Cooking with Crosby Roamann: Orecchiette with White Bolognese

 

I love the San Francisco Bay, truly and with my whole heart, and I love this city on a hill where we are currently living, but if I'm being honest, I've never really loved the north bay, and I don't know why. I guess a part of me felt that I was "City & Country" but not "suburb" -- and the North Bay felt too suburban to me (the same goes for the south and the east bay, although the east bay less so -- I could sort of see myself in Oakland, it reminding me as it does of Brooklyn). And you know lately that has started to change. For one thing, I am a real sucker for farmers markets, and there is a fantastic one at the Larkspur Landing mall which I have become addicted to. I think I'll have to write a full post on this market and all the great stuff we've found there, but for the time being, getting back to my point this morning, I wanted to highlight one of my favorite new vendors that I found there -- Mill Valley Pasta Co.

"Mill Valley Pasta Co. is a project by Chef Tony Adams in Mill Valley, California. Using local organic ingredients" Tony turns out beauitfully crafted artisan pastas that are becoming my go-to for Sunday Italian night dinners -- and they're made from organic flour, which is great for someone who doesn't tolerate enriched flour like me! Inspired by the White Bolognese at Pearl 6101 -- https://www.pearl6101.com/ -- I put together this little recipe (adapted from Food&Wine Magazine's Nicole Hopper) featuring Orecchiette from Mill Valley Pasta co.

Ingredients--

• 3+ tablespoons olive oil and about the same butter
• 4 ounces pancetta
• 9+ large sage leaves
• One yellow onion finely chopped
• 1 small carrot finely chopped
• 1 half sprig celery finely chopped (eat the rest!)
• 5 garlic cloves sliced very thin
• a bay leaf or two
• 1 teaspoon fresh chopped rosemary (not stalk)
• 1 teaspoon fresh chopped thyme (not stalk)
• 1 pound lean ground beef
• 1 pound ground veal (or substitute pork like my kids request -- Save the baby cows! haha)
• Half a bottle of good dry white wine
• A box of beef stock (or 3 cups of your own homemade bone broth ;)
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• Kosher salt
• Freshly cracked black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• One bag Mill Valley Pasta Co pasta -- we used Orecchiette

Directions--

• First, fry most of your sage leaves (leave two or three depending on their size) in olive oil a little on each side until they're nice and crispy and slighlty browned at the edges and set them aside on paper towels. This is the garnish.
• In the remaining oil, saute the pancetta till crispy.
• Just before it browns, add your butter, and then saute your onion, celery, and carrot to sweat them soft.
• Add garlic, and saute a couple minutes more until it starts to crisp up and the onions and carrots just start to lightly brown.
• And herbs, including two or three chopped sage leaves, and kosher salt to tatse, and stir together, letting these infuse their flavors in the vegetables.
• Add your meats and brown these over medium heat, blending the vegetables slowly in.
• When the meat is no longer pink, slowly stir in your white wine and cook off the alcohol, scraping up the brown bits and bringing everything together in a nice meat base for the sauce.
• Now, add your stock and bring it to a simmer, then reduce the heat to a low gentle simmer -- cover and let it cook for an hour.
• Uncover and continue to cook until the stock has mostly evaporated.
• Remove the bay leaves.
• Gently stir in your cream and bring the sauce all together -- taste and adjust your salt and freshly cracked pepper.
• Now cook your pasta in a large stock pot, and when it has been strained, return the pasta to its stock pot and add your pasta sauce, stirring everything together.
• Plate with the fried sage garnish leaves.