Those with even a basic understanding of food history probably know that the hamburger as we know it today is an American adaptation of the “Hamburger-style steak” which originated in the now-German city of Hamburg, and was brought to this country by immigrants from Schleswig-Holstein. Demonstrating typical cunning and salemanship, all the Americans did was make this dish portable, and, having done so, they set out to make the world obese and diabetic by drowning these wildly popular sandwiches in hydrogenated fat and salt, and selling them for $1 each.

A marginally less successful, but somewhat healthier, tactic was adopted by Italian immigrants in Argentina, who, when they found that chicken was viewed with only slightly less disdain than fish in their new country, modified their recipe for pollo alla Milanese to include the ubiquitous Argentine beef. Like shooting fish in a barrel, once launched these new breaded and fried beef cutlets quickly became a hugely popular alternative to a steak across Argentina – a country that, since it, statistically, eats more beef per head than anywhere else on Earth, was likely crying out for alternative ways to serve their national dish.

Known as milanesas, they can be found in one form or another on menus and in grocery stores throughout Buenos Aires: most are beef, though chicken and veal (de ternera) are also typical, and they come in a variety of arrangements, the most common of which seems to be alla Napolitana.  This latter dish consists of a breaded cutlet topped with prosciutto (or cooked ham), melted cheese [cuartirola (sic) [Quartirola Lombarda] or Port Salut] and a splash of chunky, crimson tomato sauce, and is often served with fries (papas fritas). Not many people know this, but it is not, in fact, named for Neapolitan-style pizza, or the way the dish is served in Naples, rather it is so-called because it was first served in Jose Napoli’s, now-defunct, Buenos Aires Pizzeria Napoli establishment in the 1930s.

Indeed, this dish, remarkably similar to the French poulet cordon bleu, can be found throughout much of South America, and, in Chile, an almost identical dish is served as Milanesa Kaiser, or simply Escalopa, reflecting, perhaps, more the original central European roots of the dish in the Austrian Wiener Schnitzel, than its later variant the Lombardian cotoletta alla Milanese. In fact, such is the popularity of this technique of breading pounded meat and then shallow frying it, that you can find similar dishes throughout much of the western hemisphere with the wonderfully decadent Southern dish of chicken fried steak being perhaps the best known in this country.

And, resembling the frankly magnificent “chicken parm” sandwiches found in almost every pizza joint in the north-east US, the milanesa also sometimes appears in sandwiches in Argentina. As we had recently received some delicious samples from Napa, Ca., company GL Mezzetta, from their new (to the north-east US) Napa Valley Bistro line, including a jar of tomato sauce and one of peperoncini (pickled hot peppers), with the challenge of using them to create a contest-winning sandwich, we decided to use them to build ourselves a delicious, gut-busting torta de milanesa alla Napolitana.

An hour later, full and sporting messy red-sauce mustaches, we began to wonder how come milanesas do not seem to have had quite the same bloating effect on the Argentine population as the hamburger has in America…

Mezzetta Napa Valley Bistro Products
Tomato Basil Pasta Sauce
Altogether this is an excellent jarred sauce and beats the pants off its competition. It’s pleasantly chunky; the wine provides a nice rounded flavor and doesn’t overpower the tomatoes with too much acid; and the small pool of olive oil that had settled on the top of the sauce was a good sign, showing both that it included olive oil and that it wasn’t fully emulsified with stabilizers or other preservatives. Other bonuses for a jarred sauce include the clear listing of “fresh” ingredients on the label, rather than their dried or powdered counterparts commonly found in regular, generic bottled pasta sauce. Our only complaint, and this is a matter of personal taste, is that it was slightly too heavy on the oregano. If you’re a fan of oregano in your pasta sauces though, this is probably the finest jarred sauce you can find.

Make That Sandwich
If you’d like to enter your sandwich to the GL Mezzetta Make That Sandwich Contest, click here and read the guidelines and other small print, and submit your entry. The grand prize is $25,000!! Good luck, happy sandwich-making and buen provecho!

Alessandra Spisni’s Ragu w/ Red Wine (w/ Homemade Garganelli)

We spent two separate short trips to Bologna in the Emilia Romagna region of Northern Italy – the first in late 2006 and the second last summer (2007). Within the first few minutes of arriving in the city, I instantly fell in love. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love Rome, but I fell in deep, passionate love with Bologna. Besides being one of the most influential culinary cities in Italy (and the world), it is also beautiful, rich in culture and very livable – plus, they know how awesome they are without having ego. To make us fall in love even harder, my husband’s favorite author, Umberto Eco, is a professor of semiotics at University of Bologna. And even though we recently received a $322 ticket from the City of Bologna for supposedly driving in a ‘locals only’ zone last July (oh, we’re fighting this one HARD), I still have much love for the place.

There are probably two things that come to mind when one thinks about Bologna, whether or not you have visited it – Pasta Bolognese (or Ragu alla Bolognese) and bologna (sing it with me if you know it, my bologna has a first name it’s O-S-C-A-R), sometimes written “baloney” in American-speak (which gives me a shiver up and down my spine). We could write a whole post (which, come to think about it would be a good idea… I’ll add it to the list) on REAL, AUTHENTIC bologna, called mortadella, not the crap that’s sold with the O-S-C-A-R/ M-E-Y-E-R label on it. But we’ll save that lesson for another day. This post is going to be an ode to the hearty, fabulous and traditional sauce – the Ragu alla Bolognese.

Ragu w/ Chicken Livers and Milk (with Homemade Tagliatelle)

Many people may mistake a Ragu alla Bolognese sauce for a ‘meat sauce’ which is right to a certain extent. But most Bolognese people would die if they heard it described as just a meat sauce because it is so much more to them. The problem is, like many other authentic Italian dishes, Pasta con Ragu alla Bolognese has been reinvented into an over simplified meal (read: finding faster, cheaper and grosser ways to cook it) by other countries (ie: “Spag Bol” in England or “Ragu – It’s IN There!” jarred American red sauces) and has also become a sort of tourist-trap meal. I remember even while in Spain seeing Spaghetti Bolognese on a tourist menu – in SPAIN. You know what I’m talking about – those gross tourist restaurants that have the large sign in the front begging you to come eat there with pictures of each menu item they serve. People, if you don’t know how to translate Spaghetti Bolognese into English and you need a picture to show you what it is, PLEASE, do yourself a favor, keep walking! Not to mention that the picture usually resembles a bit of overcooked noodles with a can of red dog food plopped on top. Narsty.

What is important for you, dear-readers-on-the-search-for-the-authentic-and-traditional, to know and understand is if you are ever in Bologna/Northern Italy and they try to serve you Spaghetti alla Bolognese do not, I repeat, do not order it and immediately leave that restaurant. The Bolognese would never pair their traditional ragu with spaghetti since it is not a local type of pasta – it is local to the south, specifically Napoli. Tagliatelle would be a very traditional pairing, even tortellini, two types of egg pasta created in Bologna. Although I jest, you can choose to eat Bolognese with Spaghetti in Bologna if you so choose, I’m just trying to help you ‘spot the tourist trap’. It’s very important when traveling (wink, wink).

Today we’re going to talk about making the real, the traditional and the authentic Ragu alla Bolognese sauce. It’s a regional specialty that has many different ways to make it depending on family recipes and methods. All the recipes include soffritto (carrots, onion and celery), meat and wine. Some include a few other ingredients including some sort of cured meat like pancetta and others add sausage. Other recipes are a bit bolder and more complicated, adding milk or cream (a source of controversy with the Bolognese), some add nutmeg and white wine, while others use a mixture of meats. But, the one thing all Ragu recipes have in common is that they are all to be made with love and patience because it should always simmer away for hours for the flavors to build. This ain’t no 30-minute meal.

Back when the sauce was created, old cuts of beef were used which were very tough – long simmering was necessary and was known to create flavor. Oh, and you know what else is often missing from a traditional Bolognese sauce? TOMATO. Yup, that’s right folks, I know you don’t want to believe it but it’s true. At best, most authentic Ragu alla Bolognese recipes will only have a bit of tomato paste or some whole, peeled tomatoes. But, then again, that may depend on which Bolognese ‘mama’ you talk to. As Anna Nonni, owner of a restaurant outside of Bologna, says in the latest issue of Saveur, “[Ask] ten women, you’ll get ten different recipes, all of them traditional.” I like the idea that each recipe has been passed down through the years by family members. In fact, this is still a hotly debated issue in the area – will the real Ragu please stand up, please stand up?

On a lazy Saturday, Jonny and I were inspired by the latest issue of the wonderful Saveur (#110) magazine to create two different types of Ragu alla Bolognese. That issue of Saveur contained six different recipes for ragu. We had the time to spare and we were curious to do side-by-side comparisons of two very different, but traditional recipes. I chose the most simple recipe (Alessandra Spisni’s Ragu alla Bolognese) and a more complicated and richer recipe containing chicken livers and milk (Ragu Enriched with Chicken Livers). If we had time and stovetop space to cook all six, we would’ve! Bottom line, both sauces were absolutely, ridiculously delicious and I would recommend anyone who wants to impress family and friends to choose to make either. There was something so unbelievably satisfying about the Spisni’s Ragu. It was so simple to make, I felt like I barely cooked. I just let the gas stove do the work. To me, it was the quintessential Italian meal – simple and hearty with flavors coming together with time to blend perfectly. It tasted like the Bolognese I ate in Bologna. Spisni’s Ragu is almost exactly the same as the Ragu recipe that is in the “La Cucina Bolognese della Tradizione” (Traditional Bolognese Cooking) cookbook I bought at the famous Tamburini food store (Via Caprarie 1, Bologna, TEL: 051234726), so I feel like I tested three Ragu recipes!

On the other hand, the Ragu Enriched with Chicken Livers recipe blew my socks off, probably because it had those other elements of flavor that just made it stand apart from the Spisni’s Ragu. For instance, this recipe used milk, cloves, nutmeg and white wine. There were also more steps involved than Spisni’s (ie: making a tomato-paste broth and simmering milk with cloves) and the use of three types of meat, pork, beef and chicken livers, was slightly flavor-changing. I’ve always been a big fan of cloves and nutmeg in cooking and these spices, combined with the use of milk, created a beautiful ragu.

Because of the hotly debated topic of ‘what is authentic ragu’ in Bologna, in 1982, the Bologna chapter of the Accademia Italiana della Cucina researched and investigated what should be the official recipe of Ragu. This academic society whose aim is to preserve Italian food and techniques created the “Classic Ragu alla Bolognese”. We didn’t choose to test this one because it was more similar to the Ragu with Chicken Livers recipe and we wanted to distinct and different flavors to compare. But check out the recipe here.

I am copying these recipes virtually word for word from Saveur magazine because I followed this recipe word for word (except I added just a touch more tomato paste in both). I really hope you will trade in your store-bought meat sauce for one of these recipes. At least, I hope you give a big F-You to people like Sandra Lee and Rachel Ray by screwing the ‘semi-homemade’ or ’30-minute meal’ rule and taking the time to try these long-simmering sauces just once. I promise, you won’t be disappointed. Better yet, make a huge batch, then ‘Rachel Ray’ your little heart out by grabbing some leftovers from the freezer for a delicious and authentic 30-minute meal! If you can’t go to Bologna, bring Bologna to you!

ALESSANDRA SPISNI’S RAGU ALLA BOLOGNESE (makes alot – about 8 cups)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup lard (butter works)
• 3 small yellow onions, finely chopped
• 2 medium carrots, finely chopped
• 2 ribs of celery, finely chopped
• 2 lbs. ground beef chuck
• 1/2 cup dry red wine
• 2 3/4 cups canned tomato puree
• water
• Salt and fresh ground pepper

What to do:

1. Heat lard in heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat. Add onions, carrots and celery and cook, stirring frequently, until vegetables are somewhat softened, about 8 minutes.
2. Raise heat to medium-high, add beef, and cook, stirring constantly, until meat is broken up and just cooked through, 6-8 minutes. Add the wine and cook, stirring occasionally until evaporated, about 4 minutes.
3. Stir in tomato puree and 1 1/2 cups water and bring to a boil over high heat.
4. Reduce the heat to low and simmer, partially covered, stirring occasionally until the sauce is thick – about 2 to 2 1/2 hours. Season with salt and pepper and serve over pasta.

RAGU DI FEGATO DI POLLO (Ragu with Chicken Livers) – makes 4 cups – double recipe to match one above

Ingredients:

• 4 cups beef broth
• 2 tbsp. tomato paste (I added a bit more, maybe one more tablespoon)
• 1 cup milk
• 3 whole cloves
• 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tbsp. unsalted butter
• 1 2-oz. piece of pancetta, finely chopped (I went to my deli and asked for a 2 inch round that I cut up)
• 2 medium carrots, finely chopped
• 2 ribs celery, finely chopped
• 1 medium size yellow onion, finely chopped
• 3/4 lb. ground beef chuck
• 1/4 lb. ground pork shoulder (I used regular ground pork)
• 1 cup dry white wine
• 1/8 tsp. freshly ground nutmeg
• 2 chicken livers (about 2 oz.)

What to do:

1. In a small saucepan, bring broth to a simmer over medium heat. Put tomato paste into a small bowl and pour in 1 cup broth; stir to dissolve. Set tomato-infused broth aside (Keep remaining broth hot.)
2. In another saucepan, bring milk to a simmer over medium heat. Add cloves, remove from heat and let steep, covered, for one hour.
3. Meanwhile, heat olive oil and butter in a large heavy-bottomed pot over medium-low heat. Add pancetta and cook until fat has rendered, stirring occasionally. Add carrots, celery and onions and cook, stirring occasionally until soft and caramelized (about 30 minutes). Stir in beef and pork, cook, breaking meat apart with wooden spoon, until browned. Season with salt and pepper. Increase heat to medium-high and add wine and cook until wine is evaporated.
4. Lower heat to mediu, stir in nutmeg, and reserved tomato broth and cook, stirring occasionally until liquid is absorbed, about 5 minutes.
5. Lower heat to medium, low and add 1/2 cup reserved hot broth and cook until liquid is absorbed, stirring occasionally. Repeat 1/2 cup at a time until all broth has been used (kind of like risotto) – this can take some time. ***NOTE: Although this may seem very time consuming, don’t take it too seriously. You can walk away and do other things during this ‘liquid absorbing’ part. Don’t go stir crazy – this does not have to be perfect!
6. Add chicken livers to the sauce and cook for 8 minutes until soft. Using a fork, mash livers on the side of the pot (or remove and do it on a plate) with a tablespoon into the sauce. Add the milk and simmer until thick and velvety – another 15 to 20 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and serve with pasta.

Check out some other posts you may enjoy:

• LIDIA’S LAMB CHOPS (Lamb Chops with A Mustard Anchovy Sauce)
• GNOCCHI DI PATATE WITH A BROWN BUTTER, SAGE, BREADCRUMB SAUCE
• ORECCHIETTE WITH SAUSAGE AND KALE
• ITALIAN-STYLE SLOW ROASTED PORK SHOULDER WITH SALSA VERDE
• LIVORNESE FISH STEW
• PAPPA AL POMODORO (Tuscan Tomato and Bread Soup)
• SWEET ANISE-FLAVORED SALMON IN A POUCH (SALMON EN PAPILLOTE)
• SPATCHCOCK CHICKEN (A TUTORIAL)

Before I say anything more, I should make it clear that I had never been to the famous San Gennaro festival that is running through this weekend in Manhattan’s Little Italy before Wednesday night, and that during our visit, my cellphone was thieved, perhaps leaving an extra special bad taste in my mouth. I’ll also make it clear that we spent three weeks in Italy this summer – though we did not visit Naples or any of southern Italy – and we had an amazing time and feel pretty well-informed about mainstream modern Italian culture. My wife is also a proud third-generation Italian-American from Philadelphia, so I’m also pretty well-versed in East Coast Italian-American culture. So, that said, allow me, if you will, to tell you why I didn’t find the much-heralded San Gennaro festival such a great cultural experience after all.

The sausage and peppers sandwich we ate was good – too much onion, and not enough sausage and peppers, but good bread and basically, very tasty. I’m blaming the lack of peppers and sausage on the generally parsimonius nature of street vendors, but I was pleased to be served by beefy looking Italian-Americans with a characteristic gruffness that I enjoy. This, I thought, is what I came for – something authentically Italian-American – a kind of balls-out, overblown street food-fair where everybody talks with their mouths full and with grease on their chins. I wasn’t expecting anything authentically Italian because I know that wherever immigrants have settled across the world their attempts to recreate aspects of their former lives and homes are reminscent but never exactly alike the old country and I know this from personal experience. However much I think Brooklyn is redolent of certain Victorian neighborhoods in England, it’s always going to be Brooklyn and not Fulham or Highgate. But I was enthused by the food, the sheer number of zeppole and cannoli stands was impressive, and the smell of frying onions and sausage filled the air, even if for $6 I had expected more than one small piece of sausage. The crowds were mightily impressive too – I had expected it to be quiet on a Wednesday evening – but it was busy enough that it made me glad not to have come on a weekend when it would have been horrific with kids dropping ice creams everywhere and swarms of teenagers roving around in intimidating mobs.

But here’s the kicker, and watch out readers who read last week’s post on the Italian strike over pasta, you may find what follows peculiar, or at least at odds with my self-proclaimed admiration for the upkeepers of tradition. You see, what bothered me about San Gennaro, apart from the depressing chintzy sideshows that charged $5/dart and then gave away the world’s most awful teddy bear prizes, was a general feeling of decay that pervaded the festival. Not only were all the people working the stands kind of haggard and down-on-their-luck looking, but Little Italy itself is depressing because it’s a neighborhood with absolutely none of the vibrancy it is famous for. A few red-sauce Italian restaurants and round-bellied people on street corners going “ay, gabagool!” to each other does not make a neighborhood. It’s become a kind of film-set or theme park, with nothing really of substance remaining, and holding a festival for the patron saint of Naples in a neighborhood which is predominantly Chinese is even stranger than there being Ecuadorian food vendors selling mozzarepas and Colombians touting flame-grilled steaks.

Those of you who watched the final series of the Sopranos (and advance apologies to those who haven’t seen it yet for ruining at least one episode) will know that there is an ongoing war between the New Jersey and New York mobs, and that the New York mob are often pictured in their restaurants in Little Italy. There is one very telling scene in which one of the New York mob gets whacked while his companion is left untouched. The companion then starts hurriedly walking away from the scene through crowds of people. The scene closes with this guy looking frantic as a tour bus passes him with the guide saying something like, “to your left is Little Italy. It used to cover 30 blocks but is now little more than one street, three blocks in length, having been swallowed up by neighboring Chinatown.”

The point that scene made to me is one of demographics. Italian immigrants and their descendants are still present in great numbers throughout the north-east, but are being overtaken in their traditional neighborhoods by newer and more numerous groups like the Chinese and various Latino populations. This is exactly what I saw at San Gennaro – the last gasp of a once-great and homogenous group of immigrants – and it was depressing. I have deep respect for people who keep traditions alive but my San Gennaro experience left me with the impression that it was only the tradition that was left and none of the substance, particularly when the woman selling “I love guidos” t-shirts turned out to be Canadian and our sausage and peppers vendor was from New Jersey.

But what do you think? Am I unfairly maligning a strong and proud tradition that has a real future in New York City, or do you think New York’s Italian traditions are dying out? Before you answer you might consider reading this recent article in the New York Times.

CHECK OUT SOME OTHER POSTS RELATED TO THIS ONE:

• San Gennaro Festival, Little Italy, NYC – Ain’t What it Used to Be (Girl’s Version)
• FETTUCCINE FRA’DIAVOLO WITH CRAB AND SHRIMP
• FRITO MISTO DI MARE (FRIED MIXED SEAFOOD AND VEGGIES)
• Striking Over Pasta?
• PERFECT BROCCOLI DI RAPE/RAPINI
• SAUSAGE AND PEPPER SANDWICHES
• In Defence of Sandwiches (White House Subs, Atlantic City)

Now that you have the background of the event I can tell you a bit about my experience. The first time I went 5 years ago it was basically the same at it was 2 days ago – a genuine cheese-fest. I felt like I was walking down the boardwalk in Wildwood, NJ! But, I later learned I should have felt like I was walking down the boardwalk in Sleezeside Seaside Heights, NJ which, if you don’t know, is basically a mirror image of the Wildwood boardwalk. The reason for this, we were told, is that many of the vendors at the festival also own stores in Sleezeside. Just to paint a picture for you, the festival (and the boardwalk) is a nice mix of iron-on t-shirt shops (see pics), pizza/zeppoli restaurants, crappy, ‘disposable’ clothing shops and old-school arcades where you can attempt to win an ugly, highly flammable stuffed animal. In fact, within the first 2 minutes walking through the festival, Jonny was swindled by a woman manning a game booth who just kept handing him darts to throw and then told him his ‘game’ cost $35… right.

The one thing that people get excited for at the San Gennaro festival is the food – mainly the Sausage and Peppers. My grandmom made her sausage and peppers different from the ones at the festival which are just grilled with some oil and put in a nice hero roll (Grandma’s recipe to follow). The Italian sausage was delish and spicy but the guys working the grill were a bit shy on the peppers (in fact there were barely any left to give us). The other thing that was interesting about the festival was the presence of Mexican vendors. Now, believe me, I LOVE Mexican food, but at an Italian festival? If you put mozzerella cheese in an arepa it doesn’t automatically make it an Italian treat… right? It would’ve made more sense if there were Chinese vendors because Little Italy in NYC is really no longer – it is more like Little Italy/Chinatown. The whole thing kind of left a strange taste in my mouth and made me wonder what the original San Gennaro festivals were like.

The night at San Gennaro ended on a bad note as we discovered that Jonny’s crappy ‘came-free-with-the-plan’ cell phone was stolen from the side of his bag. It used to be thought that the festival was actually planned by the mob so maybe it was inside job. I hope they can even resell that piece of sh$t for more than 2 bucks!

All in all it was an interesting night. Not quite what we were hoping for, but still a Northeastern cultural event that I probably will not be attending again.

In memory of my lovely grandma Anna Norcia, I offer you her recipe for Sausage and Peppers. Very different from the one at San Gennaro but, in my opinon, much more delicious. Note that the original really calls for no measurements of ingredients. You kind of have to ‘get your Italian-mama’ on and just keep tasting till it tastes good. I tried my best to give measurements, but I would still continue to taste to see if you think it needs more ‘ummmph’. Enjoy!

ANNA’S ‘MAKE A LOAD FOR THE GRADUATION PARTY’ SAUSAGE & PEPPERS

Ingredients:

• Spicy Italian Sausage Links (2 lbs.)
• white wine (maybe 1/2 cup?)
• pork gravy (of course homemade would be great, but store-bought will be fine)
• green and red peppers (3 peppers total)
• 2 onions – sliced
• 2-4 cloves garlic (to taste)
• olive oil
• good quality hoagie/hero/sub rolls

1. Slice your sausage into 1-inch pieces. Brown.
2. Slice up your peppers (into strips) and onions (into thick slices) and saute until semi-soft then add chopped garlic. Don’t let them get too soft cause you want them to have a bit of chew.
3. Add the pork gravy and the wine and simmer on low for about a half hour.
4. Add some salt and pepper to taste.
5. Using a slotted spoon, spoon the sausage/pepper/onions into a sliced hoagie roll. Top with some of the gravy. (Note: You can also eat this on top of rice or noodles if you prefer).

Maybe this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea but it reminds me of home (as well as every family party we ever had!).

CHECK OUT SOME OTHER POSTS RELATED TO THIS:

• FETTUCCINE FRA’DIAVOLO WITH CRAB AND SHRIMP
• FRITO MISTO DI MARE (FRIED MIXED SEAFOOD AND VEGGIES)
• Striking Over Pasta?
• PERFECT BROCCOLI DI RAPE/RAPINI
• In Defence of Sandwiches (White House Subs, Atlantic City)