Cavatappi with Sugo and Meatballs

[Music] and today we're going to make meatballs with sausage meat right out of the casing and then we're going to use those meatballs to make a casserole let's begin with the sauce because we need to make a lot of sauce or sugar and then we'll put the meatballs right in there and let it perk away while you do other things to begin with let's start with some olive oil and we'll make a pestata the pestata means you know something that's chopped together fine and it could be many things in this case we'll do some onions and some shallots so let's do some now when you make meatballs i give you a big recipe a nice big pot because again i want you to have some left over those little treasures those little extra treats it's easy you might as well put a big pot and then you have it for many different meals with your family and you don't want to really chop it up too fine because if you do then the onions begin to release uh the water so i i want some texture i want the onions to really break down in the in the sugo itself in the same we'll do some celery and carrots and the celery and carrots i did chop very fine because i want them to really disintegrate in the sauce itself some salt and today we're going to be making a sugar or gravy the gravy named for the tomato sauce really came out of the italian-american sundae sauce where they took of course a lot of tomatoes and in it they put sausages and meatballs and pieces of pork and that would be considered maybe gravy and sugar i'll put the onions on the side i will add the pestata of carrots a little bit of salt to that and here we have some tomato again it's the plum tomatoes that i talk to you all the time about and i passed them through a food mill this time because i wanted really a smoothness to it since the texture that i will get is from the meatballs itself let me make a hot spot here again and i i'll add the garlic i'll just put a little bit of oil so it really is a hot spot and this is a technique that you should make your own each element you give it an opportunity to caramelize a little bit before it gets mixed up with the juices of the other elements that you have put in you know spaghetti meatball if you go to italy you really don't find it and it's not a real italian dish we made meatballs and we call them polpitte fry them lightly and then have them with the salad for dinner or rarely did they ended up end up in the in the sauce this is something that i sort of uh picked up here in america but i kind of really like it so i make them with all kinds of things i i make them out of turkey turkey ground turkey meat and i put raisins and pinoli nuts and they're really wonderful i make them out of monkfish all the water from the juices from the vegetables have evaporated and again i made a little hot spot each hot spot you make you add another layer of flavor to your sugar a little bit of oil and i will caramelize tomato paste okay this is caramelizing very well let me mix it all in let's add the tomato and its juice that we have passed in the food mill to this i'll add some fresh bay leaf we use a lot of bay leaves especially to make sugar a little bit of orange zest a little bit of fresh thyme i will salt this bring it to a boil add in this case i have turkey stock but any stock that you have even water will do i'm going to put it all in there because i want to make a wonderful sugar so let's bring this to a boil i'll let it simmer and we'll make some meatballs so here we have the meat from the sausages but i want to add some more flavorings to it um so i have some onion some fennel just cut it in little pieces and a little bit of garlic and i want to really chop this fine [Music] so i have it all fine i'll just saute it a little bit to bring out the flavors you know in the onion in the fennel and the garlic so just a little bit of olive oil a touch of salt sausages are in casings and the casing is sort of a very thin film so just take a sharp knife just open your casing and peel the casing away this is italian sausages whatever your favorite sausage is that's what you can use while that is simmering away put some eggs now the egg binds the meatballs it they it holds them together so whenever you're making or meatballs for that matter meatloaf whatever the egg element always binds it okay let me stir this some more spread it out so it really dehydrates and gets caramelized let me check the sugar and that's boiling away nicely perking away actually i'm just going to lower a little bit the flame right there so just put the egg right in salt a little bit of thyme a little bit of the orange rind you won't even notice that the orange rind is in there but it will give a freshness to the meatballs you know i use that orange rind and lemon brine often put some breadcrumbs right in here and again the breadcrumbs is a binding element let me just take off my my watch because i'm getting deep into this situation right here and you just sort of make it go right through your fingers i think it needs a little bit more of the bread i think the whole thing parsley gather this and put that in the mixture just spread it since it's a little warm it is all ready to be shaped in into meatballs and as i told you before i have help coming okay so here we are busy rolling this is my grandson lorenzo manueli and lorenzo what are we doing here making meatballs ah are you liking are you having fun yes i am okay be any queen uniquely yeah but you have to help yeah you know if you want to eat them you have to help on the board here okay mooji give it a nice roll i want a nice even meatball thank you okay you get the same you know like a nice ice scooper is gives you sort of a sense sense of size zoom okay good job lorenzo wow okay can you help me let's go we have to get going here i know i'm doing three at the same time look two two at the same time no three are no good two no one is going to help you with one just rolling it like this until you get it can you do this like noni put it one between your hand with just one put it on look look how nice noni has done it just roll it around like that can you get it nice oh that's perfect mama wow you deserve a kiss [Music] why don't you roll this in the flour good so nobody can fry them and then we will put them in the sauce to cook all right all right well the sugo is perking i think we have just enough of it so that all the meatballs will be nice submerged in the sauce itself so let's put the meatballs right in nice and gently but by now the the frying sort of just firms them up and a lot of you ask could i put the meatball in there without frying them and you can yes just make sure that it's really hot that it's really bubbling and you put few at the time so that the temperature doesn't change too much so that the egg cooks and binds the meat so it doesn't fall apart in the sugar itself it's perking lowered the flame a little bit let's put the cover back on and about 20 minutes to half an hour give it half an hour slow perking the meatballs will be done and it's a delightful dish lorenzo congratulations you did a good job thank you very much will you come in the kitchen with me again maybe soon maybe soon okay we'll give him other opportunities sure so the meatballs have been perking away and i think they're just about ready i have the pasta boiling we're having vegatoni with the meatballs and i'll show you a quick salad you know it's great to have a little pasta meatballs and a nice refreshing salad something that's quick well this is celery and artichokes these stalks that are the softer ones are better but you can use the outside also just by either peeling or peeling it with a potato peeler cut them on on a slant very thin again when you're cutting keep your fingers away your knuckles should be close to the to the knives and you know uh vegetables and getting children involved and bringing them close to the essence of life we have a little garden which my mother graham armenia tens and whenever she goes in the garden the kids are resumed running right after her all right i think we have enough celery and here i have some sedulous water that's water just with the juice of one lemon squeezed in it and the artichokes oxidize very quickly as you clean them so have that ready i have started some of them little artichokes are better for this salad they're tender so just pluck the outer leaves until you see the nice white then let's see let's check the the stems and again clean the stems you can just peel them off like that then you cut the tips because the tips are tough you cut them off just where sort of the white ends and then you cut it in half again and you look and this is the choke take a little spoon i would say why not a knife because you're sort of putting pressure and it slides so readily here and you can cut yourself the tip of the spoon will do it much safer and will do a good job just as well just like that and you just run around this is exactly what you want and the rest is all edible then you take the artichoke and you cut it very thin just like you did the celery you say why don't you cut it this way see if i cut it like this what happens is that it's just shreds all open this way the stem of it keeps the artichoke all in one little piece otherwise you have like little shreds okay so we have all the ingredients put it with the celery about equal amounts of each some salt and here i have the juice of one lemon which i passed through a sieve so to collect the pits but i think i'm going to need a little more i made a little bit more than i anticipated here sometimes just when you're doing the salad the best just put put the fork in and just sort of turn around and squeeze your lemon right in there you have to be careful of the pits i have one here let me put some oil and toss it all let me just get a nice plate so we can get ready for dinner and then on top of all of this you just put shavings of parmigiano reggiano or any cheese of your liking almost covering the whole salad with it i just just love it i think that's ready let's check on the pasta we're on time for feta let me get some of the the sauce from the meatballs can you can you see the richness of it and almost all the vegetables have disintegrated in the sauce okay let's put the rigatoni right in there and this is one of those sunday family meals that the italian americans are so well known for you know uh at our restaurants especially in lydia's in pittsburgh and lydia's in kansas city we have this sunday dinner and this is one of the most popular dishes where you get these big platters just like at home just like your family you know this big platter of rigatoni and then topped with some meatballs and sugar a nice salad like that good glass of wine who needs anything else and your family around you of course all right i want the pasta to absorb some some more of the sugar i think it has done that we'll add some cheese to tie it all i shut the fire as you know i always add the cheese at the end if you have a little assistance like i do then it's not all that hard to pull it together and the fun and the love of puddling together and ultimately enjoying it together so here's a nice bowl nice warm bowl it should be like some in the middle this is a dish for a family this says there's a family that's gathering this is sure to beckon everybody to the table here we have some cavatappi corkscrew and they're really fun pasta because they absorb a lot of sauce and they're fun in your mouth i told you that i'm going to make a whole brand new dish with leftovers so you know when you have your meatballs and at the bottom of the pot there's some broken some of this that save that put it in the freezer and that's your little treat like i always say those little treats so we have that with the sauce we sort of defrosted that so let's butter the casserole right here okay i can that's enough of butter let me just put a little bit of the sauce on the bottom so that it doesn't stick okay the pasta should be done you want it just a little bit under done as i always do and then finish cooking it in the sauce itself and this on top of it goes in the oven so it will really be finished by the time it gets nice and crunchy and baked this is good just as is but i you know when we talk about leftovers what you want to do you want to do a new dish this looks like a leftover but by the time i'm finished with it it's not going to look like a leftover just a little bit of oil okay add the cheese and let's stress that all the cheese let it mix in there i'm just going to nestle some of the meatballs on the bottom just for surprise and leave it a little juicy again because it will cook and dry out in the oven so you want it nice and juicy let's take this remaining meatballs put them in but these are just wonderful and we top it with the cheese the grated cheese and then milkier creamier cheese now could this be fontina yes it could be monster cheese it could be mozzarella okay i think this looks pretty good i'm gonna put just a little bit of this because the grated cheese gives the crunchiness so here we go in 450 degree oven nice and hot from anywhere from 20 minutes to half an hour depending on how crunchy you like it [Music] right the casserole is nice and crispy does this look like uh food that's been reworked no tell me lorenzo this is lorenzo manually you know him he has helped me thank you very much lorenzo bravissimo alora lorenzo costa voy manchara would you like some rigatoni with meatballs would you like some nice salad of celery and artichokes and parmigiano-reggiano or would you like some nice crunchy cavatappi with meatballs what would you like to eat oh come on what takes yourself i i think the crushy wasn't my favorite but i don't want that milk that's cheese that's what makes the pasta crunchy so should i choose a little bit of the crunchy pasta right here this is you like that i don't like that oh let me try the cheese all by itself first okay okay i'll put a little in the corner and then you try and then i'll give you a little bit of this and oh this is good the pasta then of course you want one of the meatballs that you made yeah yeah one two how many two yeah that's it that's enough okay can i put the cheese closer to you yep that's cheese and i think we're ready for serious business here at our house and as we say at our house we are already manjando give me a kiss i want to kiss dad's

Channel: Lidia Bastianich

Views: 80,191

Rating: 4.8929577 out of 5

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Id: RXaL1nbG3uA

Length: 21min 50sec (1310 seconds)

Published: Thu May 13 2021