Patsy's Italian Family Cookbook (3 page)

Because heat and sunlight adversely affects the keeping qualities of olive oil, store it in a cool, dark place, but not the refrigerator, where it will solidify.
Olive oil doesn’t last much more than a year, and is really best within a couple of months of bottling. Some producers pack their olive oil in dark glass bottles to block the sunlight, but everyone we know uses olive oil so rapidly that it doesn’t really get a chance to go rancid. But keeping it near a hot stove isn’t a good idea.

Garlic

The Jekyll and Hyde of Italian cooking, garlic can be very friendly or mean and nasty. Like a person, garlic treated with respect will behave. We are very sensitive about garlic because our dear friend Frank Sinatra didn’t like it, so we had to be sure that the flavor was subtle (if used at all) in the food we cooked for him. (Maybe it was because he didn’t want his breath to offend someone that he was singing duets with?)

The main problem with garlic is that it burns easily, especially when it is minced, which is the most common way of prepping it. Scorched garlic is dark brown, with a bitter, strong flavor. Too many cooks, even good ones, heat the oil in the cooking utensil, and then add the garlic, which immediately starts to overcook when it hits the hot oil. To help curb that problem, cook the garlic more slowly: Put the oil and garlic in the utensil at the beginning of cooking, and heat them together over medium until the garlic is golden and gives off its aroma, in about 2 minutes. At this point, you can add the other ingredients. Problem solved.

A trick I learned from Grandma Concetta is to use garlic halves instead of minced garlic for a mellower, gentler flavor. Once the garlic halves have infused the food (usually a sauce), retrieve and discard them. We do this in some recipes.

Herbs

When Patsy opened the restaurant in the 1940s, the only fresh herb that you could get with any regularity was parsley. Even then, he didn’t like food that was heavily dosed with dried oregano, a flavor that has unfortunately became associated with Italian cooking. That may be true, but it isn’t the Italian cooking that I know. I use a very light hand with dried oregano.

I love fresh basil. It has an irresistible spicy aroma and delicate texture that goes beautifully with many of our recipes, especially those with tomato sauce. Basil used to be a summer crop, but now it is available year-round. If your supermarket doesn’t have it, check your local Asian market, or look for boxes of basil at Trader Joe’s. The basil leaves are very tender, and will turn black in the refrigerator if unprotected. Cut off the ends of the basil stems and stand the bunch in a short glass of water. Cover the leaves with a plastic bag and store in the fridge. Protected in this way, the basil will stay fresh for a few days. If you instinctively pop the bunch into the refrigerator vegetable drawer, it will wilt overnight.

My grandmother never chopped basil, believing that chopping left the herb’s precious aroma behind on the board. Instead, she would tear it into small pieces before dropping it into the cooking food. I respect her views, but chopping is a lot quicker. However, use a sharp knife because if the leaves are bruised instead of cleanly cut, they will discolor.

Before chopping, the basil must be cleaned and completely dried. Pick the leaves from the stems, rinse well to remove any sand, and dry in a salad spinner or pat them dry on paper towels.

For most recipes, coarsely chopped basil works fine. However, when I want to use basil as a garnish,
I’ll cut it into thin shreds called a
chiffonade
. These delicate shreds fall evenly and lightly over the food, and look better than regular chopped basil.
To make basil chiffonade,
stack a few leaves and roll them into a thick cylinder. Cut the cylinder crosswise into very thin shreds, less than 1/16 inch wide. As with chopped basil, be sure your knife is good and sharp to avoid discolored shreds. Now the chiffonade can be scattered over each serving for a very nice visual effect.

Prepared Pork Products

Back in Naples, meat was preserved to use throughout the year until the next slaughter. Pork was easy to raise and maintain, so you will find a lot of processed pork in the old recipes. Just a little of these frankly fatty products add a lot of flavor to a dish.

Sopressata
is a firm, narrow, version of salami, and is seasoned either sweet or hot.

Pancetta
is the Italian version of bacon, but the pork belly is not smoked, and it is rolled into a cylinder. Be sure to remove the casings from sopressata and pancetta before using.

Prosciutto
is an air-cured ham, and while it is a specialty of Parma, there are good domestic versions, too.

The important thing about cooking with pancetta and prosciutto is that it should not be sliced too thin. These meats should retain some texture in the food. Overzealous deli workers are used to carving them into paper-thin sheets. Ask them to cut the meat into slices ⅛ to ¼ inch thick, and then dice them as needed at home. Some markets also carry precut prosciutto and pancetta specifically for cooking.

Seasoning

We use plain table salt at Patsy’s. In my opinion, salt is salt, and I don’t fuss with sea or kosher salt. The peppercorns are black and freshly ground.

I usually don’t season the meat in a dish because I like it to pick up the seasoning from the sauce. Grilled and roasted meats are an exception. Also, your guests can season the food to taste at the table.

Italian Cheeses

We cook with a trio of cheeses that we cannot do without: Parmigiano-Reggiano, mozzarella, and ricotta.

Parmigiano-Reggiano
is simply Parmesan cheese, but the very best, imported kind from the region around Parma, Italy. Other countries make Parmesan-style cheese, which is a pale imitation of the real thing, which has an almost nutty flavor, straw-yellow color, and a firm, but not waxy, texture. Authentic Parmesan has “Parmigiano-Reggiano” stamped all over the rind. It should always be freshly grated so it doesn’t dry out and lose flavor. Wrapped in foil or plastic wrap, Parmigiano can be stored for a few weeks in the refrigerator. My grandparents sometimes used another hard Italian grating cheese, Grana Padano, and it is a good substitute for Parmigiano-Reggiano if you want to economize. And a few dishes use Pecorino Romano, a sheep’s milk cheese, which is sharper than Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Mozzarella
is renowned for its melting qualities and creamy texture. Fresh mozzarella simply tastes better than the factory-made processed version, and we only use the fresh kind at Patsy’s. This cheese used to be a rarity, but now you can find it at
supermarkets. If you can get freshly made mozzarella at a local Italian delicatessen, so much the better. Fresh mozzarella is much softer than processed mozzarella, and it is easier to chop it than shred it. It will only keep in the refrigerator for a couple of days. If you can only get the firmer, processed mozzarella, use it.

Ricotta
means “recooked,” as this cheese is traditionally made from heated leftover whey. We use fresh ricotta, which has a very delicate texture and flavor different from the processed variety easily available at the supermarket. Fresh ricotta is sold at Italian delicatessens and cheese stores, but I admit that it isn’t easy to find. (We drive 50 miles to get ours in New Jersey because our favorite producer doesn’t deliver to New York.) You can use supermarket ricotta in these recipes.

Pasta

I wonder how many hundreds of thousands of pasta orders we have served over the years? Here’s what I have learned about the mainstay of Italian (and American) cooking.

There are a lot of good pasta companies out there. You can’t really say that fresh is better than dried, or vice versa. I will say that I have come to prefer delicate fresh pasta when I am making special pasta dishes for holiday dishes like lasagna or manicotti, or when serving light vegetarian sauces. I have provided a recipe for fresh pasta in case you want to make your own for the “stuffed pastas.” But most communities now have a place where you can buy fresh pasta—a natural foods store, Italian delicatessen, or a dedicated pasta shop.

For each pound of pasta, bring at least 3 quarts of salted water to boil in a saucepan over high heat. How much salt? Enough so that the water actually tastes salty, but not as much as ocean water. Stir in the pasta, being sure that the strands or pieces aren’t sticking together. Never add oil to the water because it will slick the pasta during draining and keep the sauce from sticking properly. Cook the pasta according to the package directions until it is al dente. Be sure not to go past this “firm to the bite” stage because, in my recipes, the pasta has one more stage of cooking to go through before serving.

In some cases, a portion of the cooking water, which has picked up some of the starches from the pasta, is scooped out and saved for mixing with the sauce later. Just dip a ladle or heatproof measuring cup into the water before draining the pasta. When the pasta is mixed with thick pesto-like sauces, the reserved liquid is stirred in to loosen and smooth out the sauce.

Another restaurant trick to use at home is to cook the pasta with the sauce to marry the flavors. Return the drained pasta to its cooking pot and add the sauce. Heat over low-to-medium heat, stirring often, and adding the reserved cooking water if asked to do so, until the pasta has absorbed some of the sauce, usually only a minute or two. Now you are ready to serve it up.

Antipasti

Meatball-tini

Seasoned Bread Crumbs

Mussels with White Wine and Lemon

Baked Clams

Mussels Marinara

Shrimp Casino

Eggplant Caponata

Eggplant Bruschetta

Eggplant Rollatini

Bruschetta with Baked Figs and Gorgonzola

Meatball-tini

MAKES 6 TO 8 APPETIZER SERVINGS

Our customers love appetizers almost as much as they love martinis, so I combined the two favorites to create the Meatball-tini. These mini meatballs (they are no bigger than a thimble) go down easy, and I can eat them like candy. They are used in both the
Neapolitan Meatball and Rice Pie
and
Meatball Lasagna
.