Erica De Mane

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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