Erica De Mane

Roses in a Vase, Carl Rohde, nineteenth century.

Recipe: Penne with Pancetta, Rosemary, Pine Nuts, and a Splash of Cream

I’m not a cream person. I don’t even like ice cream all that much. A few spoonfuls are wonderful, but after that it kind of lumps up in the back of my throat and triggers a gag response. What can I say? For me cream is strange, and I don’t find many uses for it in my kitchen, possibly because my Southern Italian soul runs deep, and there’s no cream at the bottom of the Mediterranean, only volcanic ash, which somehow seems more interesting to me.

A cream-based dish that in my opinion is the worst Italianish creation of all, and I’m not sure if it’s originally Italian or U.S.-born, is pasta with cream and smoked salmon. I find the smell of that utterly repulsive. I can’t even be at the same table with someone who has ordered it. I think it had its heyday in the 1990s. Luckily, you only find it at shopping mall restaurants these days. (Gee, can I be any more of a snoot?)

But there is one pasta-with-cream dish that I adore. It’s pink sauce, a simple tomato sauce with a splash of cream, the sauce of Italian-American restaurants alla the 1960s. At Ricky’s restaurant in Roslyn, Long Island, I ordered giant cheese ravioli bathed in a sauce the color of the vibrant pink roses my father grew along the walkway in front of our house. Sometimes I’d order cannelloni with that same sauce. It had a soft, voluptuous flavor, with only a hint of acidity. Pink sauce wasn’t anything we made at home. There we made red sauce, heavy with oregano and garlic, and usually the color of dried blood. I loved it. But then sometime in the 1970s, penne alla vodka became the craze. Every mom on our block made that quick mix of vodka, tomatoes, cream, and a pinch of hot pepper. They considered it elegant and so did I.

In the winter I crave pink sauce. I think of it in the winter, since it works best when you give it the body that canned tomatoes provide. My approach to creating one of these cream-kissed sauces is pretty rudimentary, but I do have some rules. First off, no garlic shall ever enter my pink sauce. In my opinion, what you want is a base of sweet cooked-down onions or shallots, especially when reduced in a little butter. Then a splash of booze, vodka, or cognac, or, what I prefer, the gentle warmth of Marsala or vermouth. Then the tomatoes go in. You’ll want to cook them quickly over high heat to retain their bright color and taste. Then a drizzle of cream or crème fraîche. I sometimes add pancetta or sausage, or mushrooms. A mild grating cheese like Parmigiano or grana Padano is essential to pull the flavors together in this lush mix. I love adding rosemary or a few fresh sage leaves, too. For this version I’ve also included toasted pine nuts. The gorgeous color and velvety texture of the dish makes me very happy. I don’t usually like that hackneyed description “comfort food,” but I must tell you, pink sauce is truly comforting.

Penne with Pancetta, Rosemary, Pine Nuts, and a Splash of Cream

(Serves 5 as a first course)

2 tablespoons unsalted butter
A drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil
1 ¼-inch chunk pancetta, cut into small dice
1 pound penne
Salt
1 large shallot, minced
1 large sprig rosemary, leaves chopped
A splash of sweet vermouth
1 35-ounce can plum tomatoes, well chopped, with the juice
A good pinch of piment d’Espelette (a Basque dried red chili), or another medium hot chile, such as Aleppo
¼ cup heavy cream
A handful of pine nuts, lightly toasted
A handful of flat-leaf parsley leaves, lightly chopped
A chunk of grana Padano cheese

Set up a pot of pasta cooking water, and bring it to a boil.

In a large skillet, heat the butter and olive oil over medium flame. Add the pancetta, and let it get crisp.

Add a generous amount of salt to the water, and when it comes back to a boil, add the penne.

Add the shallot and rosemary to the skillet, and sauté until softened and fragrant. Add the vermouth, and let it boil away. Add the tomatoes with their juice, season with salt, and cook at a lively bubble for about 5 minutes. Now season with the Espelette, and add the cream and the pine nuts, giving the sauce a good stir. Simmer for about 2 minutes or so, and then turn off the heat. Taste for salt.

When the penne is al dente, drain it, and pour it into a warmed serving bowl. Add the sauce, the parsley, and a generous grating of grana Padano (about a heaping tablespoon or so). Toss well, and serve, bringing the rest of the cheese to the table.

When Cecilia Gimenez, an untrained art restorer, took it upon herself to freshen up Elias Garcia Martinez’s nineteenth-century Ecce Homo fresco, in Spain, she transformed Jesus into a weird, hairy monkey. The image has become so popular that a bakery in Madrid is now using it to decorate its crêpes.

Recipe: Crespelle with Roasted Peppers, Prosciutto Cotto, and a Red Pepper Sauce

Sometimes I feel that olive oil is what holds my life together. I smell it, I cook with it, I rub it into my hair and hands (so I guess I smell like it, too). Maybe if I had kids I would say they held my life together, but I don’t have kids. I have olive oil. Olive oil is so important to me. I easily go through a 32-ounce bottle every week, sometimes more. I spend a lot on olive oil, but it’s worth it. I especially love the flavor of estate-bottled Sicilian oils such as Ravida or Olio Verde. To me, they have a perfect mix of mellow and biting, often with a lingering taste of almonds. (And to my palate sometimes of bananas, but every time I’ve mentioned this to a producer or seller, he’s looked at me like I’m an idiot. But you know what? I know I’m right. My palate doesn’t lie.)

I’m always looking for ways to work olive oil into foods that traditionally would require butter. Many of the pastry crusts I use for savory tarts and even some sweet ones consist of just olive oil, salt, wine, and flour. It’s amazing how flaky  they cook up. I make olive oil biscotti and cakes that are, to my taste, more tender and lighter than butter-based versions. I also use olive oil in crespelle, Italian crêpes. The texture is lovely, and they’re much easier to work with than butter-based crêpes. Olive oil crespelle are a perfect wrapping for seafood or Mediterranean vegetable fillings such as eggplant or the roasted peppers I’ve chosen for this recipe.

Don’t be afraid to make crespelle. They’re not that hard, especially with this olive oil batter, and once you’ve got it down, you can improvise with fillings and sauces to your heart’s content. Getting the rhythm down when you’re cooking crespelle always takes a few minutes. You need the time to regulate the pan heat and come to understand just how  much batter is right to thinly cover the pan. You’ll produce a few lumpy, folded, truly messed-up-looking crespelle before you hit your stride. Don’t worry. That’s just the way it is.

Crespelle with Roasted Peppers, Prosciutto Cotto, and a Red Pepper Sauce

(Serves 4 or 5, making about 12 7-inch crespelle)

For the crespelle:

1 cup all-purpose flour
4 large eggs
A generous pinch of salt
1 tablespoon sugar
3 tablespoons olive oil, plus extra for cooking
1 cup whole milk, possibly a little more
1 tablespoon grappa, cognac, or brandy

For the ricotta filling:

2 cups whole-milk ricotta
1 large egg
1 small garlic clove, minced
½ cup grated grana Padano cheese
A few big scrapings of nutmeg (about ⅛ teaspoon)
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
About 8 thyme sprigs, leaves chopped, plus a handful of tender sprigs for garnish

Plus:

Extra-virgin olive oil
6 red bell peppers, charred, peeled, seeded, and cut into thick strips
1 garlic clove, thinly sliced
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
A big pinch of sugar
½ cup chicken broth
½ cup heavy cream
½ pound prosciutto cotto, very thinly sliced
½ cup grated grana Padano cheese

For the crespelle batter, put all the crespelle ingredients into the bowl of a food processor, and pulse until very smooth. The result should be the consistency of thick cream. If it’s too thick, add a little more milk. Pour the batter into a bowl, and let it sit about 45 minutes before using (this will relax the gluten a bit, so you get a nice tender crepe).

To cook the crespelle, I used a 7-inch omelet pan, but if you’ve got a proper crêpe pan, a little bigger or smaller, use that. Any small sauté pan will do the trick. With these olive oil crespelle, I never find sticking a problem, so you don’t need a non-stick pan. Put the pan over a medium flame, and let it heat up. Pour in just enough olive oil to coat the pan. Pull the pan from the heat, and ladle in a bit less than a quarter cup of batter, tilting the pan quickly in a circular movement to spread the batter. (You’ll get the hang of it. The first few usually don’t come out too well. Once the heat is regulated and you get the feel of it, trust me, you’ll find it fairly easy.) Let the crespella cook just until you notice it coloring lightly at the edge. Then shake the pan, moving the crespella away from you, and slip a spatula underneath. Give it a fast, confident flip. If it folds up a bit, just straighten it out with your fingers (these things are a lot sturdier than you’d think). Cook on the other side for about 30 seconds, and then slide onto a big plate.

Make the rest of the crespelle the same way, adding a drizzle of olive oil to the pan each time. Stack the crespelle up on top of one another (they won’t stick, I swear). If you like, you can refrigerate them until you want to assemble the dish.

Mix the ingredients for the ricotta filling together in a big bowl.

In a medium skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium flame. Add the red pepper slices, the garlic, a pinch of sugar, salt, and black pepper, and sauté for about 2 minutes, just to finish cooking the peppers and coat them with flavor.

Take about a quarter of the peppers out and place them in a food processor, including any juices that are left in the skillet. Work them into a purée. Add the chicken broth and the cream, and give it a few more pulses, just to blend everything. Season with a little salt. Transfer this sauce to a little bowl.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Lay the crespelle out on a work surface. Cover each one with a layer of the ricotta filling, leaving the ends of the crespelle uncovered. Now place a piece of prosciutto cotto and a few slices of the roasted peppers on top. Roll them up, and arrange them in a well-oiled baking dish that will hold them rather snugly (you can use two dishes, if that’s more convenient for you).

Drizzle the pepper sauce over the crespelle, and sprinkle on the grana Padano. This sauce is not meant to cover the entire dish. It just provides a little flavor boost and moisture. Bake until bubbling and lightly browned at the edges, about 15 minutes. Garnish with the thyme sprigs.

Serve hot. No need to let them rest. They’re quite firm. I like them served with a simple winter salad of mixed chicory-type lettuces, such as frisée and endive.

Still Life with Garlic and Red Wine Vinegar, Julian Merrow-Smith, 1998.

This past August, sometime in the middle of the hot month, my vinegar mother died. That was the gelatinous lump of good bacteria that had formed in the bottom of my vinegar jar and produced excellent vinegar from red wine odds and ends for 18 years. The wonderful vinegar mother had been created, after several failed attempts, at a house my husband and I rented, along with a ton of other people, in Riverhead, Long Island. We were a sometimes high-strung, volatile group, so I often looked for escapist projects, and making vinegar, along with constructing spun-caramel domes, and growing wild Calabrian mint, was one of them.

I first tried making vinegar by simply pouring wine into a mason jar and leaving it on the porch, lightly covering the top of the jar with a slashed-up cloth so it got plenty of air. If there was active yeast in the wine, the enzymes in the atmosphere would help form a mother. My grandfather used to do this, so I knew it could work. Mine didn’t. The wine just soured, and no Jell-O lump developed. A lively red wine vinegar mother looks like a slab of  raw calf’s liver, so that’s what I was waiting to see. Over-pasteurization or crappy Long Island air could have been the problem.

Coincidentally, around the time I first began my vinegar making project, I happened to purchase a copy of Giuliano Bugialli’s Classic Techniques of Italian Cooking, a book of traditional, proper, mostly Tuscan recipes, which also includes photos that look like they could have been shot in Renaissance Florence. It shows you how to reconstruct a cooked, boned pheasant, feathers included. Fascinating, but unless I’m  hired as a food stylist for a movie on the life of the Medicis, I’m not sure I’ll ever bother. One thing in the book that was extremely interesting to me at the time was Bugialli’s advice for making homemade vinegar. Adding the crumbled insides of a slice of good Italian bread to the wine will introduce yeast that can help form the mother. That’s what Mr. Bugialli said, and wouldn’t you know, it worked like a dream. I was so excited that I couldn’t stop talking about it, producing much above-it-all eye rolling from most of my housemates. But I was making the best red wine vinegar I had ever tasted. When the summer was over I took my precious vinegar jar back to the city with me, no regrets.

Being my first and only vinegar mother, it was special to me. And when this August, after so many years of faithful service, I first noticed a buildup of brown, crystallized crud around the lid of my vinegar jar, I became worried. But the vinegar still tasted good, so I didn’t sweat it. Then a few weeks later, to my horror, I saw that the mother had completely broken up and disintegrated, leaving what was now a jar of dark, murky, almost opaque liquid that smelled like nail polish remover. I was heartbroken. I came to the conclusion that my stifling hot August kitchen had been just too much for the grand lady, so she had expired way before her time. I should have prevented it, but since she had made it through 17 city summers unruffled, I hadn’t put much thought into this past year’s intermittently broiling weather and my excessive use of grill pans and other sweltering cooking techniques. I puttered around the Internet looking for remedies, trying a few suggestions such as adding broken spaghetti or sugar to the jar, but the thing was too far gone. I could have just started fresh right away, attempting a new vinegar mother with new bread and new wine, but this was the original, a highly sentimental thing for me. I struggled to bring her back to life, but nothing worked, so I finally threw the murky mess down the drain and decided I needed a period of mourning before starting up again.

In November I happened to be making dinner at my mother’s apartment (not my vinegar mother’s, my biological mother’s). While dressing a salad with a little bottle of vinegar she still had from my last batch, before tragedy had hit, I noticed that her bottle had formed a vinegar mother of its own, a mother spawned from my original vinegar mother, probably because some alcohol or excess sugar had been left in the batch. There it was, a dark red gelatinous disk at the bottom of her decanter. Well, needless to say, I was ecstatic. “Can I have this?,” I asked my biological mother. “Be my guest,” she said, not really understanding what I was asking her for. So I poured what remained of her vinegar into another container, hurried home with my mother clone, and immediately began setting up a new jar, hoping it would take and knowing that if it did, my original vinegar mother would live on.

Here’s a good looking, live red wine vinegar mother.

I topped it with half bottles of Nero d’Avola and Côtes du Rhône wine and let it sit near the window, a place that was pleasantly cool but not drafty. After about two and a half weeks I began getting whiffs of a good vinegar smell when I entered the kitchen, but a closeup sniff told me it wasn’t quite there yet. After another week I smelled it again, and it seemed perfect. And the taste was beautiful, exactly as it had been. Hallelujah. My vinegar mother was resurrected. I’ll never neglect her again.

Girl with Fish, Nguyen Trung, 1990.

This beautiful woman has the new year all worked out. She’s got her fish. She’s serene and clear-eyed. She knows how to dress simply, and she knows how to cook. This silver fish will be brushed with oil and ginger and placed on a wood fire, not even gutted. Happy New Year to you Miss Fish Girl. All will be well.

Still Life with Walnuts, Olives in a Glass Jar, a Partly Peeled Lemon, and a Glass of Red Wine, Miquel Parra, 1780-1846.

Recipe: U spaghett’antalina for la Vigilia di Natale

Pasta with walnuts. What a lovely thing that is. Spaghetti tossed with a walnut pesto is a dish I often make in cool weather. I just throw really fresh walnut halves, a garlic clove, grana Padano, extra-virgin olive oil (plus often a splash of walnut oil, if I have it), and abundant parsley into a food processor and pulse a few times until I’ve got a chunky paste. Sometimes I add butter, too. It’s a rich pasta that’s perfect for a first course, nice before rosemary roasted lamb, for instance.

Walnuts remind me of Christmas. My father always had a bowl of them, along with a simple nutcracker, hanging around the house somewhere during the holidays. Nuts with shells. Doesn’t that seem a thing of the past? Actually I’m not sure if I’d ever be up to making my walnut pesto if I had to shell and grind the nuts by hand. That, I feel, would be depressing, especially since I’m usually alone in the kitchen, working away, or sometimes it’s just me and Maria Callas, which is much more interesting.

Well, now on to Christmas Eve dinner. La Vigilia, the big fish dinner. My favorite meal of the year. I never know what I’ll be making until a few days before, and I change the menu every year. Since this year I’ve got walnuts on the brain (and possibly a brain the size of a walnut, at this stage of my life), I’m reminded of a Neapolitan walnut-and-anchovy pasta that’s traditional for this meatless though lavish meal. U spaghett’antalina is what it’s called in dialect, and the dish is fabulous. The annual walnut harvest in the Sorrento peninsula happens in the late fall, so by the time Christmas comes around the market is filled with really fresh, flavorful walnuts, which are famous throughout Italy. This beautiful pasta appears on a lot of Christmas Eve tables, both around Naples and in Italian-American households. My family never made it. We almost always had linguine with clam sauce to start, but since I’m now thinking about walnuts, this lovely pasta seems like the right thing to kick off my Christmas Eve menu this year.

Here’s the way I make it.

U spaghett’antalina for la Vigilia di Natale

(Serves 5)

1½ cups very fresh walnut halves
Sea salt
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, very thinly sliced
10 oil-packed anchovies, minced
1 pound spaghetti
A pinch of sugar
Freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon Fra Angelico liqueur (or a walnut liqueur, if you have it)
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
About ½ cup very lightly chopped flat leaf parsley
5  marjoram sprigs, leaves lightly chopped

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Spread the walnuts out on a sheet pan, and roast them until just fragrant, about 5 minutes. Make sure to watch that they don’t burn. You just want them lightly golden.  Now stick them in a food processor, and pulse a few times, to give them a rough chop.

Set up a big pot of pasta cooking water, and bring it to a boil. Season with a good amount of salt, and drop in the spaghetti.

In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over a medium-low flame. Add the garlic and the anchovies, and sauté until fragrant, about a minute or so. Add the walnuts, seasoning them with salt, black pepper, and a little sugar, and sauté a minute just to coat them with oil. Add the liqueur, and let it boil away.

When the pasta is al dente, drain it, saving about ½ cup of the pasta water, and transfer it to a warmed serving bowl. Add the butter, and toss. Add the walnut sauce with all the skillet juices, the parsley, and the marjoram, and toss, adding a little pasta water if necessary to loosen the sauce. Taste to see if it needs more salt or black pepper. Serve hot.