Erica De Mane

Ingredients for my Warm Cerignolo Olive Salad with Celery Leaves.

Recipes:

Pear and Fennel Salad with Asiago and Marsala Vinaigrette
Warm Cerignolo Olive Salad with Celery Leaves
Red Grape and Arugula Salad with Fennel Seeds and Ricotta Salata

My desire to create fusion cooking usually goes just as far as blending flavors from Sicily with those of Puglia or Campania. Not much of a leap. I don’t often venture outside my world of flavors; I just keep reinventing with the tastes that mean the most to me. My flavors are what anyone would categorize as classically Southern Italian, no messing around: Extra-virgin olive oil, garlic, tomatoes, capers, oranges, lemons, anchovies, sweet and hot chiles, black pepper, fennel, saffron, sea salt, all manner of seafood, salami, nutmeg and cinnamon, pancetta, Pecorino and caciocavallo, ricotta and mozzarella, basil and mint, parsley, oregano, marjoram, bay leaves, rosemary, raisins, pine nuts, pistachios, almonds, wine and vinegar, and honey. I think reining in your choices can do wonders for creativity, but even so this basket of tastes from Southern Italy is a lot to work with, really a lifetime’s worth of possible culinary improvisations. Except that now and again I’m tempted to add something new.

Living in Manhattan has steered my cooking along paths that would have made my grandmother utter her derogatory “That tastes different.” She’d say that whenever I cooked for her, since my manicotti or ragu sauce didn’t taste exactly like hers, and it apparently had to to be proper. Her kitchen was a rigid little world, though she did occasionally make German food, since my grandfather loved it and it represented some kind of culinary chic at the time. But now in present-day Manhattan I step into a new world of flavors any time I take a seat in an Indian, Mexican, Provençal, or Vietnamese restaurant (it’s actually pretty hard to find German places these days). As a result I find myself more and more adding foreign perfumes to my Southern Italian cooking, with tarragon, thyme, ginger, cardamom, lavender, star anise, and poblano and aleppo chiles among the tastes I love. I also love lime, a citrus strangely absent from much of Southern Italian cooking, a cuisine otherwise heavy with citrus. Coriander and cardamom seeds fit nicely into many of my time-honored Southern Italian classics. I love to add a sprinkling of ground coriander to chicken with lemon and garlic. Fried eggplant sprinkled with garlic, vinegar, and hot chiles is a Calabrian classic; with the addition of ground coriander seed it becomes for me more rounded in flavor and richer (I usually finish the dish with a scattering of chopped mint). I’ve also been adding a sprinkling of ground coriander seed to my grilled leg of lamb seasoned with rosemary and garlic; the coriander seems to sweeten it, and the same goes for lamb stew. Star anise, in place of the more customary fennel or anise seed, is incredibly delicious worked into a pasta tossed with a shrimp or lobster sauce, especially when finished with a squirt of lime juice. Roasted cumin seeds tossed with black olives make a delicious appetizer (I also make this with the more traditional fennel seeds). I love lavender sprigs and honey drizzled over young Pecorino. Tarragon has become my favorite herb for raw tomatoes, even surpassing basil this summer. The aroma of cardamom pods transports me to a more exotic culinary world than I usually encounter in my own kitchen, and I’ve been looking for ways to work them into a few Southern Italian dishes in a natural way. My father’s peaches soaked in white wine, as wonderful as they are in their pure state, I find even more lovely with a few crushed cardamom pods floating around in the bowl. I sometimes add a few scrapings of fresh ginger to a tomato sauce (very nice when used as a simmering sauce for pork chops), and I may also include a bit of fresh Thai chile and a handful of basil and toss the sauce with spaghetti.

When I introduce new flavors into my cooking I always have tugging at me the solid traditions of Southern Italy. I view this as a good thing, not only because I love those flavors but also because the tugging keeps me in check, preventing me from concocting an Indian eggplant parmigiano or a Tex-Mex ragu. And I’m very grateful for that.

* * *I love composed salads that contain fruit, vegetables, or cheese, or bits of all these things. They’re a nice change from my usual lettuce-only salads and a good excuse to use fall produce. It’s exciting to liven things up with apples, pears, grapes, fennel, celery, leeks, beets, and shallots. Not to create big meal-in-a-trough salads in the kitchen-sink tradition, but just to gently embellish a bowl of lettuce with little hits of flavor. Here are a few recipes that I think have come out well.

They are all from a book I’m now starting work on, provisionally called For the Love of Salads.

Pear and Fennel Salad with Asiago and Marsala Vinaigrette

Every fall at some point I make pears poached in Marsala. This year I didn’t want to poach the beautiful first-of-the-season pears, but I did want to experience them with the flavor of Marsala. I’ve found that if you reduce the wine to a syrup, it makes a good base for a vinaigrette. I like serving this slightly sweet salad after a rich meat like pork or duck.

A ripe pear should have a little give when you press the neck with your fingers but not be so soft that you can easily dent it. Overly ripe pears are good for eating whole, but for a salad you need something that’s still sliceable. I find that keeping the skin on holds the slices together fairly well while tossing. Anjou, Bosc, Comice, or Bartletts are all fine for this salad. Comice are my favorites.

Asiago is a cow’s milk cheese from Northern Italy. It’s a bit more pungent than Parmigiano and a great match for pears (and apples). I used a medium aged one for this salad, but you can also find an Asiago Fresco in the markets, a less aged version that is softer and milder. Either is fine for this recipe.

About cutting pears: They darken quickly when cut, so slice them only when you’re ready to assemble the salad (once they’re tossed with dressing, they’ll keep their bright color longer).

(Serves 4 as a first course)

1 medium head frisée lettuce, cut or torn into pieces
1 medium fennel bulb, cored and very thinly sliced
1 ripe but not soft pear, unpeeled and thinly sliced
3 tablespoons dry Marsala
A pinch of sugar
1 garlic clove, peeled and lightly crushed
1 teaspoon Spanish sherry vinegar
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Extra-virgin olive oil
A small chunk of Asiago cheese

Set out four salad plates.

Place the frisée, fennel, and pear in a large salad bowl.

Pour the Marsala into a small saucepan. Add the garlic and a pinch of sugar, and bring it to a boil over high heat. Continue to boil until it’s reduced by half, about 3 minutes (it should look a bit syrupy). Let it cool for a few moments. Now add the sherry vinegar, a pinch of salt, and a few grindings of black pepper. Drizzle in about 3 tablespoons of olive oil while giving everything a quick whisk. Pour the vinaigrette over the salad and toss (remove the garlic before you do). Divide the salad up onto the plates and, with a vegetable peeler, shave a few good-size slices of Asiago over each one. Finish each dish with a grinding of fresh pepper. Serve right away.

Warm Cerignolo Olive Salad with Celery Leaves

I think of the huge Cerignolo olives from Puglia, Italy, as really a fruit (which of course they in fact are), since they’re so juicy and mild. They are olives light. Here I use the green ones, sautéing them with garlic and a splash of wine and then scattering them over a simple green salad spiked with lemon zest.

This salad is best served before a main course, as a sort of hors d’oeuvre. You might follow it with fish, but maybe best would be a bowl of pasta with a spicy tomato sauce (I served a version of bucatini all’amatriciana).

(Serves 4 as a first course)

1 large endive, the leaves cut into strips
1 medium head frisée lettuce, torn or cut into pieces
Extra-virgin olive oil
A dozen green Cerignolo olives
Salt
A pinch of sugar
Freshly ground black pepper
1 garlic clove, peeled and lightly crushed
3 tender inner celery stalks, cut into small dice, plus the leaves from 5 stalks, lightly chopped
A splash of white wine
1 teaspoon champagne vinegar
The grated zest from half a lemon

Set out four salad plates.

Place the endive and frisée in a large salad bowl.

In a large skillet, heat a tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat. Add the olives, a pinch of salt, the sugar, black pepper, the garlic, and the diced celery. Sauté, stirring the olives around occasionally until they smell fragrant and are warmed through, about 4 minutes. Add a splash of white wine and let it bubble for a few seconds. Turn off the heat

Drizzle about 2 1/2 tablespoons of olive oil over the endive and frisée and add the champagne vinegar, the lemon zest, a pinch of salt, and a few grindings of black pepper. Give it all a gentle toss, and divide the salad up onto the four plates. Place about 3 olives on each salad and then drizzle each plate with some skillet liquid and the celery, discarding the garlic. Garnish with the celery leaves. Serve right away.

Red Grape and Arugula Salad with Fennel Seeds and Ricotta Salata

The idea for combining grapes with fennel seeds comes from a schiacciata I make in the fall. Schiacciata is a Italian wine harvest bread that included grapes and often fennel seeds (and sometimes rosemary as well, but I find that version a bit cluttered). This is an enticing marriage of flavors that I was eager to try in a salad. I served this after a meal of grilled sausages with peppers, and I thought all the flavors came together nicely.

(Serves 4 as a first course)

A generous palmful of fennel seeds
A pinch of sugar
Salt
1 large bunch arugula, well stemmed
1 cup seedless red grapes, cut in half (The Red Flame variety is a good choice)
1 medium red shallot, very thinly sliced
A few large sprigs of tarragon, the leaves lightly chopped
1 small chunk ricotta salata, cut into thin sticks
1 teaspoon Banyul or Spanish sherry vinegar
Extra-virgin olive oil
A few gratings of fresh nutmeg
Freshly ground black pepper

Place the fennel seeds in a small sauté pan and turn the heat to low. Add a pinch of sugar and a very tiny pinch of salt and heat slowly, stirring the seeds around frequently so they toast evenly. When they start smelling like fennel, they’re done, in about 3 minutes. Remove the pan from the burner so they don’t get any darker.

In a large salad bowl combine the arugula, grapes, shallot, tarragon, and ricotta salata.

In a small bowl combine a teaspoon of vinegar, 3 tablespoons of olive oil, a few gratings of nutmeg, salt, and black pepper. Whisk briefly. Pour this over the salad and toss gently. Sprinkle on the fennel seeds. Serve.