Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking - Marcella Hazan [107]
Ahead-of-time note You can prepare the artichokes up to this point several hours in advance.
Ahead-of-time note The lasagne may be completed up to a day in advance up to this point. Refrigerate under tightly sealing plastic wrap.
Lasagne with Ricotta Pesto
ON THE Italian Riviera they make a flat pasta that is much broader than the broadest noodles, but a little smaller than the classic lasagne of Bologna. Unlike Bolognese lasagne, it is only boiled, rather than blanched and baked. In the Genoese dialect it is called piccagge, which means napkin or dish cloth. Piccagge is almost invariably served with ricotta pesto, making it one of the lightest and freshest pasta dishes for summer.
For 6 servings
Homemade yellow pasta dough, made by the machine method, OR by the hand-rolled method, using 3 large eggs and approximately 1⅔ cups unbleached flour
Pesto with Ricotta
2 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
Freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese at the table
1. Make yellow pasta dough either by the machine method, or by the hand-rolled method. Cut the dough into rectangular strips about 3½ inches wide and 5 inches long. Spread them out on a counter lined with clean, dry, cloth towels.
2. Make the ricotta pesto.
3. Bring 4 to 5 quarts water to a boil. Add 2 tablespoons salt and 1 tablespoon olive oil. As the water returns to a boil, put in half the pasta. (It’s not advisable to put it all in at one time, because the broad strips may stick to each other.)
4. As soon as the first batch of pasta is done al dente, retrieve it with a colander spoon or skimmer, and spread it out on a warm serving platter. Take a spoonful of hot water from the pasta pot and use it to thin out the pesto. Spread half the pesto over the pasta in the platter.
5. Drop the remaining pasta into the pot, drain it when done, spread it on the platter over the previous layer of pasta, cover with the remaining pesto, and serve at once with grated Parmesan on the side.
Note If the pasta is very fresh, you can cook it in two batches as suggested above, because it will cook so quickly that the first batch will not have had time to get cold by the time the second batch is done. If it is on the dry side, it will take longer to cook, so you must do the two batches simultaneously in two separate pots.
Cannelloni with Meat Stuffing
THOSE SOFT, rolled up bundles of pasta, meat, and cheese called cannelloni are one of the most graceful and pleasing ways to use homemade pasta dough. It’s not the least bit difficult to do, and the result can be invariably successful if one bears in mind a single basic principle. Do not think of cannelloni as a tube enclosing a single sausage-like lump of stuffing. Before rolling up the pasta, the stuffing mixture should be spread over it in a filmy, adherent layer not much thicker than the pasta itself. Then the dough is rolled up jelly-roll fashion with the filling evenly distributed throughout.
For 6 servings
Béchamel Sauce, using 2 cups milk, 4 tablespoons (½ stick) butter, 3 tablespoons flour, and ¼ teaspoon salt
FOR THE FILLING
1 tablespoon butter
1½ tablespoons onion chopped fine
6 ounces ground beef chuck
Salt
½ cup chopped unsmoked boiled ham
1 egg yolk
Whole nutmeg
1½ cups freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese
1¼ cups fresh ricotta
FOR THE SAUCE
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon onion chopped fine
6 ounces ground beef chuck
Salt
½ cup canned imported Italian plum tomatoes, chopped, with their juice
FOR THE PASTA
Homemade yellow pasta dough, made by the machine method, OR by the hand-rolled method, using 3 large eggs and approximately 1⅔ cups unbleached flour
Salt
A rectangular, 9- by 13-inch bake-and-serve dish
⅓ cup freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese
3 tablespoons butter, plus more for smearing
1. Prepare the béchamel sauce, making it rather thin, the consistency of sour cream. When done, keep it warm in the upper half of a double boiler, with the heat turned to very low. Stir it just before using.
2. To make the filling: Put the tablespoon of