Erica De Mane

Recipe: Carrots with Cumin, Olives, and Basil

There is a Moroccan dish of carrots seasoned with cumin and lemon that I’ve never liked. Somehow the combination tastes harsh to me. I do like the idea of cumin with carrots, though, and I’ve always wanted to create a more Southern Italian, I suppose Sicilian-inspired, rendition of it. I guess what has until now stopped me from going ahead with it was the fact that I’ve never tasted cumin in any Sicilian cooking. I don’t think they use it at all. They certainly incorporate many Arab spices, such as saffron, cinnamon, bay, black pepper, and even ginger sometimes, and, after all, they even cook couscous. But cumin is not popular with the Sicilians.

I’ve been seeing beautiful bunches of multicolored carrots at my Greenmarket lately. Pinkish orange, bright orange, dark plum, yellow, magenta. Just looking at them can make a bad day good. I bought a few bunches and learned a few things. First of all, I discovered that colored carrots, yellow and dark red ones specifically, have been around for a thousand years at least, but in the last fifty years or so farmers have been experimenting with pigments to create many new colors. I also learned that when I cut into the dark red ones, they weren’t red through and through but either bright yellow or orange at the center. That was amazing. I also noticed that these weird colored carrots are very firm and take longer to cook than the usual ones. I could sense this just by their feel, so I went ahead and blanched them first. I wasn’t sure if they’d give up some of their color, the way beets do, but I was happy to discover that they don’t, really. Just a bit, turning the blanching water palest pink.

I decided to go ahead with my cumin thought, creating a kinder, gentler cumin carrot. First off, I nixed the lemon. Then I added a pinch of sugar and a few garlic cloves—whole, not sliced—just for an undertone of flavor. I added a handful of black olives. They looked beautiful mingling with all the various carrot colors. And to pull it decidedly in an Italian direction, I added Marsala, and then basil at the last minute. I was really pleased with the taste. I’m not sure if any Sicilian would recognize this as a dish from home, but to me it somehow seems very Sicilian in spirit.

Carrots with Cumin, Olives, and Basil

(Serves 6 as a first course or side dish)

Salt
2 bunches carrots, the multicolored ones if you can find them
Extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoon sugar
½ teaspoon ground cumin
3 garlic cloves, peeled
Black pepper
A big splash of dry Marsala
A handful of wrinkled black Moroccan olives
A handful of basil leaves, cut into chiffonade

Peel the carrots and cut them into thick sections, on an angle.

Set up a pot of water, and bring it to a boil. Add a bit of salt. Add the carrots, and blanch them for 2 minutes. Drain them into a colander, and then run cold water over them to bring up their color. Drain well.

In a large skillet, heat a tablespoon of olive oil with the butter. Add the sugar, cumin, and garlic. Add the carrots, seasoning them with salt and black pepper. Sauté everything around for a few minutes to further soften the carrots and to blend all the flavors. Add the Marsala, and let it boil away. Add a splash of warm water and an extra drizzle of olive oil, partially cover the skillet, and cook until the carrots are tender, about 4 minutes. You should have a nice, moist glaze on the carrots. Pour them into a large serving bowl. Add the olives and the basil, and give everything a toss. Serve hot or warm.

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Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, Diego Velázquez, 1620.

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Recipe: Lasagna with Basil Walnut Pesto and Besciamella

When I was a junior high school student on Long Island many centuries ago, there still existed a class called home ec, something all the girls had to take, a requirement that by then no one took very seriously. I believe I took it the last year it was offered before it gave way to a newer, hipper curriculum, like sensitivity training (I swear to you that was a real class at my school too). The white-haired black lady who ran home ec was truly serious about teaching us to create our own potholders and to cook some extremely foreign food. There were two dishes that I remember distinctly. They will be forever linked in my mind, not only for their nastiness but because we assembled and sampled them both on the same day. They were eggs à la goldenrod and chipped beef on toast.

Eggs à la goldenrod consisted of toasted Wonderbread slices scattered with crumbled hard-boiled egg whites and drizzled with a chalky white sauce before being finished with the chopped up egg yolks. Chipped beef on toast began with the same base of toasted Wonderbread, but then a jar of thin, round grayish-purple meat slices was opened. A load of them were piled on top of the toast before being covered with the same white sauce. It was hideous. The only thing it had going for it was that it was extremely salty. I remember asking my father about eggs à la goldenrod, and he said, “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”  “What about chipped beef on toast?” I then asked. “Oh,” he said. “Shit on a shingle. Don’t you ever bring that into this house.” Don’t worry, Dad. I assumed he had been forced to eat this during his service in World War II, but it turned out his Puglian-born mother had prepared it once, in an attempt to Americanize their home. It evidently left an emotional scar. It’s curious to me that I was such a blasé home ec student but then went on to find the kitchen becoming such a big part of my life. It had everything to do with Italian food.

When my mother made a white sauce, it meant only one thing, lasagna. We called the sauce besciamella. Its aroma was beautiful, mingling butter and sweet, toasted flour, with hints of nutmeg and bay leaf and a whiff of dried red pepper. Miss home ec lady didn’t use any seasoning, not even salt. Her white sauce was like plaster of Paris.

Lasagna was a special-occasion dish, made for New Year’s, Christmas, or birthdays. My mother prepared a great one, very typically Southern Italian, with layers of thick tomato-y ragu, the top covered with the fragrant besciamella. The huge dish was allowed to bubble and meld in a slow oven until a good crust formed on top. What a fabulous invention. The lasagna recipe I offer you here is based on a pasta dish I once ate in Genoa, the home of basil pesto. The original was a plate of pesto-slathered pasta squares haphazardly stacked up and left to spread out in a very free-form way. It was divine. I’ve derived a more formal baked lasagna from that, and I’ve included a nicely seasoned besciamella for lusciousness.

I really love the way it turned out. It’s a loose lasagna, so it doesn’t need to rest. I’d serve it right from the oven, so it can pool out a bit on the plate. It’s perfect, I think, for a meatless Christmas Eve dinner, a little something to work in amid your fish courses. The kitchen can be a beautiful place. Merry Christmas.

Note: Piave is a cow’s milk cheese from the Veneto. You can often find the aged version, Piave vecchio, in this country. It tastes something like Grana Padano, but it’s much sweeter, almost like caramel, which is why I found it a good match for the bitter herbiness of the basil. If you can’t find it, use Grana Padano or Parmigiano Reggiano.

Lasagna with Basil Walnut Pesto and Besciamella

(Serves 6 as a first course)

For the pesto:

½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 large garlic clove, roughly chopped
1 cup very fresh, lightly toasted walnut halves
2 cups basil leaves (packed down—about 2 good sized bunches)
4 large sprigs marjoram
1 cup grated Piave vecchio cheese, plus a little more for the top

For the besciamella:

3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
3 cups whole milk
⅛ teaspoon grated nutmeg
1 fresh bay leaf
Freshly ground black pepper
Salt
A pinch of sugar
⅛ teaspoon hot paprika (I used the Basque piment d’espelette)

1 pound very thinly rolled homemade egg pasta, cut for lasagna

To make the pesto: Place all the pesto ingredients in the bowl of a food processor, and pulse until you have a rough paste. If the pesto seems too tight, add a little more olive oil.

To make the besciamella: Melt the butter in a medium-size saucepan over medium heat. Add the flour, whisking it to blend it into the butter. Cook, while continuing to whisk, for about a minute, without letting the mix color. You’ll smell a sweet, lightly toasted flour aroma. Add all the milk, and continue whisking. Add all the seasonings, and continue cooking, whisking often, until the sauce has thickened. This will happen around the time it comes to a boil. When bubbles appear on the surface, turn the heat down a bit, and continue cooking for another minute or so or until the sauce is thick and very smooth.

Put up a large pot of pasta cooking water, and bring it to a boil. Season it with salt. Cook the pasta sheets, a few at a time, until tender (a minute for really fresh pasta, a little longer if it’s more dry). Run the pasta sheets under cool water after draining, and then lay them out on dish towels.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Coat an approximately 9-by-11-inch baking dish (or an equivalent oval dish) with olive oil. Make a layer of pasta, and spread it thickly with pesto. Make another layer of pasta, and spread it with besciamella. Continue altering pasta with layers of pesto and besciamella. You should finish with a layer of pasta spread with besciamella and then sprinkled generously with grated Piave vecchio. Bake, uncovered, until the edges have browned nicely and the whole dish is bubbling hot, about 20 minutes.

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Pier Paolo Pasolini and Anna Magnani step out.

Try working off those excess Thanksgiving calories with a celebratory dance.  (Whose shoe is that?  Gina Lollobrigida’s?)

Happy Thanksgiving to you from Skinny Guinea.

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Italian olive oil for sale in Manhattan around 1930.

I just read an article that says that the good fat found in olive oil may provide one of the keys to appetite control and weight loss. Could it be true, fattening old olive oil?

Could be. It seems that oleic acid, a kind of monosaturated fat that olive oil has in abundance, suppresses hunger pangs and so can help prevent snacking between meals, according to researchers at the University of California, Irvine.

In a study involving lab mice (who else?), the researchers found that when oleic acid reaches the small intestine, it’s converted into a hormone called oleoylethanolamide. The hormone sends hunger-dampening signals to the brain, which means you feel full sooner and can go longer without eating. The findings were published in a journal called Cell Metabolism.

Truly? Somehow it feels true. Just think how satiated you feel after a big bowl of spaghetti aglio e olio. Maybe olive oil and red wine, my two favorite foods, have all along been the keys to the Mediterranean diet. It’s gotta be.

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The iron stove that allegedly grilled San Lorenzo, on view in Rome.

Recipe: Agnello alla Scottadito with Fresh Mint and Garlic Vinaigrette

It’s not a huge holiday in America, but lest we forget, August 10 is the feast day of San Lorenzo of Rome. Born in 225, died August 10, 258, in the beautiful but sometimes wicked holy city. San Lorenzo was martyred on an outdoor iron grill, and supposedly during his torture he cried out, “I am already roasted on one side, and if thou wouldst have me well cooked, it is time to turn me on the other.” As a deacon in ancient Roman, he had charge of the administration of church goods and care of the poor—a strange combination of duties that he conflated into one: He distributed church goods to the poor. Bad form all around, according to the church, so he got the grill treatment, or, as we’d say in the restaurant biz, he got hammered.

San Lorenzo is, wouldn’t you know, the patron saint of cooks and bakers. It seems only fitting to celebrate Lorenzo’s day with a burnt offering, Roman style, especially since the reliquary containing his burnt head (a very old head) is displayed in the Vatican on his feast day, while the city around celebrates with fireworks and flames.

Scottadito is a Roman dish, essentially grilled lamb chops, usually rib chops. They’re prepared pretty simply, but they can be marinated in various ways and embellished to your liking. Scottadito translates roughly as “burn your fingers,” because you’re supposed to pick up the chops and eat them hot off the grill. I’ve included a warm mint vinaigrette to spoon over the scottaditi, so I think in this case a knife and fork would make things more tidy. I give the chops a gentle marinade in garlic, sage, and olive oil; not enough to make them gamy, but enough for a little oomph. My favorite accompaniment to scottodito is a salad I’ve been served many times in Rome, a simple toss of spiky arugula (the variety cultivated from the wild) and halved cherry tomatoes tossed with good olive oil, sea salt, and a drizzle of lemon.

If you’re interested in the lives of the saints, a beautiful little book you might like to pick up, one with great stories and gorgeous art, is Patron Saints: A Feast of Holy Cards, by Barbara Calamari and Sandra DiPasqua.

The finished dish.

Agnello alla Scottadito with Fresh Mint and Garlic Vinaigrette

(Serves 4)

12 lamb rib chops (3 per person)
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
A pinch of sugar
2 garlic cloves, crushed
A few sage leaves, ripped in half
1 small lemon, sliced into rounds

For the vinaigrette:

½ cup dry white wine
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
½ teaspoon sugar
1 garlic clove, minced
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
½ cup fresh spearmint leaves, well chopped, plus a handful of nice looking whole sprigs for garnish
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Place the lamb chops in a low-sided glass or ceramic dish, and add all the marinade ingredients, giving everything a good mix. Marinate the lamb, refrigerated, for about 2 hours, turning the chops a few times (you can leave them overnight, if need be).

To make the vinaigrette, pour the white wine, vinegar, and sugar into a small saucepan, and boil until reduced by half. Add the garlic, mint, and olive oil, and season well with salt and black pepper. Taste to make sure it has a good, gentle acidity. Depending on your wine and vinegar, you may need to adjust with a bit extra vinegar, or maybe a pinch more sugar, if it’s too sharp.

Heat your grill to a medium-high flame, and grill the chops about 4 inches from the heat, about 3 to 4 minutes per side for medium rare. Transfer to a serving platter, and pour on the vinaigrette. Garnish with mint sprigs. Serve right away.

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A copy of La Cucina Futurista.

In 1932 the always fun-loving Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, leader of the Italian Futurist party, an art, literature, and political movement full of arty Fascists, published The Futurist Cookbook (La Cucina Futurista). Having had enough of the Italian people’s complacent outlook on life and embarrassing military performance, he zeroed right in on what he perceived as the main problem: pasta. Pasta was making Italians soft and lazy. It was not a food for fighters. He went about replacing all Italy’s gorgeous, traditional dishes with wacky, mostly repulsive, high-tech recipes, staging dinner parties, and even opening his own restaurant in Turino called the Holy Palate.

Years ago, after picking up a copy of La Cucina Futurista in a thrift shop and becoming fascinated with it, I staged a Futurist dinner party of my own, centered on one of Marinetti’s more famous dishes, “sculpted meat,” which I interpreted as any meat formed into a fast car or a plane. It being the l980s, I created a rocket ship out of ground chuck, decorating it with capers and strips of American cheese, finishing the base with shredded kale and radishes, a sort of steak tartare dildo or possibly Christmas tree. As eye-catching as it was, it became repulsive and wasteful the moment people started digging into it, and only one guest genuinely enjoyed it. He, very sadly, went on to off himself a few years later. (I’m not sure there was any correlation. I hope not.)

More appealing to me were Marinetti’s cocktails, which he called polibibita, for instance spumante with cauliflower bits, lemon slices, and roast beef floating on top. His Devil in Black Key consisted of orange juice, grappa, chocolate syrup, and hard-boiled egg yolks. A favorite cocktail, one I actually liked, was made with Barbera wine, lemonade, and Campari and finished with a toothpick threaded with chocolate and cheese. My all-time favorite was the Great Waters, a mix of grappa, gin, and pastis, with a square of anchovy paste on a wafer floating on top. These adorable cocktails were meant to liberate Italians from stodgy convention, possibly through regurgitation, and they were fun to make. I think I could have handled the drinks better if I could have also had a dish of pasta.

Marinetti’s diet obviously didn’t leave a lasting impression, since Italians still eat pasta and only an American would still drink any of these cocktails.

And as I’ve discovered through my own forays into diet cooking, pasta doesn’t have to pose a diet problem, as long as you do it right. So here is my pasta manifesto, just a few easy rules to keep in mind when preparing pasta, so it won’t slow you down:

1. Cook all pasta very al dente, in true Roman style. Firm pasta digests slower than the mushy stuff, keeping you fuller longer and anchoring your blood sugar at a good working level longer.

2. Try whole grain or whole wheat pasta and cook it al dente. The added fiber in these pastas, plus the firm texture, keeps your blood sugar from rapidly spiking as it would if, say, you ate a baked potato and a few slices of white bread. Pasta made with eggs, such as fettuccine, is also a wise choice, since the protein in the the eggs lowers its glycemic index.

3. Toss your pasta with an ample amount of protein and vegetables, such as clams, broccoli rabe, beans, prosciutto, or shrimp. The added protein will lower the glycemic index of the entire dish.

4. A pound of pasta really will serve five. I always make a huge salad to have after serving pasta. Just knowing it’s there waiting helps me curb my pasta gluttony.

And just to show what a card Marinetti really was, here’s a photo of him shoveling spaghetti into his mouth from a bucket, not even bothering with a plate. What a slob.

Marinetti breaks his most rigid rule.

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