I was recently inspired by my blogger friend Linda at Ciao Chow Linda when I saw her post on Eggplant Roll-ups.  We purchased some eggplant at a farmer’s market the other day and were thinking of what to make with them… perfect timing Linda!  This is a great dish to make on Sunday when your watching the football games or for all the guys that want to impress that special someone!  It’s easy and delicious.  I went more of a classic route with the rollatini and used ricotta but borrowed a few of Linda’s tips as well with salting the eggplant and using a basil leaf in each rollatini since we have a boat-load of beautiful basil we still need to use before the frost (did I just say frost!?? out loud?)

This is what you need:

• 2 large eggplant
• 1-2 eggs
• all purpose flour
• ricotta
• tomato sauce
• parmigiano cheese
• mozzarella cheese
• sliced prosciutto

If you’re looking for a really good grocery store ricotta… check out Sam Maulucci & Sons.  By far the best ricotta (in my opinion) you can buy without visiting a gourmet cheese shop or local farmer (they should be paying me for that!)

What you need to do:

Start by slicing your eggplant the long way into 1/2 inch slices.  Then lay them out on paper towel, sprinkle sea salt on them and let them sit for about an hour so that the salt removes some of the water from the eggplant (great tip Linda!) Press them with paper towel to remove the water.

Beat your eggs and then coat your eggplant in egg, then flour and then egg again (this tip is from my mother) before frying them in olive oil until they are golden brown on both sides (about 5-10 minutes or so.)  Then lay them out on paper towel again to remove some of the excess oil.

Lay your eggplant out flat and on each piece of eggplant, lay a slice of prosciutto, a dab of ricotta and a basil leaf… also add a layer of tomato sauce, which I did after I took the photo. (For the sauce, we used our homemade jarred tomato sauce, added some fresh garlic and seasoning and let it simmer for about a half hour.)  Once you’ve  put together all your ingredients, roll them up and place them in a shallow casserole dish with some tomato sauce coating the bottom.  Add sauce over your rollatini, sprinkle with parmigiano cheese and top with mozzarella.   Cover and cook at 375 degrees for about 30-40 minutes.  Serve with your favorite Italian bread and red wine.  Enjoy and buon appetito!

Extra Flavor tip: For that extra bang.. try mixing your ricotta with an egg and chopped parsley before adding it to your rollatini.

Escarole is a favorite green in many Italian families.  Some of the more popular ways to prepare escarole are in soup, with beans, and as a simple salad.   The escarole in our garden has been ready for a few weeks now and we have been enjoying it to the fullest!  One of my favorite ways to prepare escarole is cooked with bread.

Here’s what you need:

• Fresh escarole
• Extra virgin olive oil
• garlic
• day old bread or stuffing bread
• salt and pepper

Here’s what you need to do:

Add a few tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil to a pot with some chopped garlic and let it simmer for a few minutes.  Wash your escarole and chop it into pieces, then add it to your pot making sure the escarole is still wet as the water will help steam the escarole.  Cover and stir occasionally until your escarole becomes tender, then add your bread or stuffing bread, salt and pepper (crushed red pepper if you like) and let it simmer for several minutes until the bread becomes soft.  Simple and delicious!  Drizzle a little fresh olive oil on top if you like. It makes a great side dish or main course with some fresh bread.

If you haven’t entered to win the $50 Venetian Mask gift certificate, you still have time (see post below.)  I have extended the deadline until tomorrow at 5pm EST.  Here’s what you need to do to win:

• You need to leave a comment on the Venetian Masks post
• And either retweet the post (upper right corner of the post) or mention the giveaway with a link on your blog or facebook page.

In my last post on curing black olives I mentioned that I was making them 2 ways: sott’acqua (in a simple brine of salt and water) and al forno (oven dried black olives.)  The black olives “sott’acqua” don’t take much maintenance… once you make your brine and drop them in it’s a waiting game.  The dried black olives however, are more involved.

The olives we had were late season olives and were a little banged up so I separated the ones that were really bruised to use for drying.

Here’s what you need to do: Take your olives and place them in a large bowl with a lid.  Sprinkle salt over the olives (I used an entire 26 oz pack of salt) and cover them.  You do not need to refrigerate them.   Mix your olives twice a day for 2-3 weeks.  Water from the olives will start to collect at the bottom of your bowl but don’t remove it… just keep mixing them twice a day.  After a few weeks, you will have mushy looking olives in water and you’ll know they’re ready (I kept them in the bowl for 3 weeks.) Drain the water from your bowl and rinse your olives several times to remove the excess salt (otherwise they will be too salty.)  Once you have rinsed your olives, lay them on paper towel in a baking tray or cookie sheet and turn your oven on to 125 degrees F (50 C)  Place your olives in the oven for several hours and check them periodically until your satisfied with how dry your olives are.  This method can take up to 12 hours to dry them out, so you might want to consider leaving them in your oven overnight.   The key is to expose your olives to low heat over time so that they can dry out slowly.  Another variation is to preheat your oven to 200 degrees F (95 C) and once your oven is preheated, turn it off and put your olives in… that way you can leave the house and not have to worry about the oven being on.  You can repeat this process over several days as I did.

Once you have your olives at a level of dryness that you like and they have cooled, place them in a bowl, add a splash of olive oil, oregano, crushed red pepper and mix.  They’re ready to serve.  They also freeze very well. Enjoy and buon appetito!

I hope everyone is having a great 2010 so far!  I recently got back from San Francisco for work and had the pleasure of dinning at a great Italian restaurant called Incanto.  What a treat!  Owner Mark Pastore and Chef Chris Cosentino have something really special going on the left coast… (for the record, they’re both originally from New England!) Their website describes Incanto’s food as, “…food that is based on the bedrock principles of Italian cooking: emphasis on the freshest and highest-quality local ingredients, respectful treatment of food, and presentation that is neither overwrought or fussy.” and when asked what part of Italy their cuisine represents: “…the food we serve at Incanto represents a part of Italy that is called ‘California’.”

I would describe the food as “Italian upscale rustic”… I know, it doesn’t make much sense but a glimpse of their sample menu (the menu changes daily) might help you agree with me.

• Crispy pork belly, cider braised chard, polenta & cipollini
• Duck liver ravioli & balsamic brown butter (they were delicious!)
• Peasant pappa, smoked lumache, pioppini & onion ash
• Pig’s ears & apples

How often do you see those dishes on a menu?!  It sounds like a list of foods my father ate when we were kids but we wouldn’t touch because of what it sounded like and not what it tasted like (your “someday” has arrived dad!)  What were we thinking!!?  Do not miss a chance to eat at Incanto if you go to San Francisco… I also want to applaud Edward Ruiz (Wine Director) for his wine selection.  The Amarone we had was excellent!

A Big Thank You

to Linda at Ciao Chow Linda for the wonderful gift of goodies she sent my way.  Grazie 1000 Linda!!

Not only do I enjoy reading about the amazing food and recipes Linda makes… now I get to try some (without all the work.)  Her fig jam is (as we New Englanders would say) wicked awesome (I had to send some to my mother since figs are her favorite.)  I can’t wait to try the morel mushrooms her brother found… the one mushroom that has managed to elude me.  She also sent some of her husband’s jarred/cured green tomatoes, her blood orange & cranberry jam and a bottle of olive oil.  If you head to Linda’s blog, you can find the recipes or posts on most of these items.  Thanks Linda!

Last year I posted on “Grispelle” and la Grispellissima festival that is held December 8th in Feroleto Antico, where my family is from in Calabria but I didn’t include a recipe… so here it is.  My family makes a fried potato-dough with and without anchovies every year at Christmas time: We call them grispelle & monacialli but they also have other names depending on where in Calabria you are from.  Grispelle are doughnut shaped without  anchovies and monacialli are small balls with anchovies inside.

Monacialli

Grispelle

What you’ll need:

• 5 pound bag of all-purpose flour
• 4-5 large potatoes (we use Idaho potatoes)
• Fresh yeast (about 2 oz)
• Salt
• Grated Parmigiano or Romano cheese
• Vegetable oil
• Canned anchovies in oil (for monacialli)

What you need to do: Peel your potatoes and boil them until they are soft enough to put through a potato ricer.  Once you have riced your potatoes, place them in a large bowl and add some of the water used to boil the potatoes.  Mix together until you have a thick potato/water mixture with no lumps (run your fingers through the water or strain the water to remove any potato chunks.) Let the potato water cool.   Place the yeast in a bowl of warm water breaking it up with your hands until it is completely dissolved and then add it to your potato water.  Now place your flour, salt and grated cheese in a large bowl and slowly add your potato water as needed to make your dough.  The dough should have a soft and fluffy consistency.

Potato Water

Let the dough rise for 1.5 – 2 hours.  We cover the bowl with a dish cloth and a blanket in order to keep the dough warm and speed up the process.  When the dough is ready it should be soft and airy.

Once your dough is ready, you’ll need to oil down a large area (table, counter top, etc.) with vegetable oil.  This is done so that the uncooked grispelle and monacialli don’t stick to the surface before you cook them as the dough is very sticky.  Also set aside a bowl of oil to dunk your hands in while working the dough.

For monacialli, grab a small piece of dough and stretch it flat in your hands, then add a whole anchovy fillet and wrap the anchovy with the dough (see video below.) Place the monacialli on your oily surface while you make others.  This will allow the dough to rise slightly before frying.

For grispelle, take a small piece of dough and poke a whole through the middle to create a doughnut shape and lay them on your oily surface while you make others.

Heat some vegetable oil in a large sauce or frying pan (use enough oil so that the grispelle and monacialli float while frying.)  Add your monacialli or grispelle and cook on both sides until golden brown.  Let cool and eat!

Grispelle are great on their own but you can also sprinkle sugar on them or dunk them in honey or maple syrup… as you can imagine, the kids love them this way.  I’m a monacialli kind of guy.  Whichever you prefer, enjoy and buon appetito!

PS – BUON ANNO A TUTTI!!

As I mentioned in my recent post about Italian food, some of the best recipes come from Italian creativity when times are tough (la cucina povera) in southern Italy that was pretty much all the time… well, times are tough everywhere!  but don’t let that stop you from making delicious Italian food.  Pasta Pie or pizza di macaroni is a great way to make leftover pasta into a great new recipe.  This recipe was created for exactly that reason… as you may know, Italians don’t cook the “correct amount” of anything.  It goes something like this at my house, “how many people are we?… 6?  we’ll need 3 pounds of pasta.” So when there’s a pound of pasta left over, what do you with it?  (Yes frat boy, you could eat it cold.)  make Pasta Pie!

There’s no reason to wait until you have leftover pasta though… Pasta Pie is a great treat anytime!  especially in the summer.  Check out this monster my brother-in-law made this past weekend.  This is 4 pounds of pasta deliciousness.  Everyone has their own recipe, amounts, types of pasta, etc.  I don’t have the exact recipe (hint: there is no exact recipes in Italian cooking, the sooner you realize that, the happier we will all be) but here’s the basics of how he makes his… which was delicious!

He uses different types of long pasta (spaghetti, bucatini, etc.) if you use short cut pasta it tends to crumble easily.  The different pasta types also help make it less dense. Cook your pasta and let it cool and drain well.  Then beat 12 eggs per pound of pasta (no, that isn’t a misprint… 12 eggs per pound of pasta, I never said my brother-in-law wasn’t cRaZy) apparently my sister only had 24 eggs to add to the 4 pounds of pasta so it didn’t come out exactly how it should have (so 48 eggs would be the correct amount here?… C-r-A-z-Y!)  Add the eggs, grated parmigiana, salt and pepper to the pasta and mix well.  In a humongous frying pan (obviously) add olive oil and let the pasta mixture cook until golden brown (the trick is to move the pasta around so that it forms in the pan) then take the lid of the pan and flip the pasta.  Let both sides get golden brown and you have yourself a Pasta Pie.  I wouldn’t recommend starting with a 4 pounder… you might want to make a 1 pounder first.  You can also add other ingredients as well… sopressata, ham or whatever your creative Italian soul is feeling.  So have yourself a slice of Pasta Pie, a fresh summer salad and a glass of wine.  Enjoy and buon appetito!