- You know what really drives me crazy?
Is that for 50 years, food writers have been going to Italy, right?
After thousands of trips and thousands of hours on the ground, you'd think, by now, we'd have a pretty good handle about Italian cooking, especially pasta dishes.
Nope.
We don't.
Because every time I go, or J.M.
Hirsch, our editor here at Milk Street, goes, we come across recipes we've never heard of, we've never seen in a cookbook.
And that's not really surprising, given the wealth of recipes in Italy.
But we want to present two of them to you today that really tell you something about Italian cooking that is a surprise.
And one of them, when J.M.
Hirsch was in Naples, he came across something called zuppa forte.
Now, this is a fermented sort of meat paste, hard to find, and they use it to make a pasta sauce.
That was one recipe that really threw us.
It's phenomenal, and we'd never heard of it.
The other recipe was rigatoni alla zozzona.
And it's a cross between a carbonara and an amatriciana, it has some eggs in it.
Zozzona, I guess, means dirty, so it's sort of a dirty mix up of those two recipes.
And that was completely unknown to us as well.
So there's a lot left to discover in Italy.
I don't think we'll ever get all the recipes, but these are two you probably have not heard of.
So let's go into the kitchen and make them and rediscover some of the lesser-known recipes of Italy.
- 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.
- (speaking Italian) - (speaking Italian) - The history of sofrito, like, older than the kitchen.
It's, uh... poor.
The poor people, they want to buy the meat, but they go to the Neapolitan... nobility palace where they use, for example, the fillet.
And they give them the, only the, uh, the interior of the animal.
(speaking Italian) And to give a very good flavor to the dish, they use the tomatoes concentrate, and we use also the concentrate of red peppers, the one spicy and sweet that give more taste to the, to the dish.
We will cook one minute in the sauce with the, with the sofrito.
(speaking Italian) We have it not on the menu, because not everyone likes the interior, but the old generation, like, generation of my father, uh, it's part of their story.
- (speaking Italian) - So when you go to Italy and I go to Italy-- you just got back from almost a month, I was in Calabria for a week-- there are two things that happen.
One is that we find recipes we've never heard of before.
And this is the best example of all time of that.
- Yeah.
- This is a spicy tomato sauce you found in Naples.
But it's really weird Or, or surprising, right?
- It's really weird... And I know the name alone is probably already scaring you.
Zuppa forte, which means strong soup.
But I assure you, we're not going to blow your head off.
There is some spice in it, there are some chilies, but it's not that potent-- it's actually a reference to how it was traditionally cooked, which is to make a really strong concentrate of tomato and chilies and meat.
And so that's... that's the reference.
But it was quite the mystery to figure out.
Here, I'm gonna give you some garlic.
This is about four cloves of chopped up garlic, and it's sold in giant vats at every butcher shop in Naples.
But none of them know how it's made.
None of them seem to know what's in it.
And it took me a week of eating my way around the city to figure out some of the secret ingredients.
And, you know, one of the secrets is time.
You know, traditionally, cucina povera, you didn't have time to do this, stand at the oven.
And so they would let it cook down over the course of the day while working out in the fields-- time.
The second one, though, was the secret ingredient that I could only find at a shop that sold salted cod.
And that was the real mystery for me to try to figure out, because every time I tasted it, it was like, there's something else going on here.
There's, like, almost miso-esque or fermented-ness to it.
And I really couldn't figure it out.
I finally found one woman who taught me the secret and told me which cod shop she would go get it at.
But the secret ingredient is actually a fermented chili paste called salsa pepperoni, which is just Calabrian chilies that have been fermented, salted, cooked down to a paste.
And it's actually very similar to Korean gochujang, which is what we end up using as a substitute.
- So you're gonna take an Italian recipe from Naples and add a Korean... a South Korean ingredient.
- Absolutely.
Absolutely.
- Great job!
- (laughs) A fusion.
You know, the gochujang is a little maltier, a little sweeter than the Calabrian chili paste.
But anyway, so over here, we have the base of our sauce going, and you're browning off some tomato paste with some pancetta, rosemary, bay.
And... - But by the way, I'd just like to say, the recipe calls for a sprig.
- (laughs) There's a third one in there too.
- I mean, you know, I'm gonna write a cookbook called, What Is a Sprig?
- (laughs) - But I should say something about this, though.
It's interesting-- as you know, in Italy, they often tend to flavor the oil.
Garlic, for example.
You know what I'm about to say?
- Yes.
Yes.
- "Instead of minced garlic, they use whole cloves."
And they just saut it for a couple minutes in oil.
Take the garlic out, and then you have flavored oil.
- And what do you do with the garlic?
If I hear it one more time.
Please.
- Throw it out.
- Thank you, all right-- and it's true, they do.
- So here we are using rosemary and bay leaves to flavor the oil, and then we'll take it out later.
- Right, right.
But, you know, the garlic is left in.
And again, this is hearkens back to the origins of this dish.
People who were poor didn't have the time to do this.
They didn't have time to fuss around with the garlic.
So they would throw it in, leave it in, go out into the field, let it cook, and simmer down all day-- zuppa forte.
And then come back and just eat it.
All right, so now we're gonna make the tomato sauce that we're going to add to that and cook it down.
Now, as you know very well, even Italian cooks are not afraid of using canned tomatoes.
So we're gonna take a 14-and-a-half ounce can of whole peeled tomatoes, add it to our blender, And to that, we're gonna add two tablespoons of gochujang.
You can find the Calabrian chili paste here, but it's not as common.
If you do find it and you want to use it, use half as much.
All right, so now we're just going to puree this.
(blender whirring) (whirring stops) Perfect.
Are you ready for me to deglaze here?
- Ah, go right ahead.
- All right, so we're going to add this to your skillet.
And scrape up all those flavorful bits.
- The pasta, very quickly-- it's four quarts of water.
Personally, I use two quarts because I want to have as much starch in the water as possible.
But four quarts is typical.
A tablespoon of kosher salt, you can add a little more, if you like.
And a pound of pasta.
- And, you know, pretty much, as we know, Italian cooks, yes, there are reasons to use certain pastas for certain sauces, but they'll also use whatever they have.
And in this case, you know, we've got some penne.
You could use rigatoni.
Something with some nooks and crannies to catch the sauce is always good, but... - A lot of folks in Italy, especially if they're older, like me, make their own pasta, and it's really not hard to do.
I was cooking with this woman who had these rolled out pieces of pasta dough, and she put a thin metal skewer on top and rolled the pasta around the skewer and then pulled it off-- and then you have this amazing pasta with a hole in the middle.
You know, I'm going to start doing that now because it's really not that hard.
- It really is shockingly easy, and I love the fact that, of course, none of them uses a recipe.
Hundred grams of flour per egg.
That's it.
- Well, a lot of them don't use egg pasta.
They just... has flour, water.
- That's true.
That's true.
Yeah.
- Pasta's going.
- All right.
And now we're cooking down the pureed tomatoes, letting them infuse with the rosemary, the garlic, the bay.
- It's a really simple recipe.
You just... you're adding that flavor, which is very Milk Street.
- Let the ingredients do the work for you.
- Yeah.
- And they certainly believe in that in Italy.
- So we're gonna finish the sauce, finish the pasta, and then marry them together with a couple techniques.
Sauce is cooked down, the pasta has been drained, - Mm-hmm.
- And now we're going to marry them.
- Now, the way, you know, the sauce is ready, all that fat has risen to the top that we've rendered from the pancetta, plus a little bit of olive oil just for good measure.
It is Italian cooking, after all.
Get those things out of there.
All right, scrape that right in.
And, of course, we've saved some of the pasta cooking water.
- You can see there's some starch in here because it's cloudy.
If you did a sauce, let's say cacio e pepe, where it's really important because you have cheese in it, you'd probably use much less water than this.
- Yes.
- But this case is a tomato sauce, and it's not as critical.
The other miracle ingredient is the cook.
- (laughs) - That would be me.
- Oh, I'm sorry-- did I laugh too hard?
- You just don't get any pasta, man, that's all.
- (laughs) I'll let you serve some up.
And one of the chefs I learned this recipe from, he doesn't actually have it on his restaurant menu, but he'll make it on special request, mostly for elderly folks who come in.
And he likes to top it with a little fresh ricotta.
A little bit of creaminess.
There we go.
And a little bit of fresh basil.
Here, I'll let you adorn your own.
- Mmm.
- Mm-hmm.
- You know, it's true for an Italian pasta sauce, the sauce has to contain a lot of flavor because you're not putting massive amounts of sauce on the pasta, so... - And you're getting that richness, that depth from the fermented chilies, and it's not spicy.
It's got a little bit of a kick, but not much.
And if you can eat it, we know it's got to be pretty mild.
- As I get older, actually, I'm now enjoying spicier food.
- Really?
Hmm.
- Yeah.
- Was that a question mark?
- Yeah.
I'll wait for further evidence of that.
- Mm.
So the next time you want to cook up some pasta on a Tuesday night, you can make a little tomato sauce, but you can also do it this way.
And you get pasta with a spicy tomato sauce and pancetta.
And it is really good.
- In Calabria, I learned the art of simple hand-formed pasta shapes.
In addition to fileja, this is the one formed around a metal rod, I also saw several shapes that I had never heard of before.
- (speaking Italian): Please, this is your moment.
Baptism-- you never make a baptism?
- Oh, this is the baptism.
- (chuckles) Yeah, exactly like that, okay, this is the movement.
- Bless you.
- (laughs) - Bless you, my child.
My flower.
- Yeah, take this one, please.
Good.
Great.
- Hey, I did something.
Look at that.
- Good.
(speaking Italian) - Making pasta at home is really pretty simple.
And you don't need any special equipment.
A couple of bowls and a pot of boiling water.
It's really very easy.
Rose is gonna make orecchiette, and I'm gonna make pici, which is a very thick kind of spaghetti-like strand pasta.
- Well, I'm thrilled to be doing this because it is easy.
Anyone can do it.
- And it's very forgiving, so in the bowl, we're putting some all-purpose flour and some semolina flour, it's equal portions of each.
So mix the flours together, and then we're going in with the water.
- Okay.
Three-quarters cup.
You could make this right on the board, too, in fact, Rose, why aren't you?
You're the nonna here, not me.
- Did you ever make pasta back in the day?
- You know, we made egg noodles.
My mother used to make egg noodles all the time, but they're more for German dishes.
They were German egg noodles.
- I love that.
So you do have to knead it longer than you think.
So we're gonna have to do this for about ten minutes.
So why did you pick pici to make today?
- Well, I don't think people really realize you can make spaghetti by hand.
And honestly, this is gonna be better than any box from the grocery store.
- Oh, of course.
- So we'll just wrap it up, plastic wrap, and let it sit room temp for about 20 minutes.
- Yep, 20 minutes to an hour.
You could also refrigerate for a day or something like that, and then just bring it to room temperature before you're gonna use it.
- Same thing if we were using a pasta roller, right?
We would dust with semolina to keep it from sticking to the rollers.
- Semolina or flour.
Yes, one of those.
- So you are gonna roll rods, essentially?
- Yep.
- And cut them small into the orecchiette portion.
I'm gonna roll mine out, and then just cut directly from there and roll each individual strand.
- Okay.
- I'm going to press my thumb into it, and then just kind of turn it in a circle.
And look at that.
- Now I'm just cutting really thin strands and cutting straight through the dough.
I'm not sawing this, I'm using a nice straight edge knife.
And then once I have the strand...
...I can use my fingers to roll it out a little farther.
- So once the dough is made, Wes, ten minutes, and you have homemade pasta.
- Beautiful, these are great.
Yeah, really, really simple.
I can't wait to cook it and sauce it up.
- All right.
- Mangia!
- Yes.
- Let's give it a shot.
God, this is great.
- I know, it's like, you feel like you can't do this, but it's so easy.
You can.
Anyone can.
- Mm.
- Mm.
- Well, that was pretty easy, Rose; you gotta try this.
It came together in about ten minutes.
And cooking it, it's better than any store- bought pasta you're gonna find.
So good and chewy, hearty.
- It is delicious.
- (speaking Italian) - Rigatoni alla zozzona is a classic Roman pasta.
It is a mashup of cheesy, porky carbonara and spicy tomato amatriciana.
At Momma Angelina, chef Andrea Dell'omo gave us his version.
It's very simple, very little knife work, and it doesn't take very long to make.
So I'm going to show you how to do that right now.
I've already cooked our pound of rigatoni in three quarts of water with a tablespoon of salt, just shy of al dente.
It's going to finish cooking in our sauce, so I didn't want to cook it all the way.
And I put aside two cups of pasta water.
Into the same pot, I'm gonna add a tablespoon of olive oil, and we're gonna cook our pancetta in that.
Chef Dell'omo actually used guanciale, which is another delicious pork product.
But it's easier to find pancetta here, so we're gonna use that.
So I'm gonna cook this for about two minutes until it starts to render some of the fat and get a little bit crisp.
Okay, so we've rendered out some of the fat from this pancetta.
It's starting to brown a little bit.
I'm going to add three spicy Italian sausage.
But we've taken the casing off, because I'm gonna break this up into little bits.
So the spicy Italian sausage is kind of a two-for-one.
We're getting all those spices and then all the other delicious flavors from the sausage itself.
So I'm gonna break that up into little pieces.
And let that brown for about three more minutes.
Every single time we made this here at Milk Street, there was not a drop left.
Everyone loved it.
It's a little decadent, but it's so delicious.
Okay, so we've got some browning on the sausage.
I'm going to take half of it out and put it aside for later.
And what's left is going to create the base for our tomato sauce.
I'm going to let these cook down and thicken for about six to eight minutes.
So now we're going to make the carbonara component of this pasta.
We've got an egg and two egg yolks.
I'm going to add two tablespoons of olive oil, some pecorino cheese, and some black pepper.
I'm going to whisk those together.
And then I'm going to add a quarter cup of our reserved pasta water.
You don't want it to be too hot, or it will curdle your eggs.
I've got my pasta.
I'm going to add that back to the pot.
I'm going to add one cup of our pasta water.
So I'm going to cook that for about three to five minutes to cook the pasta all the way through.
So at this point, we want to remove the pasta from the heat because we're going to add the eggs and I don't want those to curdle.
I'm going to add our eggs and cheese.
Stir that around.
Again, the residual heat from that is going to cook those eggs, but also just make a beautiful creamy coating all around the rigatoni.
And I'm also going to add back the rest of my sausage and my pancetta.
So that's going to add a nice little crunchy bite to the pasta.
I'm going to stir this for a few minutes until all of this is clinging to the pasta and it's nice and creamy.
If you need a little extra pasta water, you can add it a tablespoon at a time.
So this looks perfect.
Look at how beautiful this is.
It's cheesy, it's creamy.
We've got bits of sausage and pancetta.
Everything you'd want in a dish of pasta.
And then you might want to serve that with a little extra pecorino on the side.
I love pecorino, so I will do that.
Oh, my gosh.
Rigatoni alla zozzona.
It's one of the best mashups of all time.
Everything that you love in Italian classic pasta right here in one dish.
You can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season of Milk Street at MilkStreetTV.com.
- Recipes and episodes from this season of Milk Street are available at MilkStreetTV.com, along with shopping lists, printer-ready recipes, and step-by-step videos.
Access our content anytime to change the way you cook.
- The new Milk Street Cookbook is now available and includes every recipe from our TV show.
From cacio e pepe and skillet spanakopita, to Brazilian-style carrot cake and Thai coconut soup, the Milk Street Cookbook offers bolder, fresher, simpler recipes.
Order your copy of the Milk Street Cookbook for $27, 40% less than the cover price.
Call 855-MILK-177 or order online.
- 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.
Passport
Follow Us