The Gravy -- A Monfiletto Family Traditional Recipe

My mother and Aunt Ro called it, "The famous, delicious gravy that cooks for 4 hours!"

It would be impossible to manage Monfiletto family recipes before mastering The Gravy.  Yes, it's gravy, not sauce, for our family. I can't tell you how many non-Italians have been confused by this. One friend thought I was referring to some kind of brown meat drippings and pictured a plate of macaroni covered with it. Ugh.

In our case, this is a traditional tomato gravy with three kinds of meat. We serve it over spaghetti, raviolis and macaroni in all its forms. We use it to make lasagna, too.

Since it needs to cook about four hours, you might as well make a big pot of it and freeze the leftovers in smaller containers for future meals. My mother used to make it on Thursdays and save half of it for part of our Sunday dinner -- you know, the first course, the pasta. NB: Gravy tastes even better the second time it's cooked.

Ingredients

Gravy
8 large cans crushed tomatoes (Puree in a blender if you want a smooth gravy)
8 cans tomato paste
8 cloves garlic, chopped or crushed
1 Tablespoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 Tablespoons Italian seasoning
1 Bay leaf (remove before serving so no one chokes)
Olive oil
Italian sausage, about 12 links
Meatballs
Breast of veal, cut into pieces (optional)

Meatballs: 
3 pounds of chopped beef (or beef and pork mixed)
1 cup of Italian seasoned breadcrumbs, softened in milk
1 sausage, squeezed out of its case
3 eggs
3 teaspoons garlic powder
3 teaspoons parmesan cheese
3 teaspoons parsley
salt and pepper

How to:
Put 8 cans of crushed or pureed tomatoes in a large pot.  Add six garlic cloves, salt, pepper and Italian seasoning.  Drizzle olive oil over the top.
Bring to simmering over medium heat and then lower to low heat.  Stir occasionally. My mother threw in a carrot or whole potato because she said it absorbed the tomatoes' acidity. (Remove before serving so no one gets a potato instead of a meatball by mistake!)

Meanwhile, make the meatballs by mixing all meatball ingredients with hands until soft and completely combined. Roll into balls with hands. Bake on aluminum foil-lined baking sheet at 350 F until brown, about 15 minutes.  Cook the sausage and the veal, if using, in the oven with the meatballs, until cooked through, about 30 minutes.

Back to the gravy:
In a big frying pan, put enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan, add the rest of the garlic and start to simmer.  Add all of the tomato paste and stir to combine, bring to simmer and remove from heat. Stir into big pot of tomato sauce.  When meatballs, sausage and veal are browned, add to gravy and simmer for at least 2 more hours, preferably 4. You can add a little of the meat drippings for extra flavor.

Note: You can add or substitute beef short ribs for the meat. Brown first in oven or frying pan and then add to gravy. Simmer 4 hours. We picked up this version during a trip to Naples and Dennis perfected it.

Note 2: This is the real gravy, despite what anyone else in the family says. I learned to make this with both my mother and my grandmother and I'm probably the sister who cooked with both of them more than anyone else.

"It might choke Artie but it ain't gonna choke Stymie!" (The Little Rascals, June 1932)

Artichokes!

I remember watching this episode of The Little Rascals and feeling sorry for Stymie because he didn't know how to eat an artichoke.

Here's a clip: Stymie and Artie

Call me weird but when I was little and my Mom asked me what special food I wanted on my birthday, I always said, "Artichokes!" Most kids back then didn't even know what one was, let alone mastered eating one. But we all loved them. My poor mother had to find an artichoke in September, well after the end of the season.  Sometimes she did.

Spring is artichoke season. In Italy, the city street markets are filled with many different types than we see in the U.S. The fields are bursting with them.  And restaurants are serving them up.

Here is the basic way my mother made the big, round ones that are common in America:

First, cut off the stem and make sure the bottom is flat so it will sit in the pot.  Then cut off the top to get rid of the pinchy leaves.  Next, with kitchen shears, trim the pinchy top off all of the remaining leaves.  Rinse the arties and pull the leaves open slightly.  You can stuff them with Italian seasoned breadcrumbs or leave them naked.

In a large pot, put enough olive oil to cover the bottom. For four arties, add about 5 cloves of chopped garlic.  Place the arties in the pot. Drizzle olive oil over them.  Put enough water in the pot to go halfway up the artichokes.  Add about a teaspoon of salt to the water. Cover, bring to a boil and then lower the heat to let them simmer for about an hour.  You'll know they're done when you can pull a leaf off easily.

My mother also stuffed them with meat -- use the same recipe as you would for meatballs. Stuff it in between the leaves, add about a tablespoon of tomato sauce and sprinkle parmesan cheese on top of each one and then cook as directed above.

Here's a little something I learned about traveling through Europe -- fried artichokes.  We first tasted them in the Jewish area in Rome in 2004 and my youngest said it was just like eating potato chips. Dennis and I tried a few times to do this with the big round artichokes like the one above, but found you have to cut off a lot of leaves and waste a lot of the artichoke to make it edible, even after frying.

Then we took a trip to Barcelona, Spain, and had fried artichokes at a tapas restaurant.  They used the smaller artichokes with softer leaves and sliced them very thin. I tried this and it worked. 

Don't wash the arties before frying unless you plan to leave them to dry upside down overnight. Cut off the tops, then cut the hard outer leaves away on a diagonal, leaving the bottom of the outer leaves and the inner leaves that are soft enough to eat.  Next, slice them very thin from top to bottom. Dredge the slices in flour and shake off excess.  Fry them in a pot of oil until they turn golden and crunchy. Drain on a paper towel. Sprinkle with salt and enjoy.

Stymie and Artie