Lunches & Snacks | Almost Italian

Strata

March 3rd, 2011

Before we share another adventure in culinary archeology, we want to give you a sense of our personal turf. One of us really is Italian-American; the other is not, but lived in an Italian-American community. Growing up in the Northeast during the 1950′s and 1960′s, neither of us recalls any of “our” Italians, most of whom had roots in the Mezzogiorno, ever making a casserole of bread, eggs, and cheese.

Nonetheless, for more than half a century, hundreds of recipes with names like “Italian Bread Casserole” and “Italian Brunch Bake” have appeared in newspaper food columns, women’s magazines, and many a spiral-bound community cookbook. Countless variations have been clipped or copied in longhand on the backs of envelopes and recipe cards. The more stylishly named Strata is a cousin to them all.

We know we are setting ourselves up to hear protests that someone’s grandmother brought their family strata recipe from Bari or Sorrento to New Jersey… Was it scribbled on the back of a baptismal certificate or hidden inside a shoe? Was it part of Zia Tomasina’s dowry? Would anyone who divulged the ingredients risk a Calabrian curse?

Colorful stuff, but we’re confident that strata, like stromboli, was invented here in America. As to origin, even the names of both concoctions may share a common origin. Just as Roberto Rossellini’s scandal-scented film Stromboli gave its name to a glorified American calzone, Italian cinema may also have named a simple cheese and custard casserole. In 1956, Federico Fellini’s stark and cynically realistic La Strada, staring Anthony Quinn, won the first Oscar ever awarded for Best Foreign Language Film. Of course, the title of the film, spelled with a “d,” means “the street,” while strata, is the Latin (not Italian!) plural of stratum, meaning “layer.” Obviously, a dish of multiple savory layers could legitimately be called strata, but we suspect that gilding a casserole with the title of a critically acclaimed foreign movie was just too tempting. The small matter of spelling would have been insignificant to second- and third-generation Italian-Americans, who were collectively assimilating and losing their command of the Italian language.*

Stromboli, made with ordinary pizza or bread dough, has been enjoyed since the 1950′s at informal, deli-type restaurants, places where one could also order an Italian Combo, and pizzerie, whose torrid ovens produce the best stromboli. In contrast, strata has been something you were urged to make at home, especially if you wanted to serve an impressive, delicious, and very easy dish. Puffed and golden, strata is rich with the taste of cheese, yet light in texture. While it might be called “Soufflé for Dummies, ” strata has given at least two generations of American homemakers the chance to garner compliments as they steadfastly refused to share their “Old World Italian” recipes and let anyone know just how simple strata is to prepare.

During and after World War II, packaged food firms and the print media in which they advertised targeted the increasing numbers of women joining the American workforce. Recipe developers obligingly devised dishes that could be“made ahead.” (Remember all those Jello salads and “icebox” cakes?)

Strata belongs to the class of exotic and “Continental” dishes that the multi-tasking homemaker would find in Junior League cookbooks or The Elegant But Easy Cookbook by Marian Burros & Lois Levine (1962). For a buffet dish or brunch casserole (with a catchy and pronounceable name), the truly operative words were “easy” and “do-ahead.” But there was a less attractive subtext: all too frequently, the recipes of the era relied on a jar or can of prepared food. The “ gourmet secret” of many a successful hostess was a can of condensed cream of mushroom soup.

Italian-American (Giada and Rachel) or not (Emeril, Ina, Paula and Martha), celebrity cooking personalities have continued to wave the strata banner.

In 1985, at the height of Age of Indulgence, The Silver Palate brought us Basil Breakfast Strata with no canned cream-of-anything. Their recipe did call for lots of cheese, basil pesto, arugula, white wine, and their signature ingredient– real cream.

But a good strata doesn’t need that all that; eggs, milk, and the starch from the bread (not the fillers found in canned soup) are all that are needed to bind the casserole. Happily, these days many of us can buy a far better loaf than we could in the 1960’s. The quality of this dish depends on the bread itself, so please try to use some with real body, without sweetener/preservatives like high-fructose corn syrup. It’s okay to toss in that single stale hot-dog roll, but make sure that most of the bread in the recipe is something you’d enjoy eating on its own.

Although our strata can be made a day ahead, it need not be. Most of the older recipes call for pouring the egg-and-milk mixture over the layers and letting the dish sit in the fridge. But if you want to enjoy your strata within a couple of hours, our recipe facilitates that.

As any archaeologist will confirm, strata are the layers to be examined in an excavation site. We hope you’ll find the nuanced flavors and layers of Strata americana worth exploring.

* For additional commentary on Italian-American spelling, please see our post on Eggplant Rollatini.

Strata

Ingredients:

This is an extremely flexible recipe, which can be scaled up. Just keep in mind the basic proportions of bread and liquid to the other ingredients in the casserole. Our version calls for provolone and Parmesan cheese, but if you have only mozzarella, you can still achieve a fine strata with delicately balanced textures and flavors.

20 oz. Good bread, slightly stale or fresh, torn into 1-inch chunks

1 1/2 Cups whole milk
2 – 3 Large eggs
2 Tbs. Dijon-style mustard
2 Tbs. Olive oil, plus a little more to coat the baking dish
2 – 3 Cloves garlic, peeled and minced
3 Tbs. Flat-leaf Italian parsley, finely chopped
1/4 tsp. Cayenne pepper — or a few dashes of Sriracha or Tabasco sauce
1/2 tsp. Freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 tsp. Freshly ground black pepper

10 oz. Frozen chopped spinach (one box)
4 oz. (about 3/4 cup) Cooked ham, diced in 1/4 inch cubes

4 slices (about 3 oz.) Aged provolone
1/3 Cup freshly grated Parmesan

2 – 3 Tbs. Unseasoned, fine, dry bread-crumbs, optional

More chopped parsley, for garnish

Preparation:

Tear all the bread into 1” chunks.

In a large bowl, whisk together the milk, eggs, mustard, oil, garlic, chopped parsley, and seasonings. Add the bread chunks and stir a few times so they absorb the liquid evenly.

Remove the spinach from the box and thaw at room temperature (or in the microwave). Save any juice with the spinach. Dice the ham and combine it with the spinach. Set the mixture aside.

Lightly oil the inside of an ovenproof baking dish. (We like a deep vessel, which allows for more layers.)

If you are going to bake your strata as soon as you assemble it, preheat your oven to 375 F before you begin to fill your casserole.

Place all the remaining ingredients within reach and begin to layer your strata:

Spoon a layer of soaked bread into the bottom of the baking dish.

Cut or tear a slice of provolone into 8 or more pieces and distribute them as one layer atop the bread.

Spoon about one-third of the spinach-ham mixture over the provolone.

Sprinkle a tablespoon of the Parmesan atop the spinach.

Dust that layer with about a tablespoon of fine breadcrumbs, if you are using them.

Repeat the layering until you have used all the ingredients. Finish with a layer of soaked bread topped with provolone and breadcrumbs. Reserve at least one tablespoon of Parmesan for the final stage of baking.

If you are not going to bake your strata now, cover the dish with foil or its own lid and refrigerate for up to one day. Otherwise, it is now ready to bake. Bake the covered casserole in the preheated oven for at least 30 minutes. (Cooking time will depend on the depth of your baking dish and whether you have reduced or increased the quantities in this recipe. Our strata, in a 4-quart casserole, needed 50 minutes.)

When you can see the casserole beginning to brown and bubble, remove it from the oven and test it as you would a cake. Pierce the center of the dish with a clean, sharp knife, and withdraw it. If the knife comes out clean, your strata is nearly done. Turn off the oven. Dust the top of the casserole with the remaining Parmesan and put the uncovered dish back in the oven for about 5 minutes.

Remove the strata from the oven and allow it to cool for 5-10 minutes. (This is one “soufflé” that won’t fall!) If you have an extra pair of helping hands, you can try to turn the strata out as one golden mound on a serving plate; you can then cut that in wedges. Otherwise, simply spoon the strata from the baking dish or cut out servings with a knife and a pie-slice. Garnish each portion with a little chopped parsley.

Serves four to six, as a light meal. Leftovers are delicious chilled or at room temperature.

Posted by Holly and Skip Filed in Lunches & Snacks