Recipe: Polpettone for Hurricane Sandy
Even when I’m culinarily extravagant, which I think happens to any professional cook, I try my hardest never to be wasteful. I get a sickening pang in my heart if I let something spoil because of inattentiveness. Unfortunately, sometimes waste can’t be helped, but still it makes me feel bad when it happens.
The day before Hurricane Sandy struck I stood in line at Westside Market, with hundreds of other crazed looking West Villagers, and bought up anything I could get my little mitts on, cans of tomatoes, sardines, tuna, bags of penne, rigatoni, ziti, dried cecis, cauliflower, bananas, a zillion heads of escarole, for some unexplained reason, but meat, too, pork, beef, chicken, lots of it. You’d think being a food pro it would have occurred to me that if the lights went out, refrigeration would go out too, but with all the pushing and grabbing at the hectic market, I threw whatever was closest at hand into my cart, happy just to have lots of stuff. I figured I’d have a crowd of people flooding into my tiny apartment, camping out and needing to be fed. That’s what had happened when the World Trade Center imploded, and also during various heat-related blackouts over the years. It didn’t happen this time. Everyone was scattered and isolated.
Cooking sausage ragù and pork with ceci beans in my freezing cold, candlelit kitchen was a novel challenge. At least our gas wasn’t turned off, unlike my mother’s, so I could light the burners with a match. And we had water, unlike many people. Not hot water, but cold water I could boil to cook pasta. By the third day, with my now hot refrigerator filled with packages of chopped meat and rotting escarole, I decided I should make a polpettone, a meatloaf. But damned if the meat in the big hot germ box didn’t smell a little off. Gee, what a bummer. Should I cook it anyway? The inside of the refrigerator smelled exactly like when I’ve on occasion located a dead and rotting mouse under a bookcase. What would it be like to come down with food poisoning in a freezing cold, blacked out apartment? At least if my husband and I needed to puke for a few hours, we could flush the toilet, something many friends couldn’t at that moment do, but ultimately I decided that taking the chance could add insult to injury (or possibly the other way around). So the ground pork, ground chuck, and ground veal all had to go. This pained me and made me feel incredibly obtuse for having bought so much perishable stuff. I guess I hadn’t thought the blackout would last so long. But then why did I buy so much? The answer: pure panic. I think Italians in particular are prone to this type of frantic hoarding. I’ve seen it with my family here and in Italy, how they go apeshit every year preserving in vinegar or oil every garden eggplant and pepper, every leaf of basil, jamming up the basement with rows of jars and bottles as if there weren’t a grocery store anywhere.
Interestingly, I don’t think West Side Market lost much. During the storm I saw guys loading big trucks with perishables and presumably transporting it all to their Upper West Side branch, where, as some of my friends who live up there have told me, you’d never have even known a hurricane had barreled through. Having seen that made me feel even more guilty. If I had just left all that meat in the store and not been so greedy, it would have fed somebody.
Here’s the recipe for the polpettone I finally did get around to making, the day the lights came on. It was quite delicious.
Polpettone for Hurricane Sandy
(Serves 4 or 5)
1 pound ground pork
1 pound ground beef, preferably chuck
The soft insides from 2 slices of Italian bread, torn into small pieces (about a cup)
1 heaping tablespoon crème fraîche
A splash of milk
Extra-virgin olive oil
6 thin slices pancetta, 1 well chopped, 5 left whole
1 celery stalk, cut into small dice, plus a handful of celery leaves, chopped
1 medium shallot, cut into small dice
1 small carrot, cut into small dice
2 small garlic cloves, minced
Dry white wine
2 large eggs
6 large thyme sprigs, leaves chopped
A handful of Italian parsley leaves, chopped
½ teaspoon ground coriander
½ teaspoon ground allspice
Freshly ground black pepper
Salt
¾ cup grated grana padano
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Put the ground meat in a large bowl.
Put the torn bread in a small bowl. Add the crème fraîche and a splash of milk, and mix everything around with a fork until it’s mushy. Pour this onto the meat.
In a medium skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium flame. Add the chopped pancetta, and sauté until it’s just starting to crisp. Add the celery, shallot, and carrot, and sauté until softened. Add the garlic, and sauté a few seconds, just to release its flavor. Add a splash of white wine, let it bubble for a few seconds, and then pour everything over the meat in the large bowl.
Now add all the remaining ingredients, except the sliced pancetta, seasoning well with salt and black pepper (and don’t forget the celery leaves). Add a drizzle of olive oil, and mix well but gently, trying not to make the meat too compact (or you’ll have a dense meatloaf).
Choose a baking dish that will fit the meatloaf with a little free room all around. Drizzle the bottom of the dish with olive oil. Shape the meat into a big log, and tilt it into the dish. Lay the slices of pancetta over the top. Give it a splash of white wine and then a good drizzle of olive oil. Bake until just tender, about 30 to 35 minutes.
Erica De Mane 
Meatlog by candlelight sounds romantico. Happy to hear that you made it through the Apocalypse. Question: you’ve been a busy blogger of late. What propels you? Whence comes your inspiration? I’ve hit the wall where my blog is posted. Gone dumb of a sudden. ( Didn’t help that my Bitter Half referred to my blog as “j**king off.”) Perhaps I should stop blogging about my inability to blog…”Blogger’s Block?…and choose a subject of interest to other human beings. I know: how about the definitive treatise on meatlog?! Perhaps I should finally reveal my secret recipe for the tastiest damn mountain oysters you’d ever eat. NO…on second thought, I should take that one to my grave.
PS- what did you use for gravy?
Hey Michael,
Yeah it’s been a bit nuts around here, dragging my wacky mother from one apartment to another in search of heat and water. She’s still got no water or electricity at her place, but she now has heat -how is that even possible?
I’ve been averaging about one blog a week, usually inspired by a recipe. I think about food a lot, and really don’t think about much else. It helps to have a one track mind if you’re going to keep cranking out a blog. I really don’t know how the jack of all trade type bloggers do it.
I didn’t serve the meatloaf with a sauce. I served in over a green salad, degreasing the pan juices and incorporating a little of that into the salad dressing. More of a French than Italian concept, but it worked.
Erica
sounds delicious. I will admit to being a big fan of meatloaf. I make mine out of chicken and turkey that I grind together on my KitchenAid thing. To me, the best part of meatloaf is the leftovers turned into a cold sandwich…which is why I make larger that your average meatlogs. I’m talking Neandethal meatloaf.
isn’t the world great? Obama won…you guys weathered the Storm o’ the century…we have all this wonderful technology…to talk about MEATLOAF. I’m thinking that it’s time for me to embrace some larger issues…i need a new raison d’etre …however the French say it. I think it'[s time for me to step up to STEWS or something equally challenging. It’s too bad I don;’t eat red meat anymore ’cause I have a killer beef stew recipe. The secret ingredient is apple cider. Sometimes…like tonight when I am drifting all over the page…i wish i had a big industrial kitchen again. It has taken me years to realize that I actually did get “something”…a good feeling, for lack of a better description…out of cooking for the masses. I daydream…and nightmare…about cooking all the time. And every so often, when i visit a really good restaurant, I wish myself back to working on the line. Thing of it is…i got really good at it toward the end of my cooking career. I received my culinary education at work, which is probably the best way to learn it.
I can’t believe I’m writing this BUT…I actually miss doing it. And I’d go back in a day if someone would hire me…and if my stupid back problem would allow. I used to work with a cook who was a heroin addict. True story. So…if he could do it, shouldn’t I be able?
there’s a guy in my ‘hood who runs a place called Breakfast cafe. all he does is breakfast and lunch and i swear to god, he’s printing money. The simplest concept of a restaurant there is. I think i’d go in that direction. Something simple, you know? Nothing high-brow or stuffy. I’m a huge fan of “DriveIns, Dumps and Dives”…or whatever it’s called…on the Food Channel. the show spotlights cooking like no other program: good, simple food that’s satifying to eat and prepare. that’s how I’d go, given the chance. I’m wondering if you’ve ever had the inkling to open your own place. I know it’s a killer bizness but I’d love to see what you’d come up with. The dishes you’ve served up on your blog are just wonderful…seriously. All you need is a venue and I think you’d be Toast O’ The town. I’m not kidding. think of it: you get to do something you love and there’s all the CASH you can skim…which is what the restaurant biz is all about, isn’t it? ( Come on…let’s be honest…) I regret that we never got a chance to cook together; I’d work with you any day.
I just hope you wouldn’t fire me when my methadone (and other assorted Rx’s) ran out.
Italian Thanksgiving up ahead. the BEST Thanksgivings I’ve ever had were the ones I spent at my Italian friends’ houses when I was growing up. NOBODY does Thanksgiving better than the Italians. Seriously.
Keep up the good work. I see your blog as a growing collection of pieces that will eventually become a great book. Your installments are always best when your inimitable wit shines through.
funny thing about writers….how we all can see a clear path for the people we know but we can’t find our way out of own woods.
Best to all…stay dry and warm…and keep cranking it out. I think you could easily distill two or three great cookbooks from your ongoing blogs.
-michael s.
Please forgive all my typos in the foregoing message. I’m sending this from my netbook which has the tiniest damn keyboard…too small for my fat fingers…
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Thanks Michael. You’re always so upbeat when it concerns me. Saving little for yourself would be lovely and well deserved.
Erica
Erica,
Glad to hear that your family is doing well and weathered the storm. This may sound rather morbid but I am sorry I wasn’t there. When tragedy strikes, New Yorkers seem to come together and bond differently than else where in the country.
That is strange that you posted a different recipe on Tuesday for Polpettone Meatloaf than you posted last year; I made that one on Tuesday, My meatloaf usually comes out tasteless and hard as a rock and need to have some tomato sauce on hand to pour over it. But this one –even though quite filling was very moist and aromatic with the herbs and nuts. I loved it with broccoli rabe and a pear salad you also posted. I couldn’t stop eating it. Luckily I had a group of people over to feed or I would of eaten the entire polpettone.
I am sharing your blog with anyone who loves to cook.
Hi Maria,
Glad you liked the meatloaf. My new recipe is simpler, but still very moist. You shouldn’t need a sauce.
Everyone is okay here. Liti and I both lost power and everything for 5 days, but Mo, my mother, who lives in the 30’s and way east, still is without hot water and gas. She’s staying with Liti and hopes to get back to her place by tomorrow.
You are right about New York. My neighborhood in the West Village was completely black for 5 days. No lights anywhere, but people were so nice I never for a minute felt scared entering my building or walking about the streets.
Best to you, Erica