravy over each piece, and cover with mozzarella cheese (to your taste). Sprinkle a little romano over it all, too, if you want. *I* like to sprinkle oregano over the tops too. I love oregano SO MUCH.
Bake it at 350 for about 20 minutes. It might not even take that long, because you’re not actually cooking anything, just warming it through and melting the cheese. Keep an eye on it.
Or....you could make...
Pasta Tray (Baked Ziti)
2 lbs pasta, ziti or rigatoni, or some other short, hollow pasta
Gravy
32 oz ricotta cheese (I use Dragone, part skim)
Mozzarella cheese
Romano cheese
Dried Parsley
2 eggs
Oregano (optional)
Boil and drain the pasta. Maybe don’t cook it *all the way through* as it’s going to cook for a long time in the oven, too. Run it through cold water so it doesn’t start to cook the eggs when you have to crack them in. Dump in the can of ricotta, and work that through the pasta (just use your hands). Then, start ladling in the gravy. Keep going until it’s a nice, solid orange color, not a pale pink. *About a handful of parsley.* Crack in your eggs, and mozzarella cheese, romano, to your taste. Work that through with your hands.
Coat the bottom of a glass baking dish with gravy, and spoon the pasta in, packing it into the bottom and corners. Get yourself a good thick layer. Once it’s all in. Ladle a little more gravy over it all, and cover with mozzarella. Sprinkle with romano. (Noticing a pattern?) And you can sprinkle oregano over the top if you like, which I like, but my mother says it makes it smell like pizza.
Bake it at 350 for about two hours (seriously, but check it), and then let it stand for at least a half hour, tented with tinfoil.
And now, you are ready to start your Sopranos marathon....
* * *
Zuppa di Pesce
There’s a lazy way to make it and there’s a very impressive way to make it. To be honest, I usually make it the lazy way. Lazy way is with frozen seafood, that’s already blanched. The impressive way is to fuck up your kitchen with bearding mussels and veining shrimp and *stuff*, and a lot of multi-tasking in the last few minutes of making this dish. Up to you.
1 lb pasta, your choice (I like long pasta with this dish, but up to you)
14 oz can crushed or peeled tomatoes (Pastene)
1 pt Roma tomatoes (optional), cut in half or quarters
about a combined 1 1/2-2 lbs shrimp, mussels and calamari (you can probably buy a frozen bag at the fish counter....wash it and drain it in a colander....or ‘scollapasta’, if you’re me)
White wine
1 yellow onion (or 2 shallots)
2 cloves of garlic (3 if they’re small)
2 Tbsp oregano, or 1 of oregano and 1 of marjoram, if you’ve got it (Marjoram is awesome...I might love it more than oregano.)
EVOO
Mince the onion and garlic. 2 tablespoons of EVOO in the frying pan, medium heat. Brown the onion. Brown the garlic. (Sound familiar?)
Pour in the white wine, maybe half a cup. (Enough to *float*.) Stir everything around, let it come to a little boil. Smell your kitchen. Turn the heat down (not all the way down).
Dump in the canned tomatoes, and the chopped Romas. (Don’t worry about straining with this dish, we’re going a different route.) Add in your herbs, maybe a dash of S&P if you’d like. Let it cook for about 15 minutes.
While this is doing its thing, boil the pasta. Throw in a bit of salt (the one time I do add salt) and olive oil into the water before it’s boiling. About 9 minutes is good for al dente.
In the last few minutes of cooking your sauce, throw in the frozen seafood. It’s already cooked, so you’re really just warming it through. Don’t let it get rubbery, especially those squids.
Drain the pasta, and put it back in the stockpot. Easier to combine in there, rather than the saute pan. *Carefully* pour the sauce, with the tomatoes and seafood in with the pasta, scraping the bottom of the pan. Stir to combine.
This is a nice meal for when you’re having a dinner party with people you don’t have to entertain much (i.e. people you’re very comfortable with) or you don’t mind people watching you cook. It can be nerve wracking with some guests, I know.
* * *
I should do a dessert, huh? This is my father’s favorite, and he has sat and quietly eaten the entire pie before dinner, without telling anyone (thus not sharing it with anyone either).
Key Lime Pie (with some lemony stuff added in)
9 graham crackers
1/3 cup melted butter
1/3 cup sugar
At least....mmmmm....6 limes, to be on the safe side (wash the outside of them)
1 can condensed milk (oh, I always confuse condensed and evaporated....the sweet, thick, syrupy one)
2 egg yolks
Limoncello (optional)
Crush up the graham crackers. You can do this in a food processor, or you can put them in a ziplock bag and bang the shit out of it. This is a much more fun way.
Put it in a bowl with the sugar, and pour the butter over it. Stir to combine. It won’t really stick together like dough, it will be crumbly, but you’ll notice the difference in texture. Pat it into a pie plate. I like to use the tinfoil ones, easy enough to throw away when you’re done. I like a decently thick crust too, so make sure you pat it pretty well onto the sides of the plate.
Bake it at 350 for about 15 minutes. Check it. Lift the plate slightly and drop it and if the crust mostly stays in place it’s done. If it totally fucks it up, take the plate out, fix the crust and let it bake a little longer.
15 minutes is just about enough time to make the filling...
First thing you want to do, zest at least 4 limes. If you’ve got any lemons around, zest a little bit of that too, why not? You need at least a good heaping table spoon of it, and as far as I’m concerned, the more zest, the better. Zest over a bowl.
Then, roll up your sleeves and start squeezing those limes. You need *at least* a good half a cup of lime juice, and a little more never hurt anyone. If you’re juicing into a cup (oh jeez, that sounds filthy) pour the cup into the bowl with the zest.
Separate your egg yolks. Just the yolks in this one. Pour the yolks in with the zest and juice, stir to combine.
Add in the condensed milk. If you’ve got a mixer (which I don’t), this will be easier, but just a regular old spoon will be fine too. Get that all combined really good. Feeling adventurous? Do ya, punk? Throw in a shot of limoncello. (Card at the door, if you must.)
Pour the filling into the pie crust, smoothing it out with a spoon or spatula. (Go on and lick the spoon, too, I won’t tell anyone.) Bake it at 350. Time varies, in some people’s kitchen it’s done in like 20 minutes, I’ve always had to bake it for at least 45.
Here’s what you’re looking for:
-the middle and top isn’t jiggly
-the ‘knife test’ (stick a knife in, and if it comes up clean, it’s done)
-I like it to get very lightly golden-brown on top
Serve with whipped cream. Wanna whip your own? It’s a great arm work out (or nothing at all with a mixer).
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 tbsp powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
Basically, just whip the shit out of it, until it looks like whipped cream. (Pssst....more often than not, I just buy the canned shit. Nobody knows the difference. But *never* Cool Whip.)
That was eleven pages. I’m spent.
Be back with another soon!