Erica De Mane

Recipe below: Fettuccine with Scallops and Parsley Lemon Pesto

Easter was sweet this year. Cold but sweet. My friend Katy came and stayed a few days. We had a face-stinging mini hailstorm during the afternoon. I made a pastiera, as per usual, and this year I also cooked a lamb stew with white wine, rosemary, and peas. We danced the tango, we fed bananas to raccoons, and we drank my finocchietto liqueur, which is a bit high on the alcoholic side. A lot goes a too long way, I discovered. Easter was sweet. Now I want to start focusing on my herb garden.

I’ve been eyeing my little garden for signs of spring life. The chives have come up, my salad burnet is popping through, and so is the hyssop. But what I’m waiting for is parsley. It was so beautiful last year, full, dark, and strongly flavored. I’m not sure it made it through the winter, but I really hope so.

I’ve come to respect parsley immensely since planting my own. It’s an elegant herb with tons of personality. Previously, when I only bought it at the supermarket, I sometimes found it unfocused, an herb for mindless scattering. This thinking can get into a cook’s head, but it’s faulty thinking. The stuff is special.

To strengthen my appreciation of parsley, all I need to do is think of salsa verde—parsley pounded with olive oil, sometimes garlic or capers, always a bit of lemon or vinegar, and anchovies never hurt. How many times have I eaten variations on this easy Italian sauce. What would grilled swordfish be without it?

Just to make sure we’re all thinking of the same herb, I’m talking about flat-leaf parsley, Italian parsley, not the curly 1960s restaurant garnish type, which doesn’t have the same strong, clear flavor. What is that flavor? It’s always hard to describe the taste of something that’s like nothing else, but there are elements of parsley’s makeup that remind me of other things. For instance, when I chew a leaf it often tastes of the sea. Is this my imagination, since for so many years I’ve eaten it as a condiment for fish? I don’t know. Aside from the seaside, what else do I taste? I taste something like spring grass, maybe with a vague protein undertone. The stems have lots of juicy concentrated oils. I always use them in a salsa verde.

Linguine with clams. I can’t imagine it without lots of fresh flat-leaf parsley. And I’ve come to love a salad of almost nothing but parsley tossed with olive oil and a squirt of lemon juice. That makes a good bed for roast chicken. I love the way the chicken juices drip down and mingle with the simple dressing to make it something more complex. Parsley mixed with fresh mint is a good teaming, as is parsley with basil, and lately I particularly love parsley mixed with fresh lemon grass, which is especially good stuffed inside a whole roasted sea bass.

In late summer, when we have good tomatoes, I make a sandwich with sesame bread, thick tomato slices, a few anchovy fillets, olive oil, black pepper, and an ample layer of whole parsley leaves. Tastes like Mondello beach, in Palermo. I also love setting up a big pot on the outside grill, loading it with Long Island mussels, garlic, dry vermouth, and lots of parsley, and just letting it bubble away until everything gives its everything to everything else and it becomes a steaming wonder meal. 

I mentioned how much I admire a good salsa verde, which is really a type of pesto (from pestare, to crush). For the pesto in this pasta I’ve replace the basil in a classic Genoese pesto with parsley. I’ve kept the cheese and nuts, but to make it blend more naturally with scallops, I’ve added lemon zest. I think it works really well. Pull out your good olive oil for this one.