I don’t know about you, but if you’re trying to avoid contracting the dreaded Coronavirus, you’re taking far fewer jaunts to the supermarket these days. I’m trying to stretch out my trips to every ten days or more, (and I enter the store donned in a mask and gloves) and that’s mostly to stock up on fresh fruits and vegetables. I’m sure that even before this health scare, I had enough provisions in my pantry to keep us fed for a couple of weeks — dry beans, pastas, canned tomatoes, rice, canned sardines, tuna and even some canned artichokes are all staples I normally have on hand. I decided to put some of the tuna and pasta to work and make a meatless meal on a Lenten Friday. It’s a recipe that I learned from my Abruzzese mother-in-law decades ago but I hadn’t made in ages. Now seemed just the right time to dust it off, with a few additions of my own. It comes together in the amount of time it takes to boil the pasta, so it’s a great time saver and kids generally love it too. I added scallions and capers to mine, which my mother-in-law never did, but they amp up the flavor quite a bit. You could even add some anchovy if you like, as I saw in a recent New York Times recipe. The recipe is very adaptive to what you have on hand, so don’t make a special trip to the store for anything. If you haven’t got scallions, use minced onion or shallot, or leave them out altogether. I also used a fair amount of parsley and chives that seem to have sprung up overnight in my deck planter. Feel free to substitute and improvise with other herbs if you don’t have those handy. Even dried herbs will work in a pinch.
Mix all the ingredients together while the pasta is boiling, then add the cooked pasta to the pan just before it reaches the al dente stage, along with some pasta water. Stir everything together for another minute or two, adding more water if necessary, to finish the cooking to the al dente stage.
Sprinkle with more fresh herbs just before serving and dig in. Stay healthy readers. And wear a mask if you must go out in public.
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Many years ago, when my daughter was a student in Florence, Italy, she took us to a restaurant called “Quattro Leoni” where I first ate little bundles of pasta wrapped around pear and pecorino cheese. I’ve been wanting to make them at home for years and finally got around to trying, inspired by the restaurant in Florence.
I’ve got time on my hands these days, as many of you do, with so many people quarantined due to the Coronavirus outbreak. I hope and pray that the deaths around the world will soon taper off and stop, especially for Italy, where more people have died from the illness than anywhere else in the world. Meanwhile, stay indoors and keep “social distancing” when you need to go out. Wear a mask if you have one, even if it’s not an N-95. My brother-in-law, who is a leading aerosol scientist in the world and studies movements of aerosols (small airborne particles), says that spray droplets are huge and that almost any cloth should stop them effectively. If you must be in situations where you encounter people, breathe through a cloth covering of some sort. There are many links on Youtube showing how to sew your own mask like this one, even some that don’t require sewing, like this one.
A great stress reliever in these troubling times is pasta making. I won’t give a primer on how to make the pasta, but there are instructions in the recipe below and if you want more detail, click here on how to make homemade pasta. I used “OO” flour from Italy, or you could use a combination of semolina and all-purpose flour. In a pinch, all-purpose flour will do.
My version is slightly different from Quattro Leoni, in both the shape and the sauce. Their’s look more like little purses, but I decided to try shaping mine into these small bundles instead. And their sauce was made with taleggio cheese and asparagus – so delicious but I had neither in the house so used butter, sage and walnuts with a sprinkling of pecorino on top.
After you’ve kneaded the pasta dough, you need to let it rest a half hour, so take that time to make the filling. I used a mixture of pear, pecorino and ricotta cheese, with a little white pepper. Mix it all together very well.
Dab a teaspoonful onto each 3″ x 3″ square. In the background, you can see I pieced together some strips of pasta so I could make continuous strips without having to knead the scraps back together and roll them out a second time. Each time you roll the pasta, it will get tougher, so try to avoid doing that. Just make sure you wet the edge of the strips so the pasta adheres. You don’t want it separating when you cook it in the boiling water.
To help you shape the pasta into the little bundles, I made this short video with instructions:
The recipe below makes enough for about 20-22 bundles, and I made small “quadretti” with the scraps, to use in some soup.
While the pasta is boiling, put together the sauce by melting some butter, adding sage and chopped walnuts.
Drain the pasta loosely, leaving a little water on each one as you place it directly into the pan. Add more butter and more of the pasta water if you want more sauce, but this was a rich dish and I didn’t feel the need for additional calories.
This serves two people generously as a main meal, and would even be enough for four if you’re serving it as a first course. But if you’re cooking for more people, you can easily double the recipe. Sprinkle grated pecorino on top and enjoy.
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Put the flour into a food processor, along with the eggs and salt.
Process it for a couple of minutes until the mixture comes together.
If it’s too sticky, add more flour. If it doesn’t seem to adhere to itself, add a little water.
Knead it on a board for a few minutes, then let it rest for 1/2 hour, covered.
Roll out the dough, either by hand or in an electric pasta roller.
Don’t roll it to the thinnest setting though, or the filling might break through when you’re handling it.
Place the dough on a board and cut it into 3 inch squares.
Patch some of the long pieces together so you don’t waste the dough, or so that you don’t have to re-roll and re-cut it.
The more you handle the dough, the tougher it will get.
Place a teaspoon of the filling in the center and press the edges together, as in the picture, until you have a square shape with the four points meeting at the top center.
Boil gently in water until cooked, which may take 5-8 minutes.
Make the sauce, adding butter to a pan until it melts, then add a few fresh sage leaves and the chopped walnuts.
Remove the ravioli from the water with a strainer, but don’t worry if some of the water adheres — it will help with the sauce.
Gently stir the ravioli in the sauce, tossing them to coat with the butter sauce.
Remove to plates and sprinkle more pecorino cheese on top.
Are you feeling a bit of cabin fever? With so many across the globe in quarantine due to the dreaded Covid-19 virus, staying at home for an extended time may be a new phenomenon. As much as I like to visit with family and friends, attend movies, concerts and the opera, I love my solitude also, so hunkering down to help flatten out the Coronavirus curve is no problem. When you think about all the people who have died from this illness, self-isolation is a small price to pay.
There’s no excuse for boredom with all the offerings on TV and cable, and plenty of books and music available online. I like to paint and write too, so I’ll have lots of time for those pursuits in the next couple of weeks or however long we need to be cooped up. And here’s a novel thought — maybe you can entice your housemate to help you in the kitchen and make this focaccia. I have to confess my husband didn’t help make this focaccia, but he did all the cleanup afterwards. And that’s good enough for me, in fact better, since I hate to do the dishes.
All you need is some flour and water and yeast (and a little salt and olive oil) to make the basic focaccia. Let it rise for a few hours until doubled in size.
Then press it into a cast iron skillet (or use another oven-proof pan instead) and let it rise slightly again, enough to dimple with your fingers all over. Use any combination of vegetables and press them into the dough in a decorative design. I used peppers, tomatoes, red onion, olives and the stems of scallions as “stems,” plus a little parsley. Generously sprinkle some coarse salt (like kosher salt) over everything and drizzle with a little olive oil. Bake at 475 degrees for about 15-20 minutes and dig in.
And let’s help out our neighbors and friends who might need a helping hand in grocery shopping or picking up prescriptions during this stressful time. Take precautions and wash your hands frequently. Many restaurants and small businesses are going to have a tough time staying afloat during this crisis. A lot of them in my town are allowing you to call in an order and pay by credit card, then pick-up your order at the curb. So do your part and order some take-out, buy some wine or a loaf of bread from your local merchant. You know what to do.
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Delizia al limone is one of those desserts I can’t resist when I see it on a menu. Occasionally, I’ll spot it at the pastry counter of D’Angelo’s — an Italian specialty food store here in Princeton, N.J. But otherwise, it’s not easy to find, even at Italian restaurants in New York City. It’s such a regional dessert that even in Italy, you’re not likely to see it unless you’re in Naples or other towns in the Campania region of Italy, where lemon trees are as commonplace as a handsome ragazzo on a Vespa. I’ve been wanting to try for years to make it home but never got around to it until recently. Once you try it, you’ll see why it’s such a beloved dessert in Southern Italy — a sponge cake soaked with a limoncello syrup, stuffed with a lemon cream, then covered with a thinned-out drizzle of lemon cream. It’s so lemony and irresistible, but to be frank, it’s very laborious to make.
I followed a recipe on Manu’s Menu. You need to have these semi-spherical molds to achieve the proper look of the Delizie. This recipe made only enough for eight little “cakelets” — not nearly enough for all the work required, in my opinion. If I make it again (a big “if”), I would double the recipe for the sponge cakes.
I would also take a few shortcuts – like buying lemon curd rather than making it from scratch. Same goes for the lemon crema pasticcera. So much can go wrong as you’re making either of these two ingredients, including curdling (which didn’t happen to me, since I stood over the pot stirring constantly, but easily could have.) Instead, I would use a package of instant vanilla pudding, flavored with lemon juice and lemon peel, and add some homemade whipped cream to the pudding to create the lemon crema pasticcera.
There were so many steps to follow, so many bowls and pots to wash, that this recipe became a half-day project. Have I discouraged you completely? Well, I hope not, especially if you take the short cuts I suggested.
My friends in the weekly Italian chit-chat group loved these little lemon delights. If you’re like me and love lemon desserts, maybe you’ll give it a try. You’ll feel like you’re back in Capri – before the Coronavirus hit. Wash your hands and stay safe everyone.
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Beat the egg yolks with 40 gms – 1 ½ oz. of the sugar, grated lemon peel and scraped vanilla until pale and fluffy.
Add the almond meal and mix well.
In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites with the remaining sugar and a pinch of salt.
Mix together the cornstarch and flour and then sift it into the egg yolk mixture, alternating with additions of the beaten egg whites.
Make sure to fold these in gently, so as not to deflate them.
Grease and coat with flour some semisphere tins and fill them till ¾ with the batter.
Bake in a pre-heated oven at 170°C – 340°F for 15 minutes, or until cooked through.
When ready, unmould them and keep them on a wire rack to cool down.
LEMON CREAM
Grate the peel of the lemon and then juice it.
Put the grated peel in a bowl with the lemon juice and keep it to infuse for 20 minutes.
Beat the egg yolks and sugar until pale and then add 40 gms – 1 ½ oz. of the lemon juice and grated peel.
Keep mixing.
Put this mixture on a slow flame and cook it, while continuously stirring, until it reaches 80°C – 176°F.
Then remove from the fire and put the pot in a double boiler filled with cold water. Blend it with a stick mixer until smooth.
Let it cool down to 50°C – 122°F, then add the chopped butter and keep blending until smooth.
Cover it with cling wrap (make sure that the cling wrap touches the surface of the cream so a skin doesn’t form) and refrigerate it until completely cold.
LEMON CREMA PASTICCERA
In a pot put the milk, cream, lemon peel, and scraped vanilla bean and bring to a boil.
Then put the fire off, let it infuse for 1 hour and then filter it.
Beat the egg yolks with the sugar, cornstach and salt until pale.
Then slowly add the filtered milk.
Cook this mixture until it reaches 82°C – 180°F, then cover the cream with cling wrap (make sure that the cling wrap touches the surface of the cream so a skin doesn’t form) and refrigerate it until completely cold.
LIMONCELLO SYRUP
Dissolve the sugar in the water and add the lemon peel.
Bring to a boil and simmer for 1 minute. Put the fire off and let it get back to room temperature. Then filter it and add the Limoncello.
ASSEMBLING
Mix together the Lemon Cream and the Lemon Crema Pasticcera (make sure they are both cold). Add 30 gms – 1 oz. of Limoncello and 30 gms – 1 oz. of sweetened whipped cream and mix well.
Put this cream in a piping bag and fill the sponge cakes by making a little hole at the bottom (you can use a knife to make the hole and then pipe in the cream).
Try and fill them as much as possible. Reserve the remaining cream.
Using a toothpick, prick the sponges on all sides and brush them with the Limoncello syrup.
To the remaining cream, add 125 gms – ½ cup of sweetend whipped cream and 60 gms – 1/3 cup of milk to make the thick glaze.
Cover the delizie with the glaze and refrigerate for a couple of hours.
When ready to serve, decorate with some whipped cream and lemon zests.
