Lemon and a Sprig of Lemon Thyme, by Julian Merrow-Smith.
Recipe below, in text: Cool Zucchini Soup with Lemon Thyme
I never used to love lemon thyme. I found it too air-freshener-y. But the more I’ve learned how to work with it, the more I’ve changed my mind. It’s a matter of application, of handling. Lemon thyme is a multipurpose herb. The thyme feature of its personality can make it work as an anchoring herb, one you’ll want to add during cooking so its peppery, allspice-like, woody flavor can open up with heat. (Ever wonder why Jamaican cooks use allspice and thyme together so often? It’s because they taste alike. There’s an affinity there.) But also you’ve got the clear lemon overtones that provide an uplift, especially if you include it at the end. In the case of this soup, I’ve added it at the beginning of cooking and then chosen to wait and add it again after I’ve chilled the soup, so it stays fresh and relevant. It’s deep and good this way. No air freshener, no stupid scented candle.
To make this soup you’ll want to get out a good-size soup pot and set it over medium heat. Drizzle in a few tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil, and add a large summer onion, chopped, using some of the tender green stem. Add a medium-size baking potato, peeled and chopped. Add some salt, and let it all cook for a few minutes. Then add about 6 or 7 small zucchini, chopped, and the leaves from about 4 lemon thyme sprigs. Let it cook until everything is fragrant and just starting to soften. Add a splash of dry vermouth, and let it boil away. Add 4 cups of chicken broth or vegetable broth and enough water to just cover the vegetables. Bring it to a boil, and then turn the heat down a touch and simmer at a low bubble until everything is tender, about 15 minutes.
Next you’ll want to purée the soup in a food processor, probably in batches, pouring it into a large bowl as it’s puréed. Chill it for several hours. When it’s cold, add a little more salt, some freshly ground black pepper, and the chopped leaves from about 5 lemon thyme sprigs. I like this soup with body but still quite pourable. If you find it too thick, thin it out with a little cold water.
Give it a taste. I found it needed a tiny drizzle of sherry wine vinegar to bring up its acidity. Your soup may not. Serve cold, garnished with a drizzle of your best olive oil and a few lemon thyme sprigs.
Recipe below: Fregola with Mussels, Ginger, Basil, and Saffron
In 1995 a cocktail bar opened in an old beauty parlor on East 14th Street. Two guys from the neighborhood approached the lady who had owned and operated the salon since the 1930s and asked her if she wanted to sell. She said yes, but under one condition, that they keep all the decor intact. They agreed. So even now when you walk in you see a lovely 1930s-through-1950s interior, including big helmet-head silver hair dryers and green-and-gold-striped walls. It is a place of beauty.
Since I live in the West Village, I’m not a regular there, but I used to go often enough when I was nearby. They made good cocktails, and you even could—and still can—get your nails done. I remember being quite ill there at some point, in a bad gin experience. They luckily did have clean bathrooms. Better than getting sick at CBGB. That was a nightmare. I went back to Beauty Bar recently after a long absence. It seems unchanged, still a nice mix of East Village types.
Step outside of Beauty Bar and look up, and you can read the words Italian Labor Center toward the top of the building. On either side of this inscription you’ll see sculptures depicting Italian immigrant families, one in obvious misery, the other appearing happy. I guess the happy family is the one that trusted its livelihood to the Italian Labor Center. The sculptor was a guy named Onorio Ruotolo, a left-winger who was well known for his political art. The building was built in 1919 and served as headquarters for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union’s Local 48, which was also known as the Italian Cloakmakers Union. It was a good old-fashioned socialist organization. Lots of strikes and protests were hatched there. Italian history, all over New York.
And speaking of Italian New York, I had just come back from Buon Italia in the Chelsea Market with a bag of Sardinian fregola. I love the stuff. It’s essentially big, handmade-looking durum wheat couscous, but toasted, so the taste is deeper and the texture pleasantly chewy. It’s wonderful with shellfish, so I came up with this summery mussel recipe that includes basil and saffron, two fairly predictable additions, but also fresh ginger, which made the whole dish really come alive.
Salt 2½ cups large fregola Extra-virgin olive oil 1 summer onion, cut into small dice, including some of the tender green stem 1 celery stalk, cut into small dice, plus a handful of the leaves, lightly chopped 1 1-inch chunk fresh ginger, minced 1 fresh peperoncino, minced (or as much as you like) About 6 or 7 sprigs of lemon thyme, the leaves lightly chopped 1½ pints grape tomatoes 1 cup dry Marsala ½ cup chicken or vegetable broth A big pinch of dried and ground saffron 1½ pounds very fresh mussels, cleaned A handful of basil leaves, lightly chopped, plus a few whole sprigs for garnish
Bring a pot of water to a boil, add salt, and throw in the fregola. Cook it until just tender, about 8 minutes, tasting it to make sure. Drain it, and pour it into a bowl. Toss with a little olive oil.
Set a large sauté pan over medium heat, and add a big drizzle of olive oil (the pan should be big enough to hold all the mussels after they’ve opened). Add the onion, the celery and its leaves, the ginger, the peperoncino, and a little salt. Sauté until everything is fragrant and softening, about 3 minutes. Add the lemon thyme, allowing its flavor open up in the heat. Add the tomatoes, and let them soften for a minute or two. Add half of the Marsala, and let it bubble a bit. Add the broth and the ground saffron, and simmer for another minute or so. Turn off the heat.
Put the mussels in a big pot. Add the rest of the dry Marsala and a little olive oil. Cook, stirring the mussels around a few times, until they open.
Turn the heat back on under the onion-celery mix to reheat it. Add the fregola and the mussels with their cooking juices, and simmer gently for a minute or so, just to warm it all through and blend the flavors. Add a drizzle of fresh olive oil and the chopped basil, and toss well. Pour everything into a large, wide serving bowl,and garnish with basil sprigs. If you have a bottle of Greco di Tufo, it will provide a wonderful accompaniment.
Dark green, gray green, and yellowy green were always good colors for me. When I was a kid I loved wearing forest green tights. Capezio made excellent ones, thick and sweaty (this was part of my own private school uniform, even though I never went to private school). I’ve got number-color synesthesia, and most greens were a number 8. Pastel greens, for some reason, were not included. They had no number.
When I take an early evening walk in the woods, I surround myself with deep green and dark green, which starts to go gray as the night moves in. Exciting. And then it all goes black, and it’s beyond time to head home. That’s when the creeping critters come out.
Broccoli, spinach, kale, and Swiss chard are dark green, and so is the dark and shiny common zucchini we find in the markets this time of year. If you poke around your farmers market now, you’ll find other things that look like zucchini, that seem like they should be zucchini.
What is commonly called Romanesco zucchini is actually a different-looking zucchini-like squash. It’s speckled light gray-green, with lighter green raised ribs. It’s also called costata Romanesco, and costata means rib in Italian. I always look for it in early June. It’s dense and not as watery as dark green zucchini. And it has actual taste. Take a bite raw and you’ll see. It’s a little nutty. It almost tastes cooked even when it’s not. I love it in a pasta sauce. It doesn’t break down into a mush, and layered in a tart, like the one I made here, it’s less likely to get the crust soggy.
Costata Romanesco at the Abingdon Square Market in the West Village.
Romanesco is a cocozelle squash, a totally different cultivar from zucchini. Cocozelle have been grown in Italy since the 1500s. Romanesco is a variety of cocozelle that became popular here around the 1990s. There are now other varieties of cocozelle grown in the U.S. by curious farmers. You might run across one called Bravada, or Cassia, or Flaminio. But Romanesco is what you’re most likely to find, and if you see it, in June or July, I really suggest you buy it.
I love marjoram with all types of zucchini and summer squash, so I went with it for this thin torta. Its flowery sharpness lifts the vegetable’s elusive flavor, making it more substantial. Onion is also important, not only for depth but also as a good glue for a flat, eggless tart. Acidic hits from lemon are often helpful with zucchini and its cousins, but I didn’t want any here. I wanted mellow, with only the slight sharpness provided by grana and a green herb.
This is a wonderful time of year for me, produce-wise. Before all the reds and purples show up in the market, we’ve got many nice shades of green to play with.
If you’d like to make this torta with regular zucchini, I’d suggest giving it a light salting and then letting it drain on paper towels for about ½ hour.
Romanesco Zucchini Tart with Mascarpone and Marjoram
For the crust:
2 cups all-purpose flour A big pinch of sea salt A few big grindings of black pepper About 1 teaspoon sugar ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil ⅓ cup dry vermouth
For the top:
Extra-virgin olive oil 1 large summer onion, thinly sliced, using all the tender green stem, too Sea salt Black pepper A few scrapings of nutmeg ½ cup of mascarpone, at room temperature A splash of milk ½ cup grated grana Padano cheese 3 medium Romanescos, sliced into very thin rounds (it’s important they be thin, since they go into the tart raw) About 6 or 7 marjoram sprigs, the leaves lightly chopped, plus some whole leaves for garnish 1 egg
To make the crust, put the flour into a food processor. Add the salt, black pepper, and sugar, and give it a few pulses, just to distribute everything. Drizzle in the olive oil and the vermouth, and pulse several times until you have a mass of damp clumps that stick together when you press them with your fingers. If it all seems too dry, add a little more vermouth and pulse again. Turn the dough out onto a work surface, and knead it a few times until it forms a ball. Wrap it in plastic, and let it sit, unrefrigerated, for at least an hour before you want to make the tart (you can let it sit all day if you like).
To start your filling, sauté the onion in a little olive oil over medium heat until it’s soft but hasn’t taken on much color. Season it with salt, black pepper, and a little nutmeg. Let it cool.
In a small bowl, whisk the mascarpone with a little milk, just to smooth it out. Add the grana Padano, and season with salt. The mixture should be thick but pourable. Add more milk if needed.
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
Rub a sheet pan with a little olive oil. On a work surface, roll the dough out into an approximately 8½-to-9-inch circle (no need to oil the work surface; the dough won’t stick). Place it on the sheet pan. Smear on the onions, leaving about an inch free all around the edge. Layer on the Romanesco in slightly overlapping circles, and season with salt and black pepper. Drizzle with a little olive oil, and scatter on the marjoram. Drizzle on the mascarpone. It doesn’t need to cover the Romanesco completely; spotty is fine. Stick the tart in the refrigerator for about 5 minutes, so it can firm up.
Drop the egg into a small bowl. Add a drizzle of water, a squirt of olive oil, salt, and a little sugar. Mix well.
Make a small, pleated edging all around the tart, and press on it lightly to make sure it stays put. The rim should be about ½ inch wide. Brush the rim with the egg wash, and stick the tart in the oven until the crust is golden and the top is set, around 15 minutes. Garnish with fresh marjoram leaves, if you like. Serve hot, warm, or room temperature. I especially like this tart with a glass of Italian rosé. The Puglian Tormaresca Rosata made from the Negroamaro grape has more body than most Provençal wines and a much deeper pink, like cranberry juice. I think, pairs well with the herbs in this tart.
Abingdon Square Park, with the bronze World War I doughboy installed in 1921.
I’m so lucky to have the small and extremely manageable Abingdon Square Greenmarket only a few steps from my apartment. It’s only open on Saturdays, but that’s great, since weekends are when Union Square gets especially hectic and pushy. This market is sweet and easy. The vendors set up all around the park, on the sidewalk, not with tons of room, but everyone seems to get with the program and shuffle through at a good pace. My favorite fish guy, Phil Karlin, and his people are there. Yesterday I picked up littleneck clams and baked them with breadcrumbs, garlic, thyme, and a shot of Pernod. So fresh and juicy. And here is some early summer produce I also grabbed:
I’m so happy to see my favorite zucchini variety, Romanesco, back for the season. Its flesh is dense, not as watery as the dark green variety, and it actually has a taste, unlike the dark green variety. I love it sautéed with onion and a splash of Marsala and then finished with basil and tossed with penne. I also, as my grandmother used to do, roast them in a hot oven and then give them a gentle marinade of summer garlic slivers, olive oil, white wine vinegar, and mint.
Here’s another summer squash. This one is a hybrid called Zephyr. It’s so beautiful, with its light green snub end. It is wonderful split and thrown on the grill and then showered with fresh marjoram. I also love it sautéed with pancetta and young leeks.
Aside from the gorgeous, fresh garlic I find in spring and summer, nothing thrills my culinary head more than all the plump aliums with their green stems attached and all of it edible. They draw me to cooking a Puglian onion torta, filled with soft onions, anchovies, and black olives, a thing sort of like a big, square calzone.
I look forward to the appearance of sour cherries in late spring every year. Their color is just amazing, so deep and shiny. A great lipstick shade for us Italian-American girls. I always make some sort of crostata with them, adding an herb, maybe thyme, that underscores their sweet-savory personality. I love their beauty in a Campari spritz. Or plopped into a Manhattan. And try roasting these cherries in a little olive oil and a splash of port and then spooning them over a grilled duck breast. And here’s another thought, why don’t you buy yourself a cherry pitter? They only cost a few bucks. Even if you only use it once a year, these things really work and make your life so much sweeter.
Recipe below, in text: Calzone with Scamorza and a Spring Herb Pesto
The word calzone doesn’t immediately make me think warm weather cooking. It reminds me more of being a broke, hungry 20-year-old, on a freezing day in downtown Manhattan, urgently needing to get hold of the most filling food I can find for the smallest amount of cash. Industrial prosciutto, dough, dripping ricotta, all in a hot, oily package. I worshipped the calzone back then. Still do, but maybe not as desperately.
National Calzone Day is November 1.
A calzone is not a thing of elegance (the word means pants leg, which kind of sums up its clunky look and feel), but as I was thinking about new dishes to make with all the herbs now exploding in my garden, I thought, why not a calzone? Why not lighten one up with fresh greenery?
My Italian parsley was growing fluffy and deep green, and it became the anchor for the pine nut–heavy pesto that got smeared inside my calzone. The rest was just Southern Italian knowhow, meaning I chose my cheeses wisely.
My parsley.
And speaking of Southern Italy, I always knew the calzone had been born in Napoli, since it’s basically a folded over pizza. It completely makes sense to me as a possibly unintended creation. I’ve inadvertently created many calzoni when shooting a pizza with a little too much force off its peel and onto the back of the oven, making a folded up but deliciously messy pocket. This may have also happened in Naples sometime in the eighteenth century, when the calzone became the perfect, self-contained street food.
In New York it was always a pizza shop option, and when a slice wasn’t enough I’d chose the calzone. In my experience, the New York versions were larger than Southern Italian ones, which is typical of Italian-American food in general, where more is somehow considered better. I certainly felt more was better as a starving 20-year-old.
For this version of calzone I went with a no-knead dough that spent an overnight in the refrigerator. It was soft but not hard to work with. I just pressed it out with my fingers into a round.
My calzones.
To make the dough, shake a package of dry yeast into a large bowl. Add a cup of warm water (110 degrees is ideal), a tablespoon of honey, and 2 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil. Give everything a stir, and let it sit and bloom. That should take around 6 minutes. The surface should be a little bubbly.
Add 2½ cups of regular flour and about a teaspoon of fine sea salt. Stir everything around with a spoon until it comes together into a sticky ball, adding a little more flour if needed to make it easier to handle. The dough will be soft. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface, and form it into a ball.
Get out another bowl, and coat it well with olive oil. Drop the dough ball into it, turning it around once or twice to coat it with oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and stick it in the refrigerator overnight and into the next day, for at least 18 hours. By then it should have doubled in size.
Turn the dough out onto a floured surface, and punch it down. Divide it into four pieces, and roll each piece into a ball. Place the balls onto a floured surface, and let them sit, unrefrigerated, for about an 1½ hours. By then they will have puffed up a bit.
In the meantime, make the pesto. You can use whatever herbs you have or like, but what I did was grab a handful of parsley and basil leaves, a smaller one of tarragon, and 2 lovage leaves, about 2 cups in all. I blanched them for about a minute in boiling water and drained and then shocked them in cold water to set their bright green color. When you’ve done that, squeeze out most of the water. If you want to include stronger herbs such as rosemary, thyme, sage, savory, or oregano, use only a little and bulk them up with basil and/or parsley.
I put a palmful of pine nuts, along with 1 spring garlic clove, into a food processor and pulsed a few times. Then I added the blanched herbs, salt, and good Sicilian olive oil (about ½ cup), processing until it was all fairly smooth.
Then I put about 2 cups of whole-milk ricotta into a bowl, added a cup of grated scamorza cheese, salt, black pepper, a few scrapings of nutmeg, and a drizzle of olive oil, mixing it all together well. If you can’t find scamorza, caciocavallo is similar and will make an excellent substitute.
About an hour before you’d like to cook your calzoni, put a pizza stone in your oven, and turn the heat up as high as it goes.
Pour about ½ cup of good olive oil into a small bowl. Add a pinch of sugar and a more generous pinch of salt. Stick a pastry brush into the bowl, and keep it nearby.
When your oven is hot, flour a work surface, and press out one of your four dough balls to about a 6- to 7-inch round. Flour your pizza peel, and transfer the dough round onto it. Smear pesto all over the dough, leaving a little rim around the edges. Blob some of the ricotta mix onto one side, smoothing it out. Fold the dough over into a half moon, and crimp the edges.
Brush the top of the calzone with the olive oil mix, and slide it on to the stone. With this method you really can bake only one at a time. Bake it until it’s golden brown. This will take about 7 or 8 minutes, depending on how hot your oven is. I like eating these just out of the oven, with a glass of dry Italian white wine, such as a Greco di Tufo. They also reheat well.
Note: If you don’t have a pizza stone, just prep each calzone on an oiled sheet pan, and stick the pan in your hot oven. The stone will give you a quicker cook time and a crunchier crust, but both ways work fine. Just leave the calzone in until it’s good and brown.
So far my herbs looks pretty good. Perennials that never acted like perennials in the past have decided to. Fennel and tarragon have reemerged for the first time ever. That is exciting. The more predictable perennials are out and doing well, too. Those would be sage, thyme, borage, oregano, rue, chives, salad burnet, mentuccia, lovage, and all my mints. Other stuff—rosemary, marjoram, parsley, summer savory—I had to plant fresh.
Fennel, top left: big and fluffy.
I have a bay laurel bush I bring indoors for the winter and out again every spring. This year when I brought it out it got attacked by gypsy moth caterpillars, but I sprayed it with something called Monterey B.t., and that seemed to help. I just hope it stays helped. I don’t want to spray it again. I get so upset when bad things happen to my herbs. My basil—Thai, Genovese, and opal—are all completely screwed, eaten down to the dirt line. I can hardly see what’s left. I tried both Neem oil and a vinegar-water mix. There’s some type of bug that I can’t see chewing on all three types. It’s making me crazy. Now I’ve decided, without knowing if it can be effective or not, to surround the basil with hot chili plants, thinking they might deter whatever or whoever is assaulting them. Desperate. If anyone out there knows of a real solution, I’d be grateful to hear about it.
My lovage seems to grow an inch an hour.
That’s it for now. I’m thinking about making a ricotta–and–spring herb calzone, maybe using parsley, marjoram, savory, basil (if it ever comes back), spring garlic, and possibly some scamorza. I’ll play around with the idea. If it comes out nice, I’ll post the recipe.
Recipe below: Gnudi with Nettles and Ricotta, Dressed with Bay Leaves and Butter
When I first started out on my cooking journey, I found myself setting up the kitchen for a bistro on 42nd Street. The place was called Chez Josephine. I was actually employed at Restaurant Florent in the Meatpacking District at the time, which would have been in 1985 or ’86, I can’t remember exactly. Back then it was still a real meatpacking district, with butchers in stained aprons and swinging carcasses on Gansevoort Street. Florent was friends with Jean-Claude Baker, an informally adopted son of Josephine Baker, who was opening the place as a tribute to his “mother.” Florent sent a few of his people over to help him out.
Jean-Claude was heavy into atmosphere, 1930s Paris, red walls and drapes, thrift shop chandeliers, unheated bathrooms, huge banana skirt paintings of his “mom.” It was a tight space, a tad oppressive, but in a cozy way. Along with Laura, another Italian American cook from Florent, I got to work figuring out a menu. Jean-Claude wanted retro—duck confit, lots of endive, frites, hunks of Roquefort, tough, bloody steaks. Laura wanted gnudi, which I had heard about but hadn’t yet cooked for myself. She showed me that it was just balls of standard ricotta-and-spinach ravioli filling, boiled up and then warmed through in either butter-and-sage or tomato sauce. Gnudi is a Tuscan specialty, named for the fact that it’s a pasta-type thing but not covered with pasta. In other words, it’s nude. I immediately understood the concept. The gnudi was a hit, blending effortlessly with all the oldie French stuff. Laura stayed on to become the chef there for a while. I went back to Florent.
So gnudi came into my life at Chez Josephine. It’s an odd dish, clunky yet elegant, a good addition to my repertoire. After my stint at Chez Josephine I made it a lot at home, until I burnt out on it. Then it disappeared from my rotation completely, until a few days ago, when, as I tried to figure out something new to make with all the nettles shooting up in my yard, a vision of nettle gnudi passed before my eyes.
It’s a springtime race with nettles. You’ve got to use them young before they go harsh. I’d already made soups, one smooth, one chunky with potatoes, and nettle fettuccine, and nettle pesto, and a nettle and spinach torta. Nettle gnudi seemed like a good idea, and it turned out be a really fine one, with a bit more depth and more sharpness than plain spinach. If you don’t have access to nettles, you can use Swiss chard leaves, or the usual spinach, or lamb’s quarters (which I see in Manhattan growing out of sidewalk cracks; maybe that stuff’s a little too pissed on, but you can also find lamb’s quarters at farmers’ markets this time of year). And since I have a bay laurel bush, I switched out the usual sage for bay leaves, with, I think, good results.
Gnudi with Nettles and Ricotta, Dressed with Bay Leaves and Butter
1 medium bunch of nettles, about 6 or 7 long stems, grabbed and cut while wearing gloves 1 ½ cups whole milk ricotta, drained if it’s watery (I used a sheep’s milk type I found at Citarella, which was was dense, with a slight tang to it; any good whole milk ricotta will be fine) 1 large egg About ½ cup regular flour, plus more for rolling ¾ cup grated grana Padano cheese, plus extra for the table A big pinch of allspice Salt and coarsely ground black pepper 1 stick unsalted butter 1 fresh garlic clove, peeled and lightly smashed 6 or 7 fresh bay leaves (not California bay)
Get a medium pot of water boiling, and add the nettles. Blanch for about 2 minutes. This will immediately take care of their stingers. Drain them, and then run cold water over them, to set their green color. Pull the leaves from the stems, and give the leaves a squeeze to remove most of the moisture. Chop the leaves well, and put them in a medium-size bowl.
Add the ricotta, egg, flour, grana Padano, allspice, and salt and pepper, and mix well, adding a little more flour if it all seems too loose. However, you’ll want to add as little flour to the mix as possible, to keep the gnudi light and tender.
Get out a large sheet pan and dust it with flour.
Flour your hands, and then, using a tablespoon, scoop out some gnudi dough and roll it into a ball in the palm of your hands. I usually wind up with balls about 1 inch across. Repeat with all the dough, putting it on your baking sheet as you go and making sure the balls don’t touch. If you keep your hands well floured the whole time you won’t have a problem with sticking. You can put them in the refrigerator if you’re not using them right away.
When you’re ready to cook the gnudi, get out a large, wide pot. A wide surface area works best so you can cook a lot of gnudi together without crowding. Fill it with well salted water and bring it to a boil.
While the water is coming to a boil, get out a medium saucepan, and set it over medium flame. Add the butter, the garlic, a little salt, and the bay leaves, and heat until everything is melted and fragrant.
Add the gnudi balls to the boiling water, and cook them, without moving them around, until they all float to the surface, about 5 minutes. When they’re all floating, scoop them from the water with a large strainer spoon, letting the water drain off, and gently place them in a large, wide bowl (they’re delicate, so be extra gentle). Pour on the bay leaf butter. Give them a few big grinds of coarse black pepper and a sprinkling of grana Padano. Serve right away.
Poppies from the Union Square Greenmarket, painted by me.
Finally the real deal (above). Tonight I’m making them with guanciale, thyme, butter, and white wine, and tossing them with penne or a shape something like that.
I didn’t buy rhubarb today, but I will soon. I love making a rhubarb compote and then folding in some whipped cream. I guess you could call that a fool.
Garlic chives are wonderful in a quick-sautéed olive oil–based pasta sauce. Maybe with shrimp?
I find lamb’s quarters growing out of the cracks in the sidewalks in Manhattan. Maybe they’re a little too dog-pissed to eat, though. I love this stuff and often include it in a wild greens mix I use for my torte. It’s got more character than spinach.
Fava leaves. They are something I’ve never tried, but the suggestion of olive oil and garlic seems right. I’m thinking maybe mix in some ceci, and grate on a little pecorino.
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 