AUNTIE PASTA: Oh Stuff It!

CHIAVARI, Italy – Truthfully, with the heat wave we have had the past few weeks; no one has really been in the mood to cook. The bustling morning market hasn’t been bustling as much as crawling, but that all changed the other day when a cool breeze began to blow in off of the sea. 

  The Market in Chiavari

With the morning temperature a more agreeable 80° F there was a bit more activity at the market yesterday. Watching to see what the Chiavarese mamas were buying, it soon became obvious they were choosing plump peppers, eggplants, zucchini and tomatoes. The Genovese have a real fondness for stuffed vegetables and I have a sneaky suspicion that is exactly what the mamas had in mind. 

The beauty of stuffed vegetables is that you can fill them with almost anything, bake them in the oven, and they won’t disappoint you.  It is a tasty way to make something delicious out of the little bits of left over this and that in the fridge. 

 Perfect Round Zucchini

Living in Genova greatly expanded my love of stuffed vegetables far beyond my mother’s peppers with rice and ground beef. Or it could be that just being in Italy makes everything taste better. Hidden in the alleys of the city’s historic center, there are take-out food shops, no bigger than a closet that sell stuffed zucchini and stuffed onions alongside trays of farinata and foccacia. It takes a strong will to walk past one of those shops without being drawn in, and I can’t say I’m particularly strong willed.

Stuffed vegetables are also easy to make at home.  One Genovese mama I know makes stuffed zucchini  using the scooped out center of the zucchini mixed with small chunks of ham and a béchamel sauce. Then she sprinkles the stuffed zucchini with breadcrumbs flavored with olive oil and grated cheese and pops them in the oven to heat through and brown the breadcrumbs.

 One Way to Stuff an Eggplant

Another variation of the zucchini filling is bread (the soft white center) soaked in milk, breadcrumbs, Parmesan cheese, and a variety of herbs, preferably marjoram, and eggs to bind the mixture. Fill the zucchini with the milk soaked bread (squeezed dry of course), herbs and egg and top with the breadcrumbs.

The flavoring agents depend on what vegetable is being stuffed. For eggplant, you might want to add chopped porcini mushrooms plus a little garlic and oregano. When stuffing zucchini and onions, try leaving the mushrooms out and throw in a pinch of nutmeg for good measure.

You can also use mushrooms as part of a bread stuffing for artichokes, while chopped parsley is good added to the filling for stuffed tomatoes. The artichokes recipe also calls for the chopped stalks of the artichokes, chopped leeks, oregano and nutmeg. Best not to waste anything isn’t really a Genovese motto, but it could be.

 Stuffed Tomatoes

Here’s an easy stuff tomato recipe from the Corriere della Sera, Milan’s daily newspaper. 

Baked Stuffed Tomatoes

Serves 4

Ingredients

4 large tomatoes

80 grams of ground beef (more or less 3 ounces)

60 grams of long grain rice

60 grams of fresh (or frozen) peas

2 small zucchini

1 carrot

1 white onion

1 tablespoon of chopped parsley

Extra virgin olive oil

Salt and freshly ground pepper

Wash the tomatoes and cut off the tops. You can also cut a very little bit off the bottom so they stand up better. Scoop out the inside of the tomatoes, chop it into pieces no larger than the peas, and set it aside.  Chop the onion, the carrot and the zucchini also into pieces no larger than the peas. 

Put a small amount of extra virgin olive oil in a frying pan and add the chopped onion, carrot and zucchini, the ground beef, the rice, a cup of water and let it cook together for about 10 minutes, or until the water is absorbed. 

Fill the scooped out tomatoes with the rice and ground beef filling, and cover them with the tomato tops.  Drizzle a little olive oil over the top of them and then place a small amount of extra virgin olive oil in a casserole pan and bake in a preheated oven (160ᴼ C/325ᴼF) for 40 minutes. 

The recipes calls for making a sauce out of the chopped tomatoes and serving the stuffed tomato on top of it, just as you see in the photo, but to tell you the truth you could just as easily add the chopped tomatoes to the rice and meat mix and reduce the amount of water, or leave it out altogether. 

You can use this filling for any vegetable you want to stuff. You can substitute the rice with couscous or the soft center of Italian bread, or tiny pasta, or leave them out as well and just chop the vegetable centers you’ve scooped out, either with ground beef, lamb or pork, or no meat at all. You don’t need peas or carrots either, but you do need onions.

Hmmm, just thinking about these delicious combinations is making me hungry. I think I'll head for the kitchen and rustle me up some grub Italian style. Buon Apettito.

AUNTIE PASTA Stuff It

CHIAVARI, Italy – The morning market in the piazza was very crowded yesterday. There are still a lot of tourists in town, and you could hear them oooing and ahhhing as they walked past the fruits and vegetables on display. There were two British women who made me laugh. They actually had a 10 minute conversation about the size (big) and amazing color of the red and yellow peppers. In the meantime the Chiavaresi mamas were buying them up, along with tomatoes and eggplants and I have a sneaky suspicion stuffed vegetables were  on the dinner menu last night.

 

 Chiavari's Morning Market

The most common Genovese filling for stuffed vegetables is made of bread (the soft white center) soaked in milk, bread crumbs, parmigiano cheese, marjoram and eggs to bind it all together. The flavoring agent depends on what vegetable is being stuffed. For eggplant, they add chopped porcini mushrooms plus a little garlic and oregano; for stuffed zucchini and onions, the mushrooms are omitted and they throw in a pinch of nutmeg. Chopped parsley is added to stuffed tomatoes and the mushrooms are back for stuffed artichokes. The artichokes recipe also calls for the chopped stalks of the artichokes, chopped leeks, oregano and nutmeg. 

I wouldn’t dare put oregano on artichokes – no matter how I cook them - for fear my Grandmother, who was from a town near Rome, will come back to haunt me. The Romans have a special herb for artichokes called mintuccia. It’s a type of mint that grows wild throughout the Roman countryside. I have a mintuccia plant growing in a container on my windowsill that I hope keeps my Grandmother happy so I can keep dreaming sweet dreams. But I digress. Back to stuffed veggies.

 Tasty Stuffed Peppers

In other parts of Italy they stuff vegetables with rice and ground beef, sometimes they add pine nuts or even raisins if it’s a couscous and ground lamb filling. That is the beauty of stuffed vegetables, you can fill them with almost anything, and they never disappoint you. 

You can stuff almost any vegetable, even escarole and lettuce, which are both very popular dishes here in Liguria. But that seems to me to be a lot of work because you have to tie each bundle together with string to keep the filling from falling out when you cook them. No doubt they are delicious but there are so many other vegetables that are just begging to be filled, like tomatoes for example, why bother.

Here’s an easy recipe for baked stuffed tomatoes from the Corriere della Sera, Milan’s daily newspaper. 

Baked Stuffed Tomatoes

Serves 4

Ingredients

4 large tomatoes

80 grams of ground beef (more or less 3 ounces)

60 grams of long grain rice

60 grams of fresh (or frozen) peas

2 small zucchini

1 carrot

1 white onion

1 tablespoon of chopped parsley

Extra virgin olive oil

Salt and freshly ground pepper

Wash the tomatoes and cut off the tops (like in the photo). You can also cut a very little bit off the bottom so they stand up better. Scoop out the inside of the tomatoes, chop it into pieces no larger than the peas, and set it aside.  Chop the onion, the carrot and the zucchini also into pieces no larger than the peas. 

Put a small amount of extra virgin olive oil in a frying pan and add the chopped onion, carrot and zucchini, the ground beef, the rice, a cup of water and let it cook together for about 10 minutes, or until the water is absorbed. 

Fill the scooped out tomatoes with the rice and ground beef filling, and cover them with the tomato tops.  Drizzle a little olive oil over the top of them and then place a small amount of extra virgin olive oil in a casserole pan and bake in a preheated oven (160ᴼ C/325ᴼF) for 40 minutes. 

The recipes calls for making a sauce out of the chopped tomatoes and serving the stuffed tomato on top of it, just as you see in the photo, but to tell you the truth you could just as easily add the chopped tomatoes to the rice and meat mix and reduce the amount of water.

You can use this filling for any vegetable you want to stuff. You can substitute the rice with couscous or the soft center of Italian bread, or tiny pasta, or not use any of them and use the vegetable centers you scooped out to make room for the filling, by chopping them and mixing them with ground beef, lamb or pork, or skip the meat altogether. You can also leave out the peas and carrots, but you do need onions.

Hopefully this makes sense and you are not thoroughly confused at this point. As for me, all this talk about food is making me hungry, so I think I’ll  head for the kitchen and rustle me up some grub.  Buon Appetito.

AUNTIE PASTA: There's Something About ...

SARONNO, Italy - There is something about the sunny flavors in caponata that conjure up thought of sun and sea and Sicily. While the dish gets its name from one of its ingredients, capers, its main ingredient is eggplant (aubergines). Maybe the dish should be called melanzatta instead.

 Sicilian Caponata

Caponata is another example of a Sicilian dish whose origins lie in the Middle East. Like much of Sicily’s cuisine, caponata was introduced to the island by the Arabs. They ruled Sicily from the year 827 to 1061 and through their highly effective irrigation techniques, they brought water to the cities and the fields, a crucial element to farming in this arid land. In Palermo you can still see the subterranean waterways known as ‘qanats’. 

Street Market, Palermo, Sicily

They ruled Sicily for a little more than two centuries but their influence was nothing short of monumental. Under their administration, the island's population doubled as dozens of towns were founded and cities repopulated. By introducing irrigation techniques to the island, they were able to totally change what the Sicilians grew and ate. It was the Arabs who brought sugar cane, cotton, eggplant, dates, oranges and other citrus fruits to Sicily. And while you see their influence in many Sicilian recipes, more significantly, they changed Sicilian society itself. To this day, many social attitudes found in Sicily are direct decedents of the Arabs who ruled a thousand years ago.  

Eggplant on the Vine

There are a number of caponata recipes including those that call for artichokes or sweet peppers. But regardless of which recipe you use, the primary ingredient is eggplant, followed by celery, green olives, tomatoes (a modern addition), onions, capers, virgin olive oil, vinegar and sugar. The ingredients must be prepared carefully. The celery, for example, should not be overcooked and must remain firm. The cured or salted capers must be thoroughly rinsed. The eggplant may be slightly steamed and then sautéd, though some purists prefer frying.

Here's the basic recipe.

Ingredients: 8 medium size aubergines (eggplants), 200 grams of peeled mature tomatoes, 2 medium size sweet white or yellow onions, the heart of a large celery, 200 grams of pitted large cured firm green olives, 200 grams of capers (if salted soak in water and drain to remove salt), extra virgin olive oil, white vinegar, sugar, salt.

Preparation: Cut the unpeeled eggplants into chunks of about one inch (or two centimeter squares). This is not a “written in stone” recipe, so feel free to make adjustments. Cook the cubed eggplant by steaming it in a large, covered pot until completely cooked, but still firm. (Don't boil them.) Drain well and set aside. 

Chop the tomatoes into small pieces or a thick pulp, without discarding the juice or seeds. Chop the onions into medium pieces or thin slices. Cut the celery stalks into pieces about one inch long. Discard leaves. (It’s really best to cut eggplant, tomato and celery in more or less the same sizes, it makes it easier to eat). Cut the olives in half. 

In a large pan, saute the onions and celery pieces in olive oil. The celery should be lightly cooked, firm but not raw. Add the tomato pulp and bring the mixture to a boil, then simmer for a few minutes until the sauce changes color to a lighter red. At this point, simmer over low heat for another 4-6 minutes. Add the eggplants, olives and capers to the mixture. Also add a few tablespoons each of olive oil, vinegar and sugar. Stir gently and allow to simmer covered (steaming) for about five minutes over medium-low heat until mixture thickens but doesn't burn. 

Remove from heat and allow to cool. Salt to taste. Then chill for at least four hours before serving.

Caponata is also good as a vegetarian meal served over rice or couscous. 

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