Experience Italian Country Cooking with Jamie Oliver

Jamie Oliver was one of the first chefs I watched on a semi regular basis on television. I loved seeing him go out and shop in the local markets, buying up deliciously fresh produce and meats and then come home and prepare really incredible, creative dishes. I have a few of his cookbooks, my favorite, of course, being "Jamie's Italy" that he published a few years ago. It is my favorite because he really gets to the heart of what Italian cooking is all about, regional family traditions. He spent months traveling through the Italian countryside, learning, working, eating and with local farmers, village bakers, cheese makers, grape pickers, and pasta making mamas.

The Italians are more passionate about food than any other people on the planet, period. What we have found when traveling and taking cooking lessons is that they don't use a lot of hard to find ingredients (they only use what is fresh) or complicated preparations but their cooking can be very complex in the little touches, the age old techniques and intricacies, passed down from generations that help you achieve a certain flavor or texture. That is what makes their food so special and so varied from region to region and even village to village. And Jamie gets it. It is evident in his book that he experienced this first hand and his book is a testament to the fresh, country food of the local villages, but with his signature creative touches.

As with Lidia Bastianich's cookbooks, I find Jamie's recipes spot on in terms of measurements and preparations. Just follow his directions and you will achieve something special, I promise! I've cooked quite a few of the recipes from his soups, pastas, risotto, fish and meat dishes and have never been disappointed. (click here for this week's recipes, Porchetta and Lasagne alla Cacciatora, adapted from Jamie's book)

One of the other aspects of the book that really makes me miss Italy is the photos by David Loftus and Chris Terry. Not just the photos of the food which are gorgeous, but of the people he met on his journey. They really capture the soul of the Italian people, their pride and passion, and take me right back to the places we've visited over the years.

So if you are looking for a book from an outsiders view, someone who didn't experience these traditions from birth like Lidia, but who really threw themselves wholeheartedly into the experiencing what Italian country food is all about, this book is for you. I really like Jamie's quote on the back cover because it is absolutely how I feel about Italy:

"You know what? I should have been Italian. The truth is, when I'm in Italy, I feel Italian."

If you are interested in checking it out, click here Jamie's Italy.

Porchetta, Italian Pork Roast

This Porchetta is the first step in my Lasagne alla Cacciatore or you can make it as a stand alone meal with a light gravy. Jamie Oliver used a loin of pork on the bone for this, but I substituted a pork shoulder roast to use it in the lasagna, and I left out some of the vegetables he used. Here is a link to his recipe: Porchetta

Porchetta
Ingredients
• 1 3.5 Ib. pork shoulder roast, on the bone
• 1 tablespoons fennel seeds
• 1 small dried chilies, crumbled
• 1 tablespoons rock salt, crushed
• 2 bay leaves, torn
• 1/2 lemon, zested
• olive oil
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 onion, quartered
• 6 cloves of garlic, unpeeled
• 6 sprigs of fresh rosemary
• 1 wineglass of white wine
•* for gravy: 1 cup chicken or vegetable stock (not needed for lasagna recipe)
Directions
Score your pork and place it on a cutting board. Preheat your oven to its highest setting. Using a pestle and mortar, a coffee grinder, or a metal bowl with a rolling pin, smash up the fennel seeds with the chilies and rock salt until you have a fine powder, then add the torn bay leaves and smash those up too. Mix in the lemon zest. Rub the mixture evenly all over the pork meat, covering it completely.

Place the pork in a snug-fitting appropriately sized roasting pan. Drizzle a little olive oil over the skin and season with salt, rubbing it into the scores. Place in the preheated oven, close the door, and immediately turn the oven down to 350°F. This way you will start the crackling off really hot and fast and the skin will puff up. The reduced temperature will then cook the meat through nice and evenly, keeping it moist at the same time. It will need to roast for about an hour and a half, or until a meat thermometer reaches 165°F - feel free to leave it for a bit longer if you like. It just means the pork will be a bit drier but it will still be tasty.

When the meat has been cooking for half an hour, add the onion to the-pan with the garlic, the whole rosemary sprigs, and the wine. Give the pan a shake to get some fat onto the veg. When the pork is cooked, remove it from the pan and allow it to rest for 20 minutes.

*Stop at this point for the lasagna dish or continue if you just want to eat roast pork!

You'll have some nice roasted root veg and sticky goodness left in the bottom of the pan from which you can make your gravy. Pour off the fat and add a little of your stock, then give the gravy a stir, making sure you get all the lovely sticky brown bits off the bottom of the pan - you may not need to use all the stock. The Italians tend to keep their gravy light and more natural if using any, so this is the consistency you're after. Carve into thin slices with a sharp knife to serve.

Lasagne alla Cacciatora

I've been eyeing this recipe from Jamie's Italy for quite sometime, but wasn't sure when I would have the time or the occasion to attempt in. A dinner this weekend at our friend Rachel's house with a group of friends gave me the opportunity to give it a shot and the result was pretty darn fabulous!

While traveling through Italy doing research for his book, Jamie stayed on the Petrolo estate in Tuscany during harvest and cooked lunch for the grape pickers. His Lasagne alla Cacciatora is not a complicated recipe, but as I talked about in my post on Italian cooking and this book, one with many steps that allows you to achieve something really special in a simple dish like lasagna.

This is not something quick that you could throw together with short notice. It takes time and planning and by making it this weekend, I learned a few tips I can share with you that Jamie did not talk about. I've also adapted quite a few things so the recipe is not word for word like his. One thing that is great about it is that it is really three recipes in one, roasted pork, ragu and a white sauce could all be prepared on their own or combined as they are in the complete recipe.

Called Hunter's Stew because it contains a lot of wild game, I chose to use roasted pork instead for the meat. The first recipe is for the pork which can stand alone as a great recipe as well. Roast your pork the day before you are going to make the lasagna.

1. Step One - Day before, roast the pork. Click here to go to the Porchetta Recipe. Once the pork has cooled it needs to be shredded and kept refrigerated until you need it the next day.


2. Step Two - The morning of, make your pasta dough and let rest until you need it later in the afternoon. I used fresh pasta for this as Jamie did in his recipe, but you could use dried noodles as well. Click here to go to the Fresh Pasta recipe.


3. Step Three - While pasta is resting, make the tomato sauce. This can be started anytime during the day. If you are going to wait do it all together you will probably need a good 3 hours in the kitchen before you serve the lasagna. If you make the sauce ahead of time, it will help you with timing later when you are trying to put everything together.

Tomato Sauce Ingredients
-olive oil
-3 cloves of garlic, peeled and sliced
-a sprig of fresh rosemary
-3 bay leaves
-3 14-oz. cans of San Marzano tomatoes
-1lb. 6 oz. roasted shredded Porchetta

Directions
Heat a pan with a splash of oil. Slowly fry the garlic until lightly colored, then add the rosemary, bay leaves and tomatoes. Cook gently for 45 minutes with a lid on. Add your shredded meat to the tomato sauce with a little hot water if it is too dry, and season with salt and pepper. Simmer for 20 more minutes, stirring every now and then. Remove the rosemary and bay leaves. Turn off heat and cover until you are read to start preparing the lasagna.



4. Step 4 - Two hours before dinner, make the white sauce. Again this is a beautiful Bechamel style sauce that can be used for other dishes as well, including serving it over pasta.

White Sauce Ingredients
-1-3/4 pints of milk
-a sprig of fresh parsley
-a pinch of nutmeg
-1/2 onion, peeled and sliced
-6 black peppercorns
-6 tablespoons of butter, plus extra for greasing
-1/2 cup all purpose flour
-5-1/2 oz. freshly grated Parmesan cheese
-sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Directions
Put the milk, parsley, nutmeg, onion and peppercorns into a pot. Heat to just below the boiling point.

While milk is heating take a deep pan and melt the butter. Begin to slowly add in the flour and stir until it is totally mixed in. By this time your milk should be ready. Take it off of the stove and strain out herbs and onions. Begin adding the strained milk to the butter and flour a ladle full at a time mixing it in completely before you add another. You should have a very smooth white sauce. Bring to a low boil, simmer a few minutes and then take off the heat. Mix in the Parmesan and season.


5. Step 5 - Preheat you oven to 350 degrees F and butter a large baking dish. Put a big pot of salted water with a good glug of oil on the stove for the pasta.

6. Step 6 - Reheat your pork ragu and put your white sauce back on the stove at a very low heat, just to warm it and make it easier to work with.

7. Step 7 - Roll out your pasta dough and prepare lasagna.

Remaining Ingredients
-1 lb fresh egg pasta dough
-Parmesan cheese for grating
-2-5 oz. balls of mozzarella
-a handful of fresh sage leaves
-olive oil

Pasta Directions
My recipe makes 2 lbs of dough so you can either cut the ingredients in half or use the rest for some fettuccine or other type of pasta. You want to roll out strips of pasta that are about 3 x 10 inches. Blanch 2 or 3 strips at a time in the boiling water and cover the bottom of the baking dish with pasta strips, letting them hang over the edges. Put down a layer of meat sauce, then some white sauce and a sprinkling of fresh Parmesan and repeat the layers until you run out of meat. But keep back enough white sauce for a final layer on top.


Fold the over the pasta ends from the edges and top with the white remaining sauce. Sprinkle with Parmesan, tear the mozzarella over the top, scatter your sage leaves and drizzle with olive oil. Bake in the preheated over for 45 minutes or so until golden.


Prepare to "wow" your friends and family...

We served this with our last bottle of the 2001 Poliziano Asinone Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. A fabulous pairing, we're sad to see it go, but have many fond memories of it over the past few years.