Tasca della Nonna
Sarah, this one is for you, as you might have eaten Tasca or Punta in Italy, in Liguria.
I went to Wholefoods on Sunday for the first time and I found a cut of beef which normally cannot be found in supermarkets; the skirt.
As soon as I saw it I thought , Oh Great, I mill make a Tasca, which in Italian means pocket. Now, I come from a little village close to Alessandria and culinary traditions there are a real mix between Piemonte, Liguria and Lombardia.
So today, is tasca day. In Italy you would just go to the butchers and buy a Tasca, but I had to cut it myself. The Skirt is a thin cut that ends with a point ( in Italian this dish is also called Punta alla genovese); so the first tak is to lay the beef flat on a chopping board and insert a very sharp knife in the middle of it in order to cut a deep hole. Then gently, with your hand firmly positioned over the beef cut the rest of the pocket with small strokes of the knife.
Once this is done we can start with the real recipe. There are a million different ways of making this dish I just followed my Nonna's recipe. Here it goes:
Filling:
500g fresh spinach
1 egg
100 g stale bread
30 g parmesan cheese
50 g ham or mortadella or both!
a bit of milk
salt
nutmeg if you like it
Cook the spinach in just a little of boiling water. Drain them and return them to the pan with a knob of butter and a clove of garlic if you like it. Stir fry them until all the water is gone. Transfer them onto a plate to coll them. In the meantime soak the stale bread in some milk so that it becomes soft.
In a food processor chop the parmesan cheese first, then add the ham or mortadella or both, then the bread, and last the spinach and the egg. apart from the cheese the rest has to be processed very shortly as you want a rough look and feel in the filling.
Stuff your tasca but don't make it too full as it would explode while cooking.
Look for a big needle and a strong thread to sew the edge of the tasca.
Fill a pan big enough to contain your tasca with water and bring it to the boil with a carrot, a celery stalk, one onion, a few peppercorn, a bit of salt and a couple of bay leaves.
Cook for a couple of hours, or if like me you are always in a hurry about 40 min in a pressure cooker.
Once the tasca is done remove it from the pan and let it cool sandwiched between two plates with a weight on the top.
Serve it hot or cold, with grilled or boiled vegetables and some salsa verde.
Salsa verde:
50 g flat leaves parsley
3 tbs ketchup
1 garlic clove
1 boiled egg
salt
olive oil
30g stale bread ( just the inside, no crust, what in Italian is called mollica)
White wine or red wine Vinegar
Chop the parsley quite finely ( not in a food processor, either with a knife or mezzaluna) and transfer it in a bowl. Chop the boiled egg with the bread which has been soaked in 3 tbsp of vinegar. Add this to the parsley together with the ketchup, garlic (which can be either chopped or left whole for a milder taste) , sslt to taste. Cover with olive oil and stir.
I went to Wholefoods on Sunday for the first time and I found a cut of beef which normally cannot be found in supermarkets; the skirt.
As soon as I saw it I thought , Oh Great, I mill make a Tasca, which in Italian means pocket. Now, I come from a little village close to Alessandria and culinary traditions there are a real mix between Piemonte, Liguria and Lombardia.
So today, is tasca day. In Italy you would just go to the butchers and buy a Tasca, but I had to cut it myself. The Skirt is a thin cut that ends with a point ( in Italian this dish is also called Punta alla genovese); so the first tak is to lay the beef flat on a chopping board and insert a very sharp knife in the middle of it in order to cut a deep hole. Then gently, with your hand firmly positioned over the beef cut the rest of the pocket with small strokes of the knife.
Once this is done we can start with the real recipe. There are a million different ways of making this dish I just followed my Nonna's recipe. Here it goes:
Filling:
500g fresh spinach
1 egg
100 g stale bread
30 g parmesan cheese
50 g ham or mortadella or both!
a bit of milk
salt
nutmeg if you like it
Cook the spinach in just a little of boiling water. Drain them and return them to the pan with a knob of butter and a clove of garlic if you like it. Stir fry them until all the water is gone. Transfer them onto a plate to coll them. In the meantime soak the stale bread in some milk so that it becomes soft.
In a food processor chop the parmesan cheese first, then add the ham or mortadella or both, then the bread, and last the spinach and the egg. apart from the cheese the rest has to be processed very shortly as you want a rough look and feel in the filling.
Stuff your tasca but don't make it too full as it would explode while cooking.
Look for a big needle and a strong thread to sew the edge of the tasca.
Fill a pan big enough to contain your tasca with water and bring it to the boil with a carrot, a celery stalk, one onion, a few peppercorn, a bit of salt and a couple of bay leaves.
Cook for a couple of hours, or if like me you are always in a hurry about 40 min in a pressure cooker.
Once the tasca is done remove it from the pan and let it cool sandwiched between two plates with a weight on the top.
Serve it hot or cold, with grilled or boiled vegetables and some salsa verde.
Salsa verde:
50 g flat leaves parsley
3 tbs ketchup
1 garlic clove
1 boiled egg
salt
olive oil
30g stale bread ( just the inside, no crust, what in Italian is called mollica)
White wine or red wine Vinegar
Chop the parsley quite finely ( not in a food processor, either with a knife or mezzaluna) and transfer it in a bowl. Chop the boiled egg with the bread which has been soaked in 3 tbsp of vinegar. Add this to the parsley together with the ketchup, garlic (which can be either chopped or left whole for a milder taste) , sslt to taste. Cover with olive oil and stir.
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