Erica De Mane

Uncooked chicken livers and sage.

Recipes:

Lasgnette with Chicken Livers, Rosemary, and Leeks
Chicken Liver Crostini with Fig and Fennel Salad

Every fall I start thinking about how I’d love a nice plate of hot chicken livers. Creepy craving, you might think, but it’s one of my weather-and-food associations that surface every year with the first chill. I believe it has something to do with my first restaurant job and a dish the lunch chef taught me to make, something she said was a good transitional dish to ease our bodies and souls into cold weather, a French country salad. It was a frisée salad made with a mustardy dressing and topped with seared, pink-inside chicken livers that had been flamed in cognac (I remember the chef telling me that cognac or brandy was very important for flavor, and she was right; it seems to take away the livery bitterness and replace it with sweetness). I found this salad absolutely delicious, still light and summery with all its greens and coolness, but rich with hot liver nuggets. I’d never had chicken livers cooked like that before; pink and custardy inside, bordering on raw, but seared crispy. Eating this salad made me feel like an elegant, wild beast. I’d always been fascinated by my cats and the way they’d lose their minds when I brought chicken livers home, screaming, tearing at the package, clawing them and dragging them under the couch. Listening to their growling and tearing and seeing their glowing eyes, I knew they were on to something good. I thought about the other foods my cats have always loved, squid both raw and cooked, pork fat raw and cooked, sardines raw, cooked, and canned. I realized I should just look to them for culinary guidance.

Since my first cooking job, I’ve associated well-cooked chicken livers with Italian cooking, and luscious pink livers with French cooking; not exactly correct across the board, but this conception does linger. A very good dish of penne with chicken livers that I’ve ordered for years in a red-sauce place called Ralph’s on the West Side is an example of an old-fashioned but fine way of cooking these livers. Of course it includes tomatoes. I’ve played around with this marriage of ingredients at home, refining it just a little with fresh herbs, vino, better olive oil, and, most important, by cooking the livers lightly, not in the traditional, gray, ragu mince Ralph’s presented (which I loved better until I tasted the creamy, shockingly raw morsels placed on my bistro salad). I cook the livers for my pasta to a pinkness, a bit more cooked than the seared and raw salad version, but still creamy inside. I’m very happy with the results.

I understand that many people are grossed out by chicken livers, but I really encourage you to try the quick-sear method with the cognac finish; it produces a luxurious result. I also include here a recipe for the classic Tuscan chicken-liver pâté usually served on crostini. I don’t sear them raw for this, but they’re not hammered either, so the pâté is smooth and moist. This is a great mush of flavors: capers, cognac, sage, and a touch of anchovy. It’s complex and really lovely.

Lasagnette with Chicken Livers, Rosemary, and Leeks

(Serves 4 as a main course)

Extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 pound chicken livers, trimmed and cut into medium chunks
Salt
Black pepper
A pinch of sugar
A splash of cognac or brandy
2 small leeks, well rinsed and cut into small dice, using only the white and the tender green parts
1 garlic clove, thinly sliced
1 large sprig rosemary, the leaves chopped
1 allspice, ground to a powder
A splash of dry white wine
5 medium tomatoes, skinned and cut into medium dice
1 pound lasagnette pasta
A handful of flat-leaf parsley, the leaves lightly chopped
A large chunk of Pecorino Toscano cheese for grating

In a large sauté pan, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium high heat. Dry the chicken liver chunks well. When the oil is hot, add the livers, and sear until well browned on one side, about a minute. Turn and brown the other side, seasoning them with salt, black pepper, and the pinch of sugar. Add the splash of cognac or brandy, but be careful of flare-ups. If you wind up with a high flame, turn off the heat and just let the alcohol burn off slowly. Remove the livers from the pan (they should still be pink in the centers). Add 2 tablespoons of fresh olive oil and the leeks, and sauté until softened. Add the garlic, the rosemary, and allspice, and sauté a minute longer. Add the splash of white wine, and let it bubble a few seconds. Add the tomatoes, and simmer for about 6 minutes.

Cook the lasagnette al dente, drain, and pour into a large, warmed serving bowl. Drizzle with olive oil, scatter on the parsley, and give it a toss.

Add the livers back to the sauce just to warm them through. Taste for seasoning, adding more salt or black pepper if needed. Pour the sauce over the pasta and toss gently. Grate on a little Pecorino and serve hot, bringing the rest of the cheese to the table.

Chicken Liver Crostini with Fig and Fennel Salad

Serves 4 as a first course or a light lunch)

For the crostini:

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1/2 pound chicken livers, trimmed
1 medium shallot, thinly sliced
1 garlic clove, thinly sliced
Salt
Black pepper
A splash of cognac
A splash of sweet Marsala
A palmful of capers
3 anchovy fillets, chopped
4 sage leaves, chopped
1 baguette, cut into thin rounds (you’ll need 12 slices)

For the salad:

1 medium head chicory or frisée, torn into small pieces
1 shallot, thinly sliced
1/2 a bulb fennel, thinly sliced
8 fresh figs, either green- or black-skinned, cut in half
1 teaspoon Spanish sherry vinegar
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Salt
Black pepper
A palmful of capers for garnish

To make the crostini:

In a medium skillet, heat the olive oil and over medium-high heat. Dry the livers well, and place them in the hot skillet. Sear them on one side, and then give them a flip. Add the shallot and garlic, and season with salt and black pepper. When the livers are browned on the second side, add the cognac and let it burn off, being careful of the flame. Add the Marsala, and let that bubble away. Add the capers and anchovies, and give everything a good stir. By now the livers should be cooked to a perfect pinkness. Turn off the heat and let them sit in the skillet for about a minute. Transfer the livers with all the skillet juices to a food processor. Add the sage, and pulse until you have a fairly smooth paste. Transfer to a bowl, and taste for seasoning, adding more salt or black pepper, if needed. Press a piece of plastic wrap over the paste to prevent it from darkening. You can make this a day ahead and refrigerate it, but make sure to return it to room temperature before serving.

To make the salad:

Place the chicory or frisée, figs, shallot, and fennel in a salad bowl. Whisk the vinegar, mustard, and olive oil together, and season with salt and black pepper. Pour this over the salad and toss. Divide the salad up onto four plates.

To serve:

Toast the baguette slices on both sides and spoon a generous amount of the chicken-liver paste on each one. Place three crostini around each salad and garnish with the capers. Serve right away.

Squashes at the Greenmarket in early autumn.

Recipes:

Pàppa al Pomodoro with Marjoram Pesto
Fall Minestrone with Veal Shank, Pumpkin, and Gremolata

At some point during the first few months of my first restaurant cooking job, I was assigned to make the soup. Every day the chef would dump a load of vegetables at my station, and I was supposed to “do something with them.” This became the torment of my life, the thing that gave me bad dreams. One day while I was cooking up a huge pot of onion soup, a blood-soaked Band-Aid on my middle finger seemed to disappear. Sheer panic took charge. I kept fishing around for it with my ladle and then with a strainer. I had about 20 minutes before dinner, and making another pot was absolutely out of the question. And to make matters worse, I was supposed to be finishing up another soup, a pumpkin purée, at the same time, but it was shaping up to taste really boring and I had no idea how to fix it. I prayed that the Band-Aid had fallen on the floor, but somehow I knew it hadn’t. In retrospect, 20 years later, I know I should have told the chef, and he would have just said dump it and forget it, but I was timid and scared of that kitchen at the time, so I just gave the onion soup a good boil, hoping it would destroy my cooties, and sent it out. Continue Reading »

Buddy examines a cauliflower torta.

Recipes:

Pappardelle with Cauliflower, Saucisson à l’Ail, and Basil
Cauliflower Sautéed with Anchovies, Parsley, and Bread Crumbs
Cauliflower Torta with Pecorino and Pine Nuts

I am ill-equipped organizationally to run a restaurant, at least the type of restaurant that, in this country, could turn a profit-or stay in business for six months-but if I could have the place of my dreams, it would be similar to some of the rundown but elegant trattorie I’ve eaten at in Southern Italy, away from the Amalfi Coast, closer to the dry, ancient, earthquake-racked inland town in Campania where my grandmother was born. Continue Reading »

Lemon verbena at the Union Square Greenmarket.

Recipes:

Roasted Peppers with Lemon Verbena Olive Oil
Grilled Chicken with Lemon Verbena, Green Olives, and Summer Garlic
Peaches with Lemon Verbena and White Wine

Do yourself a favor and bring a big bunch of fresh lemon verbena into your kitchen. This is an herb that smells and tastes like the world’s most fragrant lemon, very pure and direct, with no underlying hints of anything deeper, unlike, say, basil with its fennel, anise, and mint tones. Lemon verbena is strong. It makes a gorgeous sorbet. I like to just stick my whole face in a big bunch and sniff it in. It’s wonderful with just about any peach or apricot dessert, but I also love it as a flavoring with savory dishes, sprinkled over grilled chicken or stuffed inside a whole fish for roasting. I make a little lemon olive oil by mixing chopped lemon verbena, lemon juice, zest, and olive oil, and letting it all sit for about a half hour to develop flavor. Try it drizzled over seared tuna or swordfish. I’ve made little lamb meatballs, working mint and lemon verbena into them, and then cooked them quickly on a hot grill. I’ve also thrown whole branches of it into my hot bath (not the meatballs, just the herb). And just for your information, L’Occitane has an entire line of lemon verbena-scented soaps and lotions and fragrances that really capture the aroma perfectly. If you’re ever down in the dumps, try sipping a gin and tonic flavored with lemon verbena leaves while squirting L’Occitane’s lemon verbena cologne all over your neck. You will drive almost all your troubles away. Continue Reading »

Tristar strawberries at the Union Square Greenmarket.

Recipes:

Strawberry and Watercress Salad with Pine Nuts and Chives
Strawberry Salad with Goat Cheese, Black Olives, and Basil
Frittata with Strawberries and Ricotta

I’ve enjoyed many highs, both natural and wine-induced, in Rome, my favorite city in the world. Culinary adventure has for many years been at the center of my life, and I try to scrape enough funds together to go back to Italy as often as I can. I’ve had the great fortune to be in Rome in the Spring when their fragoline di bosco, little strawberries cultivated from a wild variety, are in season. We stay at a hotel in the Aventino, one of the hills just outside downtown. Down the hill, in the Testaccio neighborhood, there’s a family-style trattoria with a boho edge to it called Cestia that I love. It’s right near the Protestant Cemetery, where John Keats and Gregory Corso are buried, and very close to the Pyramid of Cestius, built in 30 B.C. (hence the name of the restaurant), a still shockingly out-of-place structure even after I’ve gaped at it for many years. Continue Reading »

Baby Yukon Gold Potato Salad with Tarragon, White Wine, and Shallots

Recipes:

Baby Yukon Gold Salad with Tarragon, White Wine, and Shallots
Red Bliss Potato Salad with Anchovies and Celery Leaves
Creamer Potato Salad with String Beans, Basil, and Pine Nuts
Fingerling Potato Salad with Capers, Red Onion, and Rosemary
Baby Yukon Gold Potato Salad with Marjoram, Roasted Tomatoes, and Summer Garlic
Red Bliss Potato Salad with Pancetta and Purslane

Today I reaffirmed my love of my own potato salads by making another of my olive-oil-based ones, this one seasoned with just shallots and tarragon. I know it sounds haughty, but hardly anyone I know makes potato salads as good as mine. Did I say that? But I have worked out a simple fragrance-producing technique that’s open to all sorts of improvisational touches, and if I keep the ingredients down to a minimum, the results always seem to please me very much.

My technique turns out clean potato salads in the Mediterranean tradition. Wine, lemon, and extra-virgin olive oil are my base flavors, the ones that produce the salads’ fragrant underpinnings. I usually start by dressing warm potatoes with wine and giving them a toss. Then comes olive oil, and maybe some lemon. Then I move on to my improvisations, which can include garlic, all sorts of onion things, and herbs or greens. I may then include stronger touches, including anchovies, capers, or pancetta. But that’s about as complicated as I get. I like to taste the waxy little potatoes through my simple seasonings.

I have to admit I didn’t start out loving potato salads. Not until I began making them myself. I grew up on New York deli potato salads, usually with mayonnaise, sometimes with hard-boiled eggs too, and often with chopped pickles. They were mushy and mayonnaisy and seemed gross. Even the “German” versions were peculiar, if slightly better, with bacon and paprika, but they were usually way too vinegary for me.

Where were the potato salads of my dreams? I knew they were out there, but not until I picked up Hemingway’s A Movable Feast when I was in high school and read his description of the oil-soaked, dripping bowls of potato salad he’d wolfed down with cold beers at the Brasserie Lipp in Paris did I begin to feel I’d been really gypped. After that enlightening read I began researching the subject, primarily in French cookbooks (and in a few Italian ones too), and I found loads of recipes for boiled potatoes tossed with good olive oil, a shallot, a few herbs. That was the taste I had been looking for.

It’s funny, though, because I knew that somewhere in my taste memory this type of dish was familiar to me. Eventually I realized why. My grandmother had used to make potatoes this way all the time, serving them at room temperature, sometimes with onion or garlic, with bits of anchovy or capers, or with parsley, oregano, or basil, but since nobody ever referred to that as a salad it never occurred to me that the object of my desire had been staring me right in the face. What I was looking for was already mine. I just had to bring it back into my life. This revelation occurred many years ago, but these potato salads are still a huge favorite of mine, especially in the summer with all the just-dug little potatoes at the Greenmarket.

So now that I’ve come full circle and sorted it all out, I offer you a few of the potato salad improvisations I’ve been coming up with lately, all based on summer produce. Use my Baby Yukon Gold Salad with Tarragon, White Wine, and Shallots as a master recipe. All the subsequent recipes are just variations, using the same basic technique as the first one.

Baby Yukon Gold Potato Salad with Tarragon, White Wine, and Shallots

(All the recipes serve 4, or 5 as a side dish)

2 pounds small Yukon gold potatoes, cut in half lengthwise
Salt
1/4 cup dry white wine
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
A squeeze of fresh lemon juice
2 small shallots, very thinly sliced
Freshly ground black pepper
A few scrapings of nutmeg
10 good size tarragon sprigs, the leaves lightly chopped

The most important step in preparing any of these potato salads is the cooking of the potatoes. Put them in a medium-size pot and cover them with cool water about 2 inches above them. Add a generous sprinkling of salt, and bring to a boil over high heat. Lower the heat just slightly, and let the potatoes boil, uncovered, until they’re just tender when poked with a sharp knife. Try not to cook them any longer or their skins will start to fall off and the potatoes themselves will fall apart. I like them to retain a firm, waxy texture. They also look very pretty smooth, uncrumbling, and glistening with their dressing. Most small potatoes cut in half, like the kinds I suggest for these salads, take about 5 to 6 minutes of boiling, but check after 4 minutes. When they start to smell like potatoes, you know they’re almost there.

Drain the potatoes in a colander until fairly dry (without shaking them, since that can break them up), and transfer them to a large serving bowl. Pour on the white wine, and toss gently. Let the warm potatoes sit soaking up the wine for about 2 or 3 minutes (pour off any excess). Drizzle on the olive oil and the squeeze of lemon juice. Add the shallots, nutmeg, black pepper, and tarragon, and give them another gentle toss. Taste to see if they need more salt. Serve warm or at room temperature. This sort of potato salad is best made not too long before serving and not refrigerated. I love this tarragon-flavored salad served with grilled or roasted chicken (and the chicken maybe seasoned with a little mustard and a bit of tarragon or parsley).

Red Bliss Potato Salad with Anchovies and Celery Leaves

Cook two pounds of red bliss potatoes (or any other small red potatoes) as in the above recipe, and drain. Place them in a serving bowl and toss with a teaspoon of sherry wine vinegar, two tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil, four or five chopped anchovy fillets, one thinly sliced shallot, a handful of chopped celery leaves, and a few chopped thin, inner celery stalks. Season with a bit of cayenne or Aleppo pepper, and toss. You probably won’t need any extra salt. Serve warm or at room temperature. This salad is great alongside an oily fish. Try grilled sardines or mackerel or bluefish, possibly baked with chopped tomatoes and white wine.

Creamer Potato Salad with String Beans, Basil, and Pine Nuts

Cook two pounds of small creamer potatoes (or another small beige potato) as in the recipe at top, and drain. Place them in a serving bowl, and add a teaspoon of lemon juice, two tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil, a small, minced summer garlic clove, two chopped scallions, and a handful of blanched string beans. Season with a pinch of salt and black pepper, and toss gently. Add a handful of basil, cut into thin strips, and a scattering of toasted pine nuts. Toss again. Serve warm or at room temperature. The last time I made this I served it with tuna steaks, grilled rare, sliced, and dressed with lemon zest and olive oil.

Fingerling Potato Salad with Capers, Red Onion, and Rosemary

Cold arugula and leek soup with lemon olive oil.

Recipes:

Zucchini Soup with Basil Oil and Pistachio
Asparagus Soup with Tarragon and Whipped Goat Cheese
Cold Arugula and Leek Soup with Lemon Olive Oil

At the beginning of my cooking career, I went on a kick of making puréed soups in my mother’s old blender (the same one my parents used for whiskey sours). I thought puréed soups were very fancy, because we didn’t have them at home. They weren’t standard Southern Italian fare, and they were smooth and elegant, what I then thought of as French, so different from the thick, lumpy, chunky soups we ate, the ones filled with little pasta shapes, beans, cheese, and whatever vegetables were on hand, your basic Italian-American minestrone. (My smooth soup era coincided with my fettuccine Alfredo kick, and I ate so much of that then that it’s now, even 30 years later, something I can no longer stand the smell of). Continue Reading »

Sardinian artichokes, spring 2005.

Recipes:

Spring Minestrone with Lamb, Tarragon, and Quadrucci
Artichokes with Squid, Potatoes, and Fennel Seed
Chicken with Morels, Coriander, and Nutmeg

I recently started a collection of little tagine-like spice jars (see my April photo) in deep, bold enameled colors, which are not spring colors. I’ve picked these pretty little containers up at various Moroccan shops in the city. I really can’t tell you what the connection might be to politics or to misery, but they’ve strangely gotten my mind somewhat off of the continuing death in Iraq. These little mini-tagines have even been appearing in my dreams, and in their true colors, purple, orange, deep red, replacing, to some extent, the mutilated-body nightmares I was experiencing. Dreaming about them and filling them with spices and looking at them have helped me to turn my attention to May cooking in a big way and retain a somewhat cheerful disposition, even as the spoiled brats in charge of our government have me in a state of rage. I understand this is me changing the subject, but I’ve attended a few antiwar protests in the past two years, have gathered with the 80 or so people who assemble in Union Square every few months (and their number won’t grow any bigger, I’m certain, unless Bush reinstates the draft), and I get a sinking, helpless feeling, so I might as well cook my way through the heartache. Continue Reading »

Aleppo pepper from Syria, Ravida’s Sicilian sea salt, and Maras Biber Turkish pepper, all from Kalustyan’s.

Recipes:

Veal Stew with Saffron, Basil, and Hedgehog Mushrooms
Linguine with Cockles, Saffron, and Rosemary
Orange Salad with Vanilla, Orange Flower Water, and Mint
Ciambella with Rosemary, Orange, and Vanilla

There’s a Middle Eastern and Indian grocery store on the East Side of Manhattan in the Twenties called Kalustyan’s (the area is referred to as Curry Hill, since it’s near Murray Hill and is loaded with Indian restaurants and shops). It’s a longish but scenic walk from my apartment, and I go there often, usually to buy things like Turkish pine nuts, Aleppo pepper, saffron, rose-water candies, or fresh dates on their stalks flown in from California (if you’ve never tasted a fresh date, you really should find a way to try one; they’re smooth and glossy skinned, but oozy and sweet inside; however, you’ll have to wait until late summer, when they’re in season). Often I stop into Kalustyan’s just to inhale the aroma of the packets of ground Indian and Middle Eastern spices (and to admire their gorgeous burnished colors, especially the various red hues of the dried peppers). This almost always perks me up when I’ve got a lagging culinary spirit, or just a messed up head in general. Continue Reading »

Florida oranges and me.

Recipes:

Orange Sorbetto with Vanilla and Rosemary
Mussels with Orange, Vanilla, Cream, and Rosemary
Lamb Stew with Orange, Rosemary, and Black Olives

Several years ago I jotted down a line in the food notebook I keep on my computer. I wrote, “Think about orange salad with vanilla and rosemary.” This was a dish that caught my attention as I flipped through Daniel Boulud’s Café Boulud Cookbook. A strange mix of flavors, I thought at the time. Then I wrote, “LOOK INTO THIS,” all in capitals. But the thought just sat there on my computer, slightly threatening with its upper-case verve, unexplored until this January, when my mother sent me a box of honeybell oranges from Florida. Continue Reading »