Erica De Mane

The Wine Harvest, by Francisco Goya.

Recipe: Tuscan Grape Harvest Focaccia

Every year  around this time I make a version of the classic Tuscan grape focaccia called schiacciata coll’uva to celebrate the Italian wine harvest, even though I think it’s a little bogus to celebrate such a faraway event  in New York. I should probably instead be marking the West Village water bug infestation that always seems to come upon us right around now. I’m not sure what kind of focaccia water bugs would make, but I know my cats would like it.

I consider this grape focaccia one of the genius dishes of the Italian kitchen. In my opinion it’s up there with pasta con le sarde and Genoese pesto. It has an unusual combination of flavors that happen to taste wonderful together.

You start with a basic focaccia dough, but with a little sugar added, and then top it with red grapes. In Italy they eat the grapes seeds and all, but I chose seedless red flame grapes so as not to upset my mother’s iffy digestion. Then you add a scattering of fresh rosemary and whole fennel seeds, a little salt and black pepper, a sprinkling of sugar, and a drizzle of good Tuscan olive oil. A slice of this focaccia with a glass of Chianti is heaven on earth. The water bugs are welcome to the crumbs.

Tuscan Grape Harvest Focaccia

(Makes one approximately 15-by-10-inch focaccia)

For the dough:

1 package active dry yeast
1¼ cups warm water (about 115 degrees)
1 teaspoon sugar
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
3 cups all-purpose flour, plus a little extra
½ teaspoon salt

For the top:

1½ cups red flame grapes
½ cup sugar
A pinch of salt
A few small sprigs of rosemary, the leaves chopped
A small palmful of fennel seeds
Freshly ground black pepper
Extra-virgin olive oil

Pour the warm water into a large bowl. Sprinkle in the yeast and the sugar, giving them a quick stir to dissolve clumps, and let sit until frothy, about 8 minutes.

Add the olive oil to the yeast mixture. Then add 3 cups of flour and the salt. Stir the mixture until you have a nice soft dough. It will be quite sticky. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface, and knead very briefly, just until smooth, about 4 minutes, adding a minimal amount of extra flour to prevent sticking (mostly flouring your hands).

Oil a large bowl, and place the dough in it, turning it once to coat the top in oil. Cover it with a kitchen towel, and let it rise in a warm, draft-free place until doubled in size, about 2 hours.

Coat a 15-by-10-inch sheet pan well with olive oil. Turn the dough out onto the pan, and stretch and pat the dough out, fitting it into the pan. Spread the grapes out on the dough, pressing them down a bit. Scatter on the rosemary and fennel seeds. Give it all a few grindings of black pepper, and sprinkle on the sugar.

Give the focaccia a generous drizzle of olive oil, cover it with plastic wrap, and let it sit again, until it’s puffy, about an hour.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Uncover the focaccia, and bake for 15 minutes. Lower the heat to 375 degrees, and bake for 15 to 20 minutes longer, or until the focaccia is golden brown. Serve warm or at room temperature.

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The Calabria Pork Store, on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx.

Recipe: Fresh Shell Bean Antipasto

A few days ago I took a trip to Scarsdale, New York, with Oliver, my 87-year-old father in law, to see a house he had lived in as a child but hadn’t seen since 1937. We pulled up unannounced. Oliver had a browned photo of himself and his parents on the doorstep for proof of past occupancy. He rang the gate buzzer (they didn’t have electronically controlled gates like that when he lived there, of course), and the lady of the house answered. She was really nice, not at all hesitant or suspicious, I guess because he’s so old and didn’t look particularly nuts or anything. I played with their excited King Charles spaniel while Oliver filled the lady in on what the house used to look like three quarters of a century ago and more or less kept to himself any feelings he may have had about the many renovations since.

From his point of view it was a successful excursion back in time, although he was surprisingly pulled together, even unemotional, I thought. (I guess I expected a few tears.) Even so, we did require a reality check afterward, so we made our way down to Arthur Avenue in the Bronx for pizza and some therapeutic Italian food shopping. Saturday on Arthur Avenue is a lovely scene.

I hadn’t been there in a year or so. The stores seemed better stocked and more fun than ever. After a pizza topped with slightly stiff calamari and a few glasses of sour Pinot Grigio at the place next to Dominick’s that I always forget the name of but always wind up in, I headed straight for the Calabria Pork Store. What an exquisite, overwhelming perfume that little place has. I picked up one of their house-made soppressata sausages, which I really love because they’re not too hard and are studded with lots of good-looking white fat and give off a subtle nutmeg aroma.

My sister, Liti, requested that I pick her up a jar of lupini beans, those  rubbery, salty, yellow things that my father used to suck on and then spit out the skins all over the lawn. I headed into the indoor market, where I knew I would find the lupinis, and was immediately hit by the sweetest nostalgia. It directed me to grab a lot of other things as well—a jar of hot, vinegary cherry peppers, so great for adding a Southern Italian jolt to just about anything, a big balloon-shaped caciocavallo that smelled like well-salted butter, another dried salami (a short fat cacciatorino), a bag of rosemary taralli, a bag of those tasteless but oh so nostalgically important friselle biscuits that my mother always bought to accompany zuppa di pesce, a few packs of Italian seeds so I could try and grow cipolla tropeana lunga, a bullet-shaped red onion from Calabria, and an apron that reads IT’S HARD TO BE HUMBLE WHEN YOU’RE SICILIAN (a slightly embarrassing purchase, but I got over that quickly enough). Oh, and I purchased a pound of beautiful pink and white fresh cranberry beans. I could have gone on and on, but somehow all of a sudden Oliver seemed to be ready to get out of there.

When I got home I knew I needed to create something with real old-time flavor. I certainly had all the components. I put together a kind of retro antipasto, something that I know my grandfather, wop lover of pork fat, hot chilis, and vinegar that he was, would  have highly approved of. Nick, this one’s for you.

Fresh Shell Bean Antipasto

(Serves 4 as an antipasto offering)

1 fresh bay leaf
1 pound fresh shell beans (cranberry or whatever looks freshest to you)
Salt
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon Spanish sherry vinegar
½ cup caciocavallo, cut into small dice
½ cup soppressata, cut into small dice
A handful of celery leaves
About 5 thyme sprigs, the leaves lightly chopped
2 thin slices red onion, cut into small dice
10 cherry tomatoes, quartered
1 hot cherry pepper from a jar, seeded and minced

Shell the beans. Set up a pot of water, drop in the bay leaf, and bring the water to a boil.  Add some salt, and drop in the beans. Turn the heat down to a low bubble, and simmer until the beans are just tender to the bite, about 20 minutes. Add more water if at any time the beans aren’t covered by about 2 inches of water.

Drain the beans, and put them in a shallow serving bowl (you’ll notice they will have lost their nice  pink stripes, but even in their beigeness they still taste amazing). Season them with a little more salt, and drizzle on the olive oil and the sherry vinegar. Give them a good toss. The beans’ heat will help them soak up all the dressing. Now add all the other ingredients, and toss gently. Let sit for about ½ hour before serving to develop really good flavor.

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Marcello with his own festive yeast creation.

Recipe: Focaccia with Zucchini, Shallots, and Black Olives

At summer’s end, what are we left with at the market that still speaks summer? Bins of dried-out zucchini. But I hold on to the idea of zucchini anyway, that big, sometimes really big, symbol of summer heat and fruitfulness, even as the nights become cool and my once floral basil grows woody and starts to smell like cat pee.

Not only does zucchini accumulate as summer ends; also its taste changes, becoming cottony and aerated.  In summer a bit of olive oil, a scattering of mint, a quick sauté, and you’ve got a regal dish. Now you have to drench it in flavor to bring any life to it. Here I’ve topped a classic focaccia dough, one of the simplest yeast breads of all, with raw marinated zucchini, cut paper thin and tossed with olives, anchovies, lots of thyme, garlic, and good, abundant olive oil. It’s what I would call a transitional dish, working a delicate summer vegetable into a traditionally more hearty format.  A big stretch of  crisp, oily dough warm from the oven really takes on your hunger on a night with a hint of a chill.

Focaccia with Zucchini, Shallots, and Black Olives

(Serves 8 as an antipasto offering)

For the dough:

1 package active dry yeast
1¼ cups warm water (about 115 degrees)
A pinch of sugar
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
3 cups all-purpose flour, plus a little extra
½ teaspoon salt

For the top:

Extra-virgin olive oil
2 shallots, very thinly sliced
3 medium zucchini, very thinly sliced (use a mandolin, if it doesn’t scare you; otherwise a sharp knife will do)
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
About 10 large thyme sprigs, the leaves chopped
5 minced anchovies
A handful of wrinkly Moroccan black olives, pitted
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
A pinch of sugar

Pour the warm water into a large bowl. Sprinkle in the yeast and the sugar, giving them a quick stir to dissolve clumps, and let sit until frothy, about 8 minutes.

Add the olive oil to the yeast mixture. Then add 3 cups of flour and the salt. Stir the mixture until you have a nice soft dough. It will be quite sticky. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface, and knead very briefly, about 4 minutes, adding a minimal amount of extra flour to prevent sticking (mostly flouring your hands).

Oil a large bowl, and place the dough in it, turning it once to coat it all over in oil. Cover with a kitchen towel, and let rise in a warm, draft-free place until doubled in size, about 2 hours.

Coat a 10-by-15-inch sheet pan well with olive oil. Turn the dough out onto the pan, and stretch and pat the dough out, fitting it to the edges of the pan. Give the focaccia a drizzle of olive oil, cover it with plastic wrap, and let it sit again until it’s puffy, about an hour.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Meanwhile, in a big bowl, combine the zucchini, shallot slices, garlic, thyme, anchovies, and olives. Season with a small amount of salt (remember that the anchovies and olives are salty), a more generous amount of black pepper, and the sugar. Drizzle with about 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and toss everything very well with your hands, making sure the zucchini especially is coated with oil (add more if you think you need to).

Uncover the focaccia, and spread out the zucchini mix over it in one layer as best you can. Bake for 15 minutes. Lower the heat to 375 degrees, and bake for 15 to 20 minutes longer, or until the focaccia is golden brown. Serve warm or at room temperature.

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A bouquet of flowers in a conch shell, with nuts and figs, by Juan Espinosa, 1645.

Recipe: Fig Tart with Limoncello and Thyme

I’m a savory type. I’ve always known this. Even as a kid, I preferred a tin of anchovies to a Ring Ding. But come summer and early fall, I become a lover of fruit tarts. Maybe because they’re so beautiful. When you bake fruit, the colors often become burnished, taking on a half-withered, dripping Caravaggio allure. Also, tarts target their flavor, getting right to the point with concentrated fruit sugars and all the glossy goo that emerges while baking, extending pigment into the crust. You don’t need a precise recipe to create a fruit tart. What you need is a desire to create one, a desire to create beauty. A fruit tart just has to be alluring, and they almost always are, whether made prissy and fluted or free-form.

I picked up three pints of California black figs from my corner fruit guy for the really reasonable price of five bucks. Nobody grows figs in New York, aside from a few old, nurturing Italians in Bay Ridge, who every fall will wrap their tree (usually only one) in burlap, keeping it cozy through the long winter in hopes of having it produce a handful of figs in the spring and fall.

Green figs are what I really love. I usually find that the black ones have slightly musky-tasting skin, but these ones were perfectly plush and pink-fleshed, so I knew they’d make a good tart. Any ripe fig is delicious, but I find the dark-skinned ones especially rich, with little acidity. Because of that richness, I added limoncello and lemon zest into my tart, as well as a fresh herb for added drama. Mint goes wonderfully with figs, and so does basil, but I went with thyme, which is more serious, more savory. I added it to the crust and worked a little bit into the custard.

Fig Tart with Limoncello and Thyme

(Serves 6 to 8)

For the crust:

5 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
4 tablespoons sugar
A pinch of salt
2 tablespoons Limoncello
1¾ cups all-purpose flour
4 thyme sprigs, the leaves lightly chopped

For the custard:

¾ cup non-ultrapasteurized heavy cream
1 large egg
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon Limoncello
The grated zest from 1 lemon
4 thyme sprigs, the leaves lightly chopped
1 teaspoon finely ground flour, such as Wondra

Plus:

15 or 16 fresh figs, either black or green, cut in half lengthwise
Extra sugar for the top

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

In a small saucepan, melt the butter. Add the olive oil to the butter, give it a stir, and then let the butter mixture cool completely. With a pastry brush, use about a tablespoon of the melted butter mixture to coat a 9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom.

To make the crust: In a medium bowl, combine the remaining butter mixture with the sugar, salt, Limoncello, and about a tablespoon of water. Stir to blend. Add the flour and the thyme, and mix briefly until you have a mass of moist, crumbly dough (don’t blend so much that it forms a ball). Tip the dough into the tart pan, and pat it down and out to the edges and all the way up the side to form a thin crust. Bake for about 15 minutes, until lightly colored and slightly puffy.

In a small bowl, combine all the ingredients for the custard, and whisk until they’re well blended.

Place the figs, cut side up, in the crust, in a slightly overlapping circular pattern. Pour the custard evenly over the figs, and sprinkle the top with sugar. Bake until the crust is golden and the custard is set, about 45 minutes. Let sit for about ½ hour before serving.

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Recipe: Peach Cake with Almond and Anise

I’m not sure when this all started, exactly, but for several years now I’ve been making simple Italian-inspired, I guess you would say farmhouse, breakfast cakes for Fred, my husband, as often as I can manage. Usually they’ve got fruit in them; sometimes I’ll add ricotta or yogurt, and often olive oil instead of butter, and never too much sugar. He loves all of them, and they’re really easy to make (generally speaking I only bake when I can get away with imprecise measuring, and these are very forgiving cakes).

I came up with the general idea for these sturdy, relatively healthy cakes from ciambella, a kind of Italian sponge cake that small hotels in Italy offer for breakfast. Often it’s a ring cake, but in Puglia, where I’ve had it most often, it’s more solid, often with sugar on top or drizzled with a thin, sticky icing. It is Puglian agroturismo fare,  a down-on-the-farm touch for the tourists, and a hell of a lot more appealing than the usual cornetti, the shrink-wrapped spiral horns filled with tooth-zinging almond paste you so often get at big city hotels.

I like to bake, but I get easily agitated, occasionally hostile, and even prone to heart palpitations when I have to actually measure something. These ciambelle, once you get the idea, you can really play around with, adding different boozes, spices, jams, nuts, and chunks of fruit. That is is my kind of freewheeling baking experience. I’ve made them using an olive oil base (very light and beautiful and delicious with pears or apples). I’ve used yogurt and olive oil (a big success). Butter always works, giving you a denser texture, more like a pound cake. You can grind nuts and add them to the flour, as I did with this peach cake, or you can stir in jam, for a gooier, wetter cake.

Still life with peaches, from the ruins of Herculaneum.

I notice now, at this moment in my husband’s life, that he appreciates these cakes more than ever. Fred has a few pressures on him lately, some of them job-related, but if he knows there’s one of these cakes waiting for him in the morning, it really, truly lifts his spirit. Isn’t life simple? I have the power to lighten his morning burden, and I don’t even have to use measuring spoons.

Don’t worry. I do give you amounts here, but I tell you, you can wing it a bit with no bad results, and  you might even come up with something better. But this is pretty good.

Peach Cake with Almond and Anise

1 cup all-purpose flour
½ cup sliced almonds, lightly toasted and then ground to a powder
½ a whole star anise, ground to a powder

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

A generous pinch of salt
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
¾ cup sugar, plus an extra tablespoon for the top
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon good vanilla extract (Madagascar is wonderful)
1 tablespoon Sambuca or anisette
3 ripe peaches, cut into thin wedges, leaving the skin on

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Butter a 9- or 10-inch springform pan.

In a small bowl, mix together the flour, three quarters of the ground almonds, half the ground star anise, the baking powder, and a generous pinch of salt.

In a bigger bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the butter with the ¾ cup sugar until it’s fluffy. Add the eggs, and beat them in. Add the vanilla and Sambuca or anisette, and beat them in. Add the flour mixture all at once, and, using a low speed, beat until just blended.

Pour the batter into the pan. It will be a bit thick, so you might want to smooth it out with a spatula. Press the peach slices into the batter in a circular fashion.

Now mix together the tablespoon of sugar, the remaining ground almonds, and the rest of the star anise. Scatter the mix over the top of the cake. Bake for about 45 minutes, or until the top is browned and the cake feels firm. Let it cool in the pan for about 15 minutes before removing it.  Serve warm or cool.

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Sophia creating her own end-of-the-summer cocktail.

Recipe: Negroni Sbagliato

Many of my readers know that I love a negroni. This drink, equal parts gin, sweet vermouth, and Campari, is considered an aperitivo in Italy, but it’s certainly a powerful one. Two negronis and I’m usually flying.  I have unfortunately given up hard liquor in the last few months, not because I wanted to but just to preserve what’s left of my nerve endings. But this change in diet has happily coincided with my discovery of the Negroni Sbagliato, or “wrong” negroni, a drink invented at Bar Basso in Milano, which substitutes prosecco for the gin. Now, this variation is obviously not as interesting, chemically speaking, as the original, but it is delicious, and it’s more in the spirit of a real aperitivo, a light drink that served to open up your appetite for dinner.

For my Negroni sbagliato I’ve come to feel that instead of equal parts of everything, less Campari and vermouth and more prosecco tastes better to me. It’s lighter, and you can experience the prosecco, which is tinted a pretty light pink. Also, it’s traditionally served on the rocks, but I like mine straight up in a champagne glass.  Maybe it’s a bit of a girlie drink in looks, but its bitterness raises it at least to the level of transvestitehood, if not all-out manhood. It doesn’t go too well with most food, but that’s just as well, since it’s best savored without distraction.

The end of summer is bittersweet. It deserves a special, bittersweet drink.  Here’s a lovely one.

Negroni Sbagliato

Chill your champagne glasses. Chill the Campari and the sweet vermouth, and obviously chill your prosecco. To each glass add about a tablespoon each of Campari and sweet vermouth, then fill it up with prosecco. Garnish with an orange peel.

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Il Fungo (the mushroom), a rock formation just off the island of Ischia.

Recipe: Risotto Ischia Style, with Summer Tomatoes, Cockles, and Fennel

Yesterday there was a touch of fall in the air. It scared me, and I had to cook something summery to keep it at bay. I thought of a risotto I ate years ago in Ischia Porto during one of my first self discovery explorations, when I set out on a mission to make myself feel somewhat Italian, something I had oddly lacked despite being brought up in an Italian-American family. Ischia, which was full of pale German and English elders, some gravely ill, some missing limbs, all there to take the farty healing waters, didn’t actually call to my roots, but its food went straight to my soul. I’d eaten it all before, either at my mother’s table or in my dreams.

The risotto I ordered at a little trattoria on the water was a real Southern Italian creation—no butter, no cheese, no meat, no glop, just tomatoes, olive oil, herbs, and a big whiff of the briny sea. I’m so glad I cooked it last night (well, it wasn’t exactly the same dish, but it was very close, and it was good). And, see, today was warm and sunny. Summer returned.

Risotto Ischia Style, with Summer Tomatoes, Cockles, and Fennel

(Serves 4)

Extra-virgin olive oil
1 small fennel bulb, cut into small dice
2 shallots, minced
1 fresh green chili, seeded and minced
2 garlic cloves, very thinly sliced
A small palmful of fennel seeds
2 cups vialone nano rice
Salt
Black pepper
½ cup dry white wine
6 cups light chicken broth, heated
2 pounds cockles, well cleaned
A splash of Pernod or another pastis
2 large, round summer tomatoes, skinned, seeded, and well chopped
A big handful of basil leaves, lightly chopped

Choose a wide, shallow pan that will hold all the cockles when opened.

Heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Add the fennel, shallot, and green chili, and sauté until everything is soft and fragrant, about 4 minutes. Add the garlic and fennel seeds, and sauté about a minute longer. Add the rice, giving it a little salt and black pepper, and sauté for about a minute or so to coat it well with oil and flavoring. Add the white wine, and start stirring the rice, letting the wine boil away. Add a ladle of hot broth, and stir the rice a few more times, keeping it at a lively bubble.

Throw the cockles into a big pot. Add a tiny splash of Pernod and a small ladle of chicken broth. Turn the heat to high, and cook until the cockles open, about 4 minutes or so. Remove the pot from the stove.

Keep adding ladles of broth to the rice as the pan gets dry, stirring fairly often (contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to do this consistently to achieve a good risotto). After about 10 minutes of adding broth and stirring, add the tomatoes. Keep adding broth until the rice is just tender to the bite and has a lightly creamy texture. This should take about 18 minutes in all.

Now add the cockles with all their cooking liquid to the rice, and give it a stir (cockles are usually pretty clean, but if you see any sand in the cooking liquid, strain it first). The texture should be somewhat loose. Add a little more broth or warm water if you need to. Taste for seasoning, and add the basil, giving it a final stir. Give the risotto a drizzle of your best olive oil, and serve right away.

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