Classic Italian Dishes

[CM]

Now that I've given you one of 3 ingredients for classic Lasagne al Forno alla Bolognese, here is the next key ingredient.
NO it's not ricotta, like many Italian-Americans use, it is Balsamella (Bechamel).

Balsamella

We often use Besciamella in lasagna; I usually pair it with a layer of baby spinach leaves. My recipe is quite similar to yours, but uses these measurements:

Besciamella (White Sauce/Bechamel)

8 tbsp. butter
3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp. salt
4 cups milk (scalded)
1/2 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 tsp. white pepper

Melt butter, whisk in flour, salt and pepper and cook several minutes; then add milk, whisking constantly; cook for 4 or 5 minutes til thickened over low heat. Add nutmeg and whisk or beat the sauce for several more minutes (off the heat) til cooled slightly. Allow the sauce to cool for a few more minutes before serving.

[CM]

The caramelized onion focaccia looks wonderful. I love to make onion focaccia; sometimes I will add some black oil cured olives to the top, too, as a variation, and sometimes I add herbs to the dough, such as rosemary and sage.

In making your version, I would try to use much less salt than the 3 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon called for (is 3 tablespoons salt a misprint??). I would try to keep it at 1 tsp. for the dough and 3/4 tsp (or less). for the topping - just a generous sprinkling (you can always add more at the table).

[CM]

Aren't you glad we don't have food police?

Yes, I'm happy the food police stay away

As a matter of language fact "ragu" means "meat sauce" in Italian. Herb additions and garlic are fine but rarely used for this sauce in Emila-Romagna. I suggest that you try it close to "as written" before you personalize.

Although I do sometimes use ground meat in my pasta sauce, my mother and grandparents never did; the only way meat got into the sauce was as chopped meat, or broken up meatballs, prosciutto or pork lardoons, sausages, veal cutlets, bracciole, the meat left on soup bones or prosciutto bones/skin, whole chicken pieces (as in cacciatore), etc. Sometimes a sauce is started with rendered lean salt pork or pancetta lardoons (the "cracklings" are left in).

Starting when I was a 12 year old, my mom would have me help her in the kitchen and one of my duties was chopping the salt pork for starting the sauce (also the starter of many other meals). Using a heavy cleaver, I would chop the lardoons (or strips) she had cut (with the skin of the salt pork left on). She would say that this was what her mother would have them do when they were kids, too, and that she had them chop the salt pork until it was a smooth paste, so I should do the same. The salt pork is chopped with cloves of garlic, fresh parsley, and red hot pepper flakes. Then it's rendered down in a frying pan with a little olive oil, and some whole cloves of garlic which are then crushed into the oil. The onion is sauteed in this (and any other vegetables) then the sauce is added. You can add meat to this, such as stuffed bracciole, stuffed artichokes (with ground beef and breadcrumbs), meatballs, sausages, or veal cutlets that have been coated with bread crumbs and sauteed can be simmered in the sauce.

Although my mother spoke Italian, she called "pasta" spaghetti (unless she was talking about "Pasta and Beans"), and I never heard her say the word "Ragu". Her spaghetti sauce was usually somewhat light (not pasty) and was wonderfully flavored; she would add vegetables and fresh seasonings that she had around, as I do. Her sauces were usually ready in under an hour and never sat around bubbling on the back of the stove for 2-3 hours (it loses the "fresh" tomato taste and the herbs go flat), although my aunt did sometimes cook her sauces for longer, but one of my aunt's specialties was also a "fresh" sauce from ripe tomatoes that wasn't even cooked.

I'll have to admit I never follow a recipe for making sauce; each time I add a little of this or that. I just adjust by tasting and adding what I think it needs for the version I want to make that day.

I usually open a jar of my own home grown and canned tomatoes and proceed from there. I can my sauce with red wine, garlic and freshly grown basil, some onions, and in some batches, 1/2-inch cubes of pork. I use a tomato strainer to remove skins and seeds, then sometimes I will add chopped tomatoes or whole plum tomatoes to the juice for extra texture. I add fresh herbs when making the sauce (after opening the jar); a pinch of rosemary, a sprig of thyme, oregano, bay leaves, fresh garlic, lots of fresh basil, maybe some sweet marjoram (if it's in the garden) - some chopped chives, and home grown shallots and green onions round out the sauce. And let's not forget a little hot pepper! (If there are too many zucchini one or two may get cubed and tossed in).

During the harvest season, I make sauce using fresh tomatoes, the ones that get canned are the ones I can't use up. Nothing beats the taste of sauce made from just-picked tomatoes!

Half of my tomatoes have been planted this growing season for another year's harvest. In some years, I have planted up to 200 tomato plants, but this year I will probably only put in about 100 plants because I still have too many jars leftover from last year's canning. I'm heading out now to get a few more planted, and some basil and a few zucchini, too.

[Clove]

CM,

Sounds like your family (mother's side) comes from the south of Italy.
I have spent some time there (Lazio, Campagna, Puglia, Sicilia), but most of my popular recipes come from Rome and North.
Glad to see that you are growing your own vegetables. Because of property limitations, I'm relegated to a nice herb garden.
If I can ask, where are you located?

[Clove]

CM,

Sounds like your family (mother's side) comes from the south of Italy.
I have spent some time there (Lazio, Campagna, Puglia, Sicilia), but most of my popular recipes come from Rome and North.
Glad to see that you are growing your own vegetables. Because of property limitations, I'm relegated to a nice herb garden.
You have a short growing season out on the cape.

[CM]

Try growing a small tomato or two in pots and maybe a pepper, bush cucumber or egg plant! There are a whole crop of miniature veggies bred just for pot growing these days. There are even tiny tomatoes that don't grow much larger than a foot tall (micro-tom is the smallest, growing only 4 inches in height). Tiny Tim tomato grows about a food tall, but if you want edible size tomatoes rather than just novelties, try a Patio tomato on the deck in a 2-foot pot. This year I'm putting one on the deck in a self-watering pot (just for fun). There are also baby veggies such as Fairy Tale eggplant. For greens, there are lots of quick-growing plants, such as Asian and micro-greens (one called Longevity is wonderful in stir-fries), baby bok choi, Russian Kale, baby leaf lettuce and spinach, amaranth, cress, mustard greens and raab, many of which can be harvested in cool weather as baby greens in under 40 days - great salads and stir fries from your herb garden!

We do have a short growing season on the Cape, but the weather here stays warm much longer than in Boston, sometimes with the first frost not arriving til November. The ocean gives us a microclimate and tempers the cold weather in the fall. My grandfather and uncles lived in apartments up north, but always had a roof top garden for growing tomatoes (in pots). I'll never forget the time my mother had me sneak a great big tomato under one of my grandfather's roof-top plants early in the season - but we didn't fool him, he knew!

[Rozzer]

Very, very, very impressive recipes. I enjoy cooking these elaborate, traditional, all-day-in-the-kitchen recipes. Italian or other cuisines, but mainly Italian. I wonder if anyone other than Italians really appreciates the final result of a 6-hour recipe. But what Clove has posted in this thread just sounds breathtakingly delicious. Clove? You still around? Thanks! I will cook these recipes! Particularly since your ragu bolognese sounds close (well, within shooting distance at least) to the home-made spaghetti sauce I was raised on. Lots of meat and rather dry. I've no idea where Mom got her original recipe from. And she certainly wasn't Italian. But she did come from a cooking family (and a seriously eating family too).

[brigid]

Thanks for an excellent lesson in Italian cooking, that splendid, glorious pastime!

[Auntymimi]

Bravo Clove!! Keep them comming, how about dessert? I'm going to try and make the short ribs in my slow cooker. You won me over at, 1 bottle of wine. Lol

[KarenB]

Short ribs in a slow cooker are fantastic. I did my first batch last year. Believe it or not I have to travel 45 to the nearest city to get them The country bumpkins out here are clueless.