Carmelita's Cookitaly

La Pajata

A note by Katie Parla

Katie Parla, who just loves offal, lives in Rome where she offers private tours of Rome and southern Italy. She has a great blog called Parla Food which I follow for the Daily Photo and the offal news, being an omnivore - and therfore also an offal lover -  myself. I also enjoy her Flickr photostream. I thought  I really should let you know about a particular post of hers that builds on two of my recent posts here, the one on Rigatoni pasta and the one on Roman Oxtail Stew.

The short post complete with photo is here.

Thanks Katie!

Rigatoni

I though I'd post some more pasta images today, starting with the relatively well know Rigatoni. The name means something like "large striped ones", though "ridge" is probably a better, less literal translation of "riga".

Rigatoni make me think of Roman cuisine. There are four pasta dishes that are associated with Rome above all:

1 - Tonnarelli Cacio e Pepe: a deceptively simple dish that requires great technique. The pasta is Rome's version of spaghetti alla chitarra, with a square cross section, and usually shop bought rather than home made. The dish features plenty of black pepper, and the pasta is tossed with Pecorino cheese until  the cheese becomes a creamy sauce.

2 - Bucatini alla Matriciana or all'Amatriciana - there is an ongoing debate about the name -  where the bucatini, a long pasta like a thickish spaghetti with a hole in the middle, is dressed with a sauce of tomato and diced Guanciale (salt cured pig's cheek), and topped with Pecorino cheese.

3 - Spaghettii alla Carbonara: the internationally famous dish of uncertain origin, made with Guanciale, cheese and eggs,  and absolutely no cream.

4 - Rigatoni co' la pajata: a sublime combination of the tube shape pasta with similar size and shape tubes of the intestines of milk fed lamb in a tomato-less sauce. That sounds horrible but everyone loves the dish if  they can overcome their prejudice. I have ordered it for friends without telling them what was in it and had comments like " Mmm, some of the pasta is particularly good, really nice texture." "Lovely creamy sauce, is it ricotta?". I rest my case.

Try it if you can when you are next in Rome, I am sure you'll love it. And if you really really can't, then Rigatoni are great dressed with the sauce from cooking Roman Oxtail stew, for which there is a recipe right here!

Roman Oxtail Stew - Coda Alla Vaccinara

Part One

Coda Alla Vaccinara, iconic symbol of Roman cuisine, is one of those heart warming soothing winter dishes that you dream of and crave when cold weather sets in. Quick to prepare and slow to cook, it is a humble unpretentious dish made with an inexpensive cut of meat. Simple as it is, the recipe gloriously enhances the ox tail with a subtly bitter sweet finishing sauce. Unfortunately many Rome restaurants, even those specialising in Roman cuisine, skip the final step of the original dish. The dish is still excellent even without it I must admit, but once you've tasted the real thing, the tomato-only version feels incomplete.

Coda alla Vaccinara was born at the historic trattoria Checchino dal 1887, a place that is closely entwined with - if not wholly responsible for - the humble origins of  what is now seen as traditional Roman cuisine. Checchino is located in what was once the slaughter house district of Rome, the now trendy Testaccio area, and though it is a very elegant dining venue today, originally it was just a modest inn.

It first opened in 1870, and served wine along with bread, cheese, olives and salamis, until the original Mariani - the same family still run the restaurant today - obtained a cooking licence in 1887 and started cooking for the workers on the slaughter house construction site on his doorstep.

When the abattoir opened in 1890, Mariani started cooking for the Vaccinari - the butchers - who worked there. At that time, the butchers were given some piece of offal as a little bonus along with their wages, and they took this along to Checchino to pay (almost) in kind for the wine they drank. And this was the birth of Rome's many offal based dishes, the birth of the Roman cuisine of "the fifth quarter". .

They still serve the original recipe that the Mariani family invented at Checchino and that is the recipe I am sharing here today.

For two people you will need

1.2 kilos of oxtail  - a little over 2 1/2 pounds - chopped up into chunks - the butcher should do this for you
1 kilo of peeled plum tomatoes  -  a little over 2 pounds
a small onion
a single clove of garlic
3 sweet cloves (I  double up, I like the flavour!)
3 tbsp olive oil  (I use only one)
50 g salt cured Guanciale (pig jowl) or use Italian Pancetta - a little under 2 ounces
a small glass of dry white wine
salt and pepper

Preparation

Trim excess fat from the oxtail, then wash and pat dry.

Chop the Guanciale as finely as you can, then pound it in a pestle and mortar. Place this with the olive oil at the bottom of a casserole dish, ideally a terracotta or clay pot for even cooking. Soften a while, then add the pieces of oxtail and brown slowly over moderate heat.

Peel the garlic and remove any green shoot in the middle. Peel the onion and finely mince half of it. Stud the second half with the sweet cloves. Add these to the pot, season with salt and pepper and cook for a few minutes, then add the glass of wine and cover.

Cook on low heat for about 15 minutes and during this time put the peeled plum tomatoes (canned tomatoes) through a sieve or food mill to catch any remaining bits of peel or seeds, which you discard. You can use ready sieved tomato passata instead if you can get it and if you prefer. Add the tomatoes to the oxtail, cover and cook for an hour, always on low heat.

After the hour is up, add enough water to the casserole to completely cover the oxtail pieces. Cover and leave to simmer gently for 4 to 6 hours or until the meat is clearly coming away from the bones.

Place the casserole in a cool place and then in the fridge overnight. 

The next day remove all the fat from the surface until you reach the shimmering shiny jelly covering your yummy pieces of oh-so-tasty oh-so-tender oxtail.

Part one: done! The best is yet to come though, scroll down and read about the wonderful chocolatey finishing sauce that crowns this dish!

Celery, Pine Nut, Raisin and Chocolate Sauce for Roman Coda alla Vaccinara

Part Two

On to the second exciting part, the finishing sauce that makes the dish so special.

You will need

3 to 6 celery stalks, the pale kind if you can get it - the original recipe uses half a head of celery
A handful of pine nuts
A handful of raisins
A  single square of 70% cocoa dark chocolate - milk chocolate is all wrong
A nutmeg to grate

Preparation

First thing you do is de-string the celery carefully, then slice it into half moon segments. Bring a a pan of water to the boil and throw in a small handful of salt just before you tip in the sliced celery. Roman cuisine loves celery  - called sellero not sedano here - so you can put lots of it in. That way the celery is your vegetable dish and no other side is needed. How  small you chop it and how long you cook it is up to you. Italians like their vegetables cooked through not crunchy, and would cook medium slices for 15 to 20 minutes. I usually cook most of mine the Italian way reserving a handful to add a few minutes before the rest is ready, so as to have just a few crunchy pieces. One minute before scooping out the celery with a slotted spoon, throw in the raisins too, so that they can plump up a little, but if your raisins are very dry then soak them in warm water beforehand and skip this step.

Now it's time to toast the pine nuts on low heat in a dry pan. The traditional recipe does not toast them, just adds them to the chocolate sauce along with the celery and raisins but I prefer to use them as a topping - more attractive and tastier  - and they retain some crunch this way. Toast them patiently and slowly to be sure they are toasted all the way through, not just too browned on the outside and soft on the inside. They are ready when you can really smell their aroma.

Warm up the ox tail and its meat jelly in a small saucepan on low heat until the gelatin liquefies. Cover and leave on low heat until it is time to serve.

And now the sauce!

Take a small saucepan and in it place a few ladles of the jellied juices from the casserole but make sure you leave the ox tail pieces well covered to stop them from drying out, add water if necessary. When the meat sauce in the little pan is hot, add the drained celery, the raisins, and one square of dark chocolate. Stir till the chocolate is melted, let it cook for 5 minutes or so and taste - it should not taste chocolatey.The chocolate is there to darken and thicken the sauce, and to add a smokey mysterious something to the meat/tomato/clove flavours. If your sauce tastes chocolatey, keep cooking it, and if necessary add more of the cooking sauce from the ox tail. If it seems watery then add a little more chocolate. Grate some nutmeg  - I like lots - and maybe some pepper, then taste and if you're happy with it, you're ready to serve,

Place one large or two small ox tail pieces on each plate with some of the juices from the casserole, place a tablespoon of the chocolate and celery enriched sauce on top, scatter with pine nuts, garnish with celery leaves, and take to the table

Buon Appetito!