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03/28/2001 Archived Entry: "Biba Caggiano's Bow Ties with Prosciutto Sauce"

Biba Caggiano is one of the most delightful and best informed guests that I ever have on my radio program. No, I take that back. Biba is one of the most delightful and best informed people in the whole food world. To me, she is an Italian food goddess and I never have enough time with her when she visits New York from her home base in Sacramento, California, where she lives and owns a restaurant, Biba’s. You may also know her from her television programs on Lifetime and the Discovery Channel.

Her latest cookbook, her seventh, Biba’s Taste of Italy, is about her home region of Emilia Romagna, which, until it was undeservedly eclipsed by Tuscany, was always considered the most gastronomically rich region of Italy. The agriculturally blessed plains of Emilia Romagna, the most extensive flat land on the mountainous Italian peninsula, produce such renowned products as Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, prosciutto di Parma, mortadella, and balsamic vinegar. The region is also known for egg pastas, especially stuffed egg pastas like tortelloni, it’s baked lasagne filled with meat ragu and bechamel, bollito misto (boiled mixed meats) ... I could go on and on.

The following recipe “is a standard in many kitchens of the region,” says Biba, who got this particular version from her sister-in-law’s sister. Just last week I improvised a dish of shrimp and peas in tomato sauce, the sauce flavored with garlic, a little hot pepper, and parsley, the way it would be done around Naples, and I wondered to myself how peas and tomato sauce would work. I didn’t think I had ever combined them before, except in a Middle Eastern recipe. It turned out to be a great dish, which I ate with just a hunk of crusty bread, so I am now encouraged to try this northern pairing of peas and tomatoes. A few of the hallmarks of the Emilian kitchen are evident here: The sauce base is a battuto , a chopped mixture of onion, carrot and celery (called mirepoix in French cuisine). Prosciutto, salt and air-cured ham, is, as I mentioned, one of the most important agricultural products of the region. Butter is the main fat in the recipe, not olive oil as in southern or central Italian cooking. And the tomato sauce is both lightened and enhanced by grated Parmigiano and whole milk, which could be cream in some Emilian kitchens.


Bow Ties with Prosciutto Sauce

Serves 4 to 6

1 cup fresh peas or thawed frozen peas
Salt
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup finely minced yellow onion
1/4 cup finely minced carrots
1/4 cup finely minced celery
1/4 pound prosciutto, in 1 thick slice, minced
1/3 cup dry white wine
2 cups tomato puree (preferably canned Italian plum tomatoes, with their juice, put through a food mill to puree them and remove their seeds)
1/3 cup whole milk
1 tablespoon coarse salt
1 pound imported dried bow ties, garganelli, or tagliatelle
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

If you are using fresh peas, bring a small saucepan of water to a boil. Add a pinch of salt and the peas. Cook, uncovered, until tender, 5 to 10 minutes, depending on their size. Drain and set aside.

To make the sauce, heat the oil and 2 tablespoons butter together in a large skillet over medium heat. As soon as the butter begins to foam, add the onion, carrots, and celery and cook, stirring occasionally, until golden and soft, 8 to 10 minutes.

Add the prosciutto and stir for a minute or 2, then raise the heat to high and add the wine. Stir until almost all the wine has evaporated. Add the tomato sauce and season lightly with salt. As soon as the sauce comes to a boil, reduce the heat to low and simmer, uncovered, until the sauce has a medium-thick consistency, about 15 minutes. Stir the milk and peas into the sauce and simmer for 2 to 5 minutes longer. Turn off the heat. (Makes approximately 2 1/2 cups.)

Bring a large pot of water to a boil over high heat. Add the coarse salt and pasta and cook until the pasta is tender but still a bit firm to the bite.

Scoop out and reserve about 1/2 cup of the pasta cooking water. Drain the pasta and place in the skillet with the sauce. Add the remaining 1 tablespoon butter and a handful of the Parmigiano. Stir quickly over medium heat until the pasta and sauce are well combined. Add a bit of the reserved cooking water if the pasta seems dry. Taste, adjust the seasoning, and serve with the remaining Parmigiano.

Arthur’s recipe notes: I much prefer using frozen tiny peas to using fresh peas, unless you have fresh peas from your own garden or a good farmer at a farmer’s market. I find frozen peas much more reliably sweet than anything I can buy fresh.

Biba suggests making fresh pasta for this sauce, but she also recommends the substitution of good dried, store-bought pasta. There are several good brands of dried egg pasta in our stores, many of which are better than all but an experienced hand can make, and certainly better than almost any fresh egg pasta you can buy. If you can find Spinosi dried egg pasta, which is made in the Marche region by Vincenzo Spinosi, by all means buy it. It’s expensive, but well worth the money. I know that it is carried (for a very good price) at both Jerry’s in Englewood, New Jersey, and Di Palo’s on Grand St. and Mott in Manhattan. In other stores, it may be as much as double the price that these two charge.