Pasta with Gorgonzola

With Felicia Mohan

Gorgonzola is a favorite cheese to cook with or serve in many Italian homes. It is popular in risotto and on polenta but perhaps nothing is as popular as making this cream sauce and serving over pasta. This is one of Felicia Ciaramitaro Mohan’s favorite family recipes. Like many, she prefers serving over a short tubular pasta such as penne instead of something like spaghetti or linguine.

Gorgonzola is a blue cheese that originated in Italy sometime around 800 AD, having been originally made by hanging the cheese moulds in large caves to ripen. Today the cheese is manufactured by injecting the moulds right into the cheese as it begins to age. Traditionally, Gorgonzola is made with raw cow's milk, although pasteurized and sheep's milk versions of the cheese are also available. The greenish blue penicillin mould in the cheese imparts a very distinctive sharp and spicy smell that contrasts with the creamy white cheese surrounding it.

When buying Gorgonzola it is usually wrapped in foil or plastic wrap in order to keep it moist. The color of the cheese ranges from white (younger) to a yellow that is the color of straw with a marbled green or bluish-green mould running throughout the cheese. The taste can range from mild for the younger versions to sharp for the older aged cheeses.

Cheese aged for about three months is called Gorgonzola Dolce, or sweet Gorgonzola. It has a creamier texture and a milder flavor. Sweet Gorgonzola is used as a spread on crackers or bread and does not have the strong smell that the older Gorgonzola possesses.

Gorgonzola that has been aged six months or more is known as Gorgonzola Piccante, or Mountain Gorgonzola. The texture of this older version of the cheese is more flaky and crumbly, and has a much stronger flavor. This version tends to be spicier, with a bite that is considered delicious when added to salads and other dishes such as pasta in need of extra zest.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon of butter
¾ cup heavy cream
1 cup Gorgonzola cheese
1 pound penne pasta
¼ -1/2 cup toasted walnuts
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary

Instructions

1. Bring medium size pot water to a boil, add I tablespoon kosher salt, and bring water back to a boil. Add penne to boiling water.
2. In a fry pan melt butter over medium/high heat
3. Add Gorgonzola cheese, and continually stir until sauce thickens.
4. Place walnuts in a separate fry pan over medium/high heat. Move walnut around pan by tossing, and stirring. Keep the walnuts moving to prevent burning. Note: When you begin to smell the walnut oil you know they are perfectly toasted and quickly remove from heat. Set aside
5. Strain penne in a colander, and return it to the warm pot.
6. Add warm Gorgonzola cheese sauce over penne.
7. Using a large spoon fold penne carefully with the creamy sauce and pour into a large serving bowl/platter.
8. Top the pasta with the toasted walnuts. Finish by garnishing with a sprinkling of fresh rosemary.

Recipe courtesy of Felicia (Ciaramitaro) Mohan, 2011.

From "Food For Thought" Column by Heather Atwood: Felicia Mohan lives in a sparkling new house in Gloucester, and has twin 11-year-olds: Amanda, playing 12-year-old tennis and ranked No. 32 in New England, and B.J., a catcher for AAU Baseball who will play in the Gloucester All-Star 11-year-old team. Felicia looks like a beautiful, modern mother, struggling to get her kids where they need to go while keeping up with life at home, but Felicia is also adamant about preserving her family's Sicilian heritage, particularly the dishes her grandmother, another Felicia, prepared. Felicia Mohan's grandfathers were named Joseph Salvatore Ciaramitaro — both of them, spelled the exact same way. One Joseph fished first from his boat The Benjamin and Josephine, which was sunk by a German U-boat off the coast of Maine, and then he fished from his Benjamin C, named after his father-in-law, Benjamin Cucuru. Later he founded Capt'n Joe's Lobster Co. on the wharf in Gloucester, now run by Felicia's brother, Joey, and cousin Frankie. Felicia's other grandfather owned Pat's Center Grocery, that not only sold groceries but provided all the fishing boats with food for their long trips, delivering the "speza," as the supplies were called, to each boat before it left port.
Grandpa with the wharf was married to Felicia's namesake. Holidays at this Felicia's house began a full week ahead as all the women in the family gathered at her home, which had two full kitchens, to cook together. When school let out at 3, the children went straight to Grandma's house that week because that's where their mothers were cooking. Not only were these women making all the traditional Italian holiday foods, from appetizers such as octopus salad, a standard which the men insisted upon at every holiday, to a wealth of Italian cookies, homemade bread, and New World foods such as pies, but the women were also making ordinary dinners those weeknights for all their husbands and children. Felicia and Joseph have passed away. Now, holiday meals are at young Felicia's, where 35 to 40 people come to celebrate. Felicia, like her grandmother, still sets a formal table with china and linen; her custom-built table seats 25, with two more tables in the great room for overflow, replacing her grandmother's enormous table that started in the kitchen, extended through the dining room, the hallway and ended at the living room. In her large, creamy, new kitchen, Felicia still makes dishes like braciole, spiedini, and olive gonzathe. She makes videos for this newspaper showing how to prepare her grandmother's special bread crumbs, "mudiga," with chicken and steak. This past December, Felicia gathered all the cousins together to make their great-grandmother's Santa Lucia dessert, "cuccia," a vanilla pudding made with wheatberries which the playful great-grandmother had always encouraged the children to eat in a race. Contact Heather at heatheraa@aol.com. Her blog is at gloucestertimes.com/foodforthought