It has been a while since the last newsletter you received, a month and a half, to be exact.
What has happened in the meantime?
I overestimated my forces and underestimated the last step: cleaning the flat after renovations, moving furniture back home, moving items living in the furniture (still in progress), more cleaning, finalizing things left undone with the arrival of Ferragosto (that in Italy means that everyone goes on holiday and ciao ciao).
The effort was tremendous, even more if you consider that we, my husband and I, did everything in three months (which we will remember as the most tiring and intense months of our lives).
The stress has sapped my physical and mental resources. It is mid-September, and I have not yet thought of an editorial plan for the newsletter. For now, I am letting ideas float; when they are ready, they will knock at my brain door, and things will take shape. Kind of like the new kitchen from which I am writing to you. It didn't arrive ready-made and only to be assembled; it was built one piece at a time, changing the design along the way when necessary.
If you're a new subscriber, we became so many over the summer!, I reported on moving- renovating-new kitchen here:
However, one thing is certain, writing, especially if you don't use AI, and I don't, takes time. Thinking of things to say, lest you talk in circles, also takes time. Certainly, Food Notes from Bologna will remain a newsletter of food history, memories and recipes. And of Via Emilia, the sub-product of the newsletter dedicated to discovering my region, Emilia-Romagna. In the meantime, since there are so many stories to tell, as well as memories and recipes, and I have yet to find a common thread, you could, if you like, tell me something about your summer.
Tomatoes and cicadas
Before the two recipes promised in the subtitle, I'll tell you how I spent the week of Ferragosto when the renovation stopped.
At home, working. Passata and fruit jams involved some work, but can you guess the pleasure of stowing away the winter supplies in the pantry?
And so, my husband and I pumped up the volume of the cicadas' chirping, the actual soundtrack of summer, laced up our aprons and peeled, cooked, potted, and cleaned a lot of tomatoes and fruit while chatting and laughing about us and the things of life.
To be honest, this newsletter, which I hoped to send to you in late August, was meant to be dedicated to the memory of a particular day, that of the preparation of tomato passata, which, I remember, took place between late August and early September, never before or even after.
However, we are already beyond the middle of September. It is too late to share my recipe for passata, so I chose to do something different and leave you with two recipes for using the last tomatoes of the season.
Of course, it depends on where you live. The summery garden season should last until at least mid-October in the Bologna area. Now that turning on the oven no longer seems like a suicide mission get some tomatoes and cook them.
Don Pomodoro and the Artusi's sauce
In the title, I wrote sauce and not passata. Do you know the difference?
If you leave peels and seeds inside the juice or add ingredients such as garlic or onion, you are making the sauce, not passata.
And among sauce recipes, Pellegrino Artusi's is a small masterpiece that deserves to leave the book's pages and land on your table. Once again, this magnificent work dedicated to Italian home cooking is a fresco rich in historical anecdotes and memories.
Don Pomodoro (Father Tomato)
The introduction to Recipe No. 125, Tomato Sauce, relates to a priest from Romagna who stuck his nose into everything and busy-bodied his way into families, trying to interfere in every domestic matter. For that reason, the popular wit dubbed him Don Pomodoro.
The anecdote is hilarious and tells something about the introduction of this fruit int the Italian kitchen (the tomato is technically a fruit not a vegetable).
In fact, after its arrival from America in the 16th century, doctors discouraged using tomatoes in the kitchen for a long time. The tomato became commonplace in the Italian kitchen in the second half of the 19th century. As Artusi says, the new habit of introducing it into so many dishes was reminiscent of the priest's habit of sticking his nose into other people's things.
Tomato sauce, Artusi's recipe
As Artusi writes, this sauce lends itself to many uses. It is good with boiled meat, seasoning pasta, and making risotto.
I confirm. Furthermore, don't throw the leftover scraps; use them to make a second sauce that is thick and perfect for spreading on bread.
The Recipe.
4 servings
Equipment / food miller
Ingredients
8 tomatoes, San Marzano type, or round but firm and ripe
1 small yellow onion
1 clove of garlic
½ celery stalk
1 small carrot
2 bay leaves
basil and parsley to taste
salt and olive oil to taste
Method
Peel the clove of garlic.
Remove the skin from the onion and cut into slices.
Wash the basil, parsley, and bay leaves, dry them.
After washing the celery and carrot, chop coarsely the vegetables.
Wash the tomatoes and cut them into coarse pieces.
Combine all the ingredients in a saucepan, add a pinch of salt and oil, add the bay leaves, and put on the stove.
Cook on a small stove over a high flame for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, just long enough to make the sauce creamy.
Discard the bay leaves and pass everything through a masher.
The sauce is ready.
Food tips
Use the strainer with finer holes of the food mill to obtain a smooth sauce. I opted for the intermediate one, which resulted in a sauce that was not perfectly smooth but more rustic and flavorful.
After pureeing the vegetables, collect the scraps in a bowl.
Add oil and some water and mix (you can blend to make it less coarse). You will have a great cream to spread on toasted bread and zero scraps.
Roasted cherry tomato cream and burrata
From my summer, here is a recipe I have made several times: roasted tomato cream, which you see here with a few tablespoons of burrata cheese in the middle.
If you love to cook, even in the hottest summer in the world, you will continue to bake for bringing color and flavor to each day.
My husband tried to extinguish this ardor several times by asking me not to turn on the oven. I did it for a few days, and then, unable to resist, I turned it on again.
Going back to the cream of tomatoes, you should know that for three long years, apart from passata, I did not eat cooked and raw tomatoes because of a health problem. And it was hard for someone who has always lived on tomato salad in the summer. Even though I can't overdo it, I celebrated they return to my table and to MY plate.
This cream has an intense flavor and is very versatile. You can use it as:
pâté to pair with slices toasted bread. Whether or not to add burrata cheese and a drizzle of oil is up to you;
sauce to dress pasta,
or to use instead of passata to cover the base for pizza;
filling for tortelli;
sauce to accompany white meats or hard-boiled eggs.
I just have to leave you with the recipe. To the tomatoes, I always add a shallot, or a small onion, and one aromatic herb to intensify the flavor, and a couple of carrots to accent the color.
The Recipe.
4 servings
Ingredients
400 g of cherry tomatoes
150 g of carrots
1 shallot
oregano to taste (or another aromatic herb)
salt and olive oil to taste.
Method
Turn on the oven to 200C (392F) degrees.
Line a baking sheet with baking paper and grease the bottom with olive oil.
Wash and dry the cherry tomatoes.
Wash the carrots and cut them into pieces.
Peel the shallots and cut them in half or into 4.
Arrange all ingredients on the baking dish, drizzle with olive oil, and add a pinch of salt and a lot of oregano.
Bake in preheated oven for about 35-40 minutes or until vegetables are soft.
Let cool and reduce to cream with an immersion blender.
Even though it has just started raining in Bologna, I'll pick up the ideas, hang them to dry in the last of the summer sunshine, and come back to you.
Ciao, Monica
Let's keep the conversation going! Please write to me at tortellinico@gmail or follow me on Instagram.
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We will visit Orvieto, Luca as well as Siena. Our base will be Montepulciano. Our friend In Salerno encouraged us to stay long enough to see the Christmas lights. When we hop to Bari going to visit our favorite olive oil makers. Sabino Leone in Puglia.
Yes. We Visited two years ago. Such a beautiful city. I loved the covered sidewalks with the arches and tile work.
We arrive on September 30 in Tuscany then two months in Salerno as our home base.