Carne Macinata Sfizioza

L

ast Wednesday evening, my next door neighbor, his girlfriend, and I gathered in the kitchen at my landlady's house to try to figure out supper for the evening. Regular readers will recall that the previous weekend, we were all laid low by illness, and none of us had done any serious shopping since.

MEDICAL UPDATE: My neighbor's girlfriend and I are perfectly fine, but doctors have determined that he and my landlady have bilateral pneumonia. We feel that's a good thing, though, because now they can take antibiotics specific to their pathology. The cough elixir with codeine doesn't hurt either.

As she was rummaging through her refrigerator, my landlady discovered a pound of hamburg that was about to turn toward heading one-eight-zero, as we say in this nautical community. In worldly terms, it was about to go south. Since I was going to cook, I was given the responsibility of figuring out what to do with it.

Except for the obvious—meatballs—I hadn't spent much time thinking about what Italians do with hamburg. Oh sure, ragù alla Bolognese, and the Sicilian dish, farsu magru came to mind; but among all of our kitchens, we couldn't put together the ingredients for either.

It didn't take much fishing around the Web, though, to discover this recipe. My problem, was translating the word, sfizioza.

I had never heard it before; it wasn't in either of my Italian-English dictionaries; and I didn't get any help from Google. But the kind folks in the language forums at Virtual Italia dot com, and Word Reference dot com provided me with helpful assistance.

It turns out that sfizioza is a derivative of the noun, sfizio, whim. So it seems reasonable to consider the translation of this dish to be 'hamburg made on a whim.'

And indeed, there's no more to this dish than sautéeing some onion and celery, adding some parsley and other herbs of your choice, coooking the hamburg, and finishing it with some marinara.

I wound up serving this dish with some plain, boiled Arborio rice, which caused my neighbor to remark, "Wow, this tastes like what the original makers of Hamburger Helper must have had in mind. But they couldn't have come up with this dish in their wildest fantasies."

Carne Macinata Sfizioza
Hamburg 'on a Whim' (Adapted)

2 Tbs. Extra-virgin olive oil
1 Medium onion, finely diced
2 Stalks celery, thinly sliced
4 Tbs. Flat-leaf Italian parsley, finely chopped
2 Tbs. Assorted herbs (Thyme, tarragon, oregano, etc.) optional
1 Lb. Ground Beef
1 Cup marinara
Salt & freshly ground black pepper

Preparation

Heat a large sauté pan over medium-high heat, then add the oil. Add the onion, celery, half the parsley, and the assorted herbs (optional), and sauté until the onion has softened and become translucent; about five minutes.

Add the hamburg, breaking it up with a wooden spoon, and sauté until it has lost all pinkness. Season with salt and pepper, and add the marinara. Stir well to combine, re-season if necessary, lower the heat to allow the mixture to barely simmer, and cook for approximately twenty minutes.

To Serve

Divide equally among four dinner plates, garnish with the remaining parsley, and serve with boiled rice.

Serves four

Technorati tags: Italian Food, Italian Recipes, Skip Lombardi