Erica De Mane

Taking the waters in Fellini’s 8½ (notice  Marcello, right, with his cigarette—so perfect in a spa and such a nice pairing with the gallons of mineral water he has to drink).

Recipe: The Fizzerino

A friend of mine who wants to whittle down her stomach fat has just switched from vino to vodka with a calorie-free mixer. Wine is beautiful, but it can be fattening when consumed in the quantities I usually favor. An ample glass of wine contains between 120 and 150 calories, depending on the alcohol level. The more alcohol, the more calories. (Isn’t that interesting? I always thought more sugar meant more calories, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.) A vodka and seltzer made with a little less than a shot of booze has 60 to 75 calories, again depending on the proof. That doesn’t seem like a huge difference, but for me and for many of my fellow wine drinkers, calories aren’t even the main issue. The real problem is that wine is an appetite opener par excellence, allowing you to eat much more dinner or lunch than you normally would, just because every bite tastes so much better with a sip of wonderful wine (or even of so-so wine, for that matter).

I generally start drinking a little wine when I begin cooking dinner, and then I continue with it through the meal. This habit has allowed me to polish off almost an entire bottle before getting to the main course. At about 650 calories per bottle, that is definitely not a diet-friendly practice any way you look at it.

Italians don’t often drink hard booze or wine before dinner, except maybe sometimes a glass of white. A light aperitivo is the rule, and then on to the wine, in the dreaded moderation, during dinner. Americans have a problem with moderation. I suppose that’s why many Italians consider us barbarians. As if the Italians weren’t already irritatingly moderate enough, I recently read in the magazine La Cucina Italiana that trendy Italians now feel an acceptable alternative to their aperitivo of Cynar and soda is a glass of very fancy, sparkling mineral water, one just a little bit fancier than would show up on their dinner table. With no alcohol. That would require a high level of discipline for an American, especially in an uncomfortable social situation.

I’ve given this some thought and come up with I believe  a good middle ground, an American alternative. I’ve invented the elegant but practical fizzerino, diet drink supreme (well, not invented it, exactly, but I’m proposing that it’s fresh and relevant again). It’s a drink that allows you to act a little like a haughty Italian but, in true American fashion, you get to sneak some booze into it.

Try my fizzerino as a diet aperitivo. That’s a good place to start. It has far fewer calories than a Long Island Iced Tea. If you really want to keep the calories under control, stick with the fizzerino through dinner, unless you’re sure you can trust yourself with the vino. Two fizzerinos is a reasonable number, about 120 to 130 calories, but you’ll want to design dinners around this austere drink. It’s great with oysters and not bad with linguini with white clam sauce, or grilled sardines served over salad, but I have to tell you, it’s absolutely disgusting with a pork ragu, or with grilled pork sausages, turning the usually appealing mineral tastes in the water into rusted metal. It works a little better with beef. It’s not a bad match with a Southern Italian style tomato sauce, especially one spiked with olives, capers, or anchovies .

I suppose everyday San Pellegrino water is not considered fancy enough in Italian circles as an aperitivo, but in this country you take what you can get. Other somewhat chic Italian sparkling waters you might want to try are La Lolla, from the Alps, Sole, Fiuggi, Ferrarelle, and San Benedetto. They all have varying mineral makeups and bubble intensity, providing nuanced differences to your fizzerino. Personally I really like San Pellegrino, with its pronounced mineral taste and medium-fizz sparkle.

What I try to stick to now is one fizzerino as an aperitivo, dragging it out into the beginning of dinner, and then one glass of wine (it would be a sin not to have any wine). When that glass is done—this is the hard part—instead of having more wine, I’ll reach for the bottle of sparkling water (and boy does that fizzy water put a  welcome damper on my appetite, allowing me to wind down naturally). It’s hardly as much fun as polishing off an entire bottle of wine with dinner, but my waistline thanks me.

The Fizzerino

Fill a tall glass with ice (of course, Italians would never use ice, but since this is an Italian-American invention, it’s allowed). Pour in a little less than a full shot of vodka. Fill the glass with the Italian sparkling mineral water of your choice.  Drop in a lemon slice. Try to drink it slowly.

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My sformato in its mold.

Recipe: Sformato of Ricotta with Mint, Parmigiano, and Lemon

When cold weather comes I begin cooking food in neat packages. My tart rings, gratin dishes, and casseroles get pulled out and used to create dishes with boundaries. Those dishes somehow seem more attuned to winter than loose food, nonchalantly chopped and left to scatter or pool over a plate, like wedges of fresh tomato slicked with olive oil. In colder weather I want to know where my food begins and ends. So I decided to go formal Italian and make a sformato.

The word sformato means a food, usually a savory custard, that’s been cooked in some kind of mold and then freed of its mold. The verb formare means to form. Sformare means to pull out of shape, which is pretty much the opposite of what happens with a sformato. But sformare also means to unform or  to unmold, and that’s why this  tidy little food form is called what it is. I’ve made sformati using morels, chicken livers, cauliflower, and—a particularly memorable one—eggplant (I’ll have to try duplicating that some time). I like to end up with a texture that’s somewhere between a soufflé and a custard. That’s how it’s most often done in Italy. The goal is to be able to unmold the thing, and you can’t really do that with a delicate soufflé.

You may think of molded foods (outside of Jell-O) as usually loaded with cream and fat. That’s much less true in Italian cooking than in French or American. You can use a béchamel as a base for a sformato, the way you would for a soufflé, but Italy is lucky enough to have ricotta to work with, a sweet, fluffy, relatively low-fat cheese that can be mixed with all types of flavorings. Take it and an egg or two and concoct the sformato improvvisato of your desires. I knew I wanted to use ricotta this time around (for a foolproof recipe for homemade ricotta see my post here).

To accompany my ricotta, I borrowed flavorings from a pasta dish I often make in cold weather, a fattening mix of tagliatelle, cream, Parmigiano, tons of lemon zest, and black pepper (see page 158 of my book Pasta Improvvisata for a recipe). I replaced the cream with ricotta and added a handful of mint. I’m really happy with the taste and texture of my new sformato. I’ve served it cut into wedges as an antipasto offering, along with a bowl of black olives and glasses of Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi from Le Marche, a white wine with strong fruit flavors. But then I noticed it moving from the coffee table to the dinner table, alongside our next course, my mother’s pasta e fagiole. My sister Liti crumbled up pieces of the sformato and sprinkled them on top of her pasta. Excellent idea, Liti.

My sformato demolded.

________

Sformato of Ricotta with Mint, Parmigiano,  and Lemon

(Serves 6 as an antipasto)

I used a seven-inch springform pan for this.

¼ cup dried breadcrumbs, ground but not too finely
1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon soft butter
2½ cups whole-milk ricotta
3 large eggs, separated
¾ cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
⅛ teaspoon ground nutmeg
The grated zest from 1 large lemon
1 tablespoon limoncello
6 large mint sprigs, the leaves chopped
6 large flat-leaf parsley sprigs, the leaves chopped

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Mix the breadcrumbs with the olive oil, and season with salt and black pepper. Coat the springform pan with the soft butter, and then add the breadcrumbs, tapping them around to coat well the inside of the pan. Set the pan in the refrigerator while you work on the rest of the recipe.

Put the ricotta and the egg yolks in a large bowl. Add the Parmigiano, nutmeg, lemon zest, and limoncello, and season with salt and a generous amount of black pepper. Beat briefly with a handheld mixer, until fluffy.

Wash the mixer beaters very well to remove any oil. Place the egg whites in another bowl, and beat until they form stiff peaks. Add the mint and parsley to the ricotta mixture, and then gently fold in the egg whites.

Pour the mixture into the mold, and place it on a baking sheet. Bake until browned, puffy, and rather firm to the touch, about 70 minutes. Let the sformato come to room temperature. It will shrink considerably. Unmold. To serve, cut into thin wedges.

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Recipe: Pizza with Rosemary Onions and Fontina Valle d’Aosta

I never used to like making pizza at home, mainly because it seemed so difficult. This, I’m happy to say, is no longer true. I’ve overcome my resistance, and I now turn out a fairly authentic, crusty, pully pizza that I’m proud of. But I’ve learned that you’ve got to start out with the right equipment. I’ve never been one for fancy kitchen utensils, but when it comes to pizza making, they’ll save you a lot of frustration.

For me the biggest technical challenge in producing an authentic and nice-looking pizza at home is having a large enough pizza stone, so that when you slip the pizza into the oven from your peel (the big spatula the pizza goes into the oven on—got to have one of those, too), it doesn’t go shooting over the undersized stone and into the back of the oven, folding up and dripping all over, making a big, smoky mess. That used to happen to me a lot, and it was very discouraging. I finally broke down and bought something big and sensible. Get a big stone. It will really help. A big rectangular one, not some measly round thing the same size as the pizza you’re making. And, second, don’t be stingy with the cornmeal. You’ve really got to coat your pizza peel with plenty of coarse cornmeal or semolina (although semolina burns faster), so that while you’re scattering on your anchovies, tomato, candy corn, what have you, the dough doesn’t start adhering to the peel, making a trouble-free slide to the stone virtually impossible. (I’ve tried using regular flour, but it soaks into the dough too quickly.) Without a dry base for your dough to slide on, you wind up using so much back-and-forth action trying to coax the stuck pizza off the peel that a disaster is inevitable. I hate when that happens, but it doesn’t have to.  Making pizza can really be fun. I promise you.

I like to come up with pizza toppings I can’t necessarily get at pizzerias, usually trying ones without tomato and without mozzarella, just for the hell of it, but there’s a fine line between improvisation and stupidity when it comes to creative cooking. I’m not a fusion girl. When I mix it up, I mix it up only with Italian flavors, maybe straying from regional tradition but not from what most Italians would recognize as  familiar tastes.

Winter is not the most exciting time for conjuring up newfangled pizza toppings, but, hey, we’ll always have cheese and onions ( I hope). With this thought in mind I’ve gone about making a tomatoless pizza with a rather Northern feel, perfect for the miserable New York weather I’m now experiencing. I’ve chosen Fontina, the nutty, sweet, easy-melting raw cow’s milk cheese from the Italian Alps. I caramelized the onions, but then I discovered that they together with the sweetish Fontina made my first version of this pizza a little too sweet. Second time around I added a drizzle of Spanish sherry vinegar to the onions. It made all the difference for the balance of flavors.  I hope you’ll enjoy it. And don’t forget to jack up your oven to the highest possible temperature, so you get those good slightly burned edges that are so delicious.

Pizza with Rosemary Onions and Fontina Valle d’Aosta

(Makes 2 approximately 10- to 11-inch pizzas)

For the dough:

1 packet active dry yeast
1 teaspoon honey
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for the bowls
3 cups all-purpose flour, plus a little more for kneading
1 teaspoon salt
About ½ cup coarse cornmeal or semolina flour

For the top:

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 Vidalia onions, very thinly sliced
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon sugar
3 whole allspice, ground to a powder
4 small sprigs fresh rosemary, the needles chopped, plus a little extra for garnish
½ cup dry Marsala
1 teaspoon Spanish sherry vinegar
½ pound Fontina Valle d’Aosta cheese, sliced

In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast in ½ cup of warm water. Add the honey and the tablespoon of olive oil, give it a stir, and then let sit until the yeast is foamy, about 8 minutes.

Add half of the flour and the salt, stirring it into the yeast. Add the remaining flour, and then gradually add about ¾ cup of tepid water, mixing until you have a soft, sticky, ragged ball of dough.

Flour a work surface, and turn the dough out onto it. Knead, adding little sprinklings of flour when necessary to prevent sticking, until the dough is smooth, about 8 minutes. Cut the dough in half. Pour a little olive oil into two large bowls, and drop a dough ball into each one, coating the dough lightly with the oil. Cover and let rise until the dough has doubled in size, about 2½ to 3 hours.

In a large skillet, heat the two tablespoons of olive oil over medium-low heat. Add the onions, salt, black pepper, the sugar, the allspice, and the rosemary. Sauté slowly until the onions start to turn golden, about 15 minutes. Now add the Marsala, and let it slowly boil away until the onions are moist but there’s no obvious liquid in the skillet. Add the vinegar and give it a good stir.

Put your pizza stone in the oven, and turn the heat up as high as it will go. Preheat for at least 15 minutes.

Flour a work surface, and turn out one of the dough balls onto it. Flatten it down with your hands to form a disk. Now roll it out into an approximately 10- or 11-inch round (it can be a little free-form, as in the photo above). Scatter an ample amount of corn meal or semolina on your pizza peel, and then transfer the dough over to the peel. Top with half of the onions, spreading them out to about an inch from the edge of the dough, and then place the Fontina on top. Scatter on a little of the fresh rosemary, and add a few grindings of fresh black pepper. The faster you do this, the less likely  your dough will start to stick. Gently slide the pizza onto the stone, ideally in one swift movement (when you get choppy and hesitant about it, you will run into trouble).

Bake until it’s lightly charred on the edges and bubbling in the center, about 12 to 15 minutes. Make another pizza in the same manner.

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Recipe: Chicken alla Cacciatora with Black Olives, Crème Fraîche, and Thyme

After a string of holidays, I want nothing more than to dispense with the menu planning and just wing it, creating meals out of whatever is in the house, in true improvisational fashion. This type of cooking always reminds me of what it was like making “family meal”—i.e., the staff meal—when I worked in restaurants, where I was always told to use up what was on its way out anyway. Except that my family doesn’t consist of 20 Colombians all grumbling that my food is not cooked enough (they like their meat ‘hammered’) , or not spicy enough (they like their food incendiary). I’d watch these guys empty an entire bottle of Trappey’s hot sauce over my quickie coq au vin. It was wounding to my fledgling culinary self-esteem.  In any case, whether it’s appreciated or not, that kind of cooking is always liberating.

Last night I found I had a can of San Marzano tomatoes, a three-and-a-half-pound chicken, and various holiday leftovers in my refrigerator, such as several big containers of black olives, a mess of  dry, curling prosciutto (how did I let that happen?), some double- smoked cod, a couple of salami chunks, a  lump of pancetta, various dried-out herb branches, a couple of quarter bottles of dead wine, and a half-full tub of crème fraîche. Crème fraîche is an ingredient I almost never have on hand, but I had bought it to go with a little jar of caviar a friend was nice enough to bring to my Connie Francis theme tree-trimming party. I assessed all this food build-up and decided to cook up a chicken cacciatore, and to construct it in a newfangled way. My little group of diners declared the dish a hit (my family is, thankfully, much more accepting than most restaurant staff). Here I offer it to you, for your own family meal:

Chicken alla Cacciatora with Black Olives, Crème Fraîche, and Thyme

(Serves 4)

½ cup all-purpose flour
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
4 allspice, ground to a powder
1 approximately 3½-pound chicken, cut into 8 pieces
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
1 ½-inch-thick slice of pancetta, cut into small dice
1 large shallot, minced
1 garlic clove, thinly sliced
1 small glass dry white wine
1 28-ounce can San Marzano plum tomatoes, well chopped and lightly drained
½ cup chicken broth
1 bay leaf
A branch of fresh thyme, the leaves chopped
A small handful of black olives, pitted and halved (I used Gaetas)
1 heaping tablespoon crème fraîche

Mix the flour, salt, black pepper, and ground allspice together on a large plate. Dredge the chicken pieces in it, shaking off any excess.

In a large sauté pan, heat a tablespoon of olive oil with the butter over medium heat. When hot, add the chicken pieces, and brown them well on both sides. Remove the chicken from the pan, and pour out the excess oil (not all of it, though; you want a little chicken grease in the dish). Add the pancetta, and sauté until crisp. Add the shallot, and sauté for a minute or so to soften it. Add the garlic, and sauté for a few seconds to release its flavor. Add the white wine, and let it boil away. Add the tomatoes and the chicken broth, and season with salt, black pepper, the bay leaf, and the thyme. Simmer, uncovered, at a lively bubble for 5 minutes. Return the chicken to the pan, and simmer, covered, at a low heat for about 12 minutes. Remove the white meat from the pan, and continue cooking, covered, until the legs and thighs are just tender, about 10 minutes longer.

Return the white meat to the pan, and add the olives and the crème fraîche, giving it a good stir. Turn off the heat, and let everything just sit there, uncovered, for about 15 minutes. This will allow all the flavors to continue mingling and let the sauce thicken a bit. It will also further cook the chicken in a very gentle way just in case there may still be a bit of pink at the bone.

To serve, gently reheat, uncovered, spooning the sauce over the chicken. Taste for seasoning, adding more salt or black pepper if needed.  Add a drizzle of fresh olive oil, and serve directly from the pan, accompanied by polenta, orzo, or rice, if you like.

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