Tag: pancetta

Valeria Necchio’s Casoncelli – Pork, Beef, Raisin and Amaretti Ravioli

.Reading time 4 minutes.

Serves: 6

Holy shit, this recipe is just incredible.

“Decident” said Nat. “Marvellous” I said. “I don’t want this to end” said Nat.

And boy, wasn’t that the truth.

Yes, in our pre-baby #4 quest to find the world’s greatest pasta, this is truly, truly in the running.

This pasta separates itself from the wonderful though simple Lidia Bastianich and Antonio Carluccio pastas we have been pushing, taking it up a level in finesse and clarity.

This pasta jumps over this otherwise incredible white ragu, being more sophisticated: less steam train, more race car.

And look, this Rodney Dunn Mushroom Cannelloni with fresh pasta sheets was one of the best pastas we have cooked.

Though in terms of peak genius, this Casoncelli is just so much more refined. Just so much more ‘in the moment’ special.

We used sliced roast beef from the supermarket. Otherwise, everything is straightforward.

Slightly depressed to read this is a common dish in the Bergamo and Brescia parts of Italy, though I guess we’ve always known the Italians have truly the best food lives. I guess we have our beaches here in Sydney however. (I know which I would take!)

If you are like us and want to chase the Saturday-night pasta hit, this my friend is unquestionably the next rung in the ladder.

Ingredients

Pasta dough

Make my Kitchenaid Pasta dough

Filling

1 tbsp unsalted butter
150gm Italian sausage meat, crumbled
100gm roast beef, minced
120gm breadcrumbs
1 medium egg
70gm Parmesean, grated
10gm Amaretti biscuits (about 3), crushed
10gm raisins, soaked, squeezed and then chopped
Fine sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Sauce

80gm unsalted butter
80gm pancetta, cut into thin strips
4 sage leaves
80gm Parmesean, grated

Method

  1. Make the pasta per my Kitchenaid Pasta Dough Recipe.
  2. Make the filling: brown the sausage meat with the butter over a medium heat, then add the roast beef and cook for a few minutes, stirring often, so the flavours can mingle together. Transfer to a bowl, then add the breadcrumbs, egg, Parmesean, amaretti and raisins. Season with salt and pepper and stir to combine.
  3. Roll the pasta in a pasta machine to setting 2. Using a round 7 – 8cm ravioli cutter, cut out as many circles of pasta as you can get.
  4. Place a tsp of the filling at the centre of each circle, then gently fold it over to form a half moon. Press the edges together using a fork.
  5. Bring a large pot of salted water to a rolling boil. Meanwhile, in a frypan set over a medium heat, melt the butter for the sauce. Add the pancetta and sage and fry for a few minutes, until crispy.
  6. Cook the casoncelli in boiling water for a few minutes until they float to the top. Drain with a slotted spoon and transfer to the frying pan with pancetta and butter sauce. Sauté for 30 seconds, until evenly dressed.
  7. Serve immediately with a dusting of grated Parmesean.

Claudia Roden’s Provençale Daube

.Reading time 3 minutes.

Serves: 6 – 8

Red wine. Beef juices. Garlic, Orange peel. Herbs and spices. And hours of time in the oven or on the stove.

Nothing to assume this isn’t a marvellous winter lunch party dish.

Served with a Parmesan polenta, braised mushrooms and green beans, this was comfort dialed up.

We lit the fire pit, turned up the music and wow, didn’t this make for a great afternoon.

Skip breakfast and thank me later.

Ingredients

4 tbsp olive oil
1.5kg beef, cut into large pieces*
2 large onions, each cut into 6 wedges
125gm unsmoked pancetta or diced streaky bacon
5 garlic cloves, peeled
500gm carrots, cut into 1.5cm slices
1 bottle of red wine
2 bay leaves
4 – 5 thyme sprigs
1 tsp ground cinnamon
3/4 tsp ground allspice
3 – 4 cloves
2 – 3 tsp sugar
Strips of peel from 1 orange
3 – 4 tbsp cognac or grappa (optional)
Salt and black pepper

Method

  1. Heat the oil in a large heavy-based pan or casserole over medium heat, put in the meat and cook, turning the pieces to brown all over.
  2. Remove the meat to a plate and put the onions and pancetta into the pan. Sauté for about 6 minutes, stirring until the onions are lightly coloured and the pancetta releases its fat. Add the garlic for the last minute or so, then the carrots, and season.
  3. Return the meat to the pan, pour in the wine and add the herbs and spices, sugar and orange peel. Add water to cover, bring to the boil, then turn the heat down to low, cover the pan, and simmer very gently for 2 – 3 hours, keeping the meat submerged, until it is so tender, you can cut it with a spoon. Towards the end of the cooking time, remove the orange peel and if you like, add the cognac.**

* My brother-in-law Sean really dropped in a cracking rump cap a week ago. He is a master of the BBQ and we share notes, ideas and recipes. We even once had a reverse-sear vs sous vide rib eye bone in challenge (he won ever so slightly, though a win is a win). Anyway, he would never have done a rump cap in a 6 hour braise, though my reading was that it was a perfect cut and indeed… it was.

If you can get a rump cap, trim it and this will be perfect.

** I did the main cooking time in the oven at 160c. After 2 hours, I removed the lid and cooked down the liquid for another hour or two. Would do it again.

The New Roast Chicken

.Reading time 2 minutes.

Serves: 4

I cooked this recipe – originally from Delicious Magazine – years ago and it is really just so impressive. Really rewarding.

It’s a roast chicken on Monday night.

Ingredients

1/3 c olive oil
3 garlic cloves
1 tbsp chopped thyme leaves
4 skinless breast fillets
12 slices flat pancetta
4 slices sourdough bread
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
1/3 c flat-leaf parsley
40gm unsalted butter
1 tbsp plain flour
1 c white wine
2 c chicken stock
2 tbsp dry sherry or white wine
Steamed green beans to serve

Method

  1. Combine 2 tbsp olive oil in a bowl with 1 crushed garlic clove and thyme leaves. Season the chicken breasts and coat in garlic oil. Wrap each breast with 3 slices of pancetta slightly overlapping. Enclose chicken in plastic wrap and chill for 2 – 3 hours.
  2. Preheat the oven to 190c. Break bread into rough pieces and i and toss in 1 tbsp oil. Place on a baking tray in a single layer and cook for 10 minutes or until golden and crisp. Cool slightly and pulse in a food processor with lemon zest parsley and remaining garlic until you have coarse crumbs. Season.
  3. Heat remaining 1 tbsp oil in an ovenproof frypan over a medium-high heat. Remove chicken from plastic wrap and cook, turning for 2 – 3 minutes until browned all over, then cook in the oven for 10 – 12 minute or until the chicken is cooked through. Remove from the oven, add butter to the pan and baste chicken with the melted butter. Remove chicken from the pan and cover with foil while you make the gravy.
  4. Return frypan to medium heat and cook flour, stirring for 1 minute until lightly browned. Add wine and cook for 2 – 3 minutes, then add stock. Bring to a simmer and cook for 5 minutes until the gravy is thickened. Add sherry to taste. Slice chicken and serve with gravy and green beans, scattered with breadcrumbs.

Giana De Laurentiis’ Caremalised Pancetta and Fennel Salad

.Reading time 2 minutes.

Serves: 4

In the family, I known for my green salads.

I’m known for plenty of other things too 🥴, though pulling together vinaigrette and a bowl of greens and leaves, is definitely my thing; with pasta, with grilled meat, by-itself.

Shaved parmesan, toasted, sliced almonds, French shallots, plenty of avacado… or just leaves.

Yum.

Which is why when I find a new salad that hits it out of the park, it makes me so excited.

We did a lockdown date-night last night and I did a Giana De Laurentiis lemon spaghetti and this salad.

The pasta was good.

This salad was brilliant.

Cook the pancetta until it crumbles. And don’t hold back on the salad greens.

Because trust me, none will be left.

Ingredients

1 fennel bulb, halved and cut into 1cm wedges
6 slices pancetta
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp fresh ground blac pepper
6 – 7 c mixed salad greens
Red wine vinaigrette
Bottle of cold, crisp white ready for big pours

Red Wine Vinaigrette

2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp honey
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1/4 c extra-virgin olive oil

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 200c and line a baking sheet with baking paper.
  2. In a medium bowl, toss together fennel, pancetta, garlic, brown sugar, olive oil, salt and pepper. Place the ingredients on the baking sheet in a single layer. Cook until the pancetta is crisp and fennel is caramelised: about 20 – 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool.
  3. For the Red Wine Vinaigrette: mix the vinegar, lemon juice, honey, salt and pepper in a blender. With the machine running, gradually blend in the oil. Adjust the seasoning as necessary.
  4. In a large bowl, place the salad greens, crumbled pancetta and caremlised fennel. Toss with the Red Wine Vinaigrette.

Mietta’s Rigatoni with Cauliflower

.Reading time 3 minutes.

Serves: 6

Mietta (O’Donnell) was a bit ahead of my time.

She was one of those 80s and 90s doyens that drove food and fine dining in Australia out of the dowdy 70s and much closer to the amazing foodie place we have now; first by opening an Italian restaurant of the kind Australia had never seen: then, by starting Australia’s first serious review of restaurants.

Her contribution to Australian food cannot be overstated, certainly by everything I have read.

Sadly, Mietta was killed in a car accident in 2001.

Last Mother’s Day, I purchased Mietta’s book for Nat and gave her the back story.

We have been meaning to cook something from it since then and geez, I wish we had done so earlier.

I’ve said that unique, restaurant-quality pastas really excite me.

This is one of them.

The quality of food – at home and out – is remarkable in Australia. My mother occasionally talks about how expensive chicken was 30 years back.

It was people like Mietta that laid the foundations for such extraordinary change in the culinary scene in Australia over the last 20 years and this pasta really sums up how the simple things she introduced us to led to the amazing foodie place we live in today.

Ingredients

1 medium onion, sliced and soaked in milk
30ml olive oil
1 medium cauliflower, cut into flowerets
100gm pancetta or bacon, julienned
A little chilli
90ml tomato sauce
500g rigatoni
Parmesan, grated

Tomato sauce

300ml olive oil
1/2 onion, finely chopped
80gm ham, chopped
12gm flour mixed with 5ml oil
800gm canned Italian plum tomatoes, drained
Pinch of sugar
1 sprig thyme
1 bay leaf
Salt and pepper

Method

  1. For the tomato sauce: Heat the oil in a heavy saucepan and add the chopped onion and ham and brown over a fairly high heat for 5 minutes. Add the flour and mix well; turn down the heat to moderate and add the canned tomatoes.
  2. Season with the salt, pepper and sugar; add the thyme and bay leaf.
  3. Cook for about 45 minutes, stirring from time to time.
  4. For the rigatoni: fry the onions in oil and add the cauliflower flowerets.
  5. Put the lid on the pan so that the cauliflower can cook through the add the pancetta or bacon and then a little chilli. When the cauliflower is just cooked, add the tomato sauce.
  6. Boil the rigatoni until cooked and strain. Toss the cauliflower mixture through the pasta and serve, sprinkled with plenty of grated Parmesan.

Matt Preston’s Classic Ragu with Polenta Dumplings

.Reading time 3 minutes.

Serves: 4 – 6

We’ve typed up a few ragus and slow braises and we have reached a point where unless there is something radical about the dish, it wont make the cut.

This Matt Preston ragu makes the cut.

It is from his book, Yummy Easy Quick, a Christmas gift from Nat.

I’ve never had a failed Matt Preston dish and really admire his wholesome, no-holding-back cooking.

Despite the name of the book, his book – and this recipe – isn’t some sort of magazine aisle ‘I don’t have time to cook’ publication: the book is is just great recipes that are easy enough and certainly fun enough for any night of the week.

Specifically for this ragu, it is the ragu itself and especially the fun of the polenta dumplings that makes the whole thing really work.

Complex it is not, tasty, ragu amazing it is.

We had this the night before NYE 2017 with our friends Woodles and Billy.

It was fabulous and ticked all the boxes.

Happy 2018.

Ingredients

2 tbsp olive oil
1 kg gravy beef, cut into 4cm pieces
100gm pancetta or bacon, coarsely chopped
2 anchovy fillets
2 celery stalks, finely chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
4 garlic cloves, crushed
3 fresh or dry bay leaves
1/2 cup red wine
1 x 400gm can crushed tomatoes
1 1/2 cups passata
1 cup chicken stock
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Polenta Dumplings

1 cup self-raising flour
2/3 cup polenta
1/2 cup shredded Pecorino or Parmesan, plus 2 tbsp to sprinkle
1/2 cup milk
2 eggs, beaten

Method

  1. Heat the over to 160c.
  2. Heat 1 tbsp of the oil over a medium-high heat in a large, oven-proof saucepan. Cook the beef until browned, in batches if necessary. Set aside.
  3. Heat the remaining oil in the saucepan over a medium heat. Add the pancetta and anchovies. Cook for 2 minutes. Add the celery, onion, garlic and bay leaves and cook until soft. Add the wine and simmer for 5 minutes or until the liquid has reduced by half.
  4. Add the beef, tomatoes, stock and passata. Cover and bake for 2 hours; taste and season well.
  5. 15 minutes prior to this, make the dumplings: combine the flour, polenta and cheese in a bowl. Add the milk and eggs and stir until well combined. When the ragu comes out, scoop 1/4 cups of dumpling mixture on the ragu like golf balls. Sprinkle the dumplings with extra cheese.
  6. Return the dish, covered, to the oven for a further 30 minutes.
  7. ENJOY!

Spaghetti with crushed peas, mint and pancetta

.Reading time 2 minutes.

FullSizeRender (6)
Beautiful colours.

Serves: 4 – 6

I found this recipe in the 2015 Gourmet Traveller Annual Cookbook.

Having not had pasta for months, I had a real hankering; keen to cook something that wasn’t entirely outrageous and thus setting me back two weeks of walking and running, this recipe was it and what a great recipe it is.

It is one of those nice and simple, nobody is going be upset, Sunday lunch pastas. It’s clean, fresh and children friendly. It certainly looks the part with a big salad or two and some crusty bread.

Yum.

Ingredients

400gm dried spaghetti
50ml olive oil
80gm mild pancetta, diced
¼ onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
50ml dry white wine
150ml chicken stock
250gm frozen peas
½ c coarsely torn mint, plus extra to serve
Finely grated pecorino pepato to serve

Method

  1. Cook pasta in a large saucepan of boiling water until al dente. Drain and return to the pan with a tablespoon or two of the pasta water.
  2. Meanwhile, heat oil in large frying pan over a medium-high heat, add pancetta and cook until it starts to crisp (3 – 4 minutes). Add onions and garlic and sauté until tender (3 – 4 minutes). Deglaze the pan with wine, add stock and bring to a simmer. Add peas, simmer until tender (2 – 3 minutes), remove from the heat, season to taste and coarsely crush the peas.
  3. Toss pea mixture through pasta, season again if necessary and serve hot with pecorino pepato and extra mint.

Tagliatelle with shaved parsnip, pancetta and sage

.Reading time 1 minute.

Serves: 4

This neat little pasta is one I found it in Karen Martini’s Cooking at Home. I think she is a really good home cook and everything I have cooked of hers has been a success.

I used fresh pasta and substituted the spicy pancetta (the recipe asked for) for the pancetta I could find at the supermarket.

Tuesday night sorted!

Ingredients

300gm tagliatelle (or fettuccini)
1 parsnip, peeled
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
8 – 12 slices of (spicy) pancetta (I cut the pancetta into large pieces, though that is not the recipe)
2 garlic cloves, finely sliced
2 handfuls of sage leaves
1 teaspoon of dried chilli flakes
100ml white wine
150ml pouring cream
50hm shaved parmesan
1 tbsp lemon juice
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

  1. Cook the pasta, drain and set-aside; add a little olive oil and keep warm, ensuring it does not stick together.
  2. Use a vegetable peeler to cut the parsnips into fine shavings (discarding the fibrous centre).
  3. Heat half the oil in a heavy fry-pan over a medium-to-high heat, and cook the pancetta until browned and crispy.
  4. Add the garlic, sage, chilli and parsnip and remaining oil (if necessary) and cook until the parsnip is crisp.
  5. Pour in the wine and cook for 2 minutes and then add the cream.
  6. Add the pasta and toss.
  7. Add the parmesan and lemon juice, season and serve.

Tartiflette (French Cheese and Potato Bake)

.Reading time 2 minutes.

Serves: 4 – 8 as a side

There is a time and a place for dishes like this.

Not every night and perhaps not even every Saturday, but if you are going to cook something as utterly incredible as Orlando Murrin’s Roast Fillet of Veal in Parmesean Crust, well there sir, you have the time and place for a dish like this.

I mean, you can always go for a 15km walk in the morning right?

(If you don’t have pancetta, keep looking. You can substitute but seriously…)

Ingredients

1kg potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
50g unsalted butter
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 tsp chopped thyme
200g Speck or Pancetta
1/2 cup white wine
200ml thickened cream
250g raclette or reblochon cheese grated (substitute, gruyere)

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 190c.
  2. Boil the potatoes for 3 or so minutes; they should be started to soften though not fully softened.
  3. Melt the butter over a medium-low heat in a large frying pan. Add the onion and cook for 5 minutes or until soft, stirring occasionally.
  4. Add the garlic, thyme and Speck (or pancetta) and cook, stirring for 5 minutes.
  5. Add the white wine, cream, most of the cheese and the potato and stir to combine. Season.
  6. Transfer the mixture to a large baking dish and sprinkle with the remaining cheese.
  7. Cover with a sheet of baking paper (to prevent sticking) and then foil.
  8. Bake for 20 minutes, then remove the baking paper/foil and continue cooking for another 20 minutes or until bubbling and golden.