Zosia's Reviews
11 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 11Sort by: Title 
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Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking
By Marcella Hazan
Knopf - 1992
Baked Crespelle with Bolognese Meat Sauce : page 268
Crepes filled then smothered with a mixture of Bolognese and béchamel sauces and topped with cheese ……..a delicious way to use up leftover meat sauce.
I made the crespelles using the recipe on page267 and found them to be good but a little more fragile than the one I usually use. My yield was only 10 as I used a larger pan than was suggested. I made a half recipe of the béchamel, page 39, as well but used some leftover meat sauce. Neither recipe was particularly difficult, but did take ~30 minutes to complete. I would advise you to spread the filling sparingly on each crepe – I ran out towards the end (or make more filling!)
Once assembled, the crepes just needed a brief stint in the oven and under the broiler to heat them through and get a cheesy brown crust on the top. I omitted dotting the surface with butter and the cheese still browned nicely.
Once cooked, the crespelles remained tender and weren't at all soggy (one of my concerns) and the flavours were very kid-friendly. I imagine any leftover pasta sauce would work as long as it’s quite thick and not too chunky.
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Bolognese Meat Sauce : page 203
This is a very slowly simmered meat sauce enhanced with tomatoes and sauteed vegetables that has become a favourite dish in my house.
Cooked Bolognese-style, the meat and vegetable mixture is first simmered in milk, then white wine, allowing most of the liquid to evaporate with each addition. Tomatoes are added and it's simmered some more.....for at least 4 hours!
Though milk is involved, it's not a creamy sauce but the meat becomes very soft and the sauce almost silky. The flavours of the simple ingredients meld during the extended cooking to create a rich, fantastic tasting, hearty sauce.
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A savoury crêpe cake that tastes like pizza…who wouldn’t love it!
Crespelle/crêpes are stacked with a thin layer of tomato sauce and a sprinkling of mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses (and prosciutto, which I didn’t include) separating each. The “cake” is then baked briefly in the oven to heat it through.
The recipe includes directions for one of the author’s fabulous fresh tasting tomato sauces, this one flavoured with a little garlic and parsley, but any good tomato sauce would work as long as it’s not too chunky.
An excellent alternative to pasta and served with a salad, a very nice meal. Delicious hot or at room temperature.
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Meatballs and Tomatoes : page 399
Classic recipe for Italian meatballs that are moistened with bread soaked in milk and flavoured with onion and Parmesan.
I often skip the step of dredging the meatballs in dry breadcrumbs and browning in oil in favour of simply putting them under the broiler to brown before simmering them with the tomatoes.
The dish doesn’t create much of a sauce – I don’t think it’s the Italian way to eat these with pasta - but with pasta (or in a sandwich) is how my family likes them.
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This is a delicious, simplified version of braised veal shanks.
Very little effort goes into getting them started as no vegetable chopping, etc is required. The meat is prepared in the usual way: tied, floured and browned, then simmered slowly in white wine with water added as needed to maintain the liquid in the pan. The shanks are braised on the stove-top for ~2 1/2 hours until tender.
In a little bit of a twist, the ingredients for a standard gremolada (parsley and lemon rind) are added directly to the pan juices, which are reduced for a minute once the meat is done, instead of being used as a garnish to the dish. The simple sauce, which is merely a glaze for the fall-off-the-bone tender veal, is very bright and fresh tasting as a result.
Though my family loves the heartier version made with tomatoes and vegetables, we really enjoyed this variation of the classic dish.
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Pot Roast of Beef Braised in Red Wine : page 393
Well, this should teach me to read the recipe all the way through before starting it!
It seemed to be a standard braised beef that started with browning the roast and some vegetables, adding liquid (Shiraz and beef broth) and putting the sealed pot in the oven for 3 hours while the beef cooked slowly.
I missed the part about turning the meat over and basting it every 20 minutes! After doing this diligently during the first hour, I abandoned the roast to the oven and left it undisturbed for the remaining 2 hours. The meat was very soft but the cooking liquid wasn’t as reduced as it should have been. I did that on the stove top while I sliced the roast. I also took an immersion blender to the liquid to create a smooth sauce.
The ingredients were very basic but the result, excellent – the beef was very tender and the sauce richly flavoured.
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Potato Soup with Split Green Peas : page 98
Humble ingredients - potatoes, (yellow) split peas, caramelized onions - come together to make a tasty and satisfying soup.
Peeled, diced potatoes were simmered in stock (I used vegetable so vegetarian daughter could eat it) with split peas until tender. The author doesn't give any indication of how long this might take. After 30 minutes, the potatoes were very soft and the peas still had texture...just the way I like them.
You're instructed to put this mixture through a food mill; I used a hand-held stick blender to puree half the soup only. More stock, browned onions, and Parmesan cheese were added and heated through and the soup was ready to serve. Marcella suggests a fried crouton garnish, which I omitted as I was serving this with sandwiches.
This may not be the most flavourful split pea soup I've ever made, but it was definitely the easiest and quite delicious considering what little effort it took.
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Spinach and Ricotta Gnocchi : page 262
Light and pillowy, yet quite filling, this is one of my favourite uses of spinach.
They are very easy to prepare and this recipe is foolproof, avoiding all of the usual pitfalls of creating doughy, leaden gnocchi. Ricotta is mixed with sautéed onions, chopped spinach (note to self: frozen chopped spinach needs to be further chopped for this recipe), parmesan cheese, flour and egg yolks. I omit the ham so vegetarian daughter can enjoy. They cook quickly, so make sure you have your sauce ready!
It’s the ultimate comfort food served in soup on a cold winter’s day but it’s great at this time of year with fresh tasting tomato, onion, butter sauce.
I usually double the recipe when cooking it as a meal for 5.
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Spinach Sauce with Ricotta and Ham : page 162
Using just spinach, ham and cheese, this sauce was easy to prepare and was done in less time than it took to cook the pasta.
I did take a few liberties with the recipe: I used only 1 tbsp butter to sauté the ham and spinach instead of 1/4 cup, used low fat ricotta cheese, and used pasta water instead of additional butter to help create a sauce at the end. I also used pre-washed baby spinach which I didn’t pre-cook.
Served with whole wheat pasta, it was a quick, light and tasty meal. My family thought it could have used a little sautéed garlic or onion, but I thought that the ham and parmesan prevented it from being bland and I enjoyed being able to taste the spinach and ricotta.
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Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter : page 152
Nothing could be simpler or more delicious than this fresh tasting tomato sauce, made of tomatoes simmered with butter and onion. But the sauce is only as good as the tomatoes used so I rely on canned San Marzano tomatoes to give consistent results.
This is a bright tasting sauce that will liven up any dish. I served it recently with the author's spinach and ricotta gnocchi.
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I didn't know how to make a good tomato sauce until I bought this book....now I know how to make several. I think of this one as my Winter sauce as it starts with a heartier base of onions, celery and carrots sauteed in olive oil before canned or fresh tomatoes are added and the sauce simmered.
It has an intense, fresh tomato flavour with a richness supplied by the olive oil; the natural sweetness of the fruit and sauteed vegetables is brought out in cooking...no need to add sugar or any flavourings apart from salt and pepper to complete this fabulous sauce, a staple in my home.
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