Campania Archives - Page 2 of 5 - attheitaliantable.com

December 21, 2015 by Gina Stipo 2 Comments

Feast of the Seven Fishes

The holiday celebration of the Feast of the Seven Fishes is considered by many non-Italians to be the quintessential Italian Christmas Eve festivity, but in fact it’s much more of an Italian-American tradition. The custom of having no meat comes from the Catholic church’s restrictions on eating meat during advent, and with the abundance of fisherman and fish from the coastal regions of the peninsula, the last day of advent being Christmas Eve, the tradition took hold of eating an elaborate fish dinner before meat returned to the table on Christmas Day.

Since a great majority of immigrants in the 19th and 20th centuries came from the coastal cities of Naples and Palermo, the custom of eating fish morphed into a feast of many courses of fish and seafood and entered the Italian American vernacular as the Feast of the Seven Fishes, the accepted way to celebrate the holiday in Italian style.

In my family, where my grandparents came from mountainous areas of southern regions (Potenza in Basilicata and Avellino in Campania), we celebrated with cheese ravioli in tomato sauce followed by a large baked fish and finished with platters of fried pastries. Christmas Eve to me meant my grandma’s fried struffoli drizzled with honey and fried chestnut and cocoa ravioli drenched in powdered sugar. Outside grandma’s house, my family has always celebrated with a huge platter of spaghettini tossed with seafood: rock shrimp, lobster or shrimp, roasted in garlic and herbs – all accompanied by copious amounts of wine!
This year in my new osteria in Louisville, At the Italian Table, we will be celebrating the Feast of the Seven Fishes in the days leading up to and following Christmas. Tiny fried shrimp and calamari, scallop shells baked with seafood, bread crumbs and herbs, drizzled with great Sicilian olive oil; mussels steamed in white wine and tomato, served on toasted bruschetta doused in the new Tuscan olive oil; baked snapper or branzino, drizzled with lemon and orange olive oil from Sorrento – a full evening of delicious southern Italian fish dishes and crisp wines to complement them.
Here’s my recipe for Calamari Arabbiata – squid simmered in tomato and hot peppers – delicious served with bruschetta! Buon Appetito and Buon Natale a tutti!!

Calamari o Polpo con Sugo Arabbiata (squid or baby octopus in spicy tomato sauce)

2 lbs squid, cleaned and sliced into rings and tentacles; or baby octopus

3 garlic cloves

olive oil

hot peppers flakes to taste

2 cups crushed tomato

1/4 cup fresh parsley, minced

1/2 cup white wine

Sauté the garlic in the olive oil gently, add the hot peppers and half the parsley and cook a few minutes, being careful not to brown the garlic. Add the squid or baby octopus and sauté until coated with the garlic and parsley. Add the wine, allow it to cook off and then add the tomato and simmer for 30 minutes, salting to taste. Sprinkle the remainder of the parsley over the dish and serve with bruschetta.

Bruschetta: toast slices of heavy country loaves (the best in the US is Tuscan Pane from Trader Joe’s) until golden brown, gently drag a single clove of garlic over the toast and drench in great extra virgin olive oil.

October 9, 2015 by Gina Stipo Leave a Comment

…and jumping straight back into summer!

The reason autumn is my 3rd favorite season is that it gives you a little taste of lovely cooler weather, and then snaps you back into the beautiful heat of summertime! Which is exactly what happened here in Louisville this past week. I love that.

I’m confused about the produce cycle in the US. So often when I’m looking for a seasonal vegetable or fruit, none are to be found. There is the constant cycle of everything all the time. Piles of apples and oranges in June when there should be mountains of apricots and cherries. In August, at what should have been the height of its productivity, I was desperate for an eggplant. One large grocery store had none; another smaller market had exactly 3 soft ones at $3.99/lb. I was so disgusted I posted it on Facebook.

Now it’s October and eggplants are two for a dollar. That’s 50 cents a piece. Go figure.

So I bought them and in honor of my 2nd favorite season, Indian Summer, I’m putting eggplant parmigiana on the menu all weekend! It’s a bit labor intensive but is so worth the effort and really the ingredients are simple. Just a matter of putting them all together. The recipe is below.

I would serve it with the last of the rose’ wine. Buon appetito!

Parmigiana di Melanzane (eggplant parmigiana)

4 eggplants, peeled and sliced thin
Peanut oil for frying
Simple tomato sauce (olive oil, whole garlic, tomato puree, salt)
Fresh basil leaves
1-2 lbs whole milk mozzarella, sliced
2 cups pecorino romano, grated

Slice the eggplants thinly, lengthwise and salt them in layers, leaving them for several hours to release their water. Rinse them and pat dry with paper.
Heat the peanut oil until 350 degrees and fry each slice until golden brown. Drain on paper towels. Prepare a large baking dish with a drizzle of olive oil and a light coating of tomato sauce. Place a layer of fried eggplant in the pan, pressing down firmly. Add a light coat of tomato sauce, some whole basil leaves and a layer of mozzarella and a sprinkle of cheese. Continue to layer in this way, making sure that you consistently press the eggplant slices firmly into the pan. In this way, once it’s baked you will be able to slice it and it will maintain its shape. Bake at 375 til bubbling. Serve with a salad.

August 26, 2015 by Gina Stipo Leave a Comment

Making Tomato Sauce in Campania

It’s late August and that means my friends Sabato and Concetta are busy canning their amazing tomatoes, Il Miracolo di San Gennaro, down in the valley between Mt Vesuvius and the Lattari Mountains, just east of Naples. I can’t help but think of them and the fun times I’ve had helping to can tomatoes in their backyard, which in August is turned into a production facility.

In southern Italy in the summer, everything is done outdoors. And a tomato canning operation is no exception! Sabato’s equipment has gotten bigger and better over the years and the boiler for sterilizing the jars has been moved to the cantina downstairs. But the main operation of picking through the tomatoes, boiling them and milling them into rivers of sauce and then putting it in jars is still done outside.

Friends and family get together to help, which is great because it’s a 6 a.m. to midnight operation.Of course, we’re in Italy so there are healthy stops for lunch and a rest around 1 pm and then again around 7:30. Coffee is brought from the bar next door, crates of tomatoes are ever arriving from the fields.

It’s a joyous time and I wish I was there with them helping this year!

August 21, 2015 by Gina Stipo 3 Comments

Summer Tomatoes

There is nothing better than a ripe, deep red summer tomato, fresh from your garden or the local farmers market. They were late to market here in Louisville KY, where I moved from Italy last year, but when they finally arrived they were a joy.

As good as they are, however, they can’t match the sweetness of the little tomatoes grown in the volcanic soil of Sicily and Napoli. Anyone who has visited me for a cooking class in Italy has tasted them; small grape tomatoes bursting with juicy sweetness, when they’re heated through for a simple fresh tomato basil sauce or warmed in the oven to top goat cheese-stuffed zucchini blossoms, they are virtually vegetable candy!

Much is made of San Marzano tomatoes from the Campania region and for good reason. Grown in the volcanic soil on the slopes and in the valley of Mt Vesuvius, one of Italy’s many active volcanoes, they are meaty and sweet with a particular flavor not found in any other tomato. Several brands are found on the market but it’s best to get the ones from Italy that have a DOP stamp, designating them as officially inspected by the consortium of San Marzano DOP and a guarantee of origin and quality. Gustiamo out of NY has some great product they bring from Italy.

My grandmother had San Marzano seeds from her hometown in Campania and grew the tomatoes in her garden in the heart of Brooklyn. I remember the canned filets of tomato she put on her pizza and have been trying to recreate that taste for years. These tomatoes make a wonderful pizza sauce, the less they’re cooked the better.

There are a number of different kinds of tomatoes in Italy. None of them are called “heirloom” because growing them isn’t a lost tradition, it’s a continual way of life that extends back centuries.

There are a host of American Italian tomato sauce recipes that call for sugar, which is an ingredient much less widely used in Italy and never ever found in a tomato sauce. The origins of sugar in Italian “gravy” (I shudder to use the word) come from the acidic canned tomatoes that the Italian immigrants found when they arrived in the 1900’s. Sugar in the form of sucrose was needed to replace the natural fructose that the US tomatoes lacked. That’s not necessary in today’s market when you can get delicious tomatoes right from Italy in any number of good brands.

Here are a couple of my favorite recipes using luscious summer tomatoes. They’re simple and with just a few ingredients. In fact, they’re identical, one is heated and used as a sauce for pasta and the other is served fresh in a salad, with a good loaf of bread to sop up the juices.

Happy tomato season and Buon Appetito!

Sugo di Pomodoro e Basilico Fresco (fresh tomato and basil)
2 cups fresh roma or grape tomatoes
2 cloves garlic
Sea salt
Olive oil
2 tbsp fresh basil, chopped or torn
Gently sauté the garlic in olive oil until soft, add chopped tomatoes and sauté a few minutes, adding salt to taste. Add the chopped basil and toss with cooked pasta, topping with Parmigiano before serving.

Fresh Tomato Salad
3 large ripe tomatoes, cut into chunks
2 garlic cloves, whole
Sea salt
Extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp fresh basil, chopped or torn

Toss all ingredients together and allow to sit for at least 30 minutes. Fresh ground black pepper can be added, although a good quality Tuscan olive oil should be peppery enough. Serve with great bread for sopping up the juices.