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Posts Tagged ‘recipe’

Ciambotta with Dates and Ras el Hanout, and It’s Fresh Date Season

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 18, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Dates, Pomegranate, and Persimmon with Silver Cup, by Julian Merrow-Smith.

Here we are in full-blown New York summer. I love the solid heat, the exciting thunderstorms, the rainbows, and, most of all, the produce the wild weather unleashes. Which means it’s ciambotta time.

Ciambotta is Southern Italy’s version of ratatouille. It was a late summer ritual in my family, often using vegetables from my father’s backyard garden. Now it’s my responsibility to carry that on. Ciambotta translates to something like a big mixup or a mess, and the word is often used when someone has created a big emotional mess in their life, as in, “Richie made a real jambot outta his marriage.” (That’s how my family, and most Southern Italian Americans, pronounce the word.) The dish almost always contains the summer quartet of eggplant, sweet pepper, zucchini, and tomato, just like ratatouille, but the Italian version tends to be more freewheeling. Often potatoes or celery, and sometimes chunks of sausage or pancetta, are mixed in, making it a piatto unico, a one-course dish. One thing not to my knowledge ever added to it is dates. But this year they’ve made their way into my version, and I was very happy with how that turned out, the sweet dates playing again the bitterness of eggplant and the acidity of the tomatoes. A success.

I believe I got the idea of adding dates and North African spices to eggplant dishes from one of my Moroccan cookbooks, but I can’t figure out which one (I’ve got a lot of them). I’m thinking it was in a Ghillie Basan book. (If you don’t know her, maybe pick up Flavors of Morocco as a starter. Beautiful recipes, photos, and stories.) Wherever I got the idea from, I just went with it. As you’ve probably noticed, I often add North African touches to my southern Italian food. For me, that’s a natural, flowing from Naples and Sicily’s long-ago history. Much of the Arab influence in Southern Italy has diminished, but I’m here to bring some of it back.

Dates have always fascinated me. How can anything be as sweet as candy and yet be natural? When I was a kid I assumed dates were soaked in sugar, given a sort of candied-cherry treatment. I was amazed to find out they’re just dried. But what excited me more was discovering that those sticky brown dates actually start out as a fresh fruit. I first saw them at Kalustyan’s, the amazing Middle Eastern spice shop in Little India in Manhattan. They were plump, smooth, golden, hanging off of stems in clusters, like bloated grapes. The checkout lady gave me one to taste, and it exploded in my mouth in a sweet gush. Revelation. I try to make it back to Kalustyan’s each year in fresh date season, which happens to start right now and last through September. If you’re interested in tasting a fresh date, make your way over (maybe call first to make sure they’re in stock). However, you’ll want traditional dried dates for this recipe.

Also, if you’d like to read more about ciambotta and consider other approaches to putting this dish together, check out three of may earlier blog posts on the subject here, here, and here.

Ciambotta with Dates and Ras el Hanout

Extra-virgin olive oil
1 big summer onion, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
½ a fresh peperoncino, minced
2 summer garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon ras el hanout spice mix (if you want to make your own, you might want to try my version)
1 large eggplant, stripe-peeled and cut into small cubes
2 fresh bay leaves
A few large sprigs summer savory or thyme
Salt
2 medium zucchini, cut into small cubes
3 medium-size summer tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped, lightly salted, and left to drain in a colander for about 15 minutes (save the tomato water, as you might want it to loosen the dish at the end)
A big splash of dry Marsala
10 to 12 pitted dates, cut into quarters
A few drops of rice wine vinegar
A handful of basil leaves, lightly chopped

Get out a large sauté pan, and set it over medium heat. Add a tablespoon or so of olive oil. Add the onion, bell pepper, peperoncino, half of the garlic, and half of the ras el hanout. Let sauté until everything is fragrant and starting to soften, about 2 minutes. Add the eggplant, one of the bay leaves, and the savory or thyme. Give it a drizzle of olive oil and some salt, and sauté until the eggplant is tender, about 6 minutes. Turn off the heat.

Get out another sauté pan, turn the heat to medium, and add a big drizzle of olive oil, the rest of the garlic, the remaining ras el hanout, and the other bay leaf. Sauté a few seconds, and then add the zucchini, sautéing until it’s tender, about 3 or 4 minutes. Add the tomatoes and a little more salt, and cook for about another 3 minutes. Add the Marsala, and let it bubble away.

Add  this to the eggplant mixture. Add the dates, and mix well. Let everything sit for about 5 minutes. The waning heat from the vegetables will soften the dates but not enough to turn them into mush. Taste for seasoning, adding more salt plus possibly a few drops of rice wine vinegar, to bring up the acidity. Add a little of the tomato water if the ciambotta seems too tight. Add the basil.

Serve hot or warm, or even at room temperature. I love this served with scrambled eggs, but it’s really good with lots of things, such as lamb kebabs, or just as is, with Sicilian-style sesame seed bread, for instance.

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Roasted Red Snapper with Tomatoes, Cumin, Moroccan Olives, and Italian Oregano

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 9, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Glowing Snapper Lady, by Tracey Berglund.

Cooking a fish whole can be emotionally fraught. Not because it’s a difficult job. It’s not at all. But because you have to look into those swollen, glassy eyes and say, you’re dead and I’m still alive. You’d think I’d be used to that, cooking as long as I’ve cooked. But it’s always a new death staring back at me. However, it’s good to be reminded, when we want to eat fish or meat, that we or someone has to kill it. It’s a big ugly food chain out there. I’ll eat just about anything, and I’m glad about that. I’m also glad I didn’t grow up on a farm. That would have demolished my open-mindedness. I know that people say the closer your connection to food, the more respect you have for it. True up to a point, but unless I was literally starving to death, I could never personally kill a baby goat (I might be able to kill an old goat—not sure). I need to keep a certain distance to stay free. A coward’s way out. Although I know I can kill an oyster.

Now that we’ve discussed that, I’d like to tell you why you should cook a fish whole anyway. First off, the presentation is beautiful.  If you want to impress someone, this is a nice way to do it. But the most important reason is flavor. It will be the best tasting fish of your life. The skin and bones add moisture and body and a certain lovely stickiness that you miss out on when you cook fillets. It’s that gelatinous quality that lures me every time.

To roast a whole fish what you’ll want to do is stick it in the oven. I’m not being condescending here, but that’s really it.  From my experience, a 2½-to-3-pound whole fish, the size I used for this recipe, will take about 20 to 25 minutes at 425 degrees. Once you know that, the rest is style.

This time around I made a vibrant vinaigrette with lemon, good olive oil, and fennel seeds, and rubbed it all over the fish, inside and out, and then stuffed the inside with Italian oregano. That’s a favorite oregano of mine, not too harsh like the Greek variety. It’s actually a cross between Greek oregano and marjoram, so it’s more floral and less biting. It’s good for a mild fish like red snapper.

I also wanted to make a sauce with our peak-season New York tomatoes, cooking them quickly so not to drain any of their glory. Italian oregano came back as an element of the sauce. I also added those oily, wrinkled Moroccan olives, because I love them.

In the past, my problem with serving whole fish (aside from having to look it in the eyes), has been not how to cook it but how to fillet it when it’s done so my people don’t wind up with a mouthful of bones.  Here’s a good video that shows you how to do that. The spoon he uses is a great idea. Long ago I used to try to lift the fillets off with a spatula, but that scraped up a ton of bones along with the fish. The spoon lets you move gently, feeling as you go.

Roasted Red Snapper with Tomatoes, Cumin, Moroccan Olives, and Italian Oregano

1 approximately 2½-to-3-pound red snapper, cleaned and scaled, the head left on
The juice and zest from 2 lemons
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus a little more for serving
1 tablespoon freshly ground fennel seeds
Salt
Black pepper
6 or so long Italian oregano sprigs

For the sauce:

Extra-virgin olive oil
2 summer garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 fresh red chili, minced (and seeded if you like less heat)
1 teaspoon freshly ground cumin seed
3 anchovy fillets, chopped
A splash of white wine
3 large red, round summer tomatoes, peeled, chopped, and lightly drained
Salt
A handful of oil-cured, wrinkled black Moroccan olives, pitted and halved
5 sprigs Italian oregano, the leaves lightly chopped

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Get out a sheet pan, and place the fish on it. Make three shallow slashes through the body of the fish on both sides (this will help it cook evenly and also work seasoning into the flesh). Mix the lemon juice and zest, olive oil, fennel seeds, salt, and black pepper together in a bowl. Pour it over the fish, working it into the inside and into the slashes. Make sure both sides of the fish are covered.

Stick the oregano sprigs inside the fish, and put the pan in the oven.

While the fish is cooking, make the sauce. Get out a sauté pan, and set it over medium-high heat. Drizzle in a little olive oil. When the oil is hot, add the garlic, chili, cumin, and anchovies, and sauté until fragrant, about a minute or so. Add a splash of white wine, and let it bubble away. Add the tomatoes, seasoning with a little salt, and sauté about 3 or 4 minutes. Turn off the heat, and add the olives and the chopped oregano. Add a drizzle of fresh olive oil.

Take a look at the fish after 20 minutes. Check  for doneness by sticking a thin knife into it along the backbone. If the flesh pulls away with just a little touch of pull, it’s done. And remember that it’ll cook further as it sits. Depending on the size and thickness of your fish, it may take a little longer.

When the fish is done, you can transfer it to a big platter, if you want to get fancy, but I just left it on the sheet pan with all the roasted herbs and juices spilling out. I thought it looked beautiful.

Fillet the fish (reviewing the video if necessary). Drizzle the fillets with fresh olive oil and a sprinkling of salt. Top each serving with some of the sauce.

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Eggplant Gratin with Goat Cheese, Honey, and Thyme

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

Still Life with Aubergines, by Henri Matisse, 1911.

Eggplant is a vegetable of my childhood. It cemented my upbringing in Italian-American land. I grew up wanting it. All these years later I still want it, partly now for the various colors of its skin: deep purple verging on black, violet, clear purple, streaky purple, pure white, all shiny. Magnificent. I’m involved in the colors of food more than I used to be. They help me plan, not just my recipes but also my day. Color theme days. I have them, not every day but some days.

A type of graffiti eggplant, purple pink with streaks of white.

Unfortunately eggplant is not so beautiful when it’s cooked. It’s gray-beige, but its taste is rich. It soaks up herbs, garlic, olive oil, and wine better than most things. It’s a flavor trap.

Barbarella, a type of globe eggplant, blue-purple with hits of white.

Here’s a baked eggplant without tomato, a drift away from Parmigiano. It gets its togetherness from goat cheese and crème fraîche. I think it came out really well. I hope you like it.

I served it with grilled lamb chops marinated in rosemary, fennel seed, and garlic and a radicchio salad dressed with lemon, salt, and good olive oil.

It’s almost August. Tomato recipes will be coming soon. I’m working on a few that should be unexpected. Stay tuned.

Plus: Emergency. Happening now. Starvation in Gaza. I know we can feel angry and helpless in a terrible situation like this, thinking there’s nothing we can do, but there is something. We can support World Central Kitchen, either by donating our time or our money. Please help, if you can. Here’s their link.

Gray-beige but beautiful.

Eggplant Gratin with Goat Cheese, Honey, and Thyme

Extra-virgin olive oil
2 medium eggplants, stripe-peeled and cut into ½-inch-thick rounds
Salt
Black pepper
1 fresh summer garlic clove, minced
1  large egg
1 4-ounce-or-so log soft goat cheese, at room temperature (I used Président brand)
¾ cup crème fraîche
¼ cup whole milk
6 or 7 large thyme sprigs, the leaves lightly chopped
¼ teaspoon allspice
1 tablespoon runny honey (I used an acacia honey)
¼  cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
¼ cup panko breadcrumbs

Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Lightly coat 2 sheet pans with olive oil. Lay out the eggplant slices on them in a single layer. Drizzle the slices with olive oil, and season them with salt and black pepper. Bake until the eggplant is tender and lightly browned, about 20 to 25 minutes. Take the pans from the oven, and sprinkle the minced garlic over the slices.

Put the egg, goat cheese, crème fraîche, milk, half of the chopped thyme, the allspice, and the honey into a food processor. Add a little salt and black pepper, and pulse a times to blend everything well. It should be thick but pourable.

Turn the oven down to 375.

Coat a baking dish lightly with olive oil (I used an 8-by-12-inch, 2-inch-deep oval).  Lay down a layer of eggplant slices (a little overlap is okay). Drizzle on about ¼ of the goat cheese mixture. Make another layer of eggplant, using it all up. Pour on the rest of the goat cheese mix.

In a small bowl, mix the Parmigiano with the panko and the rest of the thyme. Add a little salt and black pepper and a drizzle of olive oil. Mix it with your fingers, and then scatter it fairly evenly over the top of the gratin.

Bake at 375 until it looks firm and the top is lightly browned, about 30 minutes. Serve hot or warm.

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Golden Zucchini Soup with Saffron, Basil Oil, and Pine Nuts, plus a Quick Video Visit to Montgomery Place Orchards

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 9, 2025| 4 Comments »

Zucchini Still Life, by L. Kabakova.

I bought deep yellow zucchini at Story Farms, in Catskill, New York, the other day. You can see in my photo that they have dark green tips near their stems. The things are gorgeous. Their yellow is thick, verging on orange. Of my Winsor & Newton watercolor tubes this would be their Cadmium Yellow.

Not only is this zucchini cultivar beautiful, it’s also a little sweeter than the green ones. Less green-leafy, more soil-earthy in taste. There are a bunch of varieties of yellow zucchini. The one I found at Story is called Golden Delight. Its color alone makes me grab some every summer. It’s a prompt. A call to action.

This time around, out came a soup. A cold soup. Topped with herbs, like everything I cook in the summer. Lately I love a simple herb oil garnish—just herbs, good olive oil, and a little salt, whizzed up to almost a purée. There’s nothing like it for herbal essence (remember that shampoo?). This time I used Genoa basil, set to bright green by quick blanching. I thought it looked wonderful against the yellow of the soup. You might instead go with spearmint if you prefer.

There’s no cream or butter in this soup, and that’s good when you serve it cold, letting the texture flow smooth and loose. The soup gets its depth of flavor from good olive oil, so use your best, both in the soup and in the herb oil. I chose Benza BuonOlio, made from 100% Ligurian Taggiasca olives. It’s rich and mellow with not much of a bite. Gustiamo.com carries it. It’s a new favorite of mine.

I hope everyone is doing some creative summer cooking. We’re deep into it now.

Golden Zucchini Soup with Saffron, Basil Oil, and Pine Nuts

Extra-virgin olive oil (4 tablespoons for the soup, plus ⅓ cup for the basil oil)
1 large summer onion, diced
1 medium carrot, peeled and diced
5 or 6 medium-size golden zucchini, chopped
1 large Yukon Gold potato, peeled and chopped
½ teaspoon fennel pollen or ground fennel seed
½ teaspoon turmeric
Salt
A splash of dry vermouth
1 quart light chicken broth (or vegetable broth)
A big pinch of saffron, crushed and dissolved in about ¼ cup hot water
A big pinch of ground green peppercorn
About 15 basil leaves
A few drops of rice wine vinegar
A palmful of pine nuts, lightly toasted

Get out a soup pot, and set it over medium heat. Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and let it warm. Add the onion and carrot, and sauté until both are fragrant and starting to soften, about 3 minutes. Add the zucchini and the potato, the fennel pollen or seed, and the turmeric, and season with a little salt. Sauté for another few minutes to open up all these flavors. Add the vermouth, and let it bubble away. Add the chicken or vegetable broth and enough water to cover the vegetables. Bring to a boil, and then cook at a steady bubble, uncovered, until the potato and zucchini are tender when poked, about 20 minutes. Add the saffron water, the green peppercorn, and 2 more tablespoons of olive oil.

While the soup is cooking, make the basil oil. Set up a small saucepan, and fill it halfway with water. Bring it to a boil, and add some salt. Drop in the basil leaves, and blanch for about 30 seconds. Drain them, and run cold water over them to set their color. Squeeze out as much water as you can, and put the basil in a food processor. Add ⅓ cup of olive oil and a big pinch of salt. Pulse a few times. You want a slightly chunky purée. Pour it into a small bowl.

Purée the soup in a food processor, and then chill it. When the soup is cold, check its consistency, adding a little cold water if it needs loosening. And check its seasoning, too, adding a few drops of rice wine vinegar for brightness if needed.

Top each serving with a spiral drizzle of basil oil and a scattering of pine nuts.

And here’s a little video from another of my favorite farm stands, Montgomery Place Orchards, in Red Hook, New York.

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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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