My Kitchen My World: Italy

I just joined a new group; as a teacher I have the wonderful luxury of having my summers off so I can indulge in baking and cooking all day and night. My newest group is mykitchenmyworld.

Each week we will prepare cuisine from a different country. For my first week I lucked out! ITALY! I was so excited to know that I would be preparing Italian food. When I first started thinking about what I should prepare, I thought perhaps I should make a very authentic dish- something you would truly eat in a hillside town in Tuscany-- but since I have never been to Tuscany (maybe next summer) I decided to stick with what I know. For those of you who don't know I'm a "Jersey Girl" and of course Italian American. I have a funny jersey accent and use my hands to talk wayyy too much. One time one of my students asked me if I was Italian and I said yes why? she curtly replied because you have such hairy arms----- need I say more.

When watching the opening credits of The Sopranos, my parent's enjoy pointing out the places they know. Now I grew up a world away from where my parents grew up in North jersey and now live in deep South "Slower Lower" Jersey but the influence of my family will always stay with me. My grandma would always make stuffed shells to be eaten before the turkey at Thanksgiving and I was always told that I had "ravioli eyes".

I decided to prepare some Italian American dishes for this challenge-- Ziti with meatballs, breadsticks with Asaigo cheese, tortellini with meatball sausage stuffing and cannoli.

Meatball Ziti

Meatballs are one of my favorite things to make. I usually just through together the ingredients and make adjustments according to how the mixture looks.

Meatballs:
1 lb of ground beef
2 cloves of minced garlic
1 egg
2 tbs minced parsley
3-5 basil leaves finely chopped
Big handful of Parmesan
1/2-3/4 cup of fresh breadcrumbs soaked in a few tablespoons of milk
salt and pepper to taste

Mix ingredients gently and shape into little meatballs for ziti. Pan fry until golden brown.

Ziti:
5 cups tomato sauce
3 cups whole milk ricotta
2 cups shredded mozzarella
1 lb ziti

Preheat oven to 375
Cook ziti until al dente-- set aside. Combine sauce and ricotta in a really big bowl- add in prepared meatballs; gently toss. Add in ziti and gently fold. Pour into a greased 9x13 in pyrex dish. Bake for approx. 40 min at 375. If it looks too brown cover with foil.

Asaigo Breadsticks

2 2/3 cups all purpose Flour
1 pkg yeast
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup warm water
1/4 dry special milk powder (I bought mine from King Arthurs flour)
2 tbs olive Oil
2 tsp sugar

for topping
Butter
garlic
salt/pepper
asaigo cheese

Preheat oven to 375

Mix together dry ingredients in a stand mixer with dough hook. Add wet ingredients and use dough hook to knead for about 5 minutes. Knead by hand on a floured surface for 1 minute. Place dough in an oiled bowl. Cover and let rise until doubled in volume (approx 45 min to 1 hour). Punch down and divide into long thin strips for breadsticks. Spray with oil and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise for about 15 minutes.


Mix together some butter with plenty of garlic. Salt and pepper to taste. Brush over breadsticks liberally. Grate lots of cheese over top. Bake until golden brown about 10- 15 min. Baste a few times while the breadsticks are cooking.

Cannoli:

Bobby Mallozzi of Villa Italia in Schenectady, N.Y.

INGREDIENTS

Cannoli shells

• 1 cup all-purpose flour

• 3 tablespoons sugar

• 2 tablespoons shortening

• 1 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder

• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1/8 teaspoon baking soda

• 4 tablespoons sweet Marsala wine

• 1 large egg, separated

• vegetable oil (roughly 2 1/2 inches deep in saucepan)

For filling

• 1 lb. fresh ricotta (2 cups)

• 1/4 cup confectioners sugar

• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

• 1/3 cup shelled unsalted pistachios (not dyed red), chopped

• 1/2 cup chocolate chips

Special equipment

• pastry bag fitted with a 3/4-inch plain tip

• pasta maker

• 2 heavy-duty oven mitts

• 6 metal cannoli tubes

• deep-fat thermometer

• 4- to 4 1/4-inch round cookie cutter

Garnish

• confectioner's sugar

Make dough for shells
Whisk together flour, sugar, cocoa, cinnamon, salt and baking soda. Add 2 tablespoons shortening and blend in with your fingertips until combined. Add Marsala and yolk and stir until a dough forms.

Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, 5 to 7 minutes. Form dough into a disk and wrap tightly in plastic wrap, then let stand at room temperature 1 hour.

Make filling while dough stands
Beat together ricotta, confectioner's sugar and cinnamon in a bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed 1 minute (do not overbeat). Fold in chocolate chips until combined and chill.

Make shells
Set smooth rollers of pasta maker at widest setting. Unwrap dough and cut in half, then lightly flour one piece (keep remaining half covered with plastic wrap). Flatten floured dough into an oval and feed through rollers. Turn dial down 2 notches and feed dough through rollers again. Continue to feed dough through rollers, making space between rollers narrower by 2 notches each time, until narrowest setting is used.

Line a baking sheet with plastic wrap. Transfer rolled dough to a lightly floured surface and cut out 4 or 5 rounds with floured cutter. Transfer rounds to baking sheet and keep covered with more plastic wrap. Roll out remaining dough and cut rounds in same manner. Gather scraps and let stand 10 minutes. Roll out scraps and cut in same manner.

Heat vegetable oil in a 4-quart heavy pot over moderate heat until it registers 350°F on thermometer.

Meanwhile, lightly oil cannoli tubes. Lightly beat egg white, then brush bottom edge of 1 dough round with egg white. Wrap dough around a tube, overlapping ends (egg-white edge should go on top), then press edges together to seal. Make 5 more shells in same manner (keep remaining rounds covered with plastic).

Fry dough on tubes one at a time, turning with metal tongs, until one shade darker, about 45 seconds. Wearing oven mitts, clamp end of hot tubes, one at a time, with tongs and, holding tube vertically, allow shell to slide off tube onto paper towels, gently shaking tube and wiggling shell as needed to loosen. (If you allow shell to cool it will stick to tube and shatter when you try to remove it.) Transfer shells to paper towels to drain and cool tubes before reusing. Wrap remaining dough around tubes and fry in same manner.

Spoon filling into pastry bag and pipe some into one end of a cannoli shell, filling shell halfway, then pipe into other end. Repeat with remaining shells. Garnish with chopped pistachios and confectioner’s sugar.