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A Recipe for Roasted Cauliflower with Tahini, Pine Nuts, and Lemon Thyme, plus How I Make My Finocchietto, and Photos of Colored Cauliflower from Story Farms, in Catskill, New York

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 3, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Cauliflower and Pomegranates, by Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

Recipe in text below: Roasted Cauliflower with Tahini, Pine Nuts, and Lemon Thyme

We were lucky this year in New York: Fall flew in quickly, turning a lot of the green into yellow, orange, pinky red, seemingly overnight, but the temperatures stayed soft. I haven’t even cut my herbs back, even though some of them, especially the Greek oregano, have turned to grizzle, and the summer savory is shot to hell, self-trimming by nature. I did scissor off most of the seeds and pollen-topped umbels and some of the stalks from my fennel to get a head start on my finocchietto, the Italian fennel liqueur I make every year. I just steep the fennel in Everclear, the 190-proof nightmare you can purchase at just about any liquor store.  Almost immediately the Everclear pulls all the fragrance and color from the seeds and stems, turning brilliant green, actually a deep green with a blue undertone. A strange color leaves from the normally light green fennel stalks. It’s astonishing how well the Everclear sucks the life out of a plant. I’ll let the fennel steep for about two months, then add a sugar syrup to tamp down the bitterness (not a lot of sugar, as I don’t want it sweet like Sambuca), and then enough water to get the alcohol down to a manageable level. By Christmas it should be where I want it.

The produce at the markets changes as quickly as do the leaves on the trees. Pumpkins, tiny and huge, pile up, round, squat, ones with odd squared-off angles, orange, beige, white, even gray-green ones. I’m not sure why I find this so disturbing. What do people do with all these pumpkins? What happens to them after November? Growing all these things for reasons I don’t understand must take up a lot of land space. I do make a savory pumpkin torta with parmigiano and sage once or twice in the fall, but that’s about it. Why do farmers grow so many? I mean, there are so many pumpkins all over the place. I’ve never really gotten over this.

I do love when the cauliflowers appear. That I understand. They’re so lumpy and voluptuous, almost volcanic-looking. Story Farms has colored cauliflowers that drive me a little wild. Green, orange, purple, gorgeous things that started showing up at New York farm stands maybe about fifteen years ago. They are hybrids, crosses of traditional creamy-white cauliflower with other vegetables to achieve those colors. The green ones are a cross between white cauliflower and broccoli, the orange ones with vegetables high in beta carotene such as carrots. The purple ones get their color from anthocyanin found in purple vegetables, usually purple broccoli. The colors fade a little during cooking, but I find that the orange variety generally stays pretty orange. Here are a few recent photos from Story.

In addition to the orange, purple, and white cauliflower, in the upper left you can see a Romanesco variety with its spiral bud pattern. Itʼs an old Italian hybrid of cauliflower and broccoli.

Hereʼs their beautiful green variety.

For my Roasted Cauliflower with Tahini, Pine Nuts, and Lemon Thyme, I used regular white cauliflower, but you can make it with any type. Or you can use broccoli, if you prefer. To make it you’ll want to cut approximately 1-inch flowerets from a large head of  cauliflower and toss them in a little olive oil, a tiny drizzle of runny honey, lemon zest, salt, some chopped fresh lemon thyme, and a little piment d’Espelette.

Make a Tahini sauce by mixing ¾ cup of tahini with about ½ a minced garlic clove, a big pinch of allspice, salt, a bit more of the espelette, and the juice from about half a lemon. Slowly whisk in about ½ cup of water until the mixture loosens up and becomes smooth and pourable.

Roast the cauliflower on really high heat (450 is good) until it’s tender and browned. Transfer it to a large, wide serving bowl. Drizzle on the tahini sauce (you might not need all of it—judgement here), sprinkle on a good amount of toasted pine nuts, and finish with a few more lightly chopped lemon thyme leaves.

For me this dish is best right out of the oven, when the cauliflower is hot and crisp. It still tastes really good at room temperature, but also the cauliflower softens a little. I served it with a whole roasted sea bass I stuffed with lemon and a variety of herbs I still had in my garden, but it would make a good vegetarian dinner served over Israeli couscous, I think. One big cauliflower should serve four as a side dish or two or three as a main over some type of starchy thing.

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Caponata with Lovage, Thai Basil, and Pear, plus Some Thoughts on a Pizza Truck Called Mommò

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 24, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Recipe below: Caponata with Lovage, Thai Basil, and Pear

If you ever get to upstate New York, you probably notice a lot of pizza trucks rumbling around. They show up at farm stands, breweries, wineries, fairs. They pull up and set up, churn out pizzas for a few hours, and then they’re gone. They’re not all great, but some are.

I often hang out at Slow Fox Farm Brewery, in Rhinebeck. It’s both a brewery and a farm, with its own tomatoes, herbs, cabbage, kale, beets, arugula, and rows of, at the moment, zinnias, cosmos, and celosia that you can pick while drunk. As well as more than half a dozen fine house-brewed beers and ales. You can often eat pizza there. So far they’ve had I think three or four different pizza trucks this summer (this should go on into the early winter, before they close up until the spring). All the pizza has been good, but one stands out for me.

I could tell right away from the aroma wafting out from the Mommò truck that I was going to like its pizza. Mommò, I just learned, is Neapolitan for “right now,” and that’s about right. The pizza takes three minutes to cook. Luca, the owner and pizzaiolo, is from Italy, and he has the Neapolitan flavor down. The crust is yeasty and pully and just a touch salty, with charred but not too charred bubbles circling its rim. That is the taste I want but often don’t get. He’s got wood, but unlike most of the pizza people who drag around a wood burning oven with their truck, Luca had it built right into his truck. It doesn’t seem possible, but I’ve seen it. He explained to me that it’s a stainless steel pizza oven made in Naples for backyard use. It’s a little tight, but he got it to fit. If he turns around without thinking, he can burn his arm. But he’s been doing this for almost three years now, and I guess he’s got the reflex down.

Luca makes an effort to use good ingredients, as not everyone does. He’s got that bright red tomato sauce I always look for, the type that’s ladled on raw but gets flash blasted in the extra-hot oven. So far I’ve tried his margarita, his pizza with shiitake mushrooms, an anchovy and burrata one, and his sausage pizza topped with a nice mellow local sausage. In true Neapolitan style he’s light on the toppings, but you still get that traditional Neapolitan moist spot in the middle that I love. There’s a gorgonzola pizza I’m interested in, too. Next time. If you feel like following Luca around the Hudson Valley, you can track his whereabouts at www.mommopizza.com.

As you probably gather, I do love a good pizza, but what about caponata? Not that they’re related, except for the fact that they’re both Southern Italian. It’s still eggplant season here in New York, so I’ve got to use eggplants every way I can while they’re still young and vibrant. Caponata is of Sicilian origin, one of those full-bodied Spanish- and possibly Arab-inspired dishes with strange lists of ingredients that combine to open up lusciously on the tongue. Eggplant is caponata’s anchor, and agrodolce gives it its swing. It’s an old dish (tomato being a recent addition), which when done up for high-class Sicilians used to include (and sometimes still does) Baroque garnishes such as chocolate, cinnamon, hard-boiled eggs aged in vinegar, and even baby octopus. I kept the cinnamon.

Basil, parsley, and mint are traditional contemporary herbs for caponata. But this September, since I’ve still had tons of lovage in my garden, I’ve decided to add a little of that. And it makes sense, since celery is almost always a component of the dish and lovage has a strong celery-like flavor. If you don’t have lovage, use a palmful of celery leaves instead. I also had Thai basil hanging on, so that went in as well. And since it’s early fall, instead of the more typical dried fruit, usually raisins, I went with pear, just to freshen things up. And I decided on almonds instead of pine nuts because they seemed to go better with the pears. Not sure why. Just a feeling.

And just one more thing about caponata: I don’t care what anyone says, caponata is not ratatouille. It’s not a side dish. It shares basic ingredients, such as eggplant, but the seasoning couldn’t be more different. Its agrodolce boldness steers it toward the antipasto category.  I like it served room temperature, along with bruschetta brushed with good olive oil.

Caponata with Lovage, Thai Basil, and Pear

  • Servings: 6, as an antipasto dish
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Extra-virgin olive oil
2 firm medium-size eggplants, stripe-peeled and cut into medium dice
Salt
A big pinch of cinnamon (about ¼ teaspoon)
A drizzle of honey (about a teaspoon)
1 red bell pepper, seeded, ribbed, and cut into small dice
1 medium onion, cut into small dice
2 teaspoons Spanish sherry vinegar
3 small inner celery ribs, cut into small dice, plus a handful of celery leaves (especially if you don’t have lovage)
1 firm pear, skinned and cut into small dice
A splash of dry Marsala
1 large, round summer tomato, skinned and cut into small dice
1½ teaspoons sugar
A palmful of salt-packed capers, soaked and rinsed
Black pepper
A handful of Thai basil leaves, lightly chopped, plus whole sprigs for garnish
3 lovage leaves, lightly chopped
A big handful of blanched almonds, lightly toasted and roughly chopped

Have a large serving bowl ready near the stove. In a large skillet, heat a big drizzle of olive oil over medium heat. Add the eggplant, and sauté until it’s tender but still keeping its shape, about 8 minutes. Season it with a little salt and the cinnamon. Add the honey, giving everything a mix. Spoon the eggplant into the bowl.

Add another drizzle of olive oil to the skillet, add the red pepper and onion, and sauté over medium heat until softened, about 4 minutes or so. Add 1 teaspoon of the vinegar, and let it bubble for a few seconds. Add this mixture to the bowl with the eggplant.

Add another drizzle of olive oil to the skillet, and then add the celery and celery leaves, sautéing them until they just start to soften, about 2 minutes. Add the pear, and let it sauté about a minute longer. Pour in the Marsala, and let it bubble away. Add all this to the bowl, and give everything a gentle toss.

Add one more drizzle of olive oil to the skillet, keeping the heat on medium. Add the tomato, seasoning it with a little salt. Add the sugar, and sauté the tomato for about 2 minutes (you want it to remain red and fresh-tasting). Add the other teaspoon of vinegar, and let it boil for a few seconds. Pour the tomatoes into the bowl.

Add the capers and a few big grindings of black pepper to the bowl. Add the Thai basil, lovage, and about ¾ of the almonds. Give everything another mix. Taste for seasoning. The caponata should have a gentle, well-balanced sweet-and-sour taste. Add a little more salt if you need to to bring all the flavors into focus. Let the dish sit and come to room temperature. Then give it another taste, just to check the seasoning. (Dishes taste different at different temperatures, and this one in particular will change flavors as all its various components meld. It might need a little drizzle of vinegar or a bit more black pepper.) Garnish with the remaining almonds and the Thai basil sprigs. Serve at room temperature.

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My Herb Garden in Mid-September: It’s Winding Down

Posted in Uncategorized on September 14, 2024| 2 Comments »

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Rigatoni with Roasted Red Peppers, Crème Fraîche, Thyme, and Basil, plus a Visit to Sullaluna, a New Cafe and Italian Bookstore on Carmine Street

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 12, 2024| 6 Comments »

Recipe in text below: Rigatoni with Roasted Red Peppers, Crème Fraîche, Thyme, and Basil

In the late 1800s Carmine Street and the surrounding blocks of the West Village became a destination for Italian immigrants, mostly from Liguria. Our Lady of Pompeii Church, at Carmine and Bleecker, was their refuge, providing not only spiritual support but also helping new arrivals with housing, jobs, and medical care. It has continued to comfort all the Sicilian and Neapolitan people that followed. My friend Sandy Di Pasqua’s family landed on Carmine. My next-door neighbor on Long Island Lou Mastellone’s older brother was born in a walkup, cold-water apartment on Christopher Street, about five blocks away.

Pompeii is still an Italian church in spirit, having a daily Italian-language mass for the remaining elders, but it also offers one in Tagalog, as the congregation is now heavily Filipino. I took Italian classes at its adjoining school in the 1990s. And for years I would get together with a bunch of friends for its Good Friday Mass. For me, a nonreligious type, the attraction to the vigil was the darkness, the yellow light, the smell of the paraffin candles, and the repetitive, hypnotic song we all sang as we walked over and over around the pews. The refrain “Sono stati i miei peccati, Gesù mio, perdon, pieta” is, I’m pretty certain, stuck in my brain forever. In the old days they even took the song and candles out onto the street. After the vigil we’d all go to Rocco’s for fritto misto and chianti (the old Rocco’s, not the new faux–Italian American hotspot it’s become). Our group has now dispersed, so we don’t do it anymore, but the show goes on, although with fewer participants each year.

There are still a few legit Italian places in the neighborhood. Rocco’s pastry shop (not related to the now trendy restaurant on Thompson Street ), Ottomanelli’s butcher, Joe’s pizza, and Faicco’s Pork shop (which now, unfortunately, has an aggressive MAGAroni vibe to it that I don’t appreciate) are all around the corner on Bleecker.

So for me, it’s a celebration when a new Italian-run shop appears in the neighborhood. Yesterday I went to check out Sullaluna, a just-opened cafe and bookshop combo on Carmine, an offshoot of a place in Venice. They specialize in beautifully illustrated children’s books, all in Italian. I felt peaceful in Sullaluna, and the books are fascinating. A whole new world of literature for me. Here’s a book I just had to purchase:

There’s also good coffee and wine, and a small menu with standard items like gnocchi, arancini, carbonara, and salads. They also do brunch. I cannot yet comment on the quality of the food, since I only had an espresso, but the guy next to me ordered a huge gelato-stuffed cornetto that looked enticing.  This is a sweet little place. I will be back.

Sullaluna is at 41 Carmine Street. It’s closed on Tuesdays. As of now, It doesn’t seem to have a website, but it does have an active Instragram account that you might want to check out.

After my coffee at Sullaluna I made my way over to the Union Square market to check out all the late summer produce there. We’ve still got lots of tomatoes here in New York City, and those dark and dusty-looking pointed Italian plums, my favorites for tarts. And many of the sweet and hot chilis have now ripened to a deep crimson. I bought an armful of sweet ones labelled Giant Marconi. I think I’ve cooked with them before, but I wasn’t familiar with that name. I love a roasted sweet pepper sauce for pasta, so that was my plan.

Here’s how to make my Rigatoni with Roasted Red Peppers, Crème Fraîche, Thyme, and Basil.

You’ll want to start by roasting your peppers. I used 6 of the Giant Marconi ones, which turned out to be dense and rich tasting, but 4 or 5 regular red bell peppers would also work. I like to do them on a charcoal grill, but a broiler or gas flame does a fine job. Just blacken them all over, and then peel and seed them. Then give them a rough chop. (I really don’t recommend using jarred roasted peppers for this. Their taste is always somewhat acidic, which can really spoil this suave sauce.)

Get out a large sauté pan, and set it over medium heat. Add a big drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil and a tablespoon or so of butter. Add a chopped shallot and a sliced garlic clove, and let them soften for a moment. Add the roasted peppers, a little chopped fresh thyme, some salt, and a pinch of nutmeg, and let them cook until the peppers are fragrant and tender, about five minutes. Add a splash of dry vermouth, and let it bubble out.

Purée the peppers in a food processor, adding a little water to thin out the purée. Return the purée to the pan, and add about ½ cup of crème fraîche and a sprinkling of Aleppo pepper. Let it warm through.

Cook a pound of rigatoni or another shape you might have on hand, and drain it, saving a little of the cooking water. Pour it into a large, warmed serving bowl. Add the sauce, a drizzle of fresh olive oil, a good sprinkling of grated Parmigiano Reggiano, and a handful of lightly chopped basil, adding a little cooking water to loosen it if needed. Give it a good toss.

This sauce is also very good on mussels or clams. Just open them in a little white wine or vermouth, add the sauce, and toss. Beauty.

Happy end of summer cooking to you.

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Women with Fish, the Story Continues

Posted in Uncategorized on September 5, 2024| 2 Comments »

Fish Walker, Sheep Jones, 2023

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Warm Corn Salad with Tomatoes, Thai Basil, and Ricotta Salata

Posted in Uncategorized on August 24, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Corn on the Cob, by Piero Poraccia, 1924.

Recipe below in text: Warm Corn Salad with Tomatoes, Thai Basil, and Ricotta Salata.

I haven’t been very creative with corn this summer, just eating a lot of corn on the cob (or corn on the club, as my friend’s young son used to call it). And, in fact, I haven’t completely enjoyed every ear, finding some ridiculously sweet. Half the time I can’t even finish one club. You have to really hunt around the farmers’ markets to find the old-fashioned varieties that are not just sugar loads.

The other day I picked up some ears of what was labeled white corn. The kernels weren’t exactly white, more like a very pale yellow. I’ve seen carnations that color. I was told by the people at the farm stand that that corn was a native, nonhybrid variety. After a little research I thought maybe it was New York Iroquois corn, but the farm people didn’t call it that. I tested it by chomping into it raw. Sweet but grassy. I decided to slice off the kernels and sauté them. That made it even sweeter, but with a deeper vegetable undertaste than the yellow stuff. Still, I didn’t want to eat it straight, finally deciding that any type of corn is improved by a little acid, a little heat, and salt.

Still Life with Corn, by Charles Ethan.

I came up with this recipe, which includes a peperoncino for heat, ricotta salata for salinity, tomatoes because it’s still summer, a little miso for umami, and Thai basil for its anise spiciness, which, especially late in the season, is a good counterpoint to sweet.

To make it, first off make a vinaigrette, with 1 teaspoon of white miso, a teaspoon of sherry wine vinegar, a teaspoon of mirin, and 1½ tablespoons of good olive oil. Mix that all well until the miso is dissolved.

Shuck 5 ears of summer corn (you can try to find a white variety, but any type will work well). With a sharp knife, slice off the kernels.

Get out a large sauté pan, and set it over medium heat. Drizzle in a little olive oil. Add the corn, 2 scallions cut into thin rounds, a piece of a fresh hot red chili, minced (as much as you like; I used about half a peperoncino), and a big pinch of allspice. Add a sprinkle of salt, and sauté until the corn is firm but tender, 3 minutes or so.

Put the corn in a big serving bowl. Add 2 or 3 well chopped plum tomatoes (I seeded mine) and a handful of lightly chopped Thai basil leaves. Pour on the vinaigrette, and give it all a gentle toss. Scatter on some crumbled ricotta salata, and garnish with a few nice looking Thai basil sprigs.

You can serve this warm or at room temperature. It will feed four or five as a side dish. I served it with roasted monkfish that I topped with a green tapenade, but it would go well with any number things (barbecued chicken thighs, for instance).

Happy late summer cooking to you.

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Gazpacho with Cantaloupe and Basil

Posted in Uncategorized on August 16, 2024| 2 Comments »

Gazpacho, by Karolina Swidecka.

Recipe in text below: Gazpacho with Cantaloupe and Basil

I don’t like bell peppers in my gazpacho, either green or red. They add a sharp gasoliny flavor so dominating, I find, that I can’t taste much else. Roasting would probably improve the pepper presence, but to my mind the point of gazpacho is to blend uncooked ingredients, releasing their essence and their trapped water while keeping it all as cold as can be so it’ll refresh your body on a hot day. No cooking here at all. But those bell peppers bummed me out every time. I wanted to love this soup so badly. You know what I did? I left the bell peppers out. Dramatic, I know. I instead emphasized the sweet by adding melon, balancing that out with sherry wine vinegar, a mildly bitter extra-virgin olive oil, basil, and sea salt.

If you’d like to try my version, you’ll need four medium summer tomatoes, chopped (I didn’t peel mine, but you certainly can if you want), a medium cucumber, skinned and chopped (I skinned it because I didn’t want the dark green skin to add a murky color), about 3 cups of cubed really fragrant summer cantaloupe, 2 chopped scallions (just the white part; save the green stems for the garnish), a piece of a fresh red chili (I used half of a red jalapeño from my garden), a small, very fresh summer garlic clove, chopped, and the leaves from  a few sprigs of lemon thyme.

Put everything in a food processor, and pulse it until blended but still maintaining a little texture (you don’t want it to resemble a smoothie). Add about a teaspoon of sherry wine vinegar (depending on its strength, you may need more; I used Viagre de Jerez Reserva, which is potent), some nice sea salt (I find that this soup can take a good amount of salt), and about ¼ cup of your best olive oil (I had on hand a Sicilian brand called Olio Verde that I really like that is bitter but not aggressively so). Pulse again a few times to blend. Depending on how much water is in your vegetables, the soup at this point may be thick or thin, but we’ll adjust that later.

Pour the soup into a pitcher or a bowl, and refrigerate it for at least 3 hours (overnight is fine). This will give it time not only to chill but also for all the flavors to blend.

When that’s done, it will have thickened a little. If it started out thin, this will be a good thing. In my case I  needed to loosen it up with about ¾ cup of cold water. My preference is for gazpacho to have body and texture but still be pourable. I don’t want a spoon to stand up in it. Next taste the soup, adjusting with more salt, vinegar, and/or hot chili if needed. Add about 5 or 6 leaves of well chopped basil, and stick the soup back in the refrigerator for about another hour to further meld the flavors and chill. Then it will be ready to serve. You’ll have four good-size servings.

I like garnishing each bowl with a fine chop  of cantaloupe, cucumber, the green ends of scallion, and a thread of fresh olive oil. And I love this soup with good bread, a plate of  Serrano ham, and a cold glass of rosato.

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Union Square on a Monday in August: An Eggplant Roundup

Posted in Uncategorized on August 12, 2024| 2 Comments »

Still Life with Aubergines, by Henri Matisse, 1911.

I just spent a confusing afternoon trying to sort out all the varieties of eggplant now available at the Union Square Greenmarket. August is when they come fast and furious. The problem identifying the things is that half the time the people selling them aren’t completely sure what they are. But I did my best, so here goes:

These little squat eggplants are called Patio Babies, because they’re somewhat easy to grow in a container. They’re really cute. I never saw them before, so I bought a few to play around with. I’m thinking of maybe stuffing and roasting them.

These long guys are Japanese eggplants. Chinese varieties look similar, but I didn’t see any today. I’ve also previously seen a long Japanese variety with beautiful solid light green skin. I love these eggplants in a sauté. They’re sweet and gentle.

One white one stuck in here. To me it tastes just like the dark purple Italian ones next to it. It’s just white.

Here are some Graffitti eggplants surrounding the dark purple ones. I buy them because they’re so beautiful. Great for ciambotta.

Here you’ve got your Fairytales. So tiny. I think the best way to treat them is to split them and then grill them with olive oil and herbs.

The farm people said these were called simply Striped, but I’m thinking possibly they’re another type of Graffitti eggplant? Gorgeous color.

These were labeled only as Italian Eggplants. My at-home Google search leads me to believe their actual name is Rotonda Bianca di Rosa. Of course I bought a few.

When I did a Google search for these pretty Globe variety eggplants, the name Barbarella came up, so I’m going with that. I’m staring at one now that’s sitting on my counter. Eggplants are exquisite.

These look like the regular supermarket eggplants you can buy all year long, but they’re an Italian variety that’s a bit more squat, fatter, and more tender. I’ll be making pasta alla Norma with a few of them tomorrow night.

These lovely things are called Rosa Bianca (not to be mistaken for the Bianca di Rosa of the Rotonda school. See why I was confused?). They’re creamy, almost custardy, when cooked, with no bitterness at all. I bought a few of them too. I think I overdid it with eggplants. I’ll have to give some to my sister.

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Peach Sorbetto with Basil and Crème Fraîche

Posted in Uncategorized on August 6, 2024| 8 Comments »

Pile of Peaches, by Joseph Keiffer.

Recipe in text below: Peach Sorbetto with Basil and Crème Fraîche

Peaches and basil make a sublime pairing that I love sweet or savory. The melding of the two flavors produces a gentle black-peppery bitter sensation that has become habit-forming for me.

I’ve played around with various renditions of peach and basil over the years. A caprese-like salad, subbing peaches for the tomatoes or even in addition to them is always a hit, especially with fine olive oil, good salt, and coarse ground black pepper. Last summer I made a cold peach soup flavored with Thai basil and dry vermouth. I was really happy with that, too. This year my Thai basil turned brown and collapsed into the dirt after only a few weeks, so no such soup for me this summer.

My father always put together sliced peaches and dry red wine in a big bowl for backyard summer cookouts. He’d scatter whole basil leaves on top. There was no added sugar, and the tannic pucker of the wine carried the “dessert” to a high place in my culinary memory. I make that a few times each summer.

To go super savory, I’ve sautéed peaches with shallots, basil, and a few drops of vinegar, to serve over grilled pork chops. Pretty good, like a deconstructed chutney. Or you might throw cut peach halves on a grill and fill them hot with a cheese-free Genoese pesto. You might also want to try crostini topped with ricotta, peach, and basil, maybe lemon basil. Or you could use the same topping on a hot, oily focaccia. I’ve never tried that myself, but I can imagine it would be lovely.

I also love a Harry’s Bar–inspired peach purée and prosecco, garnished with a perfect basil sprig. I sometimes add a drizzle of Campari. And a vodka and soda is made fuller and less purely medicinal by a shot of peach juice and a few basil leaves.

This time I made a proper sweet thing, a peach and basil sorbetto. The friend I served it to last night said she would have been willing to pay 80 dollars for it in a restaurant. That made me feel good.

My peach and basil sorbetto.

If you’d like to try making it, the first thing you’ll want to do is make a sugar syrup, half water, half sugar, boiling it for a few minutes to dissolve the sugar. I used a cup of sugar, but you never really know in advance how much sugar your fruit is going to need, so it’s good to prepare a little extra. Let it cool completely.

Then peel five really ripe, fragrant peaches, leaving a little of the red skin for color. You need soft, ripe ones for this so they purée easily with no lingering lumps. Slice the peaches into thick chunks, and put them into a food processor along with a squeeze of lemon juice and a tiny pinch of salt. Purée until smooth. Start adding the sugar syrup, pulsing it in and tasting as you go. Stop when you’ve got a nice balance. Add a heaping tablespoon of crème fraîche, and blend everything until smooth.

Pour the purée into the bowl of an ice cream machine. Scatter 5 well-chopped basil leaves on top, and process until frozen.

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Purslane Salad with Nectarines, Pine Nuts, and Ricotta Salata, plus Early August Highlights from the Union Square Greenmarket

Posted in Uncategorized on July 26, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Potted Purslane with Sun Dapples, by Krysteen Waszak.

Recipe in text below: Purslane Salad with Nectarines, Pine Nuts, and Ricotta Salata

I will eat pretty much anything at least once, and usually many times, but fuzzy food disturbs me. As much as I love peaches, I can’t quite get past their fuzzy skin. I understand this is infantile and really stupid, but I can’t help it. I once planted a Cuban oregano that turned out to have fuzzy leaves. I found the mouth feel of the herb unbearable. I ripped the plant out.

Yesterday I went to the Union Square Greenmarket looking for purslane. I had the idea I’d pair it with peaches for a sweet summer salad. That seemed perfect. But of course I’d have to skin the peaches’ fuzzy coats, and then they’d turn into a soupy mess in the bowl, diluting the vinaigrette and not doing a good job of anything. Funny—I had forgotten about nectarines, but there they were, in all their smooth-skinned summer glory, smelling like heaven. So they became the thing to layer with the purslane, one of my favorite high summer greens, with its lemony taste and high omega-3 content. An interesting thing about purslane is that it grows all over the place, including in cracks in the sidewalk. You probably have some in your backyard, or down the block in a tree bed. This time I wanted it so badly I paid for it.

I added ricotta salata to the salad, thinking its saltiness would marry well with the sweet fruit. And then I scattered on toasted pine nuts and drizzled on good olive oil, salt, black pepper, and a thread of sherry wine vinegar. So that’s the recipe. Maybe you’d like to try it.

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Here is some other appealing produce I saw at the Greenmarket:

My favorite lilac-colored round Italian eggplants. I like to cut them in half and stuff them with breadcrumbs, anchovies, garlic, and summer savory.

A Japanese eggplant that looks interesting. I haven’t tried it yet, but I will, and I’ll report back.

Delicious peppers, sort of like cubanelles but with a little more flavor.

I found myself attracted to the shiny skins on these semi-hot chilies, so I bought a few. I added half of one to a braised eggplant and tomato dish. Lovely flavor.

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