Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Television

- This week on Milk Street, we travel to northern Italy to Bologna to explore three everyday classics.

We begin with a simple chocolate torta.

It's made with almond flour.

Then we explore a throw-together classic, and that's spaghetti aglio e olio, with tomatoes and basil.

And finally we finish up with a good example of cucina povera, a rustic bean soup made with fresh pasta.

Stay tuned for three great Bolognese favorites.

- Funding for this series was provided by the following.

- That meal.

You sauted, you seared, and you served, cooking with All-Clad, bonded cookware designed, engineered and assembled in the U.S.A. for over 50 years.

All-Clad-- for all your kitchen adventures.

- Bologna is old.

Its university was founded in 1088 with plenty of marble colonnades and narrow alleys.

Until recently, Bologna has been the undiscovered jewel of Emilia-Romagna.

Its markets, trattorias, and outdoor cafes tell you that Bologna also has a long history with food from mortadella and prosciutto, to fried polenta and pignoletto.

We traveled to meet our culinary guide, Alessandro Martini, and food writer Matt Goulding, author of Pasta, Pane, Vino.

- Some culatello, some Parmigiano-Reggiano, mortadella.

And after, we're going to have a nice aperitivo-- "light lunch"-- at the Osteria del Sole.

That is one of the oldest osteria that we have in Italy, since the 1465.

- Is this an Alessandro light lunch?

- (chuckling) - Light, light.

- You'll see how light it is.

- Yeah, light.

(laughter) - This is la grapes that is from a village nearby Savigno, where we're going tomorrow.

So, osteria in the past, before, it was a place to meet friends where you can drink, but no food, only wine.

- Hm.

- Take your food from outside.

What we're going to do is this, we're going to buy whatever we want.

So we're going to do our selection.

Your wish about Bologna.

And, with our food, we go there.

- Brilliant.

- (chuckles) - (speaking Italian) (laughter, Alessandro speaking Italian) - Due chilo-- four pounds of fresh-sliced culatello.

No, no, no.

(speaking Italian, laughter) - I think that's... - Is this it?

- We have enough for our light lunch.

(indistinct chatter) - Why not?

(glasses clink) (indistinct chatter) - Buon appetito.

- (speaking Italian) - So... Light lunch?

- Light lunch.

- This is light lunch alla Alessandro.

- And I can say light lunch and he knows warm up... for the light dinner.

- (speaking Italian) (glasses clinking) - We're driving up in the hills.

Destination: Savigno.

(speaking Italian) - The next day we traveled to Savigno.

- All the nonnas are excited about your visit.

- In a small cafe, we met a trio of nonne who were frying bread and floured porcini while also drinking espresso and pignoletto.

- I love all, every single nonna, because they have the secrets and we have to open the heart to take all of the secrets, and they want to do this.

- It's just incredibly light.

Fried bread and coffee.

Mm... (indistinct chatter) (kissing) They were amazing.

- We have also, we have...

This is beautiful, real people.

(bell tolling) - Just the thought that counts, I actually... (speaking Italian) - Which was... For lunch, we stopped at Trattoria Dai Mugnai in Monteveglio, to get a cooking lesson, also to enjoy a long Sunday lunch.

Bean soup, breaded cutlets, and ended with a taste of torta barozzi, a fabulous flourless chocolate cake.

- You know, when I travel, the recipes I come across unexpectedly are always the winners.

And I came across this recipe having lunch one day outside of Bologna.

It's torta barozzi, it's a one-layer chocolate torte.

Well, we traced it down, and it turns out it was invented in the late 19th century.

It was named after an architect, Barozzi, who took over the St. Peter's Basilica in Rome after Michelangelo.

So he's well-known in Italy.

What's great about this recipe, besides the fact that I really liked it, is it's made without flour, it's chopped peanuts and almonds, the original recipe.

In any case, it is still made today, at Pasticceria Gollini in Vignola, which is also outside of Bologna.

Now, it's a secret recipe, but we did our best to recreate what I had at lunch and we really like it a lot, so here you go.

You start, as you often do with this kind of recipe, with butter.

This is ten tablespoons of butter, And we'll melt that.

So the butter's melted, we'll turn off the heat.

All right, now we're gonna add three things.

This is bittersweet chocolate, six ounces that's been chopped.

We're gonna add a quarter-cup of Dutch process cocoa.

Dutch process is alkaline.

It's less acidic than natural cocoa.

It won't affect the texture in this recipe, but it gives you a better deeper chocolate flavor.

And also a tablespoon of espresso powder.

It just amps up the flavor.

And now, we're going to just mix this briefly, and then we'll let it sit.

And the chocolate and cocoa powder and espresso powder would just melt on their own.

So while the chocolate's melting, we'll whisk the egg yolks, four egg yolks-- we're reserving the whites for later-- with half a cup of sugar.

Now in a lot of cakes, called foam cakes, you create a foam with egg yolks or whole eggs and sugar and you beat them for a long time, like five or six minutes.

You do that because you want a really light texture.

Now this is a one-layer torte.

You're not looking for a really light texture.

So just about 30 seconds, maybe a minute.

Just till the egg yolks turn a little bit lighter in color, and a little bit lighter in texture.

(whisking) So let's just check on the chocolate.

So it's pretty much melted, but you don't want it too hot, so we're gonna let this cool for just a couple more minutes, just so it cools down a little bit, so it doesn't cook the yolks.

So now the chocolate is melted, and it's also cooled down enough, we're going to add it to the beaten egg yolks and sugar.

Okay, now we've incorporated the chocolate into the beaten yolks with the sugar, and we're gonna use one cup of almond flour.

We tried using peanuts and we thought the almond flour was just fine on its own.

So just to make it a little simpler, a little salt.

We'll add that in.

And, finally, three tablespoons of rum.

Now it's time to beat the egg whites.

So we'll start with the four whites in the bowl.

And we'll just break them up a little.

(mixer whirring) So when the whites start to get frothy, then you can start adding the sugar slowly.

We're gonna beat this until we get very soft peaks.

I'll show you what I mean in a minute.

(mixer whirring) So we'll stop it and check it and-and don't be afraid to stop it two or three times to check it.

Now, these are not done yet, but we want it beaten less than you might think, and here's the reason: the egg whites can't be any firmer than the batter, otherwise they won't incorporate properly.

Secondly, slightly under-beaten whites will actually rise very well in the oven.

You're not gonna lose any height in here.

So you do want to under-beat it.

You can finish beating with your hand with the whisk like this.

So I'm just gonna finish it here.

These are beaten, and they're soft, but they also hold their shape.

So, that's okay.

So I'm gonna take a third of this and put it in with the chocolate to lighten it.

So, another thing I learned from my friend in London, Claire Ptak, when she folds egg whites into batter, there's still streaks of egg whites.

It's not fully folded in, but you don't overwork the batter, so under-beat the whites under folds into the batter.

So we've prepared an eight-inch baking pan, we buttered it, and also put a sheet of parchment at the bottom.

And now we'll just take a small offset spatula and just to push it to the edges.

So this goes into a 350 oven for about half an hour, maybe 35 minutes.

How do you know when it's done-- the classic question.

Chocolate desserts, especially chocolate cakes, should be under-baked a little bit.

That is a toothpick inserted in the center should not come out clean.

The reason is you have a lot more chocolate flavor in that cake.

Also, there's post-oven baking going on.

It'll continue to cook as it comes out.

So always slightly under-bake your chocolate desserts.

Okay, that should be pretty good.

So we get rid of the cooling rack.

Now this gets inverted.

It's actually served traditionally upside down, which is what we're gonna do, because the bottom becomes the top and it looks great.

(tapping) There we are.

And then, coals to Newcastle, we'll put some cocoa powder.

You could use confectioner's sugar, I guess.

What I love about this cake is it's intensely chocolate, but the texture isn't dense, like a really fudgy brownie.

It has a little bit of lightness to it.

When I was served this in Italy, I got a huge half bowl of mascarpone to go with it because it is intense.

So you definitely want some whipped cream or mascarpone or a combination of the two.

Now this was essentially a one-bowl cake, very easy to make, and now I get to taste it.

Mm.

Yep.

(laughing): That tastes even better than I remember from Italy.

Oh boy, is this good.

Again, it's that mix of intense chocolate.

But, you know, a kind of a light texture to it.

Mm.

Oh, man.

Wow!

Wish you were here, this is so good.

So, torta barozzi, It comes from the 1880s, originally known as torta nera named after a famous 16th century Italian architect, Barozzi.

One-bowl cake made with almond flour, dense, rich, but also light in texture.

Something you can make a Tuesday night or Saturday night.

Absolutely delicious.

- Spaghetti aglio e olio.

It's just spaghetti with garlic and oil.

Now we're gonna add some tomatoes and basil, too, but don't let the simple description and really short ingredient list fool you.

The trick here is to take these simple ingredients and treat them in such a way to transform them into something that's much more complex and delicious.

So let me show you how to do that.

So this is one of those recipes where you actually cook the pasta first.

That's how quick and easy this sauce is.

So I cooked the pasta until just shy of al dente, drained it, and reserved some of the cooking water.

We're gonna use that cooking water to make our sauce and we're gonna finish cooking the pasta in the sauce, so it has the opportunity to really absorb the flavors of that sauce.

I've got some grape tomatoes here, you want to make sure they're really nice and ripe, so they are really sweet, and add a little bit of acidity to the dish.

If you can find them at the farmers market, that's always best.

But if not, in the supermarket, if you find them on the vine, they're usually the most consistently ripe all year round.

So I'm going to cut these in half, which may seem like a little bit fussy for such a simple recipe, but we really want to draw the flavor out into the sauce, so it's going to release some of the liquid from inside the tomato into the sauce, and those tomatoes are gonna soften a little bit as we cook them.

Okay, so I'm gonna set those aside and get started on our sauce, and you can start this right in the pot that you cooked the pasta in, which is kind of my favorite thing because it means fewer dishes for me to do.

I'm going to add some extra virgin olive oil to this pot.

So you want to make sure you're buying really good quality extra virgin olive oil for this recipe.

We're not gonna cook it very much, so it's going to keep its flavor throughout.

So we're gonna add some garlic, and a healthy dose of red pepper flakes to this.

But we're not going to just throw in some minced garlic and saut it over medium high heat.

We're gonna use sliced garlic.

And when you slice garlic, you rupture fewer of the compounds that give garlic that real bitterness to it.

So it's going to be a little bit milder to start, and then we're gonna put it in and really heat it slowly over medium-low heat.

So that's going to allow that garlic to get really nice and sweet and soft.

And it's also gonna season the oil, so that you're getting garlic in every bite.

And in go the pepper flakes.

So the garlic has gotten lightly golden brown, so it's time to add the pasta.

It's only been cooked till al dente, and that's because we're going to continue to cook it right here in the sauce rather than just throw the sauce and the pasta together right before you're gonna eat it.

You want to cook your pasta in your sauce, it gives it a chance to really absorb the flavor.

We'll add the tomatoes.

And a little bit of that reserved cooking water.

So this is going to combine with that oil and really become almost a silky sauce.

So as I mix it together, I'm kind of stirring the sauce with the oil.

It's gonna almost emulsify together.

And a little bit of salt.

This is not a place to be stingy with salt.

There are so few ingredients here, and they really need the salt for seasoning.

All right, so this looks great.

The pasta has absorbed that sauce, the tomatoes are softened.

I'm just gonna set this aside for just a minute while I chop up a little bit of basil.

So, the basil adds a really nice freshness to this.

This is a great summer dish to take what you have in your garden and turn it into a quick dinner.

Add in that basil.

All right.

All right, this looks amazing.

I can finally eat it.

Definitely needs some parmesan cheese.

You could also use pecorino romano or even a ricotta salata I think would be really nice on this.

So this is spaghetti aglio e olio with tomatoes and basil.

We made a really silky sauce from the pasta water and some garlic-infused olive oil.

The garlic is really nice and mellow because we poached it really slowly.

And we've got nice pops of freshness from the tomatoes and the basil.

Really comes together quickly.

Super simple ingredients made into something much more complex.

It's Italian comfort food at its best.

- You know, you can never go wrong in Italy if you're looking for very simple food.

And the best food, I think, is called cucina povera, right?

Very simple, inexpensive ingredients locally grown and put together simply.

But the quality of the ingredients is so good and the recipes are so good, they're always a winner.

And this is an Italian bean soup with fresh pasta.

I had it at a place called Trattoria Dai Mugnai outside of Bologna.

Very simple recipe; we're there for Sunday lunch.

It was one of the many things we had, but I really fell in love with this recipe.

So it starts one onion that's sauted, a little bit of olive oil and salt, and that's about three or four minutes.

And then they add two typical ingredients.

In Italy, you find they rarely mince garlic, they often just crush cloves, or maybe they slice them.

So we have two cloves of garlic that are crushed.

The great thing about that is you get a nice garlic flavor, but you don't get that really harsh aftertaste.

And then a little bit of tomato paste as well.

Tomato paste is one of those ingredients, like parmesan rind, that has a lot of umami in it, which means "rich flavor," and so to add a little bit of depth of the soup, we add a little tomato paste.

We'll saut it for just a few minutes with the garlic and the onion to develop the flavor a little bit more before adding the beans and the other ingredients.

So that's good.

Just about three minutes to develop the flavor of the tomato paste and reduce it down and concentrate it.

Now for the main ingredient: these are Roman beans.

You can also use pinto beans, which are very easy to find.

We're actually using cans of Roman beans.

This is a very quick soup recipe, so we're gonna do with cans.

We'll just add that in.

Now we're going to add a little bit of minced rosemary, a little salt and pepper, and little piece of parmesan rind.

This is optional.

But, again, parmesan is like tomato paste, it has that umami flavor, a lot of depth to it.

So if you have it, add that in, And then, we're just gonna add water.

It's very very simple, water, beans, and then a little pasta at the end.

So that's five cups of water.

And we'll turn the heat up a little here.

We'll bring this to a simmer, cook for about ten minutes, just long enough for the beans to really soften, so then we can turn this into a soup.

So, this has cooked for about ten minutes, all we're trying to do is get the beans soft enough so you can puree them.

This is a thicker soup.

So we're gonna do this with an immersion blender, you can do it in a food processor or a regular blender.

The trick, though, is not to come up with a pureed soup, it should still have a little bit of texture from the beans.

So you want something in between.

(immersion blender whirring) So that's pretty good.

It still has some pieces left, so it's in between totally pureed and some texture.

So we'll bring this up to a simmer, and then we'll cook our pasta.

And now this is what I really love about cucina povera.

They're using leftover pasta.

It's called maltagliati, which means poorly cut.

Now when you're making tortellini, for example, which they do a lot in the Bologna area, they have leftover edges, right, and scraps and leftover pieces of pasta.

That's what goes into the soup, it's leftover.

So they have beans and leftover pasta and some water to make a great soup.

So, maltagliati, which means poorly cut, what a great way to make such a great dish.

So it's just coming up to simmer.

Let me just taste it.

Mm.

I don't think I've ever tasted anything without adding just a little more salt.

We have half a pound of pasta.

This is fresh pasta, this is fettuccini.

You can use sheet pasta and cut it into two-inch pieces if you wanted.

Put that right in.

Fresh pasta cooks very quickly, which is why you want to use fresh pasta here.

We also like the texture a little bit better.

So that was just a few minutes.

The pasta is now cooked.

And just like the way I had it at Trattoria Mugnai, It is... it's a thick bean soup with pasta.

It's a little bit less brothy than pasta fagioli.

We'll finish this off with a little bit of grated parmesan.

A little bit of extra salt on top, and a drizzle of olive oil, of course.

So the only thing missing is being outside of Bologna on a Sunday afternoon and a big bottle of wine.

But otherwise, we have everything we need.

Mm.

You know, it's so surprising, you just have beans and pasta and parmesan, a little bit of oil.

This is perhaps my favorite example of cucina povera.

Simple ingredients, simply prepared.

You can get this recipe, all the recipes from this season of Milk Street Television at MilkStreetTV.com.

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- Funding for this series was provided by the following.

- That meal.

You sauted, you seared, and you served, cooking with All-Clad, bonded cookware designed, engineered, and assembled in the U.S.A. for over 50 years.

All-Clad-- for all your kitchen adventures.

- Ladies and gentlemen, we'd like to be the first to welcome you to Tel Aviv... - Welcome to Oaxaca's airport.

- Welcome to Beirut.

(man speaking Hebrew) - (speaking world language) - Bonjour, je m'appelle Chris.

- We call it supa kanja.

It's the word for gumbo.

- Christopher, you have to make the authentic, original cotoletta alla Bolognese for me.

- So this is the Eduardo Garca blender.

- This is the no electricity.

- Next is dessert.

- That is really good.

I notice when you cook sometimes, you add a little bit of something, and then you just put the whole bowl in.

- I like to be generous with my food.

Generosity is important in cooking.

- That's true.

- Can start building bridges, and food is definitely a perfect common ground.

- This is a generational thing.

It's, it's something that you inherit.

- Yeah, that was great.

(woman speaking Mandarin) - What was this for?

What did she say?

- You get one more chance.

- Salute.

- How is it?

He's speechless.

- I'm speechless.

That's so good.