auld lang syne & new lasagna

Winter sunset over Cagliari

As the sun is setting on 2011, I find myself thinking of home. I imagine my girl-friends from Charleston donning fabulous, glittery dresses and  in their gorgeous way- welcoming everything new. I wonder what this New Year will bring for my dear brother and sister. I'm glad too, that I'll win the competition of calling Mom and Dad first. I'll enter 2012 six hours before my family. This year my parents are celebrating with some of our family's oldest friends, we've welcomed so many new years with them. As I thought of them, I realized this year Gus and I will be celebrating with Cagliari, a city that has welcomed thousands of new years herself. 

One of the things I love most about Cagliari is it's ancient history. We've swam in the sea that bore ancient gods and goddesses. We've seen irreplaceable artwork and incredible athletes. We have walked along Cagliari's street and been humbled by those who have gone before us. Most of all, we've eaten. The island boasts recipes that are thousands of years old- including Casu Marzu. If you can get your head around it, I'll admit- it's good. After all, recipes don't survive thousands of years if they're not worth eating. Sardegna is home to the most delicious cheeses, particulary Pecorino Sardo, a flavorful cheese made from sheep's milk. 

Gus preparing my first taste of Cazu Marzu!

Gus is already panicked for when we move home- "Where will I find Pecorino cheese?" I have never seen cheese disappear so fast. There are various types of Pecorino- Sardo, Toscano and Romano. Almost all Pecorino is made in Sardegna, including "Romano." While Pecorino Toscano is certainly made in Tuscany from time to time, it is made by a population that relocated there- from Sardegna. I was glad to tell Gus, a lot of Pecorino is imported to the United States. In fact, Wegman's yummy grocery stores sell it! So in celebration of old cheese and a new year- here is a recipe for lasagna. What would be better for tomorrow than a giant lasagna to share with friends or family? This is the closest I will come to replicating the Christmas lasagna we received!

Lasagna

The secret of the lasagna were lots of thin layers gently and expertly made. 

for sauce:

3-5 tomatoes

chopped fresh parsley

chopped fresh basil

1 onion

1 carrot, finely grated

2-3 cloves of garlic smashed and minced

8 ounces of sausage, casing removed

1 pound of ground beef

1 can of crushed tomatoes

1 can of tomato paste

1 bay leaf

salt and pepper to taste

two generous pinches of brown sugar (or cane sugar)

red wine

olive oil

for lasagna:

two packages of lasagna noodles (or about 30 noodles)

30 ounces of ricotta

1 and 1/2 cups of grated Pecorino

4 cups of mozzarella, grated 

2 eggs

To prepare sauce:

Quarter tomatoes and put into a small pot with carrot and top of onion. Cover sparingly with water. Season with salt and pepper and stir in basil and parsley. Put on stove and allow tomatoes to boil down.

In a large sauce pot, brown sausage and ground beef. Drain majority of grease. Use olive oil to saute onion for three-four minutes. Add garlic, saute one minute being careful not to burn. Add wine and stir. Add meats and stir one minute. Add crushed tomatoes, stirring well. Give a couple minutes and add paste, filling it's empty can half-way with water to get all of the paste out. Add to sauce.

When tomatoes have boiled down, remove top of onion and dump pot into sauce. Add sugar and bay leaf. Allow to boil and then turn to a low simmer uncovered. If sauce is becoming too thick, add a lid but I prefer a thick tomato sauce for this lasagna!

Mix ricotta with one cup of the pecorino. Stir in eggs.

Boil noodles about seven minutes.

In the bottom of a 9 x 13 put a thin layer of sauce. Top with five noodles overlapping each other. Spread a thin layer of ricotta mixture on noodles (remember you want lots of layers!) and top with small amount of sauce. Try not to press ricotta down, let it remain airy! Sprinkle mozzarella on sauce, but remember to save at least one cup of mozzarella for top of lasagna.

Place five more noodles on top of bottom layer and repeat- ricotta mixture, sauce, mozzarella. Build five-six thin layers! Alternate thicker layers if you'd like!

Spread a thin layer of sauce on top of lasagna and top with mozzarella and leftover Pecorino. Allow to cook for forty minutes.

The test here is inserting a fork into the center of the lasagna and seeing if it comes out warm!

Happy New Year!

The Last Supper of 2011

Tonight we’re having a “last supper” of sorts. It is the last big meal we’ll cook and eat in our little apartment before we bid 2011 goodbye. We travel this weekend, so I know between welcoming 2012 and boarding a plane, we won’t be sitting down for a meal here until we return. We’ll be back on the Epiphany, a big holiday in Cagliari. The star of Bethlehem is lit on the Bastione San Remy. The hills here and domes of churches certainly remind me of the little town of Bethlehem. It is impossible to walk the streets here, see the nativities they’ve set up and not imagine the Christmas story. While we strolled today, blown here and there by the wind, we stopped in a local shop, Il Suq. They sell spices and ingredients hard to find on the island and in Italy as a whole. There are walls of spices, whole and ground. They claim to be bringing the Orient to the island! After today I sure feel like the three kings arrived early- swap myrrh for Mexican spices. Anything improbable, go to Il Suq (Via Napoli in the Marina District- just behind the crumbling old church of San Lucia)! A friend, Ashton, showed me the shop and I am grateful to her each time I stop in. Coming from the U.S. I have a big love for Mexican food (and drinks) so I stocked up today. Tonight we’re having roasted Mexican pork tacos. It smells a bit like home here and with the wind outside- it is great to just be inside!

Flour tortillas are hard to find here, not impossible but I’ve started to make my own! It is easy and they taste so much better. I found this recipe searching the internet and it worked! The first night we ate them plain and warm, right from the stove! My only adaptation is that I use 4-5 tablespoons of butter. The “burro” in Sardegna is too good. Burro means donkey and yes, at first I was skeptical. Just say it out loud to yourself- donkey butter. Truly though, I was a burro believer first try!

The pork I also found online! I love the pork roasts here. They are cut by butchers and netted. I adapted this recipe a lot. There was just too much going on!

Mex-Italian Pork Tacos

5 pinches of red pepper flakes (more if you like it spicy)

2 peppers, I used red- chopped but seeds, flesh, everything saved for broth

½ lemon (or lime)

1 2 to 3-pound boneless pork shoulder (five pounds is a bit big! I was only serving two though!)

sea salt and fresh ground pepper

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 large onion, chopped (about 2 cups)

3 large garlic cloves, coarsely chopped

2 bay leaves

2 teaspoons dried oregano

2 teaspoons ground coriander

2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 teaspoon paprika (preferably spicy)

1 pinch of cloves (use your nose- you only want a hint of cloves!)

1-2 pinches cinnamon-sugar

12-ounces of beer

Before we begin- let me tell you! Cilantro is NO where to be found in sunny Sardegna. If I could have gotten my hands on some Cilantro, I would have used it. I love it, I am praying for it to come along. Beware though- people who have Cilantro allergies taste soap when they eat it!

1)      Place all of the chopped red peppers (especially the seeds!) into a pot. Add top and bottom of onion- the part you usually chop and throw away! Put garlic, red pepper flakes and salt in. Cover with water and begin to boil.

2)      Squeeze in juice from ½ lemon and toss the rind in too. Add cloves. Let boil uncover to lose about ½ of the water.

3)     Drain through a fine colander so only liquid remains. While the liquid cools- Mix cumin, coriander, oregano and paprika.

5)     Using a tablespoon, add liquid to the spices to make a paste. Save broth you don’t use!

6)     Rub paste on pork until it is well covered. Wrap meat in plastic or foil and allow to marinate for 12-24 hours in the refrigerator. The longer the better!

7)     When ready allow pork to warm.

8)      Heat oil in a pot. Add onion and a more red pepper flakes if you like it spicy! Saute for 1-2 minutes.  Add reserve broth, bay leaves and cinnamon-sugar. Add pork and cover with beer. Cover pot.

9)      Allow to cook on medium for an hour- thirty minutes each side. Then turn to low and cook until pork begins to pull. Remove the meat and pull it, pour cooking liquid through colander and add juice to meat. Enjoy!

I served with flour tortillas, a ball of cold, fresh mozzarella and sautéed onions/peppers. 

Tacos!

The tortillas were warm, the pork turned out perfect and we were glad! Now if only I can get free baskets of chips and salsa moving through the house...

Old America

If you are ever blessed enough to find yourself walking the streets of beautiful Alghero go to Bar Vecchia America for a morning coffee and pastry. Located outside of the old city center (but not too far) on Vittorio Emanuele, Vecchia America has the best pastries (called pastas) I have ever had. No where else has compared. My favorite are puffy triangles filled with just the right amount of chocolate. They were soft,airy and sweet, but with a bit of a caramel-crunch. There are small tables in front of the shop and you can watch the world go by. The people are kind, they even served us free cups of homemade coffee ice-cream our last day in Alghero! I promise, if you go- you'll go back!

here we go!

A Chinese inventor and writer, Lin Yutang once said, "What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child?' It is a sentimental thought and one I'd never really considered until we began our travels. We landed in Italy first and I'll admit it, the Italians do food well. Life here is so intertwined with eating. It is as though the day moves with the meals. I love it, but it also makes you homesick. Food means family in Italy. I recently tasted the most wonderful lasagna, the kind I'll search the rest of my life for, and my first reaction was to call home. Nothing tastes as good if your Mom isn't there to share it. It is a wonderful thing to share a meal here though, to struggle with language and to taste new things. I am finding though, that few cultures are as willing as Americans to try new food. I ate Cazu Marzu here, a cheese spread made by maggots. But our friends who brought it over, weren't willing to eat a salad we had prepared. It was terribly awkward, but not uncommon. After all, who doesn't think their culture has the best food? It is like your language or your religion, something  basic and practiced lifelong. I miss fried chicken. I lay awake and think of crab-cakes. That's when it is over for me. I see my Mom-Mom frying on the stove, I can imagine my family on the patio and I miss home, I miss America more than I could ever say.

So I take to the kitchen. I try to fry chicken (disaster) or I go out for a hamburger (bigger disaster, can you say horse burger?). I cook and bake, I scour the internet looking for recipes I could pull off here and I talk food with anyone who will listen. I share food because in Italy, the food you share will come back to you- figuratively and literally. I once stepped on a snickerdoodle I made that an unimpressed student tried to hide under a desk. Not the comeback I wanted, but it left my boyfriend and I laughing. I offered to make stuffing for my students this past Thanksgiving and in return they brought me a beautiful basket of fruit. I felt like an actual pilgrim, I was so touched and my belly was full! I do have to say though, when I offered to bring "American food" one of my students exclaimed, "You're bringing McDonalds?!" Don't be offended my dear countrymen, it was a genuine reaction.

Wonderful, beautiful food. It is part of who we are and part of how we can know and appreciate each other. That is the point of "Eats for Peace." I'll share stories of my forays into cooking abroad- complete with recipes! I'll share restaurants and things you have to try. There are few things better than sharing a good meal with someone. Eat, share and come see the world with me.