On a happy day.
Recipes below: Braised Artichokes with Potatoes, Taggiasca Olives, and Mint; Artichokes Stuffed with Fennel, Almonds, and Pecorino Sardo
Artichokes are like cats, scratchy, bitchy, and very sweet, all in one package. Just like my sparky Little Tiny, a usually cozy lap cat who every once in a while loves to sink in a hard bite for no apparent reason. (I’m sure he has his reason, but I guess it’s secret.) Artichokes are like cats also in that they are beautiful in all stages of life. Did you know that they are actually big green flower buds that will blossom into fuzzy purple thistles if you leave them be (artichokes, not cats)? I once saw a spectacular display of artichoke flowers in a field in Menfi, Sicily. I’m not sure why the farmer let them go to blossom like that. Seemed a waste, but who knows what the story was.
There is no artichoke season in New York. They don’t like it here. I did however, last spring, notice at the Union Square Market a creative New York farmer arranging three dozen small artichokes in a straw basket.
“I didn’t know you could grow artichokes in the Hudson Valley. What’s your yield?” I asked him.
“You’re looking at it.”
I mentioned that it must have been a lot of effort to grow even that small amount in our cool, damp climate.
“Stupid little side gig,” he said.
It’s now artichoke season in Italy, where they grow several beautiful varieties, such as the small, skinny purple ones on long stalks that look a little like long-stem roses and usually go by the name Violetto. Southern Italians seem to idolize all artichokes. In Sicily I’ve seen artichoke ornaments, terracotta or cement, sometimes beautifully glazed in green, perched on stone walls or just set out in gardens. I’ve always wanted one of those for my herb garden. Maybe this will be the year of my purchase. Better than all the sinister little fairies and gnomes I see plopped down in many of the front yards near my place in Rhinebeck.
California is where almost all our U.S. artichokes are grown. I’m just starting to find nice heavy Green Globe ones in my markets, and I should be able to get them fresh through May. Supposedly Violetto artichoke are being grown by a few smaller farms, but I’ve never seen them in New York stores. I’d buy them. I know plenty of people who’d buy them. Where are they? And while I’m at it, whatever happened to baby artichokes, those little guys that grown further down the stalk of the big Globe types? They seem to have disappeared. They were great because they had no chokes to deal with. You’d just snap off a few tough outer leaves and they’d be ready to cook. No one I ask seems to know why we can’t find them here anymore. Maybe they produce such small yields that farmers aren’t shipping them cross the country. I think also they’re fairly fragile and go soft quickly. But we used to get them, and often in pretty good shape. Maybe nobody wants to bother picking them. Whatever the reason they’re gone, I miss them.
To celebrate artichoke season I’ve come up with two new recipes that have roots in classic Southern Italian style. One is a stuffed version, but I didn’t stuff the artichokes whole, blowing them out into a giant flower. My relatives did that, and it was delicious, but what a load (especially when they served it as an appetizer before Thanksgiving dinner). I’ve instead whittled the artichokes down to heart and stalk, cut them lengthwise, and pressed the stuffing into their little cavities. Knife and fork artichokes, not tooth-scraping. The other recipe is for the typical Southern pairing of potatoes with artichokes, a cucina povera treatment that stretches costly artichokes by braising them with a less expensive ingredient. The potatoes soak up all the artichoke cooking liquid to be drenched in artichoke flavor. I hope you’ll give these recipes a try.
Happy very early spring cooking to you.
Braised Artichokes with Potatoes, Taggiasca Olives, and Mint
1 large lemon
6 Green Globe artichokes
Extra-virgin olive oil (since this is integral to the taste of the finished dish, I used something good, Benza BuonOlio from Liguria, which I bought from Gustiamo.com)
2 garlic cloves, sliced
2 fresh bay leaves
A few large sprigs of thyme
A big pinch of allspice
Salt
Black pepper
1 cup dry vermouth
2 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into wedges
A handful of Taggiasca or Niçoise olives, pitted and cut in half
6 big sprigs spearmint, the leaves lightly chopped
6 big sprigs flat-leaf parsley, lightly chopped
Zest the lemon, and set the zest aside. Cut the lemon in half, and squeeze all its juice into a large bowl. Drop the lemon halves into the bowl, and add about 4 cups of cold water.
Trim the artichokes of all their tough outer leaves. Trim and peel their stems, leaving about an inch or so. Trim their tops. Cut the artichokes in half lengthwise, and scoop out the chokes. Next cut them in quarters, dropping them into the lemon water as you go.
Get out a large sauté pan with a cover, one big enough to hold the artichokes and potatoes in more or less one layer.
Drain the artichokes into a colander.
Put 2 tablespoons of olive oil in the sauté pan, and put it on medium heat. Add the artichokes, the garlic, the bay leaves, the thyme sprigs, the allspice, and a little salt and black pepper. Turn the artichokes around in the oil a few times to coat them with flavor. Add the vermouth, and let it bubble away. Add about a cup of water. Let it come to a simmer, and then turn the heat down a bit, cover the pan, and let the artichokes braise until they’re just tender, about 10 to 15 minutes, depending on their size. You’ll want to turn them once or twice. You’ll also want to check the liquid level as they cook, adding a little more water if needed. Test them for doneness by sticking a thin knife into one of them.
While the artichokes are braising, place the potatoes in a medium-size pot, and cover them with water by about 2 inches. Add salt. Bring the water to a boil, and then turn the heat to medium, and cook the potatoes until they’re just tender but not falling apart, about 8 minutes. Drain them, and add them to the pan with the artichokes. (I’ve tried cooking the artichokes and potatoes together, but I found it hard to gauge the cooking time, and I didn’t want to wind up with mushy, falling-apart potatoes. This worked better.) Add the lemon zest, the olives, the mint, and the parsley. Add a tablespoon of olive oil, and give it all the gentle stir. Taste for seasoning, adding more salt and black pepper if you think it could use it. There should be a little liquid left in the pan to serve as a sauce, so add a little water if needed.
Serve hot or warm.
Artichokes Stuffed with Fennel, Almonds, and Pecorino Sardo
1 large lemon
6 Green Globe artichokes
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 small fennel bulb, trimmed and cut into small dice
1 small shallot, diced
Salt
1 teaspoon fennel pollen
¾ cup homemade breadcrumbs
½ cup grated pecorino Sardo cheese
½ cup blanched toasted almonds, roughly chopped
3 sprigs rosemary, the leaves well chopped
4 or 5 big sprigs flat-leaf parsley, the leaves chopped
Aleppo pepper
1 cup dry white wine
1 garlic clove, sliced
Zest the lemon, and set the zest aside. Cut the lemon in half, and squeeze all its juice into a large bowl. Drop the lemon halves into the bowl, and add about 4 cups of cold water.
Trim the artichokes of all their tough outer leaves. Trim and peel their stems, leaving about an inch or so. Trim their tops. Cut the artichokes in half lengthwise, and scoop out the chokes, dropping the artichoke halves into the lemon water.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
To make the stuffing, get out a medium sauté pan, put a tablespoon of oil in it, and set it over medium heat. Add the fennel and shallot, season with a little salt and the fennel pollen, and sauté until it’s all fragrant and softened, about 3 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, and add the breadcrumbs, pecorino, and almonds. Add the rosemary, the parsley, the reserved lemon zest, and some Aleppo. Add a big drizzle of olive oil, and mix well. Taste for seasoning.
Get out a baking dish that will hold the artichokes in one layer. Drizzle its cooking surface with olive oil. Press about a tablespoon or so of the stuffing into the hollow of each artichoke piece, and lay them stuffing-side-up in the baking dish.
Pour the wine around the artichokes, and then add water to about halfway up the artichokes. Scatter the garlic slices into the wine. Drizzle the artichokes with a generous amount of olive oil, and give everything, including the wine, a sprinkling of salt. Cover the baking dish with foil, and braise until the artichokes are tender, about 25 minutes, depending on their size. Poke one of them with a narrow knife to make sure they’re tender. Uncover the dish, and roast it for 10 minutes or so, just until the artichoke tops are golden. You can sprinkle on a little more Aleppo if you like.
Serve three artichoke halves on each plate, spooning some braising liquid over each serving.
I had some stuffing mix left, so I used it the next night, packing it on top of thick cod fillets and then roasting them in a very hot oven. Really good.
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Recipe below: Penne Integrale with Savoy Cabbage, Pancetta, Fennel, and Sage
I don’t dream about cabbage the way I dream about eggplants and apricots, but sometimes I wish I did. You can’t force fascination, but every once in a while my neglect of cabbage creeps up on me, telling me I’m not a responsible enough cook. (I can’t just ignore an entire vegetable forever, can I?) I then push forward with this boring, to my Southern Italian mind, vegetable. and occasionally I come up with something really good. Here’s an example.
Penne Integrale with Savoy Cabbage, Pancetta, Fennel, and Sage
Salt
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 approximately ½-inch-thick round of pancetta, chopped
1 Vidalia onion, chopped
1 fennel bulb, trimmed and chopped
A small palmful of fennel seeds, ground in a mortar and pestle
1 pound whole wheat penne
1 small Savoy cabbage, thinly sliced
Freshly ground black pepper
A big splash of dry white wine
About ¾ cup homemade chicken broth
A few drops of rice wine vinegar
About 8 small sage leaves, cut into chiffonade
A chunk of pecorino sardo cheese
Set up a pot of pasta cooking water, and bring it to a boil. Add salt.
As the water is coming to a boil, get out a large sauté pan, set it over medium heat, and drizzle in a tablespoon or so of olive oil. Add the pancetta, and let it get crisp. It will give off a fair amount of fat, but that’s good. You want that. Add the onion and the fennel and the fennel seeds, and let them soften for a minute or so.
Drop the penne into the boiling water.
Add the cabbage to the pan, season it with salt and black pepper, and sauté it until it’s softened but not completely broken down into a mush, about 5 minutes or so. Add the splash of white wine, and let it bubble away. Add the chicken broth, and let it simmer for a few minutes. Add a few drops of rice wine vinegar to brighten the sauce, and add about half of the sage, stirring it in.
When the pasta is al dente, drain it, saving a little of the cooking water, and put it into a large serving bowl. Add a big drizzle of fresh olive oil, and give it a toss. Add the cabbage sauce, and toss again, adding a little of the cooking water if you need it to loosen the texture (I didn’t, but you never know). You’ll also want to check the seasoning, adding more black pepper or a little salt if you think the dish could use it. (I feel black pepper is an important spice for this dish, so use good peppercorns, such as Tellicherry or Malabar.) Garnish with the remaining sage. Top each serving with an ample grating of the pecorino sardo.
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Recipe below: Lamb Tagine with Prunes and Parsnips
My love of Moroccan cooking grows stronger all the time. I was first pulled in by Paula Wolfert’s book Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco, which came out in the early 1970s. I could hardly believe this beautiful food really existed. I cooked my way through the book my last year of high school, and I’ve kept it close ever since. I’ve always felt that Moroccan flavors complement the cooking of Puglia, Campania, and Sicily, the ancestral cuisine I grew up with. It seemed a natural path.
There are, however, two obstacles to my complete Moroccan food immersion. First, I absolutely hate cilantro. Second, I absolutely love wine, both for cooking and for drinking. To solve the first problem, I usually substitute mint or parsley, or sometimes a mix of parsley and thyme, depending on the dish. I know none of those herbs are anything like cilantro in taste, but that’s the way I’ve found to get around it. Moroccan cooking and eating, for the most part, does not include alcohol, but I can never resist adding a little wine or vermouth to long-simmered meat dish, such as the tagine I offer you here. Wine adds depth and a bit of acidy, cutting through the Moroccan taste for sweetness in savory dishes that can sometimes be a little too much for my palate. I also tend to brown meat before a long braise, a French and Italian approach to stews that’s not often done in Moroccan cooking. I call my style Moroccan cooking in the French manner, which is a concept I first picked up while cooking Moroccan dishes at several French bistros in Manhattan. I haven’t delved deeply into the various regional Moroccan cuisines. I wouldn’t win any prizes if asked to explain the intricate difference between Berber and Arab, or Moorish and Sephardic cooking. Moroccan flavors are a sideline for me, but a serious one, an improvisational one.
One thing I never screw around with is the subtlety of the Moroccan touch with spices. My favorite spice combination for meat tagines and couscous is cinnamon, ginger (mostly dried but occasionally fresh), and saffron. I love these spices separately (a good starting point), but when I blend them together I get a sweetness with an underlying sharp hit that I find irrestible. If you try my lamb tagine recipe, you’ll see what I mean.
I most often use Ceylon cinnamon, which is soft and sophisticated, but I go for Cassia if I want a more direct cinnamon-bun effect. I sometimes add coriander seed to cinnamon when I make, for instance, a bisteeya, the pigeon (or, more likely for me, chicken) and almond–enclosed pastry. Interestingly coriander seed tastes nothing like the same plant’s foliage, cilantro, and I find that a relief.
I used to add turmeric to this mix more often, but now I find it can drag a dish down. When I do use it I prefer to highlight its bitter dustiness, for instance in braised chicken with saffron and turmeric, a gorgeous flavor combination and a very yellow dish.
I love cumin, but I’m not crazy about it mixed with cinnamon, as you sometimes find in some Moroccan dishes. I use it most in fish tagines, warm vegetable dishes, and in a marinade for lamb kebabs (sometimes along with a pinch of clove). And I love mixing cumin with anise or fennel seed to use with shrimp or in a monkfish tagine. Cumin and coriander and ginger make a great dry rub for roasted lamb.
Ras el hanout, a blend of up to about thirty spices, can be interesting if you find a good one, but I find that if I rely on it too much it makes everything taste the same. Over the years I’ve sampled many ras el hanout blends. I currently like one called Tangier made by La Boîte. And Kalustyan’s makes a nice one, although maybe a touch too sweet. I also blend my own, making it a little different each time. Here’s one way I do it.
I have to say that generally I prefer to add spices separately, so I have control over what results. Also I don’t want to wind up with a muddy taste, which can happen sometimes with spice mixes, especially if you add more spices on top of them.
Moroccan cooking isn’t big on heavy chili heat, like the cooking of Tunisia, where harissa was born. I make my own harissa, and I used to put it on almost every Moroccan dish that came out of my kitchen. I don’t do that anymore, finding it insulting to what I’m trying to create, but sometimes I add a gentle dried chili like Aleppo, which doesn’t overpower all a dish’s other spices, or the slightly stronger Spanish piment d’espelette, or I choose freshly ground black pepper and let that shine through. I do, however, love harissa on meat shish kebabs, and also on a San Gennaro–style sausage and pepper hero.
Lamb Tagine with Prunes and Parsnips
2½ pounds bone-in lamb shoulder, cut into chunks
1 teaspoon cinnamon (I used Ceylon, but cassia is fine too)
1 teaspoon powdered ginger
1 teaspoon turmeric
Black pepper
Salt
Extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 large Vidalia onion, cut into small dice
Aleppo pepper
A drizzle of honey
A big splash of dry vermouth
A big pinch of saffron threads, lightly dried and ground in a mortar and pestle and dissolved in about ¼ cup hot water
3 cups homemade chicken broth
3 medium parsnips, peeled and cut into batons
3 medium carrots, peeled and cut into batons
2 small turnips, peeled and cut into wedges
About 2 dozen pitted prunes
About ½ teaspoon rice wine vinegar
A handful of lightly toasted whole blanched almonds
A handful of mint leaves
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Dry off the lamb chunks, and toss them in about half of the cinnamon, ginger, turmeric, black pepper to taste, and a little salt.
Get out a large casserole fitted with a lid. Add about 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and get it hot over medium-high heat. Add the lamb, and brown it all over (do it in batches if it’s too crowed). Take the lamb from the casserole. Pour off excess fat, if necessary.
Add the butter to the casserole. Turn the heat to medium, and add the onion and a little salt. Let the onion soften, about 4 minutes. Add the lamb, a little Aleppo, and the honey, and give it all a stir. Add a big splash of vermouth, and let it bubble away. Add the saffron water and the chicken broth, plus a little extra water, if necessary to almost cover the lamb. Bring it to a boil, put the lid on, and stick it in the oven for 1½ hours.
Pull the casserole from the oven, and skim the surface. Place the parsnip, carrot, and turnip on top of the lamb in an attractive pattern (I made a sunburst sort of look, alternating colors). Sprinkle on the remaining cinnamon, ginger, and turmeric, and add a little more salt. Cover the casserole, and stick it back in the oven for about another hour, just until the lamb is very tender.
Take the casserole out, and tuck the prunes in around the vegetables. Scatter on the almonds. Cover it again, and just leave it on the stovetop. The residual heat from the tagine will soften the prunes.
When you’re ready to serve, taste the broth for seasoning. I added a drizzle of rice wine vinegar to balance its sweetness, but that’s a personal call. You might also want a bit more Aleppo, one of the other spices, or a little more salt. The sauce by this time should be cooked down and not too brothy. If needed, let it reheat, uncovered, over medium-low heat to reduce slightly.
Scatter the mint over the top, and serve the tagine from the casserole. You can serve it over couscous or just with good bread.
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Recipe below: Spaccatelle with Escarole, Bottarga, and Sweet Breadcrumbs
For me many foods reveal a clear link between memory and taste. For instance, the first time I had bottarga was many years ago in Mondello Beach, in Palermo, during my first trip to Sicily. The weather was hot, the beachfront restaurant was plain but to me extremely glamourous, with dried out wooden tables, no umbrellas to shield us from the sun, and an old waiter with a limp. I was presented with a bowl of spaghetti tossed with olive oil, garlic, hot chili flakes, and then gently retossed with shavings of bottarga, the dried fish roe that in Sicily is usually made from tuna. I had heard of bottarga, but I hadn’t yet tasted it. Being an anchovy fanatic, I was pretty sure it would be something I’d love. I was right.
That is a hot-weather bottarga memory that has lasted for many years, but now I think about bottarga more in winter than in summer. Why, I’m not sure. Possibly because I haven’t been back to Sicily in many years, but also maybe because here in New York I view it as a pantry ingredient, like anchovies, even though I don’t always have it hanging around unless I have a recipe working its way through my head. It’s more of a pantry-like ingredient that I stick in the fridge (once it’s opened I find that it’s good for many months).
Bottarga is nice both summer and winter; escarole is best right now. I’ve never seen a recipe for a pasta with escarole and bottarga, but I’m sure they’re out there. If not, here’s this one now.
Since my first experience with bottarga I’ve now eaten it and cooked with it many times. I’ve come to prefer the slightly sweeter and less bitter type made in Sardegna from grey mullet roe. I get it from Gustiamo. The brand they carry is l’Oro di Cabras. It’s excellent. Whatever bottarga you buy, it’s best to get the whole tongue and grate it yourself. The dry pregrated stuff is always disappointing, plus you don’t get the experience of scraping off slices and watching them lightly melt onto the hot food, which I find beautiful. I’ve written more extensively about bottarga in other posts. Here’s one, if you’d like to learn more.
At Citarella I found a bag of a pasta called spaccatelle, a shape I had seen around but possibly never cooked with (is that even possible?). Its dainty but not too delicate shape seemed right for this recipe. Bottarga is often paired with spaghetti or another string pasta, but my addition of escarole made that match seen klutzy. Spaccatelle is a Sicilian pasta that gets its name from the split down the center (spaccatura means fissure or split). Sicilia Naturalmente, by Margherita Tomasello, is the brand I found. Trecce or gemelli would be a good substitute.
It has been extremely cold in New York for over a week, not even getting near freezing. If you’re experiencing similar, or even if you’re in Key Largo or somewhere warm like that, I hope you’ll give this pasta a try. It’s really nice with a glass or two of Sardinian Vermentino.
Spaccatelle with Escarole, Bottarga, and Sweet Breadcrumbs
For the sweet breadcrumbs:
Extra-virgin olive oil
¾ cup homemade breadcrumbs, made from good, hard Italian bread
Salt
1 teaspoon sugar
For the rest:
Salt
1 medium head escarole, roughly chopped
½ pound spaccatelle, gemelli, or trecce
Extra-virgin olive oil
2 fresh unsprouted garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 small jalapeño, minced (and seeded, if you like less heat)
The grated zest from 1 lemon, plus some of its juice
A splash of dry vermouth
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
About ¼ of a bottarga tongue, preferably from Grey Mullet, peeled from its outer wax wrapping
To make the sweet breadcrumbs, get out a small sauté pan, and set it over medium heat. Drizzle in a little olive oil, and add the breadcrumbs, some salt, and the sugar. Stir everything around until the crumbs become golden and fragrant, about 2 minutes. Turn off the heat, and tip them into a small bowl.
Set up a medium pot of water, and bring it to a boil. Add a little salt. Drop in the escarole, and blanch it for about a minute. Drain it into a colander, and then run cold water over it to stop the cooking and set its bright green color. Squeeze as much water out of it as you can, and give it a few good chops so you have bite-size pieces.
Set up a pot of pasta cooking water, and bring it to a boil. Add salt. Drop in the pasta.
Get out a large sauté pan, and set it over medium heat. Add a about ¼ cup of really good olive oil. Add the garlic, the jalapeño, and the lemon zest, and sauté until fragrant but not letting the garlic color, about a minute or so. Add the escarole, and season with a little salt (not too much, since the bottarga is salty). Sauté a minute to blend all the flavors. Add a splash of dry vermouth, and let it boil off.
When the pasta is al dente, drain it, saving about a cup of the cooking water, and add the pasta to the sauté pan with the escarole. Turn off the heat. Add a big squeeze of lemon juice and the butter, and grate about ¼ cup of bottarga into the pasta. (I used a large-hole grater, which grated the bottarga into thin strips. I think that looks prettier than what a microplainer gives you, and tastes better, too.) Add a little cooking water, and toss gently. You should have a creamy but not overly liquid texture.
Serve out the pasta into two shallow bowls. Sprinkle a little of the breadcrumbs over the top, and then finish with a fresh grating of bottarga.
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Recipe below: Red Snapper Veracruz
When I first started cooking seriously, not professionally yet but seriously, I developed a romance about a dish called pescado a la veracruzana. I had no idea what the dish was, but its name evoked glamor. I daydreamed about floating in a dinghy, drinking tequila, and eating big hunks of fish with my fingers, getting warm from the sun but not painfully burnt. The flavors and colors of Mexico seemed a perfect escape when I was a kid trying to get through the long New York winter. My first boyfriend wore those cotton Mexican peasant shirts with the intricate white embroidery, and I was in love with him. Mexico seemeded like a good place.
It wasn’t until I bought my first Mexican cookbook, The Cuisines of Mexico, by Diana Kennedy, that I saw a recipe for the dish, and believe me it didn’t disappoint. It was titled huachinango a la veracruzana, huachinango being the word for red snapper, a popular fish in Mexico. Her version contained capers, green olives, jalapeño, lime or orange, oregano, thyme, tomatoes, and raisins, ingredients all familiar to a kid growing up in an Italian-American household. I made it a couple of times for my family, and everyone said it tasted like Italian food, sort of like puttanesca.
I’ve since learned that there are many interpretations of the dish, but they all seem to keep the green olives and capers, which is, I think, as it should be. Some cooks pan-fry the fish and then pour the sauce on top when serving. Others bake everything all at once. I’ve chosen to pan-fry quicky, spoon the sauce on top, and then give it a short bake on high heat to finish cooking through. Kennedy’s had a hit of cinnamon, which I used to include, but now I feel that drags down the freshness of the sauce. Hers also included raisins, which I decided to forgo this time, adding honey for sweetness. Mostly you’ll see recipes using red snapper, but sea bass works well, too. I’ve also encountered versions made with shrimp, which is delicious. I added bay leaf instead of the thyme called for in Kennedy’s recipe, because that was what I had on hand.
The dish is more Spanish in origin than native Mexican, but the lime and jalapeño underline what a lovely cultural blend it truly is. I hope you’ll give it a try.
Red Snapper Veracruz
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 large jalapeño pepper, cut into thin rounds
1 small shallot, cut into small dice
2 fresh unsprouted garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 pint grape tomatoes
1 tablespoon honey
1 fresh bay leaf
Salt
A splash of dry sherry
A palmful of good green olives, pitted and torn in half (I used Ascolana del Piceno, but if you want something milder you might want to try Castelvetrano)
⅓ cup salt-packed Sicilian capers, soaked, rinsed, and drained
2 large red snapper fillets, about 6 or 7 ounces each
¼ cup all-purpose flour
About 6 large oregano sprigs, the leaves lightly chopped
A large lime, quartered
Heat the oven to 450 degrees.
To make the sauce (or condimento, as I prefer to call it, since it’s more chunky than saucy), put a big drizzle of good olive oil in a sauté pan, and turn the heat to medium-high. Add the jalapeño slices and the shallot, and sauté for about a minute. Add the garlic, and let it cook for about 30 seconds. Add the tomatoes, and turn the heat to high. Add the honey, bay leaf, and some salt, and cook quickly, just until the tomatoes give off some juice. Add a splash of sherry, and let it bubble away. Add the olives and capers, give it a good stir, and turn off the heat.
Dry off the snapper fillets, and season them on both sides with salt. Coat them lightly with flour.
Get out another sauté pan, one that can go into the oven, and set it over high heat. Add about 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and let it get hot. Add the filets, presentation side down (skin side up), and brown them quickly, about 2 minutes. Turn them over, and turn off the heat. Pour off any excess oil.
Add about half of the oregano to the olive-and-caper sauce, and then spoon the sauce over the fillets. Drizzle with a little fresh olive oil, and squeeze on the juice from two quarters of the lime.
Stick the dish in the oven to finish cooking the fish and heat the condimento through, about 4 minutes. Garnish with the remaining oregano. Serve right away with the remaining lime wedges.
I served it with plain white rice and a watercress-and-avocado salad dressed with lime, salt, and olive oil.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged dinner, fish, food, recipe, recipes | 2 Comments »
Recipes below: Arugula and Fontina Soufflé; Fennel, Pear, and Taggiasca Olive Salad
With all the evils being perpetrated by our country right now, I thought I’d try to lighten up and talk a little about eggs. They are really amazing things, the way they tighten or puff depending on how you treat them. When you firm them up, you can make a flan. When you fluff them, you can produce a soufflé. There’s a restaurant in Paris called Le Soufflé that opened in 1961. Its entrance is painted a gentle light blue (see the photo below). I’ve never been, but I’ve walked past it. I’ve been told that Catherine Deneuve eats there often, or used to. I’m not sure what she’s up to lately. I just looked at their menu. It seems a little farty and a lot touristy yet also elegant. I like the idea of their morel soufflé, or maybe the one with Roquefort, or goat cheese. However the soufflé made with beef bourguigon does not sound appealing. I’m not even sure how you’d get it to rise. But wouldn’t it be nice to go for lunch and maybe order an asparagus soufflé and a ton of wine, and follow up with a vanilla soufflé for dessert? One of these days.
I have no history of soufflés in my family, and I didn’t really understand how they were made until I started seriously messing around in the kitchen myself, trying to produce something equivalent. Later I occasionally wound up in semi-fancy restaurants and came to understand the idea of the dessert soufflé. I believe the first one I ever had was at Lutèce, where my boyfriend, now my husband, took me for a big birthday dinner in the mid eighties. I chose André Soltner’s famous Grand Marnier soufflé, and he brought it to the table himself. That was thrilling.
Soufflé is not an Italian concept, but Italian cuisine does offer something similar, often less puffy, more custardy, and you can find straight-on soufflé-like dishes there, too. I once had a gorgonzola soufflé in Rome, and it was very puffy. Whether custardy or puffy, in Italy it usually goes under the name sformato, which translates something like to unmold. I make the custardy type often, usually with whatever seasonal vegetable feels right. This time I decided to go all puff, adding two well-loved Italian ingredients, fontina and arugula.
I find this a solid dinner for two, with good bread, the salad I propose, if you like, and a few glasses of rosato, or maybe prosecco. A celebration of better things to come.
Arugula and Fontina Soufflé
I used an 8-inch-wide, 3-inch-deep traditional ceramic soufflé dish, but one wider and shallower would be fine. You’d just need to cut down the cooking time.
For the dish:
1 tablespoon soft unsalted butter
2 tablespoons grated Parmigiano cheese
For the soufflé:
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup whole milk
¼ teaspoon allspice and ¼ teaspoon nutmeg, mixed together
Salt
Piment d espelette to taste
4 large egg yolks
½ cup grated Parmigiano cheese
¾ cup grated Fontina Valle d’Aosta cheese
3 cups baby arugula, blanched for a minute, drained, run under cold water to set its color, and then squeezed dry and chopped (this will yield about ½ cup chopped, and be sure to get out as much water as possible so it doesn’t weigh down your soufflé)
6 large egg whites
Smear the soft butter all over the inside of the soufflé dish. Dust the inside with the Parmigiano. You can stick the dish in the refrigerator while you get on with the recipe, so the coating stays firm, but take it out about 15 minutes before you want to bake the soufflé, so the dish is not too cold.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
In a large saucepan, heat the 3 tablespoons of butter over medium heat. Add the flour, whisking it until it’s well blended. Let it cook for about a minute to burn off any raw flour taste, and then add the milk. Whisk it over medium heat until it becomes thick and smooth, about 3 minutes. Add the allspice and nutmeg mix, some salt, and some piment d’espelette. Pull the pan from the heat, and add the egg yolks, whisking them in one at a time. Mix in the Parmigiano, the Fontina, and the arugula.
In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until they’re shiny and stiff. With a spatula fold about ¼ of the egg whites into the soufflé mixture. Then gently fold the remaining whites into the mix. You don’t need to work them in completely evenly. A little streakiness is okay and better than over mixing. Pour the mixture into the soufflé dish, and stick it in the oven.
Turn the oven down to 375 degrees, and bake for about 30 minutes. The soufflé should be lightly browned, quite puffy, and fairly firm when you touch the center of its top. Ideally you want only a tiny bit of runniness in the middle when you open it up. Serve it right away, with the salad, if you like.
Fennel, Pear, and Taggiasca Olive Salad
Fennel, Pear, and Taggiasca Olive Salad
2 medium fennel bulbs, trimmed and cut into thin rounds
2 firm but fragrant pears (I used red Anjous, because they actually smelled like pears, as opposed to the other varieties at Citarella, which smelled like nothing), cored and thinly sliced (I left on the peel for color contrast)
1 small shallot, thinly sliced
A handful of Taggiasca or Niçoise (similar to Taggiasca) olives, pitted and torn in half (or left whole, if you prefer)
4 large sprigs tarragon, the leaves lightly chopped
1 teaspoon rice wine vinegar
Salt
½ teaspoon Dijon mustard
1½ tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Black pepper
Place the fennel, pears, shallot, olives, and tarragon in a wide salad bowl.
Whisk the vinegar with a little salt and the mustard. Whisk in the olive oil.
Grind a little fresh black pepper over the salad, and then pour on the dressing. Toss gently with your fingers.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged baking, dinner, food, recipe, recipes | 2 Comments »
Recipe below: Lumache with Fresh Tuna, Taggiasca Olives, Arugula, and Bottarga
Recipes linked to in text below: My Pizza di Scarola; Roasted Red Sweet Peppers Filled with Leftover Baccalà Mantecato from Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve and mental health troubles often go hand in hand, at least in my family. The holiday seems to unleash a general sense of turmoil in some people and a deep loneliness in others (or sometimes both iin the same person). I have recently had a few Christmas Eves surrounded by weird behavior, calling for a paring down of the whole evening—fewer people, smaller menu, puny tree with not enough sparkles. That has been sad for me, as Christmas Eve is my favorite food holiday. But this year looks like it’s shaping up to be different. No one will be going nutty (although people can surprise you), and the entire atmosphere feels brighter. I’m looking forward to putting together a solid and beautiful Christmas Eve dinner. Progress can be made.
I’ve been thinking about how this important fish-based dinner has changed for me over the years, especially since I’ve become the person in charge of the menu. I’ve moved on from some of the family classics, such as linguine with clams (which I love, don’t get me wrong) and added a few dishes that are classics in various parts of Italy but didn’t make their way onto my childhood table. I’m thinking specifically of pizza di scarola, a Neapolitan Christmas Eve tradition that I now can’t imagine the evening without. I’ve made the double-crusted torta in many variations, sometimes adding capers or olives, occasionally going escarole-heavy with few embellishments, sometimes adding caciocavallo; the inclusion of anchovies is non-negotiable . And I almost always use an olive oil crust. You can do a pasta frolla with butter, but I think the olive oil version goes better with the filling. If you’d like to give it a try, here is one of the ways I do it.
Also baccalà is a must for me now, although my mother would have been grossed out dealing with it in any form. I love salt cod and usually make it Venetian-style, whipped up with a lot of good olive oil and a little potato and then given a gratinée treatment with breadcrumbs and sometimes olives on top. This year I’m planning a different presentation, though. I’ll be spooning the whipped fluff on bruschetta and topping it with roasted peppers and fresh marjoram, more of a Spanish concept, I guess. Here is my recipe for that.
I also love fresh tuna with pasta. Canned Italian tuna is traditional for the dish below, but fresh produces a lighter taste. I make it with fresh tuna quite often. This new one is bold and bright, just the way I hope the my Christmas Eve will turn out to be.
If you don’t have or don’t want to use bottarga, you can instead sprinkle each serving with sautéed breadcrumbs, maybe with a little Aleppo worked in.
Lumache with Fresh Tuna, Taggiasca Olives, Arugula, and Bottarga
1-pound fresh tuna (I used wild caught U.S. yellowfin), cut into approximately ½-inch cubes
Extra-virgin olive oil
Salt
A pinch of sugar
Aleppo pepper, to taste
2 pints grape tomatoes
1 large shallot, chopped
2 fresh garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 pound lumache pasta
A splash of sweet vermouth
½ cup vegetable or light chicken broth
A handful of Taggiasca olives, pitted and torn in half (Niçoise are very similar, so use those if you can’t find Taggiasca)
5 large sprigs of marjoram
A big handful of baby arugula, stemmed
1 small piece of bottarga, peeled of its outer casing (I prefer Sardinian gray mullet bottarga, which I order from Gustiamo).
Toss the tuna chunks with a little olive oil, salt, a sprinkling of sugar, and some Aleppo.
Set up a pot of pasta cooking water, and bring it to a boil. Add salt.
While the water is coming to a boil, get out a large sauté pan, and set it over high heat. When it’s good and hot, add the grape tomatoes, and shake them around a few times until they start to burst. Add the shallot, a little salt, and some Aleppo, and let it cook for about a minute. Add the garlic, and cook until the tomatoes give off some juice and the garlic is fragrant, about a minute longer.
Drop the lumache into the water.
Add a big splash of sweet vermouth to the sauté pan, and let it bubble for a few seconds. Add the vegetable or chicken broth. Turn the heat down to medium.
Add the tuna to the sauce, and cook it for only about a minute so. You want it to stay quite pink in the center. Add the olives and the marjoram.
When the pasta is al dente, drain it, saving about a cup of the cooking water, and put the pasta in a large serving bowl. Add the tuna sauce and a generous drizzle of olive oil. Add the arugula, and toss gently, adding a little cooking water if needed to loosen the sauce. Check for seasoning.
Top each serving with a few big gratings of the bottarga, or, if you prefer, with a sprinkling of toasted breadcrumbs.
And speaking of Christmas Eve fish, check out the Museo dell’Acciuga, an anchovy museum just outside of Palermo. I’ve never been, but it looks like a lot of fun. Next time for sure.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged dinner, food, pasta, recipe, recipes | 4 Comments »
I’m constantly revising my list of animals I won’t eat. I have the luxury of doing so because I can pay for alternate sources of protein. I used to eat frog legs with butter and garlic and herbs, and they were delicious, but now I can’t. I’ve held frogs many times and felt their skin, thick, green, and rubbery. I know their skin is removed before cooking, but I can’t help remember it was once there. I think about chewing it and choking it down. Completely irrational. I used to eat rabbit too, but when I began working in restaurants and had to skin their soft fur from their dead bodies over and over and over, I decided I couldn’t do that anymore. (Now rabbit usually comes into a restaurant already skinned, but back in the day scalping it was a sad job.) This turnaround is unfortunate for me, because Italian rabbit recipes are very good (coniglio agrodolce, for instance, with green olives, pine nuts, vinegar, honey, and mint). Also, I do understand that frogs and rabbits have very low greenhouse gas issues compared with cows, which are off-the-charts problematic, but I seem to have no problem eating cows. I’m working on changing my thinking about rabbit.
I have never had any problem with any type of poultry, especially duck. I’ve known some ducks personally, but still I can eat them. I could even kill them if I had to, although I’ve never had to.
I like cooking duck legs. Once I’ve seared and melted off most of their fat (ducks carry an astonishing amount of fat), I put them into a low oven to braise until tender, a long time, but then there’s no further work for me. The kitchen starts to smell wonderful, especially if red wine is involved in the braise. And their color when they’re tender, a deep burnished red-brown, is just like the few leaves that are now left on the trees outside my apartment window.
For the braised duck I used D’Artagnan whole duck legs on my first try. These are Rohan ducks, a hybrid that includes both the mallard and Pekin breeds. For my next go-round I tried Hudson Valley Foie Gras Moulard duck legs. Both brands were good and took about two hours to become tender, but the Hudson Valley duck had much more fat, which I trimmed a bit. It also had more meat. Both cooked up tender with excellent flavor.
Braised Duck with Red Wine, Prunes, and Grappa
4 whole duck legs
Salt
Black pepper
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 large shallot, finely diced
1 carrot, finely diced
About ½ teaspoon allspice
5 large sprigs rosemary, the leaves well chopped
A big splash of grappa (if you don’t have any grappa, use cognac or brandy)
½ bottle red wine (I used a Barbera)
2 cups homemade chicken broth, possibly a little more
12 pitted prunes
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
If it looks like you’ve got a ton of fat on your duck legs, carefully trim a little off (I used scissors for this). Get out a big skillet or sauté pan that will fit the duck legs comfortably (if you have cast iron, I’d use it). Set it over medium heat. Season the legs generously on both sides with salt and black pepper. Drizzle a little olive oil into the pan. Add the duck legs, skin side down, and let them sit there, not moving them around, until they’re well browned. This will take about 8 minutes. You want to cook out much of the fat. If the legs are browning too fast, turn the heat down a little. Give them a flip, and sear the other side for about 2 minutes. Remove the duck from the pan.
Pour off most of the duck fat (keep it for sautéing potatoes or something), leaving about a tablespoon. Set the pan over medium heat again, and add the shallot, carrot, allspice, and about half of the chopped rosemary. Let the mix sauté until softened, about 3 minutes. Add a big splash of grappa (or cognac), and let it bubble up for about 30 seconds. Add the red wine, and let it reduce by about half.
Put the duck back in the pan, skin side up. Add enough chicken broth to come up a little more than halfway, to just under the edge of the skin. Sprinkle the rest of the rosemary over the duck. Bring the liquid to a gentle boil, and then stick the pan in the oven and braise it there uncovered (which will help keep the skin crisp), for about 2 hours. Add the prunes after 1½ hours. Check once in a while to make sure the liquid isn’t getting too low, and add a little more broth or even water if needed. I didn’t have this problem, but you never know.
Remove the duck to a plate, skin side up. Spoon off excess fat from the pan, and then reduce the sauce if necessary (you want a little thickness in it). Check for seasoning. Plate the duck, and pour some sauce and prunes over each serving.
The first time I made this I served it over a celery root purée and that, I thought, was a good accompaniment. The second time I made Israeli couscous, also good but more neutral, maybe better in a way better for soaking up all the wine and prune sauce.
I also love duck legs slow braised and shredded into a ragù for pasta. If you’d like to try that, here’s recipe I did for it a few years back, using black olives, orange, and basil.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged cooking, dinner, food, recipe, recipes | 2 Comments »
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Welcome to Ericademane.com
I am a chef, food writer, and herb lover who specializes in improvisational Italian cooking. I am the author of The Flavors of Southern Italy and Pasta Improvvisata, as well as Williams-Sonoma Pasta, which is available at Williams-Sonoma stores. A member of the Association of Culinary Professionals, The New York Women's Culinary Alliance, The New York Culinary Historians, The Herb Society of America, and the Italian-based International Slow Food Movement, I live in New York City.
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Erica De Mane 