Erica De Mane

Recipes below: Oven-Dried Tomatoes; Christmas Eve Orecchiette with Cauliflower, Sun Dried Tomatoes, Anchovies, and Marjoram

The rise and fall of sun-dried tomatoes. Where did they all go? Remember the craze that started, in New York at least, in the mid 1970s? They were a new taste for me. Even growing up in a Southern Italian household, I hadn’t seen them much used by Italian Americans of my generation, until the chefs turned us all on. But once that happened they were easily worked into our family meals. The ones my mother got back then were precious imports, from Campania or Sicily. They were literally sun-dried and then packed in good olive oil, and their sweet and sour and acid intensity burst forth with no harshness. Jewels in a jar. In my opinion the olive oil bath is important to their flavor. The sun-drieds that became more available later on were packed dry and then meant to be reconstituted in water. They always tasted a little sour to me.

My mother threw sun-dried tomatoes into tuna salads and chicory salads, salami sandwiches, spaghetti aglio e olio, roasted peppers, chicken parmigiana, grilled pork chops. I loved watching her dig a few of the tomatoes out of the jar, dripping with oil, and scatter them over just about anything. Instant elegance.

I moved into the city just about when the sun-dried trend peaked. Those days I was sometimes so out of money but so needing Italian reinforcements that I’d head over to Balducci’s and steal sun-dried tomatoes and anchovies, shoving them down the front of my jeans. I’m not sure how I got the nerve to do that. Desperation for a taste of home, I guess. And it was oddly easy to steal stuff back then. I assume not looking like a junkie helped. I’d head back to my dark studio apartment with my delicacies and make sandwiches on stale hamburger buns. I remember living on those, or variations on them, for weeks at a time. Those were strange days.

A few years later the sun-dried thing had gone so mainstream and gotten so overdone that upscale restaurants would no longer touch them. Good cooks were embarrassed to serve them to guests. And worst of all, American producers started turning them out en masse, factory-dehydrated, no sun in sight, bitter and leathery (in Italy even the factory ones are actually sun-dried). A terrible product, debasing the Italian original. And then they dropped off the planet. Now you only see them at crappy salad bars, or possibly at the Olive Garden.

But when I think about the long, gentle process needed to produce good sun-dried tomatoes, I’m reminded again of what a beautiful and valid Southern Italian invention the things are. Families still dry tomatoes on rooftops in Campania, Puglia, and Calabria, preserving them for the cool months ahead.  My mother told me her grandfather used to set out big wooden boards in their backyard in Rye, New York, to dry tomatoes and also to make tomato paste. I wish I could have seen that and known what Westchester sun-drieds tasted like.

Lately I’ve needed to experience that heightened tomato taste again. It seems so Christmasy. So I went about making some oven-dried tomatoes, which I hadn’t done in ages. The results were salty, dense, and sweet, maybe not as complex as true sun dried, but I was really happy with them.  If you’d like to try, here’s how I did it:

Oven-Dried Tomatoes

(Makes about 1½ cups)

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees

Cut 2 pints of cherry tomatoes in half. Toss with a little olive oil and a good sprinkling of Sicilian sea salt. (Sicilian isn’t essential, but it adds a nice historical touch. And do try to use sea salt, as the sea imparts a briny flavor to the tomatoes. Sel gris from France is another good choice. I don’t like and never use Kosher salt. It tastes to me like chemicals.)

Lay the tomatoes out on a parchment-lined sheet pan, cut side up, and stick them in the oven. Let them slow roast until they’re slightly shriveled but still damp in the center. This will take  2½ hours or so.

Take the tomatoes from the oven, and scatter on a few sprigs of marjoram and thyme. Let them cool.

Put them in a jar fitted with a lid, and cover them completely with good olive oil.  They’ll keep refrigerated for about a month, and they’ll be great with many pasta preparations. Here’s one I’m thinking about serving on Christmas Eve:

Christmas Eve Orecchiette with Cauliflower, Sun Dried Tomatoes, Anchovies, and Marjoram

(Serves 6 as a first course)

Extra-virgin olive oil
1 large cauliflower, cut into ½ inch florets (since you won’t parboil here, it’s important to cut the pieces small, to sauté or braise quickly in the pan)
1 large shallot, cut into small dice
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
4 or 5 oil-packed anchovies, minced
Salt
A drizzle of honey
½ teaspoon freshly ground cumin
A generous sprinkling of Aleppo pepper
A splash of dry vermouth
1 pound orecchiette
6 or 7 oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes (the good ones you buy are usually plums, not the cherries I dried, so you don’t need too many), cut into thin strips
6 or so big sprigs of fresh marjoram, the leaves lightly chopped
A half-pound piece of ricotta salata

Set up a large pot of pasta cooking water, season it with salt, and bring it to a boil.

In the meantime, get out a large skillet, and get it hot over medium heat. Add a glug of olive oil, and let it heat through. Add the cauliflower, and pan roast it, stirring it around occasionally so it cooks evenly, for about 5 minutes. When it starts to get tender and golden, add the shallots, garlic, and anchovies. Season with a touch of salt, the honey, the cumin, and some Aleppo. Let it cook a minute or so longer, just until it’s tender all the way through.

Drop the orecchiette in the water.

Add a big splash of vermouth to the cauliflower, and let it bubble for a few seconds.  Scatter on the sun-dried tomatoes, and turn off the heat.

When the orecchiette is al dente, drain it, saving about a cup of the cooking water. Tip the pasta into a large serving bowl. Drizzle with a little olive oil, and toss gently.

Add the cauliflower sauce, another drizzle of olive oil, and the marjoram, and toss, adding enough of the cooking water to loosen the sauce. Taste for seasoning, adding more salt or Aleppo if needed.

Serve hot, grating a good amount of ricotta salata on each serving.