Erica De Mane

Ruchetta selvatica from Mountain Sweet Berry Farm.

Recipes:

Wild Arugula Salad with Ricotta, Strawberries, and Pine Nuts
Wild Arugula with Shrimp, Cherry Tomatoes, and Parmigiano
Cavatelli with Wild Arugula, Mussels, and Sweet Bread Crumbs

I had my first taste of wild arugula as a child on Long Island, and I’ve loved it ever since. The Mastellones, our neighbors across the street, took a trip to their hometown of Sorrento, Italy, sometime in the late l960s and smuggled back clumps of wild arugula, relocating it in their backyard garden. The stuff took off like the weed that it is and has been thriving there ever since, some summers almost taking over the entire garden. They gave cuttings out to all the Italian neighbors, and soon the entire block was growing it. This was before even domestic arugula appeared in supermarkets, so it was a real novelty on Long Island. We called it rucchetta, which is what arugula usually goes by in Rome and in parts of Southern Italy. Either rucchetta selvatica or rucola selvatica is how you refer in Italian to this wild variety, with its intense, addictive bite. I’ve picked up seed packages of a cultivated form of wild arugula in Italy to hand out to friends with gardens (I can also sometimes find these on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, in the garden department of the indoor shopping mall). I’ve grown tiny pots of wild arugula on my window sills in the city. What they need is plenty of sun, which is what I’ve got (a little more space would be nice too). When the seeds first sprout they look like clover, with rounded leaves, but as they shoot up they develop skinny, spiky, dark green leaves, resembling a more refined-looking dandelion. The aroma is so pungent I get whiffs of it coming in through the open window.

Wild arugula in Italy was originally a foraged weed, but a cultivated variety of it is grown by gardeners and farmers. The type the Mastellones brought back was truly wild and extremely sharp, showing off the Italian love of bitter (a taste we don’t have appreciate enough in America). This summer, Mountain Sweet Berry Farm, of Roscoe, New York, started growing wild arugula and bringing it down to sell at the Union Square Greenmarket in the city on Saturdays. I’ve been buying lots of it and using it for salads, pastas, soups, and as beds for grilled meat and fish. It is a real luxury, since my window pots grow only tiny handfuls of leaves at a time. Mountain Sweet Berry Farm also grows an Italian green called agretti, which seems to be the same skinny, tube-like stuff used to garnish sushi and shellfish trays in Japanese restaurants. It tastes a little like salty grass and has a juicy crunch that’s good with a salad of tender, mild lettuces. It’s also nice mixed with grilled shrimp for a quick, warm salad. In Italy I’ve seen it tossed with pasta (but I’ve yet to try it that way).

When I use wild arugula in my cooking, I don’t do so with abandon, as I might with regular supermarket arugula. I wouldn’t, for instance, use it to make an arugula pesto, which would be overpoweringly bitter. You want little hits of it, tempered by other flavors, either sweet, mellow, or acid. In Italy a very popular salad combines wild arugula with cherry tomatoes, salt, and extra-virgin olive oil. That’s it. It’s intense and delicious, a pleasantly abrasive palate cleanser after a grilled steak, for instance. I’ve had that in Liguria, in Rome, and throughout the South. In my experiences with dining out in Italy, I’ve gotten the feeling that many Italians don’t order green salads in restaurants, maybe because they’re so easy to make at home they’re not worth ordering out. But this salad seems special, and everyone goes for it.

If you’d like to buy packages of wild arugula and other Italian seeds, check out seedsfromitaly.com. The company has an extensive collection of hard-to-find Italian vegetable and fruit varieties, and you can get excited reading all the poetic-sounding Italian names on their website. As an added bonus, the seed packages have gorgeous color illustrations of what you will eventually harvest. I recently ordered a whole bunch of things for a friend’s garden that included basilico Napolitano and Genovese, purple Sicilian cauliflower and pale green zucchini, a melon retato degli ortolani (which is traditionally eaten with Parma ham), several varieties of San Marzano tomatoes, and many other things. So far everything is sprouting and looks healthy.

Here are a few easy summer dishes I’ve made recently using Mountain Berry Farm’s wonderful wild arugula.

Wild Arugula Salad with Ricotta, Strawberries, and Pine Nuts

Here’s a salad that blends sweet, mellow, and bitter, three well-loved Italian tastes.

(Serves 4 as a first course)

1/4 pound wild arugula, well stemmed
1 cup whole-milk ricotta, drained if watery
A few sprigs of chervil, the leaves lightly chopped
A few large sprigs of flat-leaf parsley, the leaves chopped
Salt
A few scrapings of fresh nutmeg
A pint of small, sweet strawberries, hulled and left whole (if you must use large ones, cut them in half)
1 shallot, thinly sliced
A handful of pine nuts, lightly toasted
1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
Extra-virgin olive oil
A generous pinch of sugar
Freshly ground black pepper

Lay out the arugula on four salad plates. In a small bowl blend the ricotta with the chervil, parsley, a pinch of salt, and a few scrapings of nutmeg. Pack the ricotta into four small custard cups (about 1/4 cup capacity), packing it down, and turn the ricotta molds out on top of the arugula (or just neatly spoon it on). Scatter the strawberries and shallot over the arugula, and the pine nuts over the ricotta.

In a small bowl, blend the red wine vinegar with 4 tablespoons of olive oil. Add a generous pinch of sugar, salt, and black pepper, and whisk briefly. Drizzle this over the arugula and strawberries. Give each ricotta mold a drizzle of fresh olive oil and few extra grindings of black pepper. Serve right away.

Wild Arugula with Shrimp, Cherry Tomatoes, and Parmigiano

This is a salad I’ve had once in Rome and a few times in Sicily and I’ve seen on menus elsewhere in Italy. It’s not really regional, but it seems to have become trendy, just, I think, because it’s so good.

(Serves 4 as a first course or a light lunch)

1 pound large shrimp, shelled and deveined
Salt
1 fresh bay leaf
The zest from 1 lemon, plus about a tablespoon of its juice
Extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 pound wild arugula, well stemmed
A pint of cherry tomatoes, cut in half
Freshly ground black pepper
A chunk of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese

Put up a large pot of water and bring it to a boil. Add a generous amount of salt and the bay leaf. Drop in the shrimp and blanch until just tender, 1 1/2 to 2 minutes or possibly a little longer, depending on the size of the shrimp. Scoop the shrimp from the water with a large strainer and spread it out on a sheet pan. Put the pan in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes to cool the shrimp. Place the shrimp in a bowl. Add the lemon zest, a little salt, and a drizzle of olive oil. Toss gently.

Lay the arugula out on four salad plates. Arrange the shrimp on top, and scatter on the tomatoes. Mix the lemon juice together with 4 tablespoons of olive oil and a pinch of salt. Drizzle this over the salads, and then give each plate two or three grindings of fresh black pepper. Shave a few thin slices of Parmigiano onto each plate. Serve right away.

Cavatelli with Wild Arugula, Mussels, and Sweet Bread Crumbs

I’ve eaten many pasta dishes in Puglia that contained both raw or simmered bitter greens and some type of seafood, and I’ve tried my own variations of this with anchovies, clams, swordfish, or calamari. The result is a simple combination that produces big flavor. You may, if you like, serve the mussels without pasta. Just ladle the sauce into shallow bowls and pass around some good bread to go with it.

(Serves 4 as a main course or 6 as a first course)

For the sweet bread crumbs:

Extra-virgin olive oil
3/4 cup homemade dry bread crumbs, not too finely ground
1 teaspoon sugar
A pinch of salt
1 tablespoon grated Pecorino cheese

For the pasta:

4 large, round tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped
Salt
Extra-virgin olive oil
2 shallots, thinly sliced
1 small, fresh red chili, seeded and minced
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
A few large thyme sprigs, the leaves chopped
1 1/2 pounds small mussels, well cleaned
A splash of dry Marsala or dry vermouth
1 pound cavatelli
A large handful of wild arugula, well stemmed

To make the sweet bread crumbs:

In a medium skillet heat a tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat. Add the bread crumbs and sauté, stirring frequently, until they’re very lightly golden and crisp, about 2 minutes. Add the sugar and salt, stirring it in. Transfer to a small bowl and let cool a few minutes. Then stir in the Pecorino.

To make the pasta:

Place the tomatoes in a colander, sprinkle them with a little salt, and let them drain for about 30 minutes.

Put up a large pot of pasta cooking water and bring it to a boil. Add a generous amount of salt.

In a pot large enough to hold all the opened mussels, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Add the shallot, chili, garlic, and thyme and sauté for a minute, just to release the flavors. Add the mussels, tomatoes, and Marsala, turn the heat to high, and cook, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the mussels open, about 5 minutes (you want high heat so the juice from the tomatoes can reduce a bit).

While the mussels are cooking, drop the cavatelli into the water. When the cavatelli is al dente, drain and pour it into a very large serving bowl (you’ll need a lot of room to accommodate all the mussels). Add the mussel and tomato mixture and the arugula. Add a generous drizzle of fresh olive oil and toss well (the heat from the sauce will wilt the arugula slightly). Taste for salt (if your mussels are very salty, you may not need it, but most likely you’ll want a pinch or so). Serve right away, topping each bowl with a generous sprinkling of the sweet bread crumbs.