Pastina With A Poached Egg

My next post is something I wasn’t quite sure if I should blog about. Not because it doesn’t taste wonderful, because it does, but it wasn’t the most photogenic recipe. On the flip side, it’s super easy (one pot), it only consists of 5 ingredients (all of which are almost always in my fridge or pantry), and it tastes great. So, I’d say the the good outweighs the bad.

I got the idea for this recipe from a blog I found last month when I was sick. You see, not only was I sick, but I was desperate. It was right before Christmas and besides having all of the usual holiday stuff to do, I was getting ready to go out of town to visit my family in Philly. I needed to get better. Fast! So, I Googled home remedies for colds and came across this blog: http://chefprivato.blogspot.com/2009/01/pastina-for-babyitalian-grandma-food.html. But I didn’t make it right away. Instead, I opted to make a Hot toddy. It really was all I could muster up the energy for at the time. However, I got the perfect opportunity to make this recipe when I got sick this past week. Again. How fun.

For those of you who are Italian like me, pastina is probably a staple in your pantry. I make it quite often and the way I make it changes all the time. It’s one of the dishes I whip up for my teenage son when I make something he doesn’t like or when he’s not not feeling well. Ever since he was a baby, he has always gobbled it up. This time was no exception. In his opinion, this is his new favorite way to eat pastina and I agree.

One of the things I love about cooking is that everyone can read a recipe then translate it to suit their taste. So, I changed the original recipe a bit (okay, a lot). If any of you make it, I’d be eager to hear how you put your own spin on it.

PASTINA WITH A POACHED EGG

Ingredients

1/2 cup Pastina
1 tbsp butter
1 egg
About 2 cups Chicken Broth (more to taste)
Parmigiano-Reggiano (for sprinkling on top, if desired)

Directions

In a small saucepan with a lid, melt butter. Add pastina and toast lightly for about 1 minute. Add 1 cup of the chicken broth, stir and bring to a simmer, stirring often for about 6 minutes, adding more broth if necessary. Once al dente, make a well in the center of the pasta and add some chicken stock. Add additional stock to the pastina so that it does not stick to the pan. Crack the egg in the well and gently cover the well with some of the pastina. Cover and cook for approximately 2 minutes. Gently spoon into a bowl and sprinkle with cheese, if desired.

Butternut Squash Ravioli

While I was putting together my list of upcoming recipes that I am planning to post, I found myself leaning towards a lot of pasta recipes. Being that pasta is probably THE standby Italian dish, it’s no real surprise. And I’m not just referring to a standard plate of Sunday pasta with gravy and meatballs. Pasta can be a very versatile ingredient in many creative dishes. So it was an easy decision to make a special Pasta category on my blog. Just as The Mamma Meets the Cucina, Family Recipes, and Guest Recipe with Emma appears every few weeks, I will now start to highlight a special pasta dish under the banner The Pasta Dish. This special section will feature a variety of topics and recipes, such as: home made pasta recipes, creative pasta sauces and toppings, and links to some of my favorite celebrity pasta dishes (and I have quite a few of them bookmarked!). I hope you get as much enjoyment reading the new section as I do posting it.

BUTTERNUT SQUASH RAVIOLI
Served with Brown Butter Sage Sauce

Today’s dinner was extra special. Aside from getting to use one of my favorite vegetables incorporated into one of my favorite pastas, my daughter Julianna was very eager to help me roll out the pasta. Spending time in the kitchen with family is always a special occasion, and getting to have my daughter to help out and share in the fun is always a bonus.

I found a good recipe for butternut squash ravioli filling. The most time consuming part is baking the squash in order to purée it, and you can do this ahead of time. After that it’s just mixing a few key cheese ingredients and letting it sit while you roll out a basic pasta dough. We used a ravioli stamper to press out the ravioli shapes, but I’m sure that many of you – like myself – have stories of our grandmothers using a juice glass to press out the ravioli.

I used Mario Batali’s brown butter and sage recipe for a quick and complimentary sauce, adding some toasted pine nuts as a final touch. Delicious, filling and lots of fun. Three key ingredients to a successful meal!

Ingredients

For the ravioli
3lb Butternut Squash
3/4 Cup Ricotta Cheese
1/4 Cup Parmesan Cheese
1/4 Teaspoon Cinnamon
1/4 Teaspoon Nutmeg
1 Teaspoon Fresh Ground Black Pepper
Salt, to taste
1/2 Cup Bread Crumbs

Slice squash in half, lengthwise. Remove seeds and pulp, place cut side down in a baking dish filled with a bit of water. Bake at 350º for 45 minutes. Let cook, scoop out flesh, purée. Add cheeses, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and pepper, blend. Add breadcrumbs, blend. Cover and set aside in refrigerator.

Next, make a basic pasta dough – you will need 2lbs of dough, which is approx. 4 cups of flour and 4 eggs. This will make approximately 28 ravioli.

When pasta is rolled out, place one sheet of dough on piece of wax paper. Mark the dough where you will be making the ravioli cuts. Place 1 tablespoon of filling in the center of each expected cut. Place a second sheet of dough on top (you may need to lightly brush the second sheet with an egg wash if the dough has dried out to help the sheets stick together). Press out the ravioli with a ravioli cutter.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Gently add the ravioli to the water and cook 4-5 minutes.

For the sauce
4 tablespoons butter
8 sage leaves
1/2 lemon, juiced
1/4 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
1/3 cup toasted pine nuts

While your pasta cooks, melt butter in a 12 to 14-inch saute pan and continue cooking until golden brown color appears in the thinnest liquid of the butter. Add sage leaves and remove from heat. Add lemon juice and set aside. Drain the pasta, but leaving a small amount of cooking water, and gently pour into saute pan and return to heat. Add the cheese and toasted pine nuts, toss to coat and serve immediately.

Gravy Wars Revisited – My Review of the Winning Gravy!

A few weeks back, I went spoon-to-spoon with Una Mamma Italiana in a Sunday Gravy War. After all of the votes were tallied, Una Mamma ended up being top tomato. Today, I finally had the chance to make a pot of the winning gravy, step by step. The verdict is in…..and Una Mamma’s Sunday Gravy is definitely a winner!

Rather than go over each step of the gravy making method (you can see the recipe first hand by clicking here), I thought it would be best to highlight was makes Una Mamma’s gravy so different than mine.

While I start my gravy process with frying up some garlic in olive oil, this recipe calls for garlic AND two onions (I only use onion powder as a flavoring). So right out of the gate you’re dealing with some great aromatics. This is also when the wild card ingredient comes in to play…the butter. Now I’m sure that some of you, as I, were stumped with the butter ingredient. Who puts butter in red gravy? You’re actually using it to sauté the onions and garlic, so it makes total sense and adds nice flavor.

The next difference that I noticed was adding the tomato paste to the sautéed veggies BEFORE adding the tomato purée. This helps break down the paste into a flavorful brownish sauce that incorporates nicely with the tomatoes…and this is a nice trick that I think I will start to use with my own recipe.

And the final difference is adding the meat at an early stage. I like to first have all of the seasonings and tomatoes marry together for a good 45 minutes or so prior to adding the meats. This allows the sweetness of the tomatoes to really shine through, while allowing the meat flavors to add a tremendous accent to the meal. I call this the Clemenza method (all of you Godfather fans will relate). Una Mamma’s recipe, on the other hand, gets the addition of the seared meats involved immediately. This really allows the fats and flavors of the meats to take over, which makes this a true, hands down, no denying, by-the-book MEAT GRAVY.

Final thoughts – my family and I give Una Mamma thumbs up all around! We did find the gravy to be a bit thinner than mine (my addition of a can of sauce thickens it up a bit), however it was very flavorful with an amazing aroma. The thinner gravy isn’t a bad thing, it just means [to me] that I would know ahead of time that I would be aiming for this particular taste and texture. Of course I would never turn my back on my own gravy – this would be like turning my back on my own child. But, like all good parents, you are always ready to welcome your friends’ children into your house to play as well. And I guarantee you that I will be serving up Una Mamma’s Sunday Gravy again in my house.

Bravo, Una Mamma!

And the Sunday Gravy Wars winner is…