Team Eats: PARMA – Erbazzone

Back by popular demand, Team Eats is a culinary guide to cooking and consuming the opposition. Each week, we pick a recipe from the home cuisine of Juve’s upcoming adversary, put on the kitchen apron and… cook it and eat it. Buon Appetito!

Welcome to a Special Guest-Episode of TeamEATS!

Not many people know that aside from being one of the men behind the Juventus Offside, our friend John Cascarano is actually a fantastic cook. Raised on typical Southern cuisine (garlic, tomatoes, olives, olive oil…), his passion of *eating* delicious meals in the living room has, well, translated to *preparing* them in the kitchen. :) When we here at JuventiKnows asked him to guest star in this episode of TeamEATS, he was thrilled to join the fun! Enjoy!

This week Juventus travel to Parma, in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. Parma is known for, above all, its cured meats and cheeses, as well as stuffed pasta. Most popular and beloved is the famous Prosciutto di Parma, a delicious dry-cured ham served thinly-sliced and uncooked. For today’s dish however – Erbazzone (or Herb Sandwiches) – we’ll use another type of cured meat: pancetta, my favorite form of bacon.

First things first: whenever I cook I need a soundtrack and a glass of wine. Originally, I went with Marco Masini’s Collezione, but cooking while listening to songs about topics such as child abuse made me uncomfortable, so I eventually switched to Andrea Bocelli.

For libation, I went of course with a red (a nice, crisp Pinot Noir).

Before we begin, credit where credit is due: the recipe for Erbazzone we’re using today is from the great Mario Batali.

Ingredients

DOUGH (or just buy dough from the store)
• 2 cups All-Purpose Flour
• 1/2 cup Cake Flour
• 1/4 teaspoon Salt
• 5 tablespoons high-quality Lard or Unsalted Butter (chilled)
• 3 tablespoons Extra-Virgin Olive Oil (chilled)
• 7 to 10 tablespoons Cold Water

FILLING
• 5 ounces thinly-sliced Pancetta (minced)
• 3 large cloves Garlic (minced)
• 1 medium Red Onion (cut into ¼-inch dice)
• Black Pepper (freshly-ground)
• 2 tablespoons Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
• 2 1/2 pounds fresh Spinach, Beet Greens, or Swiss Chard Leaves (dry & chopped)
• 1 1/2 to 2 cups Parmigiano-Reggiano (freshly-grated)
• Salt
• 2 large Eggs (beaten)
• Mozzarella (optional)

GARLIC OIL
• 2 tablespoons high-quality Lard or Extr-Virgin Olive Oil
• 1 clove Garlic (minced)

Modifications:

• Despite the recipe for dough, I bought already-made whole wheat dough directly from the grocery store. Why? Several reasons:
  1. I’m too lazy;
  2. Whole grains > white dough any day, and;
  3. I’ve never bought lard in my life, and I never will.
• I took a bit of liberty with the ingredient amounts: a similar favorite dish of mine, pasta alla carbonara, typically calls for both more pancetta than I normally use, so I went with 1 1/2 to 2 onions (rather than a full 3).
• I used frozen fully-cooked spinach rather than fresh, because I forgot to buy fresh spinach (and I didn’t feel like going back out).

Directions

1. First, preheat the oven to 400ºF and get the ingredients together. Cut the pancetta nice and thin, and keep some of the fat on there as it helps keep everything moist. Chop it up as finely as you can. (If you happen to be like me and have pancetta in the freezer, the process will be much easier; if you’re a normal human being however, you probably don’t, so proceed very carefully and don’t let your knife slip on the soft pork, let’s not cut any fingers today).

2. Mince the onions as finely as you can. I actually prefer to keep them in bigger chunks, but if you want the onions finely-minced a good way to do it is to use a cheese grater.

3. Now make the sandwich filling. In a small bowl, combine about 1/4 cup of the pancetta with a little of the garlic, about 1/4 cup of the onion, and a generous amount of pepper. Set aside.

4. Cook the remaining pancetta in the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-low heat. After the pancetta has cooked for about 5 minutes, add the onion and press the garlic right into the pan. Cover and cook slowly over low heat for 15 minutes (or until softened). Uncover, raise the heat to high for about 5-6 minutes or until golden brown, then add the spinach and continue cooking for a further 3-6 minutes.

5. Once the pancetta mixture is done, move it to a bowl and let it cool (I put it in the fridge for a couple of minutes). Beat the eggs, and add with Parmiggiano-Reggiano to the pancetta mixture once it’s cooled. The filling is ready, time for the bread!

6. Split the dough into 2 pieces, knead it, and spread it out over a pan (I did it in a circular shape). Spread the pancetta mixture onto the bottom piece (BONUS TIP – I added a light sprinkle of mozzarella on top). Cover the top with the other half of the dough, pinch the sides, and fold inwards. Cut holes on top for ventilation. Bake for 20 minutes on the lowest rack in the oven.

7. While you wait for the dough to cook, make the garlic oil: take a touch more olive oil and cook it with some garlic over a medium heat for 2 minutes. After the dough has been in the oven for 20 minutes, remove it and brush (or spoon) the garlic oil on top. Put in back in the oven for an another 20 minutes.

8. Consume. Pretend every scent of the warm, garlicky dough is a cross from Stephan Lichtsteiner floating with pinpoint precision into the opposing box. And every salty bite is a complaint from Sebastian Giovinco about his lack of playing time at Juventus (sorry, couldn’t resist).

This sandwich is awesome. It’s literally one of the best things I’ve ever put into my mouth (TWSS)! Not only does this make for a delicious meal, but it’s also a lot of fun to make.

Be sure to post pics of your creations in the comments below!

A few words from THE AUTHOR

I was born the son of Italian immigrants (my father from Bari, my mother from Calabria) in Northern New Jersey, about 10 miles west of New York City. My cousins on the Barese side own a restaurant in Kenilworth, NJ, and one of their daughters, my lovely cousin Tiziana, recently started her own blog dedicated to her passion for food and cooking. So culinary arts may be in my blood… perhaps it’s genetic!

I grew up on typical southern cuisine: tomatoes, olives, and olive oil were in most of my meals, and I’m glad for it. I’ve always enjoyed cuisine from regions where meats are used more scarcely and other local, and fresh ingredients take center stage (thai food for example, is one of my favorites). This is certainly also true of the Mediterranean cuisine that I was raised on, with the fresh tomatoes, basil, peppers, and other vegetables growing just as easily in our backyard in the New Jersey sun as they would on a rocky cliff-side of the old country.

I consider myself a Terrone down to my very soul, yet like many others who grew up in Southern Italy my father developed a healthy love for the Old Lady, up in Turin. That’s about as Northern as I get (well, that and my soulless, Northern wife). Of course as luck would have it, I was asked to do TeamEATS right for Juve’s trip to Parma (a city in the land of cream, butter, and cured meats), which harbors a type of cuisine that isn’t typically my first-choice to cook or eat (always nice once in a while though). When my wife directed me to the recipe she found for Erbazzone – a dish combining some of my favorite ingredients (fresh leafy greens, morsels of cured pancetta) – I knew I should search no more.

I would like to extend a big THANK YOU to my friends at JuventiKnows, for inviting me over to guest-star on this week’s episode. This was great fun! FORZA JUVE and…

★ BUON APPETITO ★

You can read John Cascarano on the Juventus Offside and follow him on Twitter (@johncas1014).