RSSMore Chart Whispering in Italy
By Bruce Zaro | October 14, 2008 | 12:01 PM | 10 Comments
As promised in part 1 of “Chart Whispering in Italy” I have decided to defy my grandmother’s wishes of keeping family recipes secret. I decided my family’s pasta sauce is just to darn good to be confined in my humble abode.
This secret family recipe is the kind of pasta sauce the highbrows in Manhattan – you know who you are - pay $20 per serving for. Now remember, the real Italian grandmothers aren’t much for accurately measuring ingredients. I’m the same way; thus, the recipe will read a bit nebulous. First, you need to find, if you can, authentic San Marzano tomatoes.
Here is my crop of San Marzano’s soaking up the sunshine in my back yard. I start these from seed around the first week in March. I carefully nurture them – sometimes even talk to them - from sprouts to transplants under a grow light, then in mid May, set all 50 of them into the garden. Some years produce bountiful harvests, some years are lean…..like this year. In a good year the frozen sauce fills up the small freezer in my basement.
For those who don’t have garden space or garden inclination, you can sometimes find San Marzano’s in the produce outlets from local growers. While many Roma type tomatoes will do, try to get the real thing, the San Marzano’s as the relative lack of water in the fruit leads to much less cooking time and extraordinary concentrated tomatoes flavor. This is why people pay $20 per serving. I have used the canned version in a pinch. But, remember to try to get just whole tomatoes with out any sauce added and be sure to drain off and liquid before processing.
Okay – here it is!
3 large sauce pans fill up with whole San Marzano’s
1 medium size grated carrot
3 teaspns Olive oil
6 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
10 – 12 large fresh basil leaves
Salt and pepper to taste
1 whole medium size Cayenne type hot pepper (optional), broken into small pieces
First, you need to process the whole San Marzano’s into paste. For this, I acquired a tomato strainer from a catalog many years ago that is indispensible in making the off - the - vine fruit into paste…….it essentially expels seeds and skin and puts out thick pulp. Find yourself one, mine is the Vittorio Food Strainer, available from Johnny’s seed in Albion Maine or on Amazon.com.
Refrigerate overnight to evaporate some of the excess water.
In a large sauce pan heat the olive oil on medium heat. Lightly brown the garlic and the grated carrot. Add 4 leaves of basil. Add the tomato pulp and simmer on medium-high for about 1 hour or until the sauce start to “jump” out of the pan. You may want to wear a slicker for this! This is the signal that the mixture has cooked down far enough and is concentrating its flavor. About 10 minutes into this simmer add the optional pepper flakes if you’re spicy like me. Add salt and pepper to taste and then the remaining basil leaves when you take the pot off the heat. That’s it!
This isn’t Olive Garden, here, folks! Once you taste Grandma Zaro’s pasta sauce you will be hooked.
No sense in preparing pasta if you are not going to enjoy a little vino with it!
Here are my favorites from my most recent trip.
Tre Rose Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. Is blend of 90% Prugnolo Gentile, 5% Canaiolo and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon. Never heard of some of those grapes? This interesting blend is sensational with the roasted chicken and beef we prepared at our villa in near Lake Trasimeno. I believe these unusual grapes give the Nobile it’s uniqueness, with the bite of the traditional Sangiovese and the price tag of the Brunello’s. But this wine can pare with a lot…….roasted peppers and pecorino on Tuscan peasant bread…..pesto pasta. Heck even taking a slash off the bottle while hiking works.
The vinery is located on the gentle hills of Val di Chiana (an undiscovered famous spa town) i
n a beautiful ancient 16th century Tuscan villa. We were paying 18 euro’s ($29 USD) in the specialty groceria near out villa or 30 euros (48 USD) in a restaurant for this. Well worth it. Try to get a 2004 if you can, a bit harder to find, but exceptionally good year.
The winery in the dead of winter from the surrounding hills.
Wrapping our stay in Italy with 3 days in Rome we stumbled across a fabulous restaurant tucked in a dusty corner street. The Via de Cominar had comfortable all fresco dining -cool seating beneath the hot city air. There I ordered a sumptuous roasted duck breast in a balsamic and mustard reduction sauce. In the heat we had to order multiple bottles of Il Pollezone 2001 Brunello di Montalcino to keep us cool. That’s my story and I am sticking to it! We paid about 60 euros per bottle - at the time $96. I had arranged to even pick one up at the local wine shop to bring to the states for my boy Hanlon. Foolishly, I left it in my carry-on and watched the airport security team gleefully tell me it was “confiscated.” Lesson learned…
Ciao!
Chart Whisperer
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