Simple Italy

Celebrating Your Inner Italian

Lasagna alla Bolognese

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Lasagne alla Bolognese

By Sharon Sanders

Lasagne alla Bolognese (Bolognese-style lasagna) is a dish that embodies the allure of slow food. It has only four components but each deserves attention.

Little language lesson:

Lasagna (singular) is one sheet of pasta.

Lasagne (plural) is more than one sheet of pasta.

The Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese is the ingredient that takes the most time to produce—an average of two years. Luckily for us, the fine cheese makers of the Consorzio del Formaggio Parmigiano-Reggiano shoulder that task.

The salsa besciamella (béchamel) can be whipped up on the stovetop in 10 minutes. I enrich my besciamella with grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (salsa alla Parmigiana) which makes it technically a Mornay sauce.

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The Glorious Vegetables of Italy

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“Wherever there is a plot of land in Italy, there is something growing, whether it’s row upon row of staked tomatoes or a hardy mound of rosemary. Even the most modest city balcony holds pots of geraniums and basil. Italians love to be outside, and who can blame them? The entire peninsula is, essentially, a beautiful garden, filled with a profusion of glorious vegetables, from artichokes to zucchini.”
—Domenica Marchetti
Domenica Marchetti's book is a vegetable primer and recipe collection illustrated with stunning photographs by Sang An.

Domenica Marchetti’s book is a vegetable primer and recipe collection illustrated with stunning photographs by Sang An.

Verdure (green things) are not merely ingredients used in la cucina italiana. They are quite literally the soul of Italian cooking. Food writer Domenica Marchetti proves the point in her fresh new cookbook The Glorious Vegetables of Italy.

Marchetti shares recipes for traditional dishes, such as Ribollita, and innovative interpretations, such as Carrot-Ricotta Ravioli with Herbed Butter. Her taste memory guides her.

Domenica Marchetti cooks Italian vegetables thoughtfully. photograph by Olga Berman

Domenica Marchetti dazzles with Italian vegetables.
Photograph by Olga Berman

Her mother was born in Chieti, Abruzzo, and her father’s parents were also born in Italy. Marchetti, who lives in Viriginia, has spent plenty of time in her forebears’ homeland absorbing the flavors and techniques that make vegetables sing.

This is a book of vegetable, not vegetarian, dishes. Meats, cheeses, and seafood are the condiments here rather than the main event. The recipe chapters are organized by the courses in a meal: “Appetizers,” “Garden Soups and Salads,” “Pasta, Risotto, Gnocchi, and Polenta,” “Pizza, Calzoni, and Panini,” “Main Courses,” and “Side Dishes.”

She has desserts, too. . . Sweet Potato Frittelle, Chocolate Zucchini Cake, and Winter Squash Panna Cotta among them. . . also a chapter of Preserves and Condiments.

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Abruzzo Green Tomato Pasta

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Chopped green tomatoes are seasoned with parsley, hot pepper flakes, garlic, celery, and olive oil in this unusual pasta sauce.

Chopped green tomatoes are seasoned with parsley, hot pepper flakes, garlic, celery, and olive oil in this unusual pasta sauce.

Since I wrote about Miriam Rubin’s delightful cookbook Tomatoes back in May, I’ve been intending to try her recipe for Green Tomato Pasta Sauce from the region of Abruzzo. I was intrigued because I’d never eaten anything like it or even seen a recipe for an unripe tomato sauce.

I panicked recently when the weather forecast predicted an overnight frost. I hadn’t tried the green tomato dish and time was running out. Unlike Rubin, who is a dedicated home vegetable grower and pens the “Miriam’s Garden” column for the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, I do not have a patch from which to pluck tomatoes. A generous gardening friend donated some green fruit to enable the test.

onthevineThe sauce is easy to prepare. It’s a lively blending of tart fruit, hot pepper, rich olive oil, and plenty of garlic. I believe it would be a good recipe to use in the winter months with pale, firm supermarket tomatoes. I’m going to give that a try, too.

I’m curious if any SimpleItaly readers have relatives or friends who live in, or are from, Abruzzo who prepare a similar sauce. Please share a Comment if you do.

 

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