Sara's Weeknight Meals

(gentle music) - [Presenter] "Sarah's Weeknight Meals" is made possible by Sunsweet, Mutti Tomatoes Of Parma, Le Gruyere AOP from Switzerland and by.

- Cooking is the first kind of love you know.

It was starting when I was child with my grandmother doing fresh pasta, and now I transmit it to all the guests.

It's something makes specially for them.

- [Presenter] Oceania Cruises, proud sponsor of "Sarah's Weeknight Meals."

(gentle music) - [Sarah] Go to Rome for the monuments but stay for the neighborhoods, none more real than funky bohemian Trastevere.

- Welcome to my other playground.

- [Sarah] Whoa.

It's the home of Cristina Bowerman, the city's only Michelin starred female chef.

(Cristina speaks Italian) - [Sarah] After an insider's shopping trip, we'll make an all veggie celery root pizza worthy of its own star.

That is gorgeous.

It's so pretty, we can't eat that.

The faux pizza inspired me to make a no meat faux pasta.

So today I'm gonna make a pasta dish.

It's spaghetti squash and zucchini.

It's a double squash production.

Then an American expat, Christina Gill, shows us Rome's secret food spots and a spectacular sandwich.

- I love it because it's so fatty, but in a good way fatty.

Can't have more than one a year.

- [Sarah] Italian vegetarian and more on "Sarah's Weeknight Meals".

(gentle music) Sure is pretty here.

So if you go to Rome this year, you won't be alone.

Not at the Coliseum, not at the Spanish Steps, not at the Bernini fountains, and especially not in Trastevere, the trendy, former working class neighborhood across the Tiber.

It's labyrinth of back streets positively swarming with revelers and foodies all looking for fashionable restaurants like Glass Hostaria.

At the helm is Christina Bowerman, the only female Michelin starred chef in Rome.

She spent 14 years in the US before returning home in midlife with a culinary degree and a plan.

- I wanted to open my own restaurant and I thought, "How could I have more than American chefs?"

I said, "Well, I'm Italian."

- Ah.

- So I came back here just thinking that I will be here for a little while.

Then, you know, I ended up staying in Rome and this is my village.

- Ah.

- So I wanna show you around.

Let's go.

(jaunty music) - [Sarah] So this is an amazing market here.

- [Cristina] It is, it's a real market.

So basically, I know the people that have been working here for years.

- [Sarah] Of course, we're cooking later, so we need provisions at the open air market.

- [Cristina] Very delicate.

(stallkeeper speaks Italian) - [Sarah] Wow.

So what's this?

- [Cristina] This is the most amazing shop.

I love this store.

You can find literally everything.

It's playground for me.

(Cristina speaks Italian) (shopkeeper speaks Italian) - It's basically a tea that is smoked because it used to be dried next to fires and so on, so it's smokey.

- Got a naturally smokey taste.

- And because for the recipe, we need something that kind of like plays on the wooden fire and the wooden (speaks foreign word).

- Okay.

(Cristina speaks Italian) (gentle music) (jaunty music) So this is what I love about Trastevere.

I live in a village.

You know it's very important to actually know who you buy your stuff from.

- Oh, absolutely.

- And you have, you know, a community.

And here I have a community.

Let me show you.

Here's La Norcineria.

- [Sarah] Norcineria is Italian for pork butcher, hog heaven.

- [Cristina] Welcome to my other playground.

- Whoa.

- He is- (shopkeeper speaks Italian) (Sarah speaks Italian) - Third generation.

- Yes.

- Of norcineria.

And here you can find lots of stuff.

I need to buy some Pecorino cheese, and I have one of my favorite.

It's called Juncu, do you have it?

- [Shopkeeper] Yes.

- [Cristina] Ah.

- [Sarah] Oh good.

- [Cristina] Yes, even though it sounds like a foreign name, but no, it's actually from Sardinia.

And then I need to get some eggs for our recipe.

- Meanwhile, I love the pork aroma in here.

Ah, that's the reason.

- It's very porky.

- [Cristina] They make everything by themselves, and especially all the salami.

- [Sarah] Oh, yum.

- Oh.

(Cristina speaks Italian) Are we gonna have like a panino for lunch?

- [Sarah] I think we must.

- Yeah, definitely.

(Cristina speaks Italian) (shopkeeper speaks Italian) (Cristina speaks Italian) - [Sarah] Oh, the best part, the skin.

- [Cristina] I know, the crunchy.

- Mm.

- [Shopkeeper] (laughs) Mm, mm.

(Cristina speaks Italian) (gentle music) - I just can't believe here we are in this beautiful square, in your beautiful neighborhood.

- Yes, I love my neighborhood.

- Yeah, and porchetta sandwiches.

- Por-ket-ta.

- Oop.

Pardon.

- Por-ket-ta.

- Por-ket-ta.

- Exactly, you need a little snack because then we need to go cooking.

- Mm, mm, mm.

Oh my God, it's so good.

(Cristina speaks Italian) (both laugh) (jaunty music) - I am so excited to be here in the kitchen of Christina Bowerman, who is the chef owner of Glass Hostaria and is the only female chef in Rome who has a Michelin star, for how many years?

- 13 now.

- Wow.

- Sarah, I am so happy you're here.

- Oh, well, I'm excited.

- I really am.

- There's nothing more fun than cooking in somebody's kitchen.

So what are we making today?

What are you chopping up here?

- Well, right now I'm chopping up some celery root.

- Tell us about it.

- This is one of my favorite vegetables.

It's basically a tuber and it is the root of the celery that we use every day.

And in fact, we are making a fake pizza.

- Oh.

- With celery root.

- [Sarah] I can't wait.

There's all sorts of tricks in this recipe.

- [Cristina] Yes.

- But first we start by pureeing the raw celery root.

- Raw celery root, as it is.

- And what if you can't find celery root?

What could you use in its place?

- [Cristina] Jerusalem artichokes or sunchokes?

You can also use, of course, potatoes.

- So is that the right amount?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

(blender whirs) Wow, it's amazing how fine it gets.

- Yes.

- That's so cool.

- So now we are gonna use this little bag, super bag and we're gonna squeeze water out.

- [Sarah] What if you don't have this magic little bag?

- You know what, you can actually use cheesecloth.

Also you can use, for instance, a (speaks foreign word).

- A side towel.

- Yes.

- Or in Yiddish, a (speaks foreign word) - (speaks foreign word) - [Sarah] Yes.

- [Cristina] So let's try to, let's start squeezing out a little bit with this.

- Yeah, and let me loosen it up so I can help you more in a second.

(gentle music) - [Cristina] So basically what we are doing is that we are going to substitute the natural liquid.

- Right.

- With orange juice.

- Orange juice!

- Yes.

- [Sarah] Now that's a nice twist.

- I've done it so many times, I know this is 300 grams.

I'm going to mix the dry ingredients.

80 grams of flour, 10 grams of baking powder.

- [Sarah] Oh.

- 80 grams of grated pecorino cheese and 5 grams of salt.

I'm gonna mix them up very well.

Sarah, would you do me a favor?

Can you add two whole eggs and two egg whites?

What I would do, I just will mix it up, the two of them.

- [Sarah] Mm-hmm.

- [Cristina] I'm going to add the zest of two oranges and the juice of one orange.

- [Sarah] Oh, I love zest.

That's one of my current it ingredients, you know.

- [Cristina] See, I'm sure just looking at them that they're like really sweet.

- Yeah.

Now we stir this up, right?

- [Cristina] Yes, please.

- Oh, that smells so good.

We now add the dry ingredients to the wet.

- Correct.

- Okay.

- And it is very important to just put in the oven right away.

So we are doing 175.

- I just wanted to say for those of you at home, don't worry, we'll have all the translations of grams to cups and centigrade to Fahrenheit.

It's gonna be on the website.

All right, so.

We're just spraying, I could also brush, right?

- Yeah.

- Ooh.

- Oh yeah, you can also use- - So I don't wear it.

These are the cutest little things I've ever seen.

- Whenever I prepare it, I prefer to prepare it, for instance, for like one or two people from, you know, like a aesthetic point of view, I prefer these.

- It's much prettier.

- Yes.

- Yeah, got it.

- [Cristina] So now we are going to put them in the oven at 175 degrees- - [Sarah] 350.

- 350 Fahrenheit.

- Fahrenheit.

Yes.

- [Cristina] For about 15 or 20 minutes.

We are going to prepare the herb oil.

We are going to use the same volume of herbs and oil.

You know, you can use any herbs that you like, particularly like basil, thyme, and fennel.

So basically you put the herbs and then you cover it up with oil, neutral oil.

So grape seed, so sunflower oil to- - [Sarah] You'll say when?

- Yeah.

- I'll be a team here.

- [Cristina] Yes.

I would say that's it.

- Okay.

It's an immersion blender.

- Oh, you can do it.

- [Sarah] Ah, perfect.

(blender whizzes) - Just lift it up for a second.

Yes.

Perfect.

- [Sarah] Go all over us.

So does that look good?

That looks good to me.

- Yes.

And then what we are going to do is that we are going to use another bag.

- Magic bag.

- The magic bag.

- I have to get some magic bags, that's quite clear, But if you didn't have it, you could, same procedure, you could.

- [Cristina] Yes, absolutely.

(liquid gurgles) So now you let it drain- - [Sarah] Mm-hmm.

- And then you're going to put it in the freezer.

Because what's gonna happen is that the water will freeze because the oily part doesn't get frozen.

So you just pour the the oil out and leave the water and throw it away.

- [Sarah] A whole lot of squeezing going on here.

- I know, I love squeezing.

(Sarah laughs) No, because I really do believe in extraction and concentration of flavors.

- Flavors.

- And you can do that through squeezing.

- Yes.

All right, that's gorgeous color.

Alright, I will.

- So put it in the freezer.

- Okay.

- [Cristina] So now I am going to let you smell this.

- Whoa.

That smells like a campfire.

- Yeah, that's right, because you know, it's pizza.

So you cook it in a brick oven.

- [Sarah] Oh, good point.

Mm-hmm.

- It's a Lapsang tea.

- Oh, that smoky tea, that wonderful smoky tea.

I love that.

- But I cannot put tea like that, so I pulverize it.

And the meanwhile, I think you should cut the mozzarella.

- Oh, okay.

- In small pieces, so that we can put them on our pizza.

- [Sarah] Okay.

- [Cristina] But make sure even after you cut it, to let it kind of drain a little bit because otherwise it's gonna soak up your pizza.

- [Sarah] Got it.

(gentle music) So, you think it's time to check our crust?

- [Cristina] Let me see if they're ready.

Okay.

- [Sarah] Okay, so tell me how you knew these were done.

- Well, you can tell by the crust and also when you touch them.

- Yeah, they're firm.

- You see.

Exactly, they are firm.

Now we are gonna do.

- [Sarah] We're gonna undo them.

This is why we love these pans.

- [Cristina] Now I set the oven at 200 degrees.

- [Sarah] Mm-hmm.

- [Cristina] Because you want the mozzarella to melt right away.

- [Sarah] Okay.

- So now we are going to take it and put it in the oven until, - It melts.

- It melts.

- [Sarah] And that takes about how long?

- Five, eight minutes at the latest.

- [Sarah] Okay.

- This is the oil.

- Oh wow, look at how green that is.

- I had already prepared it.

- [Sarah] So this is the one that you froze and got rid of the- - Exactly.

- [Sarah] Water ice cube.

- So we have a little bit of spicy sesame oil.

I put it, but if you don't like spicy- - I love spicy.

- [Cristina] And now we are going to dress the salad.

We are going to use a special salt, gray salt.

We are going to add olive oil and pomegranate molasses.

- [Sarah] Mm-hmm.

Those are beautiful greens.

- [Cristina] Yes.

So now it's about that time.

- [Sarah] Dun da da.

Oh wow.

- So what I think we can do is that you can take one of the pizzas and put it on the cutting board.

- Okay.

I'll take one of the thinner ones.

- Yes.

As long as you hurry up.

- There we go.

Sorry.

- [Cristina] So what I'm going to do, is that I'm going to plate it.

I'm going to cut it in half.

- [Sarah] So this is two portions.

- [Cristina] Yes, because otherwise it's too much.

(gentle music) - So this is the Michelin Star chef in action.

- [Cristina] We are going to put a little bit of salad on the side, a little bit of pureed celeriac.

- [Sarah] So cooked till it was tender and then pureed.

- [Cristina] Yes, that's it.

Then my tea.

- [Sarah] You sift it right on.

- Yes.

- Oh.

- [Cristina] So we are going to take some flowers.

- [Sarah] I think those are nasturtiums.

- A little bit of the green oil.

And finally the last kick, a little bit of the spicy- - [Sarah] Sesame oil.

Wow.

- And that's it.

- Bravo.

(hands clap) That is gorgeous.

As my husband would say, "It's so pretty, we can't eat that."

But I think we must eat it.

(gentle music) Let's dig in.

You know, you don't ever wanna have every part of every bite be the same.

You want all those different things.

- Mm.

- Mm.

This is extraordinary.

- Mm-hm.

- [Sarah] I'm getting the heat.

I'm getting the smoke.

- Do you taste the pecorino?

- Mm-hmm.

- It's pretty good.

- Wow.

The hits just keep on coming.

So much going on.

- Hmm.

Mm.

- Yes.

Yes, we must.

- Thank you for a wonderful day.

- Oh.

- You did such a... - Oh.

- Thank you.

- No, the pleasure was all mine.

- Had fun.

(Sarah laughs) I know so many vegetarians who would just die for this.

(jaunty music) - My name is Kristina Gill.

I am an American living in Rome.

I came here working for the State Department.

Now I work in humanitarian assistance and as a very developed hobby I do food photography, location photography and food editing.

(camera clicks) (gentle music) I did half of the recipes and photographed the book, "Tasting Rome."

And the idea is to come up with a collection of recipes that would reflect what Romans really like to eat.

So it's a mix between home cooking and restaurant cooking.

My approach to food photography, especially in "Tasting Rome" is to really have food that looks so delicious that people want to eat it off the page.

The Testaccio market is where people of the neighborhood go to do their grocery shopping.

(relaxed jazzy music) Mordi e Vai is a sandwich shop in the Testaccio market.

It specializes in sandwiches using the different Roman pasta sauces.

(Kristina speaks Italian) I just got the most amazing sandwich that has all of the fillings of traditional Roman food.

My favorite is the veal with white, just no tomato sauce.

It's a little bit spicy, it has cubes of pancetta in it.

I love it because it's so, it's so fatty but in a good way fatty.

I can't have more than one a year.

(gentle music) Passi is a bakery in Testaccio and it is a family owned, generational family owned bakery.

You know, it's a little bit like Testaccio.

A little bit cranky, a little bit familiar.

(shopkeeper speaks Italian) - I really love getting things at Passi because it's your neighborhood bakery.

(Kristina speaks Italian) They have all the traditional Roman treats that you can get.

The pizza Bianca, the pizza rosa.

But more importantly they have the (speaks foreign word) and I'm always up to try strudel from every bakery.

The thing that makes Rome and Italy a really nice place to be is really how passionate people are about food.

There's no shame in eating.

So food is what brings people together and food is one of the things that makes Rome jubilant.

(mellow music) - Sometimes you're looking for an alternative to pasta.

Maybe you wanna be gluten-free or need to be gluten-free.

Maybe you're trying to cut out the carbs.

Well, I have a perfect solution.

Spaghetti squash.

It's so named because when you cook it and you go to scrape out the flesh, it comes out in strands like spaghetti.

So today I'm gonna make a pasta dish.

It's spaghetti squash and zucchini.

It's a double squash production with a creamy goat cheese sauce.

I'm gonna start with a zucchini.

I've grated it using the grating disc of a food processor.

But you could certainly use, you know, the course side of a four-sided grater.

I prefer not to.

I think it's a lethal weapon.

A little bit of you goes into every dish.

I used to hate zucchini, but then I discovered that if you salted it and I'm adding three quarters of a teaspoon of salt to this and then you let it drain, you got rid of all that excess water in there.

Wow, it was really pretty darn tasty.

(gentle music) I've got this in a colander set over a bowl.

We're gonna let it drain for about 20 minutes.

10 would be fine, but 20 is better.

And we're just gonna let it sit over there.

While that's draining, I'm going to get the onions going.

I've got two tablespoons of olive oil.

Good stuff.

I've got a cup and a half of onions here that I thinly sliced.

Tiny pinch of salt, you need to season as you go.

Don't wait till the end.

Okay.

These are gonna take, I don't know, 8, 10 minutes.

We're looking for them to first soften and then get a little brown.

Okay, and here is the star of the show, spaghetti squash.

It's a hard skin squash that's available all year long although predominantly more in the fall.

It's a little bit bland, but that's okay.

So most people, when they cook a spaghetti squash cut it in half this way and then put it cut side down in a pan and roast it in the oven.

However, it takes an hour.

I prefer instead to do the quick microwave method.

Takes 15 minutes from start to finish.

So we start with our raw squash.

You still need to prick it several times, about three or four times because when it goes in the microwave we wanna make sure some steam can come out, and we're gonna pop it in and give it five minutes on high.

(gentle music) I take it out of the microwave I slice it in half, cross-wise, very important and then I pop it back in for another five minutes.

Now I take it out and it's soft enough that I can scoop out all the seeds.

It's much easier to wait till it's partially cooked to do this than to do it in the beginning.

I'm gonna pop it back in the microwave for another five minutes after I've removed the seeds.

Okay, these are ready to scoop after just 15 minutes.

You just use a fork and you pull from the sides and the strands will come out.

And now you're gonna see why I cut it crosswise instead of lengthwise.

When you do it lengthwise, you end up with short little strands and when you do it crosswise like that, you end up with really long ones.

And just look at that.

Look at how beautiful that is.

(upbeat music) Okay, I am gonna squeeze the zucchini to get out even more liquid.

You will be astonished at how much comes out.

We're concentrating the flavor of the zucchini.

Okay, before I clear this I just wanna show you how much liquid came out of that zucchini.

Isn't that wild?

My onions are perfect, they're soft and sizzly.

Now I'm gonna add my squozen zucchini right in there and just stir it quickly, cook it for three minutes.

We're just trying to soften it a bit.

Because it's such thin little pieces of zucchini, doesn't take any time at all to cook and it's gonna cook further in the cream sauce.

Let me tell you how to chiffonade a flat herb like sage.

You stack 'em on top of each other like a deck of cards and then you roll 'em up like a cigar, very tight.

Then you cross cut slice it to get it into tiny shreds and you can give it a few more chops, but that's it.

It will be very fine and good to go.

(gentle music) Okay, let's get this out of the pan into the same bowl that we used before.

We're trying to keep the dishes down to a dull roar.

I want that zucchini to keep the green color while the spaghetti squash cooks some more.

Okay, park this over here.

Now for my sauce.

In the same pan I had the zucchini and onions, I'm gonna add two cups of vegetable broths.

You could add chicken stock if you want if you don't need it to be vegetarian.

I'm gonna also add four ounces of fresh goat cheese, not the aged kind.

You can use light cream cheese if you want instead.

Let me get the sage in there too.

Essentially, as this reduces it's gonna thicken from the cheese.

Now that it's all melted and creamy I'm gonna put the spaghetti squash in with the sauce and simmer it covered for about five minutes or until the squash gets even more tender.

Let me talk briefly about the flavor of spaghetti squash.

I'll admit it's bland, but then again, so is pasta.

I love sauce and it's a terrific absorber of sauce just the way pasta is.

Even the husband loved this, even though this is a vegetarian dish.

While that's cooking, I'm going to grate some Parmesano Reggiano with the microplane.

I need about one ounce.

A little goes a long way.

Alright, I'm gonna take a peek.

Oh yes, that's looking delicious.

I like my pasta saucy.

So now that it's ready, I'm gonna put the zucchini back in.

And my grated parm, one ounce.

Oh, I wish you could smell this.

It smells so, so good.

Okay, so here we go.

I'm gonna use a spoon so I can get a little bit of the sauce that's in the pan.

As I mentioned, I'm a saucy girl.

Yes I am.

I like my sauce.

Now, we're not quite done.

We have two garnishes.

One is a little more Parmesano Reggiano, fresh on top, and a few toasted pine nuts.

Walnuts would be lovely too.

So there you go, my vegetarian, very quick, spaghetti squash weeknight pasta.

(gentle music) For recipes, videos and more, go to our website sarahmoulton.com.

(gentle music) "Sarah's Weeknight Meals" is made possible by Sunsweet, Mutti Tomatoes of Parma, Le Gruyere AOP from Switzerland and by.

(mellow music) - Cooking is the first kind of love you know.

It was starting when I was child with my grandmother doing fresh pasta and now I transmit it to all the guests.

It's something made specially for them.

- [Presenter] Oceania Cruises, proud sponsor of "Sarah's Weeknight Meals".

(gentle sting) (upbeat sting) (mellow sting)