I used my basic focaccia recipe that is adapted from my favorite Italian cookbook, Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking from Marcella Hazan. It’s a perfect focaccia recipe, yielding that pillowy, springy crumb and rising beautifully.

This bakes a nice big focaccia, using a large stone baking sheet or regular baking sheet. My favorite baking sheet is this USA pan. I  own several sizes.

I found this  new stone baking sheet just added to my Amazon shopping guide.

The dough rises very quickly, but the dough needs a solid four hours before baking.

We start with this amount of dough which doubles in about an hour. After two hours, the dough is stretched out on the pan, but not baked for another two hours.

I chose to cut the peaches in small pieces to fit into the indentations. This dough was so springy (a good thing) that the indentations kept rising back up.

Check out the crumb of this peach rosemary  focaccia. It’s springy, bouncy and perfect.

We used the fresh rosemary three times for peach rosemary focaccia.

Ryder chopped the rosemary using this mezzaluna (affiliate), a safe way for kids to start chopping.

We incorporated some of the fresh rosemary into the flour before making the dough and put some more on during the last 8 minutes of baking. We decided to add a little fresh rosemary once it came out of the oven.  You can even further this by adding fresh rosemary to some extra virgin olive oil for dipping.

I’m thinking this is one of those dishes you can take to a party or picnic, serve with a charcuterie board or cheese board.

Peach rosemary focaccia would be especially nice with prosciutto.

It’s not gluten free, but I do have a gluten free focaccia that you can adapt this recipe to here. It won’t make the same amount, so reduce the peaches and rosemary as necessary.

• Rosemary Focaccia with Olives
• Fusion Radish Focaccia
• Gluten Free Focaccia

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Peach Rosemary Focaccia the Comfort of Summer

Peach Rosemary Focaccia, springy and so delicious.

Course Bread

Cuisine Italian

Prep Time 5 hours hours

Cook Time 25 minutes minutes

Total Time 5 hours hours 25 minutes minutes

Servings 16

Author Angela Roberts

Ingredients

• 1½ packages active dry yeast
• 2 cups warm water divided (1/2 cup, 1 1/2 cup)
• 6 cups bread flour
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 2-3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh rosemary divided
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon salt
• heavy duty rectangular baking pan about 18 x 14
• extra virgin olive oil for pan
• pastry brush Order Here
• A mixture of ¼ olive oil 2 tablespoons water, 1 t salt
• 2 peaches cubed, with skin on.

Instructions

• Dissolve yeast into ½ cup lukewarm water. (110 degrees F.) Rest 10 minutes.
• Add salt and 1 tablespoon of flour. Incorporate well.
• Add 1 cup flour, mix. Add olive oil, half remaining water and half remaining flour.
• Mix well with hands.
• Add remaining water and flour. At this point you can put into mixer with dough hook, or food processor. If you knead by hand, slap down on counter several times and knead for 8 minutes or until the dough is very workable and soft.
• Rest in oiled bowl with covered damp towel for two hours.
• At end of this rising time, punch down, place on oiled baking sheet, stretch by hand to the edges, trying to keep a uniform thickness, especially in the corners.
• Allow to rise for two hours
• Using a wooden spoon, small ball or finger tip, make indentations.
• Using pastry brush, carefully brush olive oil water mixture over top. Top with peaches.
• Put in oven, reduce heat to 400 and bake for 15 minutes.
• Top with tablespoon finely chopped rosemary and bake for another 7-8 minutes.
• When you take it out of the oven, the top will be a little crispy. As the focaccia cools, it softens up and will become springy.
• You can now add in some more fresh rosemary if you want and drizzle olive oil or serve with an herbed dipping oil.

Disclosure: This site contains affiliate links which earn a small commission, but do not affect prices.

The post Peach Rosemary Focaccia the Comfort Food of Summer appeared first on Spinach Tiger.

Disclosure: This site contains Amazon affiliate links which earn a small commission to aid in operating costs but do not increas your price.

La Fritteda, the Heartiness of a Fall Dish with Flavors of Springtime

I first made this dish as an early blogger back in 2010, as part of cooking Italy, using Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classical Italian Cooking. This cookbook is an all time classic, with no pictures and 35 years later continues to sell!

This is not a five minute dish. There is prep work involved. Fava beans are not for light weights. You have to be the kind of person that enjoys the PROCESS of cooking just as much as the EATING. I am just such that person some of the time.

I cook most of the food I eat, and in a recent asparagus post I told you about my idea of five-minute meals (roasted asparagus). But, there are those days that the time in the kitchen is not something to get through like piano practice; it’s something to enjoy from beginning to end.

How to Substitute the Ingredients for La Fritteda

The fun starts when you discover it’s fava bean season and you scoop up as many as you can afford because it’s a quick season and the earlier, the better tasting. If you can’t find fava beans, use baby lima beans.

Then you grab at the baby artichokes spring peas, and vidalia onions feeling almost as giddy as a teenage girl with spring fever.  If you can’t find fresh peas, or baby artichokes,  use frozen.

If you love Vidalia onions, I have quite a few onion-centric recipes, such as Blackberry Onion Pizza, and Vidalia Onion Sweet Corn Risotto. 

If you love this post, please pin it.

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I made this dish twice in one week because we loved the unique combination of spring vegetables. The result of fava beans, fennel, peas and artichokes delivers the heartiness of a fall dish with the flavors of springtime. Even if you just eat the La Fritteda without pasta, you will walk away from the table feeling satisfied.

I used their fresh spinach pasta from Alfresco’s Pasta and I chose to caramelize the vegetables. If you try the caramelized version, skip any added grated cheese at the end and just enjoy the savory flavor the onion and fennel deliver.

Make this spring pasta dish all year long! It’s so good. You can always substitute gluten free pasta or zero carb pasta.

All Marcella Hazan Recipes Cooked Here at Spinach Tiger

All Italian Recipes from Spinach Tiger

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La Fritteda, Artichoke, Fennel and Fava Bean with Pasta

Adapted from Marcella Hazan, Essentials of Classical Italian Cooking, this is a unique combination of baby artichokes, fava beans and fennel. Great as a side dish, or as a main course with pasta.

Course Pasta

Cuisine Italian

Prep Time 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time 40 minutes minutes

Total Time 1 hour hour

Servings 4

Author Angela Roberts

Ingredients

• 1 large sweet onion thinly sliced with a mandolin or sharp knife
• extra virgin olive oil
• 1 large fennel bulb with fronds
• 6 baby artichokes
• 2 pounds of fresh fava beans or fresh or frozen lima beans
• 2 cups frozen peas
• sea salt freshly ground black pepper
• splash of champagne or white wine vinegar.

Instructions

• Slice onion thinly, set aside
• Fennel Bulb and Fronds:
• Dice fronds, set aside. Slice Fennel thinly (like the onion).
• Fava Beans: Hull and blanch in boiling water for 30 seconds. Cool in lemon ice water and slip out of skins. If you can’t get fava beans, fresh spring lima beans (or frozen) are another option.
• Artichokes: Peel off rough leaves, slice into quarters. Trim top 1/4 inch off. As you peel artichokes, place in water. Once all are peeled and trimmed. If you can’t get baby artichokes, frozen hearts would work.
• In heavy pot, saute onions and fennel in olive oil until softened. Add chopped fennel frond. Season with salt.
• Add in artichokes, cover and cook on medium heat for five minutes, stirring occasionally. You may need to cook longer.
• Add in fava beans, peas, vinegar. Cook a few minutes longer to heat through. Season with salt and pepper.
• Eat as a side dish or toss with pasta.

Notes

If using pasta, toss with zest of a whole lemon.

Disclosure: This site contains Amazon affiliate links which earn a small commission to aid in operating costs but do not increas your price.

The post La Fritteda, Pasta with Fava Beans, Fennel, and Onions appeared first on Spinach Tiger.

This is quintessentially “Sicilian.” They (we) love our eggplant, especially when made spicy and served with spaghetti.

My grandfather, Biaggio, was born in Isnello (a commune outside of Palermo), and I had the pleasure to eat two eggplant dishes prepared by his my family there on our travels to Sicily. This is a Marcella Hazan recipe and was first published here in November 2010.  It was time for an update with new pictures.

The eggplant is fried, left chunky, and tossed with spaghetti. I chose this gluten free pasta, but you can choose whatever you like.

Spicy Eggplant Sauce with Spaghetti

Isnello a Village outside of Palermo
When we visited Isnello, we were served two kinds of eggplant that had that perfect char that I’ve never been able to replicate.

The village of Isnello has an elevation only second to Mount Etna. The infrastructure has hardly been touched in centuries except for the remodeling of kitchens and bathrooms. Laundry is still hung outside up on  the forth floor of narrow, yet pristine homes that often have two kitchens.

My family owns a bed and breakfast home on the mountainside, just across the town. The views are spectacular, breathtaking and not like any I’ve witnessed here in the states.

The setting is a bit surreal, because the town is small and remote, with it’s own cheese shop, butcher and baker. It feels a bit isolated and insulated, yet it is a mere 30 minute drive to the beach and Palermo. The drive is quite a climb, breathtaking (a bit scary) and awesome.  This is a the first time I’ve used that word “awesome” correctly.

Untouched for generations, yet there are cell phones and satellite dishes, but I doubt there are microwave ovens.

I might hang my laundry out too if this was my view doing it.

The everyday view of spectacular Isnello, Sicily.

A Word about the Mafia.

People often ignorantly ask me if my family is in the mafia. You must know that this is a highly insulting question. There is nothing glamorous about organized crime, thugs, murder and the exploitation of the small merchant who must pay a large “protection fee” to thieves.

I’m a huge advocate of the small merchant, farmer, and restaurant owner. There is nothing glamorous living under siege.

The beautiful, warm, kind people of Sicily are not proud of the reputation of the few thugs that sweep their country and they are especially hurt and insulted to be asked if they are part of this darkness, as if it’s something to be proud of. I suppose our American culture that was captivated by the Sopranos is part of the blame.

The families living here born who are born in Sicily are appalled that Americans find that attractive. While we with some Sicilian blood are known to have a bit of a temper, most of us believe in God and follow his ways. After we have our little tirade, we get over it quickly, and cook up a nice meal and with a genuine and warm smile.

I started this post merely to talk about eggplant and reflecting back to my visit to Sicily struck a nerve. Now back to the food.

As I was eating my cousin’s eggplant, my question was “Why can they get that perfect char on a grilled eggplant and I can’t?” It must be part of the Sicilian heritage.

Spicy Eggplant sauce with spaghetti demonstrates how easy it is for Italians to put real food on the table  in thirty minutes.

This must be where I get my “quick fire” talents. While it’s nice to follow long, laborious recipes once in a while, it’s not me; it’s not realistic. I’m a gal who likes to have my hands in so many things at once that it’s nothing for me to be cooking and painting a room at the same time.

This recipe comes from Marcella Hazan’s Cookbook, Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, my all time favorite cookbook.

This is the perfect going into Fall dish. Tell me, what is the comfort food you most crave this time of year (besides turkey)?

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Spaghetti with Spicy Eggplant Sauce and Isnello, Sicily

Marcella Hazan's Spicy Eggplant Tomato Sauce for pasta.

Course Entree

Cuisine Italian

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes minutes

Total Time 40 minutes minutes

Servings 4

Author Angela Roberts

Ingredients

• 1 large eggplant
• salt
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons chopped garlic
• 2 tablespoons chopped parsley
• large canned imported Italian tomatoes
• chopped hot red chili pepper to taste
• 1 pound pasta

Instructions

• Peel Eggplant. Slice eggplant into medium slices. Salt, and allow to sit on paper towels. This will remove the water from eggplant and make frying much easier. Press moisture out using paper towels.
• Cut into 1 1/2 inch slices, fry in very hot oil. Cut into pieces. Drain again with paper towels.
• Saute garlic in olive oil until golden.
• Add tomatoes, parsley, chili pepper, salt and stir, simmering for about 25 minutes. Add cooked eggplant, cook a few more minutes.
• Cook pasta (spaghetti works best) al dente according to directions. Add spaghetti to the hot sauce to finish the last minute of cooking. This helps to marry the pasta and sauce.
• Serve with extra chili pepper on side. Season to taste with salt and black pepper.

The post Spaghetti with Spicy Eggplant Sauce and Isnello, Sicily appeared first on Spinach Tiger.

If you’re like me, you might have taken pasta off the table because you don’t want to eat those carbs or that gluten. What if I told you that there’s a way to eat your pasta guilt free? Did I hear that applause?

Gluten Free Pasta 

The simple recipes are always the best recipes, if you use good ingredients. This is fresh, young asparagus, and only takes a few minutes to cook. I placed it into the hot pasta water once my pasta was finished. I used a gluten free pasta from Barilla. I’m in the middle of testing various gluten free pastas and will give you that report. My husband likes the Barilla best so far, which can be ordered here. 

The old gluten free pastas were simply rice or brown rice and were gummy. I would buy them, cook one bag or box and then leave the remaining rice pasta in the pasta drawer for years. Now some of the brands newer to the market of gluten free are adding in corn, which gives a nice bite to the pasta. By the time I put in the asparagus, the chicken, the butter, the olive oil, the parmigiano reggiano, any lingering taste of corn was nil.

Marcella Hazan

I took inspiration from a recipe from Marcella Hazan’s Essential’s of Classical Italian Cooking adapting her Sauteed Fillets of Chicken with Lemon and Parsley, Siena Style.

This is my all time, life time favorite cookbook.  I wrote a post detailing what I love about her called a Year of Cooking with Marcella Hazan. She wrote this herself, no ghost writers and no untested recipes.  It’s almost 40 years old. It continues to sell every day, although Marcella is no longer with us. She was very old school, giving America authentic Italian recipes and important cooking notes.  It’s all words and there’s not a single glossy picture. If you consider yourself a damn good home cook, this book needs to be in your kitchen.

After her death, her husband published her notes on ingredients, called Ingredienti, Marcella’s Guide to the Market. 

Marcella Hazan talks about Asparagus

She tells us that good asparagus stands up straight, the overlapping leaf part should be taut packed tight. If you’re not eating the asparagus that day, put it upright in a jar with paper towel crunched in and water that reaches an inch over the paper towel. She suggests adding another moistened towel wrapped around the bunch. Make sure you cut the woody stalk part off. It’s too thin to pare away.

Grilled Lemon Chicken also Works Well with this Recipe

A few years ago I made this recipe out of Guilliano Hazan’s Italian Cookbook for grilled lemon chicken breasts.

I’ve made this a few times now and I we really like it. If you’re going reheat it, add in a little more olive oil, as it may dry out.

Spinach Tiger has a lot of Italian food recipes. You can always replace the pasta with gluten free pasta. When I started this blog, the choices for gluten free pasta were not very good. Today, they are greatly improved and I’ll soon be talking about my favorites, so take a minute to subscribe and never miss a recipe.

More Italian Food from Spinach Tiger

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Healthy Asparagus Chicken Pasta Recipe, with Lemon, Gluten Free Option

Sauteed Chicken Breast with Lemon Parsley, Asparagus and Gluten Free Pasta

Course Entree

Cuisine Chicken

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes minutes

Total Time 30 minutes minutes

Servings 4

Author Angela Roberts

Ingredients

• 1/2 pound angel hair pasta or spaghetti.I used this gluten free.
• 1 pound of fresh asparagus
• 2 boneless chicken breasts
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• salt
• pepper
• juice of one lemon
• 4 tablespoons white wine optional
• 6 tablespoons chopped parsley
• lemon slices for garnish
• Pecorino Romano Cheese or Parmigiano Reggiano for serving.

Instructions

• Cook pasta according to directions. You can use either gluten free or regular pasta.
• While cooking pasta, boil asparagus for about 3 to 5 minutes. Drain set aside. (see notes)
• Heat oil and butter in skillet on medium high. When the oil/butter is hot, add chicken filets and cook for one minute each side. Remove to warming plate, season with salt and pepper. You will be cooking through later.
• Deglaze pan. Important: Have a lid ready to put over pan. Acid hitting the grease can cause an eruption.Add in lemon juice, white wine, lower heat, simmer for a minute while scraping bits of pan.
• Add half of parsley, and remaining butter to pan. Add chicken back in to finish cooking.
• Remove Chicken. Add pasta to the pan and toss.
• Cut asparagus into 3-4 inch slices. Cut chicken crosswise into one inch slices.
• Put pasta in large bowl. Add apsaragus and chicken.
• Sprinkle more parsley.
• Add lemon slices for garnish.
• Serve with a pecorino romano cheese.

Notes

To save pots, I removed the pasta from the pot, leaving the water and cooked the pasta in the pasta water. First, reserve 1 cup pasta water to be used for the sauce.

The post Healthy Asparagus Chicken Pasta Recipe, with Lemon, Gluten Free Option appeared first on Spinach Tiger.

I’m going right to the heart of pizza. The toppings are never as important as the crust itself. I remember when my mother came back from Italy when I was a teenager. She told us the pizza over there is different. It’s thin. At first I was appalled. I liked that thicker pizza that I grew up on. Fast forward many decades and trips to Italy, and now I only eat the thin crust pizza.

In order for it to be authentic (in my eyes) it has to be chewy and crispy. I tell you all about this in my pizza crust making video.

I got the original recipe from Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classical Italian Cooking. It’s a funny video because while she says you can throw your dough into a mixer, she prefers to throw it on the counter.

I’ve tried it both ways and it’s easier to put in in a Kitchen Aid Mixer, but don’t feel like you have to have a mixer to make pizza. It’s really a matter of bringing the dough together. The hard part is waiting the three hours for it to proof.

There is something very rewarding about getting your hands into dough, kneading, and banging it on the counter. A few days ago I experimented and tried bread flour, but I’m going to say use all purpose flour. You can use the yeast for bread machines, because that makes no difference.

I prefer to use jarred yeast instead of the packages, but make sure you put it in the refrigerator after you open it, and always check the date.

Here is a Video Showing You How I Made the Dough

Come back to get the recipes here for the Pear Prosciutto Goat Cheese Pizza and the Brussels Sprouts, Bacon Pizza.

I can guarantee these combinations are a must for your next pizza party.

Spinach Tiger Pizza Recipes 

Italian Recipes from Spinach Tiger

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Authentic Italian Easy Pizza Crust Video

Authentic, crispy, chewy Italian easy pizza crust, adapted from Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking

Course Pizza

Cuisine Italian

Prep Time 3 hours hours 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time 8 minutes minutes

Total Time 3 hours hours 28 minutes minutes

Servings 4

Author Angela Roberts

Ingredients

• 1 cup (236 grams) warm water divided
• 2 1/2 teaspoons (8 grams) yeast
• 1 tablespoon (14 grams) olive oil
• 1 teaspoon (6 grams) salt
• 3 1/4 cup (390 grams) all purpose flour divided

Instructions

• Add yeast to 1/4 cup lukewarm water.
• Allow to sit for 10 minutes.
• Add salt to one cup flour
• Divide flour and water into 1 cups flour, 1/4 cups water.
• Begin by adding in one cup flour to yeast mixture with 1/4 cup of the warm water.
• Add in olive oil.
• Mix well with hands or a large wooden spoon.
• Add next cup of flour, and 1/4 cup water.
• Mix.
• Add third cup of flour. Mix.
• Hold back on final water. Use if needed to create shaggy dough.
• Hold back on final 1/4 cup flour. Use only if needed.
• Begin to knead dough. At this point, you can mix in a kitchen aid type mixer with kneading attachment for about five minutes or until a dough is formed.
• Or, you can knead by hand, and (watch video) throw on counter several times.
• Once you have dough formed, glisten with olive oil, wrap in plastic, place in large bowl.
• Cover with towel and place in warm spot for 3 hours. Dough will double in size.
• Makes 4 individual pizzas.
• Roll out or hand stretch. Put toppings on of your choice. Bake in hot oven of 450 degrees for 6-8 minutes on bottom rack of oven, or until the bottom is very well done.

The post Italian Pizza Crust with Video appeared first on Spinach Tiger.

If you served me meat sauce as a child, my reaction would be a bit dramatic. I would probably cry real tears because meat sauce had bad memories for me and was known as babysitter sauce. The only meat sauce ever served to me was by three babysitters on three separate unhappy occasions. I admit to you that I was known to cry when the food got messed up and the recipes altered.

But no one outside of babysitters ever served a meat sauce. It wasn’t done, because bolognese is far from baby sitter meat sauce.

All grown-up I cook what I love and several years ago I led a cooking group on-line called Cooking Italy. We cooked from this marvelous cookbook, the Essentials of Classical Italian Cooking.   World Cookbook legend, Marcella Hazan,  wrote a cookbook that remains beloved to this day. I wrote about her here and I was able to connect with her before she passed away.



On that day six years ago, we virtually visited Bologna, capital of the northern region of Italy, Emilia-Romanga. I only started making bolognese then,  and I became obsessed and curious about the variety of recipes I have found. Since that time, I had had the pleasure of eating bolognese in Italy, and I still come back to Marcella Hazan’s bolognese sauce as the standard.

You have all seen, and probably eaten, a typical meat sauce with spaghetti. Chunks of ground beef, tomato, onion, and who knows what thrown together with some tomatoes for maybe an hour. You can even buy it in a jar.

And, if I’m sounding like an Italian foodie snob, please understand my very peculiar family who lived by food rules. Every Italian family has them, in America and especially in Italy. It’s the only “honor” my family exercised with full commitment. Any “sin” could be confessed and forgiven…except food sins, which and still are unforgivable.

One of our strictest rules was that no one in the family would make a meat sauce or eat a sauce from a jar anywhere, not even to be polite. It would be unthinkable, because it was viewed as the sign of not being Italian.

It would be like eating wonder bread in a french bakery. If a meat sauce would have been served at a large family gathering, it would look something like this. My Aunt Rita would start whispering, “what is this, who made this.” My mother would lean in and smell it, and ask where it came from. My grandmother would just make a terrible gesture and say, “americano.” She was born in America, but she would do that.

Here today with a new set of eyes and a better culinary understanding of Italian food, I am presenting to you the quintessential Italian meat sauce of the world, authentic Bolognese, and  one I am very proud to serve.  It will bring you closer to Italian cuisine, where I still believe the other kind of meat sauce brings you further away.

I had to reset my thinking. I used to think of meat sauce as a tomato sauce with big chunks of meat and onion. While that might be true here in America, the Bolognese meat sauce is completely different.

Bolognese Sauce is a meat sauce with tomato, not a tomato sauce with meat.

Tomato sauce and meat sauce are distinctly different. When I want a tomato sauce, I want a fresh tasting, bright burst of flavor that is cooked for a very short time. The ragú (as the Bolognese call it) is a sultry, savory sauce sweetened by the soffritto of onions, celery and carrots and cooked forever, a minimum of three hours once the last ingredient has been added.

Aside from using bolognese for a typical wide handmade pasta such as tagliatelle or papparadelle, you can top polenta, crepes or even rice with this delicious ragû. Since this is time consuming, but not difficult, make a double or even triple batch and freeze it. You will regret it if you don’t.

It is perfectly served with tagliatelle pasta, or a wider pappardelle. See This Pasta Post for Details and the tool that will give you the perfect width noodle of your choice, called the pasta bike.

The Process for Marcella Hazan’s Bolognese Sauce

The soffritto is prepared mostly in butter with a little vegetable oil and this is already a departure from southern Italian cooking that does not use butter. Ground chuck is then added into this vegetable mix, followed by milk until it evaporates, followed by white wine until it evaporates.

Soffritto means sub-cooked or under fried, because of the small amount of oil used often with butter to cook vegetables as the base of the dish. Onions, carrots and celery, also known as the “trinity” is the medley used in northern Italian cooking.

The idea is to slowly soften the onion without browning, and then add in the carrots and celery and allow them to absorb the onion flavor which will be mild and sweet, not harsh. Marcella uses a larger portion of celery and carrots than I’ve seen in many other recipes and I agree with her.  I now find myself using a soffritto for so many dishes.

Surprisingly, Marcella leaves out pancetta, frequently seen in other recipes, but the large addition of vegetables and a lower ratio of tomatoes makes her bolognese work. Marcella adds the milk to the meat before the wine, and uses white wine, not red wine that I’ve seen in many other recipes. In my pork centric bolognese, I add the pancetta back in and use that recipe for Italian sloppy Joe’s.

The hardest part of the cooking process for authentic bolognese is waiting patiently between steps, as the vegetables soften, the meat cooks, and the milk and wine completely evaporate. This is NOT a throw it all into a crock pot and go to work dish. Having said that, you could prepare the sauce and once the last ingredient has been added, move it to a crock pot and cook on low for the day.

The Pasta
As far as pasta goes, you can enjoy this with a store bought pappardelle, or you can choose to make this pasta with tips on pasta machines.

It came as a shocking surprise that the method I came up with on my own, is the same as Marcella’s outside of her longer kneading period and my insistence on resting the dough. So I’m going to give you my pasta recipe and you can certainly use hers, as I do recommend this book to get every detail.

Now that I understand the genius of Bolognese sauce, I will no longer cry at the table. How about you? Was there a food in childhood that would just set you off?

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Veal & Pork Bolognese

A Year of Cooking Marcella Hazan Recipes

More Pastas Dishes

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Cooking Italy: Bolognese Sauce with Fresh Pasta

A classic Bolognese sauce from Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking

Course Entree

Cuisine Italian

Prep Time 30 minutes minutes

Cook Time 4 hours hours

Total Time 4 hours hours 30 minutes minutes

Servings 4

Author Angela Roberts

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 6 tablespoons butter plus 2 T for tossing pasta
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1 1/3 cup chopped celery
• 1 1/2 cup chopped carrot
• 1 1/2 pounds ground beef chuck mixed with salt and pepper before cooking
• meat should not be too lean, ask for neck portion of chuck
• salt
• black pepper freshly ground
• 2 cups whole milk
• whole nutmeg 1/4 t
• 2 cup dry white wine
• 3 cups canned imported Italian plum tomatoes with juice chopped
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 pounds pasta
• freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese at the table

Instructions

• On medium heat, add oil, butter, onion, until translucent.
• Add celery, carrots, cook 2 minutes, stirring, not browning. Add meat, break up with fork, and when no pink color is showing, add milk.
• Turn down heat to simmer, stirring frequently until milk has evaporated. Add nutmeg. Add wine, stirring thoroughly. Once wine has completely evaporated, add tomatoes, and simmer on very very low stirring every now and again. If sauce dries out, add 1/2 cup water a time. Cook for a minimum of 3 hours. I think 4-6 hours is better.
• Taste and season with salt, pepper.

Notes

This recipe is a double batch, which I recommend, as you will eat it all. You can freeze, or make other dishes with it, such as bolognese sliders.

The post Authentic Marcella Hazan Bolognese Sauce with Fresh Pasta appeared first on Spinach Tiger.

The legendary Marcella Hazan passed away one year ago on September 29th. A few years ago, I not only became enamored with her teaching and her famous cookbook, the Essentials of Classical Italian Cooking, I became captivated by her story and her approach to Italian cooking, and wrote about it here, featuring the many dishes I have made from her teaching.

This week I sat in Milan and had the opportunity to eat green lasagna, which answered the question for me as to how well I captured the recipe. Let me quickly answer your question first.

What is green lasagna? Funny enough, it was a “green lasagna” google search in 2008 that led me a blog, which led me to founding Spinach Tiger. However, I had a different green lasagna in mind, and it would be a few years until I would discover what green lasagna is to a true Italian.

Green lasagna is made with green (spinach) noodles, and layered with bolognese and bechemel. It’s not a ricotta and spinach filling, as I once thought. The Italians reserve that mainly for ravioli and that can be found all over Northern Italy. The green lasagna was not so easy to come by, and sometime next week, I’ll show you what it looked like and how very similar it was to this dish.

This is not the heavy lasagna we are all most familiar with. However, it is a very rich dish.

Green Lasagna is a bit of process to make, but no more complicated than a good mac and cheese. The bolognese takes time to prepare. While bolognese is fairly easy to put together, it requires several hours to simmer.

Bolognese is not a spaghetti sauce, in that it’s not a tomato sauce with meat, but it’s rather a meat sauce with some tomato, made gently soothing by the addition of white wine and milk. I encourage you to make a triple batch of bolognese because it freezes well and is quite suitable for a wide pasta such as a papparadelle, crepes, risotto, or even my American twist of the sloppy Joe, using a different Marcella bolognese recipe, with pancetta, sausage, beef and pork,  which is probably my favorite. The first bolognese I tried is also very good but only uses one meat.

You can make two pans of green lasagna and freeze one, which is another recommendation.

The beauty of this dish is its balance and delicate flavor. Green lasagna is very rich and not meant to be eaten in a large portion, and remember there is always tomorrow.

First, choose which bechemel sauce you want to use. For this dish, I would probably go with the all beef bolognese. (Link inside recipe).

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Baked Green Lasagna with Meat Sauce, Bolognese Style

Authentic Green Lasagna adapted from Essentials of Classical Italian Cooking from Marcella Hazan.

Course Entree

Cuisine Italian

Prep Time 1 hour hour

Cook Time 4 hours hours

Total Time 5 hours hours

Servings 8

Author Angela Roberts

Ingredients

• !Bolognese Recipe found here

Spinach Pasta Recipe Ingredients

• 6 ounces fresh spinach rinsed, dried thoroughly
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 2 large eggs
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Bêchemel Sauce Ingredients

• 3 cups milk
• 6 tablespoons butter
• 4 1/2 tablespoons flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• dash of nutmeg

Instructions

Spinach Pasta Instructions

• Mix spinach and flour together before adding egg. You can do by hand or in mixer with dough hook.
• Knead for about 5 minutes (if by hand).
• Wrap in plastic. Rest dough 30 minutes. During this time you can make Bêchemel sauce. Rolls out into wide 10 inch strips as thin as you can without tearing. You are going to make six layers of this pasta, but it will be as light as a feather.
• Cook pasta in large pot of salted water, a few at a time. Blanch for a minute or less, and immediately put into bowl of ice water. Remember to keep changing water with every few pasta strips to keep it ice cold. Then squeeze water out of pasta and dry on clean towels. This is important so pasta will not get mushy. It feels funny to wring out pasta, but it works.

Bechemel Sauce Instructions

• Heat milk to a strong simmer. Heat flour and butter together without browning flour. Remove from heat.
• Add hot milk to flour-butter mixture one tablespoon at a time. Put back on the heat and cook stirring constantly until thick.

Assembly

• Reserve enough bechemel sauce for the top. Mix remaining bechemel with bolognese sauce f
• or the inside layers and top it with bêchemel. Top with Parmesan.
• Bake until bubbly at 400 degrees in uppermost rack of oven. Marcella suggests no longer than 15 minutes. If refrigerated, cook longer.
• Left over spinach lasagna noodles (or make extra) are delicious with just the sauce.

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The post Baked Green Lasagna with Meat Sauce, Bolognese Style appeared first on Spinach Tiger.

Today, I am in Milan. As I was eating a breaded veal cutlet last night, I thought of  Marcella Hazan’s Parmesan Crusted Lamb Chops. Normally, I wouldn’t bread lamb chops and especially not think of a parmesan crust, but these are amazing.

These just might be the best lamb chops you have ever eaten. You won’t believe how juicy and flavorful they are. As you bite upon the parmesan crust, you will want more.

I like meat that requires no sauces, etc. And, these are just pick up and eat as they are, and if you are like me, you’ll get every little morsel off of the bone. Serve a salad with a lemony dressing or a bounty of roasted asparagus and you have the perfect meal.

You can prepare the chops ahead and refrigerate. Take out 30 minutes before frying to bring to room temperature and enjoy a “dinner party” meal in the middle of a week.

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Parmesan Crusted Lamb Chops

Adapted from Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classical Italian Cooking, crispy, parmesan lamb chops.

Course Entree

Cuisine Italian

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 8 minutes minutes

Total Time 18 minutes minutes

Servings 3

Author Angela Roberts

Ingredients

• 6 lamb chops flattened (I cut each chop from a rack of lamb)
• 1 beaten egg
• 1/4 cup grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese
• 1/2 cup non-flavored bread crumbs
• salt
• pepper
• vegetable oil for frying

Instructions

• Turn chops into the cheese, pressing cheese into the meat.
• Dip into beaten egg.
• Coat with breadcrumbs.
• Heat oil very hot and place chops in frying pan, until each side has formed a nice, golden crust.
• Seasen with salt and pepper.

The post Parmesan Crusted Lamb Chops appeared first on Spinach Tiger.

Fast food can be good for you. If you are like millions of Americans who eat fast food a few times a week because of work and crazy schedules, please take note: THIS spicy shrimp recipe IS FAST FOOD.

You don’t always have to eat very low carb or keto to eat healthy and sustain your weight.

Good food for dinner that doesn’t mean cottage cheese, dry fish, or a meal substitute protein shake. It means food that anyone would choose to eat no matter how thin or healthy they already are. See the list below for some good food ideas.

The sauce for spicy shrimp nearly screams for a date with a big hunk of crusty bread. And, if you are eating a french baguette, you could still eat two pieces, a bowl of shrimp and come in at about 500 calories.  Of course, if you skip the bread, you are barely at 200 calories. I am getting all calorie counting on you because I want to make a point about healthy low-calorie meals. No one can live on carrot sticks and be happy.

For all the desserts that get baked, and pasta that gets rolled, there are many in between nights where a good bowl of soup or a hearty dish such as spicy shrimp is dinner.

But, I love food, so it still has to be a good meal. And, it can be. People trying to fight the obesity statistics do not have to suffer. I think this must be the twinkie-type companies that convince people that if they are not shoveling fake baked goods and mcburgers down their throats, somehow life is less satisfying.

Less satisfying are all the problems of obesity, and they are different for everyone. But, Spinach Tiger knows and understands the love for food, and is here to tell you, it’s okay to love food, as long as it’s the food that can love you back.

Ten Tips for Eating Delicious Italian Food with No Weight Gai

• Eat like an Italian: Pasta is but an appetizer, followed by a small serving of protein and a green salad or green vegetable. Try Healthy Italian Baked Chicken
• Split up your meals. Eat your pasta for lunch, protein and greens for dinner. Try Bucatini with Black Pepper and Cheese for a rich, yet light spaghetti dish.
• Go easy with cream sauces. Tomato-based sauces can be made in twenty minutes and have tons of nutrition and are much lower in calories. Try this Pasta All’ Amatriciana
• Do prepare sauces with olive oil and garlic. The fat is satisfying and you will eat less; the olive oil has health benefits, as does the garlic. Try Broccoli Rabe and Pasta.
• Shrimp and  scallops are low in calories, high in flavor, and you can make a FAST, delicious dinner for LESS than your drive through cost. Yes, you can.**
• Italian soups are hearty, satisfying, healthy and even with a hunk of bread, will not break the calorie bank. See a list of Spinach Tiger soups below. Try this hearty, low carb Italian beef stew or this quick and easy Minestrone.
• If you are eating pasta, don’t add a second carb. Save bread for another meal.
• Try small amounts of alternate starch choices to up the heartiness of a dish, as this ossobuco with grits. There is really only a smattering of starch in this dish.
• Save wine for weekends; too often wine lowers resistance and oops, you eat too much.
• Roast vegetables with olive oil, sea salt and enjoy Italian inspired lighter fare, possibly with a piece of bread. A half cup of pasta with 2 cups of veggies and you have a great mid-week supper. Try these garlic roasted Brussels Sprouts.

More Shrimp Dishes from Spinach Tiger

• Spicy Tuscan Shrimp
• Shrimp Avocado Salad
• Shrimp with Spaghetti Squash
• Shrimp Creole
• Shrimp Scampi
• Shrimp with Olives and Zoodles

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Spicy Shrimp with Red Chili Pepper

Adapted from Marcella Hazan’s Essential’s of Italian Cooking

Course Entree

Cuisine Italian

Servings 4

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 medium shallot finely diced
• 2 garlic cloves finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes or chopped hot red chili pepper
• 3 tablespoons chopped parsley
• 1 large can Italian plum tomatoes chopped w juice (I used San Marzano from Fresh Market)
• Sea salt
• 1 pound wild shrimp shelled, cleaned, deveined
• Grilled or oven browned slices of bread

Instructions

• Saute shallot and garlic in olive oil. Add pepper flakes and parsley.add tomatoes. Cook at a simmer for twenty minutes to reduce the juice.
• Rinse shrimp several times in cold water. Pat dry and add to sauce when it’s ready. Cook just until shrimp are cooked (about 3 minutes).
• Grill thick slices of bread in cast iron pan on top of stove that has a little swipe of olive oil or bake in oven to brown.
• Serve immediately.

The post Spicy Shrimp and Ten Tips for Eating Healthy Italian appeared first on Spinach Tiger.

Marcella Hazan, an  International Italian cooking legend,  passed away at the age of 89 on September 29th. Not only much loved by the world, as shown on social media, she truly holds a special place in the hearts of food bloggers, especially mine.

Marcella Hazan has become so important to my culinary viewpoint that my husband saw the news on facebook and immediately came to me, almost as if he was sharing the news that one of our own family had died. He knows how I feel about her, how much I have admired her and revered her as one of the greatest advocates for Italian home cooking. She was a life changer for me and served to enrich my life, especially in the year I devoted to blogging recipes from her cookbook, Essentials of Classical Italian Cooking.

A few years ago when I first started blogging, I created an online cooking group called Cooking Italy to learn more about authentic Italian cooking.

We decided as a group that we would choose one book to cook from and we chose Marcella Hazan’s  I was standing in a second hand book store searching for ideas because I didn’t want the modern glossy Italian celebrity chef of the day. I wanted something that would truly teach the art of Italian food. I spotted a brand new hardback copy for only $17, and knew Marcella Hazan was the one who would be our teacher.

I also knew the book, because there was a time that I put that same book in the yard sale, having inherited from a foodie relative.  I never once even looked through it, except to know it had no pictures and looked too complicated. I laugh at my former food ignorance, but I am grateful that I was redeemed and that I set about to change the minds of other home cooks. For example, did you know a little butter in pesto creates a creamy texture and a smoother flavor?

Spaghetti with Pesto, Green Beans, Potatoes is a Genovese dish. My grandfather comes from Genoa, so it’s in my genes to love this traditional spaghetti, green beans and potatoes dish slathered in pesto sauce. The poached lemon shrimp in olive oil in the picture is one of the best ways to make a shrimp appetizer, something we now serve every Christmas Eve.

I found a handful of other women who agreed that we should cook our way through the book and they left the menu planning up to me. We were assigned a dish a week and that was no easy task.  We had a google group (remember those) where we would discuss olive oil, parmigianno reggiano and the right flour for making pasta.  We fast became friends through these discussions.

My personal Favorite: Pasta all’Amatriciana. Don’t let the simplicity of this dish fool you.  The  pancetta and heat from cracked red chili pepper give the sauce a wonderful flavor and it tastes just like the dish I had in Rome.

One of the group members, Maria La Malfa,  wrote “It was such a shock to hear she passed.  I have been cooking with her for so long, it felt like losing a favorite aunt.”

I know that Maria had been making her bolognese sauce for decades and she was such a fun person to have in the group. We had many many conversations about the two ways Marcella has written about making bolognese and how to get the meat to make her famous meat broth. This bolognese with fresh pasta is my husband’s all time favorite Marcella recipes. 

I became very immersed with Marcella. I read her Memoirs Amarcord: Marcella Remembers. I was inspired and amazed that she had a crippled hand from childhood accident, yet it never stopped her from cooking, teaching and presenting food on television.

I interviewed her son, Guiliano and reviewed his book, Hazan Family Favorites,  here.  I became facebook friends with Lael, her daughter in law. I conversed with Marcella on facebook as early as a week before her death. Her husband, Victor, has taken over her account and is now talking  with her fans, which, while heart breaking is heart warming at the same time, as he continues her legend.

Cooking Italy with Marcella Hazan is unique in that she forced me to ask some questions.

• Why is it that when you mention her name in some circles you get this immediate reverence afforded only to Julia Child, but simultaneously in another circle no one know who you are talking about?
• Why did a cookbook with no pictures become so popular for so many decades that it still causes a stir and foodies are running to Amazon to order it? The Village Voice named the book as one of the top ten cookbooks of all time!
• How did a person with a Ph.D in natural sciences and biology became known world wide for cooking?

Marcella Hazan has been referred to as the high priestess of Italian cooking, is a recipient of a James Beard Life time Achievement Award, and has had a friendly food fight  with Mario Batali regarding the proper cooking of risotto. I agree with her; the saucepan is better than the saute pan.

I can only speak from my own experience, but as an Italian who has tried to distance myself from some of the heavy, American Italian food, I embraced Marcella recipes, and  I respect that she stayed true to her culinary view and hasn’t been afraid to speak her food mind.

She is seriously devoted to the ingredients she remembers growing up. If Marcella does nothing, she will take you to the cheese counter and change your life. She will guide you to the right pasta for the right sauce and she is so formidable in her opinions, that you can almost feel her presence in your kitchen and even her critic, which will make you a better home cook.

She will teach you the nuances of Italian flavors and what the word balance means. A bite of Italian food should be like enjoying a harmonious orchestra, not a bull horn. She will explain to you that white wine is better in a bolognese sauce than a red wine which can muddy up the flavor profile,  and show you amazingly interesting a piece of pork becomes when cooked in milk. She will surprise you with butter that not only goes into her world famous tomato butter sauce, but also into her pesto. Just a few weeks ago I made the pesto with the added butter and I can tell you that people went crazy for it, realizing it was nothing even remotely similar to any jarred pesto.

I have loved each and every dish I have cooked from Marcella’s book, but some stand out more than others.

Roast Beef Cooked in Red Wine. This is great for a cold winter meal or a dinner party, served with parmesan mashed potatoes.

The Legendary Butter Tomato Sauce with Homemade Gnocchi. This is the sauce everyone talks about, and for good reason.

Parmesan Crusted Lamb Chops. This seemed an odd combination to me, but I was blown away from the perfection of this dish. The chops come alive under the crunch of the parmesan cheese.

Ciambella I rememeber the morning I made this cake. It’s so Italian, in that it’s lovely, dense and not too sweet. I took liberty of making it a full berry dessert.

Bolognese sauce, is very diverse. I’ve used it for many dishes, including a sloppy Joe version and the dish Marcella writes about with love, the Baked Green Lasagna with Bolognese  as it was the yearly birthday request of her husband, Victor.

Crespelles with Proscuitto, Tomato and Mozzarella is simply outstanding. I remember making this after working all day on a volunteer project that started at 4:00 a.m. I got back at noon,  got everything ready and we treated ourselves to Italian crepes. Don’t you love how food will bring up memories?

Best Cocktail: Sgroppino, A Venetian Cocktail with Lemon, Strawberries, Proscecco  The best part of this recipe is the lemon ice cream that becomes part of the drink, and it’s all so pretty.

The recipe we embraced as our standard, based on our trip to Italy, is the pizza dough. It’s the best dough for high heat, thin, Neopolitan style pizza. We have made this dough several times, and we will never change the recipe. It performs just the way the pizza dough needs to. It’s light. It’s chewy. It’s crispy.

In my year of Cooking Italy with Marcella Hazan,, we made many more dishes, a few that I never captured well with the camera. The  pork cooked in milk  is something so interesting. The milk cooks down to deep brown, nutty sauce. The pasta with scallop sauce, bread crumbs and chili pepper is one of the easier dishes that exemplifies the beauty of simplicity when using good ingredients, and the sausage and cream with orcchiette  is comforting and delicious, yet a challenge because it calls for a sweet sausage that has no fennel.

I encourage you to spend a week, a month, maybe even a year cooking Marcella’s recipes from this legendary cookbook, the Essentials of Classical Italian Cooking. If you must have a book with pictures any of the more contemporary books from her son, Guiliano will do, and Marcella would smile approvingly.

I end this post in gratitude to  Marcella for bringing a distinct layer of Italian food culture to America. I am also in gratitude to the women who cooked with me and befriended me on the journey.  I remain in gratitude to my cousin, Sam, also no longer with us, who first introduced me to Marcella’s cookbook and Victor’s wine book.  He pointed me in a direction I needed to explore if I was ever going to be a good Italian home cook, and I am grateful for my year of cooking Italy with Marcella Hazan through the book, The Essentials of Classical Italian Cooking.


The post A Year of Cooking Italy with Marcella Hazan appeared first on Spinach Tiger.