Not quite Barefoot Contessa - Lasagne with Chicken Sausage

My admiration for the Barefoot Contessa knows absolutely no bounds. Ever since that hot June afternoon when I sat down with a tiny Lola and flicked through the TV channels trying to find something to stare absentmindedly at whilst it was bottle time, I have been a fan. There she appeared, on my TV screen, looking all smiley and homely, with her lovely house and her Kitchen Aid and those cute American measuring cups, putting her ‘good vanilla’ and half a pound of butter into a bowl, and I thought, ‘Oh yes, this could be me.’ Unfortunately, instead of ‘habitating’ in The Hamptons, I was lounging somewhere near Liverpool, half asleep, not yet totally dressed, with a little bit of baby dribble adorning my left shoulder but all that was mere detail. This was going to happen. I could breeze in and out in my Mercedes/BMW, the odd dinner party here, the trip to the speciality food store for some mozzarella from the happiest buffalo in the whole world there. Bring it on.

Fast forward 10 years and I have the nice house (though it’s not what you’d call ‘tidy’ – I need at least two hours warning of any visit so I can shift the dogs, children, washing, yesterday’s plates, clothes, etc.)  Phill bought me a Kenwood for my birthday instead of a Kitchen Aid (I am very grateful; I know that sounds like I am not…) and I bought my own measuring cups. Not much going on on the old Mercedes/BMW front but I like to zip about in my little Fiesta up to the farm shop for some carrots… I think the point I am trying to make is that sometimes it’s nice to take an idea and put a twist on it and kind of make it yours, and that is what I did with my ‘I am going to be like the Barefoot Contessa fixation’ and the Barefoot Contessa’s Turkey Sausage Lasagne recipe. I used chicken sausage. And it was fabulous.

Lasagne is a very important dish in our house. I’d like to say it is because of our Italian roots but collectively we’re not that interesting. However, it was a lasagne that wooed Phill (along with, I hope, my stunning wit and repartee, my jolly personality and what I am going to call my ‘allure’) and if I happen to think out loud about what to cook for dinner, I know what the answer is. How would  my brood take to this lasagne craziness? The answer, thankfully, was a general thumbs up, though for the reasons above, Phill said he preferred the real thing. This, however, is a tasty, ramped up humdinger of a dish that epitomises Barefoot Contessa recipes. They’re never bland.

Lasagne with chicken sausage, adapted from ‘Barefoot Contessa Family Style’ by Ina Garten, or you can find the original recipe here

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 1/2 lb chicken sausages, casings removed

1 ½ tins chopped tomatoes

5 – 6 tbsp tomato puree

Large handful chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley, divided

pack of fresh basil leaves, chopped

salt

Freshly ground black pepper

1/2 pound no cook lasagne sheets

15 oz ricotta cheese

3 to 4 oz creamy goat cheese, crumbled

10oz Parmesan cheese, plus 1/4 cup for sprinkling

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1lb fresh mozzarella, thinly sliced

Method:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Heat the olive oil in a large (10- to 12-inch) pan. Add the onion and cook for 5 minutes over medium-low heat, until translucent. Add the garlic and cook for 1 more minute. Add the sausage and cook over medium-low heat, breaking it up with a fork, for 8 to 10 minutes, or until no longer pink. Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, 2 tablespoons of the parsley, the basil, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Simmer, uncovered, over medium-low heat, for 15 to 20 minutes, until thickened.

In a medium bowl, combine the ricotta, goat cheese, 1 cup of Parmesan, the egg, the remaining 2 tablespoons of parsley, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Set aside.

Ladle 1/3 of the sauce into a 9 x 12 x 2-inch rectangular baking dish, spreading the sauce over the bottom of the dish. Then add the layers as follows: half the pasta, half the mozzarella, half the ricotta, and one third of the sauce. Add the rest of the pasta, mozzarella, ricotta, and finally, sauce. Sprinkle with 1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese. Bake for 30 minutes, until the sauce is bubbling.

I served this with salad and garlic bread.

Not quite Barefoot Contessa, but close: Lasagne with Chicken Sausage

 

 

 

I have been wanting to make this recipe for a while - but could never find the right ingredient - well, I probably could have done if I had looked hard enough, but the fact of the matter is that a quick dash around the supermarket aisles on a Friday night (if I haven't done it online that is: another sop to my role of English teacher up to her neck in A level English Literature coursework) does not necessarily facilitate the idle wanderings and musings that I would like food shopping to be. Anyway, I found the ingredient, well as close as I was going to get, not living in The Hamptons like the Barefoot Contessa, and thought the time is now for lasagna with turkey sausage, only this is a Lola and Finn's Mum's version so it's chicken sausage with Italian herbs and the 'lasagne' bit is spelt correctly. (Don't take offence US readers - this is merely an example of what is known as 'British' humour. Yes, that's right. Humour).

 

Now I had forgotten that this recipe has a reasonably extensive list of ingredients, some of which I did not have, so I made do with some random stuff in the fridge. Therefore, if you make this, it is quite rich with what turns out to be a four cheese sauce, plus quite a strong tomato and herb sauce flavour to accompany it, and so I would buy in what I needed and make loads as a little goes a long way, . That said, the recipe below that I used and adapted, roughly cuts the ingredient quantity in half, being that I only had half the sausage content to play with in the first place. It just so happened that I had enough with what I had left in the fridge to make half of the original.

 

The other adaptation I made was that I was concerned that during the cooking of the tomato sauce, the sauce would become too thick before the puree cooked out, and so I added 200ml of chicken stock to the tomato sausage mixture, in the hope that it would give a more rounded flavour.

 

This was a very punchy, satisfying dish - great for a crowd if you go ahead and make loads, or with a bit of garlic bread and some salad for a Saturday night meal.

 

Lasagne with Chicken Sausage, adapted from Lasagna with Turkey Sausage, adapted from Barefoot Contessa Family Style by Ina Garten and here

 

Serves Lola, Finn, Mum and Dad

 

(Cup measurements, as this is an American recipe - my adaptations in red)

 

Ingredients:

 

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 cup chopped yellow onion (1 onion)

2 garlic cloves, minced

750g chicken sausage with Italian herbs, casings removed

1  can (14oz) tinned tomatoes

3oz tomato puree

200ml chicken stock

1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley, divided

1/2 cup chopped fresh basil leaves (I used 2 tsp Italian seasoning)

sea salt

Freshly ground black pepper

lasagne sheets

7oz ricotta cheese

1 to 2 oz creamy goat cheese, crumbled (I used Tallegio cheese)

1/2 cup grated Parmesan, plus more for sprinkling

1 medium egg, lightly beaten

250g fresh mozzarella, thinly sliced

 

Method:

 

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

 

Heat the olive oil in a suitable pan that will be big enough to hold the sauce once all the ingredients are added

 

 

 

Add the onion and cook for 5 minutes over medium-low heat, until translucent. Add the garlic and cook for 1 more minute.

 

 

 

Add the sausage and cook over medium-low heat, breaking it up with a fork, for 8 to 10 minutes, or until no longer pink.

 

 

 

Add the tomatoes, tomato puree, 2 tablespoons of the parsley, the basil, (Italian seasoning), the chicken stock, salt, and  pepper to taste. Simmer, uncovered, over medium-low heat, for 15 to 20 minutes, until thickened. Taste for seasoning once again.

 

If you are using lasagne sheets you need to soak, now would be a good time to do this.

 

 

 

In a medium bowl, combine the ricotta, goat cheese, (Tallegio) the Parmesan, the egg, the remaining 2 tablespoons of parsley,  salt, and  pepper to taste. Set aside.

 

 

 

Start the layering process by ladling some of the sausage mixture over the bottom of a baking dish. Then add the layers as follows: some pasta, some mozzarella and then the ricotta mixture. Repeat, ensuring you finish off with the ricotta. Lastly, sprinkle with some of Parmesan.

 

 

 

Bake for 30 minutes, until the sauce is bubbling then allow to cool slightly before serving.

...



This post is linked to Cook like a Star, ALL Stars Anniversary organised by me, Bake for Happy Kids, Joyce from Kitchen Flavours and Mich from Piece of Cake. 

Wanna cook or bake like Donna Hay, Barefoot Contessa, Jamie Oliver, Masterchef, Martha Stewart, Delia Smith, Curtis Stone, Nigella Lawson, Ree Drummond and Bill Granger? To join, simply cook or bake any recipe from their websites or cookbooks and link with us at this Zoe's, this Joyce's or this Mich's post for the whole of March and April 2014.

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Sooooooo good for you and your soul! Pork Meatballs in Chunky Tomato and Mediterranean Vegetable Sauce.

 

Meatballs. A staple in this house, not least because is usually involves spaghetti (thumbs up from the Lola and Finn jury) are therapeutic to make (thumbs up from me) and because they happen to be ready soon after Phill comes through the door after being at the business end of a pretty underwhelming day (...just about has the energy to raise thumb to anything). Not that this is the place for it, but isn't it funny that in some industries, the higher one climbs, the more inept one becomes (or maybe they were always inept, but were good at shifting their ineptitude onto others...)

 

Anyway, before I end up weirdly politicising meatballs (?) let me return to meatballs as a conduit for joy, for good ingredients cooked well, for dinners around the table, digging in, chatting about anything and everything, a glass of red wine maybe, a scrape of Parmesan. Sun's out, life IS good! A slow walk past the 'chuck outs' in my local supermarket (a weekly 'thing' of mine) further reinforced the fact that the people in my area do not know what to do with pork, unless it is a chop, because I have lost count of the pork fillets/pork mince/pork belly I have acquired at a knock down price. At varying times my freezer is chocka with bits of pig. This week, organic pork mince and lots of it! In the trolley it went!

 

This recipe is a hotchpotch of stuff from my freezer, fridge and cupboard. I won't say store cupboard necessarily, but most of the ingredients are possibly somewhere in your kitchen. It's a pretty flexible recipe, in terms of the sauce at least. You might need to be a bit more exact when it comes to making the meatballs, so they don't fall apart. But the result was pretty pleasing. I was watching Masterchef in the week where the finalists were cooking with Mamma Agata at her cooking school in Italy with a myriad of simple ingredients, herbs, vegetables and the results looked so amazing! I can only hope that one day I could cook in such a way but for now, this is where I am at.

 

Pork Meatballs in Chunky Tomato and Mediterranean Vegetable Sauce

 

Serves Lola, Finn, Mum and Dad, and one other

 

Ingredients:

 

500g pork mince

1 tbsp chopped fresh basil

1 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary

1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

1 tsp dried oregano

4 slices of stale bread, blitzed to breadcrumbs

1 large egg

salt and freshly ground pepper

 

For the sauce:

 

1 large onion, diced

a selection of vegetables, such as peppers, courgettes, aubergines cut into chunks (actually, I used some of a bag of frozen Mediterranean vegetables and some frozen peppers which I had in the freezer. I used a large handful of each bag, so I would eyeball it at about 300g of chopped vegetables)

1 tin of chopped tomatoes

1 tbsp tomato puree

About 300ml of chicken stock

1 tbsp sugar

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

 

Serve with pasta of your choice.

 

Method:

 

Firstly make the meatballs. Combine the meatball ingredients in a large bowl and mix with your hand, or else pulse the ingredients in a food processor, taking care not to overwork.

 

Before shaping the whole mixture into balls, take a little and fry it (or taste it if the idea doesn't bother you) to check that you have seasoned the mixture enough. If you need more, add more.

 

 

 

Once you are happy with the seasoning, using damp hands form the mixture into balls.  Put on a baking tray.

 

Preheat the oven to 180c.

 

Meanwhile, make the tomato sauce. In a suitable pan, fry off the onion until it becomes translucent then add the vegetables and saute briefly. If you use frozen like I did, you will need to cook longer to allow the water to evaporate.

 

Add the tomatoes (puree and tinned) and stir to combine, then add the chicken stock and the sugar. add some seasoning now but be prepared to add more once the sauce has reduced.

 

Put the meatballs into the preheated oven and cook for about 20 minutes, or until golden brown and cooked through.

 

While the meatballs are cooking, allow the sauce to simmer for about 15/20 minutes until it has perceptibly reduced and thickened. At the end of this time, check and adjust the seasoning if necessary.

 

 

 

Once the meatballs are browned and cooked through, take them out of the oven, add them to the thickened sauce and stir them through carefully so as not to break them.

 

 

 

Serve the meatballs and sauce over cooked pasta with some Parmesan and a little basil garnish.

 

 

 

 

 

Not exactly authentic, but then I am not a nonna: Beef Cheeks Braciole

 

 

...and because I'm not a nonna I have no sage like and senior reputation to maintain. I can take something and make it work with what I have, which actually is probably what great nonnas (let me move on from this Italian situation I have put myself into) and grandmas and on this occasion, mums do.

 

My last foray into Urban Italian by Andrew Carmellini was what can only be described as 'spectacular' not least because my favourite food critic in the whole world, five year old Finn, ate the Lamb Ragu I made with what can only be described as gusto. So, I had to make something else, didn't I? There is a recipe named 'Short Ribs Braciole' which gives an overview of just what a braciole is and then waxes lyrical about short ribs and slow cooking and since I wouldn't know short ribs if I fell over them (and neither does most of the UK it seems; some googling revealed that the nearest thing we have are the fore ribs but they're not widely available) but I do know slow cooking, I decided to sub the ribs for beef cheek, which is dirt cheap and produces tender, soft meat when cooked long and slow, and I think it worked. I also think you can cook over braising and slow cooking cuts of meat in this way. Oxtail anyone?

 

This is a reasonably involved activity initially and towards the end of cooking, but the cooking time in between is long enough to involve yourself in something truly meaningless meaningful. I sorted out the washing, in case you're interested. The topping, which I put together towards the end of the cooking process is actually really lovely and if you didn't realise it already, the addition of this at the end of cooking makes you realise the importance of texture to the whole eating experience. I made more of the topping than I could rightly serve and so kept the remainder in the fridge. I sprinkled some over cooked pasta that I had for lunch one day and it was ridiculously good. Cucina povera isn't as poor as you might think.

 

This was well received by Lola, who is a good girl and who appreciates the food that is put in front of her. Finn ate some of it, but had been busy recreating the prehistoric world with his dinosaurs and eating a meal was an unwelcome interruption. He ate some, he made his excuses and left.  I gave the kids the option of having the topping. Finn looked at it disapprovingly and Lola said she preferred Parmesan only. Don't let their reticence put you off. Crunchy, beefy, tomatoey, yummy.

 

Beef Cheeks Braciole, adapted from 'Short Ribs Braciole' in 'Urban Italian' by Andrew Carmellini and Gwen Hyman

 

Serves Lola, Finn, Mum and Dad and one other, generously.

 

Ingredients:

 

(American recipe, so uses 'cups')

 

½ cup roughly diced pancetta (about ¼ pound)

1 beef cheek, cut into chunks

1 heaping tablespoon salt

½ teaspoon pepper

1 small onion, diced (about 1 cup)

1 clove garlic, chopped thinly

1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Two tins of chopped tomatoes - pick good quality ones

 

¼ cup pine nuts, chopped roughly

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

¼ cup panko breadcrumbs (I happened to have these, but I reckon blitzing up a couple of slices of stale bread would be fine)

2 teaspoons dried oregano

2 tablespoons chopped parsley

a pinch each of salt and coarse ground black pepper

2 tablespoon grated Parmesan

 

 Method:

 

Preheat the oven to 375°.

 

 

 

Cook the pancetta in a large, dry, ovenproof sauce pot over medium-high heat until the fat renders, about 2 minutes, stirring occasionally to keep from sticking. Remove to a plate.

 

 

 

Season the pieces of beef cheeks on both sides with salt and pepper, add them to the pan, and brown the meat, about 5 minutes. (I did this in two batches and then removed them to a plate).

 

 

 

Add the onion and cook until it softens, about 1 minute. Add the garlic and the red pepper flakes, mix well, and continue cooking.

 

 

 

Add the tinned tomatoes to the pot along with their juice. Bring the mixture up to a low boil.

 

 

 

Remove the pot from the stove and place it in the oven. Check the pot every so often to make sure it's not boiling too hard. Cook until the meat is super tender and a fork can pass through it without sticking, about 2½ hours.

 

 

 

To make the topping, toast the pine nuts in a dry sauté pan over low heat, shaking the pan occasionally to avoid burning or sticking, about 8 minutes.

 

 

 

Add the olive oil and mix well. Add the panko breadcrumbs and continue cooking over low heat, mixing occasionally, until everything is toasty brown, about 2 minutes.

 

 

 

Add the oregano and parsley. Season with the salt and pepper and cook together for a few seconds, so everything is warmed but the parsley does not wilt.

 

Remove from the heat and then add the Parmesan (not before, otherwise, you'll have a melted-cheese mess).

 

 

 

When ready to serve, remove the pot from the oven and if you need to, (I didn't) remove any visible oil that may be on the surface.

 

If you want to loosen the sauce a little, add a few tablespoons of water, one at a time and stir until you are happy with the consistency.

 

 

 

Place a serving of the stew on to warmed plates and sprinkle the topping generously over each dish.

 

Serve immediately.