Erica De Mane

New York Snow, by Richard Marsh.

Recipe Below: Stuffed Peppers with Lamb, Goat Cheese, Sweet Spices, and a Honey and Mint Tomato Sauce

Here’s a Winter menu for you:

Crostini with Anchovy Butter and Thyme
Stuffed Peppers with Lamb, Goat Cheese, Sweet Spices, and a Honey and Mint Tomato Sauce
Orange Salad with Escarole and Walnuts

Winter is a circumscribed but potentially creative time for me, as it is for any cook. Even without zucchini blossoms or armfuls of basil to play with, I find winter cooking, post-holidays, liberating if I organize my thoughts. I no longer feel any obligation to turn out hundreds of Nonna’s annoyingly complicated Christmas cookies stuffed with forty ingredients and then fried in a gallon of olive oil, or any other damned Christmas cookies that call out from my past. Those assignments are over. I can get on with my culinary life.

Where does my dead-of-winter cooking take me? I tend to hoard food in the winter. If I see a good looking bag of oranges at the supermarket, I’ll buy the whole bag. I’ll stuff my freezer with sausages and tubs of homemade chicken broth, my pantry with canned tomatoes. I learned anxiety hoarding from my father, who foodwise was prepared for any disaster (we had three freezers in our Long Island home). So winters have me looking for ways to use up stuff I’ve jammed into my little kitchen—a load of pistachios before they go rancid, bags of risotto rice, cassoulet beans, Israeli couscous, farro, cavatelli, end chunks of pecorino, taleggio, gorgonzola, and that huge head of escarole I bought because it looked so bouncy compared with the lifeless red leaf and Boston lettuces. I’ve currently got five jars of anchovies because, well, I’m not sure why, but when I see good ones I buy them. Never can have too many anchovies. You’d be amazed how I slip them into dishes where they’re least expected. Beef stew, for instance.

This menu came into being partly as a race against time, but also for a need to brighten my evenings with salty, sweet, and spicy tastes. I now find myself turning to Southern Italian classics that get finished in the oven, such as stuffed peppers. But I also feel a need to expand that Mezzogiorno flavor palate with Mediterranean touches from Greece, Turkey, and Morocco. And in winter I long to gather lots of people around my table and entice them with a bit of food drama.

The orange salad with escarole and walnuts I have in mind is an improvisation on one I first learned from Paula Wolfert’s soul-expanding book Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco. Her recipe came back to me while I gazed at a big bag of cara cara oranges on my counter. I didn’t go back and look it up, but I remembered the basic idea. It had touches of sweetness. She used chicory, I’m pretty sure, so I used my big old escarole, which is a member of the chicory family. I added thin-sliced red onion and peeled a few of my cara caras. The vinaigrette was a mix of orange juice, sherry vinegar, olive oil, salt, black pepper, a pinch of allspice, and a few drops of orange flower water. Ms. Wolfert, I believe, used cinnamon, which is more traditional.

For the anchovy butter on the crostini, I just mashed anchovies into softened, unsalted butter, using a mortar and pestle, adding thyme at the end. It came out quite fluffy. I spread it thick on untoasted baguette slices so it didn’t melt. For some reason, I like it with a negroni. I mean, no food really goes with a negroni, but this works well enough.

The stuffed pepper recipe satisfied my need for warmth, for poetry, and for cleaning out my refrigerator.

Happy winter cooking, everyone.

Stuffed Peppers with Lamb, Goat Cheese, Sweet Spices, and a Honey and Mint Tomato Sauce

(Serves 4)

For the tomato sauce:

Extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium shallot, cut into small dice
1 large garlic clove, thinly sliced
A splash of red vermouth
1 35-ounce can of good whole tomatoes, well chopped (if your tomatoes contain purée, pour most of that off, as it may make the sauce unpleasantly creamy)
1 cinnamon stick
1 teaspoon honey
Salt
Black pepper
A splash of chicken broth
About 6 large mint sprigs, the leaves lightly chopped

For the peppers:

4 green bell peppers, cut in half lengthwise, the seeds removed
Extra-virgin olive oil
Salt
¾ pound ground lamb
A big pinch of sugar
1 medium shallot, cut into small dice
1 large garlic clove, thinly sliced
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground allspice
Aleppo pepper, to taste
A splash of red vermouth, plus a little more for baking
A splash of chicken broth
1  1/2 cups cooked long-grain rice, white or brown
About 5 large sprigs flat-leaf parsley, the leaves lightly chopped
⅓ cup lightly toasted pine nuts
1 small log of soft, young goat cheese, crumbled

Make the tomato sauce: Drizzle about a tablespoon or so of olive oil into a sauté pan over medium heat. When it’s hot, add the shallot, and let it soften. Add the garlic, and sauté until it gives off fragrance, about a minute. Add a splash of vermouth, and let it boil off. Add the tomatoes, cinnamon, honey, salt, and black pepper. Cook, uncovered, at a medium bubble for 5 minutes. Add a splash of chicken broth, and cook for a few minutes longer. Turn off the heat, and let the pan of sauce sit on the burner while you work on the peppers.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Rub the peppers all over with olive oil. Season them with a little salt, and place them on a sheet pan, cut side up. Roast until fragrant and just starting to soften, about 15 minutes. Take them from the oven, and let them rest while you make the filling.

In a large sauté pan, heat about 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Add the lamb and the sugar (which will help the lamb brown). Sauté until lightly browned, about 4 minutes or so. Add the shallot and all the spices, including some salt. Sauté a minute, and then add the garlic. Continue sautéing until the lamb is crumbly and cooked through, about another 3 or 4 minutes. Add the vermouth, and let it boil away. Add a splash of chicken broth. Take the pan from the heat, and add the rice, stirring it in. Let it cool for a few minutes. Then add the parsley, pine nuts, and goat cheese, mixing lightly.

Choose a baking dish that will hold all the pepper halves with a little wiggle room. Coat the dish with olive oil. Fill the peppers with the rice mixture, and place them in the dish, cut side up. Drizzle the top with a little more olive oil and another splash of vermouth. Cover the dish with foil, and bake for 15 minutes. Uncover, and bake until the tops are lightly browned and the peppers are tender, about 15 minutes longer.

Reheat the tomato sauce, if needed, and add the mint. Spoon some sauce over each serving.