COOKING FROM -- MARCELLA HAZAN Books & Recipes

Cooking Discussions Cooking, Cookbooks, Ingredients
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Hi Onions

Welcome to the new “Cooking From” tag and series!

There has been some interest for a while now to have something akin to the “Cooking From” threads on Chowhound – to cook together from classic, new, popular, or obscure authors, blogs, and books that don’t fit easily or work well for other formats, (COTM / COTQ, BCOTM, etc.).

Given the recent excitement on the Marcella Hazan thread, that’s as a good a place to start as any!

So let’s use this thread to report what you make (or have enjoyed making) from her recipes.

Let’s try and follow the recipe format on other reporting threads to make this useful as a future resource:

Please use ALL CAPS for the recipe name, note the name of the book or other source of the recipe, and add a recipe link if you can find one.

If someone else reported on the recipe before you, please REPLY to that post rather than start a new one (so all posts for a given recipe are linked together and can be followed easily via the helpful linking arrows the site software enables).

Pictures are always fun, though not required.

Happy cooking – and sharing!

(There is a Master List of Cooking From threads here for future reference.)

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Here’s the thread that brought us here:

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And an old cook-along thread on Marcella Hazan:

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Eat Your Books list of Marcella books & searchable recipe indices:

https://www.eatyourbooks.com/library?q=marcella%20hazan&sort=number_of_bookshelves%20desc

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BAKED GREEN LASAGNE WITH MEAT SAUCE, BOLOGNESE STYLE
aka
LASAGNE BOLOGNESE
(“Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking”)

This thing is a masterpiece, but a labor of love. It’s not hard, but it has many steps, so it becomes easy if you break up the components. Only my second time making it (I tackled it first during the pandemic, when time was aplenty :sweat_smile:)

I did not make the pasta, in fact I substituted wonton noodles this time because I was curious about how they would work (last time I used fresh pasta sheets, but not green even then).

I did make her bolognese recipe and her bechamel recipe.

After that, it’s just layering. (I did a high stack because I’m preoccupied with the 100 layer lasagne at the moment :joy:)

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BOLOGNESE SAUCE
(“Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking”)

This recipe takes time, but not that much effort. Always delicious, and imho better the next day.

There are some variations iirc between different editions of the book in terms of the meat (beef vs beef & pork), when the milk goes in, and quantity of tomatoes. (The one I like is low on tomatoes, I think the milk going in first makes the meat more tender, and I used pork & beef the first time but either beef only or beef & turkey after that.)

I cook the first part of the recipe as written (milk, wine) but often speed up the the part after the tomatoes go in with a pressure cooker to no detriment.

I cooked the bolognese sauce specifically for her lasagne this week, but I have about half left which I’ll enjoy with tagliatelle.

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Sliced this tall thing and seared it to finish for dinner tonight – not per Marcella’s recipe, but to fulfill a 100-layer lasagne rabbit hole.

A bit of extra bolognese to serve never hurt anyone either!

Absolutely delicious. The sear added a lovely caramelization and crunch.

In case anyone is wondering about the wonton wrappers – they were lovely and delicate, but a slippery and tear-prone pain to handle. I’ll go back to fresh or dried sheets next time, much easier.

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Crespelle con il ragù pg. 178 “The Classic Italian Cook Book”

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Much depends on your bolognese as this is a very straightforward dish. One cup of ragù is mixed with 2T béchamel for the filling. ( This struck me as a little stingy.) I had made crepes that were about 8” and I filled each (8 in total) with about 2T of the sauce. The remaining half cup of ragù is mixed with 1/2 c béchamel, then spread over the crespelle. I resisted the temptation to spread a layer of béchamel over this as it looked a little underwhelming. The ragù/ béchamel is then topped with grated Parmesan and a little butter, placed on the top shelf for 5 minutes and then run under the broiler. I decided to MW instead, covered, on half power as I felt the lack of sauce would not survive the albeit short time in the oven. I did run it under the broiler very, very briefly.
This was pleasant to eat as the bolognese was very flavorful, but for the two that I didn’t cook, I’ll be definitely adding a layer of béchamel and
grated Parmesan over the ragù/béchamel topping.
ETA. 6” crespelle would be a better choice.

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Lovely!

I made crespelle several years ago and loved it, but haven’t made a stack of crepes I needed to use up again since haha

I agree that smaller crepes work better

The other thing she mentions somewhere is that you can fold the crepes into quarters instead of rolling them into cylinders, which might work better in terms of a small amount of filling per crepe not seeming insufficient

(After my stacked lasagna, I was also thinking that stacked crespelle might work very nicely – like a Lady M crepe cake, but deliciously savory!)

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I have made her crepe stack more than several years ago, several times in fact…pre Lady M :joy:. I make crepes frequently, so it’s a quick prep for me. I like crepes wrapped around fat asparagus with a Mornay sauce.
ETA…and yes I’ve made the triangle shaped ones, frequently called fazzoletti, I like them with a lamb ragu.
The stacked cake is in her second book, iirc , it’s prosciutto, mozzarella and tomato sauce. I’ve riffed on that with more elaborate fillings.

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Haha of course it is :smiley:

I have Essentials, but I haven’t spent much time with the others. Good opportunity to explore with this thread.

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I was underbthe impression that Essentials was a combining of her first two books , plus a few more recipes.