Erica De Mane

For the past several summers, my husband and I (and usually a friend or two) have been spending occasional weekends in Ulster County in Upstate New York, renting small rooms at a simple inn that happens to be on green, open land with a large pond at one end of the property and a lively stream near the house. There’s no kitchen in our rooms, but my determination to cook summer meals and eat outside drives me into high-gear improvisation mode, using a small Weber charcoal grill, mostly local ingredients, and a few fancy bottles of Italian condiments I bring up from the city, mainly good olive oil, capers, anchovies, and olives. And my need to rise above the primitive has led to some beautiful meals (and also, at least in the beginning, to a few out-of-control evenings full of flames, drunkenness, and not much edible food). Grilling is, for the most part, something I’ve realized I need to really focus on when I’m doing it.Even when you concentrate, grilling is never a sure thing. There are always variables that prevent you from having complete control over your heat. You need to just accept this, and be flexible when surprises occur. I spend a lot of time moving pieces of meat or fish from a hot flame area to a low-heat part of the grill and back, or tempering grease flare-ups with a spray bottle of water, or covering the grill for a few moments. One thing I’ve begun to learn from my bare-bones streamside grilling is patience. Waiting for the fire to burn down to a nice glow is highly recommended. Roaring flames can be exciting, but they’re actually useless for cooking. I do get anxious waiting for the coals to settle, especially if I realize it’s getting dark and soon I’ll be unable to see what I’m doing (the area is usually lit with only a few bug candles), but if I can occupy myself with a little wine, or by identifying bird songs, or waiting for the bats to start coming out and swooping down near the grill, I can pleasantly pass the time until the coals are ready. With beautifully orange-blue coals, you have a much better chance of avoiding the charred-black-but-raw grill syndrome, which can be infuriating.

For me the most important ingredient in grill cooking is olive oil. Everything, meat, fish, vegetables, and even fruit, gets bathed in it. I use two types, a supermarket oil for whatever gets thrown on the grill, and an estate-bottled extra-virgin oil, often one of my favorite Sicilian brands like Ravida, for salads and for drizzling raw over cooked food. I also keep on hand Sicilian sea salt, a good pepper grinder, lemons, and an assortment of fresh herbs, which can elevate a simple grilled fish or chicken into a dish with the aroma and aura of romantic Mediterranean al fresco dining, which is really what my grill fantasy is all about.

The only real drawback I’ve experienced to this lovely streamside idyll is that last summer during one of my lethargic attempts at out-of-city jogging, I got chased down a quiet country road, for quite a long, isolated stretch, by a black bear. I was truly horrified and later discovered that I’d been clenching my jaw so tightly during what seemed like the race for my life that I had shattered two back teeth. I spat them out into a wineglass at the bar my husband took me to to try and calm my nerves. A five-minute bear chase seems like an eternity (although it’s an excellent workout), and with no cars or people in sight, I really wasn’t sure how or when the episode would end. I knew there was a house coming up, and when I thought I was just about to approach it, I turned to check on the bear, and to my amazement he was suddenly plopped down in the middle of the road just staring at me. A few seconds later I saw him lumbering back into the woods. Jesus. Aside from the bear, the only other problem with this summer arrangement has been having to wash all the dishes in a bathtub.

The recipes here are a bit more freewheeling than my usual, since that seems to be the nature of barbecue cooking. I’ve left ingredient amounts loose, though I have given specific weights for fish and meat. All the dishes feed four.

Happy summer cooking!

See the following menus and their accompanying recipes, posted on the days following this essay:

A Jumbo Shrimp Barbecue

Raw Cremini, Pecorino, and Celery Salad
Grilled Jumbo Shrimp with Sea Salt, Orange Zest, and Mint
Blackberries with Sweet Wine and Basil

Trout on the Grill

New York State Trout Wrapped in Pancetta and Filled with Sage
Grilled Asparagus and Scallions with Capers
Green Salad with Sorrel
Pecorino with Wildflower Honey

A Dinner of Skillet-Grilled Mussels and Sweet Strawberries

Ricotta with Black Olives and Thyme
Bruschetta
Avocado, Tomato, and Red Onion Salad with Anchovies
Skillet-Grilled Mussels with White Wine, Tarragon, and Shallots
Strawberries with White Wine and Vanilla

A Grilled Calamari and Couscous Dinner

Grill-Roasted Black Olives with Garlic and Thyme
Grilled Calamari with Pomodoro Crudo and Couscous
Grilled Figs with Caciocavallo

Tuna Spiedini and Corn on the Grill

Tuna Spiedini with a Fennel Marinade
Green Tomato Salad with Mozzarella, Pine Nuts and Basil
Grilled Corn on the Cob
Peaches with Red Wine

A Dinner of Grilled Lamb and Eggplant

Lamb Spiedini with Peppers, Savory, and Ricotta Salata on Herb Salad
Grilled Eggplant Salad
Grilled Plums with Grappa and Mascarpone

Grilled Sausages and Summer Cantaloupe

Italian Sausages with Grilled Grapes and Rosemary
Grilled Zucchini a Scapece
Potato Salad with Summer Garlic
Cantaloupe with Sweet Marsala

Recipes:

Asparagus Soup with Basil-Almond Pesto
Asparagus with Tarragon-Caper Oil
Asparagus, Fennel, and Spring Onion Salad
Roasted Asparagus with Tomatoes and Gaeta Olives
Spaghetti with Asparagus, Leeks, Prosciutto, and Thyme
Asparagus with Parmigiano, Lemon, and Cream
Asparagus with Scallops, Pine Nuts, and Tomato Saffron Vinaigrette

In the spring, when asparagus is in season in Italy, everybody eats it in every way imaginable, constantly, at every meal, in restaurants, at home, until they’re sick to death of looking at it and smelling it. With their inborn respect for the flow of the seasons, Italian cooks feel a frantic rush to have seasonal produce as often and in as many ways as possible. This philosophy is, I believe, one of the reasons Italian cooking is so direct, so driven. It’s the working and reworking of a theme that leads Italian cooks to create.

In Italy you find cultivated asparagus like we have here, but the wild variety, dark green and skinny as reeds, is a springtime delicacy I’ve especially liked in Sicily. With its spicy taste, it makes an intense, elegant soup, and it’s heaven tossed with pasta. I’ve found that if I use my really fresh local asparagus and add a bit of lemon zest and a few sprigs of thyme, I taste a hint of the wild asparagus I remember from Sicily.

Many years ago I rented a house out in Riverhead, Long Island, with a bunch of friends. It was an old duck farm with dilapidated barns and a large vegetable garden tended by a caretaker we inherited from the owner. The caretaker was getting old, and after a few years we needed to deal with the garden ourselves. It quickly turned into an unruly mess, since we were more interested in drinking and trying on the old landlady’s clothes than in harvesting corn. But the asparagus patch reawoke every spring, despite our neglect, and it produced, I suppose because of our neglect, asparagus of wildly varied thicknesses and lengths, some squat and thick as a thumb, others long and reedy, reminiscent of the wild variety. What asparagus we were able to gather was not really presentable as a table vegetable, but it made a beautiful puréed soup, with a taste and color somewhat like that of wild asparagus. The patch got progressively more out of hand, and no one had a clue what to do about it. If I had been forty instead of in my twenties when I rented that house, the asparagus might have had a chance. I hope whoever’s there now has a more mature attitude toward their asparagus patch and has returned it to its former glory.

In New York our local asparagus becomes available around early May and lasts for about two months. A few months before that I start seeing very good California asparagus in the supermarket, and I always serve it at Easter dinner. (Most of the uniform-looking asparagus you find in winter is from Peru. I never buy it, not only because it has little taste, but because I don’t even start to think about asparagus until around April.) I go a little wild, in true Italian spirit, when the first local asparagus appears, reaching into my bag of Southern Italian flavors for inspiration. I have found, after cooking the vegetable every which way, that I’m starting to like a bolder approach to its flavoring, something I previously rejected, having viewed it as essentially delicate. In fact asparagus has a pronounced flavor. You know that from the way it surges through your body and dramatically releases its aroma as it exits.

I’m no longer averse to pairing asparagus with acidy tomatoes, black olives, capers, lemon zest, and strong herbs like marjoram, tarragon, and thyme. When I was a kid my family always put aside the olive oil and dressed asparagus with melted butter, thinking it deserved something finer than their everyday olive oil, but asparagus is a robust vegetable with a slight bitter edge, a flavor well loved in Italy and a perfect match for a fruity olive oil.

A note about peeling asparagus: Thick spears can have tough skins, and I’m lately in the habit of peeling them. I however never peel them completely, since doing so leaves them too floppy after cooking; I instead stripe them with three or four long scrapes of a vegetable peeler, leaving lines of dark green that look pretty and leave the stalks firm.

Here are a number of asparagus recipes I’ve been working on recently, ones that reflect my new approach to seasoning. (There are also other asparagus recipes on this Web site’s archives: Asparagus and Burrata Salad with Dandelions (Easter 2004). Asparagus with Poached Eggs and Olivata (Spring 2002). Cavatelli with Shrimp and Asparagus Purée; Asparagus Gratin with Parmigiano and Orange; Toasted Panini with Asparagus, Prosciutto, and Mozzarella (Spring 2001). Tagliatelle with Asparagus, Orange Zest, and Ramps; Spaghetti with Asparagus, Zucchini Blossoms, and Eggs (Spring 2000).)

Asparagus Soup with Basil-Almond Pesto

Basil is a perfect herb to go with asparagus. Both taste a little spicy and just a touch bitter. I love the way the cool pesto melts into the hot soup, blending the two flavors.

(Serves 4)

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 small Vidalia onion, thinly sliced
1 medium all-purpose potato, peeled and cut into small chunks
A pinch of cayenne
A pinch of sugar
3 dozen medium-size asparagus spears, the tough ends removed, the stalks peeled and roughly chopped
3 small thyme sprigs, the leaves chopped
Salt
A splash of dry vermouth
Zest of 1/2 lemon

For the pesto:

About a cup of loosely packed basil leaves
3 small thyme sprigs, the leaves only
1 small garlic clove, peeled
1/2 cup whole, blanched almonds
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Salt

First, make the soup. In a large soup pot, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium flame. Add the onion, potato, and a pinch each of cayenne and sugar. Sauté until the onion is soft and fragrant, about 6 minutes. Add the asparagus, thyme, and a little salt. Sauté a few minutes more, just until the asparagus is coated with flavor and is starting to loose its rawness. Add the splash of vermouth and let it boil away. Add 3 cups of warm water, and bring the soup to a boil. Continue to cook at a medium boil until both the asparagus and potato are tender, about 10 to 12 minutes. Add the lemon zest.

Purée the soup in a food processor and pour it back into a pot. Stir in a tablespoon of fresh olive oil. If the soup is too thick, add a little more water.

Next make the pesto. Bring a small pot of water to a boil. Add the basil and thyme and blanch for about 30 seconds. Scoop the herbs from the pot and run them under cold water. This will set their color so the pesto doesn’t turn murky as it sits. Squeeze as much water from the herbs as you can. Put the almonds and garlic in the bowl of a food processor and grind to a rough chop. Add the herbs and the olive oil and a generous pinch of salt and pulse several times, just until you have a not-too-smooth paste. Transfer to a small bowl.

When you’re ready to serve, reheat the soup gently, if necessary, and ladle it into soup bowls. Top each bowl with a small dollop of pesto.

Asparagus with Tarragon-Caper Oil

I often boil or steam asparagus and dress it with an oil I’ve flavored. Here I mix orange zest (a good flavor marriage for asparagus), capers, and tarragon into one of my best olive oils, and then I gently heat everything together until the oil is infused with flavor.

(Serves 4 as a first course or side dish)

2 dozen thick asparagus spears, the tough ends trimmed and the stalks peeled
1/3 cup fruity extra-virgin olive oil (such as Ravida)
1 garlic clove, very thinly sliced
Zest of 1 small orange
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
A handful of salt-packed capers, soaked in cool water for about 1/2 hour, rinsed, and drained
5 small tarragon sprigs, the leaves lightly chopped

Bring a large pot of water to a boil, and blanch the asparagus in the boiling water until tender, about 3 to 4 minutes depending on its thickness. Scoop it out with a large strainer spoon and drain it on paper towels. Lay it out on a serving platter and sprinkle it lightly with salt and black pepper.

Pour the olive oil into a small saucepan. Add the garlic and orange zest. Turn the heat to low and gently warm the olive oil until it just starts to boil at the edges, about 4 minutes.

Turn the heat off under the olive oil and add the capers, the tarragon, and a pinch of salt. Spoon the hot oil over the asparagus. Serve right away.

Asparagus, Fennel, and Spring Onion Salad

Asparagus and bulb fennel, as I only recently discovered, go very well together. I first improvised this salad in early April this year, before local asparagus was available in New York. I had a yearning for spring tastes, so I made this with California asparagus and a juicy spring onion I found at my supermarket. It raised my spirits.

(Serves 4)

A dozen thick asparagus spears, trimmed and peeled
2 small fennel bulbs, trimmed and very thinly sliced
1 small spring onion, very thinly sliced (or about 3 scallions, thinly sliced)
A handful of basil leaves, lightly chopped
A medium-size bunch of arugula, stemmed
A small chunk of Pecorino cheese (one that isn’t too sharp and aged is best)

For the dressing:

Zest and juice of 1/2 lemon
About 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (I use a good estate oil for this)
A pinch of sugar
A pinch of grated nutmeg
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Blanch the asparagus for about 4 minutes, or just until it is tender (when it starts smelling like asparagus, it’s usually cooked enough). Drain it into a colander and run cold water over it to preserve its green color (or, if you really want, put it in a large pot of cold water with ice cubes floating in it, like they do in restaurants). Drain the asparagus and slice it on an angle into approximately 1-inch pieces.

Place the asparagus, sliced fennel, sliced onion, and basil in a medium salad bowl. Set up four salad plates, and arrange a small bunch of arugula leaves on each one.

In a small bowl, mix together all the ingredients for the dressing. Taste for a good balance of lemon and olive oil, adjusting if necessary. Pour the dressing over the asparagus and toss gently. Place the asparagus salad on the arugula on the four plates. Top each salad with a few shavings of Pecorino, and serve right away.

Roasted Asparagus with Tomatoes and Gaeta Olives

When you roast asparagus its flavor intensifies, and it can stand up to a bold sauce like this one, which is made with tomatoes, black olives, and garlic. It’s excellent served with leg of lamb, yielding a Mediterranean take on a classic springtime dinner.

(Serves 4 or 5 as a first course or side dish)

2 dozen fairly thick asparagus spears, the tough ends trimmed and the stalks peeled
Extra-virgin olive oil
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 pint sweet cherry tomatoes, stemmed
1 garlic clove, very thinly sliced
A splash of sweet Marsala wine
A small handful of Gaeta olives, pitted and cut in half
3 small sprigs marjoram, the leaves lightly chopped, plus a few whole sprigs for garnish

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Lay the asparagus out on a sheet pan, and drizzle it with enough olive oil to coat it well. Sprinkle on some salt and black pepper, and toss it with your fingers until all the seasonings are well distributed. Roast the asparagus until it is tender, fragrant, and just starting to brown a bit at the tips, about 15 minutes.

While the asparagus is roasting, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet over high heat. When the skillet is hot, add the cherry tomatoes and sear them, shaking them around some, until they just start to burst, about 4 minutes. Add the garlic and continue cooking about a minute longer. Add the Marsala and let it boil away. Take the skillet from the heat and add the olives, marjoram, a little salt, and a few grindings of black pepper. Toss well.

Place the asparagus on a warmed serving platter and spoon the tomato sauce across the middle of it. Garnish with the marjoram sprigs. Serve hot.

Spaghetti with Asparagus, Leeks, Prosciutto, and Thyme

Asparagus and prosciutto make a beautiful flavor combination. The thyme and leeks round out the dish, and it ends up with surprising depth of flavor for so few ingredients.

(Serves 5 or 6 as a first course or 4 as a main course)

Salt
About 20 thick asparagus spears, trimmed and peeled
1 pound spaghetti
Extra-virgin olive oil
4 leeks, well cleaned, trimmed, and cut into thin rounds, using the white part and only the tenderest green
A tiny pinch of ground allspice
Freshly ground black pepper
4 large sprigs thyme, the leaves lightly chopped
A splash of dry white wine
1/2 cup chicken broth (low-salt canned is fine)
4 thin slices of prosciutto, well chopped
6 large sprigs of flat leaf parsley, the leaves lightly chopped
A chunk of Pecorino cheese for grating (a mild Sardinian one is best; Pecorino Romano is a bit strong for this dish)

Bring a large pot of water, enough to cook the spaghetti in, to a boil. Don’t put in the spaghetti. Add a generous amount of salt and drop in the asparagus. Blanch it for about 2 minutes, just to take the raw edge off it. Scoop it from the water into a colander with a large strainer spoon. Run cold water over it to stop the cooking and to bring up its color. Drain well and then slice it on an angle into approximately 1/4-inch sections.

Bring the water back to a boil.

Heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the leeks. Season with the allspice, black pepper, and a pinch of salt, and sauté until the leeks are tender and soft, about 6 minutes.

Put the spaghetti in the boiling water.

Add the asparagus and the thyme to the skillet with the leeks, and sauté a minute longer, just to coat it all with flavor. Add a splash of white wine and let it boil away. Add the chicken broth and simmer, uncovered, for about 5 minutes, to blend all the flavors and to finish cooking the asparagus.

When the spaghetti is al dente, drain it, saving about 1/2 cup of the cooking water. Transfer the spaghetti to a large, warmed serving bowl. Add a generous drizzle of olive oil, the chopped prosciutto, and parsley, and give it a toss. Add the asparagus-and-leeks mixture and toss again, adding a tiny bit of the spaghetti cooking water, if needed to loosen it all up. Taste for seasoning, adding a bit more salt and a few gratings of fresh black pepper. Grate on a tablespoon or so of the Pecorino, give the spaghetti a final toss, and bring it to the table with the remaining chunk of Pecorino for anyone who would like more cheese.

Asparagus with Parmigiano, Lemon, and Cream

This lemon, Parmigiano, and cream sauce was a taste I first encountered several years ago in Rome, where it was served to me tossed with fettuccine; it’s an intense and refreshing sauce that I’ve discovered tastes wonderful drizzled over asparagus.

(Serves 4 as a first course or a side dish)

About 2 dozen asparagus spears, the tough ends trimmed and the stalks peeled
3/4 cup heavy cream
Zest of 2 lemons
1/2 cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, plus a tablespoon more
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Blanch the asparagus until it’s just tender, about 3 minutes. Using tongs, pull it from the water, drain it well in a colander, and pat it dry. Lay it out in a shallow baking dish.

In a small saucepan, heat the cream at a medium temperature until it starts to boil. Lower the heat and simmer until it is reduced by about 1/2. Add the lemon zest and simmer about 3 minutes longer.

Turn on the broiler. Turn the heat off under the cream and add the Parmigiano, stirring well to blend it. Add a pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper. Pour the sauce over the asparagus, and sprinkle the tablespoon of Parmigiano evenly over the top. Broil about 5 inches from the heat source until the top is very lightly browned, about 3 minutes. Serve hot.

Asparagus with Scallops, Pine Nuts, and Tomato Saffron Vinaigrette

Asparagus makes a delicious bed for seafood. Here I lay on it sautéed scallops,but I could have used cooked shrimp, a thin piece of poached salmon, or quick-sautéed calamari sliced into rings. Since the asparagus and seafood both have strong, distinct flavor, I dress the dish with a more complicated vinaigrette than I would choose for a plain green salad.

(Serves 4 as a first course, lunch, or light supper)

20 thin asparagus spears, the tough ends trimmed and the stalks peeled if the skin is tough
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
12 large sea scallops, the side muscle removed
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
A pinch of cayenne
A large bunch of arugula, stemmed, washed, and dried
A handful of basil leaves, cut into thin strips, plus 4 nice-looking whole sprigs for garnish
A large handful of pine nuts, lightly toasted

For the vinaigrette:

A pinch of saffron threads (about 5 threads)
1/4 cup dry white wine
2 canned plum tomatoes, drained
1/4 teaspoon sherry vinegar
A pinch of sugar
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

First make the vinaigrette: If the saffron is moist, place it in a small skillet over very low heat for a few seconds to dry it out. Grind the saffron to a powder in a mortar and pestle. In a small saucepan, reduce the white wine and saffron over medium heat until about two tablespoons of liquid remain. Put the tomatoes in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until almost smooth (still a bit chunky). Add the vinegar, the reduced wine-and-saffron mixture, a pinch of sugar, salt, black pepper, and the olive oil, and pulse a few times to blend well. Set aside (the vinaigrette will thicken slightly as it stands).

Line four salad palates with the arugula leaves.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Drop in the asparagus and blanch it until tender, about 4 minutes (depending on its thickness). Scoop the asparagus out with a large strainer spoon, and place it in a colander. Drain well. Place 5 asparagus spears on top of the arugula on each plate.

Heat two tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet over high heat. Dry the scallops well and season them with salt, black pepper, and a pinch of cayenne. When the skillet is almost smoking, add the scallops, leaving some space between them. Let them sear, without moving them at all, until they’re nicely browned, about 4 minutes. By this time they should be cooked through. If their tops seem raw, turn the heat down and continue cooking without turning until the tops feel firmer but still look slightly translucent, probably about another minute. Place three scallops, brown side up, on the asparagus on each plate. Scatter on the basil and pine nuts and drizzle each plate with some vinaigrette. Garnish with the basil sprigs. Serve right away.

Recipes:

Asparagus and Burrata Salad with Dandelions
Baby Artichokes with New Potatoes and Mint
Calamari Filled with Ricotta and Herbs and Braised with Malvasia Wine
My Mother’s Pastiera

We had a long, cold winter this year in Manhattan, gray with few of those sunny, bracing days that can be so uplifting in the middle of February. But I did manage to soothe my soul in the kitchen through the winter, focusing on oranges, red wine, and really good olive oil, and often using all three together in one dish, such as a beef stew I made twice with Nero d’Avola wine from Sicily, orange zest, and a touch of rosemary. The savory Sicilian orange salads that I love to make every winter became more of a necessity this year. They may be among my favorite dishes of all time, especially when I combine the oranges with raw fennel, black olives, a touch of red onion, sea salt, and Sicilian olive oil. (Ravida is still my favorite Sicilian oil, and you can order it through Zingerman’s.) I even like orange salads sprinkled with chopped anchovies. That may sound peculiar, but it’s a surprisingly delicious combination on the tongue, with its blend of sweet, sour, and salty; try it after a plate of linguine with clam sauce and see how it brightens the meal while extending the sea theme. I give a recipe for this salad in my new book, The Flavors of Southern Italy, which comes out in April.

So here it is almost Easter, and I’m just about ready to leave the oranges behind and move on to springtime fare, though I must admit that Easter in New York is not always spring-like and in fact can be really frustrating, with its wind and chill right when you’re ready to burst loose wearing some frilly dress and toting a basket of strawberries. All the foods you associate with the holiday, like asparagus, peas, and strawberries, aren’t even in season yet, and most of my friends no longer eat lamb for Easter dinner for one reason or another. Easter for me is the symbolic entry into warm weather far more than the solemn religious occasion it is for serious Catholics, but that doesn’t stop me from celebrating it.

Here is an Easter meal that focuses on some of the foods I start to crave after winter: asparagus (unfortunately not local yet, but from California), dandelion greens, mint, artichokes (also from California), and always for me some sort of seafood (here I offer calamari stuffed with ricotta and braised with a sweet wine). I also include in this menu an old Easter recipe from my mother’s family, a sweet baked pasta flavored with cinnamon, rum, and vanilla. This is something her father made long before I could have tasted it. I’ve recreated it from her memories. I think it’s delicious.

Happy Easter!

Asparagus and Burrata Salad with Dandelions

Burrata is a mozzarella-type cheese from Puglia that contains a core of creamy curd. It is luscious and runny. Murray’s cheese shop and Citarella in Manhattan both import it. If you can’t find it, a soft, room-temperature mozzarella will work fine in its place.

(Serves 4)

For the salad:

12 thick asparagus spears, the ends trimmed and the tough stalks peeled
A large bunch of young dandelions, washed and trimmed
2 scallions, cut into thin rounds, using some of the tender green part
1 small fennel bulb, very thinly sliced
3 small sprigs of fresh tarragon, the leaves lightly chopped
1 1-pound ball of burrata or mozzarella
A handful of pine nuts, lightly toasted

For the dressing:

The juice and grated zest from 1/2 a lemon
A splash of Spanish sherry vinegar (about 1/4 teaspoon)
2 or 3 scrapings of fresh nutmeg
A tiny drizzle of honey (about 1/4 teaspoon)
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Blanch the asparagus in a large pot of boiling water until just tender, about 4 minutes. Lift it from the water and run it under cold water to stop the cooking and to bring up its green color. Drain. Slice the spears into thirds on an angle.

In a small bowl, whisk all the ingredients for the dressing together. There should be a nice balance between sweet, acid, and olive oil (I prefer less acid and more olive oil with the gentle flavors of asparagus and mozzarella).

When you’re ready to serve, set up four salad plates. In a large bowl, combine the dandelions, scallion, fennel, tarragon, and the sliced asparagus. Add the vinaigrette, saving about a tablespoon, and toss gently. Divide the salad up onto the plates. Slice the burrata or mozzarella into four thick slices and lay a piece on each salad. Give each slice a drizzle of vinaigrette and garnish with toasted pine nuts.

Baby Artichokes with New Potatoes and Mint

Tender, chokeless artichokes and tiny new potatoes are best for this vegetable dish, which is designed to celebrate the Spring harvest and is an Easter classic in many parts of Southern Italy.

A note on trimming baby artichokes: Since these small vegetables have not developed their chokes yet, you need only pull off the tough outer leaves, until you get to the tender, light-green ones. Trim the top and trim and peel the stem. Place the trimmed artichokes in a big bowl of cold water with the juice of a large lemon until you’re ready to cook them.

(Serves 4)

Extra-virgin olive oil
2 thin slices pancetta, well chopped
2 dozen baby artichokes, trimmed (see above) and placed in a bowl of cold water with the juice of 1 large lemon
4 garlic cloves, peeled and lightly smashed
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
A dozen small red potatoes, cut in half
A splash of dry white wine
A squeeze of lemon juice
A few large sprigs of fresh mint, the leaves chopped
Shavings of young Pecorino cheese

In a large skillet, heat 3 or 4 tablespoons of olive oil over medium-low heat. Add the pancetta and sauté it until it’s just starting to crisp. Drain the artichokes well and add them to the skillet. Sauté, uncovered, until lightly golden, about 8 to 10 minutes. Add the garlic about halfway through the sautéing, so it doesn’t burn. Season with salt and black pepper, cover the pan, lower the heat, and cook, stirring frequently, until the artichokes are just fork tender (you should be able to do this without adding liquid, but if the artichokes start to stick or burn, add a splash of white wine).

While the artichokes are cooking, blanch the potatoes in boiling salted water until just tender, about 5 minutes. Drain well.

When the artichokes are almost tender, uncover the pan, add the potatoes, and cook both vegetables together for a few minutes to blend their flavors and to lightly brown the potatoes. Add a splash of white wine and let it boil away. Add a generous squeeze of lemon juice, and reseason with a touch of salt and a few fresh grindings of black pepper. Scatter on the mint and give everything a gentle toss. Place in a serving bowl and shave the Pecorino over the top.

Calamari Filled with Ricotta and Herbs and Braised in Malvasia Wine

Squid isn’t a traditional Italian Easter dish, but it’s sweet and tender in the spring, and I find it makes a great stand-in for the lamb that most of my friends (though not me) seem to feel sad about eating nowadays. Sweet wine does wonders for squid, underscoring the fish’s own sweetness and providing a luscious sauce. A Sicilian Moscato from Pantelleria or a Muscat Beaumes de Venise from France are both excellent choices, but any type of fruity white dessert wine will taste fine. Plain rice or couscous is a good accompaniment too.

(Serves 4 as a main course)

Salt
2 pounds relatively large squid (larger ones are easier to stuff), cleaned and the body and tentacles left whole
1 cup whole-milk ricotta, sheep’s-milk if available, drained in a colander for about 20 minutes (you want to get rid of excess liquid for this recipe so it doesn’t ooze out of the squid during cooking)
1 large egg
A handful of flat-leaf parsley, the leaves chopped, plus a handful of whole leaves for garnish
A few sprigs of marjoram, the leaves chopped
1 tablespoon grated Grana Padano or Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
Freshly ground black pepper
Extra-virgin olive oil
A handful of toothpicks
2 garlic cloves, unpeeled but lightly smashed with the side of a knife
A large wineglass of Malvasia, or another sweet wine such as a Muscat Beaumes de Venise
A strip of lemon peel
A small handful of green olives (I used Picholines, from France)

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add a generous amount of salt. Add the squid and blanch it for about a minute. Scoop it out of the water with a large strainer and into a colander. Run the squid under cold water and then let it drain on paper towels. (Blanching firms up the squid, making it much easily to fill.)

In a small bowl, combine the ricotta, egg, parsley, marjoram, Grana Padano or Parmigiano, salt, and ground black pepper. Mix everything together. Fill the squid about halfway with the ricotta mixture (using a small spoon makes this easier). Close each piece with toothpicks. Wipe any ricotta off the outside of the squid.

In a large skillet, heat about 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the stuffed squid and tentacles and the garlic cloves, and season with salt and pepper. Sauté until the squid is golden on one side. Turn the squid to sauté on the other side. Add the sweet wine and the lemon peel, lower the heat, cover the skillet, and simmer until the squid is very tender, about 35 minutes, turning the pieces occasionally.

When the squid is tender remove it from the skillet to a serving platter. Scatter the olives around it. Boil the skillet’s cooking liquid down for about a minute, just to intensify its flavor. You want to wind up with about 1/2 cup of liquid. Pour the sauce over the squid through a fine-mesh strainer. Garnish with the whole parsley leaves. Serve hot.

My Mother’s Pastiera

Pastiera, the classic Southern Italian Easter cake make with ricotta and whole wheat berries, was something that nobody in my family ever actually baked but that we always had on Easter. We bought it at a Neapolitan bakery in Glen Cove, Long Island, near where we lived. I loved this cake when I was a kid. I found its texture fascinating, and I was crazy about its hint of orange-flower water. My mother recently told me that her father’s family, from Sicily, made a sweet baked pasta every year for Easter, and they called that pastiera (traditional pastiera is associated with the cooking of Naples, but it is made in several areas in the south). I’d never heard her mention this before, but it sounded delicious. Since she had never learned how to make it, my sister and I had never tasted it, even though it was, it turns out, one of my mother’s fondest childhood food memories. I went about recreating it myself from her description. The results were pretty much as she remembered , though when I told her what I included in the recipe, she insisted that certain elements, like rum and cinnamon, hadn’t been in the original. They just made sense to me to round out the flavors.

My mother says the type of pasta you use is important. It should be short and sturdy, with a hole in the middle; you want to see a mass of little holes when you slice into it. Ditalini and tubettini are good choices.

(Serves 6 or 7 as a dessert or a midafternoon snack)

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
Salt
3/4 pound ditalini pasta
3/4 cup heavy cream
1 cup milk
3 large eggs, plus 1 egg yolk
1/2 cup sugar, plus 1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons rum
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (Madagascar vanilla, if you can find it)
A generous pinch of ground cinnamon
A generous pinch of ground nutmeg
The zest from 1 small lemon
1/4 cup of homemade, dry breadcrumbs

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Set up a large pot of pasta cooking water and bring it to a boil. Add a generous amount of salt (even though this is a sweet dish, the salt for the pasta is important to bring out all the flavors in the finished dish). When the water comes to a boil, start cooking the ditalini.

Use about a tablespoon of the butter to grease a large baking dish (I used an 8-by-12-inch one, and an equivalent-size oval dish looks pretty too).

Pour the cream and milk into a small saucepan and bring it to a low boil over medium heat.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk the eggs together with the sugar until well mixed. Slowly pour the milk mixture into the eggs, whisking the entire time. Add the rum, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, and lemon zest, and whisk to blend all the flavors.

When the ditalini is al dente (a bit firmer than usual, since it will cook again in the oven), drain it well in a colander. Pour the ditalini into the baking dish. Pour the cream and egg mixture over it.

Bake until the edges are starting to bubble and the middle is just set, about 45 minutes (the top will not have browned much).

Mix the breadcrumbs, the remaining tablespoon of butter, and the remaining tablespoon of sugar together in a small bowl. Scatter this over the top of the pastiera and place under a broiler about 4 inches from the heat source until very lightly golden, about a minute. Let the pastiera cool for at least an hour before serving, so it can firm up. Serve slightly warm or at room temperature, cut into squares.

Recipes:

Bruschetta with Artichoke Pesto
Braised Beef with Primitivo Wine
Carrots with Sicilian Capers
Caciocavallo with Rosemary Honey and Pine Nuts

Braciole stuffed with Pecorino, garlic, and parsley; hunks of pork; sausages: All those things floating together for hours in a big pot of burnished red sauce make up a taste memory from my childhood that I will never forget. My mother made such a complicated dish only in winter, when its almost overwhelming aroma would fill the kitchen with joy. In summer, when you wanted to be racing around outside uninhibited, it would have filled the kitchen with familial oppression. Probably one of the ways Neapolitan mamas got their reputation for being overbearing was from cooking such a meal in 90-degree Neapolitan heat. In 20-degree New York winters it actually makes sense.

I occasionally make a really traditional Sunday sauce like it myself, but it’s best for a large group. When I’m serving four or fewer, which is usually the case, I simplify, cooking only one cut of meat, such as the beef shoulder roast I’ve chosen here (it’s the same cut used for traditional American pot roast). I slow-simmer the meat with red wine, tomato paste, and garlic, that traditional Southern Italian triumvirate, creating all the big Sunday sauce aromas with a lot less work. And I wind up with a much more contemporary look on the plate.

Winter eating, if you want to get romantic about it, is all about coaxing tenderness out of things that are hard or tough, like big winter carrots and shoulder roasts of meat. The glory lies in the execution, since usually the raw ingredients don’t shine on their own as they do in summer months. To accompany the roast I’ve chosen to simmer carrots in Marsala wine and then finish the dish with a scattering of the Sicilian salt-packed capers that I love so much (you can purchase them on-line from BuonItalia, in New York). Their sharpness breaks through the starchiness and almost indiscernible taste carrots can have this time of year. I suggest also including in this meal a bowl of sturdy pasta, like penne or rigatoni, dressed with olive oil, grated Pecorino or Parmigiano cheese, and a ladle of the beef cooking broth to carry over the winey beef taste. A big bowl of roasted potatoes flavored with rosemary and garlic is another possible accompaniment.

For an appetizer I like to bring out an artichoke pesto on crostini. It’s light and fluffy; a good start to a rich meal. It does not, however, go well with the Primitivo wine I suggest to accompany the meal, so you might want to start with a Prosecco or a still white like a Greco di Tufo (Mastroberardino is a fine producer of that Campanian wine). If you don’t want to bother with the artichokes, you can make a really simple crostini by topping toasted bread rounds with a dollop of ricotta and then a marinated fresh anchovy (which you can find in an Italian or Spanish specialty store). The creamy blandness of the ricotta and the sharp fishiness of the anchovy combine in a lovely marriage of flavors.

I keep the flow of a meal like this traditional, presenting it more or less the way it progressed at my mother’s or grandmother’s house. I bring out a big green salad after the main course. My mother almost always served a mix of chicory and escarole, two good sturdy and pleasantly bitter winter greens. I suggest arugula and watercress, but endive or frisée can be included (I crave something slightly bitter after a rich meat dish). Cheese came next, then a bowl of fruit, and then Amaretto cookies, or even Twinkies, which of course were the highlight of the meal for me as a small child. No dinner like this would ever have been complete without a bottle of Sambuca being brought to the table, along with coffee beans to float in the glasses. Then came the espresso pot, the stove-top kind made by Bialetti that’s shaped like a mature Italian lady, which I more than once plopped directly down on the table without a trivet, burning a black octagonal hole into the wood finish.

That’s the way it went in my house. It was an enjoyable ritual (except for burning the table) that I’ve updated only in subtle ways, keeping the spirit of the meal but streamlining the food a bit. If you’d like to try a dish other than the Beef in Primitivo for the centerpiece of a Sunday supper, Braised Lamb Shoulder with Tomatoes, Marsala, and Cinnamon; Short Ribs with Chianti and Celery Gremolata; Pork Braciole with Provolone, Parsley, and Capers; and Sausages and Italian Frying Peppers with Sage and Fennel Seed are all good alternatives (use this site’s search window, at the top of the page, to find them).

Winter cooking is for me a little trickier to pull off than the breezier, improvisational meals I put together in warmer months, when the Greenmarket is bursting with tender vegetables and there’s the grill to throw fish and meat on. I’m always looking for Mediterranean flavor, even in January in New York, and I’ve found it’s not that hard to keep a Southern Italian style going strong. My savior in winter months is the Italian pantry. I stock up on salt-packed anchovies and capers from Sicily, bottles of fruity estate olive oil, canned tomatoes, and chunks of strong Pecorino cheese. Hothouse supermarket herbs are a must for me; I scatter flat leaf parsley and basil over finished dishes just for their green aromas, and I make easy herb pestos, usually just a mix of olive oil and herbs, to spoon over fish or toss onto pasta for a hit of freshness. Wine finds its way into much of my winter cooking, adding a gentle acidity to long-simmered dishes like the beef I present here, and underpinning quick skillet sauces for sautés. Lemons and oranges are at their best in winter and add sunny flavor to salads, stews, fish, and desserts. I keep a bottle of Limoncello liqueur from Campania, lemon brought to its apex, in my refrigerator to drizzle over ice cream or to drink in icy cold shots. It really refreshes my spirit.

If you have any questions about how to revitalize your Italian winter cooking, especially if you cook in a Southern Italian style like I do, please don’t be shy about contacting me.

Happy 2004.

Bruschetta with Artichoke Pesto

You can buy little jars of artichoke pesto in food shops in many places in Southern Italy. They’re often very good, but they’re never as good as when you make it yourself. Since everything in it gets puréed, you don’t even have to do a real tidy job cleaning the artichokes, so the cooking is easy. Some artichoke pestos I’ve sampled have contained green olives, which I like, but here I’ve gone for a lusher approach, adding Pecorino, mascarpone, and a splash of vermouth.

This pesto also makes a great pasta sauce for two. To use it that way, simply cook about 1/2 pound of penne or ziti, saving a little of the cooking water; drain the pasta; and toss it with the artichoke pesto, thinning it out with a little of the cooking water. Garnish with chopped mint leaves.

(Serves 4 or 5 as an appetizer)

4 large artichokes
The juice of 2 lemons
Extra-virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
A splash of dry vermouth
A small chunk of young Pecorino cheese
A tablespoon of mascarpone cheese
A few large sprigs of fresh spearmint, lightly chopped
1 baguette, cut into thin rounds

Set up a bowl of cold water and add the juice from one of the lemons. Peel the artichokes down to their tender light-green leaves. Trim the bottoms off the stems, leaving as much tender stem as possible. Peel the stems of tough outer skin. Slice off about 1 inch from the top. Quarter the artichokes lengthwise and cut out the chokes and any prickly purple inner leaves. Drop each piece into the water as you finish working on it.

In a large skillet (avoid cast iron, which might turn the artichokes slightly gray), heat about 3 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and the artichoke pieces, season with salt and black pepper, and sauté just until they start turning golden. Add the vermouth and let it boil away. Add a generous splash of warm water, turn the heat down a bit, and simmer, covered, until the pieces are very tender, adding little splashes of water if the pan dries up. This should take about 15 minutes.

Place the artichokes with any pan juices in a food processor. Add about a tablespoon or so of grated Pecorino, a generous drizzle of fresh olive oil, a squeeze of lemon juice, the mascarpone, and the mint. Pulse briefly, just until you have a rough but slightly fluffy paste. Taste for seasoning, adding more salt and black pepper if needed.

Toast the baguette slices and brush them lightly with olive oil. Spoon a generous amount of the artichoke pesto on top and garnish with a few shavings of Pecorino.

Braised Beef with Primitivo Wine

In most of Southern Italy a good-sized chunk of braising beef is inevitably cooked by being slow-simmered in wine and aromatics, with maybe a touch of tomato. Here’s a Southern Italian pot roast that I’ve simmered in Primitivo di Manduria, a strong red wine from Puglia. The wine has a characteristic prunish flavor that works well with strongly flavored red meat. The orange peel and anchovy I’ve added cook down, blending with the rich wine to add only a subtle layer of flavor. Vinicola Savese is a good Primitivo producer to look for.

I always use any leftover meat for a pasta sauce. If you’d like to try doing that, shred with your fingers any meat you have left (for a half a pound of pasta, enough for two large servings, you’ll need about a cup or so). Warm the shredded meat with all the leftover wine sauce in a small skillet. Add a handful of freshly chopped parsley and a drizzle of olive oil, and check the seasoning, adding a little fresh black pepper to wake up the flavors. Cook a half a pound of ziti or penne al dente, drain it well, and add it to the skillet. Toss over medium heat for a minute or two, adding a handful of grated Pecorino. Serve hot.

(Serves 4 or 5)

Extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 cup all-purpose flour for dredging the meat
An approximately 3 1/2-pound boneless beef chuck shoulder roast (sometimes labeled “shoulder pot roast” in the supermarket), tied in 3 or 4 places
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 large onion, cut into large chunks
2 carrots, roughly chopped
2 garlic cloves, lightly crushed with the side of a knife
1 bay leaf
A few marjoram sprigs
A pinch of ground clove
2 long pieces of orange peel
2 anchovy fillets
A heaping tablespoon of tomato paste
A bottle of Primitivo wine (or another strong, dry red, a Cabernet for instance)
A handful of flat-leaf parsley, lightly chopped

Choose a large casserole fitted with a lid. Add about 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium-high heat. Coat the meat lightly in flour, and when the oil is hot add the meat to the casserole. Season with salt and black pepper and brown the meat leisurely on all sides. Take your time doing this; the browning will add great flavor to the sauce. Add the onion, carrots, and garlic, and sauté a few minutes so they can release their flavors. Add the bay leaf, marjoram, ground clove, orange peel, anchovy, and tomato paste, and sauté for about a minute, so all their flavors can be released. Pour in the bottle of wine and bring it to a boil. The meat should be just about covered with liquid, poking out only a little (if not, add warm water). Lower the heat to a simmer, cover the casserole, and cook slowly, turning the meat once or twice and basting it occasionally, until it is very tender, about 2 1/2 hours. If the liquid gets too low, add warm water.

Lift the meat from the casserole and cover it with aluminum foil to keep it warm.

Skim excess fat from the surface of the sauce, if necessary. Pour the sauce through a mesh strainer into a clean saucepan, pushing on the vegetables so that some of their juice can incorporate into the sauce. Boil the sauce over high heat for a few minutes to concentrate its flavor (it should be loose but with a good sheen and just on the verge of looking syrupy). Slice the meat thickly (it will naturally be very tender and start to fall apart a bit, but that’s the nature of a pot roast, so don’t worry about it). Place the meat on a large serving platter. Scatter on the parsley and spoon on a few tablespoons of the sauce. Bring the remaining sauce to the table in a small sauce boat.

Carrots with Sicilian Capers

Carrots are not a vegetable that I get great inspiration from. Raw, I find them soapy tasting. But here’s a treatment that plays up their sweetness and tones down that soapiness, using the excellent Sicilian salt-packed capers that come from the islands of Lipari and Pantelleria, which have a special floral sweetness and no sharp edges. This dish is not, to my knowledge, a traditional Southern Italian one; it’s something I came up with one night as an Italianate accompaniment to a pork-chop dinner. Try and find Sicilian salt-packed capers for it (you can order them on-line from BuonItalia in New York). Their sweet, floral taste marries perfectly with the carrots. Brine soaked capers are a bit too acidic.

(Serves 4, or 5 as a side dish)

3 tablespoons unsalted butter
A large bunch of carrots (about 5), peeled and cut into not-too-thin rounds (I like rounds here because they echo the roundness of the capers)
A generous pinch of sugar
A few scrapings of nutmeg
Salt
A splash of dry Marsala
A palmful of salt-packed capers, soaked in several changes of cool water for about 1/2 hour, rinsed, and drained
Freshly ground black pepper
A small handful of parsley leaves, lightly chopped

Choose a wide skillet with a lid that will hold the sliced carrots in more or less one layer for easy cooking (they can overlap, but don’t pile them inches deep). Over medium heat, add the butter and let it get foamy and hot. Add the carrots, the sugar, the nutmeg, and a pinch of salt (not too much, since you’ll be adding capers later on), and sauté for about a minute or so to lightly caramelize the sugar and coat the carrots with flavor. Add a splash of dry Marsala and let it bubble until the skillet is dry. Add a generous splash of hot water, cover the skillet, and simmer on medium low heat until the carrots are tender but still holding their shape. This should take about 5 minutes. Check the skillet frequently to make sure there is still a little water left, and add a splash if needed. When the carrots are about a minute away from being tender, uncover the skillet to let the liquid evaporate. You want a moist glaze on the carrots but no water left in the skillet. Add the capers and a few gratings of fresh black pepper. Taste for seasoning, adding more salt if needed. Add the parsley and serve right way.

Caciocavallo with Rosemary Honey and Pine Nuts

I bought a jar of rosemary-flavored honey in the town of Lecce on my last trip to Puglia and was surprised by its beautiful aroma and taste, having expected to find the herb harsh in that context. When I finished the jar it occurred to me that I could easily make my own rosemary honey, and now I do. It’s a perfect match for a soft but somewhat assertive cheese like caciocavallo.

(Serves 4 or 5)

1 cup acacia or orange-flower honey
3 small sprigs rosemary
A 3/4-pound chunk of caciocavallo cheese at room temperature (chose a good imported one; I especially like caciocavallo Ragusano from Sicily)
Freshly ground black pepper
A handful of pine nuts, lightly toasted

Pour the honey into a small saucepan and drop in the rosemary sprigs. Turn the heat to low and heat the honey just long enough to make it liquid and warm to the touch, about 4 minutes. Turn off the heat and let the saucepan sit on the turned-off burner for about 15 minutes (this will allow the oil from the rosemary to be released). Remove the rosemary sprigs if you like; I usually leave them in for a gently rustic look.

When you’re ready to serve the dish, cut the caciocavallo into not-too-thin slices and place a few on each serving plate. Grate on a little black pepper, drizzle with the honey (which should still be slightly warm; you can reheat in gently if it isn’t), and garnish each serving with pine nuts.

Recipes:

Gardiniera with Saffron
Braised endive with Garlic Cream
The Russo Family’s Cinnamon Ravioloni with Tomato and Shallot Sauce
Lobster with Tomato and Brandy
Pork Braciole with Provolone, Parsley, and Capers

In my family, traditional family recipes are not exactly a tradition. Many recipes haven’t been preserved and passed down so much as delegated to the category of no-longer-cooked-but-sometimes-talked-about, or even no-longer-cooked-and-completely-forgotten. Since I seem to have made it my life’s mission to promote the greatness of Southern Italian cooking, I’ve tried to keep my childhood’s flavors alive by cooking dishes like my mother’s baby meatballs with string beans and potatoes. That was something that I loved very much as a kid but that my mother doesn’t have much interest in now (I’ve had a recipe for it on this Web site since Fall 2000). I realize I make it a little different from my mother’s version, since my memory is imperfect and fantasy tends to prevail over fact when I’m in the kitchen anyway (I add pine nuts and pancetta and white wine, ingredients I’m pretty sure didn’t play a part in the original).

Beyond such recipes that have fallen from use in my lifetime, I have another layer of food memories knocking around; hearsay recipes. They are more ghostly. They’re mainly dishes my mother remembers from her childhood but never cooked herself. Her parents both died young, and much of their cooking slipped through her fingers. I’ve since tried recreating several very enticing-sounding dishes from her memory, such as a sweet cinnamon ravioloni her Sicilian grandmother used to make. It was a great family favorite, and it has now come back into her life (with a few alterations) and, luckily, into mine.

For me preserving family recipes also means discovering for the first time the origins of traditional family tastes. When I first visited the town of Castelfranco in Miscano, where everyone on my father’s side was born, I saw why my grandmother’s meatballs contained raisins, and why she added wild dandelions to her soups, but I also discovered many dishes in and around that dry little hill town on the border of Puglia and Campania that were new to me, like pasta with fava beans and onions, cooked without a trace of tomato. I learned that antipasto dishes like the sharp, vinegary vegetable giardiniera my grandfather always ate out of store-bought jars, or the cans of eggplant caponata we had stacked in the pantry, could in fact be nuanced and exotic when homemade.

My trips to Castelfranco, to Sicily, and to other parts of Southern Italy have kept broadening my thinking about Southern Italian cooking and inspiring me to create new family traditions. My mother’s classic fish-based Christmas Eve dinner always consisted of Italian-American standards like linguine with clam sauce and garlicky scampi. I still cook many of those same dishes for the holidays, but over the years I’ve developed my own family favorites. I now include braised endive with anchovy cream every Thanksgiving, and puréed salt cod with black olives, and a ricotta and tomato tart, on Christmas Eve. My husband and friends know they can look forward to those every year. (The ricotta and tomato tart recipe went up on this site in Fall 2001.)

Traditions have been loosely held in my world, but that’s not so bad. I’m sure I’d never have felt compelled to wander all over Southern Italy, or to track down old family recipes with such fervor, if a perfectly complete past had been handed to me intact. Here are a few of the new found and newly minted recipes that I’ve recently added to my evolving repertoire of family favorites. I hope you’ll enjoy them.

Gardiniera with Saffron

Little pickled vegetables are popular throughout Southern Italy, where they’re usually eaten alongside something rich and fatty like soppressata. Giardiniera, which means garden-style, is the name for a pickled vegetable assortment that usually includes cauliflower, carrot, sometimes celery or fennel, and hot or sweet peppers. My grandfather bought jars of Progresso giardiniera and ate it in the morning. I got the feeling that along with raw eggs, which he sucked out through little holes in their shells, giardiniera was his idea of a hangover remedy. The jarred versions from my childhood were none too subtle. When I make my own, I produce a kinder, gentler version. This recipe is scented with saffron. That’s not traditional, but saffron’s aromatic bitterness blends well with vinegar, so I think it’s a good addition.

(Makes about 2 cups of giardiniera)

About a half of a small cauliflower, cut into small flowerets
2 carrots peeled, 2 celery stalks, a large fennel bulb, and a large red bell pepper, all cut into chunks about the same size as the cauliflower.
2 garlic cloves, peeled but left whole
A cup of dry white wine
A cup of high quality white wine vinegar (I like using champagne vinegar for its delicate flavor)
2 tablespoons of sugar
A large pinch of saffron threads, ground to a powder with a mortar and pestle
A bay leaf
About 10 fennel seeds
Salt

Put up a large pot of water and bring it to a boil. Drop in all the vegetables, including the garlic, and boil for about 3 minutes. Drain them into a colander and run cold water over them to stop the cooking and to bring up their colors. Let them drain well and then place the vegetables in a large bowl.

In a medium sauce pot, pour in the white wine and the vinegar. Add the sugar, saffron, bay leaf, fennel seeds, and a generous pinch of salt. Bring this to a boil over high heat, lower the heat to medium, and let the mixture bubble for about 5 minutes.

Pour the vinegar mixture over the vegetables and toss everything well. Taste for seasoning. It should be highly seasoned and, because of all the other strong flavors, can take a fair amount of salt. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate it overnight (this allows the liquid to permeate the vegetables, deepening their flavors). Now it’s ready to serve.

I like giardiniera not only with cured meats like soppressata or capocolla, but as an accompaniment to strong cheeses like provolone, or even with meat stews, to cut the richness.

Braised Endive with Garlic Cream

Thanksgiving dinner at my grandparents’ always involved a brazen mix of dishes: Waldorf salad with canned tangerine sections and marshmallows; artichokes filled with sausage; lasagna with ricotta and tomatoes; sweet potatoes baked with pineapple chunks; cranberry sauce; a huge overcooked turkey; a big bowl of raw fennel and olives; pumpkin pie; and fried struffoli. It left me, even as a kid, confused and exhausted, with a sense of missing the natural flow of things.

Now when I work out my Thanksgiving menu, it tends to fall naturally into turkey and a few Southern Italian­style vegetable dishes. Endive is not a vegetable I recall ever eating anywhere in Southern Italy, but it is a member of the chicory family, with that bitter quality so beloved in the South. It marries beautifully with sweet, slow-cooked garlic, and together they’ve become a new addition to my Thanksgiving table.

(Serves 4 or 5)

1 large garlic clove, minced
A pint of non-ultrapasteurized heavy cream
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
A few scrapings of fresh nutmeg
2 tablespoons of unsalted butter
Extra virgin olive oil
8 Belgian endives, any bruised outer leaves removed and the stem end trimmed, but otherwise left whole
A few thyme sprigs, the leaves chopped
About 3 tablespoons of freshly grated young pecorino
A handful of flat-leaf parsley leaves, lightly chopped

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

In a small bowl, mix the cream with the garlic. Season with salt, black pepper, and nutmeg. Give it a stir and let sit, unrefrigerated, while you get on with the recipe (this will allow the garlic to open up and release its flavor).

In a skillet large enough to hold all the endives in one layer, heat the butter and a drizzle of olive oil over a medium flame. Add the endives, the thyme, and a pinch of salt, and sauté the endives, turning them occasionally until they’re golden all over.

Place the endives in a nice-looking baking dish that will fit them snugly (I used an eight-by-twelve-inch ceramic dish). Pour the garlic cream over the top, cover with aluminum foil, and bake for 45 minutes. Uncover the dish and spoon some of the cream over the endive. Sprinkle the top with the pecorino and put the dish back in the oven, uncovered; then bake until it is bubbling and the top has lightly browned, about another 15 minutes. By now the cream will have reduced and the endives will be very tender, with the top lightly browned. Garnish with parsley and serve.

The Russo Family’s Cinnamon Ravioloni with Tomato and Shallot Sauce

My mother’s father was Sicilian, but she doesn’t much care to talk about old family recipes, perhaps because both her parents died very young. She’ll remember pieces of dishes in a vague way and then not want to discuss them further when I ask for details. Here’s one she remembers more vividly, evidently because some of the Italian ladies in her neighborhood would talk about how unusual the seasoning was (I suppose that was their idea of gossip). This was a dish of big raviolis filled with a slightly sweet cinnamon-scented ricotta (the other women used nutmeg, and no sugar). I’ve recreated it from my mother’s memory, and she says I’ve got the taste pretty much on target. She says she usually had it dressed with homemade tomato paste that her grandmother dried on boards in her Connecticut backyard, maybe thinned with a little water. She says the paste was so concentrated it was almost black. That’s not to my taste, so I’ve come up with a lighter sauce.

(Serves 4 as a first course)

For the pasta:

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for kneading and rolling
4 large eggs
A pinch of salt
A drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil

For the filling:

1 1/2 cups ricotta, drained
1 large egg
A pinch of ground cinnamon (less than 1/8 teaspoon, as you want only a hint of it)
About 1/2 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons grated Grana Padano cheese, plus a chunk to bring to the table
Freshly ground black pepper
Salt

For the sauce:

Extra-virgin olive oil
2 shallots, thinly sliced
1 35-ounce can of plum tomatoes, chopped, with the juice
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Make the pasta: Mound the flour out on a work surface and make a big hole in the middle of it. Crack the eggs into the hole and add a little salt and a drizzle of olive oil. Start mixing the flour into the eggs with a fork, pulling in flour from the sides. When you have a mass of sticky dough balls, start working them together with your hands until you have a nice big ball, continuing to pull in flour as you do. Flour another work area and tip the dough ball out onto it, leaving behind any little bits of dough and flour that have not been incorporated. Now knead the dough until it is smooth and satiny, about 5 or 6 minutes. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and let it rest for about a half an hour.

While the dough is resting, mix all the ingredients for the filling together in a bowl. The filling should be very slightly sweet with a subtle cinnamon edge, but it will also have a salty note from the pecorino. Put the bowl in the refrigerator while you roll out the pasta (this will firm it up a bit, making it easier to fill the ravioloni with).

Divide the dough into four pieces, keeping each covered with plastic wrap until you work with it, so it doesn’t dry out. Run a piece of the dough through the widest setting on a hand-cranked pasta machine two times. Start running it through thinner and thinner settings until you get to the next to last setting and the pasta is very thin and smooth. Lay the pasta sheets out on a floured surface. Roll out another piece of dough in the same way and lay it alongside the other one. Drop heaping tablespoons of the ricotta filling at even intervals on one of the pasta strips. Place the other pasta strip on top and press around the filling to get rid of any air pockets. Cut the pasta into approximately 2 1/2- or 3-inch squares and seal the edges all around with the tines of a fork, making a little ridged pattern. (This is how my grandmother made hers; I frequently use a 3-inch ravioli cutter, which is very convenient but makes them all uniform, so when I want a real old-fashioned look, I do them by hand.) You should get about 16 to 18 ravioloni. Lay the ravioloni out on a well-floured sheet pan. Roll out the remaining two pieces of dough and make and fill the ravioloni in the same fashion. Cover them all loosely with a towel to keep them moist. I would also turn them over once if they sit for more than an hour (they can sometimes get soggy and stick to the sheet pan). If they need to sit for longer than a few hours, refrigerate them, loosely covered.

To make the sauce, heat a few tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat in a large skillet. Add the shallots and let them soften for about 3 or 4 minutes. Add the tomatoes, season with salt and black pepper, and simmer at a low bubble, stirring frequently for about 15 minutes. Add the parsley.

When you’re ready to serve the ravioloni, set up a large pot of pasta cooking water and bring it to a boil. Add a generous amount of salt. Add the ravioloni and boil them just until they float to the surface, about 3 or 4 minutes. Scoop them from the water with a large strainer, letting all the cooking water drip off, and place them on a large warmed platter (Pouring them into a colander might break them apart; this method is much gentler.) Pour the sauce over the top and drizzle everything with fresh olive oil. Serve right away, bringing a chunk of Grana Padano to the table for grating.

Lobster with Tomato and Brandy

I’ve never understood the idea of drenching sweet, delicate lobster in an intensely spicy tomato sauce, fra diavolo­style, either with hot peppers or with a lot of black pepper; I find that this defeats the lobster’s reason for being (or for being eaten, at least). A Christmas Eve dish my mother’s father made was lobster simmered in a rich, boozy tomato sauce with no peppers. Here is my version, based on my mother’s recollections.

For the best texture, I should be adding raw cut-up lobster to the sauce, but after working in a restaurant where I was ordered to chop cratefuls of live lobsters, sometimes a hundred at a time, and bursting into tears on one occasion at the overwhelming carnage of the task, I don’t think I can ever butcher even one of them live again. So I boil them, whole, until they’re about half-cooked, and then chop them up. It is admittedly a compromise solution, but it works pretty well to achieve the velvety, tender texture you want for the dish.

(Serves 4 as a main course)

Extra-virgin olive oil
3 garlic cloves, very thinly sliced, plus a whole garlic clove for the bruschetta
2 bay leaves, fresh if possible
A few generous gratings of nutmeg
A tiny pinch of ground clove
Salt (sea salt is a nice touch here)
1 35-ounce can diced plum tomatoes (Muir Glen is my favorite brand)
1/2 cup low-salt canned chicken broth (or a very light fish broth)
Freshly ground black pepper
4 live 1 1/2-pound lobsters
Four tablespoons unsalted butter
A small wineglass of brandy or cognac
A few sprigs of tarragon, the leaves lightly chopped
A generous handful of basil leaves, lightly chopped, plus a few whole sprigs for garnish
A large handful of pine nuts, lightly toasted

Set up a very large lobster pot full of water and bring it to a boil.

Meanwhile in a large skillet heat about 3 tablespoons of olive oil over a medium flame. Add the garlic and sauté briefly, just until it gives off its aroma, about a minute or so. Add the bay leaves, nutmeg, clove, the tomatoes, and the chicken broth, and cook uncovered at a lively simmer for about 5 minutes (you want the sauce to stay fresh and brightly colored, so don’t let it go any longer). Season with salt and ground black pepper. Turn off the heat.

Add a heaping tablespoon of sea salt to the water, let it return to a hard boil, and drop in the lobsters. Cover the pot and boil for 5 minutes (they will be almost half cooked). Lift the lobsters from the water and let them cool enough so you can handle them. Pull off their claws and hit each claw with a hammer to crack it (cover the claws with a kitchen towel first, so shell fragments don’t fly all over the place). Do this over a large plate or something that will catch all the juices. Cut the bodies in half lengthwise, also making sure no juices get away. Add all the lobster juices to the skillet, and stir them into the sauce.

In a very large skillet that will hold all the lobster pieces and the sauce, melt the butter over medium high heat (you can use two skillets if you need to). Add the lobster pieces (shell still on), placing the bodies flesh side down, and sauté them in the butter for about a minute. Season with a pinch of salt and more generously with black pepper, and pour on the brandy or cognac, letting it bubble until it is almost evaporated. Pour on the tomato sauce, and stir to blend it. Turn the heat down to low and let everything simmer for about 5 minutes, just to finish cooking the lobster and blend the flavors. Turn the lobster pieces over and add the chopped tarragon and the basil. The sauce should be a little brothy and studded with chunks of tomato. Taste for seasoning.

Place the lobster pieces in a wide, shallow serving bowl, and pour the sauce over them. Sprinkle with the toasted pine nuts, and garnish with basil sprigs. Serve hot.

Pork Braciole with Provolone, Parsley, and Capers

The aroma of parsley mingling with that of an assertive grating cheese like provolone is a kitchen smell from my childhood that still plays an important roll in some of my recipes. My mother always made braciole (stuffed meat rolls) with beef, but I prefer pork for it, because that meat seems to cook up juicier and retain more taste after long simmering (beef gives up a lot of its flavor to the sauce).

A note about the pork for this recipe: At Faicco’s butcher shop on New York’s Bleecker Street, where I buy all my pork products, they slice the braciole from the shoulder cut. Usually the slices measure about five inches by six and weigh more than half a pound apiece. However, smaller slices work just as well for this recipe. If the slices are a little thick, I thin them with a meat pounder. For easy rolling, you want them no thicker than about an eighth of an inch.

You’ll need kitchen string for this recipe

(Serves 4)

1 garlic clove
A large bunch of flat-leaf parsley, stemmed (about a cup of packed leaves), plus a small handful of whole leaves reserved for garnish
A large handful of salt-packed capers, soaked for about 20 minutes in several changes of water and rinsed
3/4 cup grated provolone cheese (try to find a imported Southern Italian cheese, not a domestic brand, which can be salty and lacking in finesse)
Salt
A few pinches of ground cayenne pepper
Extra-virgin olive oil
About 3 pounds of pork, cut for braciole (see above)
3 medium shallots, cut into small dice
2 cloves, ground to a powder in a mortar and pestle
A bay leaf
A wineglass of dry white wine
A 35-ounce can of plum tomatoes, well chopped, with the juice

Place the garlic, parsley, and capers in the bowl of a food processor and pulse briefly until roughly chopped (you don’t want a paste). Transfer the mixture into a small bowl and add the grated provolone, a pinch of salt (not much, since the cheese and capers will be slightly salty), the cayenne pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil. Mix everything together.

Lay the pork slices out on a work surface. Spoon a heaping tablespoon of filling onto each slice and spread it out to about 1/4 inch from the end all around. Roll up the braciole lengthwise and tie each in about 3 or 4 places with string. They’ll look like they’re a lot of meat, but they’ll shrink down considerably during cooking.

Choose a casserole fitted with a lid and big enough to hold all the braciole and the sauce. Heat a few tablespoons of olive oil in it over medium heat. Season the braciole with salt and a pinch of cayenne and place them in the casserole. Take your time to brown them well all over (the browning will add great flavor to the sauce). Scatter on the shallots and season the meat with the ground cloves. Sauté a few minutes longer, just until the shallots have softened and given off flavor.

Add the white wine and let it boil for a couple of minutes, scraping up any cooked-on juices from the bottom of the casserole. Add the tomatoes and a pinch more salt. The braciole should be almost completely covered by the liquid (just poking out a little); if they’re not, add a bit of warm water. Cover the casserole, lower the heat, and simmer, turning the braciole occasionally, until they are very tender, about 2 hours. You’ll need to skim the surface once or twice during cooking. Uncover the casserole for the last half hour of cooking so the sauce can reduce.

When you’re ready to serve the braciole, lift them from the casserole onto a cutting surface. The sauce should be reduced to a medium thickness (it is not meant to be a dense tomato sauce). If it seems a little too liquid, boil it over high heat for a few minutes. You also may need to give the surface a quick skim. Taste for seasoning, adding another little pinch of cayenne pepper if you like and a little salt if needed. Remove the string from the braciole, and cut them into approximately 1/4-inch slices on a slight angle. Place them on a warmed serving plate and spoon a little of the sauce over the top (you can pour the remaining sauce into a small serving bowl and bring it to the table). Garnish the plate with the whole parsley leaves.

It’s customary to serve pasta dressed with the braciole sauce as a first course and then serve the meat second. You can certainly do this if you like, but I prefer to forgo the pasta and instead offer a dish of roasted potatoes or rice, bringing the extra sauce to the table so guests can use it to pour on the rice or to sop it up with bread.

Recipes:

Tomato, Fennel, Leek, and Celery Salad with Caciocavallo Cheese
Orecchiette with Broccoli Rabe, Prosciutto, and White Wine
Roast Chicken with Rosemary and Last-of-the-Season Garlic
Pumpkin Agro Dolce with Vinegar and Basil
Baked Apples with Pine Nuts and Raisins

Fall’s the start of the new year in Manhattan, a time when the city wakes up after the heavy, sluggish summer and a time when I never fantasize about living anywhere else. But the rebirth of the city also signals an ending, since I know my Greenmarket will soon be winding down. I’ll have my last chances to cook with real tomatoes, six varieties of plums, basil with a bite, and local lettuces, each with a unique flavor. In mid-September baskets of Concord grapes appear in the stalls. They fill the air with a sweetness that seems unreal to me, more like synthetic candy than a living, growing thing, but they’re gorgeous in their shades of purple and translucent green, and they make an amazing sorbetto if you cut their sweetness with a splash of dry red wine (this recipe will be in my new book on Southern Italian flavors, due out in the spring). New York State’s apples are beautiful, and I’m grateful to the farmers who go to the trouble of growing so many varieties that I thought were long gone. Even growing up in New York, I was only really aware of Macintosh, Delicious, and Granny Smith. Now I can have Cortland, Baldwin, Golden Russet, Jonagold, Macoun, Jonathan, Northern Spy, Cox’s Orange Pippin, or Winesap, and those are just a few of the varieties I’ve noticed. Then come the pumpkins and the Brussels sprouts. After which it gets cold, and the farm ladies start putting out their depressing balls of wool, which are the signal for me that the market is as good as in hibernation until May.

In the early fall I find myself assembling menus that are more formal than I usually design in the summer. As the city pulls itself together again, so do I. All of a sudden a dinner with several courses and maybe two wines seems like a proper offering. Instead of bringing everything to the table at once, like I’m apt to do in the summer, I pace a meal, forcing friends stay and talk a little longer. I start lighting dinner candles again.

When the weather has begun to cool but the sun is still strong, in late September and October, I cook transitional food. I hoard the last of the local tomatoes and use summery herbs like basil and parsley in everything, knowing that their strong farm flavors soon won’t be around again until next year. At the same time I start to move away from my usual steamy Mediterranean-inspired cooking by slipping hard squashes, leeks, sage, potatoes, rosemary, and cabbage into my dishes, preparing my culinary self for the cold weather to come. These adjustments can sometimes result in clumsy cooking, but when I feel lost, I inevitably turn to Southern Italy for inspiration. Even Neapolitans cook with pumpkin and cabbage, after all.

Using crunchy, uncooked vegetables in place of delicate leafy greens is a good way to make the switch from summer to fall salads. For my early fall menu here I take leeks, fennel, and celery, slice them thinly so they’re not too clunky, and toss them with last-of-the-season tomatoes for a refreshing first course. I used little green Zebra tomatoes, but whatever you have that can be cut into wedges will be fine. The caciocavallo cheese and black olives I also added provide saltiness and richness.

When I serve pasta as a first course in true Italian style, as I’ve decided to for this menu, I always try to streamline its flavors so I don’t exhaust everyone’s palate before the meal is even half through. Here I highlight the stemmy broccoli rabe I always find at the Greenmarket in early fall, and I mellow out its bitterness with bits of prosciutto. These two courses could really be the whole meal and in summer pasta and salad often is, but if you’ve got your guests’ attention, I see no reason not to continue on to a meat course and a vegetable side dish, especially if you serve small portions of everything. Even when I serve a succession of courses, I try to think of each dish as equal in importance. After many years of what I feel is thoughtful cooking, I’ve stopped thinking so much in terms of main course or first course. I try to view a meal as a group of dishes that have a natural flow of flavors and textures.

After my pasta, I offer a roast chicken with the woodsy, cool-weather aroma of rosemary, a taste of lushness after the bitter broccoli rabe. I’ve included a somewhat pungent sweet-and-sour Sicilian pumpkin dish to serve with the chicken. I’m always looking for unexpected things to do with fall squashes, since they can be a little bland, and I find the usual sweet purées and soups unappealing after about a spoonful. Zucca all’agro dolce is a sweet-and-sour Sicilian dish made with pumpkin or another squash. Its more often found on antipasto tables than as a side dish, but I find its pungency is a good match for poultry (not only for chicken but for rich, fatty duck as well). When I first tasted this dish in Sicily years ago, I found it strange, with its mint, sugar, and touch of cinnamon all mixed together with garlic and vinegar. Its flavor has grown on me, and now I make it every fall. Zucca all’agro dolce is most often flavored with mint, but since I’ve chosen to serve mine with a rosemary-scented chicken, I thought basil would blend more naturally on the taste buds, so I’ve used that instead. For dessert I have baked apples flavored with white wine and the classic Sicilian-Arab duo of raisins and pine nuts.

Lately I’ve been liking a light red Sicilian wine called Cerasuolo di Vittoria, which is made from Sicily’s indigenous Frappato grape. It works well with all the dishes in this meal, starting with the salad, with its caciocavallo cheese, and even tastes good with the vinegary pumpkin. I like this light, slightly acidic wine served slightly chilled, as you might serve a young Beaujolais. Valle dell’Acate is a good producer to look for.

Tomato, Fennel, Leek, and Celery Salad with Caciocavallo Cheese

(Serves 4)

2 medium-size late-summer tomatoes, seeded, chopped into medium dice, and drained in a colander for about 20 minutes
1 large fennel bulb, trimmed, cored, and very thinly sliced
2 celery stalks, thinly sliced, plus the leaves from about 5 stalks, left whole
1 leek, well cleaned, the white and the very lightest green part sliced into very thin rounds
A handful of flat-leaf parsley leaves, left whole
A handful of black olives (Niçoise are nice for this)
A small chunk of caciocavallo cheese
Extra-virgin olive oil
Lemon juice
1 anchovy fillet, minced
A few gratings of nutmeg
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper

When you’re ready to serve the salad, place the tomatoes, fennel, celery with leaves, leek, parsley, and olives in a large salad bowl. With a sharp vegetable peeler, add about a dozen generous shavings of the caciocavallo. Drizzle about 3 tablespoons of good olive oil over everything, and squeeze on about a teaspoon or so of lemon juice (having tomatoes here, you don’t want an overly acid dressing). Add the minced anchovy, and sprinkle the salad with salt, a little nutmeg, and black pepper. Toss everything gently and taste for a good balance of olive oil to acid, adjusting it if you need to.

Serve right away.

Orecchiette with Broccoli Rabe, Prosciutto, and White Wine

Orecchiette with cima di rape (broccoli rabe) may be the most popular pasta dish in Puglia. I’ve had it many times in Puglian towns, always without meat but often with a touch of anchovy and a little hot chili. The Italian-American version almost always contains sausage. I find that a little heavy, but I like the dish with pork, so I’ve included a bit of chopped prosciutto here.

Orecchiette is a Puglian pasta, made with water and semolina, that is shaped like little hollow half circles (the name actually means little ears, and I suppose they do look a little like that). Orecchiette is still made by hand by some patient Puglian women, but they make good commercial brands that you can buy here too. Look for one by Sapore di Puglia. It has a desirable roughed-up matte texture and cooks up properly chewy.

If you want to make the more traditional Puglian non-meat version, leave out the prosciutto and prosciutto fat and add about four anchovy fillets and one dried red chili, crumbled, when you add the garlic in the recipe.

(Serves 4)

2 bunches of broccoli rabe, stemmed and lightly chopped
Salt
1 pound orecchiette
Extra-virgin olive oil
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
Freshly ground black pepper
A small wineglass of dry white wine
5 thin slices of prosciutto di Parma, the excess fat removed (but chop and save the fat)
A half-pound chunk of Grana Padano cheese

Put up a large pot of pasta cooking water. Add a generous amount of salt, and bring it to a boil. Add the broccoli rabe, and blanch it for 2 minutes. Scoop the broccoli rabe from the pot with a large strainer spoon, and put it in a colander. Run cold water over it to stop the cooking and to preserve its bright green color. When it is cold, squeeze out all the excess water with your hands (I usually go through it again at this point to remove any remaining thick stems too).

Start cooking the orecchiette.

In a skillet large enough to hold all the sauce and the pasta, heat about 4 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Add the chopped prosciutto fat and the garlic, and sauté until the garlic is just turning the lightest shade of gold and the fat has melted. Add the broccoli rabe, season with salt and black pepper, and sauté until it is well coated with oil, about 3 minutes. Add the white wine, and let it boil for a minute, leaving some liquid in the skillet.

When the orecchiette is al dente, drain it, leaving a little water clinging to it, and add it to the skillet. Grate on a tablespoon or so of Grana Padano. Add a drizzle of fresh olive oil, and toss everything gently for a minute to blend all the flavors. Transfer to a large serving bowl. Bring the remaining chunk of Grana Padano to the table for those who might like extra.

Roast Chicken with Rosemary and Last-of-the-Season Garlic

The classic Italian marriage of rosemary and garlic is one that I love, and I find it especially enticing when they’re blended in a subtle manner, since both ingredients can be aggressive when used in abundance. I season the chicken with them only on the inside, and I balance everything out with the gentle acidity of dry white wine.

(Serves 4)

1 approximately 3 1/2-pound free range chicken
3 branches of rosemary
5 cloves of moist garlic, unpeeled but lightly crushed with the side of a knife
A few pats of softened, unsalted butter
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
A few scrapings of nutmeg
A large wineglass of dry white wine
A drizzle of champagne vinegar

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Dry off the chicken and place the rosemary branches and crushed garlic cloves in its cavity. (There’s no need to close it up, and it doesn’t matter if some of the herbs stick out a bit.) Choose a low-sided baking dish that will allow a few inches of free space around the chicken (this will let it crisp up nicely). Rub the chicken with the softened butter and place it in the dish. Drizzle a little olive oil over the top. Season generously with salt, black pepper, and a few scrapings of fresh nutmeg. Place the chicken in the oven, legs facing the back (where it’s usually hottest), and bake, uncovered, for about 15 minutes. Pour the wine into the dish and bake for another hour and 15 minutes, basting every once in a while. You should always have at least a half inch of liquid in the dish. If it starts to evaporate too much, add a little warm water. The chicken should now be golden and crisp. Take it from the oven, and let it sit in the baking dish for about 5 minutes. Then pick the chicken up using a kitchen towel, and tilt the open end into the baking dish so all the rosemary and garlic-scented juices can be incorporated into the sauce (I sometimes instead insert a long serving fork into the cavity and pull it out that way). Place the chicken on a serving platter, and cover it loosely with aluminum foil until you’re ready to serve it.

Spoon off all the excess fat from the chicken juices and place the baking dish over a low flame, scraping up all the cooked-on bits from the bottom with a whisk. When the juices start to bubble, add a tiny drizzle of vinegar, whisking it into the sauce (this will bring up all the flavors). Taste to see if it could use some salt or a little fresh black pepper. Pour the sauce through a strainer into a small sauce boat. Carve the chicken, and spoon some of the sauce over each serving.

Pumpkin Agro Dolce with Vinegar and Basil

This is a version of one of Sicily’s much-loved agro dolce (sweet and sour) dishes, which are made all over the island. They get their characteristic taste from a blending of vinegar with sugar or honey.

(Serves 4 as a side dish)

A small wineglass of dry white wine
About a teaspoon of sugar
A tiny pinch of ground cinnamon
About a tablespoon of champagne vinegar
Extra-virgin olive oil
Half a small cheese pumpkin (about a pound and a half), peeled, seeded, and cut into approximately 1-inch-thick slices
2 garlic cloves, peeled
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
A small handful of basil leaves, lightly chopped

In a small saucepan, mix the white wine with the sugar, a pinch of cinnamon, and the champagne vinegar. Let it bubble over medium heat for about 2 minutes, just to dissolve the sugar and to burn off some of the alcohol.

Pour about half an inch of olive oil into a large skillet and let it get hot over a medium flame. Add the pumpkin slices and the garlic cloves, season everything generously with salt and black pepper, and let the slices cook without moving them around at all until they’re lightly browned on one side. Flip them over and brown the other side. Pour off all but about 2 tablespoons of the olive oil. Pour the wine mixture over the pumpkin, turn the heat to low, and cover the skillet. Cook gently for about another 4 minutes, just until the pumpkin is fork tender but not falling apart.

Turn off the heat, uncover the skillet, and let the pumpkin cool for a few minutes in the skillet to help it absorb all the flavors. Add the basil. The dish should have a subtle sweet-and-sour taste, more mellow than sharp. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Baked Apples with Pine Nuts and Raisins

If you travel to Southern Italy in the winter, you’ll be surprised to find baked apples sitting on dessert wagons, especially in Campagna. Apples are so much a part of my New York upbringing that I was amazed to learn they could even grow in the Mezzogiorno. I’ve never seen this exact recipe anywhere, but combining these ingredients makes so much sense to me that I can’t believe some cook, somewhere in Southern Italy, hasn’t come up with it as well.

(Makes 6 apples)

6 baking apples (I used a Jonathan apple for this, but Cortland or another firm, not too sweet variety will also work well)
3 tablespoons of unsalted butter, softened
A few gratings of nutmeg
A drizzle of olive oil
2 tablespoons wildflower honey
2 tablespoons sugar
A large wineglass of dry white wine
A handful of raisins
A handful of pine nuts, lightly toasted

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Core the apples and cut away of round section of skin from the top of each one so you have a collar around each one. Slice a thin layer off the bottom of each apple so they will stand upright. Choose a baking dish that will fit them snugly, and coat it with about a tablespoon of the butter. Place the apples in the dish, and dot the remaining butter over and inside them. Sprinkle on the nutmeg, and give them a drizzle of olive oil. Drizzle on the honey, and sprinkle them with sugar. Pour the wine around the apples (you’ll want about an inch of wine in the dish), and bake, uncovered, until they are tender, about 50 minutes to an hour, depending on the variety you use. Baste the apples occasionally while cooking to keep them moist on top.

Remove the apples to a serving platter. Strain the cooking liquid through a fine strainer into a small saucepan. Add the raisins, and boil the liquid down over high heat until it is syrupy (you should have about 1/2 cup). Pour this over the apples, and scatter on the pine nuts. Serve warm.

Recipes:

Fried Zucchini Blossoms with Mozzarella and Sun-Dried Tomatoes
Wheat Berries with Zucchini, Pine Nuts, and Ricotta
String Bean and Tomato Salad with Celery and Bottarga
Baked Eggplant with Parsley Pesto
Grilled Sardines with Hot Pine Nut Vinaigrette
Grilled Leg of Lamb with Tomatoes, Mint, and Honey
Cantaloupe with Marsala
Peach and Basil Pizza

If you love to cook, summer can make you tense with excitement. There are days I walk through the Union Square Greenmarket in Manhattan feeling overwhelmed by the abundance and choices. Greed mixed with confusion can be productive for a cook. I want everything, and often enough I buy everything. The colors are electric: eggplants in five different shades of purple, zucchini blossoms in day-glow yellow, plum-colored tomatoes, tomato-colored plums, huge bunches of green basil, thyme with little lavender blossoms, pink radishes, orange peppers, huge bins of garnet-colored cherries. It’s like trying to choose from a display case of 150 different lipstick shades. I lug my big bags home and lay my purchases out on the kitchen counter and stare, trying to make sense of it all. I play mix and match, making piles of things I might like to cook together, eventually sorting everything. Here are a few summer recipes I came up with after the sorting. They are all from my forthcoming book, Creating Southern Italian Flavor, which will be published by Wiley next year. I hope they will help jump-start your summer cooking.

Fried Zucchini Blossoms with Mozzarella and Sun-Dried Tomatoes

One night when I was a kid my family was eating over at the home of our neighbor Gloria Mastellone, an excellent cook whose family is from Sorrento in Campania, and she fried up a batch of stuffed zucchini blossoms and brought them to the table. My father took a bite of one of the hot blossoms, and a big, mad bumble bee flew out and buzzed around the dining room. Since then I always check the insides of the blossoms for any bugs that might be hiding in them.

A classic filling for these beautiful yellow blossoms is mozzarella and anchovy. I love that, but for my version I’ve chosen to include sun-dried tomatoes, which add their own brand of saltiness, and fresh marjoram.

(Serves 4 or 5 as an antipasto offering )

About 20 fresh zucchini blossoms
A small ball of mozzarella (about 1/2 pound), cut into medium cubes (just big enough to comfortably fit inside the blossom)
8 sun-dried tomatoes (preferably ones preserved in oil), cut into strips
A few sprigs of marjoram, the leaves lightly chopped, plus a few whole sprigs for garnish

For the batter:

1 cup all-purpose flour
A tiny pinch of baking powder (a little less than 1/8 teaspoon)
A generous pinch of salt
A few scrapings of fresh nutmeg
About 3/4 cup cold water
Extra-virgin olive oil for frying (an inexpensive, bulk supermarket brand is a reasonable choice here)

Zucchini blossoms should be very fresh and unwilted when you buy them. They are quite perishable and will keep for only about a day, so plan on using them right away. Sticking their stems in a small glass of water in the refrigerator will sometimes prolong their freshness for an extra day. To clean the blossoms for this recipe, open each one up and pinch off its stamen, checking while you do for any dirt (or bugs) that might be trapped inside. Then wipe their surface with a damp paper towel. I try not to actually wash zucchini blossoms (they easily become waterlogged), but if they’re really dirty, dunk them very briefly in a sink full of cool water, lift them out right away, and drain them on paper towels.

Gently place a piece of mozzarella in each blossom. Add a few pieces of sun-dried tomato and a few marjoram leaves. Twist the tops of the blossoms to close them up. You can refrigerate the filled blossoms for a few hours before frying them.

To make the batter, put the flour in a medium mixing bowl. Add the baking powder, salt, and nutmeg and stir well to blend all the ingredients. Add the cold water and whisk until the batter is smooth (it should be a little thicker than heavy cream). Let sit while you set up the oil.

I don’t always love frying at home, but these can be done in only a few inches of oil, so they’re not really deep fried, and it’s not such an ordeal. I like using a straight-sided sauté pan, about 4 inches deep, for this frying. It contains the oil in a way I’m comfortable with (much better than a sloping pan). Fill the pan with about 2 inches of oil and set it over a medium flame (ideally 360 to 365 degrees, but I honestly never use a thermometer; I just wait until the surface shimmers from the heat and then add a few drops of batter). If the batter bubbles and turns golden right away I know the oil is ready. If the batter sits in the pan with no movement, the oil is too cold; if it burns quickly, it’s too hot.

Dip the blossoms in the batter, letting excess batter drip off. Fry them in batches, probably about five at a time; crowding the pan will lower the oil temperature. Turn them when they look golden and crispy. They should take about 4 minutes or so. Pull the blossoms from the pan with tongs and set on paper towels for a moment to soak up excess oil. Place the blossoms on a serving dish and sprinkle with salt and black pepper and the marjoram sprigs. Serve right away.

Wheat Berries with Zucchini, Pine Nuts, and Ricotta

Whole wheat berries are used in Southern Italy to make all sorts of salads and soups and for cuccia, a mix of wheat berries, ricotta, and something sweet like sugar or cocoa. Make sure to buy hard wheat berries (usually labeled Hard Spring Wheat); soft winter wheat ones cook up a little too mushy. You can find wheat berries at health-food stores and at Middle Eastern markets.

To make a summer wheat berry salad with tomatoes and basil, drain the cooked wheat berries from this recipe, pour them into a large serving bowl, and drizzle on a little olive oil; chop up two large summer tomatoes, seed them, and let them drain in a colander for about 15 minutes, just to get rid of excess juice; add the tomatoes, a handful of lightly chopped basil, a few gratings of Grana Padano cheese (not too much, as you just want a taste, and excess will make the wheat gummy), and a thinly sliced garlic clove to the bowl; season with salt and black pepper, add a fresh drizzle of oil, and toss it gently; and serve at room temperature. This salad definitely tastes best made fresh and not refrigerated, as chilling flattens the taste of beautiful summer tomatoes.

(Serves 4 as a first course or side dish)

1 1/2 cups hard wheat berries
1 bay leaf, fresh if possible
Extra-virgin olive oil
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
3 thin slices of pancetta, cut into small dice
4 or 5 scallions, thinly sliced, using some tender green
5 tiny young zucchini, cut into small cubes
A splash of dry white wine
The grated zest from 1 lemon
A handful of pine nuts, lightly toasted
A generous handful of basil leaves, lightly chopped
1 cup fresh ricotta

Place the wheat berries in a large pot and cover them with about 4 inches of cold water. Add the bay leaf and bring the water to a boil. Adjust the heat to medium-low and cook the wheat, uncovered, at a low boil (a bit more vigorous than a simmer but not a rolling boil) for about 45 minutes. Add hot water if the water diminishes to less than an inch above the wheat. When done, the grains will have swelled to about twice their size, and they’ll be tender to the bite with just a bit of resistance. Some of the grains will have started to burst, but this is normal. Drain well and pour the wheat berries into a large serving bowl. Remove the bay leaf. Drizzle with a few tablespoons of olive oil and season lightly with salt and black pepper. Give it a gentle mix.

In a large skillet, heat about 3 tablespoons of olive oil over medium flame. Add the pancetta and sauté until crisp, about 4 minutes. Add the scallions and the zucchini and sauté until the zucchini is just tender, about 5 minutes (if you have really young, tender zucchini it will cook quickly). Season with a little salt and black pepper. Add the white wine and let it bubble for a few seconds (the wine will loosen up juices on the bottom of the skillet so they can be incorporated into the dish, adding a lot of flavor). Add the zucchini with all the skillet juices to the wheat berries. Add the pine nuts, lemon zest, and basil. Add a drizzle of fresh olive oil and toss everything gently. Taste for seasoning. You may want to add a little fresh lemon juice to pick up the flavors. Serve warm in small pasta bowls with a dollop of ricotta on top of each serving.

String Bean and Tomato Salad with Celery and Bottarga

We had a lot of string-bean salads when I was a child, and I never found them too exciting, especially the limp, vinegary ones that came from Italian delis. I dress mine just before serving so everything stays crisp. A few chopped anchovies are a classic addition, but here I use bottarga, the pressed tuna or gray mullet roe famous in Sicily and Sardinia, which gives this simple summer dish an exciting, salty bite.

(Serves 4)

3/4 pound tender summer string beans, trimmed but left whole (if they’re not in season, use haricots verts, which you can find in good shape year-round at gourmet shops)
3 tender inner stalks of celery, thinly sliced, plus the leaves from about 5 stalks, lightly chopped
1 large red shallot, thinly sliced
1 pint red cherry tomatoes, cut in half
A few large sprigs of marjoram, the leaves lightly chopped
Extra-virgin olive oil
A tiny splash of champagne vinegar
A pinch of salt
Freshly ground black pepper
About 12 scrapings of bottarga (preferably gray mullet roe from Sardinia)

Set up a medium-size pot of water and bring it to a boil. Add the string beans and blanch them for about 3 minutes. Scoop them from the water with a large strainer into a colander and run cold water over them to preserve their green color. Let them drain.

When you’re ready to serve the salad, place the string beans, celery, celery leaves, shallot, cherry tomatoes, and marjoram in a large salad bowl. Pour on about 3 tablespoons of fruity extra-virgin olive oil and the tiniest splash of champagne vinegar (you don’t need much on top of the acidity of the tomatoes). Add the smallest pinch of salt (remember that the bottarga is very salty) and a few grindings of black pepper. Toss everything gently. With a sharp vegetable peeler, shave about a dozen or so scrapings of bottarga into the bowl and give it another gentle toss. Divide the salad onto small plates and serve right away.

Baked Eggpplant with Parsley Pesto

If you really love parsley, as I do, make a parsley pesto, where its flavor can really shine. I rub the pesto into the flesh of halved eggplants and bake them in a hot oven. For something so simple, the dish has really rich flavor.

I use very small eggplants for this, about four inches long and dark and purple Larger ones bake up a little mushy in the center. I also make it with the long, skinny Japanese variety.

(Serves 4 or 5 as a side dish)

1 large garlic clove, peeled
2 salt-packed anchovies, filleted, soaked in cool water for about 20 minutes, and drained
1 medium shallot
A large handful of flat-leaf parsley leaves
Extra-virgin olive oil
Black pepper
Salt
4 small eggplants, cut in half lengthwise

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Make the pesto: Place the garlic, anchovies, and shallot in the bowl of a food processor and pulse to a paste. Add the parsley, about 1/4 cup of olive oil, and a little salt and a more generous amount of black pepper. Pulse a few times until everything is just blended and not yet becoming a purée.

With a thin, sharp knife, score the eggplants through the flesh in a large diamond pattern, cutting about halfway down (be careful not to cut into the skin). Spread a generous amount of the pesto on each eggplant, working it down into the cuts. Place them on a lightly oiled sheet pan and bake until they’re lightly browned and tender, about 1/2 hour (depending on the size of the eggplants).

You can serve these hot, but the flavors may be more vibrant if you eat them at room temperature.

Grilled Sardines with Hot Pine Nut Vinaigrette

I love the pungent smell of sardines on a grill, and when I find really fresh sardines in the market I always like to grill them. I usually find them flown in from Portugal. They’re best the day they arrive. If you see them at your market, ask when they usually arrive (mine come in every Thursday). That way you can get them at their best. The creaminess of the pine nuts marries very well with the rich oiliness of the little fish.

About cleaning sardines: For this recipe all you really need to do it gut and scale them. I leave the backbone, head, and tail intact. You can ask your fish seller to do this, but it’s pretty easy. While running the sardine under cool water, rub the scales away with your fingers (they come off easily and don’t need to be scraped off like the ones on larger fish). Stick a small knife into the middle of the belly and make a one-inch lengthwise slit. Pull out the insides with your fingers and wash each fish inside and out with cool water. That’s it.

(Serves 4 as a first course or a light meal)

For the vinaigrette:

1/2 cup very fresh pine nuts
Extra-virgin olive oil
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
The zest and juice from 1 large lemon
A pinch of sugar
A tiny splash of white wine
A handful of flat leaf parsley leaves, chopped

12 sardines, gutted and scaled, but with the heads left on (see above)
Salt (preferably sea salt)
Freshly ground black pepper
Extra-virgin olive oil
The juice from one lemon
1 head chicory or frisée, cleaned and separated into long leaves

Place the pine nuts in a medium skillet and toast them over low heat, stirring them around occasionally until they are nicely golden. Add about 1/2 cup of olive oil, a pinch of salt, black pepper, a pinch of sugar, the zest and juice of a lemon, and a splash of white wine. Let this bubble for a minute and then turn off the heat, leaving the skillet on the turned-off burner.

Set up a stove-top grill plate (or an outside grill) and get it very hot. Toss the sardines lightly in olive oil, a little salt, black pepper, and lemon juice. Grill them until good char marks appear, about a minute or so, and turn once, grilling the other side, about another minute or so. This should cook them through, but large ones will take a little longer. Line a large serving plate with the chicory or frisée. Lift the sardines from the grill with tongs and place them on the serving plate. Reheat the pine-nut sauce for a few seconds, just until it’s hot, adding a splash of water to loosen it up if necessary. Scatter the parsley leaves over the sardines, and pour on the pine-nut sauce. Serve hot.

Grilled Leg of Lamb with Tomatoes, Mint, and Honey

Lamb is often flavored with fennel seeds or rosemary in Sicily as in other parts of Southern Italy. For this quick grill, however, I’ve chosen for the main flavoring mint, another herb used frequently in Sicilian cooking. As the British have long known, mint goes beautifully with lamb. I’ve blended it with tomatoes and a touch of honey, which not only adds sweetness but gives the meat a crisp crust. Black pepper is an important ingredient because it balances the acidity and sweetness of the other ingredients.

My butcher almost always has boned leg of lamb ready to buy in large or small pieces. If yours doesn’t, ask him to bone and butterfly a leg (butterflying flattens the meat out to a more-or-less even thickness, usually about two inches at its thickest but always be a little uneven from the nature of the cut).

Leftover grilled lamb makes excellent sandwiches. To prepare them I usually toast Italian bread, brush it with olive oil, and layer on the lamb and any remaining tomatoes. Sometimes I add crumbled Ricotta Salata or Feta cheese before closing it up.

(Makes 6 main-course servings)

For the lamb:

An approximately 4-pound piece of boned and butterflied leg of lamb (see above)
About 4 garlic cloves, peeled and cut into slivers
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 bay leaves
A few large marjoram or oregano sprigs, the leaves lightly chopped
A handful of mint sprigs, the leaves lightly chopped
1 medium wineglass dry Marsala wine
About 2 tablespoons of honey (a wildflower honey is nice for this)
Freshly ground black pepper
Extra-virgin olive oil
Salt

For the tomatoes:

2 pints of cherry tomatoes, stemmed but left whole
About 3 scallions, cut into thin rounds, using some of the tender green part
A drizzle of honey
A few large mint sprigs, the leaves lightly chopped
A few large marjoram or oregano sprigs, the leaves lightly chopped
Freshly ground black pepper
Salt
A drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil

Place the lamb in a shallow dish. Make a few little cuts into the surface in various places and insert the garlic slivers. Sprinkle the cinnamon over the lamb. Add the bay leaves, marjoram or oregano, and mint. Drizzle on the honey and pour the glass of Marsala over the meat. Pour on a little olive oil, grind on a generous amount of black pepper, and turn the lamb over a few times in the marinade so all the flavors are well distributed. Ideally this should sit for a few hours or even refrigerated overnight, but if you’re pressed for time, just let it sit unrefrigerated while you set up your grill.

Start your fire and let it burn down until you have hot, whitish coals but no flame (if the fire is too hot and active, you’ll wind up burning the outside of the lamb while the inside remains raw). Pull the lamb from the marinade and season it well on both sides with salt. Start grilling the lamb, fat side down, about 5 inches from the heat. Grill until it’s well crusted, about 10 minutes. Turn and grill the other side, about 8 to 10 minutes longer. If at any time you sense it is getting too black, move it over to the side of the grill where the heat is milder. Since boned leg of lamb is uneven in thickness, you will always wind up with some pink and some more well-done meat (something for everyone), so aim for the thickest parts to be medium-rare (about 130 degrees if you want to measure the temperature with a meat thermometer). Take the lamb from the grill and place it on a cutting board that will catch all the juices. Let it rest for about 10 minutes before cutting into it.

While the lamb is resting, grill the tomatoes. You can use a wire grill basket to prevent the cherry tomatoes from dropping into the fire; I usually just poke a few holes in a piece of aluminum foil and pile them onto that. Put the tomatoes on the grill and cook them, shaking them around a bit, until they just start to burst and take on a little color, about 3 or 4 minutes. Place them in a small bowl and add the scallions, the honey, and about half of the mint and marjoram or oregano. Season with salt and black pepper and a drizzle of olive oil. Toss gently.

Carve the lamb into thin slices and arrange it on a serving platter in a circular pattern, leaving a little space open in the center of the platter. Pour the tomatoes into the center. Pour any lamb juices that have collected over the lamb. Give everything a fresh grinding of black pepper, maybe a little salt if you want it, and a drizzle of fresh olive oil. Scatter on the remaining herbs and serve right away (it will also taste really good at room temperature).

Cantaloupe with Marsala

When I first smelled these two fragrant ingredients together, I knew how good this was going to taste. They’re a classic Sicilian pairing of flavors that works best with a really ripe summer cantaloupe and a high-quality Marsala like Florio.

(Serves 4)

1 large, ripe cantaloupe
1 large wineglass sweet Marsala wine (if you have only dry Marsala, add about a tablespoon of sugar)
A drizzle of honey
A few short strips of lemon peel
A pinch of salt
A few mint sprigs for garnish

I usually don’t get fussy about using kitchen gadgets in my recipes, but I have to say that using a melon baller here makes a big difference in the presentation of this dessert. So halve the cantaloupe, remove the seeds, and then scoop out all the insides with the melon baller into a pretty serving bowl. Pour on the Marsala, and add the honey, lemon peel, and a tiny pinch of salt (the salt heightens the flavor of the melon in a subtle but worthwhile way; my grandfather always ate cantaloupe wedges heavily sprinkled with salt). Give it all a few good stirs, cover the bowl, and refrigerate until everything is chilled, stirring occasionally. Serve cool, garnished with the mint sprigs.

Peach and Basil Pizza

Flavoring peaches with basil is an idea I got from my grandmother’s cousin Tony when I went to visit him in Campolattaro, a small town in Campania to which he moved in the 1980s after spending most of his adult life in Westchester County, New York. His cellar, filled with an amazing assortment of preserved fruits and vegetables, contained jars of peaches with a few basil leaves stuck into each one. I had thought basil leaves were used to flavor only preserved tomatoes, and I didn’t ask him about it at the time. However, though I never sampled those peaches I thought about them from time to time over the years, wondering how they would taste. I finally got to putting peaches and basil together and realized that Tony had been on to something.

Several things go by the name pizza in Southern Italy, including open-face sweet tarts like this one. Pizza dolce like this usually includes fresh or candied fruit and nuts.

For the crust:

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
A generous pinch of salt
1 tablespoon sugar
About 2 or 3 tablespoons chilled dry white wine
1 large egg
The zest from about 1/2 lemon
1 stick unsalted butter, cold and cut into small dice

5 ripe peaches, unpeeled and cut into thin wedges
4 tablespoons sugar
The zest from 1 lemon
A splash of Amaretto liqueur
A handful of whole, blanched almonds, lightly toasted and roughly ground in a food processor
A small handful of basil leaves, lightly chopped
Powdered sugar for garnish, if you like

To make the crust, put the flour in the bowl of a food processor. Add the salt, sugar, and lemon zest and pulse once or twice to blend everything. In a small bowl whisk the egg together with the white wine. Add the butter to the food processor and pulse two or three times, just until the butter is broken up into little pea-size bits. Pour the egg-and-wine mixture over the dough and pulse once or twice more, just to blend it. The dough should just start to come together and look crumbly and moist.. Turn the dough out onto a counter and press it into a ball. Give it a few brief kneads with the palm of your hand to make sure it holds together. Wrap it in plastic wrap, and refrigerate it for about 30 minutes

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Place the peaches in a bowl and toss them with the sugar, lemon zest, and Amaretto.

Take the dough from the refrigerator and sprinkle a work surface with a little flour. Roll the dough out into a large round, about 12 inches, trimming the edges to make it rounder. Sprinkle the ground almonds over the surface, leaving a 3-inch border. Scatter on the basil. Pile the peaches into the center of the circle and let them spread out in a natural way, leaving a 3-inch border all around. Now fold the edge up and around the fruit, giving the dough little tucks to hold it in place and create a ruffly border. You should have a large opening in the middle where the peaches stick out.

Bake until the crust is a deep golden brown, about 35 to 40 minutes.

Let cool for about 1/2 hour and then dust with powdered sugar if you like.

Recipes:

Cannellini Bean Soup with Cockles and Chard
Chicken Soup with Pumpkin and Escarole
Dandelion and Baby Meatball Soup
Minestra of Cabbage, Wheat Berries, and Sausage

As Winter deepens, I’m honing recipes for my book on Southern Italian flavors. Many of them are based on family dishes, but others are purely personal, a product of my ongoing involvement with the cooking of my grandparents’ birthplaces. When I recently turned my attention to winter soups, I began thinking about the greens-and-meat-based soups my grandmother often made, all with a bitter edge because they were filled with dandelions, chicory, and escarole. She actually foraged for dandelions at the Westchester golf course where my grandfather worked as the club pro. These soups were enriched with tiny meatballs, chunks of sausage, or little pieces of what my mother disapprovingly referred to as “fat,” which actually were pancetta (which essentially is fat, I suppose). I loved these soups, and I’ve made them the focus of the winter soup collection for my new book.

Winter is when I appreciate soup the most, preferring big meal-in-a-bowl varieties to the more delicate, brothy first-course soups that are often served at fancy occasions like weddings or baptisms in Southern Italy. In fact, I must be a lightweight eater, for whenever I’m served soup as a first course, no matter how little, when the main course comes I can only pick at it. This is a phenomenon my grandmother understood, but she insisted the reason was due to the American habit of eating hot brothy soup with a cold beverage like soda. Cold drinks were banned from her table when she served soup, because she thought the hot and cold liquids would somehow fight in your stomach, giving you painful cramps or, worse, preventing you from eating more. Thick meal-in-a-bowl soups were exempt from this rule, though, presumably because they were more like solid food.

Some of my favorite winter meals begin with some sort of antipasto, like sliced prosciutto or capocollo with maybe some raw or pickled vegetables and a little mozzarella, then move to a big soup, served with crusty Arthur Avenue-style bread, wine, a green salad to follow, and finally a piece of fruit (or if I’m ambitious enough to make it, a fruit tart).

Minestra maritata is a Southern Italian term for soup that “marries” several vegetables, usually greens. I’ve read food historians who say maritata more accurately refers to a soup that blends meat and greens, and it is true that all the maritatas I’ve come across in Southern Italy have included some type of meat, usually pork, traditionally the most widely available. These soups tend toward improvisation, the only constant being the greens and meat. Pasta is generally not included. In Foggia, a Northern Puglian town very close to where my grandmother was born, the traditional maritata often contains escarole, chicory, wild fennel, celery, pancetta, and pecorino. In her excellent cookbook Flavors of Puglia, Nancy Harmon Jenkins includes a recipe for a maritata that has similar ingredients but is baked in the oven with a pecorino-and-bread-crumb crust.

Big soups can be broth-based, but often only water is used, since they get so much flavor anyway from their myriad ingredients. Minestrone is the classic Italian big soup. It takes many forms and can contain just about any combination of vegetables, plus a pasta or a grain, though the Southern Italian preference for carefully judging the quality of ingredients steers cooks away from clutter. The kitchen-sink approach to soup making is not part of Southern tradition. I always try to use discretion and streamline my ingredient choices, highlighting one or two seasonal vegetables, including only one or two herbs, and judging any meat of fish addition by evaluating what it will bring to the soup’s finished taste and appearance.

Here are four winter soups that I’d say fall in the big-soup category. They are improvisational by design, so feel free to make adjustments to suit your taste. For instance, my cannellini bean soup with cockles and chard is just as good made with mussels and escarole, a variation I sometimes make.

Happy winter cooking to you, and please write me with comments on my recipes or any food questions or recipes you might want to share.

Cannellini Bean Soup with Cockles and Chard

I love any dish that marries beans with shellfish. The combination is popular in Puglia and around the Naples area, turning up in pasta dishes and in soups like this one. This soup is substantial enough to serve as is, but often when I make it I grill a few pieces of crusty Italian bread on my stovetop grill plate, rub them with garlic, and brush them with a little olive oil. That makes the classic, simple Italian bruschetta, and it goes very well with this soup.

If you can’t find cannellini beans, Great Northern beans will do fine. They are slightly smaller and a little less creamy when cooked, but still purée nicely. I chose cockles for the soup because their small shells look very pretty mingling with the beans, but small littleneck clams, or any hard-shelled clams, can replace them. Choose the tiniest ones you can find.

(Serves 6)

2 cups dried cannellini beans, soaked overnight in cool water that covers them by at least 4 inches
2 bay leaves
Extra-virgin olive oil
Salt
A small chunk of fatty prosciutto end, chopped
2 leeks, cut into small dice
2 celery stalks, cut into small dice
2 garlic cloves, peeled
1 small fresh red chile pepper, seeded and minced (for just a hint of heat)
A few small sprigs of rosemary
2 medium tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped (or a small can of diced tomatoes, drained)
2 pounds cockles, well washed
A large wineglass of dry white wine
A medium bunch of chard, the thick center ribs removed and the leaves roughly chopped
A handful of basil leaves, lightly chopped

Drain the beans and place them in a large pot. Cover them with cool water by about 4 inches. Add the bay leaves and turn the heat to high. When the water comes to a boil, turn the heat down very low, partially cover the pot, and cook at a simmer without stirring at all, until the beans are tender, about 1 1/2 hours (but test them after an hour to see how far along they’ve come). When the beans are tender, turn off the heat, uncover the pot, add a drizzle of olive oil, and season with salt (adding salt while they’re cooking can toughen their skins). Let the beans sit on the turned-off burner for about 20 minutes (this will further tenderize them gently). Scoop out about a quarter of the beans, along with a little of the cooking water, and purée them in a food processor until they’re very smooth. Set them aside.

In a large soup pot, heat about 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Add the prosciutto, and let it crisp up. Add the leeks, celery, garlic cloves, chile, and rosemary, and sauté until everything is soft and fragrant, about 4 minutes. Add the tomatoes, and sauté for a few minutes longer. Add the bean purée and the remaining whole beans, along with all their cooking liquid. Season with a little salt and let everything simmer over medium low heat for about 10 minutes.

In the meantime, place the cockles in a medium-size pot and pour the white wine over them. Cook the cockles over high heat, stirring them frequently, until they’ve opened. Lift them from the pot and add them to the soup. Strain their cooking liquid, to remove any sand that they may have given off, and add it to the soup pot, along with the chard and the basil. Turn off the heat and let the chard wilt for a few minutes. The soup should be of a medium thickness (not thick enough to stand a spoon in, but not brothy either; with a certain amount of body). If it seems too thick, add a little hot water. Check the seasoning, and add a bit more salt if needed. Serve hot.

Chicken Soup with Pumpkin and Escarole

Here I’ve blended classic fall flavors, pumpkin, cooked greens, and the woodsy aromas of rosemary and Marsala wine, to produce a new Italian-style big soup. Any small pasta or broken spaghetti can be used for the soup, but I prefer very small types such as orzo or acini. I’ve found a pasta called grattoni, made by Rustichella d’Abruzzi, an excellent artisanal pasta producer in Italy, that looks like little seed pearls and gives the soup an elegant appearance. Tubetti (tiny tubes) or anellini (little rings) are also good choices.

(Serves 4 or 5)

Olive oil
1 slice fatty end-cut prosciutto, well chopped
1 large onion, cut into small dice
2 carrots, cut into small dice
1 3 1/2-pound chicken
Salt
Black pepper
2 garlic cloves, peeled and lightly crushed
A few gratings of nutmeg
A few small sprigs of rosemary, the leaves chopped
A large wineglass of dry Marsala
1 quart homemade or low-salt-canned chicken broth
A large piece of pumpkin, peeled and cut into small cubes (about 2 cups)
1/2 cup small soup pasta (see above), cooked al dente, drained, and tossed in a drizzle of olive oil and a pinch of salt
1 medium head escarole, washed, dried, and well chopped
1 cup grated Grana Padano cheese

Choose a large casserole or heavy-bottomed soup pot fitted with a lid. Heat a few tablespoons of olive oil over medium flame. When hot, add the prosciutto, onion, and carrots, and sauté a few minutes to soften. Add the chicken, seasoning it with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and rosemary, and brown lightly all over, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic, and sauté a minute or so, just to release its flavor. Add the Marsala, and let it reduce by half. Add the chicken broth and enough water to just cover the chicken. Turn the heat to low, cover the casserole, and simmer, turning the chicken occasionally, until it is very tender, about an hour and a quarter.

Remove the chicken from the broth. Skim most of the fat from the surface of the broth. When the chicken is cool enough to handle, pull the meat off it and cut into little chunks. Discard the skin and bones. Return the broth to a boil. Add the pumpkin, and cook uncovered until tender but not falling apart, about 10 minutes. Add the chicken, the pasta, and the escarole. Simmer on low heat about 2 or 3 minutes, just to blend the flavors and wilt the escarole. Taste for seasoning, adding a bit more salt, black pepper, fresh rosemary, and/or a pinch of nutmeg to balance the flavors. Serve hot, topped with a sprinkling of Grana Padano.

Dandelion and Baby Meatball Soup

One of the constant torments of my mother’s life is my hounding her for old family recipes that she insists she can’t recall. I remembered a dandelion soup of my father’s mother’s very vaguely, probably because she stopped making it after I was a little girl (this happened a lot in my family; Italian dishes gradually disappeared and were seamlessly replaced by steaks, baked potatoes, boxed macaroni and cheese, and other things we grew to love, like Pop Tarts and TV dinners). The recipe that results from this distant recollection is more a composite sketch than historical fact; the dandelions are from my father’s mother, the little slivers of cheese in the bottom of the bowl a habit of my mother’s father. The baby meatballs were I think part of another family soup, a chicken broth with little meatballs poached in it, but my mother says her meatball soup always included greens. Here is a minestra maritata improvised from fragments of memory.

Since you have no whole chicken stewing in this soup, unlike in the previous recipe, a good homemade broth is essential. An easy way to make a traditional Southern Italian-style light meat broth it is by buying a package of chicken wings, asking your butcher for a couple of veal bones, and simmering them together with the traditional Southern Italian flavorings tomato, garlic, and herbs for about 1 1/2 hours.

(Serves 4)

1 pound ground pork
1 garlic clove, minced
2 eggs
About 1/2 cup grated Grana Padano cheese, plus a handful of the cheese cut into thin slivers
A handful of flat-leaf parsley leaves, well chopped
A few sprigs of oregano or marjoram, the leaves chopped
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, cut into small dice
2 celery stalks, cut into small dice, plus the leaves, chopped
A medium bunch of dandelions, stemmed and chopped into small pieces
A baguette, cut into thin rounds

For the broth:

1 pound chicken wings
3 or 4 veal bones
Extra-virgin olive oil
A half an onion
A stalk of celery, cut in half
A small carrot
A half a tomato
1 bay leaf
A few sprigs of flat-leaf parsley
1 garlic clove, lightly crushed
1 whole clove or allspice
A few black peppercorns
Salt

To make the broth, put the chicken wings and veal bones in a large soup pot. Turn the heat to medium, and drizzle on a little olive oil. Turn the bones over and let them brown lightly; then brown them on the other side. Add all the other ingredients and sauté a few minutes longer, just so they can release their flavors. Add about 2 quarts of cool water and let it come to a slow boil. Turn the heat to low, and simmer uncovered for about 1 1/2 hours. Pour the broth through a strainer into a container. Skim off any excess fat from the top, and season with a little salt. You can make this a day ahead, if you like. Refrigerate it if you’re not using it right away.

To make the meatballs, put the ground pork in a bowl. Add the garlic, eggs, grated Grana Padano, parsley, and oregano or marjoram. Season with salt and black pepper and a drizzle of olive oil. Mix everything together with your hands. Roll the meat into tiny meatballs, as small as you can manage (marble-size or a touch bigger is perfect).

In a large soup pot, heat about 3 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Add the chopped onion and celery, including the leaves, and sauté until soft and fragrant, about 4 minutes. Add the broth, and bring it to a boil. Lower the heat a bit, and gently add the meatballs and the dandelions. Let the meatballs just cook through, about 4 minutes. By this time the dandelions should also be tender.

Toast the baguette slices, and place one or two in each soup bowl. Drizzle each one with a little olive oil, and sprinkle on the slivers of Grana Padano. Ladle the hot soup over the toast. Serve hot.

Minestra of Cabbage, Wheat Berries, and Sausage

I’m always surprised how often I see cabbage, a very northern seeming vegetable, on Southern Italian menus. I’ve been served braised cabbage in Basilicata several times as part of an antipasto assortment, one time loaded with so much hot chile I could barely eat it. Cabbage stuffed with sausage and rice is a dish my mother used to make, having learned it, I think, from my father’s mother. In Puglia I had a cabbage stuffed with salt cod as part of an antipasto platter. The vegetable rarely inspires me, though, but I force myself to buy and cook it, hoping something good will happen. Here is something good. It is a variation on a rice-and-cabbage soup I was served in central Campania, in a small restaurant near my grandmother’s birthplace, Castelfranco in Miscano. I’ve substituted wheat berries for the rice, added sausage instead of pancetta, and played around with the flavorings.

Choose hard spring-wheat berries, not soft winter-wheat ones. Both are generally available at health food shops and Middle Eastern markets. Farro, a grain similar to spelt that is popular in Umbrian cooking, makes a good substitute for the wheat berries. You can cook it the same way as them, but it doesn’t take as long. If you use it, check the package for the cooking time.

(Serves 4)

3/4 cup hard wheat berries
Extra-virgin olive oil
Salt
3 medium-size Italian pork sausages, removed from their casings and crumbled
About half a medium head of green cabbage, thinly sliced (about 2 cups sliced)
1 large, sweet onion, such as Vidalia, thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, peeled and lightly crushed
Freshly ground black pepper
A small wineglass of dry white wine
A bay leaf
A few thyme branches, the leaves chopped
A few sage leaves, chopped
A quart of chicken broth or homemade light meat broth (as in my Dandelion and Meatball Soup recipe), or a mix of low-salt canned chicken broth and water
A splash of sherry-wine vinegar
A chunk of Pecorino cheese for grating
A baguette, cut into thin rounds

Put the wheat berries in a medium sauce pot and cover them with cool water by about four inches. Place over high heat and bring to a boil. Turn the heat to medium low, and simmer, uncovered, at a low bubble until the wheat berries are tender to the bite, about 45 minutes (they should taste pleasantly crunchy, not hard; some will burst, but that’s normal). If the water gets low at any point, add hot water to the pot. When the berries are tender, drain them and put them in a small bowl. Add a drizzle of olive oil and a generous pinch of salt, and give them a toss.

In a large soup pot, heat about 2 tablespoons of olive oil over high heat. When it’s hot, add the sausage, breaking it up into smaller bits with your spoon, and brown well. Turn the heat to medium, and add the cabbage, the onion, and the garlic cloves. Season with salt and black pepper, and sauté until the vegetables are nice and soft, about 15 minutes (if they start to stick, add a little more olive oil). Add the white wine, and let it bubble down to almost nothing. Add the bay leaf, thyme, and sage and the broth. Bring to a boil, and then turn the heat down a little and let the soup simmer, partially covered, for about 20 minutes (you want the cabbage very tender, Southern Italian style, and not at all crunchy). Depending on how fatty your sausages are, you may need to skim the soup once or twice.

Uncover the pot, add the wheat berries, and let the soup simmer for about another 5 minutes, just to blend all the flavors. Add a splash of sherry-wine vinegar (or good-quality white-wine vinegar) and taste for seasoning. The vinegar will sharpen the flavors, but you may need a little extra salt or black pepper, or a few more sage leaves to add freshness.

When you’re ready to serve the soup, toast the baguette slices on both sides and drop one or two into each soup bowl. While the toast is still hot, grate Pecorino over it and into the bowl. Pour the hot soup into the bowl. Serve right away.

Recipes:

Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto and Ricotta Bruschetta
Linguine with Anchovies, Parsley, and Sweet Bread Crumbs
Lobster with Tomato and Brandy
Sweet Orange Salad with Pomegranate and Orange Liqueur

I love Christmas Eve for its sense of drama, and lacking much religious conviction I find drama for its own sake a wonderful thing. I have a gay disco boy’s fascination with glitter, lights, and late-night festivity. My more or less traditional virgilia, the Southern Italian Christmas Eve fish dinner, is always served late in the evening. Candles are a very important accompaniment; I like to arrange them in clusters so it almost looks like the apartment is on fire. The customary thirteen fish dishes seem much too much work, and whenever I’ve even come close the preparing that amount of food, I’ve noticed my guests growing uneasy.

Nowadays I make two or three fish dishes. I almost always make a salt cod purée (a recipe for it appears on page 246 of my book Pasta Improvvisata). I serve it without the pasta, and instead pour the purée into a baking dish, drizzle it with olive oil, and stick it in a hot oven for about 10 minutes. I make garlic toast to go with it. In the last few years I’ve served an aperitif of white wine with fresh pomegranate juice with the salt cod; the wine looks and tastes beautiful, but after tasting a white wine­and­Campari drink recently in a restaurant in Barletta, Puglia, I’ve decided to go with that instead this year. It is just as brilliantly pink and cuts through the olive-oily richness of the salt cod nicely.

I’ve fallen in love with anchovies all over again. I’ve found myself eating a whole tin of them when nobody was paying attention, so I’m legitimizing my passion by turning it toward a sit-down first course of linguine tossed with salt-packed Sicilian anchovies, white wine, and lots of parsley, and garnished with sweetened bread crumbs, another Sicilian touch. For the main course, I’m recreating a family lobster recipe from my mother’s memory (lobster simmered in tomatoes and brandy is something her father Errico made for Christmas Eve, but since he died at a very young age, I never got to taste it).

I almost always include some kind of orange salad to cleanse the palate after all the fish. Usually I make it in a savory vein, with olives and onions, but this year I’ve decided on a sweet version seasoned with almonds, orange liqueur, pomegranate, and mint. I hope someone will bring some cookies or some type of dessert. Struffoli would be great, but I’m not going to get it together to make them myself. I’ve asked my sister Liti to make star-shaped cookies finished with gold dust. That will be fabulous, if they ever materialize. I’ve got a 140-proof Centerbe (100 herbs) liqueur I brought back from the Abruzzi last month. It tastes like fire and is actually so high in alcohol it evaporates on your tongue. I can’t taste even one herb in the outrageous stuff, but it is an amazing electric green color. I hesitate to serve it, but it may be a good thing to bring out when I want everyone to go home (coupled with my new Leonard Cohen CD, it should really clear the house).

To keep things moving, especially if you don’t have any kids, I suggest inviting a few animals. Dogs are not known for their love of fish, so they probably won’t be pawing at the tablecloth, but they love barking at lights and they do enjoy music and dancing. My cats appreciate the puréed salt cod very much, and they always get their own little plate of it. And since one of them has no teeth, the creamy texture is just right for her.

Color is important for a merry Christmas, so I try to incorporate red and green into my menu selections. Lobster, Campari, blood oranges, pomegranates, mint, basil, and the evil Centerbe all go well with Christmas lights, and I believe they should make for a very merry time.

I hope this will give you a few ideas for your own Christmas Eve celebration. For more Christmas Eve recipes, see my web recipes for Christmas Eve 2000 and 2001.

Buon Natale, and happy cooking!

Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto and Ricotta Bruschetta

Pâté di pomodori secchi (sun-dried tomato pesto) is a specialty of the Salento area of Puglia, south of Bari. I’ve purchased this condimento there in little jars at various food shops, but it is very easy to make at home, either with your own oven-dried tomatoes or with store-bought sun-dried ones (I show you both ways here). It makes a wonderful pasta sauce or topping for roast chicken or tuna, but since it’s so highly flavored I often serve it as part an antipasto of some kind. My version of this pesto is a bit more jazzed-up than the relatively plain ones I’ve sampled in Puglia. It’s flavored somewhat like a Provençal tapenade.

If you’d like to serve this as a sit-down first course, toss a slightly bitter green salad (arugula, chicory, endive, frisée, or a mix) with extra-virgin olive oil and a tiny splash of vinegar and place two bruschetta on each serving. I think that’s what I’ll do this year. For a richer effect you can replace the ricotta with fresh goat cheese.

I’ve doubled the amount of tomatoes you actually need to oven-dry for this dish, since it’s nice to have some extra on hand for tossing with pasta or using in an antipasto platter.

(Serves 5 or 6 as an appetizer)

For making your own oven-dried tomatoes:

20 or so plum tomatoes, halved lengthwise
Salt
Extra-virgin olive oil

For the pesto:

1 garlic clove, roughly chopped
A small handful of capers
2 anchovy fillets, roughly chopped
A few sprigs of marjoram, leaves only
The grated zest from 1/2 an orange
Extra-virgin olive oil
Freshly ground black pepper
A very tiny splash of grappa

Plus:

1 baguette, cut into thin rounds
About a cup of whole milk ricotta

To make the dried tomatoes: Preheat the oven to 225 degrees. Place the tomatoes, already cut, on a sheet pan. Drizzle on a generous amount of olive oil, season them with salt, and toss with your hands until they’re well coated. Arrange them cut side up and bake for about 3 hours. They will be slightly shriveled but still moist in their centers. Let them cool.

To make the pesto: Place about half of the oven-dried tomatoes in the bowl of a food processor (if you’ve bought sun-dried tomatoes, use about a dozen of the ones that come packed in oil). Add the garlic, capers, anchovies, marjoram, and orange zest. Season with black pepper and add a tiny splash of grappa and a generous drizzle of olive oil. Pulse the mixture a few times until you have a rough paste. Taste it for seasoning (with the anchovies and capers, you shouldn’t need extra salt, but you never really know until you taste it). Pour the pesto into a bowl (you can cover it with plastic wrap and refrigerate it for a day or two, but I prefer to use it the same day for the liveliest taste; in any case, return it to room temperature before serving).

When you’re ready to serve this, toast the baguette slices on both sides, spread them with a dollop of ricotta, and top them with a teaspoon of the tomato pesto. Serve right away.

Linguine with Anchovies, Parsley, and Sweet Bread Crumbs

Slightly sweetened bread crumbs are sometimes used to top pasta con le sarde (pasta with sardines) in Sicily, and I love their sweetness with the oily fish, so I’ve paired them here with anchovies, another rich, pungent fish. Try to find salt-packed anchovies for this dish. Their flavor is superior to that of the oil-preserved variety. Flott is an excellent producer whose salt-packed anchovies are available through Buon Italia importers, at the Chelsea Market in New York, whose number is (212) 633-9090.

(Serves 5 as a first course)

10 salt-packed anchovies
1 pound linguine
Extra-virgin olive oil
5 garlic cloves, very thinly sliced
1 fresh medium hot chile, minced, using the seeds if you like some heat
A generous splash of dry white wine
A large handful of flat-leaf parsley leaves, lightly chopped (at least 1/2 cup)
The grated zest from 1 lemon
Salt, if needed

For the bread crumbs:

Extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup homemade dry bread crumbs
A generous pinch of sugar
Salt

To prepare the anchovies, run them one at a time under cool water, and starting from the head end, work the fillets free from the backbones with your fingers. After doing a few, you’ll get the hang of it (it doesn’t matter if you mutilate a couple, since they’re going to be dissolved in the sauce anyway). Let the fillets soak in a bowl of cool water for about 15 minutes to remove excess salt, and then drain them and pat them dry.

Make the bread crumbs: Heat about 2 tablespoons of olive oil in the small skillet over medium heat. When hot, add the bread crumbs, season with a generous pinch of sugar and a little salt, and sauté until crisp and just starting to turn light golden. Transfer to a small serving bowl.

Set up a large pot of pasta-cooking water, add a generous amount of salt, and bring it to a boil. Add the linguine, giving it a stir to make sure it doesn’t stick together.

In a skillet large enough to hold all the linguine, heat about 1/2 cup of olive oil over medium flame. Add the garlic, anchovies, and minced chile, and sauté until the garlic is fragrant and the anchovies have dissolved, about 2 or 3 minutes only. You don’t want the garlic to brown very much; lightly golden is best. Add a splash of white wine and let it bubble for a few seconds.

When the linguine is al dente (I like it very al dente for this dish), drain, leaving a bit of water clinging to it, and add it to the skillet. Add the parsley and lemon zest and toss well over medium heat for about a minute. Add a drizzle of fresh olive oil and give it a taste. (With all the anchovies, you probably won’t need extra salt.) Pour the linguine into pasta-serving bowls and top each one with a generous sprinkling of the bread crumbs. Bring the remaining bread crumbs to the table.

Lobster with Tomato and Brandy

I’ve never understood wanting to immerse sweet, delicate lobster in an intensely spicy tomato sauce, fra diavolo style; it seems to defeat the lobster’s reason for being (or for eating, at least). A Christmas Eve dish my mother’s father made was lobster simmered in a rich, boozy tomato sauce with no chiles. Here is my version, as recalled by my mother.

For the best texture, I should be adding raw, butchered lobster to this sauce, but after working in a restaurant where I was ordered to chop cratefuls of live lobsters, sometimes a hundred at a time, and bursting into tears on one occasion at the overwhelming carnage of the task, I don’t think I can ever butcher even one of them again. Here I’ve boiled them, whole, until they’re about half cooked, and then I’ve chopped them up. It is admittedly a compromise solution, but it works well to achieve the velvety, tender texture you want for the dish.

To make the lobster just a little diavolo, leave out the nutmeg and add one or two dried, crumbled red chiles to the skillet when you add the garlic.

(Serves 5 as a main course)

Extra-virgin olive oil
3 garlic cloves, very thinly sliced, plus a whole garlic clove for the bruschetta
2 bay leaves, fresh if possible
A few generous gratings of nutmeg
A tiny pinch of ground clove
Sea salt
2 35-ounce cans diced plum tomatoes, lightly drained (Muir Glen is my favorite brand)
1/2 cup low-salt canned chicken broth (or a very light fish broth)
Freshly ground black pepper
5 live 1 1/2­pound lobsters
Four tablespoons unsalted butter
A small wine glass of brandy or cognac
A few sprigs of tarragon, the leaves lightly chopped
A generous handful of basil leaves, lightly chopped, plus a few whole sprigs for garnish
A large handful of pine nuts, lightly toasted
I baguette

Set up a very large lobster pot full of water and bring it to a boil.

Meanwhile, in a large skillet heat about 3 tablespoons of olive oil over medium flame. Add the garlic and sauté briefly, just until it gives off its aroma, about a minute or so. Add the bay leaves, nutmeg, clove, the tomatoes, and the chicken broth, and cook uncovered at a lively simmer for about 5 minutes (you want the sauce to stay fresh and brightly colored, so don’t let it go any longer). Season with salt and ground black pepper. Turn off the heat.

Add about 2 heaping tablespoons of sea salt to the water, let it return to a hard boil, and drop in the lobsters. Cover the pot and boil for 5 minutes (they will be almost half cooked). Lift the lobsters from the water and let them cool enough so you can handle them. Pull off their claws and hit each one with a hammer to crack it (cover the claws with a kitchen towel first so shell fragments don’t fly all over the place). Do this over a large plate or something that will catch all the juices. Cut the bodies in half lengthwise, also making sure no juices get away. Add all the lobster juices to the skillet, and stir them into the sauce.

In a very large skillet that will hold all the lobster pieces and the sauce (or in two skillets), melt the butter over medium high heat. Add the lobster pieces (shell still on), placing the bodies flesh side down, and sauté them in the butter for about a minute. Season with a pinch of salt and more generously with black pepper, and pour on the brandy or cognac, letting it bubble until it is almost evaporated. Pour on the tomato sauce, and stir to blend it. Turn the heat down to low and let everything simmer for about 5 minutes, just to finish cooking the lobster and blend the flavors. Turn the lobster pieces over and add the chopped tarragon and the basil. The sauce should be a little brothy and studded with chunks of tomato. Taste for seasoning and add a generous drizzle of olive oil.

Make bruschetta by toasting the baguette slices on both sides, rubbing them with the whole garlic clove, and brushing them with olive oil.

Place the lobster pieces in a wide, shallow serving bowl, and pour the sauce over them. Sprinkle with the toasted pine nuts, and garnish with basil sprigs. Serve hot, accompanied by the bruschetta.

Sweet Orange Salad with Pomegranate and Orange Liqueur

Here’s a sweet version of the popular orange salads found throughout Sicily, which are more often assembled with savory additions such as olives, onions, olive oil, and black pepper. This sweet salad can serve as a segue between main course and dessert or as a dessert in its own right. Use raisins if pomegranates are out of season or hard to find.

(Serves 4 or 5)

7 oranges, peeled and cut into thin rounds (a mix of blood oranges and regular ones looks lovely)
A handful of whole blanched almonds, toasted and roughly chopped
The seeds from about 1/2 a medium pomegranate
A pinch of salt
A generous splash of orange liqueur, such as Grand Marnier
A handful of mint leaves, left whole
Powdered sugar

About a half hour before you’ll want to serve the salad, arrange the oranges on a nice-looking serving dish. Scatter on the almonds and the pomegranate seeds. Drizzle on the orange liqueur. Let this sit, unrefrigerated, to develop flavor. Right before serving, season the oranges with a pinch of salt, scatter on the mint leaves, and dust everything lightly with powdered sugar.

Recipes:

Roasted Beet Salad with Candied Lemon and Pistachios
Green Fig Salad with Pepato, Celery, and Basil
Potato and Sweet Pepper Torta Calabrian Style
Pizza di Scarola with Gaeta Olives and Caciocavallo
Orecchiette with Broccoli Rabe, Prosciutto, and White Wine
Sausages and Italian Frying Peppers with Sage and Fennel Salad

I’m now working on a book that may turn out to be called Cooking with the Flavors of Southern Italy. It will have a strong improvisational theme and be composed not of traditional regional recipes but of personal recipes of my own based on the classic flavor themes of Southern Italian cooking­­orange and lemon, anchovy and bottarga, raisins and pine nuts, fennel and saffron, vinegar and sugar. These and other flavors come up again and again in the cooking of the deep Italian South, the regions of Campania, Puglia, Calabria, and Sicily. These are flavors I love. They define my palate, forming the base notes for my cooking.

This fall collection of recipes and essays is also about the improvisational nature of home cooking and about the pleasure I get from the often impromptu meals I make for friends and family. Some of the recipes are offshoots of family favorites; others were created to express my seemingly inexhaustible devotion to the flavors of the land that my family emigrated from. I’ve created my own New York-based take on this beautiful cooking.

I’ve also attempted here to to talk you through the cooking process, the way I silently talk to myself while I cook or when friends come by for dinner and watch and ask questions. I’ve made an effort to explain why I choose particular pasta shapes, one herb over another, why I let a piece of fish sit in the pan without moving it around, why I’ve specified a particular burner temperature, or why I add ingredients at different times during the cooking process. These are matters that seasoned cooks know about but sometimes neglect to share because they’ve become so second-nature.

Fall is an especially interesting time to be testing these recipes, because autumn in New York is so different from in, say, Palermo (in fact, the last time I was in Palermo in early November, it was 98 degrees with blazing sun one day and rained torrentially the next). Working with these Southern flavors and at the same time keeping in tune with the New York soil, I try to be true to two regions that are both mine, one in ancestry and spirit, the other in body and spirit.

Please let me know what you think of my works in progress. I welcome any ideas that come to you as you’re cooking my recipes. Tell me about anything in my wording that seems confusing or somehow makes it difficult for you in the kitchen. And let me know when something tastes wonderful. I’m at edemane@earthlink.net.

Happy fall cooking!

Roasted Beet Salad with Candied Lemon and Pistachios

Beets don’t remind me of sunny Mediterranean shores, and I don’t think I’ve ever eaten them anywhere in Southern Italy. But they are plentiful at my Manhattan farmers’ market in late summer and early fall, in colors that range from golden yellow to brilliant crimson. They are beautiful but nevertheless have never immediately inspired me. I always take bunches home and then have to think a little harder than usual to figure out what to do with them.

Lemons and pistachios are two major Sicilian crops and figure prominently in all aspects of the island’s cooking, from pastas to desserts. I’ve included these flavors, along with a touch of anchovy (another Sicilian specialty) and extra virgin olive oil, to create a salad whose ingredients play up the beets’ sweetness. but also play against it, bringing out their slight bitter note.

Ideas: Orange is another citrus fruit that goes well with beets. I sometimes include a few slices in this salad (if I use golden beets, blood oranges are a good contrast). Crumbled young goat cheese is delicious scattered over the top right before serving. If you’d like to include an herb, I feel basil and tarragon marry especially well with beets

(Serves 4)

2 lemons
1 tablespoon sugar
5 medium beets (either crimson or golden), the greens removed (and saved for another use, if you like) and the beets washed
1 anchovy fillet, minced
1 garlic clove, smashed with the back of your knife
A few scrapings of nutmeg
About a tablespoon of sherry wine vinegar
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Extra-virgin olive oil
A large bunch of arugula, stemmed, washed, and dried
A small red onion, very thinly sliced
A handful of shelled unsalted pistachios

With a zester, peel the yellow skin from the lemon in long thin strips, scraping up as little of the white pith as possible (if you don’t have a zester that will do this, remove the skin with a sharp vegetable peeler and then cut it into thin strips by hand). Place the strips in a small saucepan, add the sugar, and cover with about 1/2 inch of cool water. Over medium heat, bring the water to a boil and simmer until the water has evaporated and the zest is sticky. Spread the zest out on a counter or cutting board to dry for about 1/2 hour.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Wrap the beets in aluminum foil and place them on a sheet pan or in a shallow baking dish. Roast until they are tender and fragrant, about 1 hour (a thin knife should pierce the biggest one easily when they’re cooked through). Let the beets cool for a few minutes, and then slip off their skins. Cut the beets into thin slices.

Make the dressing by whisking together in a small bowl the minced anchovy, garlic, nutmeg, sherry wine vinegar, salt, and black pepper. Whisk in about 3 or 4 tablespoons of good olive oil and taste for seasoning (I find that the sweetness of beets can take a little extra salt).

Place the arugula in a salad bowl and toss it with a drizzle of the dressing. Divide it up among four salad plates. In the same salad bowl, add the beets, red onion, pistachios, and candied lemon. Pour on the rest of the dressing, and toss very gently, so the beet slices don’t break up (I do this with my fingers). Divide the beets onto the arugula. Serve right away.

Green Fig Salad with Pepato, Celery, and Basil

Here I complement sweet fresh figs with both bitter and sharp elements, using arugula, celery, strong black-pepper studded Sicilian Pepato (a Pecorino cheese), basil, fennel, and lemon. I prefer green figs; they have a better-tasting skin than the purple variety, which can sometimes taste musty to my palate.

(Serves 4)

A medium bunch of arugula, stemmed
1 large fennel bulb, cored and thinly sliced, a small handful of its fronds chopped
4 inner celery stalks, with their leaves, the stalks thinly sliced, the leaves left whole
1 large shallot (the red variety looks pretty here, if you can find it), thinly sliced
8 fresh green-skin figs, cut in half lengthwise
A small handful of small basil leaves, left whole
About a tablespoon of lemon juice, plus the grated zest from 1/2 medium lemon
Salt
Extra virgin olive oil
A chunk of Pepato cheese

Place the arugula, fennel and chopped fronds, celery with leaves, shallot, and figs in a large salad bowl. Scatter on the basil leaves. In a small bowl, whisk together the lemon juice and zest, a pinch of salt, and about 3 tablespoons of olive oil. Taste for a good balance of olive and acid, adjusting if you need to. Pour this over the salad and toss gently. Divide the salad onto four small plates, and shave a generous amount of the Pepato over each one. Serve right away.

Potato and Sweet Pepper Torta Calabrian Style

Potatoes sautéed in a skillet with sweet peppers and sometimes onion (and sometimes a few hot chilies) is a homey Calabrian classic. I’ve taken the same ingredients and given them a more formal structure by layering them in a tart pan.

Make this in an eight-inch tart pan. I use one with a removable bottom so any excess oil will leak out during cooking onto the sheet pan underneath.

(Serves 4 to 6)

Extra-virgin olive oil
4 red bell peppers, seeded and cut into strips
1 large onion, thinly sliced
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
A splash of dry white wine or dry vermouth
1 1/2 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, unpeeled (they hold their shape better that way) and thinly sliced
A few sprigs of rosemary, the leaves chopped
A few branches of marjoram, the leaves chopped
1/2 cup grated Pecorino cheese
1/2 cup grated Caciocavallo cheese

In a large skillet, heat about 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Add the sliced peppers and onions, season with salt and black pepper, and sauté until they are tender and very lightly browned, about 15 minutes. Add a splash of dry white wine or vermouth and let it bubble a few seconds, scraping up the cooked-on pan juices with your spoon.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Lightly brush a tart pan with olive oil.

Place the sliced potatoes, rosemary, and marjoram in a medium bowl. Add a drizzle of olive oil, and season well with salt and black pepper. Toss the potatoes well, so they’re well coated with oil and seasoning.

Start layering the potatoes in the tart pan in a slightly overlapping circular pattern. Cover the first potato layer with about three quarters of the sautéed peppers. Sprinkle on a generous layer of Pecorino and Caciocavallo (you can mix the cheeses together if you like). Add another layer of potatoes, and top with the remaining peppers. Top that with the remaining cheeses. Drizzle any oil and herbs that might be left in the bowl over the top. Place the tart on a sheet pan.

Bake until the top is nicely browned and the potatoes are tender when pierced with a thin knife, about 1 hour. Let the tart sit for about 10 minutes before cutting it into wedges.

Pizza di Scarola with Gaeta Olives and Caciocavallo

Pizza di Scarola is the Neapolitan name for a double-crusted escarole-filled pie that is traditional for Christmas Eve. When I was a child you could find these pies in New York pizza shops, sold by the slice. They made a refreshing change from the pepperoni slices I almost always went for. You don’t see them around much nowadays, but you can still find them in pizza shops in Naples. In addition to the escarole, so loved by Neapolitans (and me), this pie is usually highly flavored with most of the classic Southern Italian strong tastes, including anchovies, capers, olives, raisins, and pine nuts. My version concentrates on olives, using the Gaeta black olives famous in the region, and Caciocavallo cheese, which melts beautifully.

(Serves 4 or 5 as a lunch dish, or 6 or 7 as an appetizer)

For the dough:

2 cups of all-purpose flour, plus a little extra for rolling the dough out
A generous pinch of salt
1 large egg
1/4 cup dry white wine, at room temperature or at least not ice-cold
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

For the filling:

2 large heads of escarole (about 2 pounds), trimmed, chopped into bite-size pieces, and well washed (it looks like a lot, but it cooks down)
1 large garlic clove, minced
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
A few scrapings of nutmeg
A generous drizzle of extra virgin olive oil
A large handful of pine nuts, lightly toasted
A small handful of golden raisins
3/4 cup grated Caciocavallo cheese
About 1/2 cup black olives, preferably Gaetas, pitted and roughly chopped
1 large egg

To make the dough, start by placing the flour in a shallow bowl. Add a generous amount of salt, and stir it in to distribute it well. Place the egg, white wine, and olive oil in a small bowl, and stir with a fork to blend everything. Pour this onto the flour, and mix with your fork until you have a crumbly but rather moist mass. Now knead it briefly with your hands to form a ball. (This should take only about 3 minutes. This is not like pasta dough, where you want to knead it a long time to develop elasticity; this dough will cook up slightly flaky.) Divide the dough into two, making one section slightly larger than the other. Wrap both pieces in plastic, and let them rest, unrefrigerated, for about an hour (this will make them easier to roll out).

While the dough is resting, set up a large pot of water and bring it to a boil. Add the escarole, and blanch it for about 2 minutes. Drain it into a colander, and run cold water over it to stop the cooking and to preserve its bright green color. When it is cold, squeeze all the water out of it with your hands (you want it really dry so your tart doesn’t cook up soggy). Place the escarole in a mixing bowl, and add all the other ingredients for the filling. Mix well to make sure the egg and everything else is evenly distributed.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Sprinkle a little flour on a work surface and roll out the larger piece of dough until you have a large, more or less round shape about 12 inches across. Trim the edges to make it still rounder. You’ll probably need to sprinkle a little flour over the dough to prevent it from sticking, although olive-oil dough is pretty easy to roll out, since it’s so oily. Brush a pizza pan (or sheet pan) with olive oil and place the dough round on it. Roll out the other piece in the same fashion, but make it about an inch smaller. Pour the filling onto the large round, and spread it out to about an inch from the edge. Place the smaller round on top, trimming the edges, if necessary, to neaten it up. Brush the edge of the larger round with water and pull it up over the top, making little folds all around to form a ruffly edge (it will look something like the edge of an American pie crust), pressing to seal it while you do. Make a few small air vents in the top with a thin knife, and brush the whole thing lightly with olive oil. You will now have something that looks like a flying saucer.

Bake until the tart is golden brown all over, about 35 minutes. Let cool for about 20 minutes before serving (this will allow you to slice it more cleanly). To serve, just cut it into pie-shaped wedges of any width you like.

Orecchiette with Broccoli Rabe, Prosciutto, and White Wine

Here is my version of a traditional Puglian pasta using the region’s orecchiette and bitter broccoli. Sometimes the dish is seasoned with garlic and a pinch of hot chili, and occasionally sausage is added. I’ve substituted prosciutto for the sausage, giving it a lighter feel, and the white wine mingles with the olive oil to create a fruity sauce.

(Serves 6 as a first course or 4 as a main course)

2 bunches of broccoli rabe, stemmed and lightly chopped
Salt
1 pound orecchiette
Extra virgin olive oil
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
Freshly ground black pepper
A pinch of grated nutmeg
A small wineglass of dry white wine
5 thin slices prosciutto di Parma, the excess fat removed, chopped, and set aside
A 1/2-pound chunk of Grana Padano cheese

Bring to a boil a large pot of pasta-cooking water, and add a generous amount of salt. When it returns to a boil, add the broccoli rabe, and blanch for 2 minutes. Scoop the broccoli rabe from the pot into a colander with a large strainer spoon. Run cold water over it to stop the cooking and to preserve its bright green color. When it’s cold, squeeze out all the excess water with your hands.

Bring the water back to a boil, and drop in the orecchiette, giving the pot a few stirs to make sure it doesn’t stick together.

Heat about 4 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat in a large skillet. Add the chopped prosciutto fat and the garlic and sauté until the garlic is just turning the lightest shade of gold and the fat has melted. Add the broccoli rabe, season with salt, black pepper, and nutmeg, and sauté until it’s well coated with oil, about 3 minutes. Add the white wine, and let it boil for a minute, leaving some liquid in the skillet. Turn off the heat.

When the orecchiette is al dente, drain it, leaving a little water clinging to it, and pour it into a large serving bowl. Drizzle it with olive oil and give it a toss. Add the broccoli rabe, with all its skillet juices, and the prosciutto. Grate on a tablespoon or so of Grana Padano, and toss everything gently. Taste for seasoning and serve, bringing the remaining chunk of Grana Padano to the table.

Sausages and Italian Frying Peppers with Sage and Fennel Seed

When I was a kid, long, light green, slightly acidy peppers were always called Italian frying peppers, and my mother always used them to make this dish. My father grew them in his little garden and picked them when they were just starting to show little specks of red. They are always available during the summer at my local farmers’ market, but I don’t see them in supermarkets much anymore, unless I go to Arthur Avenue in the Bronx or another Italian neighborhood. According to Mary Amabile Palmer, in her book La Cucina di Calabria, they are called friarelli in that Southern Italian region. The Spanish cubanelle that I often see in supermarkets are similar, and you can use them if you can’t find Italian frying peppers. Cubanelle are slightly stubbier in shape but have a similar flavor.

I haven’t found a good way to make this dish without browning the sausages in a separate skillet and then combining them with the peppers. I like getting the sausages really brown on high heat and keeping the peppers and onions soft and light-colored, which is how my mother always made the dish, with textures that make sense to me.

The sage and fennel seed are my additions to an otherwise fairly straightforward traditional Southern Italian dish.

(Serves 4 or 5)

Extra-virgin olive oil
1 large sweet onion, such as a Vidalia, thinly sliced
1 large fennel bulb, cored and sliced
5 Italian frying peppers or cubanelles, seeded and thinly sliced lengthwise
3 garlic cloves, lightly crushed
A small palmful of fennel seeds
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 pounds sweet Italian pork sausage
1 large wineglass dry white wine
About a dozen sage leaves, lightly chopped
A loaf of hard-crusted Italian bread

Choose a large casserole that will eventually hold all the ingredients without crowding. Add a few tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion, fennel, and peppers, and sauté a few minutes to start them softening. Add the garlic and fennel seeds, and season lightly with salt (some sausages are very salty, so you don’t want to add too much salt at the beginning). Add a little black pepper, and sauté until everything is soft and has not taken on much color (if the peppers start to brown too much, turn down the heat).

While the peppers are cooking, set up a skillet over high heat. Add a tablespoon or so of olive oil. Prick the sausages in a few places (this will prevent their skins from bursting), and sauté them on all sides until they’re nice and brown, about 8 minutes or so. Add the white wine, and let it bubble for a few seconds, scraping up all the cooked-on skillet juices to incorporate them into the dish (this adds a lot of flavor). The sausages should be browned but still a little pink inside. Add the sausages with all the skillet juices, and the sage leaves, to the peppers, cover the casserole, and cook everything together just until the sausages are tender and all the flavors are nicely blended, about 5 minutes longer.

You can serve this in shallow bowls with the bread on the side to soak up all the juices, or you can split the bread and fill big hero sandwiches.