Erica De Mane

Orange and herring salad with almonds and frisée.

Recipe:

Orange and Herring Salad with Almonds and Frisée

I recently came across a reference to a recipe called “Mackerel, Almond, Orange, and Fennel.” The combination sounds great, but I can’t find an actual recipe. Do you have one?

Herbert D.

When I first read this intriguing but vague request from one of my readers, I immediately thought of a hot dish of mackerel roasted with fennel and orange zest and then garnished with toasted almonds. Delicious. But then I remembered that this flavor combo was familiar to me in another incarnation. About eight years ago, on my first trip to Sicily, I ate dinner at a place in Palermo that specialized in traditional Sicilian dishes (most places in Palermo specialize in traditional Sicilian dishes, but this one seemed to do so in an especially antiquated and formal way). I unfortunately can’t remember the name of the place, but I recall an interesting dessert, a watermelon gelatina, poured into a pastry shell and decorated with fresh jasmine blossoms. The gelatin itself was flavored with cinnamon and rosewater, and dusted with cocoa, a strange but delicious combination with obvious Arab lineage. Another dish I ate that evening was an antipasto, a salad of smoked fish, which may have been sardines, herring, or mackerel-something strong-with orange slices and toasted almonds. The taste was startling, in a not altogether good way. Something about the fish and orange mingled to produce the aroma of low tide. But I thought about that dish when I got home and somehow felt the combination had potential. (more…)

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My new take on a classic I learned years ago.

Recipe:

Eggplant and Ricotta Gratinée

Many of the recipes I attempted when I first got serious about cooking many moons ago have left me with the sweetest nostalgia, even more than some of my beloved childhood dishes. It must be because they are foods I was drawn to and first learned to cook completely on my own. The culinary romance that was brewing in my head took me to the lands of Mediterranean flavors. Being a Southern Italian by heritage, I wasn’t surprised to find myself going in this direction, but at first my snobbism sent me looking for something more glamorous than my grandmother’s meatballs. (Now I think of her meatballs, studded with raisins and pine nuts, as the height of glamour.) (more…)

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