Erica De Mane

Still Life with Peaches, Herculaneum.

Recipe: Peach Crostata with Lavender and Rosemary

So much fruit, so little time before it returns to dust. Wilting peaches lay in my kitchen, and I felt the urgent need to prepare a fruit tart. Being a tad agitated to start with, and knowing quite well how measuring and fiddling with flour and weights can make me more agitated, I sensed the need for a loose approach. That’s where the free-form crostata came in. It doesn’t need a tart tin, blind baking, custard or eggs, or, really, much measuring. This is a recipe, but only on paper. It’s really a suggestion, something for your head. If you don’t have much experience with pasta frolla (short crust), use my proportions and it’ll be fine. Sometimes I add more flour, less butter, or vice versa, but I haven’t gone wrong yet.

The construction goes like this: Roll out a big round of pastry onto a sheet pan. Pile on sliced fruit (I don’t even peel it), flavored with whatever suits your mood. Turn up the pastry’s edges, folding it as you go to contain the fruit, and bake the thing. I love this because there’s no binder to get in the way of pure fruit flavor, even if I add spice or herbs, as I have here. The design is perfect. I make these with any fruit that will cook relatively quickly. Plums, apricots, fresh figs, and even cherry tomatoes will work. Soft, thinly sliced apples and pears will, too.

Next I’m tackling the pile of shriveling Italian plums on my counter (and I’m not talking about myself here).

Peach Crostata with Lavender and Rosemary

For the crust:

1¾ cups all-purpose flour, plus a little extra for rolling
¼ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
2 large sprigs each rosemary and lavender, leaves chopped
1 stick cold unsalted butter, cut into tiny pieces, plus a bit extra to oil the baking sheet
¼ cup cold semi-dry white wine, like a Riesling, or you can use a dry vermouth

For the filling:

6 medium-size unpeeled ripe peaches, cut into slices
¼ cup sugar, plus a little extra for the top
About a tablespoon of Calvados or cognac
1 large sprig each rosemary and lavender, leaves chopped
1 egg yolk, mixed with a little water

In a food processor, combine the flour, salt, sugar, rosemary, and lavender, and give it all a few pulses to mix everything. Now add the butter, and pulse quickly 2 or 3 times, just to break up the butter a bit. Add the wine, and pulse a few more times. The dough should look crumbly and a bit moist. If it seems dry, add a splash of cold water or wine, and pulse again quickly.  Turn the dough out onto a work surface, and press it into a ball. Now give it a few brief kneads, just to make sure it holds together. Wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate about an hour.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Flour a work surface, and roll out the dough into an approximately 11-inch circle. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Trim the edges to neaten it up. Place it on a buttered sheet pan, and stick it in the refrigerator.

Put all the ingredients for the filling in a bowl, and give them a good stir.

Take the pan of dough from the fridge. Pile the peaches in the middle of the round, letting them spread out in a natural way but leaving about a 2-inch border all around. If they’ve given off a lot of juice, leave some of it in the bowl. Fold the edge of the pastry up and around the fruit, pleating as you go (check out the photo). You should have a large opening in the middle where the peaches stick out.

Brush the exposed part of the crust with the egg wash, and sprinkle a little sugar all over the tart.

Bake until the crust is golden, about 35 minutes. Let it cool for about ½ hour before slicing. Good for breakfast, with a tumbler of grappa.

Me, left, with my grandmother’s cousin Tony and his lady friend in Castelfranco in Miscano, mid-1980s.

Recipe: Pasta e Fagioli with Escarole, Guanciale, and Fresh Olio Santo

Beans simmering, greens sautéeing, these aromas remind me of several places, several kitchens, my grandparents’ house in Port Chester and also their wicker-and-Fiestaware- stuffed cottage in Hollywood, Florida, where a slew of relatives spent part of every winter. Those two homes always smelled of pasta fazool. My grandmother preferred the soupy kind, with wilted greens, often dandelions, floating around in it. It smelled of vegetation. It was what she wanted to cook in southern Florida’s humid heat, in that clammy, un-air-conditioned little house. I loved the dish.

My mother’s Long Island fazool had a different aroma. It filled the kitchen with the scent of pork, very nice to come home to after a long day screwing off at school. She braised pork chops with the beans, but then always pulled them out to serve as a second course, often with sautéed escarole or a chicory salad. Garlic and hot chili flakes were the undertones in all these preparations, no matter who in my family cooked them.

Our variations on beans, greens, and pasta came mainly from my father’s family, descendants of a depressed and frankly quite depressing little hill town on the boarder of Puglia and Campania, a place completely landlocked and devoid of any trees that I could see. Castelfranco in Miscano has a crumbling, dusty feel to it, thanks partly to the many earthquakes that have destroyed much of what I can imagine was once its ancient charm, including an 800-year-old white stone church that I’ve seen photos of. Wild greens, beans, and semolina pasta have always been staples of the place, often all three stewed together and eaten with fennel-scented taralli and cloudy, astringent white wine. The town smells like cooked bitter greens.

My Manhattan apartment often takes on many of those bean, greens, and pasta aromas. The pungent, raw smell of beans soaking in my kitchen can still surprise me even after so many years of cooking. I’ll pass by the pot of swollen cannellinis on the counter and catch that strange air of sour, damp earth. Then I’ll eat one, crunching down on it, thinking about what I might do with the rest of them in the morning. This time I decided on a blend of my mother’s and my grandmother’s fazool. Instead of pork chops I chose guanciale, for its richer, more gamy flavor, but like my grandmother, I added the greens in with the dish, not serving them separately. I could barely resist the classic, appealingly musty taste of dried chilies, which are almost always a component and such an olfactory memory, but because we’re at the end of summer and fresh chilies are still in season, I went with fresh heat. And when tasting the result, I was struck by how this one change, as delicious as it was, altered the character of the dish. It no longer tasted like a memory.

Pasta e Fagioli with Escarole, Guanciale, and Fresh Olio Santo

(Serves 4)

2 fresh red peperoncino peppers, with seeds, minced
Extra-virgin olive oil
1½ cups dried cannellini beans, soaked overnight in cool water to cover
1 bay leaf, fresh if possible
Salt
¼ pound guanciale, cut into small cubes
1 small onion, cut into small dice
2 small inner celery stalks, thinly sliced, plus a handful of celery leaves, roughly chopped
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
A few large sprigs of rosemary, leaves chopped
A splash of dry white wine
1 large head escarole, cut into small pieces and quickly blanched
¾ pound cavatelli
A handful of flat-leaf parsley, leaves lightly chopped
A chunk of firm Caciocavallo cheese (optional)

To make the olio santo: Place the minced fresh peperoncini in a small bowl. Add about ⅓ cup olive oil. Give it a good stir, and let it sit, unrefrigerated, while you cook the beans.

To cook the beans: Drain the cannellini beans, and place them in a large pot. Cover them with at least four inches pf cool water. Add the bay leaf, and turn the heat to high. When the water comes to a boil, lower the heat, and let them simmer gently, partially covered, until tender, about 1½ hours (it really depends on how hard your beans are, so start testing them after about 1 hour). Add more warm water if needed to keep the beans covered. When they’re tender but still holding their shape, season them with salt and a generous drizzle of olive oil, and turn off the heat, letting them cool down in their liquid. Drain them, saving about a cup of their cooking liquid.

Set up a large pot of pasta cooking water, and bring it to a boil. Add a generous amount of salt.

In a large skillet, heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Add the guanciale, and let it get crisp, about 3 minutes or so. Add the onion and celery, and sauté until softened, about 4 minutes. Add the rosemary and the garlic, and sauté a minute longer, just to release their fragrances. Add half to about three quarters of the beans, depending on how beany you like the dish, and the blanched escarole, and sauté everything in the oil for about 3 or 4 minutes. Season with salt. Add the splash of white wine, and let it boil way. Add ½ cup of the bean cooking water, and let the sauce simmer. You’ll have some beans left over to use for a salad or a side dish (I figure that if I’m going to take the time to cook dried beans, I may as well make a good amount and use them for different dishes).

Drop the cavatelli into the water, and cook until al dente, draining well. Transfer to a warmed serving bowl. Add the cannellini sauce and a drizzle of fresh olive oil, and toss. The texture should be a bit loose, so add more bean cooking liquid if needed. Drizzle a little (or a lot) of the olio santo on each serving. In Southern Italy, dishes that contain hot chilies are often served without cheese. I like my pasta e fagioli with a little cheese, but that’s up to you.

Recipe: Cavatelli with Pomodoro Crudo, Herbs, and Pine Nuts

Sometimes I forget how rich hot pasta tossed with uncooked summer tomatoes and good olive oil can be. You get the raw tomatoes with their acid and slight sea taste, but the pasta’s gentle heat takes the edge off, leaving you with a full blast of tomato warmth. An intense aroma comes up as you toss the pasta. Not only do the tomatoes open up, but the raw summer garlic lets off its essence, the olive oil bursts forth, and fresh herbs come alive. I make a version of this a few times every August. Sometimes I add bold flavors such as olives or anchovies, but I left this one gentle and floral. No hot chilies, capers, olives, or sharp edges.

If you grow herbs, try this pasta, and if you don’t grow your own and don’t want to purchase four different herbs, just pick two. It’ll still be great. I feel you have to peel the tomatoes. The finished dish looks more elegant if you do, and taking their clothes off allows their essence to flow into the oil from all sides, letting the sauce really coat the pasta.

Cavatelli with Pomodoro Crudo, Herbs, and Pine Nuts

(Serves 6 as a first course)

6 large summer tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and well chopped
Salt
2 small fresh summer garlic cloves,  minced
⅓ cup extra-virgin olive oil
A handful each of basil, mint, tarragon, and Italian parsley, stemmed and roughly chopped
A big handful of pine nuts, lightly toasted
Freshly ground black pepper
1 pound cavatelli
A small chunk of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese

Place the chopped tomatoes in a colander over a bowl. Sprinkle them with salt, and give them a good toss. Let them drain for about an hour. (Summer tomatoes are juicy, and you want to drain them off so they don’t water down your pasta. Save the tomato water for a Bloody Mary.)

Now put the drained tomatoes in a large pasta serving bowl. Add the garlic and the olive oil, and give it all a stir.

Put up a large pot of pasta cooking water. Bring it to a boil, and add a generous amount of salt. Drop in the cavatelli.

When al dente, drain the cavatelli, and add it to the tomatoes. Add the herbs, pine nuts, and a generous amount of black pepper. Toss well. Give it a taste to see if you need more salt. Serve right away, with grated Parmigiano if you like (I like it with and without cheese, depending on my need for purity at the time).

Still Life with Clam Shells, by Barney Levitt.

Recipe: Fregola with Clams, Tomatoes, and Moscato

Clams always meant Daddy to me. That may not be true for many people. But in my Italian-American family, in the summer in the sixties and seventies, my father and his buddies would go clamming for littlenecks in the refreshing but horseshoe-crab-filled waters off Sea Cliff Beach, waters that were tainted by a constant day-glo oil infusion, compliments of the nearby Long Island Lighting Company. My father thought nothing of eating dozens of these clams at a time, raw, on the half-shell, as they say, with a squirt of lemon or bottled cocktail sauce. “Pollution, what are you talking about? These are as fresh as they get.” My mother had her doubts, but I, being my father’s daughter, figured if they tasted normal they were normal. I really got into the act. It was tons of fun letting those soft, rubbery things slip down my throat. Looking back at that time now, it’s amazing what we put into our bodies—menthol cigarettes, food dye galore, amyl nitrites for dancing pleasure, to name just a few of my favorite things.

 As much as he loved his “fresh as they get” clams, we’d often take a health break and order raw clams at a restaurant. Clams on the half-shell, usually cherrystones, were then a popular starter at steak places on Long Island such as Manero’s in Manhasset, and in the city too. You don’t see them around much anymore, except in certain retro steakhouses that serve them with a hint of irony. But god they were good. There’s nothing like the cold, briny jolt you get when a raw clam (a live clam!) hits the back of your throat. And as my father showed me, they tasted just as interesting with a vodka martini at Manero’s as with a cold Ballantine in our back yard.

Raw clams, steamed clams, clams baked with breadcrumbs, garlic, and oregano, all good. Clams were always lurking in our kitchen, either wrapped in a few pages of Newsday or spread out on the counter. There were the clay-colored littlenecks and the darker ones with brownish stripes bought at the Italian fish shop in Glen Cove. My family had one of those giant steamer pots, the kind that came in two parts and had a faucet at the bottom where clam juice could trickle out. I think it was made of a heavy aluminum. It had originally belonged to my Sicilian grandfather, my mother’s father. But my father was its ruler all through my childhood and beyond. I come from a family of shellfish fanatics, a trait I’ve certainly inherited. They ate clams, mussels, oysters, raw and cooked. I loved that clam steamer. Its emergence always signaled a summer party. A vodka on the rocks in one hand, a Kent hanging from his lips, my dad and a few neighbor guys wrestled, half loaded, with big messes of clams and mussels and seaweed and sometimes corn and lobster, stuffing it all into that contraption. It heated at a slow steam, and little by little the clam juice would drip to the bottom. Coffee mugs were offered, so that anyone who wanted (I wanted) could pour themselves a shot of hot clam juice, add a pat of butter, and slug it back. A fabulous aperitivo. I don’t know what happened to that steamer. It probably got left behind when they sold the house and moved to a small condo in Royal Palm Beach. The pot was quite large. I wish I had it now, but where would I put it in my tiny city apartment? It would have to serve as a chair.

And then, of course, there’s the Southern Italian classic, pasta with clams. My favorite, something I always requested for a birthday dinner. It was a standard on our table on Christmas Eve, but you’d never know when it would show up. A good day’s catch at Sea Cliff beach and it might appear on Fourth of July, covered in fresh parsley and basil from my father’s little garden. My family usually made the white sauce variety, no tomatoes. I like it all ways, with tomato sauce, with just a hint of tomato and lots of white wine, with pancetta and hot chilies added. I’m always playing around with different types of pasta and flavorings to see where I can take it. Fregola, a Sardinian pasta made something like couscous, was not anything my father would have been familiar with, but I now often find it, even in mezza-mezza grocery stores. Fregola is roasted, so it takes on a deep, almost smoky taste. And it happens to be excellent with clams. Here’s a new recipe for pasta with clams, an offering to my late, great, clam-loving father. I raise a glass of Ballantine to you (do they still make that beer?).

Fregola with Clams, Tomatoes, and Moscato

(Serves 4 as a main course)

Salt
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 thick slice pancetta, cut into small cubes
1 large shallot, minced
3 summer garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 fresh red chili, minced (a peperoncino is perfect)
¼ cup Moscato or another slightly sweet white wine
4 round medium-size summer tomatoes, skinned, seeded, and chopped
1 cup chicken broth
¾ pound large fregola
About 4 dozen littleneck or Manila clams (which are basically the same), the smaller the better, well cleaned
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
The grated zest from 1 large lemon
A few large sprigs of marjoram
A handful of basil leaves, lightly chopped

Set up a large pot of pasta cooking water, and bring it to a boil. Season with salt.

In a large skillet, big enough to hold all the clams when opened, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Add the pancetta, and sauté until just crisp. Add the shallot, garlic, and hot chili, and sauté until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Add the moscato, and let it bubble for a few seconds. Add the tomatoes and a little salt, and let everything cook at a lively bubble for a few minutes. Add the chicken broth, and simmer uncovered for about 5 minutes longer.

Add the clams, and cook partially covered for a few minutes. Take off the cover, and give them a stir. As the clams open, pull them from the sauce into a bowl, with tongs. They won’t all open at once, so if you leave the early openers in the skillet, they’ll be overcooked by the time they all decide to pop. Drizzle the clams with a little olive oil. Turn off the heat.

When about half of the clams have opened, drop the fregola into the water.

When the fregola is al dente (after about 10 minutes), drain it, and pour it into a large, shallow serving bowl. Add a drizzle of olive oil, the butter, the lemon zest, the basil, and the marjoram, and give it a quick toss. Add the clams back to the skillet, and heat gently for about 30 seconds. Pour the clams and sauce over the fregola, and toss again. Taste for salt, but you probably won’t need any, depending on your clams.