Chicago winter markets/ prepping for pizzoccheri lasagne

I've been amazed by the incredible bounty of terrific local ingredients still available at our local winter markets. The haul below is a fraction of what I got this week from a combination of the Green City Market and Robin Schirmer's winter market.


Top to bottom, left to right: Mint Creek Farm eggs, two kinds of cheese from Prairie Fruits Farm, baby celery root from Genesis Growers, buckwheat flour from Ted's Organic, thyme and sage from Genesis Growers, and a big head of cabbage from Heritage Prairie Farm.

My plan for these ingredients is to make a version of pizzoccheri, an extremely hearty, vegetarian winter dish popular in the Italian Alps. I'll be making buckwheat pasta lasagne, layering them with a potato/cabbage/celery root mixture, strong cheese, and plenty of herb brown butter, then baking to melt it all together.

As Vital Information often reminds us, there is still plenty of good local stuff this time of year, and it happens to be getting easier and easier to find it.

The pizzoccheri came out great, so I thought I’d share my recipe and a few pictures. It really is a terrific dish for these winter months. The earthy, toothsome pasta pairs very well with the hearty root vegetables and rich, nutty brown butter.

Vegetables
5 baby celery roots, peeled and sliced thin into approximately 2 inch pieces.
3 medium Yukon gold potatoes, sliced the same as the celery root
½ a large head of cabbage, chopped

Bring lots of heavily salted water to a boil in a large stock pot. Cook the celery root and potato for 8 minutes, then add the cabbage and cook for 4 minutes more. Drain, preserving the cooking water (you will use this flavorful water to cook the pasta), and set aside.


Sage brown butter
1.5 sticks of unsalted butter
12-15 sage leaves, chopped

Combine in a small saucepan. Cook over low heat until nut-brown, swirling the pan occasionally. About 20 minutes, but use your eyes. Don’t let it turn black.




Buckwheat lasagna noodles:
1.5 cups buckwheat flour
1.5 cups all purpose flour
4 eggs, lightly beaten

Sift the 2 flours together into a very large bowl. Make a well in the center, and pour in the eggs. Work the eggs in slowly, incorporating from the sides a bit of flour at a time. When it has come together into almost a ball, dump it onto a work surface and continue combining with your fingers. I almost never use all the flour, and this recipe was no exception. I’d guess that I still had ¾ cup of unused flour left when all was said and done. When the dough has come together enough to be kneadable, give it a good kneading for a solid 8 minutes. Then wrap in plastic and let it rest for half an hour. I rolled it through the kitchenaid pasta maker, stopping at setting 4. Then I cut it into strips about 9 inches long and 2 inches wide. Cook until al dente - about 4-5 minutes.






Pizzoccheri
All above components
5 oz grated fontina cheese
5 oz grated parmesan (or, use Wisconsin stravecchio as I did)
Butter

Butter your favorite lasagna baking pan. Place a layer of cooked noodles at the bottom. Scatter some veggies and sprinkle 1/3 of the cheese, then spoon about 1/3 of the brown butter over the whole thing. Taste the noodles and veggies – if you have salted your cooking water enough, they shouldn’t need more seasoning. If you haven’t, then sprinkle some salt now. Top with another layer of noodles, scatter more veggies, cheese, and brown butter. One last layer of noodles, and top with more cheese and brown butter. Bake at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes, until the top is nicely browned. Let it rest for a few minutes, then slice and serve.

It's a little early in the season, but the cool weather always starts my craving for this dish. This year I made a sage brown butter bechamel sauce instead of straight brown butter, then turned into a mornay with the addition of grated fontina.

Pizzoccheri Lasagne, 2010

Which do you prefer? The bechemal to mornay or straight brown butter?

I think I'm going to make this for the exchange. It looks fantastic. If it is half as good as that lovely peach & porcini risotto, I want a signed copy of your cookbook once you land the deal.

Thanks,

pairs4life wrote:Which do you prefer? The bechemal to mornay or straight brown butter?

Flavors good either way, but prefer the less greasy mouthfeel left behind by the bechamel/ mornay. To make it, I browned butter with sage until a deep mahogany, whisked in flour and cooked it a couple of minutes, then whisked in hot whole milk and let it come to a simmer to reach full thickening. Then the grated cheese stirred in off the heat (key step to prevent curdling). But really, it's all about the buckwheat pasta, which I happen to love.

I made it for the vegetarian exchange. It was way harder than I expected because I didn't have a pasta machine and it was buckwheat. Once I read, in one of my Italian cookbooks discussing how difficult buckwheat was, I just had myself a nice upper body work out with my rolling pin. It made a downright toothsome noodle.

It was also my first time preparing celery root.

This is very, very good.

Is the celery root essential? Can potatoes like Yukon gold be substituted?

toria wrote:Is the celery root essential? Can potatoes like Yukon gold be substituted?

No rules. You can use anything you like: celery root, yukon golds, turnips, rutabagas, onions, parsley root, brussels sprouts all come to mind as good alternatives. I wouldn't leave out the cabbage though.

I'd never skip the cabbage. I see that Ted has a website where you can buy his flours.

http://www.tedsorganicgrains.com

Kennyz wrote:

toria wrote:Is the celery root essential? Can potatoes like Yukon gold be substituted?

No rules. You can use anything you like: celery root, yukon golds, turnips, rutabagas, onions, parsley root, brussels sprouts all come to mind as good alternatives. I wouldn't leave out the cabbage though.

This was fantastic as Kenny laid it out, down to the Mornay sauce. I'm not even a sauce lover, but this was great, plus I hadn't cooked celery root before so now I've got another vegetable I want to cook.

I made a "faux" version of this as I did not have buckwheat lasagna noodles. I got whole wheat lasagne from Target that only needs baking not cooking. In the end it looked somewhat similar. I did not use sage but I made a white sauce with sauted onion and garlic and the roux was made from bacon fat.

I assembled the dish similarly but used chopped swiss chard instead. I also had the yukon gold potatoes. I put the white sauce between layers and then parmesan cheese. I also put pieces of cooked bacon in the dish as I layered. Basically I used what I had in the house.

Well it was not the same dish but it was good and inspired by your dish. I'll try making the buckwheat noodles at some point so I can make the real thing.

Minus the buckwheat, plus mushrooms, a very similar recipe supposedly Swedish inspired in today's New York Times:

http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/22/the-temporary-vegetarian-cabbage-and-mushroom-lasagna/?hp

Yes exactly very very similar to what I made.

The recipe sounds tasty, though from my reading not very close at all to the one I wrote to start the thread. Not only is there no buckwheat (which really is what defines pizzoccheri) - there's no pasta of any kind.

Whoops - my mistake. With all the other ingredients so similar and calling it "lasagne", I completely skipped over the lack of any pasta at all.