Slow Cooker Polenta with Sausage Ragù

Some of you will have read in a recent post that I finally broke down and bought a slow cooker, a kitchen device also known in the States—to those of you who are old enough—as a 'Crock Pot'. The thought of owning one had never really occurred to me before. The Crock Pot craze of the '70s, which brought us some pretty awful cooking (a can of this, a can of that...) was still seared into my memory banks.

But I started hearing about 'slow cookers' from cooks that I liked and admired. Then came Michele Scicolone's Italian Slow Cooker cookbook and my resolve began to waiver. And then I started reading Ad Hoc At Home, by perhaps American's most respected chef, Thomas Keller, in which he mentions the slow cooker as one of his prized kitchen tools, in particular for beans. Well, that did it. I had to see what everyone was talking about. (By the way, if you don't have these books, I would heartily recommend both of them!)

I have promised you, dear readers, to share with you my impressions, so here goes.

I realize now that a slow cooker, though marketed as a convenience tool—usually the kiss of death in my book—is really just another way to achieve the kind of gentle most cooking that most cooks will do in a Dutch oven or, in Italy, a terracotta pot. All kinds of dishes that you would want to simmer for hours on end: rich sauces, broths and, yes, beans—all come out wonderfully in a slow cooker. And, yes, it is also convenient: it frees up your stove for other uses, can be left on all day if you like, and will keep your food warm indefinitely. What it is not, as the name implies, is quick. But once you're down with the initial steps (in the Italian context, that mean making a soffritto and the rosolatura of the main ingredient) you can leave whatever you're making unattended until it's done.

So far, I've had excellent results with broth, beans (look out for coming posts!) and, as I will get to in a moment, polenta and ragù. Not everything I've made so far has been a smashing success, however. Stews and pot roasts, for example, have not turned out as I would have liked. I tried to make a brasato al vino rosso, for example—the very first dish I tried in my new slow cooker—and found the meat rather stringy and the sauce thin and bland.

That brings me to an important point when it comes to slow cooking: as when cooking in a pressure cooker, there is very little evaporation and therefore very little concentration of flavors. So you need to use much less liquid than you ordinarily would. And those dishes that requires evaporation to work will not work very well in a slow cooker. I tried making a spezzatino di pollo, for example, with vinegar. Made in the conventional way, the vinegar evaporates and its flavor mellows to the point where you would probably not know it was even there (unless you're the cook, that is!) In a slow cooker, the vinegar flavor is as strong when the dish is done as when you started, and that's not a good thing. So it's back to the drawing board for me on stews and pot roasts. I'll report back to you, kind readers, when I've figured out the best way to handle them.

In any event, on to our recipes!

SLOW COOKER POLENTA

Makingn real polenta is a laborious job, as we all know, involving a lot of stirring over a good 45 minutes or more to reach the right, creamy consistency. Italians have developed any number of tricks to make the job a bit easier, as I have outlined in my post on How to Make Polenta. The slow cooker provides yet another easy (if not very quick) way to make polenta.

Ingredients

1 part polenta (by volume)
5 parts water (by volume)
A pinch of salt

(NB: I made a batch from 1 cup of polenta mixed with 5 cups of water.)

Directions

You mix the polenta and cold water together in your slow cooker with a whisk or wooden spoon. Then spinkle the mixture with a pinch of salt. Turn on your slow cooker to high and let it go at it for 3 hours. Stir after two hours or, if you prefer, every hour. (Recipes vary.) If the polenta is getting too thick, you can add some water, but not too much—remember, you can't count on evaporation to thicken the polenta by more than a very marginal amount.

The polenta will stay smooth and soft for several hours if left on 'warm'.

NOTES: Made this way, the polenta turned out fine. Was the texture quite a fine as the hand-stirred variety made in a traditional paiolo? No, not really. But it was certainly acceptable—more than acceptable, in fact. The difference was subtle, not one that would be obvious to anyone other than the true cognoscenti. 

Three hours is a sort of awkward time. Too long to be 'quick', but not long enough, say, to make in the morning before work and have it ready by the time you get home. For that, you can cook your polenta over low heat for double the time (6 hours). I have not tried this variation but it would seem to work.

(NB: There is a general rule for slow cooking, which says that you can cook must about anything for x hours on high or 2x hours on low. I have yet to find an explanation of what difference, if any, it makes to the final outcome.)


SLOW COOKER SAUSAGE RAGÙ

You would think that a slow cooker would be the ideal implement for making a Sunday Sauce and, indeed, it would seem to be ideal for all sorts of long simmering sauces. To accompany this polenta, I made a variation on the classic Roman dish, polenta con salsiccia e spuntature (polenta with sausages and spareribs), which we've featured on this blog. I just left out the spareribs, since I couldn't find any in my freezer and there was just too much snow outside to make a dash to the market. The result was still delicious.

You simply proceed as you would normally do, using the classic recipe. Brown your sausages (or both sausages and spareribs) in olive oil (or lard) a skillet, transferring them to the slow cooker when they are nicely browned. Then sauté your onions and garlic in the grease left in the skillet until you have a nice soffritto. Deglaze the skillet with red wine and add it all to the slow cooker. making sure to scrape out all that goodness at the bottom with a spatula. Then pour over enough puréed canned tomato to cover the meats well. Season with salt and pepper, and let your ragù simmer on low for at least six hours, more if you like. Serve the meat and a bit of sauce over your polenta as pictured above.

NOTES: Obviously, unless you have two slow cookers, you will need to make the ragù the day before—which is fine, since like most slow-cooked foods, a ragù benefits from a day's rest.

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Post scriptum: You can use any leftover polenta and ragù to make a heart-warming polenta pasticciata:

Slather your leftover polenta on a baking sheet and let it cool. It will harden into a sliceable mass. (You can also just pour it into a glass or other container if you prefer, which is my usual method.)

The next day, or whenever you want to use your leftovers, take some terracotta bowls (or a single casserole if you prefer) and grease the bottoms well with a bit of olive oil. Lay over some slices of polenta, then some of the meats from the ragù, which you will have sliced or chopped into bite-sized pieces. Then spoon over a bit of your leftover ragù, and then some béchamel sauce. (If you like, you can melt some grated or sliced cheese into the béchamel for extra flavor. This time, instead of the usual parmigiano, I used slices of young asiago). Repeat until you have used up your ingredients or filled up your baking vessels. Finish with the béchamel, into which you can swirl some more ragù for color. Sprinkle over some cheese if you like (I didn't) and drizzle with some olive oil.

Bake in a hot oven (200°C, 400°F) for about 25 minutes or so, until the mixture is bubbly and nicely browned on top. Let it cool off for a few minutes before serving.

Frittata con patate e salsiccia

One of the wonders of Italian cuisine is its incredible variety, and much of that variety comes from the mix-and-match nature of so many of its dishes. You take a staple base ingredient like rice or pasta, and you pair that with all sorts of flavoring ingredients and come up with literally hundreds of variations on a theme. So pasta or risotto are not a single dish, but a whole category, a whole world of dishes that could literally fill a book, and has.

The same goes for the flat omelette known as the frittata. The combinations are endless, as we have already featured a few on these pages: frittata di patate e cipolla (with potatoes and onion), frittata ai carciofi (with artichokes) and frittata ai peperoni (with bell peppers). Here's another example, one of my favorites on a chilly winter's day when I want something a bit more substantial: a frittata with sausages and potatoes.

Ingredients (to serve 2-3 as a secondo, 4-6 people as an appetizer, snack or part of a buffet)

2-3 sausages, removed from their casings and broken up into smallish pieces

3 medium waxy potatoes, peeled and diced

1/2 onion, sliced or diced

Salt and pepper

6 eggs

100g (3-4 oz) of grated parmesan or pecorino cheese

A few sprigs of fresh parsley, finely chopped (optional)

Olive oil

Directions

Start by taking a non-stick skillet and sautéing your sausages in a bit of olive oil over moderate heat. When they are nicely browned, you can remove them to prevent them from getting too brown, or just keep them in the pan.

Now add your onion and potato and let them go until they are nice and tender, and not too brown. Season with salt and pepper as they sauté. I find that it helps to add some water and cover the skillet for a few minutes. This speeds up the cooking time and prevents burning.

Once the potato and onion mixture is done, add back the sausage pieces if you've removed them. Let them sauté together and get to know one another for a minute or two. If you are using the parsley, now is the time to add it to the mixture.

While those ingredients are getting acquainted, beat your eggs and grated cheese together in a bowl. If you are using pecorino, you should not need much salt, but with parmesan you will want to season the eggs a bit.

Pour the egg mixture over the flavoring ingredients in the skillet and mix once with a spatula or wooden spoon.

Once the flavoring ingredients are more or less evenly distributed though the eggs, stop and let the eggs cook, still over moderate heat, until they have almost entirely set, except for a thin layer of raw egg on top, and the bottom has nicely browned (but not too much). During this step, too, you can cover the skillet with a lid to help the eggs set. The whole process should not take more than 8-10 minutes. Use a spatula to check the bottom to make sure it's browning nicely but not burning. Regulate the heat if need be.

Now comes the tricky part: you need to flip the frittata over. I do this by using two plates. You slip the frittata out, cooked side down, onto a dinner plate. Then top that plate with another, and flip the two plates over, so that the frittata is now upside down, with the runny, uncooked side facing up.

Add a little more olive oil into the empty skillet, then slide the frittata back into the skillet. You will now want to let the runny side cook. This will take a lot less time than before, as you eggs should have already almost completely set, perhaps 3-5 minutes more. Again, check the bottom by raising a bit of the omelette with a spatula and take a peek underneath. It may look a bit misshapen at this point, but not to worry, all will be well in the end.

When the frittata is done, slide it out onto a dinner plate again. I find that the last-cooked side is the most attractive, so once again, I use another plate and flip it over onto its 'pretty' side. Let it cool for a few minutes and serve, cut into wedges.

NOTES: The two-plated flipping technique is one that I  really like, since it is basically foolproof. But if you like, you can use a single plate. You take the plate and cover the skillet, and then flip as described above. This saves you cleaning another plate but be careful, as the skillet is obviously going to be very hot.

Another technique is to run the skillet under a broiler for a few minutes, until the eggs are set and the top is nicely browned. This is even more foolproof than the two-plate flipping method, but don't think that the frittata turns out as attractive, and since the top has not 'tasted' any olive oil, it is a bit less savory.

Finally, they sell special double-skillets with interlocking handles specially-made for making frittata. I have never used one, so I can't comment on how well it works.

The recipe is a classic one, and admits a few variations. Besides the choice of cheese (which could also run towards fontina or another creamy cheese instead of a grated one), you can, of course, achieve a lot of variety by just your choice of sausage. And you can leave out the onion if you like, or substitute shallot or, if you want to get fancy, some chopped leeks.  And some recipes will call for parboiling the potatoes before sautéing them with the onion. That's an extra step that I've never tried and, to my mind, it takes away from the peasant character of the dish. But, of course, no one is going to  stop you if you like the idea...

A frittata can be eaten warm or at room temperature. Leftover frittata is perfectly delicious, and can be used to fill a sandwich—in the old says, this was a favorite lunch of Italian workmen and field hands. A frittata is a versatile dish. It makes a lovely and light secondo, but can be a snack or antipasto, or serve as part of a buffet. The one thing it never is—at least in Italy—is breakfast. But then again, why not? 

Risotto alla milanese

Risotto is one of the staples of northern Italian cooking, nowhere more so than in Lombardy. Here is the risotto that typifies the cooking of Milan, the capital of Lombardy region and the economic and financial capital of Italy.

This risotto follows the classic method for making risotto, which we have gone over before, but it has two defining ingredients that give it its special flavor and character. As many of you will already know, it is flavored with saffron—which gives it a beautiful gold color—but perhaps fewer people know that in a true risotto alla milanese, the soffritto must include beef marrow. The marrow lends a beefy background flavor to the dish, as well as a subtle richness and unctuousness. The ingredient is so characteristic of the dish that I have seen this risotto listed on menus in Milan as risotto al midollo, the word 'midollo' being Italian for bone marrow.

Ingredients (for 4-6 people)

400g (7 oz.) rice for risotto (arborio, vialone nano or carnaroli)
40-50g (1-1/2 or 2 oz.) bone marrow, removed from the bone (see Notes) and finely chopped
1/2 onion, finely chopped
40-50g (3 Tbs.) butter (plus a bit more for the mantecatura)
A splash of white wine
1 liter (1 qt.) broth, or q.b.
A pinch of saffron
50-60g (2 oz) grated parmesan cheese, plus some more to serve at table

Instructions

Make a soffritto by sautéing the onion and marrow in the butter. When the marrow has melted and the onion is well wilted, add the rice and let it 'toast' in the soffritto without browning. Add a splash of white wine and let it evaporate.

Proceed with the risotto in the usual way—with one little catch: While the rice is simmering, take your saffron and simmer it very gently with a ladleful of broth so it releases its flavor and color into the broth. Then, either about halfway through the cooking process, or if you prefer a more assertive flavor, about 5 minutes before the rice is done, add the saffron and its broth into the risotto. Continue to cook as usual.

Risotto alla milanese is usually served all'onda, which is to say, rather more loose than firm, so begin the final enrichment, called the mantecatura in Italian, while the rice is stlll fairly brothy. Add the cheese and, if you like, a dab of butter for extra richness (never cream!) to the rice, then stir to toss the rice around vigorously for about two minutes. (Skilled risotto chefs are a marvel to watch as they work the rice, they toss the rice into the air while they stir—not something I've tried at home., though.) If you like your risotto a bit firmer, let it sit, covered, for a minute or two before serving.

NOTES: All bones have marrow, of course, but there are particular good marrow bones (also often called soup bones) that you can buy sawed in half to expose the marrow, like these:

To prepare bone marrow for use in risotto, I like to simmer the marrow bones for just a minute or two to loosen the marrow a bit. Then, using a small spoon or knife, scrape out the marrow from the bone. Depending on how long you've simmered the bone, the marrow may also just slip out on its own.

Now for those of you who may be a bit squeamish about bone marrow, it can be left out of the dish, adding perhaps some additional butter during the mantecatura to make up for it. What you will have made is more properly called risotto allo zafferano rather than a true risotto alla milanese—but it will still be delicious! 

Saffron, as we all know, it very expensive, but a little goes a long way. It is sold in threads (the stigma of the crocus flower) and also ground into powder. Avoid the powder if you can. It melts more easily but it tends to have a rather faded flavor. A powder also allows for extraneous 'filler' or substitute ingredients. With the threads, you can be sure you are getting the real thing.

As for the rice, we've covered the three main varieties before: arborio, the most common and usually least expensive of the three, will work fine, but for this dish I would prefer Carnaroli, although many recipes call for vialone nano, which is an excellent risotto rice from the Veneto. For details, check out my post on the Italian Pantry.

There are some subtle variations to this dish you can try as you like: The broth is usually a rich beef broth, but you can equally try a mixed meat broth, a chicken broth or a vegetable broth. Some cooks use shallots rather than onion, a variation that I find particularly nice. And some avoid making a soffritto, putting the shallot or onion into the simmering rice and removing it before serving, which they claim make the risotto lighter. The famed Milanese chef Gualtiero Marchesi calls for making the onion soffritto separately, adding white wine to it, and allowing the onion to simmer until creamy. The onion cream is added at the very end of cooking to add 'acidity and aroma'. An intriguing idea, but one that I have not yet tried.

Risotto alla milanese is an ancient dish, with its origins going back to the Middle Ages, although the modern recipe apparently only goes back to the early 19th century. (See this article for a brief history.)

Risotto alla milanese is perhaps most commonly served together with ossobuco, as a piatto unico—one of the very few examples of rice being a 'side dish' in traditional Italian cookery. But it is equally good as a primo, followed, say, by a cotoletta alla milanese or perhaps a brasato.

Quick Note: Brandade Pancakes

The new year brought a rush of activity that had made it hard to keep up with my blogging 'duties', but here is quick note on a nice idea for 'recycling' leftover brandade: just mix it up with an egg or two, give it a grind or two of black pepper and perhaps a bit of chopped parsley. (There should be no need for salt, as brandade is salty by nature, but taste it and see.) Fry the resulting batter in a bit of olive oil, browning it nicely on both sides.

Served with a green salad and washed down with a crisp white wine, this brandade pancake makes for a quick and tasty lunch or light weekend supper!

NB: A traditional brandade is made with soaked and poached baccalà, but you can make an easy version with smoked whitefish, as illustrated in one of my earlier posts. The taste is different from the traditional version, of course, but for me, at least, equally delicious.

Post scriptum: I recently broke down and bought a slow cooker. Never imagined that I would own one—the awful crock pot cookery of the 70's is still etched in my memory—but after reading some excellent chefs recommend it for, among other things, beans, broth and polenta, I decided to give it a go. Will be experimenting with various recipes and reporting back to you, dear readers, shortly.

Zeppole

Zeppole are so easy to make—after all, they are basically just fried pizza dough balls—it is almost embarrassing to post about it, but since it was one of my favorite snack foods that Angelina made, it deserves pride of place on this blog. And, in any event, who doesn't like fried dough?

Zeppole can be sweet or savory. Angelina would make the savory variety. Simply make a regular batch of pizza dough (see my post on Angelina's pizza casereccia for the recipe) and, grabbing a walnut-sized ball of dough, make a well in the middle of the ball with your finger and place a single anchovy fillet inside. Then bring the sides around the fillet to cover the well and form a nice ball. You may need to roll the dough around in your hands a bit to make sure the opening is well sealed. Continue in the same fashion with the rest of the dough.

Now fry them gently in olive oil, or a mix of olive and canola oil, until they are nice and golden brown on all sides. It will take no longer than five minutes or so. Regulate the temperature so they do not brown too quickly, before the insides have a chance to cook. They will swell up as they fry, which is exactly what you want. Drain them on paper towels or on a rack.

Zeppole are really best eaten right away, but you can keep them warm in a slow oven, on a baking rack placed over a cookie sheet, or even reheat them later. They will lose a bit of their crispiness but none of their goodness.

NOTES: There seems to be some confusion, let's call it, about the name these little guys. That's not surprising, since it is common in Italian cooking, which is still highly regional, for the same dish (or with slight variations) to change name from region to place to place. According to Neapolitan gastronome Jeanne Caròla Francesconi, the 'official' name for what Angelina—and many others—call zeppole is pasta cresciuta, with the name zeppole reserved for the sweet variety. Readers have told me that they would call this dish pettole, which is apparently the name given to them in Puglia and Basilicata. Other there are still other names, depending on where you go: sfingi, fritelle... Well, this being Angelina's blog, I'll keep calling them zeppole.

The more common sweet version of zeppole are usually filled with crema pasticcera or sweetened ricotta mixed with some chocolate bits, or just the dough. Sweet zeppole dusted with confectioners' sugar before serving. Of course, all kinds of other fillings, both sweet and savory, make for many variations. Without a filling, they can be shaped into rings rather than balls. Some variations are made from choux pastry and baked. But these savory, anchovy-filled fried zeppole are the ones I remember from my childhood and will always be my favorite.

Zeppole are traditionally eaten in Naples on St. Joseph's Day, March 19. In Rome a very similar fried pastry is, in fact, called bignè di san Giuseppe and eaten the same day. But apparently in other parts of Italy, such as Calabria, zeppole are traditional around New Years, which makes them timely around now. But, honestly, these are so good you won't want to limit your zeppole making to one time of year. 

A wonderful snack food, zeppole can also be used as a kind of antipasto, either alone or as part of medley of different offerings. Just remember to make enough: like potato chips, no one can eat just one!

Post-scriptum: One reader (my mother!) informs me that, yes, Angelina also made the sweet variety of zeppole, too. Funny I don't remember that too well. But then, I was an unusual child in that I didn't have a sweet tooth. I would eat sweets, of course, if there were given to me, but I didn't seek them out. Nor, apparently, did I find them all that memorable. 

How to Roast Chestnuts

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose...

Toasted chestnuts evoke wistful holidays images of days gone by. But how many of us have actually roasted chestnuts on an open fire? Too few, I imagine. And a shame, too, since anyone with a fireplace can do it easily. All you need are chestnuts, a good knife and a roasting pan.

Just take as many chestnuts you and your dining companions want to eat and cut a cross in their sides as picture. This will prevent them from 'exploding' while they roast. You can do with this a good, sharp knife. They also make chestnut knives as well as a special instrument for the job (pictured below), which you can find at specialty stores or online; it makes the job a lot easier.

The typical pan for roasting chestnuts is made of carbon steel and has large holes in its bottom to let the heat of the fire through. They are sometimes available in specialty cookware shops and online. You can also use a popcorn popper, the kind they make for fireplaces, with long handles.

Now take the pan and lay it over some hot embers. If your fireplace is big enough you can just clear out a space and pull some embers into place below your pan. You pan should lay a few centimeters/inches above the embers, which should be glowing red hot, but not actually on fire. An actual flame  would  char the outsides of the chestnuts before they are done inside.

Tossing them from time to time, let the chestnuts roast for about 20 minutes or so. As they roast, the slits you have made in their sides will begin to open. This is fine. The chestnuts will char a bit on the outside, which is perfectly normal and, in fact, desirable, as it gives them a nice smokey flavor. Some recipes tell you to sprinkle some red wine or other liquor over them as they roast, which you can certainly do if that appeals to you.

Once they're done, remove them gingerly from the pan into a cloth towel.  (They will be very hot at this point, as will your pan, so be careful.) Wrap the chestnuts up for a few minutes to let them cool off a bit and soften further. Then open up the towel and eat them, preferably with your hands. They have both shells and a rather woody skin. You can eat the latter if you like, but they are much nicer without. The skins should, in any event, come off quite easily if they chestnuts are still warm.

NOTES: If you don't have a fireplace or an appropriate pan, the same basic technique can be used to roast chestnuts on a baking sheet, in a hot oven.

Chestnuts make for a wonderful 'dessert', made after dinner, say while watching a film and sipping some whiskey or grappa on a cold winter's night. Or while singing yuletide carols, perhaps...