Mike Colameco's Real Food NAPLES

[Music] well here in Italy you know that Naples Italy well what do you think of Naples think of all sorts of things but find what I think of the birthplace of pizza yeah this is where pizza came from folks so we're gonna find out what great neapolitan pizza tastes like and while we're at it let's take a couple of side trips to places like Pompeii Vesuvius you know the usual Road shows stay tuned like I said we're here in Naples on the bay beautiful great Port down really historic it gets a fair amount of bad press people say it's dangerous you know the Italians will tell you don't carry your burst down the street I found that to be nonsense and yeah sure it's the birthplace of pizza but before we get down to food let's do a little road trip up to the hills for a quick spin through Pompeii the historic Roman city buried in volcanic ash in the first millennium 79 A.D to be exact somebody looked that up for me thanks hard to imagine that thing was rumbling rumbling blue the lava came down this was actually discovered when they were drilling for water they were drilling for a well at the turn of the century and a Vaz came up and then they drilled more and other artifacts came up and they realized there was something down here so this excavation was stunning to have found the city basically buried intact relatively intact as things go but this is all that's left but incredible history so the volcano's still active quiet day so we're not worried today but this is Pompeii are we idiots or what we just hide to the top of this thing but if we could all this talk about Mount Vesuvius you can't do this and talk about Pompeii and not get into the volcano so we hiked it was about 25 minutes carrying the rig up here Joe Conlin thank you very much if I can mention you by name it's August it's about 90 degrees on the beach and what do you think 65 up here in windy yeah anyway that's Vesuvius and I'm checking out I'm not big on Heights you shoot I'm walking pizza was invented in Naples no dispute about that New Yorkers can talk about where the best pizzas are in New York City I'll enter to that discussion another time but since we're in this region I'm coming to Naples we're gonna do pizza in Naples and here I'm at a restaurant recommended to me by faith Heller willinger she's Fantastico by matotsi that's the owner we're going to meet the gentleman that runs this fifth sixth generation I think they've been in this spot in this historic town where pizza was started we're gonna have a great pizza here and talk about what it is that makes pizza great the essence of it the crust the tomatoes the cheese basil olive oil Simplicity and the food here you know we can do what we do eat drink and be Murray Neapolitan style this time [Music] Pizza Pizza I'm from New York and New Yorkers love pizza it's very hard to do the simplest things and pizza is simple defined for me the definition of what makes the classic neapolitan pizza I love the very simple Pizza the classic Oliveira tomato fresh is a nice possible with the cheese my love only Tomatoes is a nice for me it's good [Music] how many generations has your family been in this business I am in the first generation with my little girl and my little boy sixth generation in my restaurant is my family is a very old family [Music] it's one of the master pizzayo in the town where pizza was invented Naples the Holy Grail of pizza what's the secret to great pizza I need ingredients we all have passion we all have passion but there must be something else there's flour there's tomato do you explain to me like Simplicity is so hard how do you do it it's not only about the ingredients the salt the flour the tomatoes but it's that you have to to want to to to do something the the best in in the best way [Music] you know one of the things that always impresses me about Italian food and especially in the south is it simple and it's just about ingredients and not getting in the way you know linguine clams cuttlefish just simple fish sauteed grilled olive oil lemon juice olives Tomatoes parsley good great simple cooking that's really what's at the core of Southern Italian cuisine [Music] this is a little hole in the wall and it's packed it's on a little side street I probably would have found this place only because I saw this big crowd outside [Music] really some decent pizza and I'd love to say that I discovered it and this is a fine but you know what our globe circling ex-president appears to have beaten me to it [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] we're in the pizzeria de Matteo which is this incredible little hole in the wall in Naples incredible pizza and we have some appetizers this is amazing it's frittatina or macaroni frit that's fried macaroni the pasta is cooked inside is meat sauce and mozzarella cheese bound with a bechamel sauce so the Bechamel is what gives it the body then it dredged in a little bit of a slurry of flour and water and deep fried it's unbelievable I mean deep fried pasta I'll break it open hopefully you'll get a sense of it yeah it's amazing it's the first lunch we've had in two days and this course this is something I've never had before that's absolutely beautiful but the pizza is coming what makes a classic Neapolitan what is the classic neapolitan pizza the Neapolitan style okay the classical Pizza the first pizza is the marinara Pizza just with tomatoes and garlic then the pizza maker a pizza maker made a pizza for Regina Margarita and they named it Margarita and they made it with the mozzarella and basil leaf just to make the the Italian flag the three colors of the Italian flag I learned something I got you all right folks bear with me one more time we're gonna do another little road jaunt to the north side in Naples for this really bizarre place that I've read about it's been written about since like forever but you have to see it to believe it stay with me check this out we had to come here today I know this is a food show but look at this this isn't Star Trek this isn't a Twilight Zone this isn't the Spielberg movie this is a place called it's unbelievable this is just North of Naples and who knew the Greeks discovered this place and they didn't know what to make of it I mean they thought this this was the from the center of the earth Homer wrote about this this place is just absolutely deep thick with history flughourian Fields is the name of the place and again we're standing in salvatara this is an active volcano I've got flip-flops on below my feet and it's so bloody hot the steam coming out of here is 160 170 degrees if I step down here you get ouch I get burned seriously it's that hot there's steam coming out from under my feet this is unbelievable again it's we're just north of Naples in this bizarre area and I just can't imagine what the Greeks When They Came Upon here were thinking how to explain this phenomenon heck I don't know how to explain it but it's an active volcano it's very sulfurous and it's funny because in some of the wines from this region we had a Greco last night and you can almost smell this kind of sulfurous quality in the nose as part of the minerality I just couldn't let you miss this I know this is a food show but I mean this you you 'd cook on this so I guess that's my link anyway Sal Fatale is the name of the place it's just north of Naples flagrion Fields history Galore if you come this way you have to check it out all right let's stop before we head back into my kitchen another little hole in the wall buried in the Labyrinth of the Neapolitan City and I couldn't even begin to tell you where we are but man this pizza rocked Mad Hot wow can you see but important that's this is a bite towards the center the dough is completely cooked and this is one of the criticisms I had today of a couple of pizzas that we had in Naples was that the because of the volume they were doing and maybe the mozzarella was weeping I'm not sure the oven temperature could be a lot of variables but the dough in the center was falling you pick up the pizza it would drop and the dough when you scrape the topping back it was wet and I hate that would be you know eating pizza and the you scrape it back and you realize you're eating kind of half cooked yeasty bread I don't like that anywhere Maples New Jersey New York no this is this is great you're right this is great pizza where the hell are we are some Valentino good luck finding it on the map and the name of this place is the Dewey Fratelli is that really their name yes that means uh yeah the earthquake Brothers well they're big guys I don't know where the earthquake comes from but this kind of rocks my world so we'll give them we'll give them props on the earthquake part hey m-e-t-h-o-d you know that song is a method there's a method to this this is really good pizza you're right Giuseppe Giuseppe do Napoli we have to introduce him here he hasn't been on camera the whole time he's my Sherpa he's when the drag is here you'll never find this place it's a little tiny dot there's no tables look this is the restaurant oh there's that a few tables outside a couple of locals on a Friday night Amazing Pizza in the middle of nowhere she's happy all right let's eat thanks guys this is great okay we're back back from Italy yeah that trip was great um foreign Naples is this funny City it's this great Port town and so much of that so much of Italy down there again south of Rome it's so it's like another country and for years it was under Greek domination Naples was under Spanish domination for a while the Moors you know they were attacked from all angles um but the people are really flinty there's a real real Beauty to uh being on the water the city the Antiquity that matatini is that the name of the restaurant was wonderful the guy that had been there for all those Generations Charming host I loved the food there and when we went in you know there was a an area in the back and eight or nine maybe ten plates was just antipastity of vegetables and cheeses and roasted peppers and little fried fish and little fish salads and what a great way to eat so what do I mean what what am I gonna cook that's the question um when you're south of Rome it's a poor country and you don't see much beef you see Lamb you see pork that's what's commonly eaten and of course Seafood all along the water so I thought today in the spirit of that whole you know Campagna um Southern Italian tradition we would do we got a beautiful piece of pork I went to the Butcher and got this is a real nice it's got great marble you know this is one of these Heritage breeds of pork but you can see it's almost marbled like steak nice thin flecks all the way through big thick pork chop and as if that wasn't enough I got this monstrous Italian sweet pork sausage and then for this for the the pasta the primibiate was in Union Square Market which I love to frequent on Wednesdays and Fridays and I'm not so much a fan of baby eggplant but these are just delicious I've been buying them all summer and this is something warty I don't even know what this is not an eggplant something in the same family these are some variation on yellow squash but you can see from the end these were cut in the last 24 hours they're beautifully fresh I just want to make a very simple pasta we'll cut these real thin we'll get a pan hot put in some garlic a little bit of brunoise onion just barely let that take any color add these vegetables toss them and we're going to slow cook them it's something I'm not sure where I saw it I think I saw it in Italy um and you lose a lot of volume you're slow cooking these squash and then we're just going to serve pasta with that little olive oil a little fresh basil salt some Cracked Pepper maybe some hot red pepper if I want to put that in the sauce and just a good pasta so a real simple pasta there is no sauce the sauce is the zucchini cooked down the squash cook down the base of the onion the olive oil the garlic flavoring that that'll be tossed over the pasta like a little bit of a dressing and the main course will be the pork so in real time I've got water on Boiling behind me let's season plenty of salt and pepper all right I got my pork there let's see how hot this pan is it feels hot that oil is already at its smoking point turn it down just a notch when the zucchini you're this small a lot of time with bigger zucchini I don't use these the seed the center part but here I'm not going to mind and I'm going to keep them in little rings because something wherever I have this dish and again I think it was in Italy this is how the squash was cut just straight through really this really loses a lot of volume as you cook it it's amazing how it Cooks down all right we got you know this pan started screaming hot so nice golden brown careful not to break the casing and just let this go nice and easy pasta water you can see it's in the back salted which is going to keep that ready to go drop the pasta in a couple of minutes next we'll chop up an onion some garlic and get ready with the squash all right we're going to put as I said we're going to start with a little bit of garlic here well more than a little bit I like a lot of garlic in this dish because it's really going to be one of the squash isn't the most flavorful thing I mean it's healthy it's good to eat but it's not exactly one of those screaming flavors in the vegetable Pantheon so we're gonna give it some help one of the other reasons I like this dish so much is when you because you're cooking the squash down a lot you actually are concentrating the flavor there's not a lot of flavor in it but because we're almost reducing and you'll see again we're going to reduce that volume by probably close to half you end up really tasting the squash in the finished dish it's so simple and with good pasta it's like magic take the seeds out of the pepper they tend to be hot and this doesn't have to be any swanier cut just small so nobody gets a big bite of pepper olive oil first the garlic just let that sweat out a bit I'm gonna put a little basil in here in a minute I'll finish it with basil and I always like to put basil in the beginning because it kind of leeches out into the oil it just gives you a nice Foundation right up front now we're going to add the squash which really is going to cool the pan down considerably you can add some salt turn the flame up a tad and just as soon as they see you we'll listen You'll see as soon as it's done like that pan that's got the heat I need we're going to turn it right back down to let it slow cook make it can you hear this pan hear the difference now it's how it's his look you know when I put in the squash it was quiet now I've got heat a couple of things are happening a the pan recovered his heat because we we put in what about two cups of room temperature to cold ingredients 10 drop down got cold now the Pan's recovering its heat but you'll also see to get that camera on there's steam escaping that's what I want that's evaporation we're gonna cook this squash down in volume what's the volume it's losing water where's the water steam you can see where we have some pieces that have taken some color they're drying out I'm going to turn the here with my flame I'm going to turn the pan down probably to medium low and just real nice because I don't want a lot of color on this to watch I really want it to dry out but gently not a lot of oil in this pan right now and you still see there's plenty of steam wicking up off of that meantime our pork chop friend you can see the size of this shop I've been turning it this is probably one two three four that's the color I want I want that great exterior color this again is over moderate heat not a lot of heat nice easy stovetop cooking that's why it's not burning you can go in the oven I'd prefer not to do that I just you know every couple of minutes I give it a turn that's why it never has a chance on any one side to get too dry and in about two minutes we'll drop the pasta which is going to take probably 12 minutes to cook so I'll time it just like you would timing dinner you know drop the pasta so that I know when I that 12 minutes later I'm shaking that pops in the colander the squash is where I want it pork chops done dinner's on the table let's check our squash they're getting smaller this is the Incredible Shrinking squash little by little now the Heat's real low that's my flame setting real low you know medium low pretty big pretty thick pan but we're gonna get these guys to cook down I'd say we've probably lost a third of the volume now and you can still still plenty of steam coming off so a lot of room to go here and this is just a nice little Italian brand Montebello I was going to go to my uh pelletalian Chelsea Market he's got great pasta but I never made it so this will work some Panda they got there'll be perfect with the um squash give it a stir this way it doesn't stick in the beginning all right I think it's kind of evident now even on the camera that this squash is reduced a lot I mean that's a real real thin layer now I mean almost the discs have shrunk this is right about where I want it picked up a little color from the pan juice but it's it's reduced a lot I'm going to leave it right on this low heat I mean I'm not the Heat's still on but now the flame is on that lowest simmer setting just to finish it off but that's beautiful it's going to taste great we're gonna pull out the um sausage now the sausage is cooked because it's encasing no steam could Escape so that sausage is done I don't want to overcook it you see that's also shrunk a bit now I'm just cooking the pork on the fat side to get it crisped up a little bit put back down this pork is not going to take too much longer get the pasta stir and I think everyone's Everything's Gonna Be Ready together this is just a mix of real nice fresh parsley from the market and some fresh basil can't go wrong finishing anything with this put the pasta right in and we'll toss that in a second that's it I'm gonna hit this with a little bit of salt a little bit more extra virgin olive oil just just to give me a little Sheen to give me a little that Olive flavor and also that's going to help pick up a little bit of what's left on the pan sort of the fond or the comfy the base it's got our herbs in here and we'll put this on a nice big plate give it some room to breathe and again this is you know unless you're totally carb a verse this is really healthy here lots and lots and look how small that squash has gotten it's just cooked down to next to nothing a couple turns on the pepper mill and we'll let everybody put their own shoes on I'm just gonna put a little bit of cheese and here again we're using Parmesan reggiano all right without any further Ado we know that pasta is going to be good that's a given I mean how can anything that looks like that not be good we'll get to that later in the meantime let's cut into this see what we have yeah it's just slightly pink steaming but you see it's still got that Hue it's not gray outside's cooked inside it's got good moisture you know it's the difference between good pork and commodity pork is huge and you see this has that nice color all around it all three sides that's great now how can you go wrong with this squash cooked down by half and this is just the simplest this is this sort of rustic Italian food that's just driven by ingredients good pasta great vegetables Farm Fresh simple flavors great balance so southern Italy lots of pork lots of lamb lots of simple dishes like this easy to do at home as long as you're shopping in the market you're getting great ingredients because that's you know that's Italian food versus French food Italians ingredients don't get in the way keep it simple French great ingredients but they really it's much more technique driven so Italian food's so simple to do it's great to have traveled down there love Naples love the surrounding area great wines that Greco de tufo was super that'd be a great wine for this meal right here but I think of that I could use a glass right now anyway Bon Appetito see you next week thanks for watching eat well at every occasion you know that's my motto see ya [Music]

Channel: Mike Colameco's Real Food

Views: 1,217

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Id: 7fOGlXOE4H8

Length: 25min 1sec (1501 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 11 2023