Erica De Mane

Recipe below: Summer Tomato Tart with Tarragon and Fontina

An incident involving summer tomatoes has stayed with me for more than 50 years. One summer in the early seventies, my sister and I decided we wanted to have a party. The theme would be hits of the 1950s. We didn’t really know that music, but we sensed that its danceable rhythms would get the party moving. And the outfits—ponytails, bobby socks, saddle shoes—were a big draw. 

We went to our local record store in search of 45s. The guy behind the counter was of that era and steered us immediately to what we needed. “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” “Tutti Frutti,” “Peggy Sue,” “A Teenager in Love,” “Blueberry Hill,” “Lollipop,” “Rock Around the Clock,” “Wake Up Little Susie,” “Shake, Rattle and Roll.” A song called “Patricia,” by Pérez Prado, became my favorite. We were in business. We set up a string of lights in our little backyard, got our dopey outfits together, and let it be known this was happening.

My parents were okay with the party, but my father had one important thing to say: “Don’t let those kids near my tomatoes.” He was in love with his tomato garden. He nurtured the plants, talked to them, touched them. He was out there at odd hours, checking, worrying, smoking cigarettes, watering, looking for bugs. We promised him nobody would touch his red August tomatoes.

So many people showed up for our party, it was actually a little frightening, but we kept cool and got the music on and the Yago sangria flowing. The throb and sweat of all those people dancing in our backyard in the August heat became, I thought, a thing of greatness. But as the party progressed, it turned raucous. I saw people head for the tomato garden, and there a sort of phony tough guy fight broke out. There was stupid drunken yelling. And then I saw tomatoes flying, tomatoes smashed on the patio, ripe tomatoes all over the backyard. A sickness came over me. My father, who must have been watching out the kitchen window, raced out in his boxer shorts, screaming. The party was immediately over, the backyard cleared out. My sister and I stared at the destruction in silence. My father stood shaking his head. My guilt and sadness were profound. I cried that night, and I cried the next couple of nights. I still think about my father and those smashed tomatoes at least once every summer, and even now, so long ago, my father now gone, I feel remorse.

I now grow my own tomatoes. I can’t say I’m as intensely involved with them as my father was, but I treat them with the utmost respect, and I hope they’re happy. If you’ve got beautiful summer tomatoes, here’s a good thing to make with them.

You’ll want a 9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom. You can make this without a tart pan, just laying the dough out on a sheet tray, but I like how the tart pan gives it more structure.

Recipe below (in text): Fresh Espelette Salsa with Thyme Vinegar and Allspice

I’m growing espelette chilis in my garden this year. They are traditional Basque chilis mainly used dried to produce piment d’Espelette, a sweet and moderately spicy paprika. So far mine are runty and green. Maybe they don’t like upstate New York weather. Considering that it’s already mid-August, I’m not sure they’ll ripen before the first frost. That’s pretty sad. But when I went over to the Union Square Greenmarket the other day, there were bins of espelettes, deep red, shiny, smelling sweet but with that touch of raw spice that glows forth even before you cut into one. Those were from South Jersey. I guess they like it there better.

The espelette pepper at peak ripeness is an amazing color that appeals to me like few others. It’s not a fire engine red, but not dark ruby either, and nothing like a blood-red beet. It’s something in between, closer to the best lipstick shade for me and many Italian American types, and it might be described as rich red. I have synesthesia, and deeply pigmented red has always been the number five for me. This color screams five.

I love making fresh chili sauces, so when I saw these espelette beauties, I knew what I had to do. I always make any chili sauce in a small batch so it will keep about two weeks and stay vibrant. I used a dozen good sized espelettes and got about two cups of beautiful salsa. It didn’t emerge as the Italian American lipstick of my dreams, but rather as a clear, deep orange, also a lovely shade. It had a nice balance of sweet, acid, and heat.

So here’s what I did:

I roughly chopped and seeded my dozen espelettes. I then heated a little olive oil in a good-size sauté pan, dropping in the chilis and letting them sauté over medium heat for a few minutes, to start softening. I added a small, chopped summer onion and a big garlic clove, sliced, plus some salt, and let that sauté for a minute or so longer. Then I added about ½ teaspoon of allspice and a teaspoon of sugar, letting them warm through to release their flavors. I gave everything a splash of thyme vinegar (if you don’t have that, just add a few thyme sprigs when you add the allspice), and let it bubble for a few seconds. I threw in about a half a cup of warm water, turned the heat down a notch, covered the pan, and let everything simmer until the chilis were very soft, about another 8 minutes. Then I turned off the heat, added a drizzle of fresh olive oil, and let things cool off a bit before puréeing the result in a food processor. Taste it after you purée for a good balance of salt, sweet, and acid, adjusting as needed.

Still Life with Green and Black Olives, Vita Schagen

Often I have a hundred ideas about how to start a meal—and those ideas add up to appetizer chaos. Too many options? I’m not sure. My need to feed from beginning to end is strong, but it’s got to be smooth. Each meal must be of a piece, all the courses fitting together to create a meaningful flow. That’s not so hard in concept, so why do I get confused in my kitchen?

When I first read Lulu’s Provençal Table, Richard Olney’s book about Lulu Peyraud, a famous home cook of Provence and a muse to Olney, Alice Waters, Kermit Lynch, Paul Bertolli, and Jeremiah Tower, I was surprised to learn she only had a handful of amuse-gueules, openers she offered on rotation. They inevitably involved tapenade or anchoïade (olive or anchovy spreads) served on little toasts, or buttered sardines served on little toasts, or fresh garlic and olive oil rubbed on little toasts.  That is what happens when you focus your culinary mind exclusively on your region. If you’re a good cook, every dish can be a local jewel.

Being Italian American doesn’t always focus me enough. My soul is purely Mediterranean, but living in Manhattan I’m hit with culinary influences from all directions and frequently derailed. When I’m truly focused I remember that my reason for cooking is to revisit the flavors I grew up with and love, and to let those flavors naturally evolve. I’m not here to create fancy new versions of haikara soba.

So I was recently putting together a little birthday dinner for a good friend. I set out to buy olives but was immediately frustrated to find that my market had only Gaetas, not my favorite olives. I went looking for the smaller, sweeter Taggiasca ones from Liguria, but my shop was out. I bought the Gaetas anyway. They tasted a bit sharp, so I figured I’d doctor them up, settling on the rosemary fennel flavor combination that I wrote about in my last blog and find so appealing. Then I decided to bake the olives, something that I hadn’t done in a long time and had sort of forgotten was a thing to do. It’s a good solution if you ever need to mellow out a batch of sharp olives.

Here’s what I did:

Get out a nice looking baking dish that will fit your olives fairly snuggly in one layer. For this version I scattered on a palmful of fennel seeds and a generous amount of fresh rosemary sprigs. I also added the budding tops from a bunch of garlic scapes I had on hand. Then I drizzled on some good olive oil and added a few turns of coarse black pepper. I gave it all a good toss and then baked it, uncovered, in a 400-degree oven for about 10 minutes, just until the olives were hot through and starting to look a bit puffy. The aroma was intense and really appealing. I let them cool off slightly before serving them, so my guests wouldn’t burn themselves, but they were definitely still warm and juicy to bite into, and that is the beauty of this simple appetizer. It feels more substantial that cold olives, more like real food. Everyone loved it.  And it will be a good thing to remember the next time I freak out trying to come up with a simple opener to get a meal flowing. 

Recipe below: Roasted Red Snapper with Fennel Rosemary Vinaigrette

It has been pouring here on and off for about two weeks. My basil is flooded and my garlic soaked. I’m worried. My garden needs a dryout. And I’ve been dreaming of fancy outdoor grilling, but due to all this rain, it has not yet happened. I love doing a whole fish on the grill. It’s a romantic experience, and with all the herbs I’ve got growing, providing they’re not all drenched out, it can be high-end fragrant. I will get out there soon, I promise you. In the meantime, I’ve been at my oven, which is also a very good place to cook a whole fish.

As you’ve all heard a zillion times, cooking fish whole brings out more flavor than just doing a fillet. I don’t like to beat you over the head with this, but it’s true. Everything stays contained under the skin—the fat, the natural moisture, the gelatinous stickiness from the bones, plus all the flavors you stuff inside it. I think the hesitation for most people is not knowing when the fish is cooked, but that’s not hard to gauge. I like a high-heat roast, so I’ll go with 425, even 450 degrees. My 3½ pound red snapper took about 20 minutes. I started checking after about 15 minutes by inserting a paring knife alongside the backbone to see if the meat could be lifted from the bone but stay pretty much in one piece. Once it could, the fish was ready. I didn’t let it get into “easily flaked” territory, especially since a fish will continue to cook a little after you take it out.  

I went to the market looking for my favorite little rougets (called red mullets in this country), but my fish guy at the Chelsea Market was all out. I guess I had the color red on my mind, so I instead went with a red snapper, a beautiful fish, very mild and white-fleshed. For flavoring I returned to my much-loved fennel rosemary blend, a tradition for porchetta that works well with all sorts of seafood as well. Fennel alone is, of course, classic with fish, but when you blend it with rosemary the flavor is fuller yet not overly assertive. A deep perfume develops.

What a prickly beauty. Big tail, small head. Will she ever get out without tiny, bloody scratches? I say, not likely. But artichokes are always worth the effort.

Recipe below: Zucchini Gratin with Thyme and Goat Cheese

It seems a lot of people need help with zucchini, mostly with how to change it up from the usual pan sauté. I know I do, so when I come up with a good recipe, I want to share it with you. And if you’re growing zucchini and now have tons of it coming in all at once, you really do need help.

This is an easy gratin, but it looks kind of fancy. Good for a dinner party. I served it with huge grilled shrimp marinated in marjoram, garlic, and lemon, a nice fit but I could imagine grilled lamb or chicken kebabs just as easily.  I’m thinking the grill texture and flavor would juxtapose nicely with the gentleness of the gratin.

Happy summer cooking to you.

Recipe for a soft herb salad in the next-to-last paragraph below.

So far all my herbs look good. I knew they were starting out in that direction when in early spring my lovage came bursting out of the ground and grew huge in only three weeks. Lovage is a powerhouse herb, in growth but also in taste, like celery condensed into a speeding bullet. I use only a leaf or two when I cook a pot of beans or make a potato salad. I find it interesting that the herb I use the least of is the biggest thing in my garden. Although my fennel is also already gigantic. 

I planted a lot of other herbs this year too, some, like hyssop and za’atar, for this first time. They all look promising. I always lighten up when I see that my plants are starting to take. My father had the same early season gardening anxiety when he planted and tended his tomatoes. He’d be out in his garden at weird hours, chain-smoking and staring hard at the little seedlings, maybe trying to instill some fear in them. I’m not sure what his method was, but we always had good tomatoes. I go out to my herb garden and stare and worry and sometimes plead with them. It’s part of the process.

Up here in Dutchess County, New York, only a handful of herbs are perennial, and sometimes even the perennials get defeated by our miserable winters. But this year everything I hoped would come back did. In addition to my out-of-control lovage and fennel, all my various thymes and oreganos returned, as did my nepitella, winter savory, tarragon, sage, and borage, which is popping up all over the place. The lavender didn’t make it this year, and rosemary always gets freezer burn and needs a fresh start. That makes me sad, especially knowing how big and gorgeous those things can get in the right climate. This slate-riddled upstate soil, frozen for months each year, is obviously nothing like the Southern Mediterranean, but my Southern Italian blood pushes me to pretend it is. I just have to keep on top of things.

In the meantime, here’s something nice you can make with fresh herbs, whether you have five or six types or only a couple. It isn’t so much a recipe as a reminder that you can make a salad out of nothing but herbs. 

When I compose an herb salad I concentrate on leafy, soft, gentle herbs, avoiding piney, musty, and tough-stalked ones like rosemary, thyme, oregano, and sage. For this version I clipped Italian parsley, burnet, chervil, fennel fronds, a few sprigs of tarragon, and a handful of watercress, which I consider an herb. You can add arugula or sorrel, or lots of basil (my basil isn’t yet big enough to pick from). I prefer to dress an herb salad with my best olive oil, a tiny splash of rice wine vinegar, and a sprinkling of salt. I find a gentle vinegar best here, even better than lemon, which to my taste, can be too direct.

This salad is good to eat neat, but it also makes a nice, perfumed bed for something grilled, like shrimp, lamb kebab, or eggplant.

Recipe below: Ditalini with Shell Peas, Prosciutto Cotto, Cinnamon, and Basil

Ditalini goes into pasta fazool (or pasta e fagiole in proper Italian), and in traditional Italian-American land it goes nowhere else. It’s a soup pasta. Small. Compact. Pasta e fagiole is sort of a soup, or it can be one. My family’s version was a cross between a soup and a pasta. A soupy pasta with ditalini, cannellini beans, lots of celery and onion, bay leaf, sometimes pancetta, sometimes sage, sometimes rosemary or basil, and occasionally just Italian parsley. Always hot chili flakes on the side. It was special any time of year, but especially in the winter, because it was thick and rich. And I loved ditalini, the little tubes, mixed in with the beans and the heavy broth.

It’s funny how certain pasta shapes become associated with specific dishes and then get etched in stone. When I was a kid there was linguine with clam sauce, rigatoni with meat sauce, penne with pink sauce, and ditalini with pasta fazool. That was all correct, and back then I wouldn’t have dared contradict any of it. But now I don’t think that way. I’m out of pasta prison. So here’s ditalini with fresh peas. Not so different from the bean versions, really, but the entire dish is much lighter. This one’s perfect for those lovely few weeks when spring blends into summer.

I don’t love shelling peas, but I do it because I want the peas. Also it’s nice when your fingers stain green and the kitchen smells like a mix of grass and potato (that’s how raw peas smell to me). And then you’ve got a nice pile of shells to make stock with. I like simmering a handful in a light chicken broth. I used chicken broth for this dish, but you can easily make it all-vegetable by adding the pea shells to a soffritto of onion, celery, carrot, a few leek tops, fennel trimmings, whatever you’ve got on hand.

I’ve included a little cinnamon, which I find gives the dish a bit of a Renaissance feel, or at least what I imagine would be that feel. It also deepens the sweetness of the peas. And cinnamon with basil is a beautiful combination. If you’ve ever grown the herb called cinnamon basil, which tastes and smells exactly how you’d imagine, you already know how alluring this pairing can be.