Lasagna Portofino is one of the many dishes Rosalie loves to prepare that use ricotta cheese.
The contest in the Boston Herald was offering $25 for the best recipe. I decided to enter my “Ricotta and Spinach Pie” recipe that all my students seemed to love making and enjoying. It was and still is a simple and delicious recipe, possessing the same qualities that people find attractive today: ease of preparation, easily found ingredients — and not too many of them — plus a healthy and delicious result. That recipe has endured the taste of generations, it seems. I often have people tell me that they still make my recipe, the “one that was in the Herald.” It’s the ricotta cheese, with its creamy lusciousness, that makes the spinach pie so wonderful, just as it inspires so many dishes I love.
On one of my first visits to Sicily, my cousins took me on a hike through the hills near their summer cottage to visit a farmer. “Would you like to see how ricotta is made?” After about a mile hike through steep hills that went down to the sea, verdant with wild herbs like rosemary and thyme that were intoxicating for their aroma, we came upon a tiny farmhouse. The farmer was preparing a fire over a copper cauldron that contained recently obtained milk from his cows. After a while he put in something that produced large curds. He then poured the mixture into old baskets that could drain the excess liquid and produce a weave-like design as the cheese firmed. He gave us a basket to take back to the cottage and we quickly transformed the mixture into crispelle, the Italian version of crepes. With just a little local honey to sweeten, it was the perfect breakfast treat.
When I first moved to Marblehead, I was discouraged to find the shopping at my local market to be disappointing. There were no wedges of imported Parmesan cheese that I could grate myself. There was garlic salt, but no real garlic bulbs and there was no ricotta cheese. I remember calling my Noni and wondering how would I survive the insults. At the local fish market the clerk was in disbelief when I asked if he had calamari, I even translated it to the English, squid. “We feed that to the fish,” he responded with disdain. A few years later when my cooking classes became popular my students put some pressure on the store and what followed was prosciutto, olive oil and yes, ricotta and Parmesan cheese. I took the blame for this.
Ricotta cheese is such a versatile food. For example, try putting a dollop of the fresh ricotta over a simple pasta with marinara sauce. Ricotta makes a quick and delicious dessert when beaten with an egg, honey and vanilla and baked in custard cups. I still enjoy making lasagna, especially now that there are noodles that don’t have to be precooked, the preparation is so much simpler.
Our neighborhood had a summer celebration, years ago, which we called a block party. Everyone made his or her specialty. The word got out about the spinach pie. A committee was formed and we planned a menu that was perfect for a summer night: marinated and grilled flank steak, tomato and mozzarella salad with basil and spinach pie. There would be about 150 people. My committee purchased a few brand new garbage pails and we made a marinade with red wine, garlic, brown sugar, tomato paste and the beef marinated overnight. A neighbor was discarding a mattress spring, before the boxed variety, and I had one of the neighborhood guys grab it. We made a huge pit, filled it with kindling and logs which the kids had gathered from the beach, and in the early evening we fired it up. Soon after, we placed the spring down over the embers and then laid out the marinated flank steaks. There were about 50 of them. After about 10 minutes they were turned for a few more minutes. Separately, I had reduced down some of the marinade for a nice sauce. The committee ladies each made a spinach pie and everyone brought a platter of mozzarella, basil and tomatoes. It wasn’t easy, but we found fresh basil and baguettes for our meal. Today, we can buy fresh basil and most herbs and a variety of delicious breads at every market, and an amazing variety of ricotta and mozzarella cheese, including low fat.
The block party was a big success. Square dancing followed complete with a caller. Later in the evening we made s’mores, the graham cracker, marshmallow and chocolate treat which were very popular for campfire treats, especially with the girl scouts. It was one of the highlights of the summer of 1968 and still one of my favorite summer menus.
Portofino is a magnificent town in Genoa. The Genoese are known for their pesto. I served this dish at Rosalie’s for many years, a dish inspired by the wonderful cuisine of this area. If you make pesto in the winter, feel free to freeze a batch of it. Also the newish lasagna noodles, the ones that you don’t have to boil will greatly cut down on the preparation time.
Lasagna Portofino
— Using a whisk, beat three eggs with a half cup of grated Parmesan cheese, a quarter of a cup of chopped flat leaf parsley and a little salt in a large bowl.
— With a wooden spoon mix, in a large container of full cream ricotta. Add a cup of grated mozzarella cheese and stir to incorporate.
— For béchamel: In a saucepan melt a quarter pound of butter and stir in eight tbsp. of flour to incorporate. Whisk in 4 cups of milk and stir until mixture thickens. Sprinkle in a quarter cup of grated Parmesan and a half tsp salt. Set aside.
If you have pesto already made or in the freezer, otherwise make pesto.
— Pick the leaves off of a good size bunch of basil.
— Using a salad spinner, wash the leaves and dry well.
— Place the leaves in a food processor, you need about two cups and pulse with a quarter cup of olive oil till smooth.
— Add five tbsp. of toasted pine nuts, 2 cloves of garlic and pulse till smooth. Season with salt.
Assemble and bake
— Oil a lasagna pan and spread about five tbsp. of béchamel on the bottom of the pan. Spread three or four pieces of lasagna noodles on top of this.
— Spoon about six tbsp. of ricotta mixture on top of the noodles.
— Add another layer of noodles, pressing down the ricotta underneath.
— Sprinkle a tbsp. of pesto over the noodles and drizzle some béchamel over it. Add another layer of ricotta and continue this layering until you have used up the ingredients.
— Top with slices of mozzarella. Cover tightly with wax paper or parchment paper, tin foil and bake at 325 for about an hour or until bubbly.
— Remove the foil and bake another five minutes at serving time.