Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Television

- Now, I was recently in Rome, and I came back with three recipes that I really love.

The first is a homemade egg pasta.

Actually, you can do in a food processor with a hand-crank machine.

It's really easy to do, and a lot of Romans do that at home, as well.

Then a chicken cacciatore, which is based on a recipe I had for rabbit cacciatore.

No tomatoes-- it's wine, it's rosemary.

It's really bright, a little bit of vinegar, as well.

And finally, a just amazing recipe for a pasta, they call it.

It's ricotta and spinach dumplings.

They're poached in simmering water and then served with an ultra-fresh tomato sauce.

So stay tuned as we investigate the authentic recipes of Rome.

- Funding for this series was provided by the following: - MOWI salmon comes ready to cook, ready to grill, ready to season, or pre-seasoned and ready to eat.

In an assortment of flavors for an assortment of people.

MOWI Salmon.

- We pass down traditions here.

We create and connect.

We enjoy special moments-- some simple, some grand.

The heart of your home is the kitchen.

The heart of your kitchen is The Galley.

- This was a religious state, so consider that here, we had cardinals, priests, popes, nuns, and then the poor farmers and countryside people and workers.

So the regional Roman cuisine is kind of a poor countryside cuisine based on few ingredients, very quick preparation, very nutrient for people that was working under the sun, farming all year long.

- (speaking Italian): (pan sizzling) - Oh, okay.

(both speaking Italian, laughing) - (speaking Italian): - (kisses, chuckles) - Now, years ago-- well, decades ago-- when I started cooking, I used to make fresh pasta quite a lot.

I actually had a nice electric pasta machine.

I got out of the habit, like a lot of people.

And I was in Rome, and I noticed that virtually every household I walked into, somebody was just making pasta.

So I started thinking, like, this is not hard to do.

And it tastes so much better than buying dried pasta.

Although Italians do eat a lot of dried pasta, too.

So, let's start.

We have lots of egg yolks and one whole egg, and we're going to mix that up, uh, with some water.

Now, traditionally, by the way, when you did this, and I've done it this way, too, you take, uh, the flour in a circle on your board and then you make a well in the center and you add the egg mixture.

And you take the flour and slowly incorporate the eggs into it.

Uh, you can do it that way, but if you have a food processor, it's a whole lot easier to do.

So, I'm going to start running the food processor and add the egg mixture.

And you want the dough just to come together.

If it's too dry, we can add a little bit more water.

If it's too wet when I knead it, I can add flour on the cutting board.

(processor whirring) (processor stops) You want to be careful, too.

You don't want to run this too long, because then you can really heat up the dough.

I'm going to knead it just a little bit.

Now, when I push it through, or run it through the rollers, that's actually going to knead the dough quite a lot.

So you don't have to fully knead it here.

But I'm just going to do this a few times.

So there we go, we're going to let this sit, let it rest just a little bit, and then we'll be right back.

We're going to cut this into fourths.

Otherwise, if you don't, you're going to end up with a long piece of pasta, which is going to be hard to work with.

So I'm just going to push this into a shape to get started.

This is setting eight.

You start out with the widest setting.

You put it through once or twice, and then you move on to the lower settings.

And that both kneads the dough and obviously gets it down to the right thickness.

(machine whirring) So I'm going to flour this just a little first, too.

(machine whirring) You want to flour it lightly.

And then we're just going to fold it over like this, like that.

Okay.

And now we can just cut across.

We're making a browned butter sage sauce, which is classic, often served with ravioli, for example.

We're going to add a couple of other things to this, as well: hazelnuts, chopped; sage, of course.

We're not putting in minced garlic or pressed garlic.

We're putting in two cloves.

This is classic Italian technique.

A couple of cloves go in, flavor the butter or oil, depending on what you're using, and then the cloves come out.

So it's a subtle way of adding a little bit of garlic flavor without overdoing it.

And we'll add a little pepper.

Also, I like to add pepper at the end, as well.

Now, the pasta's going to cook in a couple of minutes, because it's fresh pasta, not dried.

So we're going to have to do the sauce first.

So you want to use sort of gentle heat, medium heat here.

You want to give it enough time to toast.

You can already... Well, I can already smell the sage.

(chuckles) So this will just take about three or four minutes.

(pan sizzling) Okay, so let's take a look at the garlic.

You can see, it's started to get brown, which is good.

So we'll just take it out.

Subtle-- subtle.

(pan sizzling) Okay, that's good.

We're going to take that off the heat.

Now we're going to cook the pasta.

So, tablespoon of kosher salt.

Well, I'm going to add a little more.

I like a little more salt in my pasta.

When I put it in, I'm just going to try to get rid of any excess flour.

Put that on for just a second to get that back up.

Now, when I'm finished cooking the pasta, I'll just taste it to see if it's done.

I'm going to reserve some of the pasta-cooking water.

A classic Italian technique.

That cooking water, which will have some starch in it, is going to be used, uh, in the sauce.

Doesn't that look good?

I mean, that didn't take, almost no work, right?

(pan sizzles softly) Okay, back on the heat.

(sizzling softly) So we're going to add a little bit of water.

Cheese.

You don't want to use a lot of heat right now, and you do want to toss a lot.

One thing I've noticed, spending time in Italy, is, when they toss pasta, they toss it a lot, and that helps emulsify the sauce.

Okay, now, you can add other things to this.

Now, I would stop here, because in Italy, they, you know, they just do things simply.

Lemon juice, okay?

Add this, as well.

I'm going to actually add a little zest first.

Lemons, by the way, often are used with pasta dishes, especially in Amalfi.

And then chives.

Okay.

That looks pretty good.

So...

Turn this off.

(button beeps) So I'm also going to take a little Parmesan to finish.

And I'm going to take just a tiny bit of pepper.

So there we are.

Rule number two, never eat long pasta on camera, because it drips down my chin.

Mmm.

Wow!

That's very tasty.

There's nothing like the texture of freshly made pasta.

It's so different than dried pasta, which is also very good.

So a fresh egg pasta, browned butter with sage, hazelnuts, however you want to finish it, it really is delicious, and it's not hard to do.

And you feel pretty good about yourself, because you just made homemade pasta.

When I was in Rome, I finally had one of my burning questions about Italian cooking answered, which is why they use a light hand with garlic.

- (speaking Italian): (laughs) - The first time I made chicken cacciatore was the last time I made chicken cacciatore until I got to have this one.

So the one I made first was tomato paste, cans of tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms.

It was all browned, put aside, layered.

Five hours later, I had a dish that tasted like nothing-- none of that.

But this dish is the epitome of elegance, and absolutely, I promise you, effortless to make.

Okay, but to make something this elegant and effortless, every step matters.

And so browning the chicken so you get that robust flavor is really important, and we're going to take our time doing it.

You want to start with a little bit of oil in the pan, and you want to get that pretty nice and hot.

While it heats up, I'm just going to lightly season the chicken.

Salt and pepper.

And I think it's worth it... Again, when there's not a lot of ingredients, every step matters.

So we're going to salt under the skin and get salt, at least the salt, underneath.

Okay, so, for browning, you want to start skin side down.

(pan sizzling) That's the sound we like.

We're going to let these brown pretty deeply.

Take your time.

I like it at medium-high, so they don't go too fast.

While they brown-- we'll flip them in a little bit-- we're going to get the very few other ingredients ready.

So we're going to start with whole rosemary sprigs.

They're going to go in the braise.

But we're just going to steal a few of these rosemary leaves for the very end.

We're going to season the sauce with some chopped rosemary, so we can get that chopped now.

We're also going to mince our garlic.

Just smash them up.

And then what I like to do is sprinkle a little salt on them, and then, as you break it down, you can make it into sort of more of a paste.

(pan sizzling) Going to check the chicken.

(sizzling) That's good.

That's exactly what we're looking for!

Okay, and once it's golden-brown on the bottom a little bit, also, we can transfer it to a plate.

This is not cooked through yet, so you can reuse the same plate.

It will cook through once we add it to the braising liquid and put it in the oven.

Okay, our chicken's browned, and now we're ready to build the rest of the sauce.

This is the base, all this beautiful fond and chicken fat.

And to that, we're going to add the eight anchovies.

(pan sizzling) We like oil-packed.

A little bit of red pepper flake, a quarter-teaspoon, and all of that minced garlic.

And we're just going to stir this around just until it's fragrant.

Oh, I can smell it all.

And now we add in a whole bottle of dry white wine.

You can save a quarter-cup for yourself while you cook, but otherwise, a whole bottle.

(pan sizzling) We also want to add those three rosemary sprigs.

And as it comes up to a simmer, I'm scraping the fond off the bottom.

And I can even feel with my spatula now that I have no little bits on the bottom of the pan.

They've all been lifted up and incorporated into the sauce.

And so now, I can just let it come to a simmer and reduce by half.

This is beautiful.

Look how much darker the color is, too.

We've really developed a much richer base that we can nestle our chicken right back into.

We've spent all this time making sure that these are gold... (chicken skin crunches) Do you even hear that?

There was a nice little crispiness?

We want to keep all that crispy, crunchy deliciousness.

So we're not going to finish these on the stovetop, where we'd have to actually cover them more with liquid.

We finish them in an oven.

That way, the dry heat of the oven can keep the top crispy and crunchy, but then the moist heat of the braising liquid will cook the chicken all the way through.

So this is going into a 450-degree oven for 12-ish minutes-- for thighs, you want them at 175; I like them 180, I think the texture's better-- or until a skewer meets no resistance whatsoever.

Oh, it's beautiful!

The skin is all still crispy and golden on the top, while the meat is going to be perfectly cooked.

Remember, because that handle's hot, I just like to leave my towel draped over that, remind myself.

Now what we want to do is remove the chicken.

You can see how the dry heat of the oven kept this skin so crispy, which is one of the best things about this dish.

And then you also just want to go in and get the actual sprigs, the stems of the rosemary, out.

That is not fun to eat.

(buttons beep) We're going to turn this back on to medium, medium-high.

And now we add the final elements.

So fresh rosemary-- we have this cooked, beautiful, aromatic rosemary from the braise.

Now we add some fresh-minced rosemary and you add a whole quarter-cup of vinegar.

This brightens everything-- it's a pretty rich dish, with all that wine and chicken fat.

We're going to cook this down till it reduces again by about a half.

So this recipe really is all about this amazing sauce, but also the crispy chicken skin.

So while you could just dump the sauce on the chicken, you might as well sort of drizzle it around the sides.

So you keep the chicken skin as crispy as possible.

I'm not tasting it on a spoon.

I'm going to taste it on a hunk of bread.

Because it really is the sauce that makes this recipe.

It's just not that tomato-base-laden, mushroomy, peppery thing I made at the beginning.

It's something much more elegant.

This is wonderful-- you can taste the rosemary, and the garlic's actually fairly mild for six cloves of minced garlic.

It's really that chicken and rosemary flavor that comes through, with the brightness of the vinegar.

This is elegant and easy, and definitely a chicken cacciatore I will be making again.

(phone calling out) - (on phone): This is Katie Plotkin.

My husband's newly diabetic, and I've been trying to take the sugar out of the cooking.

And I've been trying to make a tomato sauce.

And whenever I don't put the sugar in, it is incredibly acidic.

And I was looking for alternative ways to tone down the acid.

- Tomato sauces in general are on the acidic side, and they don't always settle well with a lot of people.

So the question is, can you lower the acidity or the acidic taste in your mouth in a tomato sauce?

So I started with a very basic marinara sauce.

All of these pots were made with the same brand of tomatoes, same exact amount of olive oil and garlic.

So in order to figure out how acidic is this tomato sauce, I got some pH strips here.

I'm going to dip one into my control pot and see where we are on the acidity level.

So as this dries, you can see we're down to about a six in color, which means this is acidic.

Now, there are a couple of different ideas of how to work with an acidic sauce and take away some of that acid; first is sweetness.

I'm going to add a little bit of sugar there in the form of honey, and see if that makes any difference in the acid level.

For the second pot-- we've heard a lot of success with this method-- is, I'm going to put a waxy potato in the sauce and let it bubble away for a few minutes.

And the thought is that that potato will draw in some of the acidity and lower the acid level and raise the pH level.

And then finally, I'm going to add some baking soda to our last pot.

Baking soda is a pure alkaline.

The soda lowers the acid level so that it's not so tart when you eat it.

So we let the sauces bubble away for about 15 minutes and then we tested them all with a pH strip.

The clear winner, very clear winner, was the soda.

It makes total sense-- soda is an alkaline.

So if you find that marinara sauce is a little bit on the tannic and acidic side, add a pinch or two of soda to your pot.

It will lower the acid level and raise the pH, which will even out that acidic flavor in the sauce and be much more palatable for you to eat.

- At Trattoria Antico Falcone in Rome, the palline al verde are small dumplings made with ricotta cheese, grated cheese, and an abundance of spinach.

So to make these beautiful creamy dumplings, we're going to start with spinach.

We have two ten-ounce boxes of frozen spinach here.

The reason we are using frozen spinach is, we need a specific amount.

And as you know, you could buy, like, a five-pound box of spinach and cook it down and get almost nothing.

Bring it to room temperature, make sure it's defrosted.

But the most important thing is, you want to make sure that the spinach is completely drained.

So, we're going to put it in a kitchen towel and you're going to squeeze out as much water as you can.

And you want to end up with seven to eight ounces of spinach when you're done.

So I think we got just about everything out of that.

So the first thing we're going to do is put the spinach in a food processor and chop it up a little bit more.

So that's only a couple of pulses.

(processor pulsing) And then we're going to add our other ingredients.

So we've got ricotta cheese.

We have Parmesan cheese.

So we added some pecorino cheese to this just to give it a little extra bite.

And one egg.

Some nutmeg, which is really traditional in a lot of Italian recipes that have spinach in them.

And a half-teaspoon each of salt and pepper.

Another, I think, ten or 12 pulses to get this together.

(processor pulsing) So I'm going to put this in a medium bowl.

I'm going to add some flour to this.

Also try and find ricotta cheese that doesn't have stabilizers in it.

Without stabilizers, it's a little bit nicer.

This is a half-cup of flour.

I'm just going to mix this into our ricotta.

And when it's all incorporated, we'll make our palline.

So to make these, you want a heaping tablespoon of this mixture.

And you just want to lightly roll it into a little ball.

This will make about 20.

I'm putting them on a pie plate that's been sprayed with a little bit of cooking spray so they don't stick.

These are going to go into a refrigerator for about one hour.

You want to make sure they're chilled so that they stay together when you boil them.

So while our palline chill, I'm going to make a really simple tomato sauce.

I'm using a can of whole peeled tomatoes, and I'm going to grind them up for a minute in a food processor because we want a really satiny sauce.

(processor whirring) So to start the sauce, I'm going to heat a little bit of olive oil.

It's about a tablespoon, over medium, with a couple of cloves of smashed garlic.

So we're just going to cook those until the garlic browns.

Make sure they don't burn, because that will be bitter, but now that we've browned them a little bit, we're going to take them out.

And we're going to very carefully add our tomato sauce.

(pan sizzling) And to that, I'm going to add a little bit of water, because we're going to cook this down a little, and we don't want it to get too thick.

So I've got a quarter-cup of water and a half-teaspoon each of salt and pepper.

So I'm going to bring that to a simmer and let it cook for about ten minutes until it thickens a little bit.

So this has been simmering for about ten minutes.

It's thickened a little bit.

I'm going to tear up some basil and put that in there.

Now we're just going to cover it to keep it warm while we cook our palline.

Okay, so our palline are chilled.

I am going to roll them in some flour, and that gives it a nice coating that helps them stay together, but it also gives them something for the sauce to cling to.

So, I'm going to roll these in some flour.

Okay, that's the last one.

Now to cook these, four quarts of water here, it's boiling, and I'm going to add a tablespoon of salt.

I'm going to turn this down.

You don't want this to boil like crazy, because these are going to break if it's boiling too hard, so you want a really kind of gentle boil.

And we're going to add these about two or three at a time with a slotted spoon.

Now, a lot of times, when you cook things like this, everyone says, "Oh, when they rise to the top, take them out."

That is not the case with these.

They are going to rise to the top after a few minutes, but you really want to cook them for eight to ten minutes, so that a skewer meets some resistance.

If you don't cook them long enough, they're going to be not only kind of cold on the inside, but they'll be kind of mushy, and you don't really want that.

So I'm going to stir them gently so they don't stick together.

And then we'll wait for them to cook all the way through.

So these are done.

I'm going to take them out and put them on a clean plate.

So we have our sauce.

I've heated that up a little bit so it's warm.

At Antico Falcone, they serve these as a first course.

But I think if you serve them with, like, a nice salad and some crusty bread, it would be a really nice light dinner.

To serve them, you want to put about a quarter-cup of the sauce on a plate with some of the palline.

And a little bit of grated cheese.

And there you have it.

Let me try some of these.

Mmm.

So if you're looking for something light and easy, a little bit different than a regular meatball, try these palline al verde.

They are creamy, lots of spinach, and some delicious cheese, with this really nice sweet kind of sauce to go with them.

You can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season at MilkStreetTV.com.

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- Funding for this series was provided by the following: - MOWI salmon comes ready to cook, ready to grill, ready to season, or pre-seasoned and ready to eat.

In an assortment of flavors for an assortment of people.

MOWI Salmon.

- We pass down traditions here.

We create and connect.

We enjoy special moments-- some simple, some grand.

The heart of your home is the kitchen.

The heart of your kitchen is The Galley.