GRAZIE, MARCELLA

I suppose it must have been about a quarter a century ago that I acquired the British habit of reading cookery books in bed as if they were novels and now, among my many cookery books from many nations, there are what I call the "one-offs" - good for a recipe or two but not otherwise reliable - and there are the stalwarts, the books written by cooks who never let you down.  

From my own country there is the "sainted Delia", often my starting point for a basic recipe or technique and a goddess, long before Nigella, for converting measurements.  Delia is good to watch, too, if you can stand her constant mispronunciation of foreign terms but she went down in my estimation when she started cooking in a conservatory three times the size of most people's homes and up again the day she appeared, apparently drunk, on a football pitch. Well, wouldn't you want to let go after all those years of precision?

Then there are the entertaining cooks, like "cheeky chappie" Jamie Oliver, the "Two Fat Ladies", the late, flamboyant Keith Floyd, and the glamorous, exuberant Nigella. The prose of all these writers is a delight to read and their recipes invariably work, too. There are, though, cookery writers who manage to weave among their recipes  not only their own stories but those of an entire culture and among these I would count Elizabeth David,  Claudia Roden and Marcella Hazan, who died, at the age of 89, yesterday.  

If I learnt French cooking from Elizabeth David and my beloved Larousse Gastronomique, it was from Marcella that I learned the basic techniques of Italian cooking and I will always be grateful to her for "writing me through" [because it felt as if she was talking me through] the way to cook a veal escalope as the Italians do [not as easy as you may think ] and for teaching me not to be afraid of artichokes.  

Marcella Hazan

Marcella Polini was born in Cesenatico [Forlì-Cesena, Emilia-Romagna] in 1924. She gained a Ph.D in Natural Sciences and Biology from the University of Ferrara and was teaching Maths and Science when she met Victor Hazan,  an Italian-born New Yorker and later a wine writer, whom she married in 1955.  

A few months after their wedding the couple moved to New York and Marcella always said that, before this time, she had no idea how to cook. Perceiving that her husband missed Italian food, Marcella set about turning herself into a serious Italian cook but it wasn't until she was in her forties that she began giving cookery lessons in her apartment. She published her first cookery book, The Classic Italian Cook Book, when she was nearly 50. Victor translated this, and all her books, into English.

Marcella Hazan is credited with introducing "real" Italian cooking into the American kitchen, in much the same way as Julia Child taught Americans to cook French food. 

In 2005 Marcella Hazan became a Cavaliere della Stella della Solidarietà Italiana.

My favourite book by Marcella Hazan is Marcella Cucina and my favourite recipe from it is this one, which I have cooked time and time again here, to much acclaim, for friends.

Grazie, Marcella.

BACON DAY COOKING

Saturday was International Bacon Day and in honour of the occasion I made this from the "cookbook that never lets me down", Marcella Hazan's Marcella Cucina.  I've featured the dish before on the blog but not for four years, so I hope you'll forgive me!  It's Marcella's involtini di maiale - pork escalope rolls filled with slices of wafer-thin pancetta and gherkins. The dish is flavoured with garlic and sage.  I now use canned  pomodorini [cherry tomatoes] in recipes requiring a can of chopped tomatoes:

FOODIE FRIDAY: A FEAST FOR FRIENDS

Marie-Laure and David left Sicily yesterday so on Wednesday evening I cooked them a Sicilian feast.

For the antipasti below I bought spiced mushrooms and grilled carciofi [artichokes] and made the filling for the cherry tomatoes. This is what you do: sit yourself down and halve some cherry tomatoes. Then scoop out pulp and seeds with a tiny spoon. Sprinkle them with seasalt and leave upside-down on kitchen paper to drain. Then rinse and dry them and fill with a mixture of bel paese cheese, basil, seasoning, lemon juice and white wine which you have whizzed up with a hand blender or in a processor.

To make these antipasti halve a melon and scoop out the seeds. Then drain some tinned grilled peppers and courgettes and arrange them on cocktail sticks as artistically as you can. "Hmmm - that looks fine but what shall I put in the middle?" I asked myself. "Olives!" I told me and that's what I did:

Antipasto of melon and Parma ham:



I bought Sicilian classico bread and pane arabo.

For a pasta course, I made herbed risotto cake. You can serve it cold or at room temperature and so spend more time with your guests.

Main courses: Involtini di maiale [these are pork rolls stuffed with pancetta and gherkins] one of my favourite recipes from Marcella Hazan's Marcella Cucina. You can prepare the involtini a few hours ahead and refrigerate them. Then all you have to do is roll them in flour, slosh in the wine and tomatoes and cook. [Marcella says simmer for 30 mins but I find it does no harm if you leave it on a low flame for an hour.]

Grilled chicken scaloppine with Parma ham and sage leaves. So quick and simple!



Then I served fresh fruit

followed by strawberry tiramisù. There have been no strawberries about since the beginning of July and when I went shopping on Wednesday morning I thought I'd have to turn it into a peach tiramisù. However, the Cooking Fates were on my side for lo and behold, in the supermarket there were strawberries!

We're not finished yet, though, for my guests had espied this delicious semifreddo in one of Modica's many dolcerie:

Finally I served a selection of my home-made liqueurs and, instead of hot coffee, offered these [chilled] which Marie-Laure and David agreed are a brilliant invention:

Give my love to Wales, Marie-Laure and David!

RABBITING ON

Back to one of my all-time favourite Italian cookery books, Marcella Cucina, last night: I decided to make this dish of rabbit with peppers and I must say it turned out very well. For this you peel the peppers without grilling or roasting them first, so you need unknobbly ones, and they should melt into the sauce. I'm not convinced they all did, but it's definitely a dish I'll be making again. You are supposed to put a very small chilli pepper in but I used this chilli pepper spray [because I wanted to try it out] instead and I think it was successful. Here's my latest cookery motto: "Half is accuracy, half slapdash and you can serve it with panache". Yes, well - better stop for tonight!

INVOLTINI DI MAIALE

This is another dish from the cookbook that never lets me down, Marcella Cucina - pork bundles containing smoked pancetta and slices of gherkin, cooked with garlic, sage and tomatoes. I didn't use to have much success cooking involtini in Britain as the cuts of meat were either that little bit too thick and didn't brown properly, or else too thin and they would break up during cooking. But here if you tell the butcher you are going to prepare involtini he will know exactly what you need. This is a dish which is on my "Italian comfort food" list.

Chicken, veal and aubergines can also be used to make types of involtini.

VIGNAROLA

Sometimes, when my palate is jaded and my body tired, I just want a dish of vegetables. That's when I cook myself a Roman vignarola. This is another dish from Marcella Hazan's Marcella Cucina and it consists of small onions, broad beans, peas, shredded lettuce and artichoke hearts cooked slowly in olive oil, the only seasoning being coarse seasalt. The green beans are not an authentic ingredient, being my own addition; in Britain I used to like to add a few finely sliced, runner beans. I am hopeless at trimming artichokes and usually end up with nothing left so I confess that I cheat, for this dish, by using the frozen artichoke hearts available here. [In Britain you could use the tinned ones, but not antipasti artichokes.] Vignarola can be served warm or at room temperature and the only accompaniment needed is some good, home-made, flavoured bread.

UMIDO DI AGNELLO

Last night I cooked up this Marches-style lamb stew, a recipe from Marcella Cucina. It contains potatoes, chilli pepper, tomatoes and, of course, plenty of garlic and rosemary!