Erica De Mane

Barbara’s Red Pear tomatoes.

Recipes:

Bucatini with End-of-Season Tomatoes, Mussels, and Pancetta
Farro Penne with Green Zebra Tomatoes, Marjoram, Almonds, and Ricotta Salata

September is a great month for tomatoes in New York, but it’s also a sad one, because you know it’s all coming to an end soon. Once October rolls in I start hoarding the remaining tomatoes at the markets. I don’t bottle and preserve them; that would seem excessive for a family of two, and it’s really not me anyway, but I do try to cook with them as much as possible during those dwindling tomato days.

My friend Barbara just bought a house in upstate New York. She never had a garden before but now has a big yard, and she wanted to grow vegetables, so I ordered her a bunch of seeds from a company called seedsfromitaly.com. Seedsfromitaly carries all sorts of unusual Italian vegetable and fruit varieties. One of the seed types Barbara started in little paper cups in her Washington Heights apartment was something called Red Pear, a gigantic Northern Italian beefsteak tomato. It sprouted like grass in a few weeks and she eventually transferred it to her upstate plot. She’s now got a zillion of these incredibly huge, heavy, peculiarly pear-shaped tomatoes. They were still completely green at the end of August, and she got a little worried that they’d just go from green to brown and shrivel up and then drop off dead, but now in the first days of September she’s suddenly finding that every morning a few of her hard green tomatoes have turned orange and then deep crimson.

The texture of these beefsteaks is not what I expected. Their insides are dense and sweet, with little runniness and few seeds, like a great sauce tomato, but they are rich and intense just sliced and drizzled with olive oil or, as I prepared them at her house recently, cut into chunks and tossed with steamed corn, red onion, and basil. Every morning she’s got more solid red ones. And now she has enough of these huge things to allay our fears of running out until maybe the end of October.

She has also planted a super-sized variety of the classic San Marzano plum, called Redorta. These are also now huge and fairly obscene-looking but still green in early September. (Maybe she needs to scatter some volcanic ash over the vines? Where would one buy it, I wonder?) Barbara has turned out to be quite the gardener, even though she insists she hasn’t done much more than stare at the plants morning, noon, and night. Maybe that’s the key.

Standing in the middle of her tomato patch in my mud-caked high-heel sandals felt like a scene out of Green Acres, but I needed to get close to the tomato leaves so I could smell their pungent, bitter, spicy aroma. This echoed a childhood memory deeply etched in the olfactory area of my brain (wherever that may be). The leaves of these giant Italian tomatoes seem even sharper smelling and more alluring than the leaves from the lumpy, juice-packed beefsteaks my father grew in his little backyard garden, and since childhood memories always become exaggerated over the years, I assume these Italian tomato leaves must, comparably, really be intense.

It seems to me that transitional times are the most perplexing to cook through. Early fall and early spring in particular throw me off, and I have to work harder to come up with great cooking. I think it’s because during these in-between seasons I’m not completely clear about what I want to eat. What I find myself doing come September is introducing heartier fall-like touches to my tomato dishes. I’ll pair tomatoes with pancetta, with stronger herbs like rosemary and sage, with leeks, with salty cheeses like feta or ricotta salata, and I’ll add pats of butter along with my usual olive oil, just for richness. These dishes usher me through the end of the tomato season and into fall with a lot less heartache.

Bucatini with End-of-Summer Tomatoes, Mussels, and Pancetta

In high summer I would probably flavor this pasta with basil and a few cloves of fresh garlic. But now I’ve used instead rosemary, pancetta, and celery, pushing the dish into the realm of early fall flavor. I see it as a main-course dish.

(Serves 4 as a main course)

6 or 7 end-of-the-summer plum tomatoes, cut into small dice
Salt
Extra-virgin olive oil
3 thin slices pancetta, well chopped
2 shallots, thinly sliced
1 small celery stalk, cut into small dice, plus the leaves, chopped
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 1/2 pounds small mussels, well cleaned
1 pound bucatini pasta
A generous pinch of Aleppo pepper (or a smaller pinch of cayenne)
A splash of cognac or brandy
A larger splash of dry vermouth
A few sprigs of rosemary, the leaves lightly chopped
A large handful of flat-leaf parsley,the leaves lightly chopped

Place the chopped tomatoes in a colander, sprinkle them with salt, and give them a gentle toss. Let them drain for about 20 minutes.

Set up a big pot of pasta-cooking water and bring it to a boil. When it boils add a generous amount of salt.

In a large, wide skillet (or a casserole-type pot), heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Add the pancetta and sauté until it’s just starting to crisp. Add the shallots, the celery, with leaves, and the garlic, and sauté a minute longer. Add the mussels, the pepper, the cognac, and the vermouth, and stir everything around a little.

Drop the bucatini into the pot of water.

Add the tomatoes and the rosemary to the mussels and cook uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the mussels open, about 5 minutes.

When the bucatini is al dente, drain well and pour it into a very large serving bowl (big enough to accommodate all the mussel shells). Drizzle with about 2 tablespoons of fresh olive oil and scatter on the parsley. Toss briefly. Pour on the mussel sauce and toss again. Taste for salt. Serve right away.

Farro Penne with Green Zebra Tomatoes, Marjoram, Almonds, and Ricotta Salata

Green zebras, an heirloom variety, have all the qualities of a great summer tomato but with an added touch of sourness that I love with pasta. Here’s another of my pomodoro crudo sauces, which I’ve been living on this summer (they’re so easy and versatile). With the zebras I like to include strong flavors, such as the fresh marjoram and ricotta salata I’ve chosen here. I pair the sauce with hearty farro pasta (you can also use whole-wheat pasta), which really gives the dish a late-summer feel.

(Serves 6 as a first course)

8 green zebra tomatoes, seeded and cut into small dice
Salt
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
2 summer garlic cloves, thinly sliced
A few scrapings of nutmeg
A pinch of sugar
A handful of whole, blanched almonds, lightly toasted
5 large sprigs marjoram, the leaves chopped
Freshly ground black pepper
1 pound farro penne pasta (Latini makes a superb one, which you can order from gustiamo.com )
3/4 cup crumbled ricotta salata
A handful of flat-leaf parsley leaves, lightly chopped

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

Set up a large pot of pasta-cooking water and bring it to a boil. Add a generous amount of salt. Throw in the farro penne.

In a large serving bowl, add the drained tomatoes, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and the butter, garlic, nutmeg, a pinch of sugar, almonds, and the marjoram. Season with a generous amount of black pepper, and give everything a stir.

When the pasta is al dente, drain well, and add it to the serving bowl. Add the ricotta salata and the parsley and toss. Taste to see if it needs more salt. Serve hot or warm.