Greg’s long-lost pasta dish.

Recipe:

Penne with Broccoli, Shallots, and Emmenthaler

Dear Erica:

When I was in Italy I had a tremendous dish, a penne with broccoli sauce. The sauce had no cream, jus an intense broccoli flavor, a little olive oil, and, I assume, some butter. The trick is how to get the intense flavor in the sauce. Merely cooking broccoli in olive oil and butter doesn’t do it. I tried. Most likely some garlic was sautéed in the sauce, but it wasn’t the dominant flavor. I can put all these ingredients together, but something is always lacking.

Thank you.

Greg Sinicrope

Dear Greg:

Interesting. A few questions: Where were you served this dish? In what region of the country? Do you remember the restaurant? Most important, was the broccoli puréed or left in little pieces? Depending on what region this is from, other thing could have been present. For instance, it’s common in Campania to sneak a little anchovy into broccoli dishes, or in other regions maybe pancetta, or a little Parmigiano. In Basilicata a bit of hot chili would often be present.

Any other thoughts about the taste? Do you remember any herbs floating around in the sauce? If you can answer these questions for me, then I’ll get busy and recreate the recipe for you. Then I’ll post it, along with your letter, and you can let me know how it compares to your original.

Ciao,

Erica

Well, Erica . . .

. . . Of course you ask all the right questions, and I’ll do my best to answer. First, the sauce was not a purée but one that appeared to be no more than olive oil, butter, and small pieces of broccoli. But I know it was more than this, because I tried this exact combo at home, and it didn’t have much flavor. Let me say that if you can improve on this by puréeing the broccoli (which I did at home in a second version of the dish, and it was much more flavorful) or by some other method, please do so. As for where, actually I had the dish just over the border in Lugano, Switzerland, at a restaurant called the Grotto. As you most likely know, Lugano is very Italian. There was no pancetta or any meat in the dish, no visible herbs, no chili, and no anchovy smell or taste. It was really one of those marvels that one has at a restaurant where everything seems so basic and simple but has phenomenal flavor. I did notice a recipe for this dish in a cookbook on Roman recipes-it’s one of those newer paperbacks that focus on certain regions of Italy-but it didn’t seem like it would reproduce what I had.

So thank you very much for your interest and expertise. Please let me know via e-mail when you post this recipe.

Greg

Lugano, Switzerland, an Italian-speaking city in the Ticino region near the Italian border, is a region known for its cow’s milk cheeses and excellent butter, so I couldn’t help feeling that Greg’s loved and lost pasta might have contained some cheese and probably a little butter too. Formagella, formaggini, and büscion cheeses are the famous ones from the Lugano area, and they would be my first choice to include here, but even in haughty old Manhattan I couldn’t find any of the Ticino cheeses, so I chose a cave-aged Emmenthaler, a Swiss cow’s milk cheese that I’ve always loved. It melts a little like Fontina Val d’Aosta but has a nuttier flavor. I added very little cheese, so little you couldn’t notice its presence by just looking at the pasta (which may have been the case with Greg’s dish), but it rounded out the flavors, softening the broccoli and making everything seem creamy without the addition of any cream. I actually tested this pasta with the Emmenthaler and then with Fontina; both were very good, but the Emmenthaler won out by a pinch.

I also felt that the key to getting great flavor from broccoli was to cut it small, making sure to include some of the tender stem, where much of the broccoli flavor lies, and to sauté the penne in the skillet with the broccoli sauce, so everything gets infused with flavor. Something else I try to do when I want to get big flavor from a pasta dish is choose a great artisanal brand of dried pasta, such as Latini. These delicately made pastas are much more porous than mass-produced, big-company ones, so they absorb more flavor from the sauce (Latini is available through Gustiamo.com and at DiPalo’s wonderful cheese shop in New York’s Little Italy, if you’re in the neighborhood).

For my sauce base I sautéed shallots and a small amount of garlic in a mix of butter and olive oil, just to lay down a sweet, mellow base for the broccoli. The pasta was delicious. As for whether it is exactly what Greg remembers from his trip, he’ll have to try it and let me know, but in any case I really loved this pasta. It would also make a wonderful first course for a Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve dinner.

Penne with Broccoli, Shallots, and Emmenthaler

(Serves 5 as a first course)

2 cups very small-cut broccoli flowerets, including some tender broccoli stem and leaves, finely chopped
Salt
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
Extra-virgin olive oil
2 shallots, minced
1 garlic clove, minced
Freshly ground black pepper
6 big scrapings of nutmeg
A tiny splash of dry white wine
1 pound penne or another short, chunky pasta, preferably a high-quality brand such as Latini
3 large thyme sprigs, the leaves chopped
1/4 pound Emmenthaler or Fontina Val d’Aosta cheese, grated.

Set up a large pot of pasta cooking water and bring it to a boil. Drop in the broccoli pieces and blanch for 3 minutes. Scoop them from the water with a large strainer spoon into a colander and run under cold water to stop the cooking and to preserve the green color. Squeeze out excess water.

Add a generous amount of salt to the pasta cooking water and bring it back to a boil.

In a large skillet, heat the butter and 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Add the shallots, and sauté until softened, about 4 minutes. Add the garlic and the blanched broccoli, season with salt, black pepper, and the nutmeg. Sauté until the broccoli is quite tender, about 5 minutes. Add a tiny splash of white wine, and let it boil away.

While the broccoli is sautéing, drop the penne into the water.

When the penne is al dente, drain, reserving about 1/2 cup of the cooking water. Add the penne to the skillet and toss gently, adding the thyme, until the pasta is well coated. Turn off the heat, and add the Emmenthaler or Fontina, a few turns of fresh black pepper, a drizzle of fresh olive oil, and a few tablespoons of the pasta cooking water. Toss gently. Taste for salt. The consistency should be somewhat creamy. Serve right away.

Liti’s missing recipe.

Recipe:

Cinnamon and Ricotta Ravioli with Basil

Dear Erica,

Since you’ve started your “Lost Recipes Found” feature, I can’t stop thinking about the cinnamon and ricotta ravioli Mom has told us about but never actually cooked for us, mainly because she doesn’t know how to make it. I thought this would be a good opportunity for you to figure out that recipe, and then we could have it for Thanksgiving or Christmas. I know you published a savory version of these ravioli in your last book, but since then Mom has been telling me about another version she thinks she remembers her grandmother making, a sweet ravioli, topped not with tomatoes but with butter, cinnamon, and sugar. She says she thinks she remembers it that way but can’t be sure. I don’t care if she remembers it or not. I want to taste it. Can you figure out a recipe for it? Please?

Love,

Your sister, Liti

My sister is talking about an old Sicilian recipe our great-grandmother used to make. It has been out of the family for at least 60 years. I did publish a version of it in The Flavors of Southern Italy that included a pretty standard Southern Italian tomato sauce, but this butter and cinnamon sugar sauce does sound enticing, and it almost makes more sense to me than the tomato sauce, since the ravioli filling is somewhat sweet anyway. I’ve looked into this sweet version and have discovered it is a real thing. Versions of it are still eaten in Sicily and in other parts of Southern Italy.

This sweet pasta is something my mother said was served as a first course in her family, and that doesn’t surprise me. Sweet is very big in Sicily. Sweet and sour, and sweet and savory, and just plain sweet. I’ve researched this dish and have found recipes for it topped with cinnamon and sugar and served as a first course, but it seems to have survived mainly in a fried dessert version, more of a pastry, actually. Lots of recipes for that exist, and I can remember purchasing a sweet square ravioli-shaped pastry in the town of Erice, in northwestern Sicily. It was outrageously delicious, filled with sweetened sheep’s milk ricotta, fried, and dusted with cinnamon. And once when I was eating at a family home in Trapani something similar was brought out for dessert, a bigger version (maybe two-inch squares) that had been purchased from a local pastry shop. The family told me these were traditionally served at Carnevale. But ravioli flavored with cinnamon and a little sugar are still offered as a dinner dish in Sicily and in other Southern regions such as Basilicata, where I’ve located recipes for ravioli identical to the ones my mother describes but served with a tomato and pork ragu, making for a very intense-sounding dish.

I’ve tinkered with this recipe, aiming for a first-course pasta that is sweet but not shockingly so. The basil is my addition. Basil with cinnamon is a ravishing coupling of flavors, and the basil also serves to cut the sweetness, bringing, along with the Parmigiano, which my mother said was always included, a savory touch, making the ravioli more suited to the modern palate. (I have a feeling the family original would have more likely contained Pecorino cheese, much more Sicilian, and real Parmigiano wasn’t really available in this country 80 years ago. In any case, I tried the recipe with both cheeses and much preferred the Parmigiano version, since it was savory but without the slight sourness the Pecorino added).

Cinnamon and Ricotta Ravioli with Basil

(Serves 4 or 5 as a first course)

For the pasta:

4 extra large eggs
A pinch of salt
3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for kneading and rolling

For the filling:

1 1/2 cups ricotta, drained
1 large egg
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon sugar
2 heaping tablespoons grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, plus a chunk to bring to the table
Freshly ground black pepper
Salt

For the sauce:

1 stick unsalted butter
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon sugar
Freshly ground black pepper
A handful of basil leaves, cut into thin strips

To make the dough, place the eggs in a food processor and sprinkle on the salt. Pulse a few times just to mix them well. Start adding flour, about a cup at a time, pulsing it in, until you have a moist ball (you may not need all three cups of flour). When the dough has formed a ball, pulse about 30 seconds more, and then dump it out onto a floured surface and kneed it until it’s smooth and soft. Wrap in plastic wrap and let it rest about 30 minutes.

While the dough is resting, mix all the ingredients for the filling together in a bowl. The filling should be very slightly sweet with a subtle cinnamon edge, but it will also have a salty note from the Parmigiano. Put the bowl in the refrigerator while you roll out the pasta (this will firm up the filling a bit, making it easier to fill the ravioli with).

Divide the dough into four pieces, keeping each covered with plastic wrap until you work with it, so it doesn’t dry out. Run a piece of the dough through the widest setting on a hand-cranked pasta machine two times. Start running it through thinner and thinner settings until you get to the last setting and the pasta is very thin and smooth. Lay the pasta sheets out on a floured surface, and let them dry for about 15 minutes before cutting (this makes them easier to handle). With an approximately 3-inch cookie cutter, or something equivalent, cut large circles in the dough. Drop heaping tablespoons of the ricotta filling on half of the rounds, and brush a little water around the edges of all the other rounds. Place the other rounds on top, and press around the filling to get rid of any air pockets. Seal the edges all around with the tines of a fork, making a little ridged pattern. (This is evidently how my great-grandmother finished hers, and it does make them look nice. Lay the ravioli out on a well-floured sheet pan, and let sit unrefrigerated until you cook them (if they need to wait for more than a few hours, I would freeze them before the bottoms get moist and start sticking to the sheet pan).

To make the sauce: In a small sauce pan, melt the butter over low heat. Turn off the heat and add the cinnamon, sugar, and black pepper.

When you’re ready to serve the ravioli, set up a large pot of pasta-cooking water, and bring it to a boil. Add a generous amount of salt. Add the ravioli and boil them just until they float to the surface, about 3 minutes. Let them cook about another minute, and then scoop them from the water with a large strainer, letting all the cooking water drip off, and place them on a large warmed platter (Pouring them into a colander might break them apart; this method is much gentler.)

Add a splash of pasta-cooking water to the butter sauce and give it a stir. Drizzle the sauce over the top and scatter on the basil. Serve right away, bringing the remaining Parmigiano to the table for grating.

Joseph’s mother’s lagane e ceci.

Recipe:

Lagane e ceci

Dear Erica,

I’m very happy to read about your new website feature, “Lost Recipes Found.” One recipe in particular, something my mother made often, I really, really miss. It’s a pasta with chickpeas in a white sauce of some sort, and no tomatoes. I’ve tried making it myself, but I can’t get it right. My sister can’t either. The pasta looked like fettuccine, only cut shorter. I can’t remember if my mother made the pasta fresh herself or not. There was parsley and hot pepper in the sauce, but other than that mainly chickpeas and I guess olive oil (I never paid much attention to her cooking; I was only interested in eating). I grew up in the Bronx. My mother’s family came from Salerno, near Naples. If you could help me recreate this pasta, I’d be really grateful.

Thank you so much.

Sincerely,

Joseph Milite, Tribeca, N.Y.

I’ve chosen this email sent to me by Joseph Milite to start off my “Lost Recipes Found” feature because I too love pasta with chickpeas. It’s a simple but deeply flavored dish made throughout Italy’s south. I’ve eaten it in Basilicata where it almost always includes a good dose of hot chilies, and in Puglia where it goes by the name of ciceri e tria, tria being an old name for pasta, most likely of Arabic origin. What makes the Puglian version special is the garnish of crispy fried pasta scattered over the top right before serving. I’ve found many recipes for pasta with chickpeas in Calabria and Campania too.

Lagane is the name used for the type of homemade pasta that accompanies chickpeas in most parts of the south. It’s an ancient word which most historians agree is likely the origin of the modern Italian word lasagne. Most of the recipes for lagane are for a chewy pasta of durum wheat and water; no eggs here, as this is cucina povera. The pasta is cut the width of fettuccine but in shorter lengths, usually about two inches long. Our neighbor across the street when I was a kid, whose family was from Sorrento, used to make this dish with fresh lagane and long-simmered dried chickpeas. No tomatoes, just chickpea-cooking broth, garlic, olive oil, and a good amount of celery (her own personal stamp). I loved it. My mother made a gal-on-the-go version with dried ziti, canned chick peas, and lots of parsley; I loved that too.

I make variations on pasta with chickpeas often, usually using dried pasta such as cavatelli or orecchiette. Sometimes I’ll add pancetta or sage, or white wine, or tomatoes, but to recreate this recipe for Mr. Milite, I’ve stuck with a classic Campanian version: homemade durum wheat lagane, garlic, fresh parsley, rosemary, and dried chickpeas simmered with bay leaves. I believe this will be very close to the beloved dish his mother made. He’ll have to try it and let me know.

(A note on the recipe: Durum wheat flour is a finer grind than what in this country is called semolina flour. Both are made from the same, hard wheat, but when I tried making lagane with semolina, as recommended in several published recipes, the pasta was stiff and chewy, delicious but more like the Puglian version. When I researched lagane in Salerno, I found recipes for the pasta made with coarse or fine-ground hard wheat, or with soft white flour, so I decided on the middle ground and came up with something with lovely texture and just a little bite to it, the way I remember my Sorrentese neighbor’s tasting.)

Lagane e Ceci

(Serves 4 as a first course)

For the lagane:

1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup warm water
2 cups fine durum wheat flour

For the sauce:

1 cup dried chickpeas, soaked overnight in cool water to cover
1 bay leaf, fresh if possible
Extra-virgin olive oil
Salt
1 small onion, cut into small dice
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1/2 small, fresh red peperoncino pepper, minced
A sprig of rosemary, the leaves chopped
A splash of dry white wine
A handful of flat-leaf parsley, the leaves lightly chopped
A chunk of firm Caciocavallo cheese (optional)

To cook the chickpeas:

Drain the chickpeas and place them in a large pot. Cover them with cool water by at least 2 inches. Add the bay leaf and turn the heat to high. When the water comes to a boil, lower the heat and let them simmer gently, partially covered, until tender, about 1 1/2 hours, but it really depends on how hard your chic peas are. Some can take longer, so start testing them after about 1 1/2 hours. Add more warm water if needed to keep the chickpeas covered. When they’re tender, season them with salt and a generous drizzle of olive oil, and turn off the heat.

To make the pasta:

Pour the water and the salt into the bowl of a food processor and give it a few pulses. Start adding the flour a little at a time, giving it a few pulses each time to work it in. When the flour is incorporated and everything has formed a slightly sticky ball, dump the dough out onto a lightly floured surface (if the dough seems too dry, drizzle in a tiny bit more warm water and pulse a few more times). Knead until the dough is smooth and shiny, about 8 minutes. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and set it aside to rest for about 1/2 hour.

Cut the dough into 4 parts. Flour the first piece of dough lightly and run it through a hand-cranked pasta machine several times at each setting until you get to the third-to-last setting. The lagane should be a little thicker than standard fettuccine. Do this with each piece of dough. Lay all the pasta sheets out on a floured surface and let them sit to firm up for about 5 minutes. Now cut the sheets into approximately 1/4-inch-wide strips. Cut the strips into 2-inch lengths. Sprinkle the lagane with a little flour and lay them out so that the pieces don’t touch.

To make the sauce:

Drain the chickpeas, saving all their cooking liquid.

Set up a large pot of pasta cooking water and bring it to a boil. Add a generous amount of salt.

In a large skillet, heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion, and sauté until softened, about 4 minutes. Add the peperoncino, rosemary, and the garlic, and sauté a minute longer, just to release their fragrances. Add about half of the chickpeas, and sauté them in the oil for about 3 or 4 minutes, letting them turn a little golden. Season with salt. Add the splash of white wine, and let it boil way. Add 1/2 cup of the chickpea cooking water, and let the sauce simmer. You’ll have some chickpeas left over to use for a salad or a side dish (it seems to me if I’m going to take the time to cook dried chickpeas, I might as well make a good amount and use them for different dishes).

Drop the lagane into the water and cook until al dente, about 3 minutes. Drain well and add them to the skillet. Toss everything together briefly in the skillet, adding a generous drizzle of fresh olive oil and the parsley. Add more salt if needed. You can also add a little extra ceci cooking liquid if it seems dry (the consistency shouldn’t be soupy, but a little moisture is the traditional texture). Transfer to a warmed serving bowl, and serve with grated Caciocavallo if desired. Often in Southern Italy dishes that contain hot chilies are serves without cheese, but this is not a hard rule, so just follow your taste. I like my lagane e ceci with a little cheese.