Sunday Dinner With Friends, Marcella Style

I hadn't even gotten the dinner invitation out of my mouth, when T replied in the affirmative. "Don' t you even want to know what I'm cooking?"  She always does. "No, what time should we be there?" "Well, I'm making homemade pasta."  That got her attention.

I was inspired to make pasta after reading an essay written by Italian-cooking doyenne, Marcella Hazan, in her last cookbook, Marcella Says.  Home made pasta was something I made often back in the days when our dinner parties were more formal, when serving course after course was, well, a matter of course.  Over the years life happened, we all got a little older, and informal entertaining seemed the way to go.  And somewhere along the way I stopped making pasta.

Well now was as good a time as any to pull out my decades-old Atlas pasta machine.  You know the kind that was to be had at any Italian grocery store.  The kind that had to be clamped to the table. The kind that you had to crank. That kind of pasta machine.

I clamped the machine to the table and I took out my large wooden board.  Next I dumped the unbleached flour onto the board and made a well.  Into the well went the eggs.

The eggs were beaten with a fork with 1 teaspoon of olive oil.  Don't tell Marcella about the oil.  Then, little by little the flour was taken from the sides of the well incorporating the eggs.

Eventually it formed a dough which you gather into ball and begin to knead after cleaning off the board. 

Then more kneading on the widest setting of the pasta machine.

After thinning and stretching, then drying.

Cutting

And drying again

Finally, serving with Marcella's tomato sauce with onion and butter.

The pasta was light, delicious and just heavenly. I know what I said about courses, but I did follow the pasta with pesto meatballs and then a refreshing fennel and orange salad. 

My thanks to Marcella for the inspiration.

Marcella Says...

As you can imagine, after forty years of cooking nearly every day, I have amassed a somewhat large cookbook collection. One hundred twenty-nine books to be exact.  And that is not counting the four books on wine and the numerous compilations of food writing, pamphlets and regional or promotional books, or the books I gave away when we moved.

I have five loose leaf notebooks of tried and true recipes including family recipes that I have used and continue to use; three notebooks chronicling thirty something years of dinner parties and holiday celebrations as well as a handful of magazines that I just can't seem to give up.

Of course, when I was first married I had the obligatory Joy of Cooking, Betty Crocker Cookbook,  The Good Housekeeping Cookbook, and a small but authentic Mexican cookbook given to me by my husband's beloved cousin. It wasn't until we returned to the States in the mid-seventies, when my husband was a medical resident working those infamous 36 hour shifts, that I sought out some evening cooking classes--for companionship as well as the good food and priceless tips.

It was at a series of classes by a local cooking teacher that I was introduced to the cooking of Marcella Hazan. I had never heard of this woman who was presented to the New York food world in 1970 by the late Craig Claiborne of the New York Times.  She went on to write six books on Italian cooking which changed  forever the way Americans thought of Italian food. She taught cooking classes for years in her New York apartment and in Venice.

I am a huge fan of Marcella and have all six of her books.  But there is one that I had forgotten about.  Her last book, Marcella Says, is fabulous.  She takes you by the hand and stands by your side through each recipe.  It is a Master Class, with Marcella whispering in your ear. The essay she wrote telling us why we should be making our own pasta was so inspiring, I pulled out my old pasta machine and got to work!

I don't buy too many cookbooks anymore.  So much is available on the internet through magazine sites and blogs. But I treasure Marcella's books and hope to read her memoir next.  It's good to know at 87 years old, she is still drinking whiskey, smoking cigarettes, and living with the love of her life.

A future post will show my pasta dinner.  Ciao.

An Autumn Weekend

It was a beautiful fall weekend in New Jersey.  As our son was making his way across the country, John and I had plenty to do at home.

When our friend, T, called early Saturday evening asking, "What are you cooking for dinner?", there was only one way to respond. "Come on over."

I checked out the refrigerator and poked through the cupboards--pasta it would be.

After I cleaned and sliced some cremini mushrooms, I sauteed them in olive oil in a large skillet along with some shallots.

When the mushrooms were browned, I seasoned them with salt and pepper, set them aside and put the water on to boil for the fettuccine. As they sipped their Martinis and the fettuccine was dropped into the pot, I put the heat on again under the mushrooms, added some thyme to the pan and deglazed it with some dry Marsala. When the Marsala had reduced a bit, in went the drained pasta and a knob of butter. Adjusted seasoning, tossed in chopped parsley, and passed a piece of Parmigiano Reggiano to grate on top. Done!

Earlier in the day I had made one of my favorite fall cakes, and it became dessert.

This very simple cake feels as if it is straight out of a country kitchen.

Torta di Pere alla Paesana
   By Marcella Hazan from her book, More Classic Italian Cooking


2 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1 cup sugar
Pinch salt
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 pounds fresh pears
A 9 inch layer-cake pan
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup dry breadcrumbs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Beat eggs and milk together in bowl.  Add the sugar and salt, continue beating.  Add the flour, mixing it thoroughly with the other ingredients.

Peel the pears.  Cut them in half, scoop out the seeds and core; then cut them into thin slices, no more than 1 inch broad.  Add them to the bowl, mixing them well with the other ingredients.

Butter the pan, and sprinkle the breadcrumbs on it.  Turn it upside down, and tap it or shake it lightly to get rid of all the loose crumbs. Dot the surface with butter.

Bake in the upper level of preheated oven for 45 minutes, or until the top has become lightly colored.

Remove from pan as soon as it is cool and firm enough to handle.

NOTE:

The cake is very forgiving.  I didn't have two pounds of pears on hand, so the four I had were enough.You know that I can't stop tinkering, so I like to add a pinch of nutmeg to the flour before mixing into the eggs and sugar. I happened to have some small amaretti cookies on hand, so I finely crushed them and used in place of the breadcrumbs. Nice touch.

Marcella's Noci in Camicia

I've just finished reading a post by Rachel Roddy of rachel eats in which she recounts her discovery of walnut pesto. She describes it as "...a soft delicate nutty paste of walnuts, olive oil, butter and aged parmesan..." How delicious does that sound? I was surprised I'd never heard of this, but I could literally taste this combination in my head. Rachel paints a beautiful picture with her words, but it was more than that.

I realized that I have been using this combination for years. In Marcella's Italian Kitchen, the authority on Italian cooking, Marcella Hazan, recalls the platter of walnuts with slivers of tender, young Parmesan being passed around the table while waiting for the first course to arrive. This combination, she says, never seems to pall especially with a glass of crisp white wine.

It occurred to her to bind the two ingredients, butter and Parmesan, sheathing the walnut halves with the mixture. Brilliant. The perfect bite with an apertif before dinner. I like Prosecco with these.

Noci in Camicia   by Marcella Hazan

1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan
1 tablespoon butter, softened to room temperature
1 teaspoon chopped fresh basil
1/4 pound shelled walnut halves

In a bowl combine all the ingredients, except for the walnuts, until they are thoroughly amalgamated into a smooth paste.

Scoop up some of the cheese and butter mixture with your fingertips and apply it to the walnuts, sheathing each half only partially, leaving about one-third exposed.  Place on a dish without overlapping them and refrigerate until ready to serve--1-2hours.

Serves 6

N.B.  If you don't have fresh basil, don't let that stop you from making these.  They are fine without it.  Also, I have sandwiched some of the butter mixture between two walnut halves if I could not find decent sized halves.