The Neapolitan ragù, the scarpariello, the puttanesca ... popular and even family recipes ... the De Laurentiis family.
It is called "Ciak… .Azione… A Tavola: The recipes of the De Laurentiis house" the book that mixes anecdotes and recipes written by
Giovanni Cimmino De Laurentiis
, son of Dino's sister, Anna, who grew up as he says in bread and cinema .
It is a journey into memory, which tells a century and a half of the history of the De Laurentiis family, through home recipes.
Leafing through it between one dish and another, the protagonists of the great Italian cinema meet, from Alberto Sordi to Anna Magnani, from Vittorio Gassman and Nino Manfredi and many others.
Each recipe is linked to a member of the family, a film, a character, as well as unpublished memories of family members or some friends.
Since childhood, Giovanni Cimmino De Laurentiis has frequented Villa Catena, the sumptuous home of his uncle Dino De Laurentiis, a meeting point for all the great filmmakers of the time.
Then once he grew up he worked for 40 years as a Music Supervisor in the cinema, making 87 soundtracks and following more than 50 record productions.
In 2012 he combined his two great passions, cooking and cinema, creating Movie Chef, a dinner show where the dishes that have been the protagonists of some great films of Italian cinema are proposed again.
Over the years he has collected testimonies, photographs, documents but also more than 900 recipes that have been given to him by his grandparents, uncles, and obviously by his mother Anna.
Here is the recipe for Scarpatiello, the famous spaghetti with tomato sauce
Scarpatiello For 4 people • 1 kg of fresh cherry tomatoes • oil to taste • 100 gr of Parmesan cheese • 1 clove of garlic • A bunch of basil • 400 gr of fusilli or macaroni
As a first process, rinse and finely chop the basil, place it in a container together with 50 grams of Parmesan, mixing everything well.
We place the container in the fridge for about an hour;
this step will help to get a strong flavor to the dish.
We put a pot of water on the fire and bring it to a boil.
We wash, trim and cut the cherry tomatoes into four parts.
We crush a clove of garlic in a shirt, or without removing the peel, and let it fry in a pan with oil.
Once the garlic is golden, remove it and, removing the pan from the heat, add the cherry tomatoes.
We continue cooking them over low heat for 15 minutes, and mash them well;
if we see that the sauce is drying, I recommend adding a little water to the pasta.
At this point the water in the pot will be boiling, add some salt and drop the pasta.
Drain the pasta al dente, keeping the cooking water.
Put the flame on high and bring the sauce to a boil and then drop the pasta into it.
We mix everything with a spoon, preferably a wooden one, and gradually add the cooking water to make the sauce more creamy.
When we see that it is thickening, we skip the contents and add the basil and parmesan mixture (with the heat off).
We put the pasta in a nice serving dish and add, as a finishing touch, the rest of the leftover Parmesan.
Put the flame on high and bring the sauce to a boil and then drop the pasta into it.
We mix everything with a spoon, preferably a wooden one, and gradually add the cooking water to make the sauce more creamy.
When we see that it is thickening, we skip the contents and add the basil and parmesan mixture (with the heat off).
We put the pasta in a nice serving dish and add, as a finishing touch, the rest of the leftover Parmesan.
Put the flame on high and bring the sauce to a boil and then drop the pasta into it.
We mix everything with a spoon, preferably a wooden one, and gradually add the cooking water to make the sauce more creamy.
When we see that it is thickening, we skip the contents and add the basil and parmesan mixture (with the heat off).
We put the pasta in a nice serving dish and add, as a finishing touch, the rest of the leftover Parmesan.
With this simple recipe, Dino conquered America
.
Previously he also made a furore in Italy;
Dino's spaghetti were famous, in fact, throughout Italian cinema
.
His wife, Silvana Mangano, ate very little and often Dino, as a sign of love, said:
“Silvanella!
can I make you a scarpatiello?
".
She smiled, but reclined the invitation.
Another teacher of this delicious dish was Dino's sister: Rosa.
Like all the women of the De Laurentiis family she was a great cook, with a strong and combative character, taken over by her mother.
Before marrying Giuseppe Balzano, of whom she will remain a widow at a very young age, Rosa was president of the FUCI (Italian Catholic University Federation) of Torre Annunziata.
The name Rosa is very common in our family;
Aurelio and Giuseppina both had a sister named after them.
Surely because it is a typical name of the south.
Furthermore, Giuseppina's sister, Rosa known as Rosinella, from family memories and from what I remember her, was a failed comic actress.
Aunt Rosinella, small in stature, I've always seen her with dizzying stiletto heels,
he had the ability to always find the comic aspect in everything.
I always remember her very elegant and smiling.
Returning to the scarpatiello, its name literally means scarparo, or cobbler: it is said that the dish, precisely because of its speed, was prepared by the cobblers' wives.
If we have to be honest ... When Neapolitans eat scarpatiello, they can't resist
making the classic shoe with bread
;
here is the other hypothesis for the etymology of the name.