Stuffed!

Italy's culinary bible for home chefs is a cookbook called The Silver Spoon. In recent years it has been translated into English, and some friends gave it to me as a going away gift when I changed jobs in August. This epicurean tome probably weighs five pounds, but it covers everything. Do you want to know how to fix scorpion fish? The Silver Spoon has it covered.

The cookbook's section on vegetables is phenomenal with recipes that make the most unlikely vegetable very tempting: turnips with bacon (well, bacon does make everything better), peas with pancetta (close enough to bacon), Parmesan turnip greens, and so on.

I decided to try stuffed onions first. The picture looked pretty, and I had a bag of onions in the fridge that needed to be used. The Italian name for the recipe is cipolle alla grossetana, so it was translated as grosseto onions. I don't know what that means but it was easy to fix and very tasty.

1. Peel four large onions. Cook in salted boiling water for 15 minutes. Drain and cool. Using a knife, scoop out the flesh in the center of the onion and save it to be chopped later. You should have four onion shells. Do not try doing this with hot onions.

2. Combine in a bowl 1 1/2 c. lean ground beef (or veal but I buy beef from the farmers' market so I use theat), 1 Italian sausage removed from casing, 2 T freshly grated Parmesan, 2 t olive oil, 1 egg lightly beaten, pinch of nutmeg. Season with salt and pepper.

3. Stuff the onions with the meat mixture. Put the onions in a deep pan. Pour 1 c. of beef stock around the onions. I poured in some white wine for good measure too. Put the lid on. Simmer over medium low heat for 30 minutes.

Serve the onions on a plate and pour any remaining sauce over them. When no one is looking, sop up the yummy sauces and meat drippings with a great piece of bread.

I had leftover stuffing that I put in the freezer. This meat stuffing would be great in bell peppers, zucchini, or artichokes too.

Easy elegance: veal marsala

Some friends came over for dinner one night not too long ago, and I arrived home from work only 20 minutes prior to their arrival.

In that 20 minutes, I set the table, put out cheese and olives, made a quick salad of baby greens and a simple vinaigrette, put some fingerling potatoes on to boil, and dredged three veal escalopes in flour.

After my friends arrived I prepared the veal marsala. It is so easy. It would be good with chicken too if you can find escalopes or if you want to make them yourself by pounding out chicken breasts.

Here is the recipe:

2 or 3 veal escalopes
1/2 or so of flour seasoned with salt and pepper
4T butter, divided in half
8oz mushrooms thinly sliced
1c. marsala
handful of parsley finely chopped

Melt 2T butter in a large pan over medium heat. Add sliced mushrooms and cook about 10 minutes until the mushrooms begin to brown. Remove mushrooms from pan and set aside. Rinse and pat dry the veal. Dredge the veal in the flour. Melt the other 2T of butter over medium heat. Place the veal in the pan and cook until browned on each side. It shouldn't take much longer than a couple of minutes per side if the pieces are thin. Remove the veal to a dish. Add the marsala to deglaze the pan and turn up the heat. Reduce the wine for a couple of minutes. Add the mushrooms to the pan and warm. Pour over the veal, sprinkle with parsley and serve.

I really liked the fingerling potatoes with this dish. I boiled them and then stirred in some butter, roasted garlic and chopped parsley.