Photo # 1—Close-up of fresh scungilli

Scungilli, very large marine snails, are firmly fixed in Italian-American cuisine—whether served chilled in an insalata di mare or hot in a marinara sauce.  The cold-water species, Busycotypus canaliculatus, channeled whelk, is the one most commonly gathered in New England by those who still bother to fuss with the snails’ labor-intensive preparation. Their meat is dense, chewy, and quite sweet. Larger Italian grocery stores may stock frozen scungilli and most carry tins of “conch”—though the latter are usually different species, from warmer waters in the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean, and South Asia.

Although they are not as popular today as calamare, or even octopus and eel, scungilli would be one of the dishes a skilled nonna might prepare for a holiday spread, especially for the Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve.

While cooking scungilli is molto semplice, their cleaning has been described as penitential. That’s why a 29-oz can of prepared scungilli costs as much as $26. Nonetheless, the ease of digital photography has inspired us to pick up where Nonna left off. In this post we will document the cleaning of scungilli for current and future ‘Almost Italians.’ So, if someone brings you a 50-lb bag of live whelks, gather all hands and follow these directions. Then, you can freeze your prepped scungilli meat to use on short notice throughout the year.

Photo # 2—Scungilli ready for steaming

Try to get some seaweed with your live whelks. Rinse the shells and seaweed in clean water. (Scungilli shells may be encrusted with barnacles. Don’t bother trying to remove them.)

Place an inch of water (preferably sea-water) and some seaweed in a large pot. Bring the pot to a boil, reduce to a simmer, cover, and steam the whelks for 10 minutes.

Photo # 3—Removing the Scungilli from their Shells

Remove the pot from the burner and uncover. Lift the shells  from the pot with tongs. Place them on a cutting board or large plate until they are cool enough to handle. With a short paring knife or narrow metal spatula, lift open each snail’s operculum, a hard, horn-like oval window protecting the opening of the shell. It may stick to the snail meat or it may come right off. (See photo # 5; the operculum is in the foreground.)

Gently wedge the blade into the shell and let it help you pull out the coiled snail flesh and “attachments” in one piece.

Photo # 4—Scungilli, out of their Shells

The snail parts you want to keep stop at the dark part of the coil, the snail’s digestive tract. Cut that off and discard.

Photo # 5—Deconstructed Whelk
Seaweed, entire snail with innards attached, empty shell, & operculum

Photo # 6—Cooked scungilli, partially trimmed

Cut each of the snails cross-wise in half, to expose the internal digestive tract. Rinse each piece well, leaving an empty channel (Photo # 7)

Photo # 7—Two cleaned scungilli (each has been halved)

With a very sharp knife, carefully pare away the tougher dark bits on the outside of the scungilli pieces.  This is for aesthetic reasons; reserve these dark trimmings to use in a tomato-based sauce (recipe below).

Set aside the pale, waxy and (relatively) more attractive pieces of scungilli for salads or non-tomato sauces.

Photo # 8—Trimmed scungilli ready to slice for salad

At this stage, the trimmed scungilli are still rather tough, but they will be further tenderized by the additional steps and preparations below. Freezing will also tenderize cleaned scungilli. If you slice the scungilli 3/8″ thick before freezing, it will only have to be thawed before marinating. The acids of the marinade will complete the tenderization.

If you’ve been curious (or nostalgic) enough to read this far, buon appetito! But if you don’t think that cleaning wild gastropods is how you want to spend your Saturday afternoon, you can look for a deal on another species…

You may find inexpensive tins of conch.
Their texture is softer, their flavor less briny.

Insalata di Scungilli

Ingredients:

8-10 oz. Fresh scungilli  (cooked, cleaned, and sliced as above)
I /8 tsp Finely chopped fresh garlic
1/2 Medium Bermuda onion sliced in very thin rings
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes (pepperoncini)
Rind of one lemon, grated
Juice of one lemon
1/2 tsp fresh oregano, finely snipped
1-2 Tbs red wine vinegar
2 Tbs Extra virgin olive oil

1 Large, vine-ripened tomato, coarsely chopped (about 8 oz.)
1/4 Cup finely sliced celery
1/4 Cup coarsely chopped Italian flat-leaf  parsley
1 Tbs Fresh basil, finely snipped
Leaves from one heart of Romaine lettuce

Preparation:

In a 1-quart mixing bowl or other non-reactive container, combine the first 11 ingredients; stir to combine. Cover and set aside in a cool place for at least 30 minutes before serving.  You may combine and chill these ingredients up to 12 hours ahead of serving.

Just before serving, add the remaining ingredients and taste for salt and acidity, adding a little more vinegar or oil, to taste.

To Serve:

Serve in small bowls. You may tear the lettuce into large pieces and toss with the scungilli or keep the leaves whole, adding them as crisp garnishes to each serving.

Serves 4-6 as an antipasto or salad.

Scungilli alla Marinara

Ingredients:

8-10 oz. Prepared scungilli, finely diced (1/4 inch pieces)
3/4 cup clam broth or any liquid left from tinned or thawed scungilli (optional)
2 Cups of My Grandmother’s Marinara Sauce
1/4 Cup Italian flat-leaf parsley, coarsely chopped
2 Tbs. Snipped fresh basil
Additional sprigs of parsley for garnish
1 lb cooked gemelli or other short pasta

Preparation:

In a large, non-reactive saute pan, simmer the marinara sauce, scungilli, and any additional broth or liquid for 20-30 minutes.

Cook the pasta according to directions, but drain it when it is slightly underdone.

Add the drained pasta to the marinara and allow it to cook in the sauce till it has reached the al dente state. Stir in the herbs and serve the pasta and sauce in shallow bowls. Garnish with parsley sprigs.

Serves 4

A big dish of lasagne* always marked major holidays at the LaBella house; we could count on it at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. When I got older, I would prevail upon my maternal grandmother, Carmelina, to make lasagne for my birthday in June—shortening the wait between Easter and Thanksgiving. Noonie, as I called her, always obliged.

Labor-intensive as lasagne is to prepare, it was never the main course on any of our holiday menus. It was, after all, just a “dish of pasta with red sauce,” and thus—in the opinion of the average Italian-American grandmother—appropriate as a first course before the Braccioletone, the ham, or the turkey. Nonetheless, we did acknowledge it as the pièce de résistance; whenever Noonie brought forth the lasagne, the conversation became more animated, the mood brighter, the meal more festive.

The lasagne course invariably included green salad, bread, and perhaps a dish of hot peppers. Indeed, I’ve often wondered why Noonie and Pop (my grandfather) ever bothered with the ham or turkey. I can only guess that it was their way of paying homage to America, the place where Italians and other poor immigrants could afford food in such abundance. Paradoxically, it was at tables like ours (in Middletown, Connecticut) where gastronomy inspired by the Old Country could be celebrated in a way that had never been possible in the Sicilian and Calabrian villages my great-grandparents and their neighbors had been forced to leave behind.

* Lasagne is the correct spelling of this classic casserole and the plural of lasagna—a wide, flat noodle.

Ingredients (see end notes):

Olive oil
2 Cloves of garlic, peeled, and finely sliced
1 Medium yellow onion, peeled, and diced
1 Lb. Sweet or hot Italian sausage, removed from its casings
1 ½ Lb. Ground beef (20% fat)
1 6 oz. Can tomato paste
12 oz. Dry red wine
2 28 oz. Cans Italian plum tomatoes, crushed (preferably San Marzano)
2 Tbs. Fresh oregano, chopped or 1 Tbs. dried oregano if you cannot find it fresh
4 Tbs. Fresh basil, finely chopped
1 Lb. Whole- milk ricotta
4 Tbs. coarsely chopped Italian flat-leaf parsley
1 Large egg
1/4 tsp. Nutmeg, freshly grated
1 Cup Parmesan, freshly grated
1/2 Lb. Fresh whole-milk mozzarella, shredded
6 Eggs, hard-boiled, peeled, and thinly sliced
Salt & freshly-ground black pepper to taste (see end notes)
8-10 oz Lasagne
Additional Italian flat-leaf parsley for garnish

Preparation:

For the Sauce:

Heat a heavy-bottomed pot (at least 4 quarts) over medium-high heat, then add enough olive oil to cover the bottom. Add the garlic and sauté, shaking the pan for about one minute; then add the diced onions. Lower the heat to medium and sauté the onions for 3-4 minutes until they wilt and become translucent.

Add the sausage meat, and sauté, breaking up chunks with a wooden spoon or the back of a fork as they go in. Add the ground beef, breaking it up as well. Cook for about 5 minutes, or until the meats lose their color and begin to brown.

While the meats are cooking, put the tomato paste into a bowl, rinse out the can with wine and add it to the bowl. Stir gently with a fork to dissolve the tomato paste, then add an additional can of wine (This is how my grandmother measured, but it comes to 12 oz., a cup and a half.) Stir the mixture into the meats, raise the heat to high and boil for a minute or two, evaporating the alcohol.

Lower the heat to medium, add the canned tomatoes and bring the pot to a simmer. Adjust the heat so the sauce bubbles gently. Add the oregano and half the basil; partially cover the pan so that the sauce gives up some of its liquid. Simmer gently for about one and one half hours, stirring occasionally.

For the filling:

Beat the egg in a bowl, then stir in the ricotta. Stir in the Parmesan, the remaining basil, parsley, and nutmeg. Set the mixture aside.

Assembly:

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Using an oven-proof casserole approximately 9 x 13 inches with 2-inch sides, ladle a cup of sauce over the bottom and spread evenly. Place three or four sheets of lasagne over the sauce, then follow with a ladle or two of sauce. Now gently spread approximately 1 to 1 1/2 cups of the ricotta mixture over the meat sauce layer. Atop the ricotta, place 10 slices of hard-boiled egg (roughly defining each portion). Follow with a sprinkling of Parmesan and a sprinkling of mozzarella.

Repeat this sequence: pasta, sauce, ricotta, egg + the grated cheeses until you’ve filled the pan within 3/4 inch of the top. Add a final layer of pasta and top with a thin layer of sauce.

We recommend that the pan be sealed with aluminum foil and baked, in the middle of the oven, for at least 50 minutes. Then, test the texture of the cooked pasta (as you would a cake) with a straw or knife blade. When it’s cooked to your satisfaction, sprinkle on the last layer of mozzarella and place the uncovered pan back in the oven. TIP: Placing a baking sheet on the rack below the uncovered pan will catch any drips.

Bake just long enough to melt the cheese and/or brown the top of the lasagne. Remove from the oven and let it sit at least 10 minutes before serving. Garnish each portion with parsley.

Lasagne is also delectable at room temperature.

Serves 10 as the pasta course in a feast or 6-8 as a substantial main dish.

About the Ingredients:

The time involved in making lasagne demands that you use first-rate ingredients. If you are not growing your own herbs, it’s worth buying fresh basil, Italian parsley, and oregano, rather than substituting dried herbs. If you use low-fat or fat-free cheeses or ultra-lean meat, you will diminish the rich flavors of the dish. Fats and oils are what hold and mellow the aromatic components of the herbs, spices, and garlic. Remember, this is celebratory food, part of a much larger spread. Each serving should be small and slowly savored. Furthermore, in Italy, lasagne was—and still is—a treat enjoyed only a few times each year.

We’ve included salt & freshly ground black pepper in the ingredient list, but we find that with the sausage, cheeses and canned tomatoes, the dish is amply seasoned.

ike a wind from the steppes, this dish swept through Manhattan in the early 1970′s. Every trattoria and ristorante from Mulberry Street to the Upper East Side rushed to feature a version on the menu. Maitre d’s everywhere were preparing Penne alla Vodka table-side as they made a grand show of igniting vodka in sauté pans.

Around the same time, vodka distillers tried to launch Penne alla Vodka in Italy itself, with lavish media events in fashionable locations in Rome. Despite the hoopla, the dish never gained more than a toehold in Italy, while here in America, it was immediately popular and remains so today, appearing on the menus of neighborhood Italian restaurants no matter where you go. Penne alla Vodka, like a rerun of Anita Ekberg bathing in the Trevi Fountain, is an ever-refreshing expression of la dolce vita.

While Italians have never been major consumers of vodka, and rarely cook with it, we have found a clue to the origins of Penne alla Vodka. The classic Italian Pasta al Limone, Pasta with Lemon, is sauced with both juice and zest of lemon, cream, and a shot of grappa (a colorless spirit made from distilled grape must). The more assertive flavor and higher price of grappa may well have inspired someone to use milder, cheaper vodka—a spirit more widely available in America than grappa. Indeed, 0ur research has turned up many modern Pasta al Limone recipes which call for vodka without even mentioning it as a substitute for grappa.

There are two important things to note about Pasta alla Vodka, and they provide a clear illustration of how a dish becomes part of a “tradition.” The subtle inclusion of vodka (popularly associated with climes far colder than Lombardia and Alto Adige) and the use of cream (which tones down the marinara sauce’ s acidity and—and perhaps more importantly—lightens the color of the sauce) meant that 1970′s “red-sauce” restaurants seeking to present refined, upscale dishes could offer a new one, the “Almost Northern Italian,” Pasta alla Vodka.

The 70′s urge to flambée was irresistible, and many diners assumed that pyrotechnics were crucial to the taste of the finished pasta. Rest assured, they are not. Even if no one lights a match, the alcohol burns off. There is no need to flambée the vodka and this dish can be safely enjoyed by those under legal drinking age.

If you happen to have a little marinara sauce on hand, Penne alla Vodka goes from stove-top to table very quickly.

Penne alla Vodka

Ingredients:

1 Lb. Penne
2 Cloves garlic, finely sliced
2 Tbs. Unsalted butter
2 Cups marinara sauce (your Nonna’s or mine) *
1/2 Cup unflavored vodka
1/2 tsp. Crushed red pepper flakes
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
1/2 Cup heavy cream
4 Tbs. Flat-leaf Italian parsley, finely chopped

Preparation:

Place a large pot of water (at least 6 quarts) over high heat and bring to the boil.

Meanwhile, heat a sauté pan over medium heat and add the olive oil. Add the garlic and cook for about 2 minutes, until soft, but not browned. Add the marinara sauce and the vodka.

Raise the heat until sauce is bubbling gently. Stir and cook for 3 minutes to evaporate the alcohol. Add the red pepper flakes and taste for seasoning. Add salt and pepper as necessary.

Add the penne to the boiling water, and while it is cooking, add the cream to the tomato sauce and simmer 2 or 3 minutes. Drain the pasta well, toss with the sauce.

To Serve:

Divide equally among four plates, and garnish with the parsley.

Serves four.

* Link to the recipe for my grandmother’s marinara sauce.

Enrico Caruso as Manrico in Il Trovatore

Enrico Caruso’s passion for food—and cooking—nearly equaled his passion for opera. During his tenure at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York (November 23, 1903 — December 24, 1920), he sponsored the citizenship of more than a dozen chefs from his home town, Naples, possibly to assuage his longing for Napoletano cuisine. Not only did he help them open restaurants and pizzerias in Little Italy, but on evenings when he wasn’t singing, the master himself enjoyed donning an apron to work in their kitchens.

But here’s where the libretto of Pasta alla Caruso gets complicated: Some food historians say Caruso invented the dish; others claim one of his Napoletano friends in New York originated it and named it in the tenor’s honor. Still others attribute the creation to various chefs in the scores of cities where the peripatetic Caruso performed.

The larger question for us, though, is why, if the dish was invented sometime between 1903 and 1920, did it not appear on the menus of neighborhood restaurants until the 1950′s. Chicken was not commonly eaten in Italy until after WW II. So, here’s what we think: when a tough Italian barnyard fowl did make it into the kettle, there would have been but one small liver. However choice a morsel an Italian might have found it, chicken liver was not a commodity ordinarily available and, thus, unlikely to have inspired a sauce. But here in America, with abundant poultry, Italian cooks found chicken livers to be a rich food that was actually cheap! Nonetheless, even with chicken livers at giveaway prices in the US, they were—and remain—one of those “variety meats” that diners tend to love—or assiduously avoid. And since the majority of the original Little Italy restaurant patrons were non-Italians, the percentage of avoiders was high. This seems to have been a sauce invented by Italians for Italians; in short, they kept it on the back of the stove—for themselves.

It took decades, probably till the Truman administration, before there was the critical mass of Italian-Americans dining out in places that had evolved to the white-linen level. Only then did Pasta alla Caruso become a fixture on menus celebrating the refinements of la cultura italiana by featuring a dish named for the great tenor, Enrico Caruso, an Italian name as widely known as Al Capone, but certainly one more favorably perceived.

In any event, the combination of chicken livers, mushrooms, and a rich tomato sauce makes for a soul-satisfying primo piatto, a first course. The chicken livers provide a creamy richness, the mushrooms, an earthiness, and the tomato sauce, a sweet acidity. Over a serving of spaghetti or perciatelli al dente, the dish has all of the harmony and exuberance of Il Trovatore’s Anvil Chorus.

Pasta alla Caruso
Pasta with Chicken Livers and Mushrooms in a Red Wine Tomato Sauce

Ingredients:

2 Tbs. Olive Oil
3/4 Cup Flour, seasoned with salt & freshly ground black pepper
1 Lb. Chicken Livers, separated into individual lobes, all visible fat removed
2 Tbs. Extra-virgin olive oil
2 Tbs. Unsalted butter
1 Lb. Assorted mushrooms, (Portobello, Crimini, White button) sliced thinly
1 Cup dry red wine
1 28 Oz. Can, crushed tomatoes (preferably San Marzano)
4 Tbs. Flat-leafed Italian parsley, finely chopped
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
1 Lb. Spaghetti or Perciatelli
Freshly grated Parmigiano

Preparation:

Flour the chicken livers, shaking off any excess and reserve on a plate.

Heat a sauté pan over high heat, then add the olive oil. Add the chicken livers and sauté until they are slightly browned and firm. Remove from the, pan and reserve.

Pour off the olive oil, then add the two tablespoons of butter. When the butter has foamed and the foam begins to subside, add the mushrooms, tossing to coat with the butter. Cook for four or five minutes, until the mushrooms begin to give off some of their juices.

Add the wine all at once, scraping the bottom of the pan to loosen any caramelized bits of liver and mushroom from the bottom. Continue, cooking over high heat until the wine has reduced by about half. Lower the heat and add the tomatoes to the mushrooms and wine. Adjust the heat so the mixture barely simmers.

Slice the chicken livers crosswise into half-inch rounds and add them, with any of their accumulated juices, to the tomato sauce. Taste for seasoning, add salt and pepper if necessary, then cook over low heat for about thirty minutes, or until any clear liquid has evaporated.

In the meantime, bring a large pot with about six quarts of water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook until al dente.

To Serve:

Drain the pasta, divide equally among four (or six) plates, top with the sauce, and garnish with the chopped parsley. Pass the Parmigiano separately at the table.

Oh, and try not to act surprised when one of your dinner guests suddenly discovers a long-hidden talent for Italian opera.

Serves four as an entrée, six as a first course.

Many an Italian-American will claim that this recipe is the authentic Pasta alla Napoletana or Pasta alla Calabrese or even Pasta Pugliese. Such claims will be “substantiated” by printed restaurant menus dating back to the 1950′s or by an oil-stained recipe index card in Aunt Rosa’s hand… But authenticity, particularly in culinary research, is an elusive commodity.

“Trust, but verify,” said Ronald Reagan, which runs contrary to our tale-spinning mantra: Se non è vero…

This much is certain: southern Italians who emigrated to North America, whether they’d sailed from Naples or Palermo, all knew the pleasures of a tomato-based sauce with which they enriched whatever else they had. Garlic, olive oil, tomatoes…maybe some garden basil or wild herbs, salt, and peperoncino made the basic sauce for whatever they could cook, catch, or buy; and many of them could not afford much. Certainly, for most of Italians in the first waves of immigration, meat had not been a staple.

But here in America, with its vast grasslands and organized feed-lots, meat production was on a scale that would have been unimaginable to the peasant who ate a full meal of meat only a few times each year, perhaps at a village wedding or baptism.

Here, the basic marinara sauce embellished any meat a cook chose—meatballs, pork ribs, tripe, or the distinctively seasoned sausages made throughout the southern Italian peninsula. Since the earliest Italian-American restaurants were serving a largely non-Italian clientele, customers needed names for these concoctions. So someone with roots in Campania would tell an Irish or German-American that his sausage and peppers served over tubular pasta was Pasta alla Napoletana, while a cook from Catanzaro might call the same combination Pasta Calabrese.

Having the basic ingredients in common, southern Italian immigrants to America were the first Italians anywhere to create a cuisine that really could be called “Italian.” Yet, funnily enough, they chose to distinguish themselves and their dishes with labels denoting regional origins.

Pasta with Sausage and Peppers

Ingredients:

2 Tbs. olive oil
2 – 3 cloves garlic, minced
1 Medium onion, chopped
1/2 Cup dry red wine
1 28 Oz. Can plum tomatoes (preferably San Marzano)
1 Cup roasted sweet peppers, roughly chopped (see note)
4 Links sweet Italian sausage, sliced into 1in. rounds
4 Tbs. Flat-leaf Italian parsley, finely chopped
4 Tbs. Fresh basil, finely chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 Lb. Penne or Rigatoni
4 Tbs. Flat-leaf Italian parsley, finely chopped
Freshly grated Parmesan or Romano cheese

Preparation:

Heat a large sauté pan over medium-high heat, then add the olive oil. Add the garlic and sauté for about 1 minute. Lower the heat to medium and add the chopped onions. Sauté until they become translucent, about 5 minutes.

Add the wine and boil for 2 – 3 minutes to allow the alcohol to boil off. Add the tomatoes, peppers, sausages, parsley, and basil. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper as necessary. Lower the heat and adjust so that the sauce will barely simmer. Simmer for approximately 20 minutes.

In the meantime, bring a large pot of salted water (at least 6 Quarts) to the boil. Approximately ten minutes before serving, add the pasta and cook until al dente. Drain in a colander, then pour onto a platter or divide equally among four plates. Ladle the sauce over the pasta and garnish with the remaining parsley. Pass the Parmesan or Romano separately at the table.

Serves four.

This dish, perhaps more than any other, has defined Italian-American cuisine. In fact, the concept of Spaghetti with Meatballs inspired the first edition of Almost Italian.

Italians eat spaghetti. Italians eat meatballs. But they don’t eat spaghetti with meatballs. Writing in 1897, Pellegrino Artusi, author of La Scienza in Cucina e L’Arte di Mangiar Bene, The Science of Cooking and the Art of Eating Well, includes three recipes for meatballs, none of which involve pasta. But the Italian immigrants who first opened restaurants in the Little Italy communities were not cooking so much for their fellow paesani as for a non-Italian clientele.

Ingredients that had been scarce or costly back in Italy were at hand in America, where the new entrepreneurs found that they were able to prepare and offer their version of “Sunday dinner” every night of the week. For the immigrants, the most lavish meal would have been meatballs, sausages, and perhaps pork shoulder, braised in tomato sauce. This would have preceded a course of pasta lightly dressed with some of the braising sauce—the red sauce that evolved to become “Mom’s Sunday Gravy.”

Customers lacking intimate knowledge of Italians’ foodways seem not to have understood that something farinaceous could be savored as a course on its own. Among northern Europeans, there is no equivalent to a separate course of rice or pasta, as served in Italy. And so, among the American immigrant populations, the difference persisted. Those of non-Italian descent, having become accustomed to having meat and starch together on the same plate, liked to place two or three meatballs on their pasta. It wasn’t too long before the Italian restaurants abandoned the practice of serving the meat separately and began to serve individual plates of pasta with meatballs in tomato sauce.

During the past few years—in Rome, for example—spaghetti with meatballs has infiltrated the menu turistica, ‘tourist menu,’ at many of the neighborhood trattorie. This gives a new twist to the adage, “When in Rome…”

But here, I’m really more concerned about “when in New Haven or Hoboken.” So, I’m happy to share my Sicilian grandmother’s recipe for meatballs, along with her recipe for the marinara sauce in which to braise them.

My Grandmother’s Meatballs

Ingredients:

1/2 Lb. Ground beef
1/2 Lb. Ground pork
2 Large eggs
1/2 Cup bread crumbs (see Note)
2 Cloves garlic, peeled, and finely chopped
4 Tbs. Flat-leaf Italian parsley, finely chopped
1/2 Cup freshly grated Parmigiano
Salt & freshly-ground black pepper
Olive oil

1 Recipe for Marinara Sauce—recipe follows

1 Lb. Spaghetti
4 Tbs. Flat-leaf Italian parsley, finely chopped
Additional freshly grated Parmigiano

Preparation:

Using your hands, mix together, the beef, pork, and egg, then mix in the bread crumbs, garlic, parsley, and Parmigiano. Season with salt & pepper. Form the ground beef and pork mixture into balls slightly larger than the size of golf balls. I usually wind up with fifteen to twenty, depending on how large I make the first few.

Heat a sauté pan over medium-high heat, then add enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan to a depth of about 1/4 inch. Add the meatballs and brown all over, regulating the heat if necessary to avoid excessive spattering. The meatballs are done when they’re brown all over, and have a slight crust. (see Note below)

Simmer gently for about an hour and a half in four cups (one quart) of my grandmother’s tomato sauce. Recipe follows.

Approximately 15 minutes before serving, bring a large pot of water (at least six quarts) to a full, rolling boil and add the pasta. Cook until just al dente. Drain in a colander, and pour the pasta out onto a serving platter.

Spoon the meatballs over the pasta, then pour the sauce over all. Garnish with the parsley, and serve family-style at the table. Pass the additional Parmigiano separately.

Serves four.

Here is my grandmother’s basic tomato sauce. This is the one she always seemed to have on hand, to go over pasta, or “just to color” some sautéed zucchini, or to mix in with some beans.

During the growing season, she and my grandfather would put up gallons of the stuff, but when the larder ran out, she wasn’t at all averse to using canned tomatoes. However, when she used canned tomatoes, she claimed that adding a grated carrot sweetened the sauce and took away the “canned” taste.

Ingredients:

Olive Oil
4 Cloves garlic, peeled, and thinly sliced
2 28 Oz. Cans peeled tomatoes (preferably San Marzano)
1 Small carrot, grated
1/2 tsp. Red pepper flakes
2 Tbs. fresh oregano, finely chopped
2 Tbs. fresh basil, finely chopped
1/4 Cup flat leaf Italian parsley, finely chopped
Salt & freshly ground black pepper

Preparation:

Heat a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat, then add enough olive oil to cover the bottom. Add the garlic. With a wooden spoon, stir for about one minute, until the garlic begins to give up its aroma.

Remove the pan from the heat and slowly add the tomatoes. Return the pan to the heat and begin to break up the tomatoes with either the back of a fork, or a wooden spoon. Simmer the tomatoes to evaporate some of the liquid, then add the carrot, the red pepper flakes, oregano and basil.

Simmer gently for about 20 minutes, or until the sauce has thickened and the clear liquid from the tomatoes has evaporated. Add the parsley and season with salt and pepper.