Michele Scicolone - The Italian Slow Cooker

PHOTOGRAPHS BY ALAN RICHARDSON

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN HARCOURT
BOSTON NEW YORK 2010

Copyright 2010 by Michele Scicolone

All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book,
write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215
Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

www.hmhbooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Scicolone, Michele.
The Italian slow cooker / Michele Scicolone ;
photographs by Alan Richardson.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-547-00303-0
1. Electric cookery, Slow. 2. Cookery, Italian. I. Title.
TX827.S36 2010
641.5'884dc22
2009013744

Printed in the United States of America
Book design by Kris Tobiassen
Food styling by Anne Disrude
Prop styling by Betty Alfenito

DOC 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Many friends and acquaintances gave me advice, suggestions, opinions, cooking tips, recipe ideas, and, most of all, the encouragement I needed to write this book. Mille grazie, a thousand thanks, to all of them, especially Susan Wyler, who was the first to tell me how popular slow cookers are today. The Rival Company and All-Clad were most helpful with information and supplied me with the latest equipment.

Rux Martin, my editor, shared her enthusiasm for slow cooking and guided me with her insightful suggestions. Thanks to everyone at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and the supporting cast who contributed to this book, including Anne Chalmers, Teresa Elsey, Sara Shaffer, and Jacinta Monniere.

Photographer Alan Richardson's photos capture the warmth and deliciousness of slow-cooked food. It was a pleasure working with him, Anne Disrude, and Betty Alfenito. All three know Italian food so well, and their love and appreciation of it comes through in the beautiful photos. I'm grateful to designer Kris Tobiassen for her inviting design. Thanks to my agent, Judith Weber, of Sobel Weber Associates, for her friendship and for helping me to focus my ideas.

Thank you, too, to Charles, my husband, who is the ultimate taste tester. I can always rely on him for his honest opinion and a good wine to match.

Introduction

About Slow Cookers

Techniques and Tips

Slow Cooker Safety

The Italian Pantry

SOUPS

SAUCES FOR PASTA

RISOTTO, POLENTA, AND GRAINS

SEAFOOD

EGGS, CHICKEN, AND TURKEY

BEEF, VEAL, PORK, AND LAMB

VEGETABLES AND DRIED LEGUMES

DESSERTS

Index

Near the neighborhood where I often stay in Rome is a Tuscan restaurant with a small window in its faade. A large, round, greenish glass bottle sits in a small brick alcove perched above a wood-fired stove. Every morning, a cook fills the fiasco, as the bottle is called, with dried beans, water, and seasonings. All day long, the beans simmer slowly, absorbing the flavors of the garlic and herbs as they swell, becoming tender and creamy. Passing by one day, I salivated at the sight, and I thought, "This is the original slow cooker!" Until that moment, it had never occurred to me to use an electric slow cooker for Italian cooking, but suddenly, there it was.

Not only is a slow cooker perfect for cooking beans, but it's ideal for simmering a Bolognese-style meat ragu, a thick, hearty vegetable soup, or a rich beef stew of the kind I enjoyed in Tuscany. Soups, stews, and pasta sauces, as I had expected, are naturalsno worries about scorching or planning for hours in the kitchen. Just walk away!

With dishes that need lots of babying, the slow cooker really comes into its own, offering advantages the stovetop can't match. Prepared conventionally, polenta is tedious, demanding vigilant stirring so that the cornmeal doesn't scorch. In the slow cooker, it's practically effortless, creamy, and lump-free. The slow cooker makes such a good facsimile of risotto that most of my guests can't tell the difference between it and one made on the stovetop. The texture is a bit softerslow cooker risotto has plenty of creamy sauce around the rice grainsand since it doesn't require much attention as it cooks, I can serve it on the side even if my main dish is something fussy.

Foods I had never imagined making in a slow cooker turn out beautifully: salmon, halibut steaks, and the Italian-style omelets known as frittatas all emerge in about an hour perfectly moist, allowing me just enough time to set the table or make a salad and a vegetable. Flourless chocolate cakes, puddings, dense cakes with fruits and nuts, and poached fruits are foolproof. The moist, gentle heat is particularly kind to cheesecakes, which never crack as oven-baked versions often do.

Before I got my first model, I had occasionally heard complaints that slow-cooker food was bland or that it all tasted the same. One friend even told me she had given up and put her cooker in the garage, where it was gathering dust. When I asked her to describe why she didn't like it, I was surprised to hear that the recipes she had tried included packaged ingredients and raw meat tossed into the cooker with no preparation. It was easy to understand why she was unhappy. Food that comes out of the pot can only be as good as the ingredients that go into it! Bottled sauces, canned soups, and seasoning packets can make anything taste boring.

I decided to create my own recipes with fresh ingredients distinctively seasoned. Fresh foods not only taste better but are healthier and cost less than packaged products.

Although it's tempting to just toss ingredients into the cooker and take off, browning the meats or sauting the onions and garlic before slow cooking often means the difference between delicious and dull. Stews, sauces, and braises have deeper, richer flavor and better color, and browning gives the cooking a jump start. Is it essential? No, but these little steps add big flavor and can improve the texture, so they are worth taking to get the best results. For that reason, many manufacturers today make slow cookers with removable liners that can be used directly on the stovetop, so no extra pan is needed. As a bonus, these flameproof crocks are good for reheating food on top of the stove as well.

Like the bottle in that Roman restaurant, the slow cooker doesn't heat up the kitchen, even on the hottest days; it is energy efficient and costs very little to operate; it turns inexpensive cuts of meat succulent and flavorful; and it can feed a crowd. Best of all, I can cook whenever it suits my scheduleon weekends, during the day while I'm out, or when I'm sleepingknowing that when I finally lift the lid, the result will be unparalleled.

Buying a new slow cooker? Lucky you! Newer models have sophisticated features your grandma never imagined.

If I could design the perfect slow cooker, it would have every one of the features listed below. So far, though, I have not found one model that has all of them.

I CONSIDER SOME ESSENTIAL, SUCH AS:

• High, low, and warm temperature settings.
• A removable insert.
• A signal light so that you can see at a glance when the cooker is operating.