Healthy Italian options at Donatello’s in Carmel
About 30 pounds ago, Adam Aasen says he wasn’t always so healthy! Even though he works in his family’s Carmel restaurant, Donatello’s, he says there are both healthy options and indulgences to choose from! Here are his BEFORE AND AFTER pics!
Here are the recipes!Healthy:
Sea Bass Napolitano
Fresh wild caught Chilean sea bass cooked in the pan with crushed tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, kalamata olives and capers
You create the sauce by warming a skillet with a little EVOO and add garlic, once it sizzles but doesn’t burn them you add skinless whole tomatoes (you previously crushed with using a slotted spatula or hands with gloves) and then add olives, capers and perhaps oregano for flavor. Then you cook the fish in the sauce and it will absorb the flavor. I can write more detailed instructions later with exact measurement counts.Indulgent:
Tortellini Michelangelo
One of the most popular dishes at Donatello’s is the Tortellini Michelangelo. It’s filling, but delicious and unique. Great comfort food. Local businesses located nearby – such as the Main Street Barber Shop – will often call in carryout orders for this cheesy dish. Some people seem to be addicted to its flavor. To create this dish, you’ll need uncooked bacon or a fatty cut of pancetta. Dice it into small pieces. You can add as much as you like but a handful will do. In Italian cooking, we don’t measure as precisely as baking a cake. And often you can add more or less depending on your taste buds.
You’ll need some white onion diced into pieces, about a quarter of an onion per order. You need about a cup of sliced mushrooms, preferably just button mushrooms will be fine. Be sure to rinse and dry the mushrooms beforehand.
To make the sauce, start off with a hot skillet. Not too hot or it will instantly burn your ingredients but enough heat to start sizzling. Toss the bacon in the hot pan and get it sizzling. You can add a pat of butter if you like, but if the bacon is fatty you might not need to. Once the bacon has been cooking, you can add the mushrooms and onions. You want to cook them until they are soft but not wilted.
Once your onion, bacon and mushroom have cooked, you can add your heavy whipping cream and Parmesan cheese to the skillet and stir. Don’t turn your burner up all the way or it will scald the cream, but you want to simmer and stir until the cream thickens. Stirring is important.
About a cup of cream should work. A handful of Parmesan. You don’t want to overdo the cheese or it will have a hard time melting into the sauce and it can end up with globs of cheese. Be careful about grocery store brands of cheese because they can be very salty. Once the cream has thickened, you can add your tomato sauce. A scoop full should work, but you can add more or less depending if you want your sauce to be pink or orange. Once the tomato sauce is added to the cream sauce more stirring is needed. You want the cream sauce and tomato sauce to mix together to create a smooth yet thick sauce.When the sauce is complete you can add cooked cheese tortellini. We use tortelloni which is the same just bigger. Make sure your pasta is cooked all the way but not overly cooked, since you’ll want to put it in the sauce for a minute to absorb the flavor. Be sure to drain any water so the pasta doesn’t make your sauce watery when you add it.
To learn more about Donatello’s, visit http://donatellositalian.com/.