THE COOKBOOK TEST #0049: RAO'S COOKBOOK
INSTALLMENT #0049 (FREE) AS SEEN ON TV / THE HOLE / WELL, DOES THE SAUCE WORK? / A SWEET CONCLUSION
Dear Readers,
This week's edition of THE COOKBOOK TEST hits close to home. Like water, electricity, and the Internet, Rao's marinara sauce is a utility in our household, a constantly replenished staple that we rely upon. When we discovered it about 6 years ago (at Costco, naturally), we were struck by how platonically perfect it was - no twists, no extras, nothing added or improvised upon or gussied up nor sold out nor cheapened nor adulterated. Just a really classic, straight over the plate, nothing fancy but nothing missing rendition of an all-time classic banger of a sauce. (The Washington Post blind sauce tasting backs us up on this conclusion [1].)
As dependent upon Rao's as we had become, I was surprised to hear that Rao's was in fact an actual restaurant in New York City, and that it was pronounced "ray-ohs.” My Mom, a native New Yorker, filled me in on the background at some point, although she told me later that she'd gotten her information from watching Martha Stewart on television, not from hanging out at the restaurant in her younger years and breaking bread with the likes of Rob Reiner, Dick Clark, or Tony Bennett.
And then, another break in the case. RAO'S COOKBOOK surfaced at Half Price Books in St. Paul. Did it have the marinara? Did it look plausible? It did and it did. I was sold.
at your service,
James
RAO'S COOKBOOK: OVER 100 YEARS OF ITALIAN HOME COOKING
RANDOM HOUSE
FRANK PELLEGRINO | 1998 | $40
Time for a bit of honesty: With a lot of cookbooks, the non-recipe bits can feel extraneous. They're hand-wavy. They're better than the filler text content creators dump into their online recipes to engage the search engines, but only modestly so.
With Rao's Cookbook, the introductory stuff feels rich. It helps that the restaurant is a singular place, a hole in the wall known at one point in the neighborhood, literally, as The Hole. The spot is known for its size, or lack thereof, with eight tables available only by essentially impossible-to-get reservations. (One successful strategy: Literally be the Pope.)
It helps that much of the story of Rao's is the family's refusal to change or expand its humble little spot, even as the once overwhelmingly Italian-American neighborhood in East Harlem evolved and its own reputation skyrocketed with endorsements from just about every famous New Yorker over the course of decades. The humble little place that won’t cash in on its own success - well, that’s heartwarming. Silly, sure, and maybe a little un-American, but couldn’t we all benefit from doing things from the heart just a little bit more often, and from the wallet just a little bit less?
That the modern Rao's establishment includes three restaurants (the original plus bigger spots in Miami and Los Angeles) and a massively popular and well-distributed line of pasta sauces and pastas post-dates this tome. The Rao’s Cookbook now reads as the history of an endearing little spot that has transcended "endearing" and entered the firmament as a Brand, a “Capital B” Brand, where the Brand Means Something and the Brand is Money and Please Do Not Damage the Brand.
In 1998, things were simpler, and the three or four introductions that are stacked at the front of this book like layers of tiramisu dig deeply into the restaurant, the people who ate there (all the way from earthy and local working class folks to Possibly Organized Crime Types to incredibly famous celebrities), and the charming / authentic / quickly evolving neighborhood context in which all the eating and mingling takes place.
If you’ve ever spent much time in New York City (or even taken the subway a few times), you know that one of the city’s great charms is that the mighty and powerful schlep around the place much like the rest of us, and you never know who you’re going to bump into at that great little neighborhood red sauce joint. This book gets that.
WELL, DOES THE SAUCE WORK?
OK, yes, I'll come right out and say it: The sauce works. It's not a complex recipe - the big challenge is sourcing a large pile of San Marzano tomatoes at a reasonable price. (Hint: Costco Business Center. You're welcome. Maybe there's a Costco cookbook out there that I should dig into, now that I think about it...)
But once you've obtained that massive can of New World fruit, everything else is pretty straightforward. Olive oil! Bacon! Onion! Garlic! Basil! Oregano! It's basic as it comes. Takes about 90 minutes to bring everything together, most of which is an uneventful simmer.
But the sauce that results is full-flavored, comforting, utilitarian and elegant. It's Classic Marinara, with no adulteration or unnecessary glow-ups.
Now, the evaluation. As a value prospect, it's pretty good - a measurable but not immense cost savings over buying the store stuff. In terms of flavor, when put head-to-head with the jarred stuff, our family of immensely over-qualified Rao's fanatic tasters found that we preferred the jarred stuff... but only slightly. The stuff in the jar had a little more brightness and zing. Otherwise, the two sauces were legitimately interchangeable.
Next time we make this, we'll splash a tablespoon of red wine vinegar into the finished sauce and see if that tips the balance.
THE SAUCE
1/2 cup olive oil
4 oz. of fat back or salt pork (we used uncured bacon) cut into small pieces
6 Tbsp. minced onion
4 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced
1 106 oz. can of San Marzano Italian plum tomatoes plus juices
Salt to taste (we started with 1 Tbsp)
12 leaves fresh basil, torn
1/4 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp black pepper
Crush the tomatoes using your hands. Reserve the juice in which they're packed.
Put oil in a large saucepan over medium-low heat. Once heated, add pork pieces and saute for 5-8 minutes until the fat is rendered. Remove pork.
Add the onion and saute for 2-3 minutes until translucent and starting to brown. Add garlic and saute briefly until fragrant (15-30 seconds) and then add tomatoes, reserved juices, and salt. Raise heat, bring to a boil, reduce heat to low simmer and cook for about 1 hour.
Stir in basil, oregano, and pepper, and cook for an additional minute. Remove from heat and serve.
A SWEET CONCLUSION
My daughter, who is six, is quite evidently more intelligent than me, and also has much stronger opinions. Several months ago, we found ourselves in an excellent Italian restaurant and we ordered tiramisu for dessert. I didn't think she would care for it much. It's got some pronounced coffee flavors, and it's a subtle and complex dish when done well. On the contrary: Geneva devoured it with a hearty Viking-like enthusiasm. It immediately became her favorite thing.
So when I found Tiramisu in the Rao's Cookbook, I showed the page to her, hoping that she'd be able to slowly sound the strange-looking word out, be reminded by me what it was, and joyfully discover a recipe for a dish she enjoyed.
Instead she looked at the word and immediately shouted: "Tiramisu!!! Let's make it!"
And so we did. But not before tackling a problem that often comes up when you approach a so-called "ethnic" recipe by shopping at a frou-frou suburban grocery store: Sometimes you really take it in the pants - specifically the wallet part of the pants - when you buy specialty ingredients. By the time we purchased 4 cups of mascarpone and 4 boxes of ladyfingers, we were out about $50, which coincidentally is about what we'd probably pay to have talented professionals at a bakery sell us a really good tiramisu that would require zero hours of labor to enjoy.
Next time we'll try Cossetta's or Brianno's.
But how did the final cake taste? Really good. Not quite the delicacy or subtlety of the best we've had (at Tutto Bene in Bemidji and Mucci's in St. Paul) but damn good nevertheless - nice coffee kick, a hearty but not overwhelming boost from the Korbel brandy we used for the spirits, and a remarkably delicate texture overall. Geneva loved it, and devastated a grown-up sized portion.
The recipe below halved the espresso soaking liquid for the cookies because we found we had 2/3rds of the stuff left over when we were done. We were also using light, delicate, spongy ladyfingers - if you're using heartier cookies, you might want to double the liquid so they can be properly soaked rather than lightly sprayed as we did with our insubstantial cookies.
TIRAMISU
Creamy Stuff
6 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup Kahlua, brandy or other liqueur
4 cups mascarpone cheese
Soaking Liquid
1 1/2 cups boiling water
1 1/2 Tbsp brown sugar
1 1/2 Tbsp instant espresso powder
2 tsp fine-quality cocoa powder
14 oz. of ladyfingers or champagne biscuits
1/4 cup grated bittersweet chocolate
Whisk eggs and sugar in heat-proof bowl over a pan of simmering water (or in top vessel of a double boiler). Beat mixture with electric mixer or whisk until mixture triples in volume and hits 160 F.
Off heat (with electric mixer or in stand mixer), add liqueur or brandy 1 Tbsp at a time. Continue beating for about 5 minutes or until mixture is cool.
When cool, beat in mascarpone until well blended. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.
Combine water, brown sugar, espresso powder, and cocoa powder in a medium bowl and stir until cocoa and espresso powder dissolve.
Line the bottom of a 13x9x2" baking pan with ladyfingers, and wet or soak with soaking liquid. (If cookies are delicate, a light spray with a baster should do it.) Evenly spread one third of the creamy stuff on the cookies. Add another layer of cookies, and spray or soak. Spread another third of creamy stuff. Add another layer of cookies, spray or soak, and spread the final third of creamy stuff. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 8 hours.
To serve: sprinkle grated or microplaned chocolate on top, cut into squares and serve cold.
THE VERDICT ON RAO'S COOKBOOK
(***BUY IT*** / BORROW IT / SKIP IT / SCRAP IT)
I trust this cookbook. The recipes are simple and written with authority - there doesn't seem to be any evidence of corner cutting or needless stunting. We tried two reasonably serious recipes and they both worked - I'm excited about keeping this in the kitchen as a go-to for Italian favorites from here on in.
[1] AUTHOR'S NOTE: To quote the Post: "Rao’s was the only brand to get a perfect score (it got 10s from three judges!) and flat-out raves: 'Delicious,' one said. 'I'd be proud to serve this,' said another."