My Grandmother Carmelina’s Lasagne

Lasagne

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.

Note: Generations of Italians here and back in Italy have boiled their pasta sheets before assembling a pan of lasagne. Several years ago, various American pasta companies began to market “no-boil lasagne,” slightly thinner sheets of dough to be added as uncooked layers. It’s not at all hard to fathom why this seemingly radical departure from tradition works: If the baking pan is covered with foil, the dry pasta simply absorbs the liquid from the tomato sauce and cheeses. You get a firmer, less runny casserole, with pasta that, according to your attentiveness, can still be a little al dente. We (and lots of other cooks who chat online) have wondered if the same technique would work with ordinary pasta. It does. See our instructions below.

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.

You may not use all the pasta in a 1-Lb. box and you will have leftover sauce–never a bad thing!

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.

Pepper and Egg Sandwich

Pepper and Egg Sandwiches
Photograph courtesy Sublicious

Does anyone under 35 (or 45, or even under 55) remember Lent? Our generations of gratification probably don’t think of a pre-packaged Jenny Craig meal the same way our parents and grandparents viewed meatless meals in the six weeks prior to Easter.

These days, abstinence from the food we enjoy often means we’re trying to look good in a bathing suit. Lent, on the other hand, is supposed to be contemplative and its dietary limitations soul-strengthening. The cottage cheese and fruit plate or the tuna casserole made with canned cream of mushroom soup— the so-called “Lenten lunch” often served in church basements after World War II, was usually a little frumpy.

UPDATE in April 2020: Lent aside, for anyone sheltering in place right now, pepper and egg sandwiches are the comfort-food we long for, retro school-day lunches at home with Nonna. If nothing else, they’re a reminder that there were meatless, guilt-free pleasures to be had before sushi and sashimi came ashore.

Italian-Americans have long enjoyed pepper and egg sandwiches on Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. One suspects their appeal may have much to do with their simplicity—welcome after the excesses of Carnevale or Martedi Grasso. In Chicago’s Italian-American community, pepper and egg sandwiches once enlivened meatless Fridays throughout the entire Lenten period.

Not quite a fritatta, a pepper and egg sandwich is the combination of garlic, bell peppers, and onion, sautéed in olive oil until the peppers are wilted. Beaten eggs are added, and the whole mixture cooked until the eggs are done. The peppers and eggs are served inside a hearty loaf. Possible embellishments include either provolone or mozzarella and pale green pickled peperoncini, which add an acidic bite that contrasts with the sweetness of the fried bell peppers.

Since the 1950s, and possibly earlier, the “pepp ‘n egg” sandwich has been a popular lunch or snack. When I was a child, my Sicilian Methodist family spent summers on Long Island Sound in Connecticut, where we and other Italian-American families would pack picnic baskets full of pepper and egg sandwiches for an afternoon at the beach. As an adult, I encountered the sandwiches again in Rockport, Massachusetts, where I lived briefly among descendants of Calabrese, who favored them as picnic food. The photo above is a roadside diner near the New Jersey shore. No matter where they’ve turned up, no one has ever considered these meatless sandwiches the food of abstinence, especially not when they might be washed down with a cold beer or two.

Ingredients:

1 or 2 Tbs. Olive oil
1 Clove garlic, finely minced
1/2 tsp Crushed red pepper flakes
1 Medium onion, thinly sliced
1/2 Red bell pepper, thinly sliced
1/2 Green bell pepper, thinly sliced
3 eggs, beaten
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
1 Loaf Italian bread (such as a bastone or a ciabatta)

Preparation:

Heat a sauté pan over medium heat then add enough olive oil to cover the bottom. Add the garlic and the crushed red pepper and sauté for a minute or two. Add the onion and peppers, regulating the heat so the onions don’t burn. Sauté until the peppers have softened.

Raise the heat to medium-high and add the beaten eggs. Stir to combine with the onions and peppers and season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the eggs are set.

Slice the bread lengthwise without cutting all the way through. When the eggs are done, gently slide them onto the bread to make a sandwich and cut the loaf into four portions.

Serves 2 – 4

Felice Capo d’Anno

New Year’s Day—even beyond the implementation of all manner of resolutions—is a time to do something, or more specifically, to eat something that will bring luck for the coming year. For Italians, that means lentils with sausages.

Salsicie e Lenticchie

The lentils are said to symbolize coins which the diner can hope to amass in the coming year. And for poor Italian peasants and laborers, the sausage once represented opulence.

Most southern Italians eat cotechino sausage on New Year’s Day. Lavishly spiced with coriander seed, black pepper, nutmeg, mace, cloves, allspice, and cinnamon, this is a fresh pork sausage that includes those proverbial everything-but-the-squeal portions of a pig. Cotechino may very well have been the inspiration for Winston Churchill’s remark that anyone interested in laws and sausages should never watch them being made.

Italians north of Rome eat a sausage similar to cotechino, but butchers stuff the meat into a pig’s foot and call it Zampone.

Unable to buy a cotechino locally, in time for our New Year’s dinner, we hardly felt deprived. The sausages we did serve may have come from a Tampa Bay area supermarket chain, Sweet Bay, but we consider them the equal of the very best sausages we’ve ever had—in Italy and from artisan butchers in New England. In fact, we’ve written before about our fantasy of a kindly old Italian fellow dressed in a threadbare grey cardigan sweater going to Sweet Bay’s corporate kitchens once or twice a week to supervise the making of the sausage.

Our lentils, cooked separately with bay leaves, garlic, and orange peel, finished in the pan with the sausages, were delicious. But with or without sausages, lentils carry the main message. So we hope all our readers have a happy, healthy year. May you and your loved ones share the abbondanza we wish for you in 2008.

Buon Natale

Cafe BaciCafe Baci, Sarasota, FL.

Tonight, many of you will be celebrating La Cena della Vigilia di Natale—the Feast of the Seven Fishes. And even if not, we hope you’ll all be together with loved ones.

My family didn’t observe the tradition, probably because they were rare birds in our community of Sicilian-Americans—Methodists. When it came to religious observance, minimalism was the guiding principle. This is not to say we didn’t feast, and I hasten to add that my grandparents never lost sleep over the separation of Church and Kitchen. As a child, I could look forward to Christmas Eve treats like Schiacciatta, Baccalà, and Casatta alla Siciliana. But we were under no obligation to abstain from meat, or to attend mass of any kind, let alone at midnight.

So research on the folkloric, and possibly non-Christian, origins of the Feast has been fascinating for a non-Catholic like me. What’s remarkable is how little anyone actually knows about it. One thing is clear: the number seven has held mystical significance for millennia—even before the birth of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Some say the fish represent the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church. Others say it’s the seven Christian virtues, the Seven Deadly Sins, the Seven Sorrows of Mary. Others cite the Seven Hills of Rome (although most would concur that few modern Romans observe la vigilia). I’ve even seen reference to the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus in Asia Minor…

There are those, like my editor, who detect more than a whiff of Saturnalia, the Pagan celebration of the winter solstice, and note similarities to folkloric traditions persistent among Muslims. (Remember that under Arab rule, Sicily’s cuisine gained ingredients and techniques that make even its contemporary food more reminiscent of North African Muslim kitchens than those of Calabria.)

Other numerals—9, 11, 13—carry additional meanings for Christians and those of other faiths. Indeed, depending on the individual family and the means and skills of its cooks, the vigilia table often includes seafood and fish dishes in those numbers, too.

Given the abbondanza Italians were able to enjoy here in America, it’s no surprise that they would demonstrate their gratitude and generosity and continue, through the decades, to add contemporary dishes to their family menus. Certainly baccalà, calamari, and eel are unshakable mainstays for traditionalists, but clams casino, shrimp cocktail, and sushi have taken their places on Italian-American Christmas Eve tables, too.

Whatever you do to celebrate this wonderful time of year, we wish you Auguri!.

Skip & Holly

P.S. We’d love to hear what’s on your Christmas Eve menu. Please leave a comment if you’d like.