There is a big celebration all over the world in the days leading up to Lent, in what are, or formally were, Catholic countries.  Called carnevale in Italy, the word literally meant “a removal of meat”, and began as an acknowledgment that they would soon be faced with 40 days of fasting before Easter.  It evolved into a decadent celebration of masked parties and rich foods, before Ash Wednesday reminds us all that “man thou art dust and unto dust thou shall return.”

Italy abounds with many special dishes that show up in celebration for any number of feast days and holy days, some more regional than others.  The fried and sugared pastry strips of the last blog, cenci, lattughe and chiacchiere, are found throughout all of Italy, the only thing changing is the name; but in Naples you also find struffoli, those little chickpea size fried balls with colored sprinkles.

It is also in Naples that you will also found an especially rich lasagna dish called Lasagna di Carnevale.  Chock full of meat balls, sausage balls, mozzarella and ricotta, this rich lasagna is a celebration of the Napolitano kitchen.  It is the origins of what Americans typically copy for lasagna and has become common at any important celebration in Naples.  But it was originally a rich expression of eating well and fully before the privations of Lenten sacrifice and penitence.

The directions are simple:  make a simple red sauce, make tiny meatballs, make tiny sausage balls, make fresh pasta.  Combine the lasagna layering all the above ingredients, adding pieces of mozzarella and teaspoons of ricotta throughout.  Basil leaves are optional.

For the red sauce:

Brown a piece of beef in olive oil.  Chop and onion and 2 cloves of garlic and saute in the same pot.  Add 2 quarts of tomato puree and sea salt and put the beef back in.  Allow to cook 3 hours.

For the meatballs:

Mix a pound or two of ground beef with 1-2 eggs and 1-2 cups of parmigiano.  Form into tiny meatballs 1/2 inch in diameter and brown in olive oil.  Form the sausage meat into tiny balls and fry in the same pot.

Make pasta and roll out the sheets very thin.  Cook the sheets one or two at a time in boiling salted water for 20 seconds, remove to cold water to stop the cooking.  Don’t cook all the pasta at the same time and leave it in the water, but make a layer of lasagna before cooking another sheet of pasta.  Do it as you need it, another words.

In a pan spread a small amount of the red sauce and some olive oil. Lay pasta sheets down to cover the bottom and begin to layer everything. The top layer should be tomato sauce. Drizzle a little olive oil over the top and the sides and bake at 375 until bubbling and browned.
Buon appetito!

 

Italians love all things fried, from the savory to the sweet.  The time before Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, which this year is February 18,  is especially filled with traditional and seasonal fried sweets.   The time is known as Carnevale and culminates on Shrove Tuesday, at which point the decadence ends and the fasting of Lent begins.

Well, not in Tuscany, where they go right from fried doughs for Carnevale to fried rice fritters for the feast of St Joseph in March!

The sweet fried doughs for Carnevale are known by different names throughout Italy:  chiacchiere, lattughe (lettuce leaves), and cenci (rags) in Tuscany.  There are other fried doughs served all through the year, such as bomboloni (doughnuts) for breakfast, or gnocco in Emilia Romagna, which aren’t sweet but are served with prosciutto di Parma as an antipasto.  But the chiacchiere, cenci and lattughe are found only in January and February.

Cenci

2 1/2 cups AP flour
3 eggs
pinch of fine sea salt
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup sweet liquor (tuaca, cointreau)
1/4 cup water

Mix all ingredients together until a soft dough forms, adding additional flour if too sticky to handle.  Let it rest 15 minutes then roll through a pasta machine to form thin strips, adding flour when necessary.  Fry in peanut oil and dust with powdered sugar.