The Pat Conroy Cookbook (17 page)
Read The Pat Conroy Cookbook Online
Authors: Pat Conroy
PORK AND ROSEMARY RAGÙ
My passion for all things Italian began with my two Italian roommates my sophomore year at The Citadel, Bo Marks and Mike Devito. The name Marks inspires no special vision of Italy, but Bo’s immigrant grandparents carried the surname Miercovincici (“mark of the winemakers”) to the gatekeepers on Ellis Island. They entered into Manhattan with the Americanized moniker Marks. Mike Devito considered that this capitulation to the authorities brought great shame to Bo’s family, who should have insisted on the right to keep their Italian name. Through them I would find myself immersed in the lives of two Italian-American families. Bo-Pig and Mike-Swine had learned that none of the other freshmen in “R” company wanted to room with me, so they came to my room after exams to invite me to room with them our sophomore year. They embraced me and called me “paisan.” I had no idea what a paisan was, but I knew I wanted to be one.
Of course, Mike-Swine and Bo-Pig were the models for Mark Santoro and Pig Pignetti in my novel
The Lords of Discipline
.
From the first week of school until the last, Bo-Pig received packages of Italian food from his girlfriend and her family. The ethereal Phyllis Parise came from a family that still remained true to the Old World and the old ways, and their gifts of food were prodigal. In my childhood, my mother had served up Velveeta and whatever cheese came with the frozen macaroni, and, of course, the cheese of cottage. I was ill-prepared for the arrival of Gorgonzola, five or six varieties of goat cheese (I didn’t know there was such a thing as goat cheese; hell, I didn’t know there was such a thing as goat’s milk), provolone, and the divine Parmigiano-Reggiano. There was an inexhaustible supply of hard sausages and pepperonis, cans of tuna drenched in olive oil, anchovies, and packages of Parodi cigars. What amazed me was that these gift packages were meant for “the room,” all of us, and not just Bo-Pig. In the first month, I received a letter from Phyllis thanking me for taking such good care of her fiancé. During the second month, Phyllis’s mother wrote me a letter thanking me for the same thing. Before Christmas, Phyllis’s father wrote me a letter promising to teach me how to make a pizza if I ever got up to his pizza shop in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. I had a soft spot for the whole Parise family long before I ever met them.
•
MAKES 8 CUPS, ENOUGH FOR 2 TO 3 POUNDS PASTA
2 tablespoons olive oil
8 large garlic cloves, roughly chopped
8 sprigs fresh rosemary
One 3½- to 4-pound pork bone-in rib roast, ribs removed and tied onto a roast
1 red onion, roughly chopped (about 2 cups)
One 35-ounce can whole tomatoes, preferably San Marzano
2 pounds pasta (preferably pappardelle), cooked
Freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
1. In a large skillet over moderate heat, warm the olive oil. Add the garlic and rosemary and sauté until the rosemary needles sizzle and turn crisp and the garlic is golden, 2 to 3 minutes. Remove and reserve.
2. In the same pan, sear the pork in the hot flavored oil, turning it occasionally, until all sides are nicely browned, 5 to 7 minutes. Transfer to a large stockpot and set aside.
3. Add the onion to the flavored oil and cook, stirring occasionally, until browned (adding more oil sparingly if the pan is too dry), about 3 minutes. Crush the tomatoes with your hands and add, with their juice, stirring to scrape up any browned bits of pork stuck to the bottom of the pan. Transfer the tomato mixture to the stockpot and bring to a low boil over medium heat. Cover the pot, lower the heat, and simmer until the pork is tender enough to shred (when scraped with a fork), about 2 hours.
4. Cool the pork in the tomato sauce. (The cooled pork roast and sauce can be transferred to a storage container and refrigerated overnight. Wrap and store the garlic and rosemary separately.)
5. Remove the pork from the tomato sauce and reserve. In a food processor fitted with a metal blade, process half the tomato sauce with the fried garlic cloves and rosemary needles (discarding stalks) until somewhat smooth. Stir the puréed sauce back into the pot with the rest of the tomato sauce. The goal is a sauce with a rough, chunky character.
6. Shred the pork and strip the meat from the bones. Discard the bones. Chop the meat finely by hand, not in a food processor, and stir it into the tomato sauce. Heat and serve over pasta, passing the cheese on the side.
WILD MUSHROOM SAUCE
During Easter holiday of my sophomore year at The Citadel, I traveled to Greensburg, Pennsylvania, to visit Bo-Pig’s family. They lived in a suite atop the Hotel Greensburg, but we would spend most of our time in Greensburg at the home of the Parise family, where Bo’s charming fiancée, Phyllis, resided. When I walked into the Parise house, my induction as a full-fledged member of the Italian household had taken place without my knowledge. Phyllis hugged me and kissed me on both cheeks, as did her mother, father, and grandparents.
The family led us into the dining room, where a huge celebratory meal was in progress. What I came to love when I lived in Rome, I came to love in the Parise household that Easter week—a freewheeling, rollicking love of family and friends and a great simplicity, yet complete integrity, when it came to the preparation and eating of food. The table glistened with bowls of olives and pickles, and an array of the cheeses was lined up on a sideboard.
The grandfather eyed me with a discriminating and unnerving discernment before pronouncing, “
Irlandese.”
“Sì, Irlandesi,”
Phyllis said. “Irish.”
The grandfather handed me a bowl of olives and said, “
Mangia, Irlandese
.” I ate the olive, but the pit surprised me, and after I ate around it, I didn’t know what to do with it. I sat immobilized with every eye in the room observing me. The grandfather lifted a relish plate to my lips and I deposited the pit on the plate to cheers. The grandfather said,
“Buono.”
Phyllis nodded, and I said,
“Buono.”
He cut me a piece of cheese and said,
“Mangia.”
I ate the cheese and said,
“Buono.”
He said,
“E Italiano
. Provolone.”
When the pasta dish arrived at the table, the grandfather said to me, “Pappardelle. No spaghetti. Pappardelle,” opening up the mysteries and the shapes that Italian pasta could assume, all of them glorious.
The whole week was like that, the grandfather leading me on an idyllic voyage through the pronunciation and devouring of splendid food. In the afternoon, Bo and Phyllis would slip away to be alone, and I would go over to
her parents’ mom-and-pop pizza shop. Mr. Parise put me into an apron and taught me how to make pizza dough. “It’s easy. You just do it,” he explained.
By the end of the day, they were selling the pizzas I was making from scratch, which pleased me enormously. The Parises brought me out and introduced me to the woman who had purchased my first pizza. In my exuberance, I kissed her hand, thinking it was the Italian way. The woman was Irish, and she looked at me like I was nuts.
•
MAKES 6 CUPS, ENOUGH FOR 2 TO 3 POUNDS PASTA
3 ounces dried wild mushrooms (look for an Italian mix, heavy on the porcini and easy on Asian mushrooms like shiitakes, or use just porcini)
4 cups boiling water
½ cup dry vermouth
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 pound cremini mushrooms, cleaned, stemmed, and thinly sliced
1 teaspoon coarse or kosher salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 heaping tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary
1 garlic clove, finely minced
One 35-ounce can whole tomatoes, preferably San Marzano, broken up into small pieces, with their juice
Pinch of sugar
2 pounds pasta (preferably pappardelle), cooked
1. Place the dried wild mushrooms in a bowl and cover with the boiling water. Let soak until softened, at least 30 minutes. Remove the mushrooms with a slotted spoon and strain liquid through a double thickness of cheesecloth, reserving 1½ cups. Mix the reserved liquid with vermouth.
2. In a small saucepan over moderate heat, bring the liquid to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer until reduced by half. Finely chop the softened mushrooms and set aside. (This can be done in the food processor, but do not pulverize them.)
3. In a medium stockpot over moderately high heat, heat the olive oil until hot but not smoking. (A drop of water should sizzle immediately upon contact when dropped in the oil.) Add the cremini mushrooms and cook until golden brown, stirring occasionally, 5 to 7 minutes. Lower the heat, sprinkle with salt, pepper, rosemary, and garlic; and cook for another 2 minutes, stirring frequently.
4. Add the chopped dried mushrooms and the mushroom broth, stirring as the liquids simmer to scrape up any browned bits from the bottom of the pot. Cook until slightly reduced, stirring frequently, about 2 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes with their juice, add the sugar, and simmer over low heat until thickened, about 25 minutes. Serve with the pasta.
QUICK PAPPARDELLE WITH PANCETTA AND CHESTNUTS
•
SERVES 4
1 pound pappardelle
1 cup diced pancetta
1 cup chopped roasted chestnuts
1½ cups heavy cream
2 fresh sage leaves
Freshly ground black pepper
Freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
1. Cook pappardelle according to package directions in abundantly salted water.
2. Brown the pancetta in a medium skillet. Remove and reserve. Heat the chopped chestnuts in the cooking fat. Add the heavy cream and the fresh sage leaves. Reduce slightly before returning the pancetta to the pan. Add black pepper to taste.
3. Drain the pasta and add to the skillet, stirring gently to coat the noodles. Transfer to a warm plate and sprinkle with Parmigiano-Reggiano.
QUICK PAPPARDELLE WITH BLACK TRUFFLE SAUCE
•
SERVES 4
1 pound pappardelle
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 cup (4 ounces) mascarpone
1 medium fresh black truffle
1 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, plus additional
1. Cook pappardelle according to package directions in abundantly salted water.
2. Melt the butter and mascarpone together in a medium skillet over low heat. Shave the truffle into the butter mixture, giving it a minute to perfume the sauce, and sprinkle in the Parmigiano-Reggiano, gently shaking the pan to incorporate.
3. Drain the pasta and add to the skillet, stirring gently to coat the noodles. Transfer to a warm plate and sprinkle with additional Parmigiano-Reggiano.