Uova in Paradiso: Frittata Filante/Muzzarella 'n Carruzzella

Uova in Paradiso: Frittata Filante / Muzzarella 'n Carruzzella


Along the lines of simple egg and cheese combos from the south of Italy, as brought to the fore by Mr. Hammond in his post on uova in purgatorio, I offer two further, somewhat 'cheesier' preparations:

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Frittata filante

Cut a piece of mozzarella into chunks; beat eggs with a good dose of parmigiano. Combine egg mixture with mozzarella, a little minced parsley, salt and pepper. Fry in lard or butter.

An uncle of mine in Italy loved this dish. And unfortunately, he died of a heart attack well before his time.

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Muzzarella 'n Carruzzella


More to my liking is the classic muzzarella 'n carruzzella (lit.: mozzarella in a little carriage), which almost always appears on restaurant menus translated into Standard Italian as 'mozzarella in carrozza', a version of the name which completely loses the beautiful rhyming musicality of the original Neapolitan appellation.

Recipes for this dish abound and I know that most of them say that one must get rid of the crusts of the bread. Well, maybe that's a nice and elegant touch but in my family we never did that and all of us actually liked the extra resistance that the crust offered to the tooth. This is a simple home-style version:

Take slices of Italian bread or very good quality white sandwich bread and soak them in a mixture of eggs and milk. Make sandwiches filled with slices of fresh mozzarella and fry the sandwiches in olive oil until the egged bread on both sides is golden and the mozzarella inside is melted. Sprinkle with salt and black pepper.

Variants:
1) Often the sandwiches are coated in bread brumbs before being fried.
2) Sometimes I add a little scrape of nutmeg to the egg/milk mixture. Perhaps it's not canonical but I love nutmeg.

Antonius

Antonius,

That sounds delicious...sort of like an Italian Monte Cristo Sandwich. (Which itself has an Italian sounding name, no?)

stevez wrote:...sort of like an Italian Monte Cristo Sandwich. (Which itself has an Italian sounding name, no?)

Steve,

You're right, the basis of the two is pretty much the same... Thanks for the link... I've never had a Monte Cristo and with the recipe I can try it at home but do you know of any restaurants around here that make them well?

A

Counting on the Monte Cristo: George's, Oak Park

Antonius wrote:I've never had a Monte Cristo and with the recipe I can try it at home but do you know of any restaurants around here that make them well?A

[Note: previously posted a few years ago on Chowhound]

George's is a little restaurant on Oak Park Avenue that proudly boasts "Broiled Food" on its brand-new awnings. Inside, the basic restaurant area is a throwback to the coffee shops of yore. Jell-O on display, smell of java and cigarettes, and a load of sammiches on the virtually unchanging menu.

A racquetball partner told me his "derelict mother" usually sits in the back of George's, scorching out butts in overflowing ashtrays, and waiting for the next lottery drawing. Sure enough, when I was at George's for lunch today, there was a battalion of the life-battered, slouching in naugahyde booths that have conformed, over time, to their individual bodies, single-handedly keeping Philip Morris stock afloat. These are the old guard, the standbys, the local shut-ins who venture out once, maybe twice a day to eat, socialize, smoke, before it's home, where a little sleep rounds their day and they come back to George's at dawn for breakfast. The waitress calls them "hon" or by their first names, and they flirt and cough and smile. This is the kind of clientele that George's -- and probably other coffee shops -- exist to serve. People with time to sit, have pie, watch television and talk. Probably a dying breed.

Teacher I know at the local high school tells me that George's is the place that administrative assistants go; teachers eat at the slightly more upscale Thyme and Honey down the street, thus is class stratification dramatized in something as simple as restaurant choice in this relatively small community within a small community.

I went to George's for a Monte Cristo, inspired by Ron's post last month. Upfront, lemme say, sandwiches usually bore me; I don't even like the sound of the word, "sandwich." At worst, they are dry, unimaginative, easy-eatin', maybe the world's first fast food (after matzo). Maybe they're just too darn easy, like the caprese salad. I don't know, anyway, at best, I usually find them just okay, and I fully disclose that maybe my experience is too limited in the area of pro-sandwich making.

What the Monte Cristo has going for it is that the whole shebang is battered and fried together, ensuring high moisture and a forced marriage of ingredients that ensures a holistically integrated (if not altogether wholesome) sammich.

George's does not disappoint on the Monte Cristo front. Moments after I ordered, the golden brick was laid before me, steaming. Slicing into it was like splitting the yolk of a fried egg: the cheesiness flowed, drenching the fried bread, and floating out pieces of ham like tiny red rafts on a high-fat flume. This is not a sammich you order when wearing suit and silk tie (but who the hell wears that anymore!?). The cheese, incidentally, is Swiss (so very preferable to American), and the ham and turkey were rough-cut and hot so the flavor popped. What condiment did I use on this? Nope. Nothing. Not even mustard, which would be a natural.

I'm eating, and I hear Barbara, the big, blustery mom-type waitress, shout to some departing workmen, "Don't stay away for six months next time. We worry about you when we don't see you." Moments later, she snaps to the cook, "Look at me, Johnny. Be nice to me, Johnny. I might not be here tomorrow."

Sweeping up the last of the entirely superfluous French fries, I notice a little guy with glasses shuffling in. The younger, prettier waitress greets him with, "Here he is. In for his mid-afternoon coffee," and goes to get the cup. The manager takes it from her, and says, "That's okay. I'll get it." As he opens sugars to prepare this regular's regular, he says, "Just after I wash my hands you come in." Laugh of people who've known each other for years but maybe never actually conversed with on another.

I walked home from George's, which is a good thing, because I think my heart slowed down a little while eating the Monte Cristo. Might not be a bad idea for George to install an electrified door handle/welcome mat combo that would automatically defibrillate cholesterol-dazed patrons as they leave the shop.

George's is not a destination dining experience, no by any means, but it was right for a day when you're sitting home, worried about your kids, amazed how some invisible hand could have so thoroughly looted your portfolio, and how we're toeing the edge of war so that maybe we don't notice that not only does the emperor have no clothes, he has no brain.

Georges is a local joint that does an honest job with simple foods, something you can count on.

Also, George has a hat-rack, a disappearing cultural artifact. On a disturbing note, the last time I was here they had a revolving pie rack; it is now gone.

George's
145 South Oak Park Avenue
Oak Park, IL
(708-848-4949)

Incidentally, I favor the Cuban Monte Cristo cigars (#4s), which derived their name from the Dumas book that rollers loved to hear as they hand-pressed their world-class stogies in the third world heat. Don't know where the name for the sandwich came from, but a brief explanation of this and similar creations can be found through the attached link.

http://members.cox.net/jjschnebel/sandwich.html

Semiotics of the Monte Cristoof the Monte Cristo: Maple Tree, Oak Park

[Note: Previously posted on Chowhound; I went through a somewhat serious Monte Cristo phase]

It's good to have goals in one's life, and my goal is now clear: to eat a Monte Cristo sandwich at every location in Oak Park that serves them.

Today's venue for the new object of my affections was Maple Tree, which serves the Monte Cristo in what I call the Middle Style: Swiss, ham and turkey (distinguished from the Essential Style, which is just ham and Swiss, and the Decadent Style, which features ham, turkey, Swiss, plus bacon and perhaps even additional elements). The Maple Tree version has shaved ham and chunky turkey: a new configuration! (Now that I'm a collector of Monte Cristo experiences, I thrill to each variation on the theme).

As I munched my Monte, I reflected upon the semiotics of the sandwich, the archetypal sandwich, that is, the Platonic vision of Sandwich. Though the sandwich is historically the result of culinary theorizing by the leisure class (e.g., the Earl), the traditional sandwich signifies the working man's lunch, something you eat with your hands during the busy workday. Think of any regular old sandwich shop, and my guess is that it's not open for dinner, and that's because people usually eat sandwiches during the 30-60 minutes vouchsafed by their employer for that purpose. The sandwich is a signifier of life-on-the-run, the gotta-grab-a-bite-and-go Western culture that, Dub-yuh willing, will eventually exert dominion over the globe and eventually the whole frickin' galaxy.

But back to the grub.

Today, I, Western workingman, held in my hands the sign of all that stuff, pondering the complexity of this particular creation and all that it signifies. This eponymous sandwich is a metaphor of its literary namesake, the betrayed and finally triumphant Count of Monte Cristo. As you may recall from the Dumas novel, the innocent young man of humble origins transforms himself into a dashing nobleman. So, in the Monte Cristo sandwich, do we see the simple working man's fare, the humble ham and cheese, dressed out in fancy French toast finery, warmed and metamorphosed into a multi-layered almost-confection, that may require a knife and fork, looking so fine and sophisticated. Even the name is fancy-pants, proud and preening as compared to his peers, Sloppy Joe, Patty Melt and Dagwood.

So my point here (and I do have one) is that there's a lot going on in a Monte Cristo.

Maple Tree
Oak Park, IL 60301
708.848.8267

http://www.downtownoakpark.com/shops/mapletre.html

Antonius wrote:Steve,

You're right, the basis of the two is pretty much the same... Thanks for the link... I've never had a Monte Cristo and with the recipe I can try it at home but do you know of any restaurants around here that make them well?

A

Alas, my go to place for Monte Cristo sandwiches closed years...maybe even decades ago; Town & Country Restaurant at North Avenue and the Kennedy, with a second locatio at Clark & Ridge (where Carson's Ribs now resides). It sounds like Hammy has you covered, though.

By the beard of San Gennaro, it was written... maktuub!

Shortly after I finished writing about muzzarella 'n carruzzella, Amata came down to my office to inform me that from her baking this morning, she had a bit of beaten egg with milk left over... In addition, we had some past-its-prime-but-still-quite-acceptable mozzarella resting in a bath of water in the fridge, and a loaf of D'Amato's round bread sliced. What could I do but make muzzarella 'n carruzzella. Being a fan of caveman cuisine, I left the crusts on and feel the better for it.

That D'Amato's sliced round loaf is really exceedingly well suited to the task.

Nice light, low-cal lunch...


Antonius

Antonius, my Palermitano friend puts a small fillet of anchovy inside his muzzarella 'n carruzella. I'm not completely convinced it's the right way to go, but every now and then, the saltiness and pungency of the alice is a perfect complement to the creamy mozzarella.