As Easter approaches, I'd like to share the family recipe for the most delicious pasta dish I have ever had, here or in Italy. Or anywhere. We called it "Genoese," and it's my grandmother's recipe, who was from Northern Italy. If you follow the recipe exactly as I give it, you will be in for an unforgettable dining experience.

GENOESE

(Including Mama's special secret ingredient)

Begin in the morning, not later than 10. This is not a difficult or complex dish to cook, but it takes time. A lot of time. You will need a pound or a pound and a half of eye round beef. A pound or so of prosciutto. 10 medium onions, a couple more or less if they are big or small. A head of garlic. EVOO. One package— shh!— of Mama's secret ingredient. Revealed below. One pound of perciatelli. (Bucatini #15 is an acceptable substitute.) The pasta is absolutely important: perciatelli or bucatini. Period. Parmesan Reggiano.

Cover the bottom of a sauce pot with EVOO, a couple of cloves of garlic, chopped, and place the eye round in the pan over medium heat. Turn it so as to sear all sides. Chop all the onions. This is the most laborious part of the dish. The tears you shed here will turn to tears of joy when you sit to enjoy the Genoese. Add the chopped onions to the pot, cover the pot, lower the heat to low, and go do something else for a couple of hours, checking in now and then to stir the onions as they cook down. After a couple of hours, with the onions beginning to cook down and brown, add the prosciutto, cut into cubes about a half inch square. Go do something else for another couple of hours, checking in from time to time to stir. After about 5 hours of cooking, total, remove the eye round and set it aside to cool. Now add the secret ingredient: a package of dry Lipton’s onion soup mix. True story: my mother kept this ingredient secret—the addition of which I believe my grandmother pioneered-- all her life. I mean, c'mon-- Lipton’s soup mix?!! You gotta be kidding!!!— until she neared the end, and then she told my sister, so that the perfection of Genoese would not be lost.

Let everything cook down for another hour, or even two hours.

You should not need to add salt, but taste to be sure. A few grinds of black pepper.

Slice the eye round, which should be cool now, across the grain, and lay the slices around the outside of a round platter. Inside the circle, add canned peas. Ladle some sauce over the beef and peas just before you serve.

Cook the perciatelli, drain, and place in a large platter. Cover generously with the sauce, and top with grated Parmesan Reggiano.

Prepare for the most extraordinarily delicious meal you have ever enjoyed. Pour a robust Burgundy, or a dago red like "Cribari".

Salud! Per cento anni!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: justjoe,

Awesome, thank you. I've never cooked eye of round before. I will have to try this. Also will have to google a couple of the ingredients.

Thank you for sharing it with us, it's cool to think it will live on more than she ever could have known. This is cheesy, but I think it's special you shared with us.

Thank you, Skins. I have gained so much information from this forum, and so often have had questions answered on all sorts of topics, not only firearms. I don't think many members will actually follow this recipe, but, as you said, I like the idea of keeping it alive. And those that do try it will be very pleased.

So-- cheesy? Only if it's Parmesan Reggiano. By the way, I had to order perciatelli from Amazon- it's hard to find, otherwise.

I would have no idea where to find prosciutto that I could cube. The only way I can find it is thinly sliced in little packages.
The recipe itself sounds delicious.

quote:

Originally posted by olfuzzy:
I would have no idea where to find prosciutto that I could cube. The only way I can find it is thinly sliced in little packages.
The recipe itself sounds delicious.

Usually if you go to the meat counter at any big supermarket, you can ask them to slice you about a quarter inch, or half inch, slab of prosciutto. Tell them you want a pound or a pound and a half, and they can figure out how thick the slab should be.

I was hoping this would be something I could do as a vegetarian dish but based on the short list of ingredients and almost half of them meat, I don't think it'll fly.

For me it looks wonderful but not for the V family.

Sorry, BRL. There are wonderful vegetarian Italian dishes, especially from the South. Maybe next I'll offer a vegetarian dish recipe. I know: "pasta y fagiolli" known as "pasta fazool", pasta and cannellini beans. Delicious and completely veggie. If you'd like the recipe, tell me and I'll write it out in this thread.

quote:

pasta y fagiolli

Small correction: pasta e fagioli. 'y' is spanish
(and as fun as it's to say for English speakers, it's pronounced "fa-joh-li"

Also, if uncut prosciutto is hard to find, maybe you can use pancetta. I'm not 100% sure, but I think Costco sells it, diced. Not 100% sure about that though. I know it's a pretty common thing in markets in Italy.

Also, for some legit Italian 'stuff', Costco has some awesome things - legit mozzarella di bufala, prosciutto, and the Kirkland organic EVOO is amazing too.

Perciatelli is hard to find, but in my experience uncut prosciutto is not hard to find. The local Giant, for example, carries Boar's Head and a couple of other brands uncut. You can, however, order perciatelli from Amazon.

Perciatelli (and bucatini) have a hole that runs the length of the pasta. This fills the pasta with the amazingly delicious thin-- "watery"-- part of the sauce. I think that is why substitutions of pasta type are not even nearly as good.

(Yes, "e" in Italian, "y" in Spanish. I speak both and mix up more than that at times. But the Southern Italian dialect pronunciation of "pasta fagioli" is "pasta fazool." (Much like "Vafongul!") Growing up in a Little Italy, we had a 3rd grade joke that Italy had just made a new car that was the fastest in the world. It was called the "Fazool" and the motto was -- wait for it-- "You can't pasta fazool!"

bucatini is fantastic. I love bucatini amatriciana.

I lived in Rome for 3 years, and you're right - southern italy might as well be an entirely different country and language. Unfortunately, I really don't like most fish, so when we went south, I generally limited myself to dishes with vongole, scampi, or gamberi. And canoli, da corso.

God, i'd love to go back.

BRL wanted a vegetarian recipe, and here is a really great one. Lots of steps, but easy to follow.

Pasta e fagioli

This is an inexpensive dish to prepare, with ingredients that are easy to find. And it is delicious. You will need one can of tomato paste, a head of garlic, two onions, two cans of cannellini beans, one stalk of celery, one pound box of ditalini pasta, dried oregano, fresh small bouquet of parsley, parmesan reggiano, and two quarts of chicken stock, or vegetable stock. Small elbows are an acceptable alternative if you can’t find ditalini.

Cover the bottom of a large pot with EVOO, three minced cloves of garlic, and the two onions, chopped. Let them simmer over low heat until the onions are translucent, or even slightly golden. Add one quart of chicken/vegetable stock and one can of tomato paste. Stir until the tomato paste is completely dissolved. Open one can of the cannellini beans and in a bowl mash them completely. Add the mashed beans to the pot and stir them in. Slice the stalk of celery and add that to the pot, along with chopped parsley. Add the second can of beans to the pot— do NOT mash them, add them whole.

In a separate large pot, cook the pasta: ditalini or small elbows. Just as they approach “al dente” — that is, tender but very firm— remove from heat, put them in a strainer, and rinse thoroughly in cold water. (I know that as a rule we never rinse pasta. But it’s important to stop the cooking or they will end up mushy after you add them to the pot of tomato sauce.) Turn off the heat under the tomato and beans sauce, and add the pasta to the pot, and add more of the second quart of stock until the mixture of beans and pasta has the consistency of a thick soup. Add about half a teaspoon of dried oregano, salt to taste, and a few grinds of black pepper. Ladle the pasta e fagioli into a bowl, add about a teaspoon of EVOO as a garnish, and top with shavings of Parmesan reggiano. (Use a potato peeler to shave off ribbons of cheese.)

If you want a really hearty version-- but non-vegetarian-- brown a pound of hamburger and add that in when you add the second can of beans.

Mama mia! One bowl and you begin automatically to utter Italian phrases. Two bowls and you find yourself saying things like, “Eh, passa tha salt before I breaka you face!” Don’t have three bowls. Never have three bowls.

Just one bump in case there are some guys-- and gals-- here who have not seen these recipes, and might actually try them.

If anyone does make "Genoese" or "Pasta e Fagioli" please drop me an email and tell me how it worked out for you.

Saving them both. The recipe in the OP sounds particularly good.

I can't promise I'll try it, but I'll try to try.

I just ordered 2# of the perciatelli from Amazon. Looking forward to making this. Thanks for sharing a family treasure, Joe. It's mighty kind of you!

Thanks for posting the second recipe. I'll be making that soon.

I forgot one little detail in the pasta e fagioli recipe. Whenever I use a lot of tomato paste, I always add just a little bit-- half a teaspoon or so-- of sugar, because tomato paste is somewhat bitter.

Ok... I have to ask, the first recipe...

10 onions???? I don't think I've every used 10 onions in any dish, even when cooking for a Boy Scout Troop

Ten onions-- and don't forget the secret ingredient-- over the course of six or seven hours, in a pot with a chunk of beef and cubes of prosciutto ham, melt down to the most incredibly luscious sauce you have ever tasted. Try it.

Well, my husband texted me the whole post on the recipe, so as soon as he gets me the ingredients you'll be hearing from me - did this get submitted to the Monkey, by chance?

I made the orange chicken posted a month or so ago (think it was exx1976) and it was fabulous.

^^^A day of cooking, but you will have one happy Monkey at the end of it.