Seem to be on a dressing kick lately – probably because, as I wrote some time ago, most store bought stuff is shit, and if it’s not, it’s pricey. You can and should make fresh – it’s easy, fast, and far better than that other stuff.
I wanted a creamy herb dressing, something with an Italian twist in the herb mix. This turned out to be glorious stuff.
You can make this with anything from fat free Greek yoghurt to homemade mayo, running the gamut of calories and unctuousness.
While you could throw a tablespoon of Italian seasoning into the mix rather than what I did, I find it a lot more soul satisfying to make your own blends – and change those whenever the spirit moves you. Try it, you’ll like it.
Urb’s Creamy Italian Herb Dressing
(You can sub Greek yoghurt, buttermilk, or sour cream for the mayo and crema, as you see fit)
1/2 Cup Mayonnaise
1/4 Cup Mexican Crema
1/4 Cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
2 Tablespoons Prosecco Vinegar
1 Tablespoon fresh Parsley
1 Tablespoon fresh Celery Leaf
2 teaspoons fresh Lemon Juice
1/2 teaspoon Basil
1/2 teaspoon Lemon Thyme
1/2 teaspoon Sage
1/2 teaspoon granulated Garlic
1/2 teaspoon granulated Onion
Pinch Sea Salt
5-6 twists fresh ground Pepper
In a non-reactive mixing bowl, combine mayo, sour cream vinegar, and lemon juice – whisk briskly to thoroughly incorporate.
Whisk in olive oil in a slow drizzle, building up the emulsion gradually. Whisk in all remaining ingredients.
Transfer dressing to a clean glass jar and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes prior to serving.
Giardiniera – The King of Pickled Veggies. Easy to make, and a great use for those late season veggies from the garden or farmers market.
This year’s garden has been hit and miss. Some things have done nicely, others not, even with staggered plantings. That struck home when we had a look at the cucumbers and realized we wouldn’t get enough to make a winters worth of pickles and relish – That’s when inspiration struck – Why not go for a big batch of Giardiniera, the King of pickled veggies, instead?
Giardiniera, (Jar-dhi-nare-uh), is a delightful pickled vegetable mix, either done up as bite sized pieces or a relish. Redolent of fresh veggies and good olive oil, wrapped around lip smacking brininess that rivals a great cornichon – This is something we all need to be making at home.
Pickling foods to preserve them hardens back thousands of years and crosses numerous boundaries – almost every society does and has employed it. Everything from veggies, to meat, fish, fruit, nuts, and even eggs can end up in the pickle jar, much to our advantage. Pickling not only helps preserve things through the dark months, it adds a vital zip to what can otherwise be a rather bland time of year.
Giardiniera hails from Italy, and means literally, ‘from the garden, (also called sottacetto, or ‘under vinegar.’) While variants come from all over the boot, the versions we’re most familiar with has southern roots, down where the mild Mediterranean climate fosters a wide variety of veggies, the best olive oil, and great sea salt. That’s where those colorful jars filled with cauliflower, carrot, olives, onions, peppers, and chiles hailed from.
You’ll likely find jars of the bite sized version of giardiniera in your local grocery, with the fancy olives and other pickled goodies. While some of the commercial stuff is pretty good, none of it can match what you can make at home, and to top things off, it’s remarkably easy to do, (And frankly, the relish version of giardiniera is much more versatile, and rarely found in stores).
Seasoned with fresh herbs, maybe even touched with a little hot chile flake, giardiniera is fabulous on sandwiches, (including burgers and dogs), pizza, salads, and as a table condiment with more dishes than you can shake a stick at. Now is the time to be doing up a few batches of your own – it’s fairly traditional for giardiniera to be made in the fall, as a catch all for all those late season veggies we don’t want to lose to the first frost.
The American home of giardiniera is Chicago, where that famous Italian beef sandwich hails from. Slow roasted beef, cooked over its own jus, sliced thin and slapped onto a nice, dense roll, ladled with a generous spoon of giardiniera, a little jus, and eaten in the classic sloppy sandwich hunch – a little slice of heaven.
Italian Beef Sandwich, fueled by Giardiniera
Making giardiniera is a real treat. Your first and foremost issue, naturally, is what to put into the mix. The blend I outlined earlier is generally recognized as the classic base mix, but pretty much anything goes, (I should note that peppers and chiles were not in the original Italian versions of the dish, as they didn’t show up in European cultivation until the 1700s.) firm veggies, like carrots, celeriac root, turnips, cauliflower, broccoli, and asparagus do well. Peppers and chiles will do well too, though really soft stuff like tomatoes tend to break down quickly.
Making giardiniera couldn’t be easier. While some recipes call for cooking or fermenting, (both processes are perfectly fine), the simplest version is, for my mind, best – Just brine your veggie mix for a day or two, until you reach the degrees of zip and bite that you like, and that’s it. You’ll find recipes that call for the mix to be stored in brine, oil, vinegar, and a simple vinaigrette – My money is in the latter option – that will provide a nice stable medium, and a great taste as well.
There are typically mild and spicy (AKA Hot) versions, and extensive regional variety, like the Chicago style that includes sport peppers and an accompanying degree of heat. Down south, the version that goes with a muffuletta sandwich is mild and heavier on the olives. Those are great, and worth your time to build, but really, look upon giardiniera as a launching pad for creativity – You really can’t go wrong if it’s made with stuff you love – For instance, I didn’t have celery when I made up the relish version, but I did have fresh celeriac root, and it turned out to be a wonderful substitution.
You can use any oil and vinegar you like for the base vinaigrette. Seasoning can be as easy as good salt, olive oil, and vinegar. When you feel like adding additional spices, be conservative in both number and ratio – The rule of three is a good thing here.
Unless you process your giardiniera in a hot water bath, keep in mind that this is basically a fridge pickle. If made carefully, and packed into sterilized glass jars, it will last a month or two refrigerated. Just keep in mind that they’re not shelf stable unless you go through the canning process. Accordingly, what we offer below are small batches that will make a couple of quart jars of finished product. There are cooked and fermented versions out there, and we’ll leave those for you to explore.
Giardiniera Relish
A quart of fresh Giardiniera will last a couple months in your fridge
For the base mix
1 Green Bell Pepper
1 Red Pepper
1 small Sweet Onion
2-4 Jalapeño Chiles
1 medium Carrot
1 Stalk Celery
1/2 Cup Cauliflower florets
1/4 Cup Pickling Salt
For the final mix
1 Cup White Vinegar
1 Cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
6-8 large Green Olives
1 Clove Garlic
1/2 teaspoon Chile Flake
1/2 teaspoon Lemon Thyme
1/4 teaspoon ground Black Pepper
Rinse all produce thoroughly.
Stem, seed, and devein the peppers and chiles, (leave the veins in the jalapeños if you want more heat).
Cut all veggies for the base mix into a uniform fine dice, about 1/4″ pieces. It’s not important to be exact, just get everything about the same size and you’ll be fine.
Transfer the mix to a glass or stainless steel mixing bowl. Cover the mix with fresh, cold water with an inch or so to spare.
Add the pickling salt and mix with a slotted spoon until the salt is thoroughly dissolved.
Cover with a tight fitting lid and refrigerate for 24 hours.
After 24 hours, take a spoon of the mix out, gently rinse it under cold water for a minute or so.
Test the degree of pickle and softness of the veggies. If you like what you’ve got, move on – If not, give it another day.
When you’re ready to prep the final mix –
Remove the base mix from the fridge and transfer to a single mesh strainer. Run cold water over and through the mix, using your hand to make sure that the salt solution is rinsed off.
fine dice the olives, peel, trim and mince the garlic.
Add all ingredients to a glass or stainless mixing bowl and stir with a slotted spoon to thoroughly incorporate.
Sanitize two quart mason jars either by boiling the jars, rings, and lids for 3-5 minutes in clean, fresh water, or running them through a cycle in your dishwasher.
Transfer the mix to the jars, and seal. Refrigerate for two days prior to use.
Giardiniera, bite size
For the bite sized version, cut everything into roughly 1″ pieces, )or larger, depending on jar size and predilection), and process as per above. A bay leaf or two is a nice addition.
It’s almost the winter solstice, and comfort food is called for. There’s no better time for low and slow – something that’ll make the shack smell wonderful all day, and seriously hit the spot at dinner. Pasta alla Bolognese is the ticket – There’s history behind this dish, and also some important caveats about doing it right – if you’re going to call it pasta alla Bolognese, that is.
Bologna is up in the middle of the cuff of the Italian boot, anchoring the Emilia-Romagna region. It’s an ancient Etruscan city that’s changed hands a few times – both Celts and Romans made it theirs for a while. Bologna is gorgeous and well preserved, famous for architecture and the oldest university in the world, the Università di Bologna, established in 1088 AD. It’s a city of music and culture and food, including the deservedly famous ragù that carries its name.
And what a ragù it is, which leads to our first caveat – what we’re making here is not just Bolognese, it’s Ragù alla Bolognese, or if you wish, sauce in the Bolognese style. It is one of the legendary Italian ragùs, as anointed by the Accademia Italiana della Cucina – well, by the Bologna chapter thereof, anyway… The etymology of ragù is French, from ragout, meaning pretty much any sauce where proteins and vegetables are stewed. Meat sauces in Emilia-Romagna definitely predated whatever French influence might have taken place, and it wasn’t until the early 19th century that recipes for ragù appeared that more or less mirror the modern day versions.
As with all great dishes, there really isn’t one classic ragù alla Bolognese, because everyone’s Momma makes the best. Naturally, other regions of Italy take umbrage to claims that ragù alla Bolognese is better than what they make. This battle is nowhere more pronounced than between Bologna and Naples, where the equally delightful ragù alla Napolitana hails from. That said, (at least in this country), if you google ‘ragù alla,’ the overwhelming result will be Bolognese, with a smattering of Napolitana and maybe a Genovese or two, (and by all means, you should explore them all.)
Like ‘salsa,’ ragù is a broad word – it too means sauce in essence, but it also speaks to the way a ragù is made. In northern Italy, the meat is usually ground or finely minced, with sautéed vegetables in a meat stock that gradually reduces over the low and slow cook. The protein might by beef, poultry, lamb, or wild game, and often includes offal. And here’s Caveat Number Two, in a proper ragù alla Bolognese, the tomato content is quite a bit less than you likely think it is – it really is a meat sauce.
In the south, where the Napolitana style reigns, the proteins are cut larger – beef, pork, or sausage, cooked low and slow in veggies and plenty of tomato. The meat is often removed and served separately, while the ragù goes over fresh pasta.
Caveat Number Three – Despite what that google search may show you, there is absolutely no such thing as ‘authentic spaghetti Bolognese’ – In Bologna, you will never, ever see that. What you will find is ragù over fresh tagliatelle, a long pasta a bit wider and thicker than fettuccine – It’s great to make at home too.
If you’re not up for that, there is a wealth of good fresh pasta out there these days – and if that doesn’t work, then a short, ridged dry variety, like rigatoni, penne rigate, or conchiglie (aka shells), will work great too. The diff between spaghetti and tagliatelle may seem nitpicky, but it ain’t – it’s truly seminal to the overall flavor and texture of the finished dish.
So, what meat to use? Start with beef for your first run. If you have a butcher, (and you probably do, even if it’s your local grocery store – just ask them), or the capability to grind your own, you can do up something special, which needn’t be fancy by the way – chuck is prefect for this dish. If not, fear not – fresh 80%-20% ground beef will do fine. Don’t go any leaner than that, as a fundamental sweetness of the ragù depends on the fat content.
Ragù is a study in low and slow – sautéing, sweating, and braising all play a part. The intention is to get as much as possible out of the ingredients and into an integrated sauce. As such, you don’t need to add any kind of stock when you make this – it’ll make its own for as long as it’s needed, and in the end run, much of the extra liquid will be absorbed. When you plan on making this dish, pencil in a good 5+ hours for the process, (and all day is better yet).
Don’t fret if you gotta go do an errand or two though – any good Bolognese Mamma will tell you it’s fine to shut things off for a bit, go do your thing, and kick it back in gear a bit later – so long as it gets the overall cooking time it needs.
What to cook your ragù in? In Emilia-Romagna, many a Nonna would tell you that earthenware is the only thing that’ll do. Not everyone has the wherewithal for stovetop clay cookery, (though if you do, you most certainly should). If you don’t, then choose a heavy vessel that retains heat well – a cast iron Dutch oven or deep skillet is perfect.
As for wine, you’ve really gotta have it in this dish. Tradition holds with the ubiquitous ‘dry white,’ but you really can use what you have and like – really – you’re going to make this yours, and you get to choose.
Many recipes call for imported Italian plum tomatoes – That might be the thing to do in the middle of winter, but if you’ve got access to fresh Roma’s then use those – I don’t care where they’re from or what they’re named, fresh beats canned, every time. If you do have to go canned, check out our post on who’s better and who’s best.
When it comes to seasoning, those Bolognese Nonnas often use nothing but salt and pepper, depending on fresh ingredients to carry the day. That’s totally cool, and delicious, but if you like an herbaceous note or two in there as I do, add one. Caveat Number Four is this – do not leave the nutmeg out, and if you can, get a fresh whole one and grate a little into the dish – it’s key to the signature flavor of true ragù alla Bolognese.
Final note – the process outlined below is important. This can perhaps be best summed up in a question from my friend, Russ Robinson, who wrote in response to an image of this sauce cooking, ‘I am a huge fan of scratch Bolognese. A few times I’ve ended up with bitter red sauce. I can throw sugar at it. but I’m thinking some step was missed in the process early. Ideas?’ I told him that I knew exactly why, and that all would be revealed herein – as it shall be. Take note that there’s nothing really exotic in here – the real magic is in the technique.
This recipe will make plenty for 2-4 folks, with leftovers likely, because it’s even better the next day.
Urban’s Ragù alla Bolognese
1 1/2 Pounds ground Beef, (you certainly can go with beef & pork if you like)
4-6 fresh Roma Tomatoes
1 small yellow Onion
2-3 stalks fresh Celery
2-3 fresh Carrots
2-3 cloves fresh Garlic
1 Cup Whole Milk (or cream, if you’re feeling frisky)
1 Cup Wine (drier is better, but really – use what you like)
2 Tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil
3 Tablespoons Unsalted Butter
Whole Nutmeg (ground is OK)
Sea Salt (or kosher)
Black Pepper
1 Tablespoon Oregano
1 Pound good Pasta
Parmigiano-Regiano or Pecorino Romano Cheese
It’s a good idea to use a bunch of bowls and cups to arrange your ingredients.
Trim, peel and dice about 1 1/2 cups of onion.
Trim and dice about 3/4 cup each of celery and carrot. If you have celery leaves, separate and mince or chiffonade cut those.
Trim, peel and mince garlic.
Rough chop tomatoes, then process in a bowl with a stick blender to a sauce – A blender is fine for this too.
Portion milk and wine, (separately)
Set up your full mise en place right beside your stove.
In a heavy stock pot over medium heat, add the oil and 2 tablespoons of butter – allow to melt and heat through.
Add the carrot and sweat for about 2-3 minutes, stirring steadily.
Bring heat up to medium high and add onion and celery – sauté until the onion starts to become translucent but not browned, about 2-3 minutes – stir steadily to thoroughly coat the veggies in the fat.
Add the garlic and sauté until the raw garlic smells dissipates, about 1-2 minutes.
Add the wine and stir the veggies until the raw alcohol smells dissipates, about 2 minutes.
Transfer everything from the pot to a bowl.
Add the meat to the stock pot – season with a generous three finger pinch of salt and a few twists of pepper.
Mix the seasoning in while working the meat to break it down into smaller pieces – The salt helps extract liquid from the meat, making that more available to the sauce, so don’t skip this step.
When the meat is starting to brown and has lost most of its raw red color, add the milk and turn the heat down to medium low.
Simmer the meat and milk, stirring gently, until all the milk has been absorbed by the meat, about 4-6 minutes, but really, as long as it takes – This step is critical to get real Bolognese and to avoid what happened to Russ – allowing the meat to cook with and fully absorb the milk prevents the acidic wine and tomato from creating a bitter sauce. There’s a subtle softness and sweetness to Bolognese done right that can be achieved no other way.
Add a grating of fresh nutmeg, about a 1/4 teaspoon, and stir to incorporate – The smells you get at this point are pretty heavenly.
Add the veggies and oil/butter blend back into the meat and stir to incorporate.
Add the tomatoes, celery leaf, and oregano. And stir well to fully incorporate all your ingredients.
Turn your heat down to low, and cook uncovered for at least 4 hours, and longer is not only fine, it’s better.
What you want is an occasional lazy bubble forming in the sauce – no hotter. This is genuine low and slow, and why we want that heavy, heat-holding pot to cook it in.
What you’re after in your final product is a sauce where the fat is visibly starting to separate out, as you see in the image below.
If your sauce dries out while cooking, add about a half cup of water and stir that in as needed – but make sure that your finished products conforms to the sentence above.
Taste and adjust seasoning.
Boil and drain your pasta, leaving a tablespoon of water in the pot.
Return half the pasta to the pot with the burner off.
Add a tablespoon of butter to the pasta and toss to coat.
Add about 2 cups of sauce to the pasta, and toss to incorporate.
Serve with freshly shaved Parm or romano and crusty bread on the side, (to sop the sauce up with), and a nice glass of Italian red.
You might call it Parmesan, but it really is Parmigiano-Reggiano, ya know. It is arguably the most popular of Italian cheeses worldwide, and rightfully so. When you tase the real deal, aged between 24 and maybe 48 months, the depth and breadth of flavor notes is stunningly good. Maybe, subconsciously, that’s why so many of us save the rinds, even if we don’t do anything with them – the stuff is so damn tasty, we just can’t bear to throw out the ‘inedible’ part. Fear not, I say, because thankfully that inedible thing is hogwash. Last spring, I wrote about stuff you can do with the rinds, but somehow, I missed making stock – time to fix that.
Real deal Parmigiano-Reggiano comes from the five provinces that are allowed to call the stuff by its proper name – Parma, Reggio Emilia, Modena, Bologna, and Mantua. Sorry, but anything else from somewhere else is just cheese. The outer most layer of a wheel of Parmesan Reggiano is the place where all the interaction with the outside world has occurred, while inside, that miraculous cheese matures. The rind hardens, forming a barrier to keep bad things out while allowing moisture to leave the cheese over time. When we buy it, we obviously want a reasonable ratio of rind to cheese. Don’t go too far on that, though, and definitely save rinds, because parmigiano rind stock is liquid heaven.
Parmigiano stock, made with aromatics, herbs, plenty of rinds, and simmered low and slow is the ticket. What you get will be redolent with the scent, taste, and umami powered mouth feel only Parmigiano-Regiano can provide. It is the stuff for staples like Italian wedding, white bean, or minestrone soups. Use it to cook beans low and slow and the results are truly ethereal. Freeze it in resealable ice cube trays and add it to pan sauces or veggies. Cook rice with it and prepare to swoon – no, I’m not bullshitting – it really is that good.
Best of all, it’s incredibly simple to make. There’s a lot of versions out there – This is my take on it, powered by soffritto, the legendary Italian aromatic base, with fresh herbs. Try it the way I’ve written it, then tweak your next batches to your liking, and make it truly yours.
Note: if you’re not a rind saver, you’ll find that quite a few retailers now sell them by the pound – so long as the initial quality is good, and they’ve been properly kept, you shouldn’t hesitate to buy them that way. If you do save them, refrigerated in an airtight container is fine – they’ll last for months.
Urban’s Parmigiano-Reggiano Stock
1 Gallon (16 Cups) fresh Water
1 Pound Parmigiano Rinds
1 large Sweet Onion
2 fresh Carrot
2-3 stalks Celery
6-8 fat cloves fresh Garlic
1/4 Cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
8 sprigs fresh Oregano (2 Tablespoons dry)
6 sprigs fresh Thyme (1 Tablespoon dry)
1 Tablespoon Tasmanian Pepperberries (regular old pepper is fine, but not nearly as complex)
2 Turkish Bay Leaves (not California!)
Peel and quarter the onion, smash and peel garlic, rough chop carrots and celery.
Add the olive oil to a heavy stock pot over medium high heat, and heat through.
Add onion and carrots and fry for 2-3 minutes.
Add the garlic and celery and continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until the onion is lightly browned, about 3-4 minutes.
Add the water to the veggies and allow to heat through until the stock starts to simmer, about 6-8 minutes.
Add the all remaining ingredients and stir to incorporate.
Once the stock comes to a boil, reduce to a bare simmer, uncovered.
Simmer for at least 2 hours, and up to 4, stirring occasionally to make the sure the rinds don’t stick, and to test the strength of the stock.
When the stock smells strongly of parmigiano, is slightly cloudy, and everything other than the absolute outer hardest layer of rind has gone into solution, you’re done.
Pour the stock through a colander and send all the non-liquid stuff to compost.
If you’re finicky, you can further clarify the stock through cheesecloth, but frankly, who bother? This is good, rustic stuff in your kitchen, not something done for presentation at a white linen restaurant – live a little and let it be.
Cool stock to room temperature. Store in clean glass jars with enough headroom to not break the container when freezing, about 2”. Also do some up in ice cube trays for smaller batch fun.
Stock is fine refrigerated for 3-4 days. If you want to hold it longer than that, freeze it – it’s good there for a couple of months.
In 1972, my family spent a month touring Italy. We stopped, of course, in Perugia, where my older sister was studying abroad, at the Università per Stranieri di Perugia. We stayed at a hilltop hotel with a rather large dining room. One night, Ma and Pa went out by themselves, and my older Bro and I had dinner there – That was the first time I experienced Spaghetti alla Carbonara.
The plates were, for a 12 year old, huge. A lady at the table next to ours showed us the right way to do things – grab some pasta with a fork, spin that into the bowl of your spoon, then pop that lovely stuff into your mouth. The stuff was stunningly good, and it became an instant favorite for me, but try as I might, I couldn’t finish. First the waiter looked appalled, and asked if I didn’t like it. I denied this, just said it was too much, but the process was already underway. Next came the head waiter, then the maitre d’, and finally, the Chef. With all these guys gesturing and beaming, I finished that damn plate. Ever since, I’ve been more judicious about my intake, and well that I should be – This is seriously rich stuff.
Carbonara is another of those fascinating dishes that are hard to pigeonhole. It’s a Roman thing, in all likelihood – and the locals have heartily embraced it as such. It’s delightfully simple, stemming from the pasta/cheese/pepper family of dishes, like cacio e pepe – maybe more like pasta alla gricia, since carbonara must have cured pork to be authentico. While the roots go way back, this is not an old dish. Carbonaro means ‘charcoal burner,’ and lead to the sobriquet, ‘coal miners pasta,’ but that is probably poetic license.
Carbonara appeared in Italy post World War II, because quite frankly, there was little or no eggs or bacon in that war torn collection of city states prior to the war. There was plenty of both afterwards thanks to the presence of American GIs and their vast supply stores. I think the Carbonara moniker came about because pepper and diced bacon kinda look like coal, if one is being imaginative. This line of reasoning is substantiated by the notable absence of the dish in Ada Bono’s seminal 1930 work, La Cucina Romana – If carbonara had been part of the scene, I guarantee it would have been in her book – and it did appear in Elizabeth David’s 1954 edition of Italian Food. In any event, Italians loved it, and so did the GI’s.
Like any seminal dish, there are a lot of potential rights and wrongs around making Carbonara, I mean come on – it’s Italian cooking, OK? In Italy, 90% of the time you encounter it the meat will be guanciale, the pasta will be spaghetti, the cheese will be Pecorino Romano, and the only other ingredients will be eggs, black pepper, and salt – anything else will be received akin to putting pineapple on their pizza.
Guanciale is worth checking out, but it can still be a bit hard to find here in the states. It is cured pork from the jowl or cheek, notably porkier and fattier than bacon or pancetta. The magic lies in the fat, which melts beautifully when it’s cooked, adding marvelous depth of flavor and mouth feel to a dish. Americans tend to use bacon for Carbonara, which is fine, really, especially if it’s really good bacon – sure they frown on this in Italy, but even pancetta can get you looked at funny over there. I think you should use what you like, but trying a cured pork product you’ve not had before should be on your dance card.
While the pasta you deploy doesn’t have to be spaghetti, it should be something with a hefty surface to volume ratio – that’ll allow the simple and relatively small amount of sauce involved to fully deploy. Folks have been known to double the sauce and use something like penne, and while that would technically be wrong, I’d snarf it down.
The cheese should be Pecorino Romano, but if you like parmigiano regiano, use that – Just know that they’re very different things – Pecorino is a salty, sharp, almost smoky sheep’s milk cheese, while Parmesan comes from cows – it’s nuttier and funkier stuff.
If ever there was a dish that wanted the best, freshest eggs you can find, this would be it. The taste and the appearance of the dish depend on great eggs, because they constitute most of the sauce – a watery, pale supermarket egg is not going to make great carbonara. Most cooks use whole eggs, while some employ only yolks, and either is fine, really.
As far as other stuff in carbonara goes, everything I’m about to mention does not go into the dish according to purists, and I feel strongly that you try the traditional dish at least once – After that, do what you like – it’s your kitchen. Some folks deploy a little cream in their sauce. Veggies from peas to broccoli and leaks to mushrooms have made their way into the mix. One thing you must never, ever do, however, is buy and eat anything from the store called ‘carbonara sauce’ – knowing what is likely in that stuff to make it shelf stable, it should be obvious that it’s not something you want in your pasta.
Spaghetti alla Carbonara
1 Pound Dry Pasta
4 Large Eggs
8 Ounces Guanciale, (Pancetta or bacon are fine too)
1/2 Packed Cup Pecorino Romano Cheese
1/2 Packed Cup Parmigiano Regiano Cheese
Fresh Black Pepper
Cut your pork into roughly 1/2” cubes.
Grate cheese.
Fill a large pot with 5-6 quarts of water, then add 4 tablespoons of kosher salt and bring to a boil over high heat.
Add the spaghetti, allow the water to return to a boil, then reduce heat to maintain a rolling boil.
Boil pasta until it’s al dente, about 6-9 minutes.
In the largest skillet you’ve got, sauté the pork over medium heat until the fat is rendered out and the meat is crisp, about 3-4 minutes. Turn off the heat and slide the pan off of the burner.
Reserve 1 cup of past water, then drain the pasta into a colander.
Crack the eggs into a small mixing bowl, then whisk – add the cheese and whisk to fully incorporate.
Slide the skillet back onto a burner on medium and let it heat back through for a minute.
Add the pasta and half the reserved pasta water and use a couple of forks to incorporate that with the meat and fat – a lot of the water will evaporate and that’s OK.
Pull the skillet off the heat again, then add the egg and cheese blend and the rest of the pasta water, and use the forks to quickly incorporate everything – work quickly to get the pasta coated with the egg and cheese mix, and take care that the eggs don’t sit on the bottom of the skillet and scramble – if you get a little of that effect, don’t worry – we’re all human, it happens, and it’ll still be delicious. It’s your kitchen.
Season the pasta liberally with fresh ground black pepper, take a picture, then portion onto plates or bowls and serve pronto. Every time I spin a fork full of this lovely stuff, I’m right back in that dining room in Perugia.
Michael Whyte and I have been friends on social media for over 10 years. We are an example of what’s great about social media – we’re friends who wouldn’t have met otherwise. We keep track of one another’s lives, and I can say I have genuine affection for the man – Heck, I proudly wear one of his band t shirts. We met via music and guitars, although exactly how I do not recall, (and I doubt Mike does either). He lives in Rockford, Illinois, and I in Ferndale, Washington. We have not yet met face to face, although I hope to correct that. In addition to music and guitars, we share a love of family, community, and growing and cooking great food. We also both lost our Moms during the time we’ve known each other, and that’s where today’s post comes in.
Michael has pretty much been a musician his whole life, and I for most of mine. While I can sing and play, (even at the same time), and have a ridiculous volume of lyrics and guitar licks stuffed in my head, I’m sadly not much of a songwriter. Michael on the other hand very much is. He is currently part of the Blue Healers band in Rockford, so if you’re in the area, check it. We share a strong drive to create, often through music and writing. We’ve both worked blue collar jobs for most of our days, and prefer that – especially if it gets us outdoors. We both recall our childhoods with affection, and a fair share of those memories focus on food and gardening.
My Mom was born Marjorie Jean Langston in 1923, although she never used her first name. She was raised in Billings by parents of English/Scots/Irish descent, who came through Canada and the American south before landing in Montana. She left home at 18 to do her part for the WWII war effort, and headed down to the Fort Douglas army base outside Salt Lake City, where a high school friend was already working. Pretty early on she asked what there was to do for fun and who she should meet – She was told dancing and Tom Atwater, who was a fine dancer. Even though her mother told her not to be dazzled by a guy in uniform, they were married a few months later at the base. Mom did a lot of supporting dad’s education after the war, but also raised four kids, mostly in Concord, Massachusetts, and became an artist of some renown on two coasts in her lifetime. She passed away in 2015, at the ripe old age of 92.
Mom was not a fancy cook by any stretch of the imagination, but she admired a great deal about good food. She put three squares on the table for a family of six for many years. Her culinary bible was The Joy of Cooking, which now occupies a place of honor in my kitchen. She greatly admired and often attempted dishes by Julia Child, as did so many budding cooks in the 1960s, (She also introduced me to Julia at WGBH, it that’s another story). That said, she baked bread and cinnamon rolls regularly, canned produce she grew in her vegetable garden, (she made stunningly lovely gardens in general), and was quite open minded about exploring cuisines that were pretty out there for the times. I know that my interest in world cuisine and being adventurous came from her, without a doubt.
Mike’s Mom was Lenore Lazzaro. Her Pappa hailed from the Piedmont, in the northwestern shin of the Italian boot, and her Mom from Ireland, by way of Canada and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. She started working for the USPS in the mid 1960s and did so for most of her working life. Lenore learned to cook when she was just a kid, to help feed her three younger siblings. She certainly inherited both Italian and Irish roots to her cooking. Mike says, ‘she just always loved to cook,’ and that passion has passed to him. He wrote, ‘When I was a kid we lived on a small chicken farm. We always had a large garden. She and her cousin and her Italian aunts made fresh pasta. She did her own canning. I rarely remember having food from cans as a kid.’ Their farm was on the northwest edge of Rockford, and some of it remains – The house and barn are there, as is the chicken coop, although that’s been turned into a garage. Lenore passed away last May at the age of 84.
So when I saw Michael post about making Italian beef recently, the light bulb atop my beady little head lit up brilliantly. We had a nice back and forth about it after I asked for his recipe, wherein he mentioned that this was a dish that had come to him from his Mom. I asked if I might write all this up, and he replied, ‘It would be an honor,’ – and indeed it is.
So, about that ethereal stuff – First off, what we’re talking about is a well cooked and seasoned hunk of beef that is then enjoyed in as many permutations as you have imagination. You can begin that journey as we did – a nice thick slice, with some fresh pasta and veggies on the side, but you could also go straight to Italian beef sandwiches without a trace of guilt. While you’re highly unlikely to find an analog of this dish in Italy, it’s a hallmark of the cuisine of Italian immigrants who landed in the American Midwest, firmly centered in Illinois. For scholars of the sandwich, Chicago is the Holy Land, and arguments as to who’s version is best can get, shall we say, rather animated. While some troglodytes have been known to claim that this sandwich derived from a French Dip, I beg to differ – French dip is, at its best, pedestrian, whereas a great Italian beef sandwich is a thing of sublime deliciousness – and of course, the beef is key.
The cut used is traditionally a top or bottom round, wet roasted in rich, (preferably home made), stock, with a properly hefty degree of garlic and dry spices onboard. Doing things this way will notably reduce the weight and size of your roast, and can even lead to people claiming it is dry, but that should never be true – Italian beef is meant to go with the incredibly rich jus that this cooking method generates – Whatever you do, make sure you combine the two and you will be more than happy, trust me.
As for method, purists will demand that the roasting be done at exactly 350° F, and you can certainly do that, placing your beef in a braiser or Dutch oven. That said, even if this is how many of the famous makers do theirs, we at home can do the deed in a slow cooker and achieve splendid results as well.
Here is what Michael had to say about how he does his version, followed by a point specific recipe that’s our swing at things. Between the two, you’ll get a good idea of what’s involved, and from that you can develop one that’s distinctly yours.
“Pretty much what you’d expect, with one exception: top or bottom round, onions, peppers (red and green), lots of garlic, a mix of dried herbs and spices, 3 to 1 beef broth to chicken broth (the chicken helps keep the metallic taste that the beef sometimes has at bay), a sprig each of fresh thyme and rosemary and a bay leaf (remove all at end), a couple healthy shots of Worcestershire sauce, a dribble of juice from a jar of pepperoncini and…here’s the secret…1/2 to a full cup of black coffee! Season and sear the roast, everything into the slow cooker, and about 5 hours later it’s done. The dry dressing mixes that a lot of Italian beef recipes call for are just too salty for my taste. I prefer to control the salt by mixing my own – My mom never used those mixes, either. I don’t know if my recipe is exactly like hers, but the coffee was definitely her contribution. Crunch the garlic and use a LOT.”
As for the dried Italian blend, I’ll just say that this should be as individual as possible. There’s some good guidelines for what makes a mix ‘Italian’, but that’s not gospel – you should go with what pleases you best. Here’s what we use these days as our All Purpose Italian Dry Blend – Feel free to tweak that as you see fit, and then call it yours.
2 Tablespoons Basil
2 Tablespoons Turkish Oregano
2 Tablespoons Lemon Thyme
2 Tablespoons Chive
2 Tablespoons Savory
1 Tablespoon Marjoram
1 Tablespoon Rosemary
1 Tablespoon Chile Flake
You can pulse this stuff in a food processor or spice grinder, or just patiently work it through a single mesh strainer. There’s nothing wrong with having the blend somewhat rustic, as opposed to a perfectly uniform powder – process until you reach the consistency you like, then store in a clean glass container.
Urban’s Italian Beef
3-4 Pound Top or Bottom Round Roast
4 Cups Beef or Chicken Stock, (or a blend as Mike does, if you prefer – homemade of course)
1 Red Bell Pepper
1 Green Bell Pepper
1-2 Onions (whatever variety you like)
1 Head fresh Fennel
8-12 Cloves Garlic
4 Tablespoons Italian Seasoning Blend
2 Turkish Bay Leaves
1 Cup Black Coffee
1/4 Cup Pepperoncini Juice
1/4 teaspoon Worcestershire Sauce
1/2 teaspoon Kosher Salt
1/2 teaspoon ground Black Pepper
Peel, trim and rough chop onions.
Smash, trim, and peel garlic.
Stem and devein peppers, then rough chop.
You may, if you wish, sauté the peppers and onions for a bit to get some deeper flavors into them.
Step, peel, trim and rough chop fennel.
In a dry, heavy skillet over medium high heat, sear the beef thoroughly on all sides.
Transfer beef to a slow cooker, then add stock and all other ingredients.
Cook on a medium setting 3-4 hours, until you reach an internal temperature of 135° – 140° F.
Pull the beef out of the stock and let it rest for 10 minutes before slicing or shredding.
Do not toss the stock! This is liquid gold, and it’s critical to enjoying the beef for additional meals. It also makes an exceptional base for soup or stew.
If you like slices, the stock will make amazing gravy with very little work required.
Whatever you make for subsequent meals, reheat stock in a heavy pan large enough to handle the stock plus whatever beef you want to use. You can slice or shred as you please – Then reduce heat to low and immerse the beef in the stock for at least 30 minutes, up to a coupe of hours – The longer you reintroduce them, the better your results.
If you’re doing Italian Beef Sandwiches, know that there’s a bunch of variations on this theme, each a favorite of someone and often debated hotly – Just go with what sounds best to you, and to heck with the naysayers. The most common, (and in my opinion, most delicious), additions are a giardiniera mix or pickled sweet peppers. Some folks like cheese, and that’s fine too. If you want more onions, tomato, and shredded lettuce, then do that – it’s your house. I like a little homemade Italian salad dressing on mine from time to time. The bread should be a nice, fresh Italian loaf, sliced thick but not too thick. Here are some of the more common ‘official’ variants.
Hot Dipped means Italian beef with gardiniera, and the bread slathered with hot stock.
Sweet Dry is Italian beef and sweet peppers, no extra stock.
A Soaker means the bread has been generously dunked in hot stock, with sweet peppers or gardiniera.
Cheesy is just that, with provolone or mozzarella.
Cheesy Garlic is beef and cheese on grilled garlic bread, (and it’s freakin’ delicious)
So there you go, with big love to Michael’s Momma for a wonderful dish, and a lifetime of fond memories. When you make it, offer up a little thanks to Lenore.
UrbanMonique 