The Italian Cook Book Part 4

FRIED CHICKEN

(Pollo fritto)

Wash a spring chicken and keep in boiling water for one minute. Cut into pieces at the joints, roll them in flour, season with salt and pepper and dip in two whole beaten eggs. After leaving the pieces of chicken for half an hour, roll them in bread crumbs, repeating the operation twice if necessary. Put into a saucepan with boiling oil or fat, seeing that the pieces of chicken are well browned on both sides. Keep the fire low. Serve hot with lemon.

35

CHICKEN ALLA CACCIATORA

(Pollo alla cacciatora)

Chop one large onion and keep it for more than half an hour in cold water, then dry it and brown it aside. Cut up a chicken, sprinkle the pieces with flour, salt and pepper and saute, in the fat which remains in the frying pan. When the chicken is brown add one pint fresh or canned tomatoes and half a dozen sweet green peppers and put back the onion. When the gravy is thick enough add hot water to prevent the burning of the vegetables. Cover the pan tightly and simmer until the chicken is very tender. This is an excellent way to cook tough chickens.

Fowls which have been boiled may be cooked in this way, but of course young and tender chickens will have the finer flavor.

36

CORN MEAL WITH SAUSAGES

(Polenta con salsicce)

Cook in water one cup of yellow cornmeal making a stiff mush. Salt it well and when it is cooked spread out to cool on a bread board about half an inch thick. Then cut the mush into small squares.

Put in a saucepan several whole sausages with a little water, and when they are cooked skin and crush them and add some brown stock or tomato sauce.

Put the polenta (or cornmeal mush) in a fireproof receptacle, season with grated cheese, the crushed sausages and a piece of b.u.t.ter. Put it in the oven and serve when hot.

37

POLENTA PIE

(Polenta Pasticciata)

Make a very stiff mush of cornmeal cooked in milk. Salt it well and spread out on the bread board in a sheet about one inch thick. When cold, cut in little diamonds or squares and place these in a b.u.t.tered baking dish. Prepare the =Bolognese sauce= according to the following recipe: Chop 1/4 lb. round steak, a slice of pork or bacon, one small carrot 1/4 onion, one large piece celery. Put the meat and vegetables over the fire with a piece of b.u.t.ter. When the meat has browned add half a tablespoon of flour and wet the mixture with hot water or broth, allowing it to simmer from half an hour to an hour. It is done when it is the consistency of a thick gravy.

Make a smooth white sauce with milk cornstarch and b.u.t.ter. Over a layer of the polenta, cut as above and placed in the baking dish sprinkle some grated cheese and a few tablespoons each of the white sauce and the meat sauce. Repeat until the dish is full. Bake until the top is nicely browned. This dish seems very elaborate, but it is very delicious and a meal in itself.

The Bolognese sauce is also used to season macaroni or spaghetti in lieu of the tomato sauce or the brown stock.

38

STUFFED ROLLS

(Pagnottelle ripiene)

Take some rolls, and by means of a round opening on the top, as large as a half dollar piece or less, extract nearly all the crumb, leaving the crust intact, but not too thin. Wet inside and outside with hot milk, and when they are fairly soaked, dip in beaten eggs and fry them in lard or oil. When beginning to brown, fill them with meat that has been previously chopped and cooked. This chopped meat ought to be made with breast of chicken, chicken giblets, liver etc., brown stock and some flour to hold it together.

39

STEWED VEAL

(Stracotto di vitella)

The stock from this dish may very well be used to season macaroni or boiled rice. Care must be taken, however, not to draw away all the juice of the meat in order to have a sauce too rich at the expense of the princ.i.p.al dish.

Place in a saucepan one pound of veal or more, bone included, a piece of b.u.t.ter or some olive oil (or the two together) half a medium sized onion, one small carrot, two celery stalks cut in small pieces. Season with salt and pepper. Put it on a low fire, turn the meat over often and when browned add a pinch of flour and some tomato paste, bringing it to full cooking with water poured little by little. The flour is used to keep the sauce together and give it color, but care must be taken not to burn it, because in that case the sauce would have an unpleasant taste and a black, instead of a reddish color. The addition of dried mushrooms, previously softened in the water and slightly boiled in the sauce will add greatly to its taste.

As has been said the sauce can well be used to season spaghetti or risotto. The stewed veal can be served with some vegetable.

40

CHICKEN BONED AND STUFFED

(Pollo dissossato ripieno)

To remove the bones from a chicken the following instructions will be found useful.

Wash and singe the fowl: take off the head and legs, and remove the tendons. When a fowl is to be boned it is not drawn. The work of boning is not difficult, but it requires practice. The skin must not be broken.

Use a small pointed knife cut the skin down the full length of the back; then, beginning at the neck, carefully sc.r.a.pe the meat away from the bone, keeping the knife close to the bone. When the joints of the wings and legs are met, break them back and proceed to free the meat from the carca.s.s. When one side is free, turn the fowl and do the same on the other side. The skin is drawn tightly over the breast-bone, and care must be used to detach it without piercing the skin. When the meat is free from the carca.s.s, remove the bones from the legs and wings, turning the meat down or inside out, as the bones are exposed, and using care not to break the skin at the joints. The end bones of the wing cannot be removed, and the whole end joint may be cut off or left as it is.

Now that the fowl is boned make the following stuffing, regulating the quant.i.ty on the size of the chicken. Chop half a pound or more, of lean veal, and grind it afterwards, so that it may make a paste. Add a large piece of bread crumb soaked in broth, a tablespoon of grated cheese, three yolks of egg, salt, pepper and, if desired, just a taste of nutmeg. Finally mix also one or two slices of ham and tongue, cut in small pieces. Stuff the boned chicken with this filling, sew up the opening, wrap it tightly in a cloth and put to cook in water on a low fire. When taken from the water, remove the wrapping and brown it, first with b.u.t.ter, then in a sauce made in the following way: Break all the bones that have been extracted from the chicken, the head and neck included, and put them on the fire with dried meat cut in little pieces, b.u.t.ter, onion, celery and carrot, seasoned with salt and pepper. Make the sauce with the water in which the chicken has been boiled, which has naturally become a good chicken broth.

Before sending to the table, remove the thread with which the chicken has been sewed.

41

CHICKEN WITH TOMATOES

(Pollo alla contadina)

Take a young chicken and make some little holes in the skin in which you will put some sprigs of rosemary and a clove of garlic cut into five or six pieces. Put it on the fire with chopped lard and season with salt and pepper inside and outside. When it is well browned on all parts add tomatoes cut in pieces, taking care to remove previously all the seeds.

Moisten with broth or water. Brown some potatoes in oil, fat or b.u.t.ter, previously cutting them into sections. When browned dip in the sauce of the chicken and serve the whole together.

42

CHICKEN WITH SHERRY

(Pollo al marsala)

Cut the chicken in big pieces and put it in the saucepan with one medium sized onion chopped fine and a piece of b.u.t.ter. Season with salt and pepper and, when it is well browned, add some broth and complete the cooking. Remove the excessive fat from the sauce by sifting through a sieve or otherwise, and put the chicken back on the fire with a gla.s.s of Sherry or Marsala wine, removing it from the fire as soon as the sauce begins to boil.