Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking - Marcella Hazan [305]
⅓ cup fresh, ripe, firm tomatoes, skinned raw, seeded, and cut into strips about ½ inch wide and 1½ inches long
2 tablespoons capers, rinsed if packed in salt, drained if in vinegar, chopped unless very small
10 flat anchovy fillets (preferably the ones prepared at home as described), cut in two
CHEESE FILLING FOR 20 DUMPLINGS
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
3 ounces mild cheese and 2 ounces savory cheese, cut into very thin strips, or slivers, or grated, or crumbled, depending on the cheese
Suggested Cheese Combinations
• Mozzarella and Parmesan
• Ricotta and Gorgonzola
• Smoked Mozzarella and Fontina
• Gruyère and Taleggio
Note When using either the tomato or the cheese filling, keep all the ingredients separate in individual small bowls or saucers.
THE DOUGH FOR ABOUT 20 DUMPLINGS
1½ cups unbleached flour
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
⅓ cup lukewarm water
PLUS
Vegetable oil for frying
1. For the dough: Pour the flour onto a work surface, shape it into a mound, and push down its center to form a hollow. Into the hollow put the salt, baking powder, olive oil, and lukewarm water. Draw the sides of the mound together, mixing all ingredients well with your hands. Knead for 10 minutes, until the dough loses its stickiness and is smooth and elastic.
2. Flatten the dough into a not too thin sheet with a rolling pin or, if you prefer, you can thin it through the rollers of a pasta machine, stopping at the setting that produces dough 1/16 inch thick. Trim the sheet of dough along the edges to give it a regular, rectangular shape. Briefly knead the trimmings into a small ball, and roll it out or thin it in the pasta machine. Trim it to give it the same rectangular shape as the rest of the dough.
3. Cut the dough into 3-inch squares, or as close to it as you can. Take a little bit of each of the components of the filling you are using from the individual bowls or plates and place it in the center of each square. Try to judge how much you are going to have to put into each square to make the filling come out evenly distributed. Fold the squares over on the diagonal, forming triangles. Seal the edges securely tight, pressing them with your fingers or with a pastry crimper. It is essential to stuff and seal the dumplings as soon as the dough has been rolled out, otherwise it will dry out. If it has begun to do so and you are having difficulty sealing the edges, moisten them very lightly with water.
4. As you finish filling and sealing each dumpling, lay it on a clean, dry cloth towel spread out on the counter. If you are not ready to fry them, turn them from time to time to keep them from sticking to the towel. Do not overlap them or stack them.
5. Pour enough oil into the frying pan to come ½ inch up its sides, and turn on the heat to high. When the oil is very hot, slip in as many dumplings at one time as will fit loosely without crowding the pan. Fry them to a golden color on one side, then turn them and do the other side. Often the dumplings will puff up and parts of them may jut above the oil level. Use a long-handled wooden spoon to tip them over and dunk them under the hot oil so that they fry as evenly as possible all over.
6. With a slotted spoon or spatula, transfer them to a cooling rack to drain or to a platter lined with paper towels. If there are more left to fry, repeat the procedure until all the dumplings are done. Serve while hot, but not scalding.
AT TABLE
The Italian Art of Eating
A PERFECT DISH of pasta or an impeccable risotto or a succulent chicken can, by itself, be so powerfully satisfying that we may reasonably ask, what else does one need? Just add a salad on the side, a slice of good bread, finish with a ripe fruit to sweeten one’s mouth, and we have a complete Italian meal. Or do we?
Having Italian food may often amount to no more than that, or to a pizza, or a platter of cold cuts, or a rice and chicken salad. There are times we simply do not want more. Yet, food has many ways of nourishing us, and there