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We continue our Cooking Italy tour of Bologne with this recipe, which is pure alchemy!  Brown a pork loin in a few tablespoons butter and oil.  Add milk, salt and pepper.  Allow to simmer for several hours, adding milk at intervals.  You will be rewarded with perfection!  The meat is incredibly tender – think pulled pork tender – and the reduced milk produces a fascinating, golden, caramelized  sauce.  It’s simply amazing – no spices, no herbs, yet the result is tender and very flavorful.

Cooking Italy is a terrific group of ladies who have gathered to make several recipes each month from Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking.  I highly recommend you buy the book, as Ms. Hazan shares detailed instruction which is invaluable.  If you would like to take a peek at the recipe now, our group leader, Angela, has the recipe and group blog roll posted here.

Today I was preparing and cooking all day long.  Some things cooked on my stovetop and some cooked in my kiln.  The tastier of the two was Ragu Bolognese, from my Cooking Italy group.  Cooking Italy is a wonderful group of ladies who have gathered to make several recipes each month from Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking.  I highly recommend you buy the book, as there is wonderful, detailed instruction, but if you would like to take a peek at the recipe, Angela over at Spinach Tiger, has the recipe and group blog roll posted here.

I have been cooking from Ms. Hazan’s book The Classic Italian Cook Book for close to three decades now; her Ragu Bolognese is a well-loved favorite of my family.  But this time I tried something new.  First, I started out the same.  I heated the oil (I use olive oil) and butter in a heavy Le Creuset pot.  Then I added the onion – watch it so it doesn’t burn – it should just be translucent.  Although between you and me, if it browns slightly because you are busy chopping carrots and celery, don’t worry about it.  After cooking the carrots and celery for a couple of minutes, add the meat.  Break it up with a wooden spoon and keep stirring to mix it in with the vegetables.  You don’t want any big lumps of meat.  Cook until it just loses the pinkness and is a little gray, almost glassy looking.  Important – do not let the meat brown!   Then, the milk is added and reduced, followed by the wine.

Once the wine is reduced, the tomatoes are added.  Here’s something to remember.  I started cooking at about 3:00 pm.  It wasn’t until about 5:30 that I added the tomatoes.  It takes a long time to simmer first the milk and then the wine down to nothing, especially if you multiply the recipe.  Angela’s recipe is double Ms. Hazan’s.  I made a triple batch, knowing most would wind up in the freezer – it reheats beautifully.  The recipe takes a lot of time to cook, so it is well worth making multiples of the recipe.

Now the sauce is left at a very slow simmer for 3-4 hours.   HERE is where I did something different.  In her post, Angela mentioned how to get a crock pot involved.  I thought that was a great idea.  I know what the sauce is supposed to taste like when cooked traditionally, so I would know if the crock pot altered the taste to any appreciable degree.  After adding the tomatoes, I put the sauce in my crock pot, uncovered, on high.  I stirred it whenever I passed by.

I started my ragu very late in the day, forgetting about the two hours needed to reduce the milk and wine.  I have now noted that in my cook book!  So after two hours in the crock pot, I decided it was time to eat and it would be good enough.  I did not have time to make fresh pasta this time, but had store bought fresh fettuccine.  We ate the ragu at about 7:30 pm and it WAS good enough.  The sauce on the plate was a teensy bit watery, so it does really need the 3-4 hours simmering time.  I let the remaining sauce simmer in the crock pot for another two hours until it was perfect.  Below is what our dinner looked like before we devoured it.  The ragu was delicious, as usual.  Don’t be afraid of the hours it takes to cook – the recipe is well worth it!  Delizioso!

Oh – I did mention that I was preparing and cooking TWO things today.  Here is what came out of the studio “oven”:

More about those in another post!

In between the jewelry, I’m Cooking Italy again!  This week we made Potato Gnocchi with Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter.  I also played “catch up” and made last week’s Arrosticini Abruzzesi – Skewered Marinated Lamb Tidbits.  I’m not a big fan of lamb, but my husband is, so I thought this would be a nice surprise for him.

This sauce is a wonder!  It’s a quick, simple sauce that freezes beautifully.  Use either 2 lbs. fresh tomatoes or 2 cups high quality canned plum tomatoes.  I have used both fresh tomatoes and canned San Marzano and both versions are equally wonderful.  Cook the tomatoes with half an onion and butter.  Marcella uses 5 tbs. butter, but I try to cut back a little for health reasons and will continue to do so – but only until the flavor remains unaffected! For this recipe I used 4 tbs. butter and it was fine.  Cook for 45 minutes at a slow simmer until the butter fat separates from the sauce and that’s it!  You will know when the butter separates – there will be a slight shimmer on the surface. Marcella removes the onion when finished cooking.  If in halves, I do, but sometimes I cut the onion into very thin slices and leave it in.

Next came the Potato Gnocchi.  I was a little nervous about these, specifically the shaping.  The potatoes are cooked whole, peeled, riced and mixed with flour into a soft dough.  Shape dough into a sausage-like roll about 1” in diameter, then cut into pieces about ¾” long.  Pick up each piece, put against the tines of a fork, push in slightly and roll back towards the fork handle.  The gnocchi will have a depression on one side and ridges on the other, both geometries perfect for capturing the sauce!  Most of the gnocchi in my photo show the depressed side, but there is one ridge side up, in the center at the top.  I let these sit for several hours until dinnertime, covered with a damp towel.  They were a bit sticky when it came time to cook, so next time I will try covering with a dry towel and hope they don’t dry out too much.

Cooking these also made me a bit nervous – once the gnocchi were thrown into boiling, salted water, they were theoretically done 10 seconds after rising to the surface.  I tested a few, as suggested by Marcella, to nail down the cooking time.  All my test pieces tasted gummy, so I did not have high hopes – I tried 10, 13-15 and 5-8 seconds.  Cooking was also difficult because it takes more than a few seconds to throw a batch into the boiling water, which means they rise to the surface at different times.  Also, not all pieces were the exact same size, so that also factored into how long they would take to rise to the surface.  In the end, we (my husband and I) threw them in and scooped them out as they rose to the surface.  It was a very hurried affair and difficult to keep track of exactly how long each individual piece cooked once it surfaced.  I would say they were mostly well under 10 seconds.  Next time I won’t sweat the cooking time so much!  Just remember, better to undercook than overcook.  I sauced each batch as it came out and grated fresh parmesan on the finished dish.

The last bit of our meal was the lamb.  Although I went into my butcher asking for lamb shoulder, I walked out with leg of lamb.  Don’t ask, it’s always a long story with my butcher!  The lamb had been marinated several hours earlier in olive oil, a crushed garlic clove, dried marjoram and fresh black pepper.  I put the meat on skewers and my husband grilled about 2-3 minutes per side.  Another quick and simple recipe!

Well, the sauce was fabulous as usual, very fresh tasting.  The butter tempers any tartness the tomatoes may have.  The gnocchi were wonderful!  I shouldn’t have fretted so much.  They were light and not gummy at all.  The lamb was a surprise to me – I liked it!  It didn’t taste lamb-y at all.  Alas, my son is back at college, my daughter is back at her apartment after caring for me after my surgery, so it was just my husband and myself.  But we both enjoyed everything on the menu!  We are looking forward to more Cooking Italy.

To see what others have done and said with these recipes, please visit my friends on the Cooking Italy blogroll.  You might notice I’m the only one who doesn’t have a food blog – but I do enjoy Italian cooking!  Angela of Spinach Tiger, posts adapted versions of the recipes, but I would recommend buying the book, as Marcella Hazan sprinkles her recipes with advice, illustrations and pointers that are invaluable.

Now back to my jewelry studio!

I’m impatiently waiting to recuperate enough to negotiate the stairs to my studio.  I can easily get to the kitchen, so am indulging my creativity by cooking these days.  Tonight my daughter helped me make another wonderful dish from Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking.  My Cooking Italy assignment for the week – which I chose to accept – was Gamberetti all’ Olio e Limone, Poached Shrimp with Olive Oil and Lemon Juice .  What a simple and wonderful dish!

Boil 2 quarts of water with salt, 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar, a carrot and stalk of celery.  After 10 minutes, add the shrimp, cook briefly, just  a few short minutes.  Peel and devein.  Add a a half cup olive oil, a half cup lemon juice, salt and freshly ground pepper to the still warm shrimp.  Let marinate for an hour and you will have the most wonderful dish for an appetizer or entree.  Does it get any easier?  For the complete recipe, I recommend you buy the book – or check the blog post by our Cooking Italy leader, Angela.

Ideally, the shrimp should be wild, raw and in the shell.  I didn’t have access to such perfect shrimp but I finally did try Trader Joe’s wild, raw shrimp – already peeled, deveined and with tail.  You know what they say about two out of three!  After the shrimp were cooked, my daughter pulled off the tails while I deveined what had been missed by Trader Joe. My daughter made the marinade and we let the shrimp sit at room temperature for an hour.

Then we feasted!  The wild shrimp were noticeably tastier than farmed.  They had flavor!  The simple marinade was perfection – fine olive oil tempered by the acidity of the lemon.  The bread basket kept moving, as everyone wanted to sop up the marinade.  My family gave this recipe an enthusiastic “You can make this anytime!” review.

Oh – I will be using the Trader Joe’s wild shrimp from now on.  The taste is worth the slight price differential.  I also learned I should devein the thawed shrimp before I cook them, to make life easier.

Buon appetito!

I’ve already introduced you to Angela Of Spinach Tiger.  Well, she recently started a cooking group I couldn’t resist!  Cooking Italy is a group that will have us plowing through Marcella Hazan’s The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking.  Angela will be hosting and assigning us four recipes a month until we are done with the 700-page tome.  Please do check the Cooking Italy site, as there are some great food bloggers participating.  I feel like an outsider, being a jewelry blogger, but eager to learn!

In between the jewelry posts, I will be writing a critique of at least two of the recipes, each month.  I am looking forward to making and comparing the recipe experiences with other members of Cooking Italy and to sharing the results with you, here!

Our first recipe is Tomato Bruschetta.  I made the recipe and learned a few things along the way.

Recipe for Bruschetta with Tomato (adapted from Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classical Italian Cooking)

6 garlic cloves
12 slices good, thick crusted bread, 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick, 3-4″ wide
8 fresh, ripe tomatoes, cut in half, seeded, and chopped into 1/2″ cubes
8-12 basil leaves , torn into small pieces – or oregano
Extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt
Black pepper

• Chop tomatoes right before you are going to grill bread.
• Grill or broil bread to golden brown.
• Smash garlic with a knife, rub on bread once it is toasted.
• Top with tomatoes, basil (or oregano), and drizzle olive oil.
• Season with salt and pepper. Serve immediately

1. Make sure the bread is golden brown.  I toasted the bread instead of grilling it and some of the slices were paler.  After the addition of chopped tomatoes and olive oil, those slices were slightly – I don’t want to say soggy – but not as crunchy as I thought they should be.  The final texture of the golden brown slices was more pleasing.  Next time I have the oven or the outdoor grill on for something else, I will try grilling the bread, although I think toasting was an adequate substitution.
2. Marcella also calls for smashing the garlic cloves, removing the skin and rubbing the cloves on the grilled bread.  Next time, I will not smash them quite so much, as the garlic disintegrated in my hands as I rubbed it on the toast.  I think the crisp toast almost acts as a grater and enough garlic will be lodged in the nooks and crannies just by rubbing a whole clove on it.
3. The tomatoes should be farm fresh.  Our locals aren’t quite there yet, so I used the best quality tomatoes from the supermarket.  Although I cut the tomatoes up into small cubes, as directed, next time I will try for even smaller bits, as that would make it easier to eat.
4. My mom gifted me with a three-liter jug of prize winning extra virgin olive oil that she hand carried from France – oil produced in a small co-op olive press that my cousins belong to.  I don’t have much left and use it only when I know it will make a difference in the final flavor.  This recipe demanded it.  If you want to learn more about olive oil, check Vicki’s post on olive oil.

Tomato Bruschetta

This simple recipe with basic ingredients got unanimous rave reviews from my family.  They are all looking forward to more Cooking Italy.   Oh and check Angela’s post if you want a well-styled photo – my passion is jewelry – but hers is food!  Thanks so much Angela, for putting together Cooking Italy.