LET’S GET SAUCY.

My uncle vacationed in Italy earlier this month, and was disappointed with the food. He felt that it was “bland” compared to the Italian food to which he is accustomed in the US.

I was not surprised by his conclusion. In fact, I think that the reasons behind it are pretty simple. My uncle is Italian-American, and he was eating in the land of Italian-Italians.

Contrary to what many in the US believe, Italian-Italians and Italian-Americans are two completely different beasts. And it's not just because members of the latter group have a propensity to scratch their crotches in public places, whereas those in the former group do not. The differences go right down to the food.

Italian-Italians like their sauces to have clean, fresh flavors. Italian-Americans like them to have intense, meaty (and especially, porky) flavors.

I've eaten in Italy many times, and I’ve never encountered a sauce laden with meatballs, pork ribs, sausage, beef hunks and bracciole (i.e., the sauce on which my uncle and I were raised in Utica, NY). Nearly every tomato-based sauce that I've had in Italy tasted almost purely of – hold onto your hats – TOMATO! Sure, you can find sauces with additional flavorings tossed in (e.g., Bolognese with its ground beef, Puttanesca with its capers and spicy peppers, etc.), but these seem to be the exceptions rather than the norm.

So it's a matter of apples and oranges. Personally, I'd be happy to eat a big bowl of either. But since not everyone is as flexible or open-minded as I am, I feel compelled to provide these folk with some sort of public service.

As such…I list below the recipe for my mother’s/grandmother’s classic, meat-based, Italian-American “macaroni sauce.” If you are Italian-American, planning a trip to Italy and fear that your palate might be repulsed by the taste of an unadorned tomato, then you should pack of tub of this sauce in dry ice and wedge it into your suitcase.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go stand at a bus stop and scratch my crotch.

OLIVA FAMILY'S MACARONI SAUCE (UTICA, NY)

56 oz. Crushed Tomato
56 oz. Tomato Puree
24 oz. Tomato Paste
Salt & Pepper
Fresh Parsley (minced)
Fresh Basil (slivered or chopped)
Big handful of grated Parmesan or Romano cheese3-4 cloves of Garlic
Water (no more than 28 oz.)
Olive oil

Red wine for deglazing 

1 lbs. Italian Sausage
1 lbs. Pork “Country Ribs” (salted and peppered)
1 lbs. Beef Chuck (cut into cubes, salted and peppered)
Meatballs (see recipe below)
Bracciole (see recipe below) or, if I'm feeling lazy, a long slab of Skirt Steak (cut into pieces, salted and peppered) 

*Note:  My preference is to double this recipe.  Seriously...if you're going to trash an entire weekend making sauce, you might as well make a ton and freeze it. 

Step 1: Fry meats (each separately) in olive oil, and set aside.

Step 2: Fry garlic in the same oil in which the meats were fried. Add tomato paste and fry until darkened, but not burned (3-5 minutes on medium heat).  Deglaze with red wine.

Step 3: Add tomato puree, crushed tomato, cheese, water, meat (except meatballs) and seasonings. Simmer on lowest heat for at least six hours. Stir frequently.

Step 4: Add meatballs and cook on low heat for another couple hours. Stir frequently yet gently, so as not to disintegrate the meatballs.

Note: This will make A LOT of sauce…but it freezes well. Divide the remaining sauce and meat into plastic containers and freeze.  Also, I've simmered this sauce for as many as twelve hours.  Your goal is for the meat to be tender and nearly falling apart.

MEATBALLS

¾ lbs. Ground Beef
¾ lbs. Ground Pork
3-4 slices of Bread (soaked in water and squeezed)
1 Egg
Garlic (minced)
Fresh Parsley
Fresh Basil
Salt & Pepper
¼ cup Grated Cheese

Step 1: Mix ingredients.

Step 2: Roll into balls.

Step 3: Fry in olive oil until browned. Let cool on a paper towel-lined plate.

BRACCIOLE

1-1.5 lbs. Round Steak (sliced thinly)
Fresh Parsley
Salt & Pepper
Garlic (minced and sautéed) or Garlic Powder
Grated Cheese
Kitchen Twine or Toothpicks

Step 1: Pound steak with mallet.

Step 2: Slice steak into strips (i.e., wider/longer strips for big bracciole; narrower/shorter strips for small bracciole).

Step 3: Sprinkle steak strips with salt, pepper, garlic (or garlic powder), parsley and cheese.

Step 4: Roll strips like a jelly roll, so that the seasonings are inside the roll. Tie with twine or spear with toothpicks, so that they won’t unroll.

Step 5: Fry in olive oil until browned. 

Another "Post for Posterity."

A POST FOR POSTERITY: NONNIE’S PUSTY RECIPE.

[Update, March 6, 2016:  I've written a new post, with new recipe, about the Utica Pusty.  You will find it HERE.]

Our good friend and VTB-VIP, Culinary Fool, has been blogging lately about her grandmother’s Christmas cookie recipes. That got me thinking about my own Nonnie’s holiday specialty—pusties!

I’m not sure if pusties (also known as “pustichioti”) are an Italian or Italo-American invention...although I suspect the latter. And I’m not sure if they’re available in other parts of the US or only in the Utica, NY area...although again, I suspect the latter.

Pusties are little, baked pastry tarts filled with chocolate or vanilla custard, and capped with another layer of pastry dough that's brushed with egg yolk. They look like a frilly meat pasty...but, of course, taste nothing like one.

In a rare moment of common sense, I had the foresight to ask Nonnie for her recipe several years ago. And it’s a good thing, because I don't think that anyone else in the family had previously thought to do so.

And so, my friends...I include Nonnie's recipe below. I like sharing family recipes, because it lessens the chance that they will be lost forever. And now that Nonnie’s pusty recipe is safely aloft in cyberspace, I can stop worrying that the original handwritten version will meet an untimely death at the hands of my finger-painting daughter.

NONNIE’S PUSTIES

To Make the Dough:

1.5 cups Crisco Shortening or Lard
5 cups Flour
1.25 cups Sugar
2 Eggs
0.5 cup Cold Water
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
0.25 cup Honey

Step 1: Blend Crisco, sugar, flour and baking powder. Blend like you would a pie crust.

Step 2: Add water, honey and eggs. Mix and refrigerate.

Step 3: Add a little extra flour if dough is too soft. Make little “meatballs” and spread in the pusty pans. Caution: do not spread too thick, because the baking powder will cause the dough will rise a little.

Step 4: Fill the pusty pan, cover with a cap and brush the top with egg yolk.

Step 5: Bake at 375 degrees F for 15-20 minutes.

* * * * * * *

To make Vanilla Filling:

3 Eggs
0.75 cup Sugar
0.5 cup Flour
2 cups Milk
1 teaspoon Vanilla (or some brandy)
Dab of Butter

Step 1: Cook over low heat until thickened.

Step 2: After it cools, add vanilla (or brandy) and a dab of butter.

* * * * * * *

To make Chocolate Filling:

0.5 cup Flour
1 cup Sugar
0.25 cup Cocoa
1 cup milk
1 cup Cold Water

Step 1: Mix together flour, sugar and cocoa.

Step 2: Add milk and cold water.

Step 3: Cook over low heat until thickened.

ANOTHER POST FOR POSTERITY: NONNIE’S FUCAZZO.

And now for another installment of our continuing series.

This classic Nonnie recipe is for Fucazzo (pronounced, “foo-GOTS”)—an Italian onion and anchovy pie that, oddly enough, was one of my childhood favorites.

Nonnie made her Fucazzo in the form of a calzone—spreading the ingredients over a layer of pizza dough, covering it with a top layer of dough and brushing it with egg yolk before baking.

My riff on this dish treats it as a pizza; using the always-fabulous Boboli pizza crusts. I also modified Nonnie’s original by adding chile peppers, fresh herbs, goat cheese and a drizzle of extra-virgen olive oil.

However you choose to spin it, the soul of Fucazzo is the jiu-jitsu between the sweetness of onions and tomato sauce vs. the brininess of anchovies and oil-cured black olives.

Just don't eat a slice before a first date.

NONNIE'S FUCAZZO

1 Boboli Pizza Crust

2 Large Onions

5 oz. Tomato Sauce (just eyeball it)

Oil-cured Black Olives (remove pits)

Anchovies

Fresh Parsely

Fresh Basil

Chopped Green Chiles (Jalapeno or Serrano)

Goat Cheese (optional)

Salt & Pepper

Extra Virgen Olive Oil

Step 1:  Saute onion in some olive oil until soft and translucent.

Step 2:  Add salt, pepper and tomato sauce to onions.  Let simmer a few minutes.

Step 3:  Brush Boboli with olive oil.

Step 4:  Spread onion mixture onto Boboli, leaving a 1 inch border.

Step 5:  Arrange anchovies, chiles, olives and dollops of goat cheese atop of onions.

Step 6: Place directly on bottom rack of 450F oven and bake for 12 minutes.

Step 7:  Remove from oven.  Drizzle with extra virgen olive oil and top with fresh herbs.

ANOTHER POST FOR POSTERITY: NONNIE’S ITALIAN SAUSAGE RECIPE.

Long time patrons of this VTB know that I have—from time to time—released prized family recipes into the public domain in order to assure their immortality.

Most of those recipes have been Nonnie’s—including The Oliva Family's Macaroni Sauce and the now-immortal pusties.

In today’s installment, I am releasing another recipe. This is one that I couldn’t (or wouldn’t want to) live without. It's...Nonnie’s Italian Sausage!

What’s the big deal about Italian sausage? Three things:

1. Outside the US, it’s not easy to find Italian sausage in supermarkets.
2. Inside the US, it’s easy to find Italian sausage in supermarkets...but much of it is poo.
3. Who needs a friggin’ supermarket?! Making Italian sausage is so easy that even an Italian can do it.

And so, I give to all of you...another post for posterity.

NONNIE’S ITALIAN SAUSAGE

4 lbs. Coarsely-ground pork butt (i.e., pork shoulder)
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons paprika
2 teaspoons fennel seed
2 tablespoons hot red pepper flakes (optional)
Sausage casings, soaked in water to soften and remove salt (optional)

Step 1. Mix pork and spices in a bowl.
Step 2. Cover and let sit overnight in the fridge.
Step 3. Form into patties if you’re a lazy-ass—otherwise, stuff into casings.

[See, Franje? I wasn’t kidding when I told you that I make my own sausage.]

A POST FOR POSTERITY: NONNIE'S 'SHROOM STEW.

And now for another installment of our continuing series...

Here's yet-another recipe from Nonnie that screams to be released into the public domain. This time it's "Nonnie's Mushroom Stew."

You know, Nonnie has only one goal in life: That everyone can eat as well as Fat Sal, yet still fit into his ruffley, pea green High School prom tuxedo. We don't guarantee the latter, but the former is a piece of cake.

Nonnie's Mushroom Stew

* 2 lbs. veal--cut into 1 inch cubes.
* 2 lbs. bulk (i.e., without casings) Italian sausage--hot, mild or combo.
* 2 stalks of celery--diced.
* 1 each of red bell pepper, green bell pepper and hot chile pepper--diced.
* 12 oz mushrooms--psychedelic, non-psychedelic or combo--sliced or quartered.
* 3 cloves garlic--minced or crushed.
* 1 large onion--diced.
* 1 c. red wine.
* 1-28oz can plus 1-12 oz can diced tomatoes.
* 1-28oz can tomato sauce.
* Hot pepper flakes.
* Salt and Pepper.
* Parsely--chopped, a whole lotta
* Thick slices of Italian bread, or polenta, or rice.

Step 1. Fry veal and sausage in olive oil until browned. Remove meat and set aside. Retain enough fat in pot for Step 2.

Step 2. Fry the following in retained fat until softened: Onion, peppers, celery and 'shrooms.

Step 3. Add garlic to mixture and saute for 30 seconds.

Step 4. Add wine and reduce to approx. 1/4 cup.

Step 5. Add diced tomatoes, tomato sauce and meats. Cover, reduce heat and simmer until veal is tender. Could take awhile.

Step 6. Adjust for salt, pepper and picante. Stir in parsely.

Step 7. Place slice of Italian bread at bottom of each serving bowl. Alternatively, you can add polenta or rice instead of bread if you're a WASP or something. Ladle stew over bread slice, polenta or rice. If you're like me, hit it with a drizzle of chile-infused olive oil.

Step 8. Loosen the belt on that prom tuxedo, Cinncinnati-girl!

In our next installment...Nonnie's Fucazzo. Stay tuned.