Erica De Mane

Julia Child and Richard Olney relaxing in Provence.

It’s February 1st. A dark day. Not as cold as it has been, but still cold, and damp now, too. Black puffy coats keep passing by my window. Seems like a good time to start my yearly dead-of-winter cookbook scan, searching my shelves for some light. My eyes pass over the titles. Where do I want to go? This Tunisian one might lift my mood. Too bad it’s written in French. And all the books are jammed in so tight I can hardly pull one out without ripping off my fingernails. So,instead of dealing with that mess, I grab one of the oversize books I shove in horizontally on top. The one I’m drawn to has a cover photo of sun-dappled red geraniums, a plate of long pink radishes with their leafy tops, a loaf of rustic bread, a bottle of wine, a dish of some great looking pâté, and one of those big, yellow glazed confit-type pots, all on a perfectly faded pale green bench. Pretty damned charming. Looks really warm there, too. But why is it so cold in my apartment?

So I’m flipping through the super sunny looking Provence the Beautiful Cookbook, written by the not always so sunny Richard Olney. For a coffee table–type book, this one’s full of excellent recipes and serious information. It would have to be, written by Olney, who lived in the South of France and put more creative energy into the area’s cooking than Julia Child was capable of (sorry, Julia).

I am really missing good tomatoes right now, as that book is certainly driving home. I’d love some stuffed vegetables, and I don’t mean cabbage. Tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, sweet peppers. The aromatic ratatouille will have to wait. There are a lot of omelettes in the book. Maybe too many. But they all look runny ripe. If it’s not thrown into an omelette, it’s cooked into a gratin. I love a good gratin. Olney was a pro at improvising with leftovers, making the old seem new again. I’m not sure how he talked his editor into including six salt cod recipes in this glamorous book, but there they are. Nice soups, too, although most look like they’re studded with fresh tomato concasse, especially the clear soup, with its dots of red, a raw egg dropped into the middle, and a grating of hard cheese. So perfect for a cool summer night. I want that right now, but making it with canned tomatoes would just feel so wrong.

Page after page of sun-splashed ochre, Van Gogh yellow, burnt orange, bright orange, sea blue, and washed gray-green on shutters and lawn chairs. So much age-softened paint. Glasses full of red wine and rosé wine, set out in full daylight. You’d think nobody ate at night in Olney’s world. Bloomy cheeses on big green leaves. Piles of zucchini blossoms, tubs of impossibly red mini strawberries. Rosemary growing out of every ancient stone wall. Even the tripe looks light and airy. The annoyingly gorgeous photos of food and foliage were making me miserable. I closed the book and thought about dinner.

I walked through Westside Market, trying to decide what to buy, and everything looked deflated. The fish department smelled horrible. The tomatoes looked good but smelled weirdly like grapefruits. There was a whole wall of breakfast cereal. I had to get out of there. I walked a few blocks down to Citarella, hoping for fresh inspiration. The fish looked a million times better. A nice hunk of tuna got me thinking of a tuna and artichoke recipe I had admired in the Olney book, and the picture of a brothy bowl of it on a lichen-covered stone. The giant globe artichokes felt decent. I would pretend it was springtime. I bought the artichokes and the fish. I couldn’t remember what else was in the recipe, but I figured I had the basics covered. Mission pretty much accomplished. Provence the beautiful in cold, dirty Manhattan.

I sort of followed Olney’s recipe, but I cut the tuna cooking time down to keep the fish really tender. I added pancetta, because I add it to almost everything. I also included a marjoram pesto, just because I was craving fresh herbs so much in the cold, and Citarella had marjoram, a rarity. I wound up with a good dish, both rustic and elegant. A real mood changer. Thank you, Mr. Olney. It was just what I needed on this dead of winter night.

Braised Tuna and Artichokes with a Marjoram Pesto

(Serves 4)

Extra-virgin olive oil
1¾ pounds tuna steak, about 1½ inches thick, skinned and cut into 2-inch chunks
1 fresh bay leaf
The zest from 1 lemon
3 garlic cloves, peeled and lightly smashed
Freshly ground black pepper
2 thin slices pancetta, chopped
4 large artichokes, trimmed and quartered (see below) and placed in a bowl of cold water with the juice of 1 large lemon
1 large shallot, cut into small dice
Salt
½ cup dry white wine
5 canned plum tomatoes, drained and then well chopped
½ cup chicken broth, possibly a little more

For the pesto:

The leaves from about 10 large marjoram sprigs
A large handful of flat-leaf parsley leaves (about ¾ cup)
1 small (unsprouted) garlic clove, roughly chopped
A small handful of whole, blanched almonds, roughly chopped
Extra-virgin olive oil
Salt

Trim the artichokes Italian-style—that is, the way big artichokes are always done in Italian restaurants: First set up a bowl of cold water with the juice of a large lemon. Working with one artichoke at a time, rip off and discard all the tough leaves until you get down to the tender light green ones (be thorough about this, so you don’t wind up with any tough bites). Slice off the tough stem ends, leaving about ½ inch of tender stem. Slice about ½ inch off the top of the artichoke, leaving just the bottom sections of the leaves. Peel the tough skin off the stem. Quarter the artichoke lengthwise, and cut out from each piece the fuzzy choke and any spiky, purplish leaves. You should end up with four arched, hollowed-out artichoke pieces. Drop them in the water, and repeat with the other artichokes.

Marinate the tuna: Place the fish in a shallow glass or ceramic bowl (sometimes metal can give fish an off taste). Pour over it about ¼ cup of olive oil, enough just to coat the fish well all over. Add the bay leaf, lemon zest, and garlic cloves, and grind on a generous amount of black pepper. Mix the whole thing with your hands so the flavors are evenly distributed. Let it sit for about a half hour.

Make the pesto: Set up a medium-size pot of water, and bring it to a boil. Drop in the marjoram and parsley leaves, and blanch them for about 30 seconds. Scoop them from the water with a large strainer spoon, and place them in a colander. Run cool water over them to stop their cooking and to preserve their green color. Squeeze all the water out of the herbs. This blanching will prevent them from oxidizing and turning dark as the pesto sits, always a danger with pesto. Place the garlic and pine nuts in the bowl of a food processor, and pulse a few times until they’re roughly ground. Add the blanched herbs and enough olive oil to create a rich texture (about ⅓ cup). Season with a little salt, and pulse a few more times until everything is blended but still has a bit of texture to it. Transfer the pesto to a small bowl, and press a piece of plastic wrap over the top to keep it nice and green.

Choose a large skillet that has a lid and is big enough to hold the tuna and artichokes in one layer. Over medium heat, add the pancetta and about 2 tablespoons of olive oil to the skillet, and sauté until the pancetta is crisp, about 4 minutes. Drain the artichoke pieces well, and add them and the shallot to the skillet. Season with a little salt, and sauté until both vegetables are lightly browned, about another 10 minutes. Add the tuna chunks and all the marinade, and sauté on one side until lightly golden. Turn the tuna pieces, season them with a bit more salt, and add the white wine, letting it boil away. Add the tomatoes and the chicken broth, and heat them through. Turn the heat to low, and cook at a simmer, covered, until the tuna and the artichokes are just tender, only about another 5 minutes. Add a little more broth, if needed, to be sure you have about an inch of liquid left in the pan. Turn off the heat, and let the dish sit for about 5 minutes before serving it (to give all the flavors a chance to blend).

Serve in soup bowls with a generous spoonful of pesto on top of each portion. Accompany with toasted baguette slices that have been rubbed with garlic and brushed with olive oil.