Erica De Mane

Recipe below: Rice Salad with Zucchini, Black Olives, Mint, and Basil

I started making rice salads in the late 1980s after I became disgusted by all the pasta salads I was seeing, some even made by friends. I look at pasta salad as an American way of screwing up a timeless Italian marvel. Mushy, gummy, full of raw green peppers, overcooked chicken breast, dried cranberries, tons of vinegar. It’s bad enough when someone subjects penne to this treatment, but why would anyone serve tortellini this way? Ask any cook from Bologna her opinion of the weird dish. See what she says.

Rice salads are another matter. When I was researching The Flavors of Southern Italy, my second book, I spent time in Sicily. I remember vividly one lunch at a restaurant in Trapani. It had an elaborate antipasto table, and the place was packed. Everyone came for that table. It wasn’t just a heap of stupidly made odds and ends. Real passion went into it. There were snails in tomato sauce, grilled sardines, octopus agrodolce, pumpkin agrodolce, peppers stuffed with sausage, white beans with wild fennel, and not one but three rice salads. One with olives and capers, another with tomatoes and mint, and a third with some kind of salumi.  For me it underlined the legitimacy I’d always sensed in rice salad. It has integrity.

You see more rice dishes in Sicily than in other areas of the South, although Puglia also has its share. Rice isn’t grown there anymore, but during Arab rule in the tenth century it was planted with sophisticated irrigation that allowed it to flourish on the arid land. So there’s a history, and rice still works its way into many dishes, most famously into Sicily’s saffron-scented arancini.

I usually make rice salad when I have leftover plain rice, either long- or medium-grain. Risotto rice, with its high starch, is not good for salad, making it clumpy and gummy. If I cook new rice just for a salad, I let it cool before I toss it with other ingredients. That way everything stays clean and separate. This is a place to use your best olive oil, for it goes on raw, in all its unadulterated glory. My salad here has first-of-the-season little green and yellow zucchini, plus a hit of black olives and lots of herbs. In a month or so, I’ll be making ones with tomatoes and also with eggplant. They’re all good.

Rice Salad with Zucchini, Black Olives, Mint, and Basil

(Serves 4 to 5)

6 or so tiny young zucchini, a mix of green and yellow if possible, cut into small cubes
Extra-virgin olive oil, one that’s really good (I used Ravida)
Salt
Black pepper
A big pinch of allspice
1 small summer onion, cut into small dice
2 young summer garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons sweet vermouth
2 cups cooked long- or medium-grain rice (not risotto rice), at room temperature
A handful of lightly toasted pine nuts
A handful of good black olives, pitted (Niçoise are nice, or for something stronger, try the wrinkled Moroccan kind)
1 tablespoon white miso, at room temperature
1 tablespoon sherry wine vinegar
Aleppo pepper to taste
A handful of basil leaves, lightly chopped
A smaller handful of spearmint leaves, lightly chopped

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Place the cubed zucchini on a sheet pan. Drizzle them with olive oil, and season with salt, black pepper, and the allspice. Roast until golden and just tender, about 6 or 7 minutes. In the last minute or so of cooking, scatter on the onion and garlic. Pull the pan from the oven, and splash on 1 tablespoon of the sweet vermouth, just to loosen all the good cooking bits.

Place the rice in a nice looking wide serving bowl. Season it with a little salt, and drizzle on a thread of olive oil. Now scrape the zucchini, along with any pan liquid, into the bowl. Add the olives and the pine nuts, and toss gently.

In a small bowl, whisk together the miso, the sherry vinegar, the remaining tablespoon of vermouth, and 2½ tablespoons of olive oil, seasoning with salt and black pepper. Pour this over the rice. Sprinkle on some Aleppo, and add the herbs. Toss well. Taste for seasoning, adding a bit more vinegar, salt, or olive oil if needed. Serve at room temperature.