Erica De Mane

Recipe: Pomodoro Crudo with Capers, Almonds, Peperoncino, and Basil I was recently talking with my friend Eddie, who’s just started doing some serious cooking, about good things to do with summer tomatoes. He wanted to make something impressive but relatively effortless, and pomodoro crudo, a raw tomato sauce, was the first thing I thought of. [...]

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I served my Sambuca shrimp along with a salad of string beans, shallots, and toasted almonds. Recipe: Shrimp with Sambuca, Summer Garlic, and Basil For years I’ve been spending occasional weekends at La Duchesse Anne, a boho inn in Mt. Tremper, New York, a town near Woodstock. It is one of the last or possibly [...]

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Cauliflower and radish still life by Bartolomeo Bimbi (1648-1730). Recipe: Minestra di Cavolfiore with Saffron and Fennel Whenever I see, taste, or even hear about cauliflower soup, it’s always a creamy purée. There’s nothing wrong with that, and smooth, creamy soups can be quite voluptuous, but the style is essentially French, isn’t it? In any [...]

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A panino and a gallon of wine. The perfect lunch. Recipe: Eggplant Pesto Panini with Caprino and Basil Perfect, compact, portable, there’s a certain kind of panini you can pack up and go with, a solid meal, with minimum mess. This type of eat-and-run panini can be  built with low on the fat but flavorful [...]

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Could this product actually taste good? Recipe: Ziti with Calamari, Star Anise, Tomato, and Basil As you’ve heard a million times, you either cook calamari fast or you do a slow simmer. Anything in between produces rubber. But it also depends on what you’re working with. Huge calamari will never respond well to flash-cooking. It’s [...]

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Sicilian eggplant from Migliorelli Farm in the Hudson Valley. Recipe: Rigatoni with Eggplant, Marjoram, and Cinnamon Ricotta You’ve got to get over to your local Greenmarket right now and see if you can find these gorgeous Sicilian eggplants. Migliorelli Farm in the Hudson Valley grows them and trucks them down to the Union Square market [...]

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Recipe: Bucatini with Swordfish and Basil Almond Pesto I always feel a little guilty when I get creative with pesto. In Liguria, where traditional basil pesto was born, it’s served only with pasta, usually trofie, a twisty shape from the region, and with the addition of string beans and cubed potatoes. To use it as [...]

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Recipe: Chicken Cutlets with Chanterelle and Chicory  Salad Finferli. I first heard this word in Sicily, in the Madonie mountain area where my husband, Fred, and I were staying on our first trip to that fantastic island, around 1990. Women were foraging in the woods for finferli. I took a look in their baskets and [...]

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A very deep yellow. Recipe: Yellow Squash Soup with Saffron and Farro Color can hold great power for the cook. It’s important to me. I find it can sway me in a culinary direction I didn’t intend to go in, especially in the summer, when so many brightly colored vegetables are there at my Greenmarket, [...]

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