Still Life with Aubergines, by Henri Matisse, 1911.
Eggplant is a vegetable of my childhood. It cemented my upbringing in Italian-American land. I grew up wanting it. All these years later I still want it, partly now for the various colors of its skin: deep purple verging on black, violet, clear purple, streaky purple, pure white, all shiny. Magnificent. I’m involved in the colors of food more than I used to be. They help me plan, not just my recipes but also my day. Color theme days. I have them, not every day but some days.
A type of graffiti eggplant, purple pink with streaks of white.
Unfortunately eggplant is not so beautiful when it’s cooked. It’s gray-beige, but its taste is rich. It soaks up herbs, garlic, olive oil, and wine better than most things. It’s a flavor trap.
Barbarella, a type of globe eggplant, blue-purple with hits of white.
Here’s a baked eggplant without tomato, a drift away from Parmigiano. It gets its togetherness from goat cheese and crème fraîche. I think it came out really well. I hope you like it.
I served it with grilled lamb chops marinated in rosemary, fennel seed, and garlic and a radicchio salad dressed with lemon, salt, and good olive oil.
It’s almost August. Tomato recipes will be coming soon. I’m working on a few that should be unexpected. Stay tuned.
Plus: Emergency. Happening now. Starvation in Gaza. I know we can feel angry and helpless in a terrible situation like this, thinking there’s nothing we can do, but there is something. We can support World Central Kitchen, either by donating our time or our money. Please help, if you can. Here’s their link.
Gray-beige but beautiful.
Eggplant Gratin with Goat Cheese, Honey, and Thyme
Extra-virgin olive oil 2 medium eggplants, stripe-peeled and cut into ½-inch-thick rounds Salt Black pepper 1 fresh summer garlic clove, minced 1 large egg 1 4-ounce-or-so log soft goat cheese, at room temperature (I used Président brand) ¾ cup crème fraîche ¼ cup whole milk 6 or 7 large thyme sprigs, the leaves lightly chopped ¼ teaspoon allspice 1 tablespoon runny honey (I used an acacia honey) ¼ cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese ¼ cup panko breadcrumbs
Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Lightly coat 2 sheet pans with olive oil. Lay out the eggplant slices on them in a single layer. Drizzle the slices with olive oil, and season them with salt and black pepper. Bake until the eggplant is tender and lightly browned, about 20 to 25 minutes. Take the pans from the oven, and sprinkle the minced garlic over the slices.
Put the egg, goat cheese, crème fraîche, milk, half of the chopped thyme, the allspice, and the honey into a food processor. Add a little salt and black pepper, and pulse a times to blend everything well. It should be thick but pourable.
Turn the oven down to 375.
Coat a baking dish lightly with olive oil (I used an 8-by-12-inch, 2-inch-deep oval). Lay down a layer of eggplant slices (a little overlap is okay). Drizzle on about ¼ of the goat cheese mixture. Make another layer of eggplant, using it all up. Pour on the rest of the goat cheese mix.
In a small bowl, mix the Parmigiano with the panko and the rest of the thyme. Add a little salt and black pepper and a drizzle of olive oil. Mix it with your fingers, and then scatter it fairly evenly over the top of the gratin.
Bake at 375 until it looks firm and the top is lightly browned, about 30 minutes. Serve hot or warm.
I bought deep yellow zucchini at Story Farms, in Catskill, New York, the other day. You can see in my photo that they have dark green tips near their stems. The things are gorgeous. Their yellow is thick, verging on orange. Of my Winsor & Newton watercolor tubes this would be their Cadmium Yellow.
Not only is this zucchini cultivar beautiful, it’s also a little sweeter than the green ones. Less green-leafy, more soil-earthy in taste. There are a bunch of varieties of yellow zucchini. The one I found at Story is called Golden Delight. Its color alone makes me grab some every summer. It’s a prompt. A call to action.
This time around, out came a soup. A cold soup. Topped with herbs, like everything I cook in the summer. Lately I love a simple herb oil garnish—just herbs, good olive oil, and a little salt, whizzed up to almost a purée. There’s nothing like it for herbal essence (remember that shampoo?). This time I used Genoa basil, set to bright green by quick blanching. I thought it looked wonderful against the yellow of the soup. You might instead go with spearmint if you prefer.
There’s no cream or butter in this soup, and that’s good when you serve it cold, letting the texture flow smooth and loose. The soup gets its depth of flavor from good olive oil, so use your best, both in the soup and in the herb oil. I chose Benza BuonOlio, made from 100% Ligurian Taggiasca olives. It’s rich and mellow with not much of a bite. Gustiamo.comcarries it. It’s a new favorite of mine.
I hope everyone is doing some creative summer cooking. We’re deep into it now.
Golden Zucchini Soup with Saffron, Basil Oil, and Pine Nuts
Extra-virgin olive oil (4 tablespoons for the soup, plus ⅓ cup for the basil oil) 1 large summer onion, diced 1 medium carrot, peeled and diced 5 or 6 medium-size golden zucchini, chopped 1 large Yukon Gold potato, peeled and chopped ½ teaspoon fennel pollen or ground fennel seed ½ teaspoon turmeric Salt A splash of dry vermouth 1 quart light chicken broth (or vegetable broth) A big pinch of saffron, crushed and dissolved in about ¼ cup hot water A big pinch of ground green peppercorn About 15 basil leaves A few drops of rice wine vinegar A palmful of pine nuts, lightly toasted
Get out a soup pot, and set it over medium heat. Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and let it warm. Add the onion and carrot, and sauté until both are fragrant and starting to soften, about 3 minutes. Add the zucchini and the potato, the fennel pollen or seed, and the turmeric, and season with a little salt. Sauté for another few minutes to open up all these flavors. Add the vermouth, and let it bubble away. Add the chicken or vegetable broth and enough water to cover the vegetables. Bring to a boil, and then cook at a steady bubble, uncovered, until the potato and zucchini are tender when poked, about 20 minutes. Add the saffron water, the green peppercorn, and 2 more tablespoons of olive oil.
While the soup is cooking, make the basil oil. Set up a small saucepan, and fill it halfway with water. Bring it to a boil, and add some salt. Drop in the basil leaves, and blanch for about 30 seconds. Drain them, and run cold water over them to set their color. Squeeze out as much water as you can, and put the basil in a food processor. Add ⅓ cup of olive oil and a big pinch of salt. Pulse a few times. You want a slightly chunky purée. Pour it into a small bowl.
Purée the soup in a food processor, and then chill it. When the soup is cold, check its consistency, adding a little cold water if it needs loosening. And check its seasoning, too, adding a few drops of rice wine vinegar for brightness if needed.
Top each serving with a spiral drizzle of basil oil and a scattering of pine nuts.
And here’s a little video from another of my favorite farm stands, Montgomery Place Orchards, in Red Hook, New York.
I’ve never done this in any organized way before, but I just now decided it would be a nice thing to rank my favorite herbs by how much I love them. I wanted to write it out for myself, and then I thought possibly you’d be interested in it, too.
I find good uses for every herb except cilantro, which makes me gag. I love summer savory with beans and braised beef and pork dishes, and in minestrone, but it’s not my favorite smell straight on. Thyme is an herb I use in many dishes, often as an anchoring flavor in the early stages of cooking. It’s amazing in a compound butter to melt over a thick pork chop, or as a starting point for chicken alla cacciatore, but cutting a few sprigs and bringing them up to my nose, why do I sometimes smell toothpaste? Strange. Oregano has a bite I expect to accompany certain grilled vegetables, eggplant and sweet peppers, for instance, and meats, sausages especially. It takes me back to my Italian American childhood. Yet a clean chomp on an oregano sprig doesn’t make me so happy. I love these herbs as tools for cooking, but for all-out beauty of aroma and taste, there are herbs that fall into a different category, ones of pure intoxication. Here are the herbs that are knocking me out right now, in early summer, best, then next best, then down to almost best.
This ranking will likely change as the season progressives. But this is my up-to-the-minute report.
Thai basil
Thai basil’s deep anise aroma is for me an exotic joy, but the herb’s taste is different from its smell, more like licorice. It’s really bold, but somehow I never tire of it. The herb still surprises me, even after years of cooking with it. And its strength doesn’t fade out with heat, unlike other basils. That’s a bonus. Siam Queen is the type I plant. It’s the standard Thai variety that’s easiest to find and grow in the Northeast. So different from Italian basil varieties. (Actually no basil is originally Italian. Their origins lie in India, Southeast Asia, and parts of Africa, but Liguria and all of Southern Italy have made basil their own.) Every spring when I plant my Siam Queen (it’s an annual), I feel like I’m giving myself a huge gift. Braised calamari with cannellini beans and Thai basil is an exception thing.
Marjoram
If it weren’t for my current love affair with Thai basil, marjoram would be number one. I consider it a perfume, meaning something I’d personally love to smell like. I use it so much in my cooking, I guess I do often smell like it. Even though it’s closely related to oregano, to me they are so different. Marjoram is sweet and floral, with none of the camphor tones of oregano. I do pick up a gentle pine taste, but there’s so much sweetness, too, that nothing registers as sharp. I even made a sweet marjoram sorbetto last summer, and you wouldn’t believe how desserty it was. (I tend to like desserts than could pass as appetizers.) Marjoram is my current favorite flavoring for shellfish. I recently used it in place of Italian parsley in a linguine with clam sauce, I thought with good results.
Genoa basil
Genoese basil is what Genoese pesto is all about. It’s a beautiful clean basil, without a profound hit of anise. For me, it’s a perfect blend of sweet and savory. My father always grew it in his backyard garden. Each leaf was precious. At the end of the season he’d salt what was left, wrap it in plastic and then in aluminum foil, and stick his little packages in the freezer, only to pull them out in December, the leaves now black as could be, to add to our Christmas Eve zuppa di pesce. Floating black strips in a sea of mussels and shrimp. That memory now makes me sad, I guess because we can now buy fresh basil at the supermarket year-round. He worked so hard on his basil. But there’s nothing like summer basil, picked from the garden and immediately ground down into a pesto. That ritual is reserved for high summer.
Rosemary
I’m crazy about rosemary, but I think I overdid it with it last year. I used it in places where I should have chosen something less obvious. I also added it many sweet things, like sugar cookies and polenta cake. It started to wear on me. But its pure pine aroma is such a draw, I reach for it sometimes when I’m feeling disgusted or agitated, knowing it will likely lift me up. However, it offers no sweetness. When I crush a needle in my fingers I capture fresh eucalyptus. I think the beauty of rosemary comes through best when you let heat open it up and diffuse its oils. Rosemary-and-garlic lamb spiedini, and rosemary-and-lemon roast chicken come to mind. Classics.
Fennel
Fennel is a natural flavor for me, maybe because I grew up smelling and tasting all the Italian fennel or anise liqueurs that appeared on our table after dinner. Sweet and bitter are stamps of many Italian childhoods. I grow a cultivated variety of wild fennel in my garden, mainly for its fronds. It has become a perennial there, in upstate New York. Not sure why. Maybe global warming? It grows tall and bushy and attracts Eastern swallowtail caterpillars, which is one of the reasons I plant it. Its fluffy fronds are excellent raw in salads and are a main component of pasta con le sarde, which I make at least once every summer. But the big event is when it goes to seed in the early fall. I cut off its umbrella-like flower stalks, which contain its seeds, and plunge them into Everclear to make my bright green finocchietto, a liqueur stronger and way less sweet than the sticky ones I grew up with. My finocchietto clears the head, and it’s also great worked into a big bowl of mussels with crème fraîche and tarragon.
Spearmint
A few years back I planted Berries and Cream mint, a spearmint cultivar. It jumped pot and is now taking over part of my garden. That’s a good thing. I use a lot of spearmint, especially since I began cooking Sicilian food years ago. Zucchini with anchovies, summer garlic, and fresh mint I make as soon as I see the first zucchini show up at the local farm stands. I just cooked up a pot the other day. Blood oranges, spearmint, a little red onion, salt. It is a dish I wait for every winter.
Spearmint is soft and sweet, good to just stick your nose into, which I often do. A strange thing happens when you heat spearmint. A caraway taste is released. That’s because both plants carry a molecule called carvone. I like its flavor, but I don’t want it in the forefront, so to preserve a clean mint taste I don’t let the herb stew in a dish. I add it at the last minute instead. And on a sweaty summer day I love grabbing a handful and sticking it into a pitcher of cold water, a glass pitcher so I can admire the herb’s beauty.
Lemon verbena
Its aroma is phenomenal, like pure, clear lemon zest without any of the bitter. But since lemon verbena’s brilliant aroma fades with heat, it’s a waste to add the leaves to a stew or a braise. I’ve learned that the best way to harness its beauty is to mince it raw into a semi-damp cluster. Then you can scatter it over cooked dishes or work it into an ice cream mix. I make a gremolata substituting lemon verbena for the lemon zest, mixing it with Italian parsley, maybe some sage, and fresh garlic. Grilled swordfish with that is a wonderful thing.
Bay leaf
If I tear a fresh bay leaf in half and bring it up to my nose and sniff it in, I sense a softness of atmosphere, a gentle mix of pine and thyme. Some people say bay leaves have no flavor. That’s just crazy. Maybe those dried-out things you buy in jars don’t offer much, but since now you can find fresh bay leaves year-round at many supermarkets, there’s no excuse for those. I like to use a few bay leaves to perfume a chicken broth that will go into risotto, and I often add the leaves to a winter tomato sauce. A dish I learned years ago from Giuliano Bugialli and still make often is baked ricotta lined with bay leaves, a lot of bay leaves. Their perfume penetrates the entire cheese. I love it drizzled with honey and served warm. Make sure you deal with true bay, with the fatter, more rounded leaves. The long, tapered California bay leaves can be harsh.
Italian parsley
After traditional Genoese pesto, my second favorite pesto is made with all Italian parsley, almonds, a little grana Padano, and fresh summer garlic. I love Italian parsley’s clean, slightly black pepper taste. I use it so often with seafood that I sometimes taste a fishy undertone when I bite a leaf, but I don’t think that actually exists. It’s just a brain jump. Have you ever tried making a salad of all Italian parsley? I eat that alone, dressed with good olive oil and a few drops of sherry wine vinegar. It tastes surprisingly deep to me. It also makes a great bed for roasted chicken.
And now for the recipe . . .
As you can see above I happened to buy one very large skate wing, which I knew would be difficult the cook and flip without breaking. I had a lucky flip, and it stayed in one piece. I’d suggest that for this recipe you get two smaller wings to make your life easier.
Salt ¾ cup marjoram leaves ⅓ cup extra-virgin olive oil (a good one—I used Benza Taggiasca oil from Liguria, which Gustiamo carries) A palmful of Sicilian salt-packed capers, soaked for about 10 minutes, changing the water a few times, and then drained The grated zest from a large lemon
For the fish:
2 cartilage-free skate wings, about ½ pound apiece Salt Black pepper Extra-virgin olive oil 2 tablespoons unsalted butter About ½ cup fine semolina (I used Bob’s Red Mill) The juice from 1 large lemon
To make the salsa verde, set up a pot of water, add salt, and bring it to a boil. Drop in the marjoram leaves, and blanch them for about 30 seconds. Drain them, and run cold water over them to stop the cooking and set their color. Give them a squeeze to remove excess water. Give them a rough chop. Mix the marjoram with ⅓ cup of your best olive oil, the capers, a little salt, and the zest from a large lemon. That’s your salsa.
Pat your skate wings dry with paper towels, and season them well, on both sides, with salt and black pepper.
Get out a sauté pan large enough to hold the fish without overlapping (you might need to use two pans). Set it over high heat, and add a few tablespoons of olive oil and the butter.
Pour the semolina out on a plate, and coat the skate on both sides, shaking off excess.
When the oil is hot, add the skate, and let it brown, about 3 minutes or so. Gently give the pieces a flip with a large spatula, and brown them on the other side, about another 3 minutes. When the skate pulls apart easily when poked with a knife, it’s done. Squeeze the lemon juice on the skate, and plate it.
Spoon a generous amount of the salsa verde down the middle of the fish. Serve right away.
Fumée d’Ambre Gris, by John Singer Sargent, Morocco, 1880.
Does every moderately successful person have a mentor? I don’t know the answer to that. I’d call myself moderately successful. I could have had more opportunities, to write more books for one thing, if I wanted to be more well-known. But I didn’t want that. So here I am writing to you on this rainy day in Manhattan. What I’ve learned so far, I’ve learned pretty much on my own. And I know a hell of a lot about Italian cooking.
If I had to name a culinary mentor, it would be Paula Wolfert. You’d think it would be someone who cooked Italian, like Marcella Hazan for instance, but that didn’t happen (one of my problems with Hazan was that I got the feeling she didn’t have much respect for Southern Italian flavors). Wolfert’s book Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco came out in 1973. I didn’t discover her until 1979. I had already learned basic Southern Italian from mimicking the food my family cooked. I bought her book because it looked like an adventure. And it was. I quickly cooked my way through it. I couldn’t stop. And I liked her attitude, the fact that she went to Tangier initially to study poetry but found her teacher Paul Bowles such a drugged-out bore that she began visiting the local ladies to see what they were up to in the kitchen. And her culinary career was born.
Aside from Southern Italian cooking, the only cuisine I’ve absorbed in a deep way is Moroccan. The flavors immediately made sense to me, since Southern Italian cooking still carries hints of its Arab past. My only problem with traditional Moroccan cooking is its reliance on cilantro. I can’t even be in the same room with the stuff. I’ve gotten around it by subbing mint, basil, or parsley (and sometimes thyme or oregano), creating different dishes to be sure, but in the process coming up with ones that are truly my own. Here’s one of my Southern Italian–Moroccan hybrids.
2 pounds monkfish, cut on an angle into ½-inch-thick medallions Salt Piment d’Espelette Extra-virgin olive oil 2 tablespoons butter 2 shallots, cut into small dice ½ teaspoon ras el hanout (here’s my recipe, if you’d like to try making your own, in a post that also includes my recipe for carrots roasted with ras el hanout, summer savory, and crème fraîche) 1 1-inch chunk fresh ginger, peeled and minced 2 summer garlic cloves, sliced 2 fresh bay leaves 6 thyme sprigs, the leaves chopped A big splash of dry vermouth A big pinch of saffron threads, lightly dried, ground to a powder, and opened up in about ½ cup of hot water 1 35-ounce can Italian plum tomatoes, chopped, using some of the juice (if yours are packed in a thick purée, wash most of it off) 1 teaspoon honey About ½ cup flour A handful of fresh spearmint leaves, lightly chopped A palmful of toasted almonds, lightly chopped
Pat the fish pieces dry. Season them with salt and some piment d’Espelette.
Get out a wide sauté pan, and set it over medium heat. Add a big drizzle of olive oil and a tablespoon of butter. When hot, add the shallot, ras el hanout, and ginger, and let it soften for a couple of minutes to release its flavors. Add the garlic and a little salt, and sauté for another minute. Add the bay leaves and thyme, and let them warm through. Add the dry vermouth, and let it bubble for a minute. Add the saffron water, tomatoes, honey, and another good pinch of piment d’Espelette. Simmer uncovered for about 5 minutes. Turn off the heat.
In another wide sauté pan, turn the flame to high, and add about 2 tablespoons of olive oil and a tablespoon of butter.
Put the flour on a plate, spread it out, and coat the monkfish slices on both sides with it, shaking off excess.
When the oil is hot, add the fish slices. Brown them quickly on both sides.
Turn the heat back on under the tomato saffron sauce, and add the fish to it, spooning the sauce over the top and cooking just until the fish is tender, about 3 or 4 minutes, depending on thickness. Check the seasoning.
Transfer to a serving platter. Scatter the mint and almonds over the top.
I served this with a buttery couscous seasoned with a pinch of cinnamon, but you could instead just buy some good bread to go with it. Or make rice.
I and the Village, by Marc Chagall, 1911. He loved his goats. If you’d like to see this painting, it’s at MoMA in New York City.
Last week was my husband Fred’s birthday. We had a small party where I made a couple of roasted chickens, spatchcocked, with tarragon, good olive oil, and rice wine vinegar. Sometimes when I flatten chickens that way I’m so intent on getting a good crisp, browned skin that I hammer them dry. It didn’t happen this time, but I did achieve the brown skin, an exact hit. A birthday gift. It was a nice, loud party that culminated in a painting session and an unexpected guest sleepover. Limoncello martinis anyone? I also made this goat cheese tart for a starter.
It was a cold night for May, raining off and on, but my kitchen was warm from the oven, and the tart turned out surprisingly well. I say surprisingly because when I first tried this idea last spring what I expected would be a smooth, custardy filling came out grainy. So I chucked the recipe and forgot about it until a few days ago, when I decided to try it one more time. What got me thinking about the tart again was the summer savory popping up in my little herb garden. I love that herb. To me it tastes like a mix of thyme and black pepper with a hint of sweet pine, a slightly gentler version of its bold winter cousin. I already knew how good it was with fresh goat cheese as I often scatter it over supermarket goat cheese logs to deepen their flavor. Even though summer savory is milder than the winter version, it’s still strong and its flavor is magnified by heat, so I pay attention to how much I add. I used only four sprigs for this filling and about the same amount worked into the pastry.
The tart came out creamy and custardy, like a sugar-free New York cheesecake. I served it as an antipasto offering with a plate of prosciutto and a bowl of Taggiasca olives.
And speaking of supermarket goat cheese, some of it is terrible, overly tangy or gritty or both. I’ve learned by trial and error which ones to avoid. West Side Market, where I usually shop, carries a fresh goat cheese log made by Président, a cheese company in western France that’s been around since the 1930s, the same people who supply us Americans with Président brie. It’s a big company, and its goat cheese logs are industrial, but their taste is good. They are tangy but not aggressively so and smooth on the tongue, so they’re great for baking.
Have ready a 9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom
For the pastry:
1¾ cups unbleached flour 1 tablespoon powdered sugar A big pinch of salt 4 large sprigs summer savory, the leaves chopped 1 stick cold unsalted butter, cut into approximately ½-inch cubes 1 large egg 2 tablespoons cold white wine, or possibly a bit more
For the filling:
1 4-ounce log fresh goat cheese, at room temperature ¼ cup heavy cream 2 large eggs, plus an egg for the egg wash 1 tablespoon runny honey, plus an extra drizzle for the egg wash ¼ teaspoon allspice Salt Black pepper A few drops of sherry wine vinegar 4 or 5 sprigs summer savory, the leaves chopped 4 chives, chopped
To make the pastry, put the flour, powdered sugar, salt, and savory in the bowl of a food processor. Give it a few pulses to blend everything. Add the butter bits, and give it a few short pulses to further break up the butter. You want approximately lentil-size bits. Crack the egg into a cup, along with the white wine, and give it a good stir. Pour it on top of the flour, and pulse quickly, one, two, three, four, possibly five times, just until you have a bowl of moist crumble. If it looks too dry, add a tiny drizzle more wine, and pulse again.
Dump it all out on a work surface, and press it together into a ball. Flatten it out into a thick disk, cover it in plastic wrap, and stick it in the refrigerator for at least an hour, or overnight if that’s more convenient.
Lightly butter the tart pan.
Roll the pastry out to a round about 2 inches larger than the tart pan. Drape it in the pan, pressing in into the sides. Cut off all but about ½ inch of overhang all around. Working around the top of the pan, fold the overhang into the top of the inside of the pan. Then push it upward so it comes up just over the top of the pan. Stick the pan in the refrigerator while you make the filling.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Put all the ingredients for the filling except for the savory and chives into a food processor, and whirl it to blend. Taste for seasoning. Add the savory and chives, and give it one quick pulse, enough to blend them in but not to purée them.
Put the extra egg in a little bowl. Add a drizzle of water, a pinch of salt, and a drizzle of honey. Mix well.
Take the tart shell from the refrigerator, and pour in the filling. Brush the pastry edges with the egg wash. Bake for about 30 to 35 minutes, just until the filling is set and the pastry takes on some color. Let it sit about 30 before slicing, so it can firm up.
Every engaged cook has patterns. Themes with variations. Repetitive behavior semi-disguised by fresh thoughts. One of my themes is seafood teamed with a starch. If you’ve been following my cooking journey for any length of time, you are all too familiar with my numerous takes on pasta with fish or shellfish. I could write a book on pasta with clams alone, although I would never do that, since it would be ridiculously nuanced.
Pasta is where I most frequently turn when I have the good fortune to get my hands on really fresh seafood. It stretches a luxury ingredient in a very fine way. But I also consider potatoes; rice, in red, black, and risotto varieties; grains, such as farro; and of course all varieties of beans, my favorites for marrying with seafood being ceci and any firm, largish, white bean, like cannellini or the extra huge corona I used here in this shrimp dish. Have you ever tried braised octopus with big white beans, rosemary, fennel, and a hit of Aleppo pepper? It’s pretty good, a nice alternative to the more usual octopus with potato pairing. Swordfish chunks make a good addition to a spring rice salad, especially if you include a seasonal vegetable like freshly shucked peas. I find that that makes much more sense than a pasta salad, which almost always seems stupid and gummy to me. Ceci with mussels is another theme I keep going back to, especially in high summer, when I’ve got tomatoes or sweet peppers and lots of basil. Have you ever tried bits of grilled tuna tossed with warm farro, black olives, and arugula? That’s a thought. Or a warm zucchini and couscous salad with scallops and tarragon. That’s something I’ll be making as soon as the first mini zucchini shows up in the markets, which should be only a few weeks from now.
A Chinese sculpture of a shell with a shrimp, with a robin’s-egg-blue glaze.
So many choices. This time around I’ve gone with calamari-potato and shrimp-bean combos. Beyond the starch-seafood pairing, what ties these two dishes together is spring garlic, something I wait for, the kickoff to my warm-weather cooking. It’s such a welcome jolt after a long haul with that papery, often acrid supermarket garlic, which at this point in my cooking career I’ve almost completely rejected, preferring to use leeks or shallots in the cold months. When spring garlic first appears in my farmer markets, usually early April, it’s indistinguishable from scallion, long, lean, and white, maybe tinged with purple at its base, working its way up to a dark green, leafy top. As the season progresses, a bulb starts to form. You can see that in my photo. But it still hasn’t broken out into individual cloves. This is when I like it the best. Juicy and sweet but emerging with clear garlic flavor.
I’m just starting to emerge from a long cold spell brought on more by our horrible political atmosphere than by winter weather. Spring cooking is beginning to lift my spirits. I hope it lifts everyone’s.
Calamari Salad with Potatoes, Spring Garlic, and Mint
About 1½ pounds small Yukon Gold potatoes, cut in half Salt Rice wine vinegar A big glass of dry white wine 1½ pounds small calamari, cleaned and cut into not-too-skinny rings, the tentacles halved if large 1 tablespoon white miso Your best extra-virgin olive oil 3 scallions, cut into thin rounds, using a lot of the tender green part 1 thin spring garlic, chopped, including some of the green part A small palmful of green peppercorns, coarse-ground A larger palmful of Sicilian capers, soaked in a few changes of water to remove excess salt and then drained A handful of fresh spearmint leaves, lightly chopped A few large sprigs of Italian parsley, the leaves chopped
Put the potatoes into a good-size pot and cover them with at least 2 inches of water. Add a decent amount of salt and a big drizzle of rice wine vinegar. Bring to a boil over high heat, then turn the heat down a bit, and cook at a medium bubble until just tender, about 8 minutes. I like the potatoes still firm enough so their skins haven’t detached. Drain them into a colander.
While the potatoes are cooking, set up another pot of water, add a large glass of white wine and a good amount of salt, and bring it to a boil. Add the calamari, and blanch it until just tender, about a minute. Drain the calamari into a colander, and then spread it out on paper towels to soak up any additional moisture.
Put the miso in a small bowl, and add about 1½ tablespoons of rice wine vinegar. Stir to dissolve the miso. Add about 2½ tablespoons of your best extra-virgin olive oil and a little salt.
Put the still somewhat warm potatoes and calamari into a large serving bowl. Add the scallions, garlic, green peppercorns, and capers. Pour on the miso vinaigrette, and toss (I like using my hands for this, so I don’t break up the potatoes). Add the mint and parsley, and toss lightly. Taste for seasoning. Serve warm or at room temperature.
3 cups dried Corona beans (I used Rancho Gordo), cooked (see note below on how I cooked them) 1½ pounds shell-on large shrimp (if you can find fresh American shrimp, all the better) Extra-virgin olive oil A big splash of dry vermouth Salt A big pinch of saffron threads, lightly dried and then crushed with a mortar and pestle 3 scallions, cut into thin rounds, using some of the tender green part 1 thin spring garlic, chopped, including some of the tender green part 1 teaspoon cumin seeds, ground Piment d’Espelette A drizzle of sherry wine vinegar A handful of Italian parsley leaves, lightly chopped
Cook the beans (see note below on how I cooked them).
Shell the shrimp, and put the shells in a pot with a drizzle of olive oil. Turn the heat to medium, and sauté the shells until they turn pink, about 2 minutes. Add a splash of dry vermouth, and let it bubble away. Add about 1½ cups of water and a little salt, and simmer at a medium bubble for about 8 minutes. Strain the broth into a small bowl or cup. Add the crushed saffron, and give it a stir. The broth will turn a beautiful dark yellow.
Drain the beans, saving the broth for a soup or stew.
Set a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add a big drizzle of olive oil. When the oil is hot, add the scallion, garlic, and cumin, and warm everything through for about a minute to release its fragrances. Add the beans, and sauté for a minute or so, seasoning with salt and piment d’Espelette.
Set up another large sauté pan over high heat. Add a generous amount of olive oil. When the oil is hot, add the shrimp, spreading it out, and season it with salt. Sauté until the shrimp is just tender, turning it once, about 2 minutes in all. Add the shrimp broth, scraping up any cooked-on bits from the bottom of the pan, and pour the shrimp and broth over the beans. Add a drizzle of fresh olive oil and a few drops of sherry wine vinegar, and give everything a gentle toss. Taste for seasoning. Add the parsley, and toss lightly. Transfer to a large serving bowl. Serve warm.
A note on how I cooked the beans: I covered the beans with cool water by about 4 inches, added 3 fresh bay leaves, a chunk of spring garlic, and a big drizzle of olive oil, and brought it to a boil. I turned the heat down low, covered the pot, and let the beans simmer for about 50 minutes. Then I added a drizzle of sherry wine vinegar and a little salt and continued cooking until the beans were just tender, which took about another half hour. I find that with Rancho Gordo beans I don’t have to presoak, since they’re not overly dry to begin with.
I recently went to Milano for the first time. I saw Leonardo’s Last Supper. It’s painted on the end wall of the former dining room of the Santa Maria della Grazie monastery. It took Leonardo four years to complete, which doesn’t seem like a long time for the size of the thing, but Sforza, the then duke of Milano, who paid for the work, was evidently constantly angry at him for procrastinating.
They let small groups in for 15 minutes at a time and then kick them out. But it was such an overwhelming yet slightly eerie feeling being in that big space that 15 minutes seemed like a long time. According to our guide, only about 20 percent of the painting is completely original. The outlines of the forms are original, but the colors and much detail has been worked over by various restorers over the years, most recently in 1999. The colors are still lighter than the original. It’s a dark meal now tinted in pastels.
Milano has never been a culinary draw for me so I was perplexed about what I could learn there to expand my knowledge of Italian food. Many of the restaurants I passed by felt New Yorky, with avocados, miso, smoked salmon. So I decided to go full-on retro and sample some of the standards—risotto Milanese, cotoletto. I’ve always loved a fried veal chop, and saffron, the main flavoring in their risotto, is a magic aroma for me.
We first decided on a checked tablecloth place called Burla Giò, which translates as something like “throw it down” in Milanese dialect. It was a lovely five-minute walk from our Airbnb. It opened in 1969, and the same family still runs it. From the clientele I could tell that it had over the years turned into a bit of a tourist trap, but not completely. Aside from the Australians and Germans, there were plenty of Italians, mostly older men, who I imagine had nostalgia for this kind of food.
I ordered the cotoletto, a giant, hammered-out veal cutlet, which was pretty good, could have been a touch moister. Mrs. Cavuoti, my next-door neighbor when I was growing up on Long Island, made it better. It came with a small lettuce and fennel salad, which I thought was a nice touch. My husband had guancia di manzo, braised veal cheek, that was tender and had a good smell. It came sitting in a slightly acidic brown sauce dotted with almonds. I tasted it. A good balanced flavor. I spotted a duck with apricot dish on another table that looked appealing. I have no idea if it was. Many tables ordered the osso buco with risotto Milanese, a piatto unico I wasn’t sure I was up to after seeing the huge portions being carried by, but I really wanted to taste the risotto, so we split an order of that as a first course. And it was very good. Thicker than I’d expected, but rich with saffron and parmigiano. Good rice. Well prepared. A drizzle of balsamico finished it off, but the little pile of saffron threads on the top was an extravagant surprise. And this wasn’t an expensive restaurant. All around a fine experience.
For Easter I decided I’d go all out and served a risotto Milanese in the classic manner, with osso buco. It’s not often in an Italian kitchen that you’re served a starch such as pasta or rice alongside a big hunk of meat, but you’ve got that here. It was rich but so worth it. I could hardly believe my guests actually ate my pastiera after it.
I don’t think Burla Giò included it, but I added marrow to my version, which is a traditional variation. After cooking it this way for the first time, now I’m thinking the marrow completely belongs and will be hard for me to leave out in the future. See what you think. And try and find carnaroli rice. It really is the best for this dish.
About 7 cups homemade chicken broth (homemade is important, because you want the collagen to help hold the rice in a creamy suspension) 1 teaspoon saffron threads 1 beef marrow bone, split down the middle A big drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil 4 tablespoons unsalted butter 1 large Vidalia onion, cut into small dice 2 cups carnaroli rice 2 fresh bay leaves ½ teaspoon nutmeg Sea salt 1 cup dry but fruity white wine (I used a flat prosecco, because I had it hanging around) A big chunk of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese Black pepper A drizzle of real balsamic vinegar, if you’d like to try finishing it with that
The first thing you want to do is pour your broth into a pot and get it hot over medium heat. Once it’s hot, turn the flame down low, and keep in warm. Stick a ladle in it.
Put the saffron threads into a small pan, and set it over a low heat for about 10 seconds. You just want to dry them out enough so you can grind them to a powder (otherwise, the moist strands won’t open up completely, and you’ll lose a lot of their flavor). Put the dry saffron in a mortar, and give it a grind. Add about ¼ cup of the hot broth to the saffron. It should bloom into a bright orange. ( I like keeping this little bit of saffron broth separate, instead of dissolving the saffron into the big broth pot; I then add the saffron halfway through the cooking, so it stays bright and aromatic).
You’ll now want to scrape the marrow out from both sides of the split bone with a small spoon or a dinner knife, and then chop it finely.
Get out a wide, high-sided pan. This will allow the broth to evaporate more quickly than a deep pot and make the stirring easier, even breezy. I used my 11-inch-wide, 3-inch-deep All-Clad.
Add a big drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil and a tablespoon of butter to the pan, and get it warm over medium heat. Add the marrow, and warm it through. As the marrow starts to melt, add the onion, and let it soften for a minute. Add the rice, the bay leaves, the nutmeg, and a little salt, and stir for a minute or so to coat the rice with the fats and flavorings. Pour in the white wine, and let it bubble for a minute or so. I love the aroma of the wine mixing with butter and onion wafting up in my face. That is for me part of what traditional risotto making is all about. You don’t get the full-on experience when you just stick the pan in the oven, a modern approach to preparing risotto.
Now you can start adding the broth. Start with a few ladles, and stir the rice around until you can see the bottom of the pan. Add more broth, and let the pan get almost dry again. You don’t have to go crazy stirring. I tend to stir more in the beginning and then ease up a little. After about 10 minutes, add the saffron broth and stir that in. The rice will turn a beautiful dark yellow.
I find that the entire risotto process takes about 16 to 17 minutes. So after about another 6 or 7 minutes of stirring, the rice should be tender but still firm and its consistency creamy.
Turn off the heat, and add the rest of the butter, stirring it in. Add about ½ cup of grated Parmigiano and a few big grindings of fresh black pepper, and check for salt. Add a little more broth if the texture has gotten too thick. If you’ve run out of broth, just add a little warm water. I like my risotto Milanese loose but not runny. Ladle it into wide bowls. You can drizzle a thread of balsamic vinegar over each serving, but only if you’ve got the really good stuff. In any case, serve it right away, with the rest of the Parmigiano brought to the table.
Easter is almost here. For me it’s a time to celebrate the rebirth of the earth, a beautiful holiday for a cook. But it all seems rushed this year. I haven’t yet planned. I didn’t invite anyone. I’m only now trying to put a menu together, but I’m not sure what I’ll be able to actually turn out, since last night I messed up the door of my oven in a frantic effort to get my cat Red out from behind it. The cat is out and fine, but the door is hanging by a thread. Hopefully I’ll be able to get someone in to fix it. If that’s not possible, I’ll have to figure out if I can cook a pastiera, my must-have Easter dessert, in the toaster oven. Maybe I can make a shallow one on a pie plate, although that seems diminished and a little depressing. A pastiera should be high and mighty, filled with ricotta and wheat berries and giving off that exotic scent of orange flower water. I’ll see what I can do.
If you have a working oven and would like to make a pastiera, here’s my recipe. I do make it a little differently every year, but this is, I think, I good guide.
And here are some other Easter dishes that I’ve made over the years and everyone really liked. I’m not yet sure what the rest of my menu will be this time around the globe, but somewhere in the mix will be eggs, ricotta, lamb, and asparagus, probably cooked on my stovetop.
I am a chef, food writer, and herb lover who specializes in improvisational Italian cooking. I am the author of The Flavors of Southern Italy and Pasta Improvvisata, as well as Williams-Sonoma Pasta, which is available at Williams-Sonoma stores. A member of the Association of Culinary Professionals, The New York Women's Culinary Alliance, The New York Culinary Historians, The Herb Society of America, and the Italian-based International Slow Food Movement, I live in New York City.
Erica De Mane 