Pressed panini with fontina and prosciutto.
Recipes:
Baked Cavatappi with Fennel, Tomato, and Mozzarella
Pressed Panini with Fontina, Prosciutto, and Sweet Green Olivata
Pressed Mozzarella and Salami Panini with Sweet Vinegar Peppers
For years I’ve kept a file on my computer called “Food to Think About.” It’s a running journal of notes on foods or ingredients I’ve become interested in and want to learn more about, or specific dishes I’ve heard of or dreamt of and want to make sure I get around to making. I keep adding to it, and it gets longer and longer. From early November there’s an entry that just says, “tomatoes with fennel. Check Olney for Provencal combinations.” Olney means Richard Olney’s wonderful 1993 book Provence the Beautiful, a big coffee-table thing that is a lot richer and more nuanced than you’d think from its cover, in keeping with the high standards Olney always attained with his writing. I refer to it often for inspiration. I went back and checked Olney for the tomato-and-fennel recipe I thought I remembered, but it wasn’t there. It was in some other Provence book, but I couldn’t figure out which. I think this fennel-tomato idea became a fixation when the weather was turning cold because I wanted to hold onto some summer flavor, but I let the thought drift to the back of my culinary mind until December, when I needed to make a dish to feed a crowd for a fiftieth birthday party I was giving, for my friend Barbara. A baked pasta seemed like a good idea, so I plunged in and gave it the fennel-tomato treatment I’d been ruminating over, and a very good recipe was born (and a good time was had by all). Tomato does something very interesting to the taste of fennel; it cuts its sweetness and adds acidity, blending the best of both vegetables, creating a unique vegetable taste. Basil is a perfect herb to add to this combo since it has an anisey flavor that heightens fennel’s fennely one. (more…)
Erica De Mane 