Tuesdays with Letty: Alex Di Peppe's, Arcadia, California

We've tried to eat at Alex Di Peppe's a few times over the years at their old place but could never find a place to park. Finally, they moved down the road a bit to a small strip mall next to a 3-par golf course over in the east end of Arcadia.

We're glad they did. It's a solid Italian family restaurant with a very loyal clientele and a caring staff.

Although we started eating their family specials...where I could pick up a pizza, some pasta, bread, and salad on the way home from work when we didn't feel like cooking...Letty and I started coming by for dinner from time to time.

You might say it's your typical red sauce restaurant, and to some extent that's true, they do serve up some very good entrees along with all the pizza and pasta.

I'm a sucker for their veal dishes cooked scallopini, marsala, and picata  

Letty goes for the seafood or maybe a vegetarian lasagna.

The pizza and pasta dishes are also very good and the prices reasonable

Alex Di Peppe's is at the corner of 6th and Live Oak in Arcadia about a mile or so west of the 605 freeway.

Darryl
Copyright 2016 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Tuesdays with Letty: Old World Deli

Our home of the San Gabriel Valley is home to a few excellent Italian delis. Most people around here are familiar with Claro's, a small chain of Italian markets and delis.

There's more, and tonight we'll share one of our favorites with you, Old World Deli and Restaurant in Covina (there's also another outlet in Upland).

Old World has a different special each day, we come on Tuesday because it's pizza and salad bar day. The restaurant features one of the most extensive and fresh salad bars in the area. For around $12, you can eat your fill and more of this buffet of fresh vegetables, sweet ripe fruits, nuts, ham, eggs, cheese, bread, and more.  On top of that, you get two thick slices of Sicilian style pizza with your choice of two toppings.

This is Letty's dinner.  She creates a masterpiece of a salad, goes back for a fruit salad, and takes the pizza home.

I get the half sandwich and salad bar combo (available every day) with an excellent pastrami sandwich and my own trip or two through the salad bar.

It's an institution around here with friendly people, a great deli on the side, with great cookies for treats to take home.

Darryl

Copyright 2016 - Darryl Musick

All Rights Reserved

Pizza!

Originally, I was going to do this on my gas barbecue but my pizza pan wouldn't fit with the lid closed so it was off to the kitchen oven to cook.

There are two time consuming steps to this but this is another one you can do a few hours ahead of time and stick in the fridge until it's time to cook.  The first step is the sauce and the next is rolling out the dough, which not only takes time but is pretty labor intensive, too.

Except for the sauce, I bought all the other ingredients premade at a local Italian deli, Capri in Covina, California. That makes things a bit easier.

INGREDIENTS
16 ounces of pizza dough (you can make this yourself but I just buy it premade at a local Italian deli. You can also find it at Trader Joe's and other stores)
6 medium Roma tomatoes
1 teaspoon oregano
3 teaspoons minced garlic
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 links Italian sausage
1/4 pound prosciutto
1/2 pound mozarella cheese
1/2 cup shredded quattro formagio (four cheeses, available at most supermarkets - substitute with a high quality shredded parmesan if you can't find it)

Sauce
Take 5 tomatoes (you may want to cut them in half first) and puree in a blender with 1 cup of water.

Cut the 6th tomato up into cubes.

Put 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a sauce pan. Pour your pureed tomatoes on top of that and bring to a boil. Boil for 10 minutes, then set to low to simmer. Put your tomato chunks, garlic, oregano, salt, and sugar into the mix and stir. Simmer for 2 hours or until reduced by two thirds. Stir occasionally during this time (maybe every 10 or 20 minutes). Taste a spoonful occasionally to see if the taste would be good on a pizza. Add ingredients to adjust, sparingly, until you get your perfect tast.

When sauce is thick, a little thicker than you'd want to serve on pasta, take it off of the heat.

Pizza
Preheat oven to 450 -500 degrees...very hot!

On a large, wooden cutting board, sprinkle about a quarter cup of flour and spread out over the board. Place dough on it and roll out flat. This will take quite some time as the dough will keep wanting to snap back to its original shape. Keep at it and, eventually, the dough will lose its elasticity and you'll have a flat dough. be very careful not to tear your dough.

Put a tablespoon of olive oil and coat it with a paper towel over a round pizza pan. Transfer your dough into the pan and, carefully, spread it to the edges.

Using a ladel, spread your sauce over the dough, leaving about a half inch clear around the rim to be able to hold your pizza slice later.  Put a think layer of mozzarella over the sauce. Put on your toppings (we're using Italian sausage and prosciutto but the sky's the limit on what you'd like to put on it). Sprinkle quattro formagio on it. 

Cover with another layer of mozzarella (I'm using a mozzarella ball for this and laying slices of it around the pie).

Put in oven and bake for 10 minutes.

Put parchment paper on your cutting board and transfer finished pizza pie to it once done. Let sit for 5 minutes before slicing.

Darryl
Copyright 2016 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved