Lidia's Tuscan Meat and Tomato Ragu & Panna Cotta

Last night we had an Italian dinner party.  I, of course, made too much food.  We can have it for dinner for the next few days as it was good.

Antipasto Platter: 

• On bamboo skewers I placed a variety of small tomatoes paired with marinated small mozzarella balls.
• Chunks of honeydew melon surrounded with prosciutto, again on small bamboo skewers.
• Chunks of Jarlsberg and Havarti dill with chunks of dried fig.
• Sliced Sopressata sausage on cucumber slices.
• Potted Shrimp (posted 12-22-2011)
• 4 kinds of olives, green and black
• Artichoke Crostini (posted 10-19-2016)
• Italian pretzels (Kind of the shape of the breast cancer ribbon)

The only deviation I made was I did not cook the Artichoke, parsley and garlic, prior to grinding.  I toasted Italian bread and then spread it and cooked under the broiler.  I thought it had a brighter taste and looked 100% better.  

To look up the previous postings go to search on the right had side of the home page click on date and type in the date of the item you want to find. 

Pasta Course:

Tuscan Meat and Tomato Ragu

This recipe comes from Lidia’s Italy Cookbook.  You can compare it to the one I learned in my Italian cooking class by going to 10-19-2016. I have tried many versions of the original posted recipe and this one followed the same guide lines with less quantity turnout.  The original one did not freeze well, so I wanted one that 6 people could come close to finishing.  This does the trick.  I bought the fresh pasta from Coco’s Italian market off Charlotte near our house.  Two 12 oz. packages is more than enough for 6 people with this recipe of Ragu.  

Ingredients:

1/2 C dry porcici

1 medium onion, in chunks

2C celery ribs, in chunks

1/3 C EVOO

1# ground veal 

1# ground pork

1# ground sweet Italian sausage, removed from casing and crumbled

2 t salt

2 C red wine

28 oz. can Italian plum tomatoes, crushed by hand

Meat, poultry, vegetable stock or water (I use my hand made vegetable stock

Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Directions:

1. I use my 7 qt. Ruffoni Braiser (made in Italy and available through Williams Sonoma.  
2. Soak the dried porcici in a cup or so of hot water for at least 1/2 hour.  
3. Using a food processor, puree the onion and celery to a paste.  Heat the oil in the saucepan over medium-high heat, scrape in the paste, and stir it for 3-4 minutes as it steams and starts to caramelize.  
4. Add all the meats to the pan, raise the heat, and continuously turn and loosen the chopped meat as it sears and browns.  Sprinkle 2 t salt over the meat, and keep tossing and breaking up any lumps, until all the meat is colored and has started to release any lumps, and has started to release moisture.  Cook, stirring frequently, to evaporate all the liquid in the pan, about 15 minutes or more.  
5. When the meats dry, pour in the wine, stir well, and bring it to the boil.  Cook, frequently stirring, to evaporate the wine.  Meanwhile, lift the reconstituted porcici pieces from the soaking water, squeeze them dry, and chop into bits.  Stir the porcini into the sizzling meats.  When the wine has almost evaporated, pour in the porcici water (but not the sediment), and cook until it too has disappeared into the meat.  
6. Pour the tomatoes into the pan, slosh the containers with 2 C of water, and stir that in.  Cook, covered , until the tomato juices are bubbling, then lower the heat and simmer the sauce, partially covered, for 3 hours.  As the sauce reduces, add stock or water as needed to keep the meat covered by liquid.
7. Taste and season with more salt or pepper.  (I added fresh ground pepper, no salt.)  
8. For best flavor let the sauce sit for a couple of hours or up to 2 days (refrigerated).  Loosen sauce with stock, if necessary, when reheating.

I made this Wednesday night and refrigerated as soon as it cooled.  I took it out of the refrigerator and let it come to temperature after noon.  Then put the pot on the stove to warm up.  

Fresh pasta only takes 2 minutes in boiling water.  I put the pot of salted water on earlier and heated and set on low.  As the finished the antipasto, I brought it back to boil.  Leftover cooked pasta can be frozen for future use.  Add the pasta to the sauce and thoroughly incorporate before serving.  

Secundo:

In Italy this is the main course.  As I had a meat pasta, it would be followed by fish or chicken.  Barbara does not eat fish and Joel is not fond of chicken.  To have a meat secundo, have a vegetarian pasta sauce.  I wanted to keep the ragu as I feel it is so poorly represented in most Italian restaurants in the US.  So I decided to serve my Italian asparagus with toasted pine nuts, proscuitto and parmesan.  (recipe on blog 2-8-2015).  To tell you the truth, I needed nothing and we were stuffed.  

Dessert:

I first experienced this dessert in Italy.  Traditional panna cotta is made simple with half and half, gelatin, sugar and vanilla.  This month Fine Cooking had four options for panna cotta and sauces to accompany them.  .  I have these beautiful little molds with rippled tops.  I filled them with the panna cotta mixture and refrigerated overnight.  I made a blueberry sauce with frozen blueberries.  

Buttermilk Panna Cotta with Blueberry Sauce

Ingredients:

for the panna cotta:

1 1/2 C heavy cream

2 t unflavored powdered gelatin

1/3 C granulated sugar

1 1/2 C buttermilk

1 t pure vanilla extract

Pinch of table salt

Directions:

1. Lightly spray 6 (6 oz.) with cooking spray.
2. Put the heavy cream in a 2 qt. saucepan.  Sprinkle on the gelatin and let set for about 5 minutes.  
3. Place the saucepan on low and whisk in the sugar until the gelatin and sugar are completely dissolved, about 2-3 minutes. (Avoid simmering, which destroys the gelatin’s thickening ability; if you see bubbles, remove from heat.
4. Off the heat, whisk in the buttermilk, vanilla and salt.  
5. Transfer the mixture to a large measuring cup and divide among 6 prepared ramekins.
6. Cover loosely with plastic wrap.  Refrigerate until set, 1-2 hours.  They can be made the day before.   
7. To unmold and serve turn the molds over on individual plates.  I warmed with a hot paper towel and they fell right out.  Divide the sauce among them and serve.  

Blueberry sauce:

Ingredients:

12 oz. thawed frozen blueberries

2 T granulated sugar

2 T finely grated lemon zest (about 4 lemons)

2 t cornstarch

1 t pure vanilla extract

Pinch of table salt

Directions:

1. In a 2 qt. saucepan, bring the blueberries, sugar, lemon zest and 1/4 C water to a boil over medium-high heat.  Lower the heat to medium, and boil, stirring occasionally until the berries begin to burst about 5 minutes.  Strain through a fine mesh sieve, pushing down ton the berries to extract the juice.  Return berries and sauce to the pan and bring to simmer over medium heat.  
2. In a small bowl, whisk together the lemon juice and cornstarch.  
3. Stir into blueberry sauce, and cook until it begins to thicken, about 1 minute.  Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla and salt.  Let cool to room temperature.  The sauce can be covered and refrigerated for up to 1 week.  (I loosened in the microwave prior to spooning over the panna cotta.  

Well, that is half the story.  Jim made it all about the wine.  All that he served were Italian and very good.  I did have favorites.  There were a total of 6 wines served,  Jim’s math was a little off as he told the 6 of us that it was the equivalent of 1/2 bottle each.  You do the math.

Antipasto Wines:  

1. 2012 La Chiara Gavi, Cortese grapes from Piedmont, Italy (The only white and I loved it.)
2. 1994 Barolo by Viberti, Piedmont , Italy.
3. 2001 Campaccio Super Tuscan, 70% Sangiovese, 30% Cabernet Sauvignon.

Pasta, Secundo, and Dessert Wines:

1. 2001 Aglieta, Burnello di Montalcino, Italy (my favorite)
2. 2009 Recchia Ca’ Bertoldi Amarone della Valpolicella Classico
3. 2007 Caparzo Brunello di Montalcino, Italy

I meant to take photos of the food as served and forgot, so you will have to be satisfied with the table setting above.  I was very excited to use my Italian pasta set that I bought back in VA from the Williams Sonoma discount store.  I found the matching placemats here in salvage company for $1 as opposed to the $35.00 each that Williams Sonoma wanted.  I have a matching large antipasto platter and pasta bowl.  As you can see my table is very narrow so we actually ended up serving the pasta from the Ruffoni pot that Jim carried for person to person.  I never bought the matching plates, but I thought the black and white checked plates looked in character of an Italian dinner.  

Overall, a good outcome.