3 Dozen Reasons To Be An Italian: Cookbook

3 Dozen Reasons To Be An Italian: Cookbook is designed to give people who love good food and enjoy cooking to have the ability without fear or apprehension.  If you are calm cooking, your food will taste better.  If you have confidence, the meal will show.  The instructions are detailed, concise, and easy to follow – from heating the pan to presenting the meal on the table.

Free Recipes

Choose between: Eggplant Parmigiano | Pasta Fagioli | Meatballs

 

Eggplant Parmigiano

4 Servings

1 medium eggplant
Italian bread crumbs
All-purpose flour
¼ pint of heavy cream
1 ½ cups Marinara Sauce
1 medium garlic clove
1 anchovy (flat fillet)
2 egg yolks
½ cup shredded mozzarella cheese (whole milk)
(acceptable to use packaged shredded mozzarella cheese)
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons parmesan cheese
Black pepper
Salt (sea)

Cut the top and bottom portions off of the eggplant and discard. Beginning at the bottom (large side) slice ½ inch pieces of the eggplant, about 4-5 pieces. Peel the outer skin of each piece and lightly salt the each piece of eggplant entirely. Use a flat cookie sheet or something similar and lightly salt the bottom of the sheet/dish. Place all of the eggplant pieces on the sheet/dish. Add another cookie sheet or similar dish on top of the eggplant pieces and add something heavy on top to weigh it down (for example a gallon container of bottled water). After about 1 hour, the eggplant pieces should ooze a dark liquid. Wipe off the liquid by patting dry each piece with a clean white paper towel or cloth.

In a separate dish pour some all-purpose flour and add ¼ teaspoon of black pepper and mix into the flour. In a separate bowl or deep dish (wide enough to fit an eggplant piece), place two egg yolks with ¼ pint of heavy cream and whisk together. In a third dish, pour some bread crumbs together with 1 tablespoon of parmesan cheese and mix.

The first step is to lightly flour the each eggplant piece entirely (on all sides); the second step is to take the eggplant pieces and immerse each one into the egg and cream wash and cover them completely; and the third step is to cover each eggplant piece with the bread crumbs/parmesan cheese mixture and lightly pat the crumbs onto each piece evenly and set aside.

Crush garlic clove; remove the garlic skin and place the garlic skin into a large sauté pan with olive oil and cook at low heat for about 2 minutes until the oil gets hot. Once the oil is hot, remove the garlic skin and discard. Finely mince the garlic clove together with anchovy fillet and add the mixture to the sauté pan and cook at low heat for 2 minutes. Remove the garlic and anchovy from the sauté pan and discard.

Place the breaded eggplant pieces into the sauté pan and cook at low heat. Once one side of the breaded eggplant pieces become golden brown in color, about 3 minutes, turn it over and cook the other side until it becomes golden brown in color, about another 3 minutes.

While the eggplant pieces are cooking, preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line the bottom of a baking dish (a baking dish large enough to all of the eggplant pieces) with about ¼ cup of Marinara Sauce. Once the eggplant pieces are cooked, place them on top of the Marinara Sauce in the baking dish. Take one heaping tablespoon of parmesan cheese and evenly sprinkle the cheese on top of each breaded eggplant piece. Add an equal amount of shredded mozzarella cheese to the top of each breaded eggplant piece. Then, add the rest of the Marinara Sauce, about 1 ¼ cups, to the top and around each breaded eggplant piece and bake in the oven for 25 minutes.

My Marinara Sauce recipe can be found in my book, 3 Dozen Reasons To Be An Italian Cookbook.

© 2011 Michael Hanna. All rights reserved. No part of this recipe may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.

 

Pasta Fagioli

6 Servings

2 garlic cloves
3 anchovies
1 ½ yellow onion
Olive oil
1 celery stick
2 carrot sticks
¼ lb. prosciutto outer skin with fat/rind
¼ lbs. chopped pork
Pork shoulder bone
Black pepper
2 cans cannellini beans
1 ½ oz. sweet vermouth
1 can red kidney beans
2 quarts and 1 pint chicken stock
½ can tomato paste
1 basil leaf (chopped)
2 cups elbow macaroni
Pinch oregano

Crush the garlic cloves; remove the garlic skins, and place the garlic skin into a large pot with 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Cut off the top and bottom portions of the onion, and place them into the large pot with the onion side down and cook at low heat for about 2 minutes until the oil gets hot. Once the oil gets hot, remove the garlic skin and top and bottom portions of the onion and discard.

Finely chop the garlic cloves together with the anchovies and set aside. Chop the carrots and celery, and finely chop the onion. Add the chopped celery, carrots, and onion to the large pot and cook for a couple of minutes until the onions become transparent; then, add the garlic and anchovy mixture. Chop the prosciutto rind and the pork meat and add to the pot. Add the pork shoulder bone, ¼ black pepper and cook at very low heat for 1 hour.

In a small sauce pan, add water, some salt and bring the water to a boil. Once the water comes to a boil, add 2 cups of elbow macaroni. Cook for about 4 minutes. The macaroni should be al dente.

Add sweet vermouth, cannellini beans, and red kidney beans to the pot. Take some of the chicken stock and swirl it around the cannellini beans and red kidney beans cans, then, pour the chicken stock into the pot along with the rest of the chicken stock. Add the tomato paste, chopped basil leaf, and 1 quart of water. At this time, add the macaroni together with the water that it has been cooking in, all into the pot. The remaining time to cook is about 1 hour – at first cook at medium heat for 10 minutes until it begins to boil. Stir all of the ingredients making sure that the open marrow part of the bone is facing down. Once the soup begins to boil, reduce heat to medium/low heat and continue cooking for 40 minutes. At this point, sprinkle a pinch of oregano into the soup. Then, reduce heat to low for an additional 10 minutes.

My Chicken Stock recipe can be found in my book, 3 Dozen Reasons To Be An Italian Cookbook.

© 2011 Michael Hanna. All rights reserved. No part of this recipe may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.

 

Meatballs

½ lb. ground beef
1/3 lb. ground chicken
1 (sweet) pork sausage
1 chicken liver
1 cup bread crumbs
¼ pint heavy cream
Fresh nutmeg
1 garlic clove
Olive oil
Marinara Sauce

Yield: Approximately 9 meatballs

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees.

Begin by finely chopping the chicken liver and setting it on the side. Remove the casing from the pork sausage. In a medium-sized mixing bowl, add ground beef, ground chicken, sausage, and chicken liver. By using the very fine holes of a hand grater, grate the fresh nutmeg about 1 dozen times onto the meats in the bowl. With your hands, mix well all of the meats together. Then, add 1 cup of bread crumbs and ¼ pint of heavy cream to the bowl and mix all of the ingredients well.

In a medium-sized baking dish, add 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Finely mince the garlic clove and spread it around the baking dish into the oil.

Take a portion of the meat mixture into the palm of one hand and with the other hand roll the meat mixture into a ball about 1 ½ - 2 inches in diameter. Place the meatballs onto the baking dish.

Once you have about 7-9 meatballs in the baking dish, drizzle a total of one tablespoon of olive oil on top of all of the meatballs and roll the meatballs around so that each meatball is somewhat covered with olive oil. Place the baking dish in the oven and cook for about 35-40 minutes at 400 degrees.

Once the meatballs are done cooking and the Marinara Sauce is also done cooking (or heated up), add the meatballs to the Marinara Sauce and continue to cook with the sauce for a short time so that the flavors of the sauce and the meatballs incorporate into one another.

These meatballs can be served over the pasta of your choice – about 1 lb. of pasta will make 4 servings. My Marinara Sauce recipe can be found in my book, 3 Dozen Reasons To Be An Italian Cookbook. I serve my meatballs in “Marinara Sauce” with egg noodles and “Garlic Bread.”

© 2011 Michael Hanna. All rights reserved. No part of this recipe may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.