Cucina Povera (The Kitchen of the Poor) 🌞

[justaprogressive]

Frittata di spaghetti
SPAGHETTI FRITTATA




Born to make wise use of leftover pasta, frittata di spaghetti is an
underrated, versatile, and fun recipe to add to your repertoire. You can serve it
as part of a buffet; cut into generous slices, or cube it for an unusual starter. It
makes a great packed lunch for day trips, picnics, and beach outings too.
The frittata is usually made with spaghetti, vermicelli, or bucatini, but
short pasta such as penne or rigatoni will also work. Eggs are the ingredient
that binds everything together: as a general rule, allow one egg per person, and
maybe one more for the pan. As the recipe was created to use leftovers,
consider it a blank canvas and use it to upcycle any leftover cheese that has
been sitting at the back of your fridge for too long: grated Parmigiano
Reggiano or pecorino or cubed or sliced mozzarella, scamorza, or provola. You
can also add salami, pancetta, or mortadella; see the Note.
If you don’t have homemade sauce on hand, use 1 cup/260 g store-bought
marinara sauce.

SERVES 4 AS A MAIN COURSE, 8 AS A STARTER


8 ounces/ 5 g spaghetti
1 cup/ 6 g Garlicky Tomato Sauce, reheated (see headnote)
4 large/ g eggs
Fine sea salt
1 ½ ounces/ g whole-milk mozzarella, torn into bite-size pieces
¾ cup/75 g grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, grated on the small holes of a box grater
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic

Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil and salt it generously. Add the
spaghetti and cook according to the package instructions until al dente. Drain
and transfer to a large bowl. Add the tomato sauce and toss to coat. Let cool
completely.

In a small bowl, beat the eggs with a pinch of salt.
When the spaghetti has cooled, add the beaten eggs, mozzarella, and
Parmigiano-Reggiano and stir until thoroughly combined.

Heat an 8-inch/20 cm nonstick frying pan over medium heat until hot,
then add a drizzle of olive oil and the garlic. Cook, stirring, until the garlic is
golden; remove and discard the garlic.

Add the spaghetti to the pan, pressing it into an even layer with a spatula.
Cook for 10 to 12 minutes, until a golden crust has developed on the bottom.

Invert a large plate over the pan and, in one quick motion, flip the frittata
onto the plate.

Return the pan to the stove and add a drizzle of olive oil, then
slide the frittata back into the pan and cook on the second side until golden
brown, about 8 minutes. Serve hot.

Note: If you want to add salami or another meat or cheese, dice it
or cut into thin strips and add to the dressed spaghetti along with the
beaten eggs, then proceed as instructed in the recipe.

from "Cucina Povera"
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60831930-cucina-povera

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SAUSAGE AND CHEESE BAKE



A cross between an omelet and focaccia, smacafam is hearty Alpine
comfort food hailing from the Trentino region. The recipe changes from valley
to valley and from family to family, and it illustrates a basic rule of cucina
povera: use whatever you have on hand. Originally made with stale bread,
smacafam is now based on a thick batter of eggs, milk, flour, and buckwheat
flour, enveloping cubes of cheese, sliced pancetta, and sausage. It follows the
principle of collecting anything left in the pantry and turning it into a new
dish. Consider smacafam a blank canvas for your own salumi leftovers.
The dish can be served hot or cold, along with salumi and cheese, or with a
side of cooked vegetables. The name smacafam is dialect for “hunger crusher,”
which perfectly describes the satisfying quality of this rich, savory dish. There’s
also a sweet version of smacafam, known as pinza de pomi, where, instead of
sausage and cheese, slices of apples and a few tablespoons of sugar are added
to the batter.

SERVES 8 TO 1 AS A STARTER

Unsalted butter for greasing the pan
cups/ 5 g all-purpose flour
½ cup/5 g buckwheat flour
cups/48 ml whole milk
1 large/5 g egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
8 ounces/ 5 g sweet Italian sausages, casings removed
1½ ounces/4 g thinly sliced pancetta
4 ounces/115 g Fontina or Asiago, cut into ½-inch/1.5 cm cubes

Preheat the oven to 450°F/230°C. Grease a 6-cup/1.4 L gratin or ceramic
baking dish or 9-inch/23 cm pie plate.

In a large bowl, whisk together the all-purpose and buckwheat flours. In a
small bowl, gently whisk the milk, egg, salt, and pepper until combined.

Gradually add the wet ingredients to the flour, whisking until smooth. Set
aside. Place two-thirds of the sausage and the pancetta in a medium frying pan
set over medium heat and cook, stirring and breaking up the sausage with a
wooden spoon, until the pancetta is translucent and the sausage is golden
brown, about 10 minutes.

Add the cooked sausage and pancetta, along with the accumulated fat, to
the batter. Stir in the cubed cheese. Pour the batter into the prepared dish and
crumble the remaining (raw) sausage on top.

Bake the smacafam for 35 to 40 minutes, until it is puffed and golden
brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Serve hot or at
room temperature.

Any leftovers can be stored, well wrapped, in the fridge for up to 3 days.
Reheat in a hot oven before serving.

from "Cucina Povera"
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60831930-cucina-povera

Baked Cheese & Pasta. What's not to like?

GIULIA SCARPALEGGIA

Welcome to Juls' Kitchen

Ciao, I am Giulia Scarpaleggia, a Tuscan born and bred food writer, cookbook author, podcaster, and cooking class instructor. I am a proud home cook. I started this blog in 2009 to collect family recipes and stories. If you like seasonal food, the Tuscan countryside and a genuine approach to life, you’re in the right place!

The Juls’ Kitchen blog is an archive of free recipes: more than 700 delicious, Italian, Tuscan, and seasonal recipes shared over more than a decade. You can find all the info for cooking classes, along with foodie guides to our favourite areas of Tuscany, and beyond. You can subscribe to our newsletter, Letters from Tuscany, where most of our writing and recipes will live from now on. And then there is Cucina Povera, our sixth book that celebrates the best of the Italian resourceful, thrifty and inventive cooking tradition.

I work with my husband/photographer Tommaso Galli. We live in our family house in the Tuscan countryside with our daughter Livia and our two rescue dogs, Noa and Teo. Juls’ Kitchen is our family project.

https://en.julskitchen.com/

[Warpy]

1. Looks good

but there was no way I could afford specialty buckwheat flour, pancetta, or Italian sausage when I was poor. This is food for the steadily employed on a week night, something the kids can relate to and cheaper than big hunks of meat, something they might see for Sunday dinner.

When you're really poor, you're way past the simple weeknight fare with any sort of meat, at all. Maybe you can afford a chicken breast or little piece of fish twice a month, but that's about it. That eighth pound of something (about the least they'll do) isn't for a sandwich, it's going to last you a whole week as a flavoring for otherwise really bland fare like skilly.

Real poverty is like a freeloading relative who shows up on your doorstep and for reasons you can't always explain, he's yours for the duration. I hope this gang of absolute idiots in the White House is bounced out in favor of someone more rational (which might even be Vance, he lies so much we don't know who he is) and I won't have to start posting recipes to survive poverty until it goes away.

This recipe, while good, won't be among them, it's way too expensive.

[justaprogressive]

2. You're correct,

this is not one of her truly inexpensive dishes....I thought an offal
recipe might upset some people here.

[Warpy]

3. Hard to get that offal away from sausage and pet food manufacturers

The stuff hasn't been either cheap or widely available in the US pretty much since the end of the Depression. Maybe she grew up oiverseas, it's both cheap and available in some countries.

Poor folks here have to get it in hot dogs, cheap luncheon meats, or if they keep and butcher their own meat animals.

[justaprogressive]

4. From my post

Ciao, I am Giulia Scarpaleggia, a Tuscan born and bred food writer,

We live in our family house in the Tuscan countryside with our daughter Livia and our two rescue dogs.