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Monkfish Tagine with Saffron, Almonds, and Mint

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on June 15, 2025| 5 Comments »

Fumée d’Ambre Gris, by John Singer Sargent, Morocco, 1880.

Does every moderately successful person have a mentor? I don’t know the answer to that. I’d call myself moderately successful. I could have had more opportunities, to write more books for one thing, if I wanted to be more well-known. But I didn’t want that. So here I am writing to you on this rainy day in Manhattan. What I’ve learned so far, I’ve learned pretty much on my own. And I know a hell of a lot about Italian cooking.

If I had to name a culinary mentor, it would be Paula Wolfert. You’d think it would be someone who cooked Italian, like Marcella Hazan for instance, but that didn’t happen (one of my problems with Hazan was that I got the feeling she didn’t have much respect for Southern Italian flavors). Wolfert’s book Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco came out in 1973. I didn’t discover her until 1979. I had already learned basic Southern Italian from mimicking the food my family cooked. I bought her book because it looked like an adventure. And it was. I quickly cooked my way through it. I couldn’t stop. And I liked her attitude, the fact that she went to Tangier initially to study poetry but found her teacher Paul Bowles such a drugged-out bore that she began visiting the local ladies to see what they were up to in the kitchen. And her culinary career was born.

Aside from Southern Italian cooking, the only cuisine I’ve absorbed in a deep way is Moroccan. The flavors immediately made sense to me, since Southern Italian cooking still carries hints of its Arab past. My only problem with traditional Moroccan cooking is its reliance on cilantro. I can’t even be in the same room with the stuff. I’ve gotten around it by subbing mint, basil, or parsley (and sometimes thyme or oregano), creating different dishes to be sure, but in the process coming up with ones that are truly my own. Here’s one of my Southern Italian–Moroccan hybrids.  

I hope everyone had a successful No Kings Day.

Monkfish Tagine with Saffron, Almonds, and Mint

2 pounds monkfish, cut on an angle into ½-inch-thick medallions
Salt
Piment d’Espelette
Extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
2 shallots, cut into small dice
½ teaspoon ras el hanout (here’s my recipe, if you’d like to try making your own, in a post that also includes my recipe for carrots roasted with ras el hanout, summer savory, and crème fraîche)
1 1-inch chunk fresh ginger, peeled and minced
2 summer garlic cloves, sliced
2 fresh bay leaves
6 thyme sprigs, the leaves chopped
A big splash of dry vermouth
A big pinch of saffron threads, lightly dried, ground to a powder, and opened up in about ½ cup of hot water
1 35-ounce can Italian plum tomatoes, chopped, using some of the juice (if yours are packed in a thick purée, wash most of it off)
1 teaspoon honey
About ½ cup flour
A handful of fresh spearmint leaves, lightly chopped
A palmful of toasted almonds, lightly chopped

Pat the fish pieces dry. Season them with salt and some piment d’Espelette.

Get out a wide sauté pan, and set it over medium heat. Add a big drizzle of olive oil and a tablespoon of butter. When hot, add the shallot, ras el hanout, and ginger, and let it soften for a couple of minutes to release its flavors. Add the garlic and a little salt, and sauté for another minute. Add the bay leaves and thyme, and let them warm through. Add the dry vermouth, and let it bubble for a minute. Add the saffron water, tomatoes, honey, and another good pinch of piment d’Espelette. Simmer uncovered for about 5 minutes. Turn off the heat.

In another wide sauté pan, turn the flame to high, and add about 2 tablespoons of olive oil and a tablespoon of butter.

Put the flour on a plate, spread it out, and coat the monkfish slices on both sides with it, shaking off excess.

When the oil is hot, add the fish slices. Brown them quickly on both sides.

Turn the heat back on under the tomato saffron sauce, and add the fish to it, spooning the sauce over the top and cooking just until the fish is tender, about 3 or 4 minutes, depending on thickness. Check the seasoning.

Transfer to a serving platter. Scatter the mint and almonds over the top.

I served this with a buttery couscous seasoned with a pinch of cinnamon, but you could instead just buy some good bread to go with it. Or make rice.

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A Goat Cheese Tart with Chives and Summer Savory, plus a Video: A Quick Trip Through My Spring Herb Garden

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on May 31, 2025| 2 Comments »

I and the Village, by Marc Chagall, 1911. He loved his goats. If you’d like to see this painting, it’s at MoMA in New York City.

Last week was my husband Fred’s birthday. We had a small party where I made a couple of roasted chickens, spatchcocked, with tarragon, good olive oil, and rice wine vinegar. Sometimes when I flatten chickens that way I’m so intent on getting a good crisp, browned skin that I hammer them dry. It didn’t happen this time, but I did achieve the brown skin, an exact hit. A birthday gift. It was a nice, loud party that culminated in a painting session and an unexpected guest sleepover. Limoncello martinis anyone? I also made this goat cheese tart for a starter.

It was a cold night for May, raining off and on, but my kitchen was warm from the oven, and the tart turned out surprisingly well. I say surprisingly because when I first tried this idea last spring what I expected would be a smooth, custardy filling came out grainy. So I chucked the recipe and forgot about it until a few days ago, when I decided to try it one more time. What got me thinking about the tart again was the summer savory popping up in my little herb garden. I love that herb. To me it tastes like a mix of thyme and black pepper with a hint of sweet pine, a slightly gentler version of its bold winter cousin. I already knew how good it was with fresh goat cheese as I often scatter it over supermarket goat cheese logs to deepen their flavor. Even though summer savory is milder than the winter version, it’s still strong and its flavor is magnified by heat, so I  pay attention to how much I add. I used only four sprigs for this filling and about the same amount worked into the pastry.

The tart came out creamy and custardy, like a sugar-free New York cheesecake. I served it as an antipasto offering with a plate of prosciutto and a bowl of Taggiasca olives.

And speaking of supermarket goat cheese, some of it is terrible, overly tangy or gritty or both. I’ve learned by trial and error which ones to avoid. West Side Market, where I usually shop, carries a fresh goat cheese log made by Président, a cheese company in western France that’s been around since the 1930s, the same people who supply us Americans with Président brie. It’s a big company, and its goat cheese logs are industrial, but their taste is good. They are tangy but not aggressively so and smooth on the tongue, so they’re great for baking.

Goat Cheese Tart with Chives and Summery Savory

  • Servings: 6 as an appetizer
  • Print

Have ready a 9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom

For the pastry:

1¾ cups unbleached flour
1 tablespoon powdered sugar
A big pinch of salt
4 large sprigs summer savory, the leaves chopped
1 stick cold unsalted butter, cut into approximately ½-inch cubes
1 large egg
2 tablespoons cold white wine, or possibly a bit more

For the filling:

1 4-ounce log fresh goat cheese, at room temperature
¼ cup heavy cream
2 large eggs, plus an egg for the egg wash
1 tablespoon runny honey, plus an extra drizzle for the egg wash
¼ teaspoon allspice
Salt
Black pepper
A few drops of sherry wine vinegar
4 or 5 sprigs summer savory, the leaves chopped
4 chives, chopped

To make the pastry, put the flour, powdered sugar, salt, and savory in the bowl of a food processor. Give it a few pulses to blend everything. Add the butter bits, and give it a few short pulses to further break up the butter. You want approximately lentil-size bits. Crack the egg into a cup, along with the white wine, and give it a good stir. Pour it on top of the flour, and pulse quickly, one, two, three, four, possibly five times, just until you have a bowl of moist crumble. If it looks too dry, add a tiny drizzle more wine, and pulse again.

Dump it all out on a work surface, and press it together into a ball. Flatten it out into a thick disk, cover it in plastic wrap, and stick it in the refrigerator for at least an hour, or overnight if that’s more convenient.

Lightly butter the tart pan.

Roll the pastry out to a round about 2 inches larger than the tart pan. Drape it in the pan, pressing in into the sides. Cut off all but about  ½ inch of overhang all around. Working around the top of the pan, fold the overhang into the top of the inside of the pan. Then push it upward so it comes up just over the top of the pan. Stick the pan in the refrigerator while you make the filling.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Put all the ingredients for the filling except for the savory and chives into a food processor, and whirl it to blend. Taste for seasoning. Add the savory and chives, and give it one quick pulse, enough to blend them in but not to purée them.

Put the extra egg in a little bowl. Add a drizzle of water, a pinch of salt, and a drizzle of honey. Mix well.

Take the tart shell from the refrigerator, and pour in the filling. Brush the pastry edges with the egg wash. Bake for about 30 to 35 minutes, just until the filling is set and the pastry takes on some color. Let it sit about 30 before slicing, so it can firm up.

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Two New Carb-and-Seafood Recipes for Your Springtime Table: Calamari Salad with Potatoes, Spring Garlic, and Mint, and Corona Beans with Shrimp, Saffron, and Cumin

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on May 23, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Squid, by Foxy-Wolff.

Every engaged cook has patterns. Themes with variations. Repetitive behavior semi-disguised by fresh thoughts. One of my themes is seafood teamed with a starch. If you’ve been following my cooking journey for any length of time, you are all too familiar with my numerous takes on pasta with fish or shellfish. I could write a book on pasta with clams alone, although I would never do that, since it would be ridiculously nuanced.

Pasta is where I most frequently turn when I have the good fortune to get my hands on really fresh seafood. It stretches a luxury ingredient in a very fine way. But I also consider potatoes; rice, in red, black, and risotto varieties; grains, such as farro; and of course all varieties of beans, my favorites for marrying with seafood being ceci and any firm, largish, white bean, like cannellini or the extra huge corona I used here in this shrimp dish. Have you ever tried braised octopus with big white beans, rosemary, fennel, and a hit of Aleppo pepper? It’s pretty good, a nice alternative to the more usual octopus with potato pairing. Swordfish chunks make a good addition to a spring rice salad, especially if you include a seasonal vegetable like freshly shucked peas. I find that that makes much more sense than a pasta salad, which almost always seems stupid and gummy to me. Ceci with mussels is another theme I keep going back to, especially in high summer, when I’ve got tomatoes or sweet peppers and lots of basil. Have you ever tried bits of grilled tuna tossed with warm farro, black olives, and arugula? That’s a thought. Or a warm zucchini and couscous salad with scallops and tarragon. That’s something I’ll be making as soon as the first mini zucchini shows up in the markets, which should be only a few weeks from now.

A Chinese sculpture of a shell with a shrimp, with a robin’s-egg-blue glaze.

So many choices. This time around I’ve gone with calamari-potato and shrimp-bean combos. Beyond the starch-seafood pairing, what ties these two dishes together is spring garlic, something I wait for, the kickoff to my warm-weather cooking. It’s such a welcome jolt after a long haul with that papery, often acrid supermarket garlic, which at this point in my cooking career I’ve almost completely rejected, preferring to use leeks or shallots in the cold months. When spring garlic first appears in my farmer markets, usually early April, it’s indistinguishable from scallion, long, lean, and white, maybe tinged with purple at its base, working its way up to a dark green, leafy top. As the season progresses, a bulb starts to form. You can see that in my photo. But it still hasn’t broken out into individual cloves. This is when I like it the best. Juicy and sweet but emerging with clear garlic flavor.

I’m just starting to emerge from a long cold spell brought on more by our horrible political atmosphere than by winter weather. Spring cooking is beginning to lift my spirits. I hope it lifts everyone’s.

Calamari Salad with Potatoes, Spring Garlic, and Mint

About 1½ pounds small Yukon Gold potatoes, cut in half
Salt
Rice wine vinegar
A big glass of dry white wine
1½ pounds small calamari, cleaned and cut into not-too-skinny rings, the tentacles halved if large
1 tablespoon white miso
Your best extra-virgin olive oil
3 scallions, cut into thin rounds, using a lot of the tender green part
1 thin spring garlic, chopped, including some of the green part
A small palmful of green peppercorns, coarse-ground
A larger palmful of Sicilian capers, soaked in a few changes of water to remove excess salt and then drained
A handful of fresh spearmint leaves, lightly chopped
A few large sprigs of Italian parsley, the leaves chopped

Put the potatoes into a good-size pot and cover them with at least 2 inches of water. Add a decent amount of salt and a big drizzle of rice wine vinegar. Bring to a boil over high heat, then turn the heat down a bit, and cook at a medium bubble until just tender, about 8 minutes. I like the potatoes still firm enough so their skins haven’t detached. Drain them into a colander.

While the potatoes are cooking, set up another pot of water, add a large glass of white wine and a good amount of salt, and bring it to a boil. Add the calamari, and blanch it until just tender, about a minute. Drain the calamari into a colander, and then spread it out on paper towels to soak up any additional moisture.

Put the miso in a small bowl, and add about 1½ tablespoons of rice wine vinegar. Stir to dissolve the miso. Add about 2½ tablespoons of your best extra-virgin olive oil and a little salt.

Put the still somewhat warm potatoes and calamari into a large serving bowl. Add the scallions, garlic, green peppercorns, and capers. Pour on the miso vinaigrette, and toss (I like using my hands for this, so I don’t break up the potatoes). Add the mint and parsley, and toss lightly. Taste for seasoning. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Corona Beans with Shrimp, Saffron, and Cumin

3 cups dried Corona beans (I used Rancho Gordo), cooked (see note below on how I cooked them)
1½ pounds shell-on large shrimp (if you can find fresh American shrimp, all the better)
Extra-virgin olive oil
A big splash of dry vermouth
Salt
A big pinch of saffron threads, lightly dried and then crushed with a mortar and pestle
3 scallions, cut into thin rounds, using some of the tender green part
1 thin spring garlic, chopped, including some of the tender green part
1 teaspoon cumin seeds, ground
Piment d’Espelette
A drizzle of sherry wine vinegar
A handful of Italian parsley leaves, lightly chopped

Cook the beans (see note below on how I cooked them).

Shell the shrimp, and put the shells in a pot with a drizzle of olive oil. Turn the heat to medium, and sauté the shells until they turn pink, about 2 minutes. Add a splash of dry vermouth, and let it bubble away. Add about 1½ cups of water and a little salt, and simmer at a medium bubble for about 8 minutes. Strain the broth into a small bowl or cup. Add the crushed saffron, and give it a stir. The broth will turn a beautiful dark yellow.

Drain the beans, saving the broth for a soup or stew.

Set a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add a big drizzle of olive oil. When the oil is hot, add the scallion, garlic, and cumin, and warm everything through for about a minute to release its fragrances. Add the beans, and sauté for a minute or so, seasoning with salt and piment d’Espelette.

Set up another large sauté pan over high heat. Add a generous amount of olive oil. When the oil is hot, add the shrimp, spreading it out, and season it with salt. Sauté until the shrimp is just tender, turning it once, about 2 minutes in all. Add the shrimp broth, scraping up any cooked-on bits from the bottom of the pan, and pour the shrimp and broth over the beans. Add a drizzle of fresh olive oil and a few drops of sherry wine vinegar, and give everything a gentle toss. Taste for seasoning. Add the parsley, and toss lightly. Transfer to a large serving bowl. Serve warm.

A note on how I cooked the beans: I covered the beans with cool water by about 4 inches, added 3 fresh bay leaves, a chunk of spring garlic, and a big drizzle of olive oil, and brought it to a boil. I turned the heat down low, covered the pot, and let the beans simmer for about 50 minutes. Then I added a drizzle of sherry wine vinegar and a little salt and continued cooking until the beans were just tender, which took about another half hour. I find that with Rancho Gordo beans I don’t have to presoak, since they’re not overly dry to begin with.

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Risotto Milanese with Marrow, The Last Supper, and Cotoletto in Milano

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 24, 2025| 4 Comments »

Recipe below: Risotto Milanese with Marrow

I recently went to Milano for the first time. I saw Leonardo’s Last Supper. It’s painted on the end wall of the former dining room of the Santa Maria della Grazie monastery. It took Leonardo four years to complete, which doesn’t seem like a long time for the size of the thing, but Sforza, the then duke of Milano, who paid for the work, was evidently constantly angry at him for procrastinating.

They let small groups in for 15 minutes at a time and then kick them out. But it was such an overwhelming yet slightly eerie feeling being in that big space that 15 minutes seemed like a long time. According to our guide, only about 20 percent of the painting is completely original. The outlines of the forms are original, but the colors and much detail has been worked over by various restorers over the years, most recently in 1999. The colors are still lighter than the original. It’s a dark meal now tinted in pastels.

Milano has never been a culinary draw for me so I was perplexed about what I could learn there to expand my knowledge of Italian food. Many of the restaurants I passed by felt New Yorky, with avocados, miso, smoked salmon. So I decided to go full-on retro and sample some of the standards—risotto Milanese, cotoletto. I’ve always loved a fried veal chop, and saffron, the main flavoring in their risotto, is a magic aroma for me.

We first decided on a checked tablecloth place called Burla Giò, which translates as something like “throw it down” in Milanese dialect. It was a lovely five-minute walk from our Airbnb. It opened in 1969, and the same family still runs it. From the clientele I could tell that it had over the years turned into a bit of a tourist trap, but not completely. Aside from the Australians and Germans, there were plenty of Italians, mostly older men, who I imagine had nostalgia for this kind of food.

I ordered the cotoletto, a giant, hammered-out veal cutlet, which was pretty good, could have been a touch moister. Mrs. Cavuoti, my next-door neighbor when I was growing up on Long Island, made it better. It came with a small lettuce and fennel salad, which I thought was a nice touch. My husband had guancia di manzo, braised veal cheek, that was tender and had a good smell. It came sitting in a slightly acidic brown sauce dotted with almonds. I tasted it. A good balanced flavor. I spotted a duck with apricot dish on another table that looked appealing. I have no idea if it was. Many tables ordered the osso buco with risotto Milanese, a piatto unico I wasn’t sure I was up to after seeing the huge portions being carried by, but I really wanted to taste the risotto, so we split an order of that as a first course. And it was very good. Thicker than I’d expected, but rich with saffron and parmigiano. Good rice.  Well prepared. A drizzle of balsamico finished it off, but the little pile of saffron threads on the top was an extravagant surprise. And this wasn’t an expensive restaurant. All around a fine experience.

For Easter I decided I’d go all out and served a risotto Milanese in the classic manner, with osso buco. It’s not often in an Italian kitchen that you’re served a starch such as pasta or rice alongside a big hunk of meat, but you’ve got that here. It was rich but so worth it. I could hardly believe my guests actually ate my pastiera after it.

I don’t think Burla Giò included it, but I added marrow to my version, which is a traditional variation. After cooking it this way for the first time, now I’m thinking the marrow completely belongs and will be hard for me to leave out in the future. See what you think. And try and find carnaroli rice. It really is the best for this dish.

Risotto Milanese with Marrow

About 7 cups homemade chicken broth (homemade is important, because you want the collagen to help hold the rice in a creamy suspension)
1 teaspoon saffron threads
1 beef marrow bone, split down the middle
A big drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 large Vidalia onion, cut into small dice
2 cups carnaroli rice
2 fresh bay leaves
½ teaspoon nutmeg
Sea salt
1 cup dry but fruity white wine (I used a flat prosecco, because I had it hanging around)
A big chunk of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
Black pepper
A drizzle of real balsamic vinegar, if you’d like to try finishing it with that

The first thing you want to do is pour your broth into a pot and get it hot over medium heat. Once it’s hot, turn the flame down low, and keep in warm. Stick a ladle in it.

Put the saffron threads into a small pan, and set it over a low heat for about 10 seconds. You just want to dry them out enough so you can grind them to a powder (otherwise, the moist strands won’t open up completely, and you’ll lose a lot of their flavor). Put the dry saffron in a mortar, and give it a grind. Add about ¼ cup of the hot broth to the saffron. It should bloom into a bright orange. ( I like keeping this little bit of saffron broth separate, instead of dissolving the saffron into the big broth pot; I then add the saffron halfway through the cooking, so it stays bright and aromatic).

You’ll now want to scrape the marrow out from both sides of the split bone with a small spoon or a dinner knife, and then chop it finely.

Get out a wide, high-sided pan. This will allow the broth to evaporate more quickly than a deep pot and make the stirring easier, even breezy. I used my 11-inch-wide, 3-inch-deep All-Clad.

Add a big drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil and a tablespoon of butter to the pan, and get it warm over medium heat. Add the marrow, and warm it through. As the marrow starts to melt, add the onion, and let it soften for a minute. Add the rice, the bay leaves, the nutmeg, and a little salt, and stir for a minute or so to coat the rice with the fats and flavorings. Pour in the white wine, and let it bubble for a minute or so. I love the aroma of the wine mixing with butter and onion wafting up in my face. That is for me part of what traditional risotto making is all about. You don’t get the full-on experience when you just stick the pan in the oven, a modern approach to preparing risotto.

Now you can start adding the broth. Start with a few ladles, and stir the rice around until you can see the bottom of the pan. Add more broth, and let the pan get almost dry again. You don’t have to go crazy stirring. I tend to stir more in the beginning and then ease up a little. After about 10 minutes, add the saffron broth and stir that in. The rice will turn a beautiful dark yellow.

I find that the entire risotto process takes about 16 to 17 minutes.  So after about another 6 or 7 minutes of stirring, the rice should be tender but still firm and its consistency creamy.

Turn off the heat, and add the rest of the butter, stirring it in. Add about ½ cup of grated Parmigiano and a few big grindings of fresh black pepper, and check for salt. Add a little more broth if the texture has gotten too thick. If you’ve run out of broth, just add a little warm water. I like my risotto Milanese loose but not runny. Ladle it into wide bowls. You can drizzle a thread of balsamic vinegar over each serving, but only if you’ve got the really good stuff. In any case,  serve it right away, with the rest of the Parmigiano brought to the table.

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Easter Is Almost Here, and Here Are Some Recipes for It

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 15, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Easter is almost here. For me it’s a time to celebrate the rebirth of the earth, a beautiful holiday for a cook. But it all seems rushed this year. I haven’t yet planned. I didn’t invite anyone. I’m only now trying to put a menu together, but I’m not sure what I’ll be able to actually turn out, since last night I messed up the door of my oven in a frantic effort to get my cat Red out from behind it. The cat is out and fine, but the door is hanging by a thread. Hopefully I’ll be able to get someone in to fix it. If that’s not possible, I’ll have to figure out if I can cook a pastiera, my must-have Easter dessert, in the toaster oven. Maybe I can make a shallow one on a pie plate, although that seems diminished and a little depressing. A pastiera should be high and mighty, filled with ricotta and wheat berries and giving off that exotic scent of orange flower water. I’ll see what I can do.

If you have a working oven and would like to make a pastiera, here’s my recipe. I do make it a little differently every year, but this is, I think, I good guide.

And here are some other Easter dishes that I’ve made over the years and everyone really liked. I’m not yet sure what the rest of my menu will be this time around the globe, but somewhere in the mix will be eggs, ricotta, lamb, and asparagus, probably cooked on my stovetop.

Happy Easter cooking to everyone.

Easter Peas with Pancetta, Onion, Mint, and Warm Spices

Frittata di Pasqua with Ricotta, Soppressata, and Breadcrumbs

Warm Asparagus Salad with Dandelions and a Taggiasca Olive Vinaigrette

Strozzapreti with Lamb Ragù, Warm Spices, and Ricotta

Spezzatino of Lamb with Fennel, Carrots, and Peas

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Strozzapreti with Lamb Ragù, Warm Spices, and Ricotta, plus Numero 28, a Great Long-Standing, Not Trendy Pizza Place on Carmine Street

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 30, 2025| 3 Comments »

Flora, Goddess of Spring, a fresco from the Villa di Arianna, Stabia, which was destroyed during the Vesuvius eruption in the year 79 but this gorgeous work of art survived and is now in the Archeological Museum of Naples .

Recipe below: Strozzapreti with Lamb Ragù, Warm Spices, and Ricotta

I’m stepping into spring here with a dish that’s solid enough for a 42-degree, drizzly, windy, gray, almost April day but gentle enough to include two classic Southern Italian spring ingredients, lamb and ricotta. Our typical pre-Easter New York weather is utterly familiar and also completely frustrating on many levels. I’m chilled to the core and I don’t even feel like moving, which makes me even colder. My bundle of thick black tights is not yet shoved to the back of the drawer. But crocuses and daffodils and even dandelions are poking through the still mostly brown earth. And there’s this sweet spicy ragù simmering on my stove. Warmth can’t be far away.

Strozzapreti with Lamb Ragù, Warm Spices, and Ricotta

Extra-virgin olive oil
1 ¼-inch-thick round of pancetta, cut into small dice
1 Vidalia onion, cut into small dice
2 carrots, cut into small dice
2 inner celery stalks with their leaves, cut into small dice, the leaves lightly chopped
1 ½ pounds ground lamb
¾ teaspoon ground Ceylon cinnamon
¾ teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon Aleppo pepper
2 fresh bay leaves
Salt
1 cup dry white wine (I used an Orvieto, but anything that’s dry and not oaky will be fine)
1 cup chicken broth
1 28-ounce can whole Italian tomatoes, chopped
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
½ teaspoon sherry wine vinegar
1 pound strozzapreti pasta
A big handful of basil leaves, lightly chopped
A chunk of pecorino Toscano cheese
1 pound whole-milk ricotta, sheep’s milk if you can find it

Get out a big casserole-type pot fitted with a lid. Set it over medium heat, and drizzle in a few tablespoons of olive oil. Add the pancetta, and sauté until it’s crisp but not blackened and has given off much of its fat. Add the onion, carrot, and celery plus leaves, and let them sauté until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Add the lamb, cinnamon, allspice, Alleppo, bay leaves, and some salt. Stir everything around, and then let the meat brown lightly. That should take about 5 minutes.

Add the white wine, and let it bubble for a minute. Add the chicken broth and the tomatoes, stirring everything to blend. Bring it all to a boil, and then turn down the heat to low. Cover the pot, and simmer at a low bubble for about 1 ½ hours, stirring occasionally. When that’s done the meat should be tender and all the flavors well developed.

Skim most of the fat from the ragù. Add the butter and the sherry wine vinegar. Taste for seasoning. I found mine needed more salt and a little more Aleppo. The consistency of my ragù was just what I wanted, not too thick, not too loose. Add more broth or water if yours needs adjusting (or cook it uncovered for a bit to thicken it) .

Cook the strozzapreti al dente. Drain it, and pour it into a large, wide serving bowl. Add a big drizzle of olive oil, and give it a toss. Pour on the ragù, and add the basil, tossing well.

Top each serving with a big dollop of ricotta and a generous grating of the pecorino Toscano.

I served this with a Montepulciano d’Abruzzo red wine, which I thought was a pretty good match. After the pasta, I brought out a watercress and radish salad, just because I really wanted it to be spring. You could follow this menu with a pastiera and have a wonderful Easter dinner.

If you’d like to try making your own ricotta for this (or for numerous other good things, such as a pastiera), here’s my recipe. I use buttermilk instead of lemon for the curdling agents, as I find it turns out gentler, creamier curds.

Numero 28

People are always asking me what’s my favorite Italian restaurant in New York. It’s a difficult question for several reasons. I don’t go out to eat that much, and when I do I mostly want to taste stuff I don’t make at home, like Thai or Vietnamese food. Also, as far as Italian restaurants go, there are so many new ones all the time around here, it’s impossible for me to care about all of them. In the last five months, four Italian fish places have opened up within 10 blocks of my West Village apartment. Who needs all those Italian fish restaurants, and how long can they possibly last with such competition? Sometimes I think people who open restaurants are just gluttons for punishment. And now with those likely tariffs on European wines, what is even possible? As it is, the price of a glass of Chianti at a good place is averaging $18 to $20. Soon it might be more like $40. Who’s going to pay that?

The one Italian food I do go out for a lot, and I mean really a lot, is pizza, but I don’t have the desire to stand outside on a line for a hour, or sit up all night with my computer waiting for reservations to open up. I like good, solid, consistent, nontrendy places that make me feel comfortable and relatively happy. Numero 28 on Carmine Street is one of those places. I’ve been going there since it opened, in 2012. It’s a sweet little café with a wood burning oven, consistently high-quality ingredients, and right-on pizza every time I’ve eaten there, which has got to be, at this point, several hundred times. I would say their pizza is more Roman-style than Neapolitan. It’s not as wet in the middle as you’d get in Naples, but it’s wet enough so it’s never dry, even if you get one without tomato. I like ordering their long pizzas—18 inches is about right for two, but there’s also a 29-incher, which comes to the table on a really long board. I love those, since you can get, for instance, half anchovy, half prosciutto (they use really good prosciutto), which is often what I go for. I don’t get elaborate with toppings. I like a margarita with maybe one add-on, so I can still focus on the great, yeasty, gently salted, bubbly, slightly charred crust. However, I do love, and I understand this is not for everyone, a mix of anchovy and mushroom with extra basil.

 I think almost every time I’ve been at Numero 28 I’ve begun with an artichoke and Castelvetrano olive salad, which also contains arugula and pine nuts. It’s a lovely, well-balanced starter, dressed with good olive oil that you can really taste and not too much vinegar. I really don’t like it when Italian places load on the vinegar.

The only slightly annoying thing about Numero 28 is they only take cash, so you need to stop at a bank before you arrive.

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Torta di Cavolfiore with Pistachios, Capers, and Caciovallo, plus an Early Spring Picnic on Gansevoort Street

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 24, 2025| 2 Comments »

Cauliflower and Pomegranate, by Auguste Renoir.

Recipe below: Torta di Cavolfiore with Pistachios, Capers, and Caciocavallo

It’s March, and there’s nothing new yet. I’m talking specifically about local produce. It’s too early even for dandelions. Maybe I could cook daffodils. They’re up all over the place.  I’m thinking maybe stuff them with mozzarella and anchovy, twist the tops closed, dunk them in batter, and then give them a fast fry. Doesn’t that sound good?  Pretty, too. But I just Googled “Are daffodils edible for humans?” and discovered that they’re not. They contain lycorine, which causes vomiting, diarrhea, and abdominal pain. So no. We can’t deep-fry them. I should have known, since even deer won’t eat them, and deer eat almost anything. I guess I’ll have to wait for zucchini blossom time. It’s not far away.

Cauliflower 2, by Nico Heilijers.

So now I am holding a big, beautiful white cauliflower. My first thought is to just go with a gratin, fairly classic, with béchamel, a few scrapings of nutmeg, a bay leaf, and maybe Fontina and Parmigiano. Crumbs on top. One of my favorites. But then my head swivels over to the torta side, as it often does. You all probably know that I love my pizza di scarola, the double-crusted escarole-filled torta I always make for Christmas Eve. I love it at other times of the year as well, like right now, when chicories are still the best greens in the market, at least in New York.

I’ve patterned this new torta somewhat after pizza di scarola, including some traditional ingredients (capers, anchovies) while leaving out others (raisins) and throwing in new ones (thyme, pistachios, caciocavallo), and flavoring it inside and out with Marsala.

It tastes like Napoli, which makes me very happy.

Torta di Cavolfiore with Pistachios, Capers, and Caciocavallo

  • Servings: 4 to 6 as an appetizer
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For the dough:

2½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon sugar
½ teaspoon salt
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
½ to ¾ cup dry Marsala

For the filling:

1 medium cauliflower, any color, cut into small florets
Extra-virgin olive oil
Salt
2 scallions, cut into thin rounds, using much of the tender green part
A big pinch of ground allspice
A handful of unsalted, shelled pistachios
3 or 4 oil-packed anchovies, well-chopped (I used Ortiz brand)
A palmful of salt-packed Sicilian capers, soaked and rinsed (mine were large, so I chopped them a bit)
6 large thyme sprigs, the leaves lightly chopped
A piece of a fresh green chili, minced (I used a green Italian long hot, about half of it, with its seeds)
A splash of dry Marsala
6 large sprigs Italian parsley, the leaves lightly chopped
1 cup grated caciocavallo or scamorza cheese
1 egg yolk, for the egg wash
Sugar

To make the dough, put the flour in a medium-size bowl. Add the sugar and salt. Drizzle in the olive oil and ½ cup of Marsala, and start by mixing everything around with a wooden spoon. If it seems dry, add a little more Marsala. When it comes together into a shaggy ball, dump it out onto the countertop, and knead it briefly, just until you have a nice smooth ball. Wrap it in plastic, and let it sit for at least an hour, unrefrigerated, before you work with it. You can also refrigerate it overnight, but let it come back to room temperature before you start to roll it out.

To start the filling, set up a pot of water, and bring it to a boil. Blanch the cauliflower for about 2 minutes. Drain it in a colander, and then run cold water over it to stop the cooking. Let it drain.

Set up a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add a big drizzle of olive oil.  Add the cauliflower and sprinkle in a little salt. Sauté about a minute longer. Add the scallions, allspice, pistachios, anchovies, capers, thyme, and green chili, giving everything a good mix and sautéing about another minute or so to blend all the flavors. Add a splash of dry Marsala, and let it bubble away. Take the pan from the heat, and let it cool. Then add the parsley and the caciocavallo, and stir them in. Taste for salt. You probably won’t need more with all the salt from the anchovies, capers, and cheese, but you never know.

Set the oven to 400 degrees.

For the egg wash, put the egg yolk in a small cup or bowl. Add a drizzle of olive oil, a drizzle of water, a little salt, and a little sugar, and give it all a good mix.

Brush a sheet pan with olive oil. Cut the dough in half.  Roll both pieces out to approximately 8- or 9-inch rounds. They don’t have to be perfect; they just have to fit on the sheet pan. This is a rustico kind of tart, so a little uneven is, in my opinion, good.

Place one of the dough rounds on the sheet pan. Top with the cauliflower mix, spreading it out more or less evenly but leaving an inch free around the rim. Cover it with the other dough round. Crimp the edges for a good seal. I usually just make little folds all around, pressing them down to make sure they can’t pop open during cooking.  Make three short knife slits in the top. Brush the top with the egg wash.

Slide the sheet pan with the torta onto the bottom rack of the oven. Bake until the top is nice and golden, about 20 minutes or so. Let it cool for about 5 minutes before slicing.

This tart makes a great antipasto for up to six people. It’s really nice with a glass of falanghina.

An Early Spring Picnic on Gansevoort Street

I like to pick up a mortadella and burrata panino at Sogno Toscano on Perry Street (or maybe instead wrap up a wedge of the cauliflower torta above) and then head west on Gansevoort Street, crossing the West Street highway, where I step right onto the Gansevoort Peninsula. There I find a weird little strip of beach, with actual sand, a few blue Adirondack chairs, and matching umbrellas. At the water’s edge are large rocks. The Hudson gently crashes again them, making a hypnotic water noise. You can’t swim at this man-made little beach, but it’s a good place to sit, eat a sandwich, hang out with the Canada geese, and listen to the rhythm of the tide.

The other side of the peninsula is a stretch of salt marsh planted with native grasses. Good for birding. Last spring I saw a young red-tailed hawk hunting for lunch, and really close up too, only a few feet away. I got a good look at its glassy yellow eyes. If you’re in the neighborhood, you might want to check it out.

Spring is just around the corner.

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Risotto with Fennel, Saffron, and Sausage

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 13, 2025| 5 Comments »

Italian Rice Field, by Angelo Morbelli, 1901.

Recipe below: Risotto with Fennel, Saffron, and Sausage

I like a risotto where you can barely see what’s in it, everything cut tiny, no big chunks. When you take a bite, you’re surprised by all the flavor in a dish that looked like nothing much. The complexity of risotto is hidden by its simple appearance. Finely chopped chicken livers, minced porcini, a fine dice of leeks, a melt of gorgonzola, ingredients like those can be hidden away in a bowl of white grains just ready to burst forth in your mouth. This risotto dichotomy reminds of the couple in the film The Big Night who get talked into ordering the seafood risotto and are completely perplexed when it comes to the table looking like nothing more than a plate of soupy white rice. I don’t remember the exact lines, but it went something like this: “I don’t see any seafood,” the woman says, scraping through the plate with her fork. “Where’s the seafood?” “It’s in there, the chef says. “It’s just cut really small.”  They don’t believe him, and to his horror they order a side of spaghetti. Risotto with a side of spaghetti. What a concept.

I love risotto. I love all the stirring. I’m not a fan of  the oven method where you put the thing together on top of the stove and then stick it in the oven with lots of broth until the rice is tender. It works, sort of, but I find you have to do more last-minute fiddling to get it creamy, meaning stirring it once it’s out of the oven, balancing the seasoning, and adding stuff. For me, that all gets accomplished over the 17 minutes or so of stovetop attention. I don’t stir constantly, but I stir a lot. It’s a beautiful process. I get to experience the aroma of the wine cooking out as the steam rises into my face, the changing smell and look of the thing with each addition, and the way the rice swells up and indicates to me that it’s almost time. I don’t want to miss all that. Maybe if I were working in a restaurant and had to make 50 risotti a night, but at home, why bother at all if you don’t want to get involved?

I prefer carnaroli rice to the other risotto rice varieties I can find here. This time around I used  Acquerello brand, from Piemonte, grown by the Rondolino family since 1935. Carnaroli is the only type of rice they’ve ever grown. I order it from Gustiamo. Its color is not chalk white, like most risotto rice, but more golden, and the aroma when cooking seems a bit deeper than other brands of carnaroli I’ve tried. There are reasons for this. The rice is actually aged, which serves to open it up, allowing for more liquid to flow though the grains. Also, they don’t strip it to stark white when they process it, so you get that pretty yellow hue. And they’ve figured out a way to reintegrate the germ back into the kernels, so you get rice that’s more whole and healthy. Nice to know.

Saffron Still Life, by Iris Richardson.

Fennel and saffron make a beautiful flavor combo that you’re familiar with if you’ve ever cooked, or even eaten, a bouillabaisse. It’s also used in the cooking of Sardinia, most beautifully in their sausage ragù served with malloreddus, a gnocchi-shaped pasta. I love that dish, and it was my inspiration for this risotto. I use a fair amount of saffron in my cooking. I’m drawn to its sweetly medicinal flavor, which to me is not at all floral in the usual sense , despite being made from the red-orange pistils of a type of crocus. It’s a unique flavor, hard to describe. Maybe like bitter honey, but that’s not quite right either.  Maybe bitter honey with a hint of barnyard?

In the past I’ve mostly bought Spanish saffron, usually from Kalustyan’s, an amazing spice shop on Lexington above 28th Street. If you’ve never been, visit! The aromas will blow your mind. This time around I bought saffron from Iran, which was beautifully flavored and moist. There’s also such a thing as American saffron. Last summer I met the people at Green Owl Farm, in Rhinebeck, N.Y., who grow saffron crocuses and harvest their own saffron from them. I didn’t know you could grow those flowers upstate, but I guess why not? Regular non-saffron crocuses are popping up all over my backyard as of this writing. Green Owl packs big pinches of saffron threads into little glass bottles. I haven’t yet bought from them, but I will. Theirs is a labor of love to be sure.

Risotto should get to the table pretty soon after it’s done just tender, but you don’t have to get crazy about it. If you need time to get people seated, you can let it sit for 5 to 8 minutes. It will thicken some, but then just add another ladle of broth and stir it in right before bringing it out. It’ll be fine.

Risotto with Fennel, Saffron, and Sausage

About 6 cups homemade chicken broth
½ teaspoon saffron threads, lightly dried and ground with a mortar and pestle (see note below)
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
A big drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil
2 cups carnaroli rice
1 Vidalia onion, cut into small dice
3 mild, fresh Italian sausages, the casings removed, the meat pulled into little bits with your fingers
1 large fennel bulb (choose a bulb with lots of fronds), cut into small dice, the fronds lightly chopped
½  teaspoon fennel pollen or freshly ground fennel seed (if you’re sausage is heavily seasoned with fennel, you’ll want to use about half as much)
A few big scrapings of nutmeg
Salt
About ½ cup dry white wine
Freshly ground black pepper
A big chunk of Parmigiano cheese

You’ll want to have ready a wide, shallow-sided pan. I’ve found that that’s best for keeping the evaporation constant and the stirring smooth and easy. I used an 11-inch-wide, 3-inch-deep All-Clad pan.

Pour the chicken broth into a saucepan, and bring it to a boil. Turn the heat to really low, and stick a ladle in the pan.

Put the ground saffron in a small cup or bowl, and add about ½ cup of the hot chicken broth, giving the saffron a stir to dissolve it. The broth will turn a beautiful bright orange. Set it aside.

Set your risotto pan on a burner right next to the chicken broth. Turn the heat to medium. Add half of the butter and a big drizzle of olive oil. Add the rice, the onion, the sausage, and the fennel, holding back the fronds, and stir everything around to sauté it well. Try to break the sausage up into little pieces. Season with the fennel pollen or seed, the nutmeg, and a little salt. When the rice and everything is well sautéed, about 3 minutes or so, add the wine, and let it bubble for about 30 seconds.

Now start adding broth, a few ladles at a time, stirring fairly often (but not obsessively) until the pan goes almost dry. Keep adding more broth and letting the pan go almost dry repeatedly until the rice is just tender. After about 10 minutes, add the saffron broth. I like to add it at this point instead of at the beginning so it stays really fresh-tasting. Saffron has an ephemeral nature and can fade out if cooked too long.

After about 12 minutes or so, you’ll  notice the rice start to swell and the entire dish start to look creamy. I usually give it a taste after about 15 minutes to see where it’s at. In my experience the entire process takes about 16 or 17 minutes for tender but still firm kernels. 

When you’ve reached this point, add the rest of the butter, a good amount of black pepper, and a few big gratings of Parmigiano, and give it a good stir. Turn off the heat, and adjust the consistency by adding more broth if needed. I like my risotto loose but not soupy. Taste for salt, and ladle the risotto into bowl. Top with the chopped fennel fronds and an extra sprinkling of Parmigiano. Serve right away.

A note on saffron: Saffron should be slightly moist and have brilliant red orange color when you buy it. If the threads are maroon and brittle, it’s old. Yet for it to open up and release its essence, it needs to be dried enough to be ground (dropping moist saffron threads in hot liquid is a bit of a waste). What I do is take a small sauté pan and set it over medium heat. When it’s warm, I turn off the flame and add my saffron threads, letting them dry for about a minute, just long enough so they lose a bit of moisture. Then I can grind them to a powder in a mortar and pestle. Now when I add a hot liquid to the saffron, the flavor will open full-force. Not a thread will be wasted.

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Lagane Spagliato with Rosemary, Guanciale, and Ceci, plus the Bar at Gene’s, a Good Place to Sit Alone with a Glass of Wine

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 27, 2025| Leave a Comment »

7 Chickpeas, by Ausra Kleizaite.

Recipe below: Lagane Spagliato with Rosemary, Guanciale, and Ceci

I’ve developed a romance with chickpeas. They’re so solid. I love how they take a while to cook, and how their deep, beany aroma grows stronger as the hour or so slips by. I can see when they’re ready, and I can smell when they’re ready. I’ll never go back to buying canned. Canned chickpeas taste sour and metallic, and their liquid is useless (unless you’re making a vegan meringue). The broth produced by cooking your own ceci is pure gold.

A dish I come back to constantly is pasta with chickpeas. For me it’s perfect. A thing of beauty. Here’s one of my versions of lagane e ceci, semolina pasta with chickpeas, a very old, pre-tomato dish made in various forms in Calabria, Basilicata, Campania, and Puglia (whose version, called ciceri e tria, has a portion of the pasta not boiled but fried crispy—really delicious).

Lagane e ceci is pure cucina povera. What sets it apart from many other pasta-and-chickpea dishes is its homemade semolina pasta, made with only semolina and water. It’s a chewy, sturdy pasta, sort of a shorter, thicker fettuccine. It’s great to eat but for me a little annoying to roll and form, so what I’ve done here is make it considerably less povera by adding eggs and some white flour to the dough. I can’t comfortably call it lagane, since I’ve screwed with it so much, so I’m going with lagane spagliato, false lagane. I’ve also added some rosemary to the dough, to mimic one of the flavors in the sauce.

When I make semolina pasta I usually use Bob’s Red Mill Semolina Four. It’s finely ground and easy to work with. Semolina has a higher gluten content than soft white flour, so you’ll be using a little push and pull to knead it into shape

This time around I tried a new to me chickpea brand called Cece di Poggio Aquilone, grown on the Alberti family’s organic farm in Umbria. I was really happy with how it cooked up. The chickpeas are slightly smaller than the usual ones we all know, and their flavor is rich. I got them from Gustiamo.

Lagane Spagliato with Rosemary, Guanciale, and Ceci

  • Servings: 4 as a main course
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For the pasta:

2 cups unbleached white flour
½ cup semolina flour
A large sprig of rosemary, the leaves minced
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
3 large eggs
2 egg yolks
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
A drizzle of water, if needed

For the sauce:

A 1-inch chunk of guanciale, diced (about a cup)
Extra-virgin olive oil
2 celery stalks, cut into small dice, including the leaves, lightly chopped
1 Vidalia onion, cut into small dice
2 fresh bay leaves
About ½ teaspoon allspice
A few sprigs of rosemary, the leaves chopped
½ a green medium-hot chili (I used an Italian long hot), chopped
Salt
2 to 2½ cups cooked chickpeas, preserving the cooking liquid (see note on cooking them below)
About ½ cup dry white wine (I used a Fiano di Avellino)
About ½ cup good chicken broth
A few large sprigs of flat-leaf parsley, the leaves lightly chopped
A chunk of Pecorino Sardo, if you’d like some cheese (I can go either way with this—with the hot chili I’ve used here, most of the time I don’t want cheese, but when I make it without the chili, maybe just with black pepper, I almost always add cheese)

To make the pasta:

Start by putting both flours into a food processor. Add the rosemary and the salt, and pulse a few times to blend. In a small bowl mix the whole eggs, the yolks, and the olive oil. Pour this over the flour, and pulse a few times to blend everything well. The dough should  clump together in a shaggy ball. If it seems dry, drizzle in a little water, and pulse again.

Dump the dough out onto a work surface, and knead it until it’s smooth, adding a little white flour if it gets sticky. You’ll notice that the dough is a little stiffer than one made with all soft flour, so it will take about 5 minutes of kneading to smooth out. When that’s done, cover the dough with plastic wrap, and let it sit at room temperature for at least an hour so the gluten can relax, making it easier to roll out.

Cut it in quarters, and run each piece through a hand-cranked pasta sheeter to the fifth setting, not super thin, in keeping with the lagane tradition. If the sheets get longer than about 6 inches, cut them in half. Place the sheets on a lightly floured surface, and let them dry for about ½ hour, so you can cut them without sticking.

After that, loosely roll up each sheet and cut it into approximately ¼-inch sections. Unroll the lagane, and toss them in a little flour. Let them sit until you’re ready to cook them.

To make the sauce:

Get out a large sauté pan, and set it over medium heat. Add the guanciale and a tablespoon or so of extra-virgin olive oil, and cook until the guanciale has given up much of its fat and started to crisp. Add the celery, onion, bay leaves, allspice, rosemary, and chili. Season with a little salt, and sauté until everything is fragrant, about 5 minutes.

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

Add the cooked chickpeas to the pan, and sauté for a minute or so. Add the white wine, and let it bubble out for another minute. Add the chicken broth and about ½ cup of the chickpea cooking liquid, turn down the heat a bit, and let simmer to blend all the flavors.

While the sauce is simmering, drop the lagane spagliato in the water, and cook it for about 3 minutes. Drain it, and pour it into a wide serving bowl. Drizzle on some good extra-virgin olive oil and give it a toss. Add the chickpea sauce and the parsley, and toss gently, adding a little more chickpea cooking liquid if the dish seems dry. Check for seasoning. Serve hot, with or without pecorino.

A note on cooking chickpeas for this dish:

For this recipe I added a few bay leaves, a rosemary sprig, a smashed garlic clove, a slightly soft whole shallot, and a  drizzle of olive oil to flavor the water I boiled the chickpeas in. About halfway through the cooking, I added some salt and a thread of red wine vinegar. I didn’t pre-soak these Umbrian chickpeas, and they wound up taking about 1½ hours to get tender. I always cook the whole bagful when I make beans. I used about 2 cups or so of the bag for this pasta, and the rest went into a chickpea-and-escarole soup. For this pasta, make sure to keep the chickpea cooking liquid, since you’ll want some of it for the sauce.

The bar at Gene’s Restaurant.

I don’t go to bars by myself as much as I used to, but sometimes they’re just the thing to settle my head, especially with all the crap going down in Washington lately. The bar at Gene’s is often my place. This West Village restaurant opened in 1919, and it doesn’t look like much has changed since then. The bar is deep and lovely, with dark wood and glowing backlit bottles. I can settle right in and immediately be part of it.

The wine list isn’t what I would call up to date, but it serves the purpose of preventing wine snobs from crowding up the place. The Chianti is good, the Côtes du Rhône, not so much, but the pour is beyond generous, almost a little shocking, considering what you usually get for $18 at a trendy place around here. Franco (see photo above), everyone’s favorite bartender, is there most nights. He’s a kind man.

For years Gene’s seemed to be frequented mainly by old neighborhood types who shuffled in for their martinis and meat ravioli. But recently, maybe with the popularity of revamped Italo-Americano places like  Don Angie a few blocks away, the place has been discovered by a younger crowd, making it seem almost lively, though, believe me, it is not in any way revamped. The bar can get crowded now. I remember going in there with my father years ago, he ordering a Chivas Regal on the rocks, me with my little glass of sambuca. We’d often be the only ones there, except maybe for that old AP reporter who lived upstairs. I don’t mind crowded, as long as I can get a seat, but I’ve found that now it’s best to go at 5:30 or after 10 (10 is considered late in Gene’s world).

The food is standard old-school red sauce. I’ve found the chicken parm and veal piccata and most of the pastas to be just okay, mostly lacking in salt and pepper (easily remedied, you’d think). However, the broccoli rabe with garlic and hot chili is really good. Sitting at the bar, I often just order a plate of that, with some bread, and call it dinner. Oh, and the baked clams are more than decent.

Sitting at the bar getting vaguely high on a glass or two of Franco’s big pours is a cozy feeling. As I get older, men don’t bother me as much, so I often can just sit and let my mind wander, maybe making plans for the future or maybe just thinking about how happy I am that bars exist.

Happy cooking to you. Soon it will be spring.

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Linguine con la Buccia di Limone, plus a Guide to Making Limoncello, plus a Dessert: Lemon Sorbetto with Broiled Lemons and Vodka

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 6, 2025| 1 Comment »

A Lemon and a Blacked-Out Eggplant, by Erica De Mane.

Recipes below, in text: Linguine con la Buccia di Limone; Limoncello; Lemon Sorbetto with Broiled Lemons and Vodka

One thing is going well this winter, at least here in New York: We are getting a decent amount of snow. Yesterday we even had a sun snow, where the tiny flakes came down with a crystalline sparkle against an almost completely blue sky. That was unusual. And we’ve got lots of lemons. I mean, there are always lemons in the supermarket, but since winter is citrus season, I like to believe the lemons are at peak right now. Winter and lemon zest are linked in my mind. From around Christmas until March my refrigerator becomes the house of the bald lemon (sounds like a Garcia Lorca play). I sometimes have up to a dozen scraped-down, hardening, microplaned lemons sitting in there at once. Lemon olive oil cake is a big winter thing for me. It requires a lot of zest. Preserved lemons are good to have around this time of year. I just made a batch. Chicken tagine with preserved lemons and almonds. I love that. Limoncello, naturally. And pasta with lemon sauce, in its various forms. I only think about cooking that in the winter.

In the late eighties and into the nineties a lemon pasta full of cream was having a big moment. If you worked in catering back then, as I did, you absolutely had to know how to make it, and in large quantities. I came to hate its cooked down richness, especially when it went cold and thickened into golden glop that needed to be scraped out of  95 pasta bowls. Truly disgusting. I’ve always preferred the olive oil and lemon zest version I learned from Natalia Ravidà, a woman who for 30 years has been working to get the word out about her Sicilian family’s beautiful estate olive oil.  Her recipe for lemon pasta, along with many other classic Sicilian dishes is in her book Seasons of Sicily. A very nice book.

I’ve been playing around with this simple dish, which is essentially lemon zest, olive oil, and Parmigiano. A beautiful trio. I have, of course, customized it a bit, because I can’t leave well enough alone. I added a little nutmeg and basil, two flavors that go so well with lemon I just couldn’t resist. Nutmeg does something beautiful to lemon, it rounds it out, makes it feel both sharp and mellow all at once. I also added basil, which lifts the black pepper flavor in the dish.

To make this lemon liguine for two, you’ll want the zest from 2 organic lemons and the juice from about ½ of 1 of them.  Pour about ¼ cup of your best extra-virgin olive oil (preferably a good Sicilian oil such as Ravidà) into a warmed pasta serving bowl. Add the lemon zest, give it a good stir, and let it sit for about ½ hour, so it can release its essence into the oil.

Cook ½ pound of linguine in salted boiling water until al dente. While it’s cooking, add the lemon juice, a few big scrapings of nutmeg, a little salt, some fresh, coarsely ground black pepper (I used Zanzibar black pepper from Burlap & Barrel), some leaves of julienned basil, and about ½ cup of freshly grated Parmigiano into the bowl. Add a few tablespoons of the pasta cooking water, and give it a good stir.

Drain the linguine, and add it to the bowl, tossing it well until it’s well coated with the sauce. You can garnish it with more basil or an additional dusting of Parmigiano, if you like.

Amalfi’s long, lumpy, lovely lemons.

I’ve forever heard stories about Southern Italians eating raw lemons like they were oranges. Nobody in my family ever did. It seems the lemons in Naples and further south were much sweeter than the ones we have here. I asked about the custom years ago when I visited my ancestral homeland. According to my Uncle Tony, nobody where he lived did that, and if they did they’d burn the enamel off their teeth. That’s what he thought. I’ve eaten Amalfi lemons in Amalfi several times, and I have to say to my palate they’re only ever so slightly sweeter than the ones I buy here in supermarkets. They are, however, longer, lumpier, more lemony, and have maybe more oil in their skins. And like the neighboring Sorrento lemons (also called Santa Teresa lemons), they’re used to make  limoncello. I especially love that Sorrento limoncello. But I make pretty good limoncello using my own supermarket lemons (although I do buy organic, since I’m using only the peel for the limoncello). My secret to a lemony limoncello is just this: Make sure you start with  Everclear, not vodka. Vodka’s not strong enough. You need a super powerful liquor to pull all the lemon essence from the skin. Of course you’ll water it down later, but this first step is essential for intensity of lemon flavor. If you’d like to try it, here’s what I do:

Zest a dozen organic lemons with a microplane zester, and stick the zest in a large glass jar fitted with a tight lid. Pour in a liter bottle of Everclear, close up the jar, and let it steep in a relatively dark place for 2 weeks, shaking it from time to time. Strain it through a fine mesh, and return it to a clean jar. Put 2½ cups of sugar in a saucepan. Pour in 4 cups of water, and bring it to a boil to dissolve the sugar. Turn off the heat, and let it cool completely. Pour the sugar syrup into the jar with the lemon booze, close up the top, and let it sit for another 2 weeks. You can strain it again if you think it needs it. I don’t usually bother.

Now you can keep it chilled in the freezer, where it will keep for about a year.

A lemon tree from a wall in Pompeii.

Another nice thing to do with lemons is slice them into rounds and give them a quick roast or even a broil, either first sprinkled with sugar, or, for a savory treatment, with salt and maybe some chopped thyme. You can eat them straight off the pan or draped over a slice of grilled swordfish, but consider using them for this Lemon Sorbetto with Broiled Lemons and Vodka:

For the broiled lemons, you’ll want to peel as many lemons as you like and cut them into not-too-thin slices (you can, if you prefer, leave their skins on, but I like to be able to eat the whole slice without running into any bitterness). Pit them if you want. Coat a sheet pan with a little olive oil, and spread out the lemon slices. Drizzle them with a little more olive oil, and sprinkle them with a light coating of sugar. Stick them under a broiler about 4 inches from the heat source, and let them cook until the sugar has caramelized and the lemons have softened a bit, about 3 minutes.

When the broiled lemon slices have cooled, grab as many parfait glasses as you have guests, and fill them ¾ full with good quality lemon sorbetto (I used Talenti when I made this). Place three of the lemon slices over the top. Drizzle a shot glass full of vodka over each glass. Or use lemon vodka if you like. Or limoncello. Garnish with mint sprigs or basil. This is a beautiful and almost healthy dessert (or palate cleanser, whichever you prefer).

Happy citrus cooking to you all.

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