How to Make a 4-Course Italian Dinner Like a Restaurant | Julia at Home

Arancini (fried risotto balls), a beef ragu, arugula salad, and pistachio cannoli. In this episode of Julia at Home you’ll learn how to make this classic set of Italian-inspired dishes.

Arancini (Risotto Ball) Recipe: https://cooks.io/3GIzLw4
Beef Ragu Recipe: https://cooks.io/4jJnypC
Arugula and Fig Salad Recipe: https://cooks.io/43149sV
Pistachio Cannoli Recipe: https://cooks.io/3F0wEPu

Get exclusive access to every recipe, review, and more: https://cooks.io/3RMYqlz

Sign up for our free newsletters to receive more delicious recipes, cooking tips, and exclusive content: https://cooks.io/42Zfbz0

ABOUT US: Located in Boston’s Seaport District in the historic Innovation and Design Building, America’s Test Kitchen features 15,000 square feet of kitchen space including multiple photography and video studios. It is the home of Cook’s Illustrated magazine and Cook’s Country magazine and is the workday destination for more than 60 test cooks, editors, and cookware specialists. Our mission is to test recipes over and over again until we understand how and why they work and until we arrive at the best version.

If you like us, follow us:
http://americastestkitchen.com
http://facebook.com/americastestkitchen
Tweets by TestKitchen
http://instagram.com/testkitchen
http://pinterest.com/testkitchen

[Music] Today we’re going to crank things up a bit with some fun recipes that all have an Italian flare. Starting off with aranchchini, which are deep fried balls of risoto that are stuffed with mozzarella that get all gooey as they fry. Then we’re going to make a ragu. And this is the beefiest ragu I’ve ever had. It has short ribs, a little bit of tomato, and some warm spices. You serve that over rietoni alongside a salad with arugula and figs. And that pairing is perfect. And to top it off, I’m gonna show you how easy it is to make canoli at home. And if you make nothing else, but you bring these to a party, you’re an ultimate rock star. So to get started with the aranchchini, you first have to make risoto. And I imagine this recipe probably came about cuz someone had leftover risoto. Risoto doesn’t reheat that well. So what you can do when it’s cold, much like palenta, you can shape it and fry it. But if you want to make enough aranchchini to feed a crowd, you need to make a big batch of risoto. Now here I have saffron risoto, which is my favorite kind. And I made it and I chilled it overnight so that we can use it today to make aranchchini. So using some vegetable oil spray. This is a half cup measure. This is not wimpy little bites of aranchchini. This is the real deal. They’re nice and sizable. So going into the chilled risotto, you can see those starches have set up. So, it’s really malleable. Going to use half cup measure. You can grease your hands or you can wet your hands. So, you want to make a patty about 3 in. And you want to compact it. You really want to get all the air out of that risoto. That just helps it hold together as it fries. Now, to fill it with cheese, you can fill it with all sorts of kinds of cheese. Fontino works well, even proolone. I love using straight up mozzarella. So, you put three pieces of the cheese right in the center. And now you just want to mold the risoto around the cheese. So you want the cheese to be in the center. There you go. And this is actually pretty easy. And then what I like to do is just compact it with my hands. Make it nice and round. All right, there you go. Time to make more. This whole batch should make about 14 or so. More importantly, you want them to be the same size so that they fry at the same rate and that cheese gets good and melty. I’ve had these where they’re really small, bite-size, sort of cocktail size. I see that sometimes in restaurants, and that’s lovely. You can obviously make these smaller and use one piece of cheese if you want, but I really appreciate this nice sizable aranchchini. And I think it’s probably more traditional. Now, the thing about this, it does take a little time to assemble all these arenchini, but you can easily do them ahead of time. They’ll hold in the fridge for at least 24 hours, or you can freeze them. All the aranchchini have been shaped. It’s time to coat them with breadcrumbs. First you roll them in a little beaten egg and then you roll them in breadcrumbs. Now these breadrumbs have been processed to a nice fine consistency and tossed with a few seasonings like parsley and some cayenne to add a little flavor. All right, have the last few balls to bread here. As you can see, I’ve really taken my time making sure they’re nice and evenly coated. This is not a rush job. This is a weekend thing. Get the whole family involved. Get the kids involved. I mean, it’s it’s kind of like playing in the kitchen. Just enough breadcrumbs. I love it when there’s just enough breadcrumbs to do the last risoto ball, but you don’t have a lot left over. All right, there’s that last one. As good as the first. Now, time to clean up and heat up the oil so we can get frying. Now, I have 2 in of vegetable oil that’s been heating up. And you want it to register 375°. Now, that oil temperature is going to drop as you add the aranchchini. We’re going to fry them in batches, about five per batch. adding them gently to the oil to prevent any splattering. Now, you want these to cook for about 5 minutes because that’s enough time for the heat to get to the center of the aranchchini and melt the cheese. You don’t want the oil to get too hot or else they’ll get too brown before that happens. So, look for the oil to be 350 and adjust the heat or turn it off as you need to. It’s been 5 minutes. I’ve been stirring them gently as they cook just to make sure they brown evenly. Picture perfect. You can see that little bit of cheese coming out the side. That’s good because that means it’s melted in the middle. So now we’re going to put them on a paper towel line tray. Let them cool a bit. Let’s bring that oil back to 375° and we can fry the rest of them. Oh, picture perfect. Aren’t they gorgeous? Still nice and warm. And because we were careful about that frying temperature, the first batch, this mozzarella is still going to be nice and melted. All right, onto a nice big platter. I like serving these just with lemon wedges because we spent the time and money to make saffron risoto, but you could also serve it with a marinara sauce. That’s lovely, too. This at a party. Absolute rockstar status. I mean, that’s just cool. If you show if people showed up at your house, you’re like, “Oh, here. Have some homemade aranchchini.” All right, time to cut one open. A little lemon wedge. Hello. That is just what you want. The lemon. M. Give the saffron, the mozzarella, and that crust nice and crisp. And it has that even color and texture because the crumbs are processed. And if you think about it, it’s just rice with mozzarella that’s been deep fried. So, it really appeals to everybody. And it’s the perfect starter for an Italianstyle family meal. Love what you’re watching? Take your cooking to the next level with our essential membership. Get instant access to thousands of recipes, tips, techniques, product reviews, and step-by-step videos. Our members app allows you to search by ingredient, set dietary preferences, and save your favorite recipes. For those looking to level up, our newest feature, ATK classes, offers more in-depth instruction led by ATK experts, so you can gain greater confidence in the kitchen. Start your free trial by visiting the app store or going to americaskitchen.com/youtube today. Now for the beef ragu. And this is one of the meatiest ragos yet. My friend who loves beef is just joining me in the kitchen. Hey, Ziggs knows it’s short ribs. One of his favorites. Oh, hi. You smell the beef? Not yet, buds. Not yet. Short ribs. They take a while to cook. They need to braze for a long time, but it winds up getting these beautiful shreds of tender beef that mix with the pasta, and they add so much flavor. So, in order to get this beef nice and tender, it needs to braze for two 2 and 1/2 hours. So, we’re going to build the brazing liquid, which would then be the sauce. So, here I have an onion that’s been sautéing. It’s lightly browned and softened, which is perfect. Now, we’re going to build some flavor in the sauce with a little tomato paste. About a tablespoon. That looks good. All right. So, now we’re going to add two cloves of garlic through the press right into the pot. You want three anchovi fillets. Now, I rinsed and chopped those up. That just adds a nice meaty backbone to the sauce. Just want to sauté this about 30 seconds till it smells nice and good. Now, for a somewhat unusual ingredient, we’re going to add some fivespice powder. Half a teaspoon of that. And if you think about it, that’s not an Italian ingredient, but this is a very Italian meal. Now, there is a traditional sauce that uses warm spices like cinnamon and nutmeg, and it tastes delicious with the beef and tomato. Now today we’re just cranking it up a little bit and moving to five spice powder which includes both of those but it also has some star anannis and some sichuan peppercorns. So it just adds a little kick which I think is fun. So you just want to cook that fivespice and tomato paste and garlic until a fond forms on the bottom of the pot. That’s the building of flavor. And you can see that’s already happening when I scrape the pot. You can see the white underneath. That’s starting to get a little dark in the corner which means time to add some liquids. Here I have some red wine. Half a cup. Any kind of red wine will do here. I like cooking with blends of red wine because I like when you reduce their flavor down, you get a nice even flavor. And actually, I buy box wine specifically for cooking because it has such a long shelf life. And it has a little spigot so you could just put your measuring cup right under and measure out exactly what you need. We’re going to let that wine cook out for a few minutes, which gives us some time to talk about porchinis. Now, this recipe calls for half an ounce of porchinis, which is actually a lot of porchinis, even though it doesn’t sound like much. And they’re usually sold in little bags like this in the produce section. So, they’re easy to miss. And the one thing you have to do before you cook with them is give them a rinse. Get rid of any dirt that’s on them. And you usually want to rehydrate them, which is what I’ve done here. Now, I’ve put them with half a cup of beef broth because we’re making a beef ragu. Microwaved it for about a minute. Got it nice and hot. And then I’ve just been letting them sit off the heat here to get nice and soft. And look at these. These are gorgeous. See that nice big piece of mushroom? That’s what you want to look for when you’re buying them. And I’m going to pull them out of the liquid with a fork. Now, I’m doing this because dried mushrooms are notoriously gritty. That grit almost gets dried in the folds of the mushroom. So, we’re going to use this liquid cuz this liquid has a ton of flavor. But, we’re going to strain it first through a coffee filter because we want to get out any of that grit. So, pulling out the mushrooms with a fork, leaving the grip behind in the bowl. All right, here I have coffee filter, fine mesh strainer over a bowl. Sometimes I find this liquid needs a little encouragement to get through the filter. I kind of gather it on the top and I just press on the liquid lightly. Perfect. All the grit gets left behind in that coffee filter. And now for the mushrooms. Going to chop them up pretty fine. They’ll just melt into the sauce. Hi, Zigs. Oh, you’re excited for this beef, aren’t you? Yeah. No, buds. Not for you. Gather these up. Just going to put them back into the strained porchini liquid. It’s all going to go into the pot at the same time. And they just add so much flavor. And they’re pretty easy to use and they hang out in the pantry for a long time. So, it’s a nice thing to have around. All right, let’s bring this over to the stove. Oh, and that wine has reduced out. You can see the pot’s nice and dry. And by cooking down all these ingredients, one after the other, you’re just building layers of flavor. Oh, it smells amazing. All right, in goes the rest of the ingredients. This is a cup of beef broth. There go the pchinis. And they’re strained liquid. And last but not least, some tomatoes. Now, this is a can of tomatoes. Whole tomatoes. was I pulled the tomatoes out and I gave them a nice chop. Now, you can use a big can or a little can of tomatoes. Both work well here. The recipe, I think, actually calls for a 14 1/2 ounce can, which is a small one. One time I made it, all I had was a big can and I used it. I liked it just as much. So, whatever you have on hand for the tomatoes works. Now, we’re going to bring this to a simmer. And while that happens, let’s talk about the beef. The star of the show. Here we have 2 lbs of beef boneless short ribs. and they are beautiful. Don’t have to do much to them before they go into the pot, but you do want to trim away some of the bigger pieces of fat because they’ll just wind up making the sauce greasy. And short ribs are kind of notorious for having that thick piece of fat. You can just trim it away. Save it, though. If you render it, it makes the best homemade French fries. All right, those look great. Just going to add a little salt and pepper. Back to the stove. This should be at a simmer. Yep, just seeing it simmer right around the edges, which is perfect. Going to nestle the beef into the pot. Oh, the sauce is so good. Just the smells make the house smell good. Now, it takes about 2 hours for this meat to get tender. Low oven, 325° till the meat is nice and tender. I’m going to put the lid on for the first hour of cooking, then take it off and let that sauce reduce. In she goes. [Music] All right, that’s it. That’s all the beef pulled out of the pot, shredded up, ready to go back into the sauce. Meanwhile, the sauce has been sitting for a few minutes, which is good because it lets all the fat collect on the top so you can skim off any so your sauce isn’t too greasy. Little bit of fat’s good. It adds flavor. But those short ribs, if you haven’t trimmed them, they can be pretty greasy. So, you can see some pools of fat. You can use a wide shallow spoon. I like using a ladle. You just kind of tip the edge of the ladle right under where there’s a little pool of grease. This actually looks pretty good. All right, not much grease, which means I did a good job trimming up the ribs before I cooked them. Time to put the shredded beef back in the sauce. Oh, I wasn’t kidding when I said this is the meatiest tomato sauce. That beef just looks gorgeous. All right, just going to put the lid on it and set that sauce aside, which gives us time to focus on a salad, which I love serving with this beef rego. It’s an arugula salad. Has that spicy, bittery notes that pair well with the rich sauce. And the thing about making arugula salads is that it’s usually too potent. It’s usually too hot, too peppery. So what we’re going to do is make a dressing that has a little sweetness and we’re going to add just a little bit of pudo. Now this trick once you learn it, you’ll find yourself doing it all the time. It makes even the most boring salads taste good. So this is 2 oz of gorgeous pudo. And you could just cut this into ribbons and sprinkle it over top. But you can fry it in a pan and get it nice and crisp. So, what you want to do is have a non-stick skillet about 10 in medium heat about a little bit of olive oil in the bottom of the pan. We’ll let that heat up. We’re going to slice the pudu into ribbons and then we’re going to fry these ribbons. And it gets really crisp, almost like really crisp bacon, but it has not that smoky flavor. It’s just a lovely delicate pork flavor. So, into the pan it goes. I’m going to separate these pieces. This takes about 7 minutes to fry over medium heat. And you know it’s done when it looks good and crisp. All right, keep my eye on this while we make the salad dressing. And as I mentioned, the thing with arugula is you want a little bit of sweetness. So here I have some figs. Half a cup chopped up nice and fine. Now I did plump them up in the microwave with the vinegar. Some balsamic vinegar. And the real key, a little bit of jam. A little bit of jam. It helps that vinegarette come together. also adds that necessary sweetness for the arugula salad. So, all that’s been warmed up in here. Now, we’re just going to finish it off with a little olive oil, a little bit of shallot, about a tablespoon of shallot, some salt and pepper, and that’s it. That’s the dressing made right around the figs. This gorgeous bowl of arugula. My supermarket started selling this gorgeous arugula. Baby arugula is usually a lot smaller. This is like adolescent arugula, and I love that it has a little more texture. Now, this is one of those salads where all the good stuff falls to the bottom of the bowl. So, I’ve learned you add this to the bowl of lettuce greens and then you toss it and then you put it into another bowl so all the good stuff stays on the top. You can see the arugula is getting nicely coated. So, here we have a nice shallow plate and you can put all that good stuff right on top. Yes. Now, a few more finishing touches for this salad. Some walnuts. These have been toasted, coarsely chopped. They taste really good with the figs and the arugula. And a few shreds of Parmesan cheese. This is a gorgeous block of parmesan. Easy to make shreds with a peeler. You just peel right over the top. That looks pretty good. All right, let’s check in on that pudo. That pudo is perfect. Look, it’s changed color a little bit. Almost looks like sundried tomatoes at this point. All right. Now, I’m put it on a paper towel line plate here just to drain away any grease. As it cools, it’ll get nice and crisp. All right, that looks perfect. Now, while all this was going on, I boiled some rietoni to go with that sauce. Time to give it a test. Only one way to tell if pasta is done, and that’s to taste it. Oh, it’s perfect. Let’s turn the heat off. Over to the sink to drain. Aha. I have the colander set up in the sink. And as a reminder, I put a measuring cup in there because I want to reserve some of the cooking water for the pasta. Really important for this sauce because the sauce is on the thick side. And so, one way to loosen it up is using the seasoned starchy pasta water. All right, there we go. Set that aside. Back near the stove. I love that trick. All right, the sauce is kept nice and warm in this Dutch oven. Oh yeah. I’m going to add the pasta right to the sauce. That’s steaming. This is steaming. All good. Now, stir it all together. I’m going to add a little bit of the pasta cooking water. Loosen up that sauce just a bit. Perfect. And the smell is intoxicating. You have the beef and then you have that five spice. It’s all aromatic. Oh. All right, let’s make ourselves a nice bowl. Put a little bit of parm over the top. Finally grated. Make it snow, as they say. I’m looking forward to digging into that. And then we have this gorgeous salad. Let’s not forget the pudo that we fried up. Sprinkle it right over the top. Make myself a plate. Hot pasta first. M. That beef is so tender. It has a big beefy flavor. That five spice is a little unexpected. And with the tomatoes, it is such a welcome combination. Now for a bite of salad. The combination of the arugula with the dried fruit and the pudo and the hearty beef sauce. It’s just a nice weekend slow down, enjoy yourself kind of meal. Love our in-depth reviews? Get the latest from our reviews team delivered straight to your inbox. Our welle equipped cook newsletter provides top product picks, nononsense buying guides, and must try recipes. No extra fluff, just the smartest ways to shop, save, and cook. Sign up for free now at americasestkitchen.com/newsletter. All right, it’s canoli time, which is an incredibly easy and very popular dessert. Everyone loves it from kids to adults. And the trick is you start with good ricotta and you press it. Now, that’s what this whole contraption is. Let me unpack it and show you what I did. Two heavy cans. That’s the weight that puts on the ricotta to help press it out. a plate that evens out the weight. And here I have the ricotta wrapped in cheesecloth. You want a triple layer of cheesecloth and a colander. And there’s the liquid that came out. Now, depending on what kind of ricotta you buy, what brand, it could have more or less moisture, which is why this pressing is so important. This levels the playing field for the recipe, so it always turns out the same. All right, we’ll set that liquid aside. Up comes 12 ounces of marcapone or marcapone if you want to have a little of an Italian accent. To that we’re going to add the drained ricotta. This was also 12 oz. Oh, this is beautiful cheesecloth. All right. Now, just a few more ingredients to make the filling. We’re going to add some powdered sugar. You want 3/4 of a cup of powdered sugar. Powdered sugar is traditional here. Part because it doesn’t make anything wet. If you added regular sugar, it would really loosen up and be quite liquidy. The powdered sugar doesn’t do that. Also, there’s a little bit of cornstarch and powdered sugar or a cornstarch like additive that helps absorb any excess liquid so your filling stays good and creamy. Next up, some pistachios because I’m making pistachio canoli. Now, if you want to make chocolate chip canoli, simply swap chocolate chips for the pistachios or really any flavoring you want. This is half a cup of chopped pistachios, of course. Now for some vanilla. Want about a teaspoon and a half of vanilla. Last but not least, just a pinch of salt. Just want to mash this all together. Make it nice and combined. I’m always gentle at the beginning cuz if you go in there and you stir it really hard, you kind of get a powdered sugar bath, which is not a bad thing. Just not what I want right now. You can make this well in advance, up to a day in advance, so that when it comes time for dessert, all you have to do is pipe the canoli shells. I like letting it sit in the refrigerator just to firm up for a bit and it gives time for those flavors to work themselves into the two cheeses. Make sure there’s no pockets of anything sitting anywhere. That looks pretty good. All right, into the fridge this goes until it’s nicely chilled. The filling is nicely chilled. Time to make canoli. Oh, I have a friend here. These aren’t dog friendly canoli. That would be a good recipe, though. Dog canoli. I’ll work on that for you, Ziggy. I’ll work on that. All right. So, I’m going to use a pastry bag. If you don’t have a pastry bag, you could use a zipper lock bag and just push all the filling to one corner and snip it. Treat it like a pastry bag, but I have pastry bags. Now, you notice I’m being pretty extreme. I’m like inverting the bag over my hand. So, the tips right there. This just makes it easier for me to pack the filling into the bag. All right. So, a little bit at a time. All right. I’m using my hand to help scrape the spatula off and we’ll work the bag up a little bit. All right, just packing it in there. Like I said, this bag gets pretty full. All right, work the bag up a bit more. The goal is not to get it on the rim of the bag because that’s when it gets all over your hands and you make a big old mess. So, always try to leave a little bit of the bag folded over on the top. You can see there’s air pockets in there. We’ll get those out after we cut the tip. There we go. And you can squeeze all that air to the the bottom of the bag. There we go. All right, time to fill the canoli shells. Now, these are storebought shells, which you can find in most really good supermarkets, gourmet markets, or Italian stores. The only trick I have is to fill it from the middle out on both sides. So, going to put the pastry bag in. Now, Ian, my husband, told me I’m an overfiller of cannoli. It’s the best part. But really, this amount of filling should make about 10 normalsized canoli. Although, if you’re having a party, they sell these mini shells. You can make about two dozen mini shells. And it is just a great for a big party to have a little finger canoli. Now, you don’t have to worry about how the filling looks as it sits on the end because we’re going to garnish it. Oh, here in Boston, there are two key canoli shops down in the north end, which is the Italian section of town. And people around here are favorites of one or the other. You’re a Mike’s fan or you’re a modern fan. But if you make them yourself, you could be a home fan. All right. Now, to garnish these, you could use chocolate chips, but I like using a little bit of grated chocolate. So, this is just a bar of bittersweet chocolate microplane grater. We’re just going to grate it right over the ends where it sticks to the filling. I also think it looks pretty just on the edge of the platter, almost like a platter garnish. All right, that looks pretty good. Now, another garnish that’s nice, especially if you have nuts in the canoli, is to make some finely grated whatever nut you have, in this case, pistachio, and you can make this is pistachio dust, but you know, whatever nuts you have, you sprinkle a little of that. Not only adds flavor and some welcome color, but it gives folks an idea of what they can expect inside. Now to make a fine powdery dust like this, you can either use a spice grinder and grind it really fine or you can use a rasp style grater. Oh, that looks good enough to eat. Don’t mind if I do. I love that fat lip. All right. It’s like a handle. M. The shell still has crunch because I filled them right before serving. And the filling, it tastes like ricotta, but the marcapone as a richness. And then you have the flavor of the pistachios and that little bit of chocolate. This is a proper canoli. Holy canoli. If you’re ready to take your cooking to the next level, head over to america’skitchen.com and get a free trial of our ATK essential membership. While you’re there, you can sign up for our free email newsletters and download our app. So, what are you waiting for?