Not your grandpa's red sauce

It was a sucker bet that I couldn't expect to win. My friend Peter had given me a taste of a tomato sauce that his grandfather used to be "famous for." The two main ingredients in the sauce, my friend had informed me, are chicken thighs and mint, neither one a staple in your average red sauce. Peter had boasted about his grandfather's creation on several occasions, speaking of how he both craves and prepares it many times a year for himself and his wife Claudia.

"Let me know what you think, Meathead," he said as I backed away from his driveway, a covered plastic container filled with leftover penne alla grandpa occupying the seat next to me. "If you like it maybe I'll even let you have the recipe."

Peter and I have what you might call an adolescent relationship. He did, after all, deliberately bury a rather large chicken bone inside the container of (overcooked) pasta, presumably so that I might choke on it. And so it was no surprise to either of us when I scoffed at his offer.

"Recipe? I don't need no stinkin' recipe," I grunted. "I'll know how to make your precious little sauce just by tasting it. A hundred bucks says mine'll be even better."

My friend, as they say, is careful with his money. At Peter's insistence the stakes were dropped to a tenth of what I had proposed. Claudia would judge my sauce against her husband's. Not the firmest ground that I have ever stood on when making a wager, but it was the only ground that I could manage.

Below is the version of the sauce that I prepared. It might not be Peter's grandfather's sauce but it is well worth preparing.

As for the wager, it was decided that the transfer of capital was to go not from my friend's pocket to mine but from mine to his. This decision was handed down—without explanation or debate, mind you—by the mother of Peter's children and, presumably, co-owner of however many dollars he has amassed.

Like I said, a sucker bet.

Start with a generous amount of olive oil in your favorite saucepot and add a chopped onion, two chopped celery stalks, four or five garlic cloves and a good dose of hot pepper.

Don't tell Peter but I also tossed in a few anchovy fillets. (He didn't even notice but now that he knows I guarantee that I will never stop hearing about it.)

Once the onion and celery have softened add four large bone-in chicken thighs and simmer. (Both my friend and I are adamant about bone-in meats having greater flavor, but go ahead and use boneless if you insist.)

After two or three minutes turn the thighs over.

After another couple minutes add two 28-ounce cans of tomatoes, a big handful of fresh mint leaves (at least twice as many as shown here), and salt and pepper to taste. Set the flame to a low heat and simmer slowly for at least two hours, then remove the fully cooked chicken thighs and allow to cool just enough so that you can handle them with your fingers.

Once the thighs have cooled pull away all the meat and discard the bones and skin.

Add the meat back into the sauce.

Then—and this is something I insist makes the sauce much brighter and more flavorful than my friend's version—add another good handful of fresh mint leaves and simmer for two or three more minutes.

Turn off the heat, stir in around three-quarters of a cup of freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, and serve over your favorite pasta.

You can bet on this one. Trust me.

How to make tortellini

Standing in my kitchen making fresh pasta is to me what curling up near a fireplace with a good book is to a lot of other people.

Nothing is quite so satisfying.

And so when a cold rain settled in for the weekend recently it didn't take long for me to decide what to do with myself. On Saturday morning I went and got fresh eggs from a nearby farm, because fresh eggs make better pasta than store bought. After lunch I prepared the pasta dough, wrapped it in plastic and set it in the fridge overnight to rest. By Sunday afternoon,when an even heavier storm was moving through, I was ready to get to work.

For the filling I decided to go traditional. Right here we have a raw chicken breast, an egg, a hunk of Parmigiano-Reggiano, breadcrumbs, fresh nutmeg, and a piece of mortadella.

The first thing to do is cut up the chicken and the mortadella (I had that hunk on hand but four slices from the deli counter should do), then run them through a food processor by themselves.

Then add about 3/4 cup of the grated cheese, maybe 1/3 cup breadcrumbs, the egg and a little ground nutmeg, plus salt and pepper.

After running all the ingredients through the food processor pinch the mixture with your fingers. It should be firm but not stiff. If it's stiff add a little milk or cream and process until fully melded.

Since there's raw poultry in the mix it's not cool to taste it to check that it's properly seasoned. So scoop out a little with a spoon and boil it in water a couple minutes. Then adjust seasonings as you like and taste test until you're happy with it.

For tortellini I roll out the pasta sheets with a machine, not by hand; on my machine I find the No. 2 setting to be the right thickness. Here I stuffed the filling into a sturdy plastic bag, cut a small hole in one corner, and am squeezing the filling onto the pasta sheets.

After doling out the filling you need to make the cuts in the pasta sheets; the individual pieces should be pretty much square.

Shaping the tortellini is basically a two-step deal. Here's the square that you start with.

All you do is fold one corner onto another. (If the dough is moist enough then the pasta ends should close up just by lightly pressing down along the edges. Otherwise use an egg wash along the edges before making the fold.)

Hold the filled pasta shell with both hands and then simply bring the two top corners together and pinch them closed.

And that is pretty much all there is to it.

Nine times out of ten I serve these the traditional way, en brodo, meaning simply in broth. Usually that means a chicken broth, and you can boil the pasta right in it rather than first boiling it in salted water.

This particular time a rather forceful companion expressed a clear desire for something a bit more colorful, and so I went with a simple fresh tomato sauce.

At times it is in one's best interest to be accommodating.

Why a chicken?

I was out dining with poet/playwright/shyster lawyer friend the other night, at a pretty decent Indian place out at the airport-mall part of town, when nine words came rolling off of her raita-coated tongue that honest-to-God surprised me.

"I cook things from your blog all the time," she said sipping on a giant bottle of Kingfisher. "Why does that surprise you so much? It is a food blog, you know!"

It is at times such as these that I am reminded why I enjoy the kind and thoughtful poet/playwright side to this friend so much better than the in-your-face, facts-obsessed shyster lawyer from Jersey side.

"Uh," I stammered as if under cross in the Newark courthouse my companion once terrorized. "I guess... I mean... Well... You see..."

"Get a grip, would you," she objected. "I didn't mean to put you under so much pressure. Forget I said anything... Are you going to eat that nan?"

Just as she was reaching for the table's last morsel of bread our waitress delivered the Bengan Bharta (roasted eggplant) that I had suggested we order.

"I just made your eggplant parm the other night, you know," my friend offered. "It was delicious. Might have been better if I hadn't burned the eggplant, but still..."

I wish that I had said right then that her mistake was in waiting for the eggplant slices to brown on the topside instead of on the bottom. But I was too flummoxed. A person (of some accomplishment, mind you) had actually decided to plan and prepare a meal based upon my instructions. I didn't think people did that. Really. I didn't. I figured they only looked at the pictures and moved along.

I decided this would be a multiple-beverage kind of evening and ordered not one but two more Bass Ales to go along with the eggplant and the newly prepared breads being placed on the table.

This may be a good time for me to mention that none of this has anything to do with the chicken dish you see that I have prepared here.

It's chicken breast. Come on. What possible kind of story might I have woven around that?

Don't get me wrong, it's a really good dish, I like it a lot. Go ahead and try it if you want, you'll probably like it too. The reason it's here, though, is because of this friend that I've been telling you about. "Hey," were her exact words, should you have wondered, "you happen to have a recipe for chicken breasts? A recipe that isn't so boring that I'd rather blow out the right side of my left brain than have to make it, let alone eat it?"

I mentioned that she was a poet, right?

Anyway, I promised that I would get a good recipe off to her pronto, and so here we are at the intersection of Shyster Jersey Lawyer and Oven-Fried Romano Chicken. A circuitous route to a rather simple destination, I'll admit.

But I ask you, had I been yapping all this while about a couple chicken breasts that you stick inside the oven, would you still be here?

Okay, so what you have here is grated Romano cheese, freshly prepared bread crumbs, and seasonings (chopped garlic, rosemary, a hot pepper, salt and black pepper), which gets mixed together.

You take your boring chicken breast and give it a roll in the cheese-and-breadcrumb mix.

Give that a quick dip in egg before it goes back for a second roll in the cheese and breadcrumbs.

Line up the breasts in a roasting pan and into the (preheated to 350 F) oven they go.

About half an hour later you've got yourself a very nice-tasting hunk of white meat that I assure you will not inspire you to raise a firearm to your head.