Erica De Mane

Fresh cardoons for Felice’s lost recipe.

Recipes:

Pumpkin Agro Dolce with Vinegar and Mint
Batter Fried Cardoons with Anchovy Tomato Salsa

Hi Erica,

I am second-generation Italian, my maternal grandparents coming from the hills of San Fratello in Sicily and my paternal ones from the mainland around Naples. My mom’s mother (I’m her namesake) was the only grandparent I met, and I recall two recipes from when I was small that I wish I could reconstruct.

She passed away when I was a teenager, and of course during the 1970s being Italian, or eating Italian regionalized foods, wasn’t cool, so I never paid much attention to how things were prepared. I was, however, a closet Italian-food eater, and I absolutely loved the foods grandma made . . . just not in front of my more American friends!

There are two recipes that I wish I could reconstruct, since I have very fond memories of them. Unfortunately, in those days, everything was done without measuring and was committed to memory, not paper. Anyway, here goes:

Recipe 1: Fried Pumpkin Strips

I recall that Grandma would peel a pumpkin and slice it into strips. She’d wash them, dry them, and then fry them in olive oil. After she removed the strips from the pan, she would add fresh mint, fresh sliced garlic, and I think vinegar or lemon to the pan and deglaze. Then she’d pour the liquid on top of layers of pumpkin slices. It was so good. I recall the pumpkin part, but I just can’t recall the vinegar- or lemon-based part or if there were any other spices included. I’ve tried making it, from my recollection of course, and I’m not sure if I’m missing ingredients or if it just doesn’t taste the same because Grandma isn’t here to make it. She also made bluefish in a similar manner.

Recipe 2: Fried and Battered Cardoons

Grandma, aunts, uncles, cousins, and Mom and Dad would go cardoon picking in New York State. She would then slice the stalks (she saved the leaves for something else, but I don’t recall what), clean and peel them, and then add them to a batter (almost like a tempura) and fry them up. I couldn’t get enough of them. My attempts to make this have failed miserably. She obviously used flour, but I don’t know if she used water or milk or what spices she used. I do know that it was a very thin (almost like a crepe) batter.

Erica, your help is appreciated. I’d love to bring these two recipes home again.

Felice

Since starting my “Lost Recipes Found” feature, I’ve become increasingly interested to learn of the dishes most loved and most missed by my Italian-American readers. Pasta dishes are often requested, which doesn’t surprise me. Holiday cookies are also high on the list. But what I have found odd is the number of people who longed for various vinegary preparations called a scapece, or sweet-and-sour dishes that usually go by the name of agro dolce. These are common antipasto dishes throughout Italy. I’ve had requests for puckery preserved eggplant, zucchini with vinegar and hot chilies, for giardiniera, the vinegar-preserved vegetable mix from Southern Italy that my grandfather went wild for, and even for a sweet-and-sour liver dish from Procida (see Fegato a Scapece Vicidomini). It’s been strange to learn that these intense little dishes were fond childhood memories for many people. I think people’s relationships with these foods may have started out as a love-hate affair, forcing the stuff down as a kid, finding it disgusting, then somehow getting used to it and ultimately liking it. And now that the food is no longer a part of their lives, a coming-of-age nostalgia seems to take over, and a longing to taste them again creeps in, usually somewhere around early middle age. I know that the hot pickled peppers stuffed with anchovies that my father bought in little jars and popped into his mouth like jelly beans were a thing I’d force myself to taste, almost as a test. And then I got to love them, and now I actually make my own from time to time, just to fulfill a craving. Same goes for caponata, the sweet-and-sour eggplant antipasto we always seems to have on the table. So I suppose these memories of enticingly unbearable flavors reemerge in adulthood as emotionally charged, super loaded taste memories that must be addressed one way or another.

The pumpkin agro dolce that Felice requested is a classic Sicilian dish, very strongly flavored and maybe a taste that you needed to grow up with to love, or possibly an acquired taste, as it was for me. I remember preparing this dish for a Sicilian cooking class I was teaching and everyone seemed stunned by its flavor, a mix of pumpkin, vinegar, garlic, and mint. I still find it strange on its own, but I’ve grown to enjoy it a lot served alongside roast pork or lamb, since it gives the palate a little jolt, breaking up the sometimes monotonous taste of the meat.

The cardoon is one of those vegetables, like the artichoke it’s related to, that seem romantic chiefly because most people don’t know what the hell to do with them. It has a unique slightly lemony artichoke taste, but the work required to make it edible can be a turnoff for the contemporary cook. However, since one of my goals in life has been to take up all the weird, dropped Italian kitchen tasks of my heritage and make them live again, I was excited to have a reason to purchase a big bunch of this winter thistle and start playing around with it. I also love the idea that Felice’s family would go cardoon picking in upstate New York. I can’t imagine where one would find wild cardoons in New York; maybe they just strolled out into their garden. At any rate, this is a bizarre thing to visualize, something like watching my grandmother collect dandelions from a local golf course is Westchester, a hobby that mortified my family.

My family, to my recollection, never cooked cardoons, but I ate them several times at Italian-American friends’ homes when I was growing up, usually as part of the Thanksgiving meal, served right alongside the marshmallow sweet potatoes. I’ve also had them in Sicily, where they were breaded and fried, and also once fashioned in a kind of cardone parmigiano; breaded and fried and then layered with tomatoes and mozzarella, just as you’d do with eggplant. This was exceptionally delicious. I’ve never had them batter-fried the way Felice describes, but I’ve certainly had batter-fried artichokes that were amazing, and in general anything fried is enticing to me. So I knew these would be good.

I love the look of the things, like overgrown, unruly celery but with the violet-gray-green hue that many artichokes also have. You need to tackle cardoons by first pulling off all the spiky leaves, and then scrape off the outer, tough fibers with a vegetable peeler, making sure to drop them into lemon or vinegar water right away, since, like artichokes, they will darken. Then they have to be blanched before you can go ahead and fashion them into anything remotely edible. I tried a few different batters, finally settling on a very simple one, with just a touch of baking powder, one I’ve use for artichokes and also for zucchini blossoms. A squeeze of lemon and a grating of grana padano or pecorino cheese is a great little embellishment, or you can try them with my tomato anchovy salsa I’ve included here.

So, Felice, I hope these recipes will bring back some taste memories for you. The technique for each is solid, but you might want to tinker with the amounts of seasoning to bring them closer to what you remember. My renditions are fairly classic ones, so they should provide a very good starting point. I just may serve both of these lovely dishes as part of my Thanksgiving Day dinner this year, just to break up all that boring mashed sweet potato.

Pumpkin Agro Dolce with Vinegar and Mint

(Serves 4 as an antipasto)

1/2 cup dry white wine
About 1 teaspoon sugar
A tiny pinch of ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon champagne vinegar or any high-quality white wine vinegar
Extra-virgin olive oil
Half a small cheese pumpkin (about a pound and a half), peeled, seeded, and cut into approximately 1-inch-thick slices (or you can use butternut squash)
2 garlic cloves, peeled
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
A small handful of mint leaves, lightly chopped

In a small saucepan, mix the white wine with the sugar, a pinch of cinnamon, and the champagne vinegar. Let it bubble over medium heat for about 2 minutes, just to dissolve the sugar and burn off some of the alcohol.

Pour about half an inch of olive oil into a large skillet and let it get hot over a medium flame. Add the pumpkin slices and the garlic cloves, season everything generously with salt and black pepper, and let the slices cook without moving them around at all, until they’re lightly browned on one side. Flip them over and brown the other side. Pour off all but about 2 tablespoons of the olive oil. Pour the wine mixture over the pumpkin, turn the heat to low, and cover the skillet. Cook gently for about another 4 minutes, just until the pumpkin is fork tender but not falling apart. You should have a little liquid left in the skillet.

Turn off the heat, uncover the skillet, and let the pumpkin cool for a few minutes in the skillet to help it absorb all the flavors. Add the mint. The dish should have a subtle sweet-and-sour taste, more mellow than sharp. Serve warm or at room temperature. The taste will deepen if left to sit overnight in the refrigerator (but bring it back to room temperature before serving).

Batter Fried Cardoons with Anchovy Tomato Salsa

(Serves 4 as an antipasto)

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1 pound cardoons (about 5 stalks)
Salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
A generous pinch of nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon baking powder
Freshly ground black pepper
1 cup cool water
A generous squeeze of fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup grated grana padano cheese

For the frying:

About 2 cups cooking oil ( I like a mix of half neutral-tasting vegetable oil, such as canola or corn, and half extra-virgin olive oil, for flavor; you can use all extra-virgin olive oil if you like, but it is expensive)

For the salsa:

Extra-virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
4 anchovy fillets, minced
A pinch of sugar
A splash of brandy or grappa
1 35-ounce can plum tomatoes, well chopped, with the juice
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
5 marjoram sprigs, the leaves chopped
A handful of flat-leaf parsley leaves, chopped
The zest from 1/2 lemon

Fill a bowl with cool water and add the vinegar. Cut the tough ends and trim the leaves from each cardoon stalk. Peel off the outer stringy layer from each stalk with a vegetable peeler, and cut the stalks into 2-inch pieces, adding them to the vinegar water as you finish working with each piece.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil, and add a teaspoon of salt. Drain the cardoons, and drop them in the water, boiling them until tender, about 30 minutes. Drain and dry with paper towels.

To make the batter:

In a medium bowl combine the flour, the nutmeg, and the baking powder. Season with salt and a few grindings of fresh black pepper, and stir well to distribute everything evenly. Slowly add the water, whisking, until the batter is smooth (it should be the texture of a very heavy cream). Let it sit at room temperature for about an hour.

Pour the canola or other vegetable oil and the extra-virgin olive oil into a medium pot to a depth of about 4 inches. Turn the flame to high, and heat until the oil reaches about 375 degrees. Dip the cardoon pieces into the batter, and fry until golden brown, turning them once or twice with tongs (you’ll probably need to do this in batches to avoid crowding the pot). When done, pull the pieces from the oil with the tongs and drain them on paper towels. Arrange the cardoons on a serving platter, and season them lightly with salt. Squeeze on some lemon juice and sprinkle with the grana padano. Serve right away, either with the anchovy tomato sauce or just as is.

To make the salsa:

In a medium sauce pot, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and anchovies and a pinch of sugar, and sauté until the garlic is fragrant, about 2 minutes. Add the splash of brandy or grappa, and let it boil away. Add the tomatoes, season with salt and black pepper, and cook, uncovered, for about 8 minutes. Turn off the heat, and add the marjoram, parsley, and lemon zest. Serve warm.