Archive for the 'Italian' Category

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Spaghetti & Fontina-Stuffed Veal Meatballs

Lately, my pasta dishes have kind of obviously been focused on comfort-food, and this is no different. Today, we have another classic dish, with a little twist to make it something special: spaghetti and fontina-stuffed veal meatballs.

Spaghetti & Fontina-Stuffed Veal Meatballs

I decided to make my own tomato sauce, but I struggled with it. When I say struggled, I don’t mean that making the sauce was hard–far from it! The real difficulty was resisting my temptation to over-complicate things and throw in all sorts of herbs and spices. I decided for once to give the classic Italian cooking mantras a chance and to let the tomatoes speak for themselves, hoping they wouldn’t let me down. As it turns out, the tomatoes heard my prayers and they came through! I didn’t have any great fresh tomatoes, but I did try a recommendation for a better brand of canned San Marzano tomatoes, which was certainly a bit pricier than other canned tomatoes I was used to, but…
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Posted by mike on March 21st, 2008 under Italian, Main course, Mediterranean, Pasta, Sauce, Veal | 30 Comments »

Lasagna Bolognese

I love pasta, but there’s a special place in my heart for lasagna. This is one of those pasta dishes that takes time and effort, but the end result is amazing and definitely up there among the best of pasta-centric comfort-foods. With a little extra attention paid to the noodles, the sauce, and the cheese, lasagna is a force to be reckoned with.

Lasagna Bolognese

I approached this dish more with the intent of clearing out leftovers. You know, something simple that would come out reasonably well with little effort while freeing up space in the fridge and leaving no waste. But then I thought, well, I’d still like to play with my pasta maker, so maybe I could make my own noodles? And then, well, if I have these nice veal leftovers, I shouldn’t just use some jarred sauce, since that just doesn’t seem right. And how would it look on the web site? And after a series of little tweaks…
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Posted by mike on March 6th, 2008 under Italian, Main course, Pasta, Pork, Veal | 18 Comments »

Osso Bucco

I love veal, and if I could eat veal all the time, I would. Unfortunately, its one of those foods that caught something of a reputation that it doesn’t entirely deserve. This makes enjoying it all the more difficult though since not everybody you’re cooking for will approach or even consider veal quite the same way as you (a veal lover, of course). I however, couldn’t hold back the craving any longer and I went right for the veal dish that is one of my all-time favorites: osso bucco.

Osso Bucco plated atop some mascarpone polenta

If you’ve never had osso bucco before, you really have to try it. This is one of those dishes that, I think, always leads to full bellies, happy guests, and clean plates. Why? Osso bucco is a beautiful, Italian preparation of veal that really shows off the unique flavor and tender qualities of the meat with the culinary sensibilities of Italian cuisine.

You start with a thick, tough cut of meat…
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Posted by mike on February 20th, 2008 under Italian, Main course, Mediterranean, Sauce, Veal | 26 Comments »

Creamy Mascarpone Polenta

Poltena is a delicious, creamy side on its own right, but with more cream, butter, and some luxuriously rich mascarpone, you have a very rich side dish indeed.

Creamy Mascarpone Polenta

This is a very simple dish and something of a blank canvas for anything you’d like to color it with (sort of like risotto–the awesome rice that demands equally awesome additions). My reason for keeping it simple will be clear in the next post (I served this as a side-dish), but if you’d like your polenta to stand out more, you’ve got many options: mushrooms, squash, beans, greens, ham, formed and deep fried–it all works and works wonderfully. Heck, you could even employ it in desserts. But additions aside, polenta, at its core, is simply boiled cornmeal, cooked and whipped so as to be light, puffy, and creamy, sort of like having a rich porridge that ever so faintly resembles cornbread. Its a good, comforting side dish that leaves a lot of…
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Posted by mike on February 17th, 2008 under Italian, Mediterranean, Side dish | 15 Comments »

Trio of Ravioli–veal, mushrooms, and goat cheese

I was very excited about making pasta from scratch and had grand visions for making ravioli. But what kind of filling should I make? Beef? Chicken? Veal? Cheese? I kept tossing ideas around and decided to be reasonable and just choose: I’d make three different fillings (veal & olive, mascarpone mushroom, and herb & lemon goat cheese). Decisiveness is one of my strong points.

Ravioli

So knowing that the fillings would be the slow part, I hurried to work, preparing far too much of each, telling myself no problem, I’ll just freeze the excess ravioli and have an easy back-up dinner for weeks to come. I was in a good mood and in no real hurry at all–I was hungry, but the fillings were coming along great and making/stuffing the pasta would be a really quick process. There was nothing to worry about. I could just snap my fingers, and dinner would be ready. So I casually pour the flour in…
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Posted by mike on January 19th, 2008 under Italian, Main course, Mediterranean, Pasta, Veal | 18 Comments »

Sausage Stuffed Shells

Some times, I like to really doll up a meal to make it something delicate and decadent. Other times, I just want something hearty and quick. This is one of those times: lasagna’s less popular, ugly step-brother: stuffed shells.

Sausage Stuffed Shells

This is nothing terribly fancy–pasta, tomatoes, sausage, parmesan, and ricotta–but hey, it’s good. For no good reason at all, I was just in the mood for shells instead of lasagna, even though really, they would both be largely similar. I don’t have pasta terribly often, and when I do, its usually some quick linguine kind of dish, so having a filled pasta just seemed like a nice change. Plus, it can be hard to write a ton of posts ahead of time before you go on vacation so bear with me! ;-) (this is the last one–I’ll be back and cooking fresh soon! Think of this as “leftovers”)


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Posted by mike on January 5th, 2008 under Italian, Main course, Pasta, Pork | 3 Comments »
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