Trattoria Gargani's Recipes for Osso Buco & Saffron Risotto for Christmas

The winter holidays are prime eating cooking and eating season. For the Christmas entrée, my father and I prepared osso buco and saffron risotto. We followed recipes from the cookbook, Once Upon a Tuscan Table. The cookbook is about and from the beautiful Trattoria Gargani (formerly called “Garga”) in Florence, Italy. I have tasty memories of many meals surrounded by the murals on the walls there. 

I chose to make the dish because my husband brought home saffron this fall from a trip to Madrid and we wanted to share it with our family visiting for the holidays. I also wanted to serve something that would be primarily prepared and finished before our guests arrived to avoid last minute kitchen fuss.

Most of the ingredients, from the Arborio rice to the vegetable base for the osso buco were easy to find at any supermarket. I also saw fairly inexpensive saffron at a local Trader Joe's. I ordered the bone-in veal shanks from Whole Foods (there’s a general dearth of butchers in our neighborhood and the District in general, as Kojo Nnamdi discusses in a fall episode.)

I’m afraid that I failed to take any food pictures over the holidays. Too busy cooking and eating, as, perhaps, it should be. What were some of your favorite holiday dishes this year?

Find Perfect Pizza Stone: Check

The amazing Emile Henry Pizza Stone

Homemade whole wheat crust topped 

with a cherry tomato marinara, mozzarella and fresh rosemary

Homemade whole wheat crust topped 

with a cherry tomato marinara, mozzarella, parmesan and garlic

I had been buying about three pizza stones a year because they crack down the middle. Giant, end-of-the-world-earthquake-style cracks. 

I would buy an inexpensive stone and leave it on the oven's floor to maintain the oven's heat. This probably dried the stone out, causing the crack. Of course, I also used the stone to cook pizza (sometimes cheating and buying the dough) or calzone. 

I was right to have high hopes for the Emile Henry Pizza Stone, and not just because it is red and the sweetest stone I’ve ever seen. Glazed, with handles to easily transport it, the stone can be used on the grill or in the oven (bake or broil.) The glazed surface won't scratch if you slice the pizza right on the stone and it can be washed with soap and water. The website says it can be placed in the dishwasher, but I’ll vote for washing it by hand to help protect it.

I did a little jig after baking two, thin-crust pizzas on this stone. While I put cornmeal on the pizza peel to transport the pizza without everything sticking together, I didn't have to put any cornmeal on the stone. The pizza slid right off of the stone with considerably less mess than I usually have after baking a pizza. That is to say, no mess. And those hard, black spots from burn cheese that melted off the pizza and landed on the stone? They washed right off off the stone.

Obvious, yet important, warning: As you'd expect, the stone's handles were very, very hot when we took the stone and second pizza out of the oven to try slicing the pizza directly on the stone. 

This stone would make a lovely platter on the table and keep food warm, too. I’m thinking of baked appetizers for a dinner party… who’s in?

Full Disclosure: I received the stone for review from Emile Henry (thank you!); I was not compensated for this post. All opinions here are entirely my own.

Cooking for One

Whole wheat pizza-dough bread topped with salt, rosemary and chia seeds

My husband travels for work sometimes and I find myself cooking for one.

When I lived alone, I cooked all the time. I find cooking relaxing (and sometimes productive-seeming procrastination from writing.) Unfortunately, I do tend to cook exactly what I want with less regard for a healthy, balanced meal than when I cook for someone else. I also use substantially more garlic and hot pepper.

As a child, I remember my mother preparing a very garlicy pesto sauce over pasta when my father wasn't home for dinner. My first go-to dinner when I'm alone? A very garlicy olive oil and hot pepper mixture over pasta and sautéed shrimp. (Unless everyone in your home eats it, it isn't a very social dish. And of course you can't leave the house until the next day.)

For lunch, I tend towards salads with mixed vegetables and fresh mozzarella or avocado. And bread, hopefully homemade.

What do you prepare when when you cook for one?

D.C. Area Italian Language, Food & Cultural Organizations

I have been gathering websites for D.C. area Italian language, food and cultural organizations. See below for some of the highlights and scroll down through the links on the right for the permanent list.

I’m sure that I am missing some. Perhaps you can help? Have you taken a great language class in the area or attended an Italian language, food or cultural event? Let me know below and I'll add the links into the resources.

Grazie mille!

Casa Italiana Hall & Cultural Center

Italians in D.C. 

Italian Cultural Institute

Italian Embassy

Piazza Italia - Washington, D.C., Italian Language and Culture Group

Washington, D.C., Italian Language Meetup Group

Italian Easter Traditions

Easter wouldn’t be complete without a Colomba, a cake (loosely) in the shape of a dove, or a giant chocolate egg with surprises inside. 

I’ve always purchased both in Italian stores, but there are recipes available online for the Colomba.

Looking for more? Last year I wrote about preparing an Easter Pie and hard boiling eggs - perfectly.

Buona Pasqua! Onto preparing the shopping list for this weekend…

Creating New Pesto Sauces

The Italian verb pestare means to grind. The traditional dish, Pesto Genovese, is composed of hand-ground basil leaves with garlic, olive oil, Pecorino Romano cheese and pine nuts. A traditional chef will use a mortar and pestle (pestle sounds like the word pestare, right?)

Of course, you can prepare a less traditional and less expensive pesto out of almost any other green leaf. I will often make a pesto sauce out of extra spinach. Recently, I had left-over arugula that I bought for lunch salads. Not having the time to hand-grind it, I threw it in the food processor with some whole garlic, extra virgin olive oil, Pecorino Romano chunks and pine nuts. (I know, I should have done it by hand.)

The resulting sauce, which doesn’t need to be cooked, can be seen in the picture tossed over strozzapreti pasta (the name means “strangles priests”) that I bought at the Italian Store. The curled shape of the pasta nicely held the sauce in. Since we weren’t going out after dinner, I added extra garlic and it was particularly spicy.

The best part of dinner was my husband asking, “You made this up?” Sure, why not? Tell us about your favorite made-up own dishes inspired by the classics and share with us below. 

Crespelle alla Fiorentina

Crespelle alla fiorentina are essentially spinach crepes baked with a bechamelle sauce. Like lasagna or other baked dishes that you can prepare in advance, they’d make a great dinner party entrée. Or, you can eat the entire platter with your husband, like I did. (Over the course of a few meals, of course.)

I followed the recipe in the cookbook Classic Italian Jewish Cooking: Traditional Recipes and Menus (which you can find in my Amazon store), but you can also find similar recipes online. This one, from Tuscanycious, looks great. The only difference seems to be that it calls for ricotta, whereas the recipe I used didn’t.

My crepes didn’t all fit in the pan and I was too lazy to get another, smaller pan out. That was a mistake because the ones squished on top of each other didn’t cook as evenly as the others.

While the recipe took longer than I expected (making the individual crepes, the sauce, the filling and then baking it), it was worth the wait and effort. 

Enjoy!

Rosemary Schiacciata

I've been quite taken by making bread recently. I enjoy watching the bread rise and smelling it as it bakes. These two Italian flat breads, one rosemary and one potato, were loosely based off of this recipe.

What's your favorite bread recipe?

Lioni Latticini’s Bocconcini Wrapped with Proscuitto

Sometimes it seems disappointing that the hunt for most Italian products is over, now that most things are not only imported, but also made by American manufacturers.

On the other hand, how lovely!

My mother recently bought fresh mozzarella from Lioni Latticini’s and followed their online recipe for Bocconcini Wrapped with Proscuitto. It is a little risky to cook mozzarella, for both the final product and the person who has to clean the pan, but on a low enough heat, these little mozzarella balls warmed up nicely and the prosciutto did, too. With some fresh sage and olive oil, it is a quick and delicious appetizer. The salt in the prosciutto is a lovely addition to the unsalted mozzarella.

Preparing Risotto

Risotto takes a little longer to prepare than pasta, but it is just as flexible as a base for your own invention. Of course, there is the Classic Milanese Risotto and the southern-inspired Lemon Risotto, but you can also use whatever you have on hand to flavor the rice.

Essentially, you need Arborio rice, broth and some vegetables or herbs. Instead of leaving the rice to cook in a covered pot, you slowly add the hot broth and mix the rice regularly until it is fully cooked (about twenty minutes.) I find the quiet stirring to be an almost meditative experience. So, instead of cursing the fact that you didn’t decide to simply boil pasta, enjoy the moment. For a more exact, basic recipe, see this New York Times article.

The other night I used leftover chicken soup (the chicken itself gone, but the flavor still in the broth) as the liquid for my rice. I didn’t have enough, so I added some water to the pot. When the rice was finished, I added a bit more salt, pepper, crushed red pepper and dried basil to help adjust the flavor. It probably would have been better to have removed the carrots, onions and leeks from the soup and start with new vegetables, but I left them in. (Previously uncooked vegetables would have better maintained their shape and hardness.)

Making risotto requires two pots: One for the broth and one for the rice. In the rice pot, I started with olive oil and artichoke hearts. Next, I quickly sautéed the rice in the artichoke mixture before slowly adding the soup. Once the rice was completely immersed in the liquid, I stirred the mixture until it became drier and needed another ladle or two of liquid. I continued like that until the rice was cooked.

The resulting risotto was a variation on vegetable risotto. I served the risotto with a dash of extra virgin olive oil, crushed red pepper, and freshly grated pecorino romano. For a vegetarian version, use vegetable broth or stock. For a vegan version, hold the cheese. The entire dish is gluten-free. No matter what you do, the result will still be creamy (because of the starch in the rice.) If it is the first time you are making a similar dish, you might want to follow this Artichoke and Parmesan Risotto recipe.

When I took a cooking class at Trattoria Zibibbo in Florence, Italy, with chef and owner Benedetta Vitali, she stressed the importance of sautéing the rice quickly in olive oil before adding the broth. This helps to ensure that the rice will retain its shape and won’t become too gooey (a very formal cooking term) as it is cooked. (For more tips and recipes, see her lovely cookbook Soffritto.)

What’s your favorite risotto dish?

Italian Grilled Cheese Panino

Forget American cheese melted between two slices of white bread. My mother makes the best grilled cheese sandwich.

First, she grills the slices of Italian bread in olive oil right on the stovetop in a cast iron pan. Once the bread is toasted on one side, she turns one slice over, piles on the toppings (mozzarella, prosciutto, and anything else she has on hand, like tomatoes, lettuce and salami), covers it with the other half and grills the whole panino. She usually turns it over at least once. With a fork and spatula, you can (mostly) keep the insides from falling out. The cheese melts into the bread, the crust is crunchy from the olive oil and the salty meats nicely compliment the fresh mozzarella. It is delicious!

My mom recently revealed to me that when I was growing up, she would use butter instead of olive oil. With that in mind, this is a low-fat version, right? If you are looking to make this dish healthy, I wouldn’t recommend low-fat mozzarella since it won’t melt quite right. In fact, I’m not sure that there should be a (really) low-fat version. I would even recommend adding just a pinch of salt to the olive oil to help bring out the flavor in the bread.

Guest Blog: Sausage with cannellini beans and fresh rosemary @ An Easy Spread

Thanks to An Easy Spread for posting my recent recipe and article: Sausage with cannellini beans and fresh rosemary. It was fun to test the recipe and, even better, not hard at all.

While you’re on the site, be sure to look around at the great recipes and articles. You might even want to contribute to their Fall Writing Contest.

Spaghetti & Meatballs

What is more classic Italian-American than Spaghetti and Meatballs? When I need a little comfort after a long day, this is the kind of dish that I prepare. You don’t need a strict recipe and can usually find what you need in your cupboard. If not, you can alter the recipe and it still usually comes out well.

Growing up, my great aunt would make spaghetti and what she called “gravy” (like most good Italian-Americans did.) She served it along with a steaming bowl of braciole, meatballs, ribs and sausages that had cooked slowly in the sauce. With a heavy dose of grated cheese, we were set to eat a messy bowl of whatever meat we picked out of the bowl with long, metal tongs. All talk would stop and the sound of forks twisting long strands of spaghetti on spoons would begin.

Healthy? No. Delicious? Always. While I never saw anything like it served in northern Italy, it reminds me of home.

I don’t follow a recipe, but this Food Network one looks good. Last night, I used a mixture of ground pork, beef and veal. I added eggs, salt, pepper, breadcrumbs, crushed red pepper, dried oregano and dried basil. I cooked them on the stovetop in a cast iron pot, turning them carefully with two spoons as they cooked on their sides.

I made a few changes based on what I had available:
I used Japanese panko breadcrumbs since I didn’t have any regular ones. I would have preferred onion or garlic, fresh basil and fresh oregano, but I was also out of that. Finally, I served them with linguine instead of spaghetti, since that’s what we had. (We are moving soon and I’m working hard to finish what we have in our pantry!)

Some tips:
Like the Food Network recipe suggests, my great aunt always says to soak the bread crumbs in milk first to soften them. (I’ve never done this mostly because I never have enough time.) I find that some meatballs in restaurants are too hard and this is because they don’t always use bread crumbs. (I’m allergic to corn syrup and this also means that most meatballs have corn syrup hidden in the bread crumbs.)

Don’t try to use meat that is too lean because then the balls will fall apart as you cook them (just like hamburgers do.) You can bake and drain your meatballs to make them a little healthier. You can reduce fat by not cooking them in the sauce. If you decide you like the taste of the sauce with the meatballs, then try making it in advance, refrigerating it and then easily skim the fat off the sauce.

I cook the pasta in whole, long strands. Some chefs like to break them in the middle so they better fit in the pot. If you put them whole into boiling water and quickly stir them down, then they will cook evenly. I think that short pieces of spaghetti are hard to eat because you can’t twirl them on your fork. (And twirling them on your fork is the best way to ensure that you find memories of the sauce on your shirt if you forget to tuck your napkin under your chin!)

After you drain the pasta, be sure to toss it with either a little olive oil or some of the liquid from the sauce. This will stop it from sticking together when you want seconds or you are ready to save it for leftovers.

Don’t forget to serve your dish with freshly grated cheese. I prefer a salty pecorino romano. I also like to add some extra crushed red pepper, but that depends on how spicy you like your dinner.

Enjoy! What are your tips for great meatballs?

Godó in Florence, Italy

Godó is a lovely neighborhood restaurant in Florence, Italy. It is in Piazza Edison at the bottom of the hill that goes up towards the town of Fiesole. There is a bus stop across the street, which makes it an easy location to get to.

I decided to order the pear and pecorino ravioli that were served with a zucchini flower pesto. My mother has many zucchini flowers in her garden and usually fries them in a light flower and cheese batter. I rarely see them on menus and was curious about a new manner in which they could be prepared. This pesto sauce was creamy and was a nice addition to the pecorino and pear flavors. Was it too heavy of a dish for a sweaty, July afternoon? Probably, but it was worth it.

We started with the very Tuscan sliced, cured meats with crostini (bread with liver and polenta with mushrooms) and ended with a cool cheesecake topped with a raspberry sauce. Overall, a great meal with both traditional and modern dishes on the menu. Buon appetito!

Homeade Pasta Dough Recipe from Leite's Culinaria

The blog Leite’s Culinaria offers fabulous recipes. Today their recipe for homemade pasta dough caught my eye. The directions are clear and easy to follow with photographs. They offer instructions on how to form following shapes: Pappardelle, Tortellini and Ravioli. You can also color your pasta with saffron, spinach and other natural ingredients.

While you are on the site, be sure to look around. You’ll be inspired to plan the next month’s dinners with all the amazing recipes they offer.

Argiero's Restaurant in Ann Arbor, Michigan

I really like Argiero’s Restaurant in the Kerrytown section of Ann Arbor. The food reminds me of the traditional, southern Italian food (or at least an Italian-American translation of it) I grew up eating in Northern New Jersey.

The menu isn’t fussy. You’ll find all of your favorites from Garlic Toast to Veal Picatta. I’ve enjoyed the fried calamari and Fettuccine al Fredo a few times. Close to the Farmer’s Market with outdoor seating, it is an easy-to-find, comfortable spot.

It isn’t without a little controversy, however. When we first noticed the neon sign, we wondered why no one had recommended it to us. Once I started asking around, I discovered that it is not a favorite. In fact, a friend tried it on my recommendation and declared the food “inedible.”

I am a particularly difficult eater, especially of Italian food. I want dishes to be done right and well. Perhaps I’m more lenient with this restaurant because it feels New Jersey-nostalgic to me. It is a family owned business that started in 1977 that reminds me of my father’s favorite family-owned restaurant under a highway bridge in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Still, I think Argiero’s offers solid, Italian-American food. I say, “andiamo!”

Just Add Olive Oil: Two Amy's Neapolitan Pizzeria in Washington, D.C.

Two Amy’s Neapolitan Pizzeria in Washington, DC is like traveling back to Italy. The long list of sheep and cow’s milk cheeses, cured pork and beef, thin pizzas, homemade desserts like sfogliatelle and more. That is to say, just about everything that should have extra virgin olive oil drizzled on top is served there.

The last time my husband and I ate there, we ate with such gusto that we both left with stained shirts. It doesn’t matter.

What matters is what we ate:
burrata (mozzarella made as soft as butter)
ricotta and ramps with roasted eggplant
broccoli rabe
fried rice balls stuffed with mozzarella
pizza with escarole and sausage
panna cotta with a caramel sauce

Get there however you can. The website offers driving, metro/bus and helicopter directions. They understand the importance of a speedy arrival!

Italian Language Book Resources

For those of you interested in studying Italian, I’ve put together a list of suggested texts.


I primarily teach Italian to adults who are planning a trip to Italy to see the sites, taste the cuisine and maybe even visit relatives in small towns. These texts are geared towards this level of study. They are user-friendly, organized and offer exercises with answers. They are also fairly inexpensive, especially compared to college level textbooks.

If you are interested in private or small-group tutoring or cooking classes with a language component, please email me at ChloeMiller(at)gmail(dot)com. I am in Ann Arbor, Michigan through the summer and then will be relocating to the Washington, DC metro area.

Simple Cherry Tomato Marinara Sauce

To follow up on yesterday’s post on making calzone, here is a simple cherry tomato marinara that you can quickly prepare and serve with your calzone. It is a great light sauce for the spring or summer that's great on pasta, too!


Ingredients:

1 yellow onion, diced

2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

1 pint sweet cherry tomatoes, sliced

salt and pepper to taste

optional: 3 large basil leaves, sliced



Directions:

Slowly sauté the diced onion in the olive oil until they are translucent. Keep the heat low to medium to avoid burning. Add the sliced cherry tomatoes and lightly boil until soft. Add salt and pepper to taste. If you have some fresh basil on hand, mix it into the sauce at the last moment so the basil retains its flavor. You could also add dried basil or oregano.

This makes about 1.5 cups of sauce. It can be made a day or two ahead.

Calzone

Calzone are even easier than pizza to make at home. Pizza can be tricky to slide onto the pizza stone, but the calzone, little packages that they are, help to solve that problem.

Following the Silver Spoon cookbook recipe, I recently made calzone with ricotta, mozzarella, prosciutto and salami. The recipe isn’t available online, but they do offer the Fisherman’s Pizza recipe from the pizza section.

I admit that I cheated (again) and used Trader Joe’s pizza dough. It is simple enough to make, but we had company and I wanted to simplify the process. When I brushed the dough with oil, I added a little salt to the olive oil to help bring out the flavor in the dough.

Like with the pizza, the key to moving the calzone from the wooden paddle and then onto the pizza stone is using corn meal (polenta) underneath the calzone. As you are brushing oil on the dough, filling it, and then folding it over, periodically wiggle the paddle to make sure that it isn’t sticking. If it starts to stick (especially when you are pressing the edges to close the pocket), peel up the bottom and add some more corn meal.

The fun part is deciding what to put inside of your calzone. I went in the traditional direction of cured meats and cheeses, but you can choose anything. It is a great way to use small portions of leftovers like cooked spinach or sausage.

Tomorrow: simple spring marinara recipe to serve with your calzone.