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Pork or Chicken Cutlets alla Milanese

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Meat cutlets, breaded lightly and fried. Germans call that schnizel. The Japanese name is tonkatsu. Italians cook meat this way, too.

The version I’m talking about, with Northern Italian roots, is cotoletta alla milanese, pounded as thin as you can get it. The meat is boneless, but if you substitute a bone-in chop, the name usually changes to costoletta. The breading mixture often includes regional hard cheese, grated, and it’s not wrong to throw in some chopped parsley or another herb.

Typically, the dish is showered with baby arugula, then surrounded by tomato wedges and–sometimes, deliciously–roasted potatoes.  The result: an easygoing and wonderful one-dish piatto unico.

The cutlets I’ve eaten in restaurants in and around Milan are ample in size, covering most of the plate. I find that going lighter on the meat—about ¼ pound—is more in line with the way my husband and I like to eat. Despite the license taken in my photo, which shows just a little arugula, I go heavy on the dressed arugula.

I’ve prepared chicken and veal cutlets alla milanese, but recently I tried pork cutlets, cut from the leg. Definitely recommended. We have vegetarians in our family, so I also fried eggplant in exactly the same way.

The reviews were good, and soon the meat eaters were clamoring for that, too.

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Pork or Chicken Cutlets alla Milanese
Prep Time
20 mins
Cook Time
6 mins
Total Time
26 mins
 

Eggplant, breaded and fried in exactly the same way, is wonderful. For details, see recipe notes.

Course: Main Dish
Cuisine: Italian
Servings: 4 servings
Author: Toni Lydecker
Ingredients
  • 1 pound pork or other cutlets cut no thicker than ½ inch *
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 cups dried bread crumbs or panko or more if needed
  • ½ cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano or Grana Padano cheese
  • 1 or 2 large eggs
  • ¼ cup grapeseed oil or other vegetable oil or as needed
  • Sea salt or kosher salt
  • 8 cups baby arugula 5-ounce box
  • 3 tablespoons virgin olive oil or to taste
  • 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar or vincotto or to taste
  • 2 cups grape or cherry tomatoes halved
  • Roasted potatoes optional
  • 4 lemon wedges
Instructions

  1. Blot cutlets dry with paper towels. Unless the cutlets are already thin enough, use a smooth meat pounder or the bottom of a small, heavy saucepan to pound cutlets to a uniform thickness of about ¼ inch. If you can't get it quite that thin, don't worry. Use a firm, gliding motion to avoid tearing the meat.

  2. Measure flour onto a broad, shallow dish (pie plates or cake tins work well). In a second dish, mix bread crumbs with grated cheese. Break eggs into a third bowl, and beat with a fork or whisk.
  3. Coat cutlets with flour, patting off excess. Dip in egg and coat with bread crumbs (you may not need them all). The layer of crumbs should not be thick, but should cover the entire surface. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes (this will help the crumbs adhere when the cutlets are cooked).
  4. Heat oil over medium-high heat in a large, heavy-bottomed skillet until sizzling hot.
  5. Working in batches, fry cutlets until well browned on both sides and cooked through, 5 to 7 minutes. Transfer with tongs to a platter lined with paper towels. Sprinkle lightly with salt.

  6. Place arugula in a shallow bowl. Drizzle with 2 tablespoons olive oil, tossing well, and the balsamic vinegar. Season with salt and pepper. Toss again, taste and adjust seasoning. The arugula should be lightly but flavorfully dressed.

  7. Place one cutlet on each plate. Top with dressed arugula. Garnish with tomatoes and lemon wedges and, if using, the roasted potatoes.
Recipe Notes

*Use thin-cut boneless pork chops or slice the cutlets yourself from a boneless pork roast (preferably from the leg).

** To prepare eggplant in the same way, choose one that is not seedy. Cut off the ends, leaving the skin intact. Cut lengthwise in ½-inch slices. Of course, there’s no need to pound the slices as you would with meat.

 

A Perfectly Italian Seafood Stew

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Seafood stews and soups are everyday eating all over Italy. And also special-occasion eating.

Western Sicily is known for its fish stew with couscous. Venice’s contributions include an inky cuttlefish stew. Cacciucco, a seafood soup from the Tuscan coast, is seasoned abundantly with garlic and hot pepper. It’s supposed to be made with five kinds of seafood, one for each “c” in the name.

Cioppino is the name given–by Italian immigrants, presumably–to San Francisco’s version of seafood stew, meant to be eaten with plenty of sourdough bread. It abounds in fish and frutti di mare (“fruits of the sea)–fish, squid, shrimp, mussels or clams.

My friend Chris Sherman makes a mean cioppino, teeming with potatoes and beans as well as seafood. A restaurant critic who lives in Tampa, he gives his fish stew a Florida twist by incorporating tangerine zest.

I love Chris’s cioppino but, as cooks are prone to do, I’ve gradually modified his recipe in so many ways he might not recognize it.

What you’re getting here is my favorite seafood stew, plus ideas for tweaks that will make it your own.

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Italian Seafood Stew
Prep Time
40 mins
Cook Time
40 mins
Total Time
1 hr 20 mins
 
Course: Main Dish
Cuisine: Italian
Servings: 8 servings
Ingredients
  • 1 to 2 pounds mussels or small clams
  • Sea salt or kosher salt
  • 1¼ pounds firm white fish
  • ¾ pound squid bodies and tentacles
  • ¾ pound small shrimp*
  • 3 medium red-skinned potatoes
  • 1 small onion
  • ½ fennel bulb or 1 large stalk celery
  • 3 garlic cloves
  • Extra virgin olive oil
  • 2 bay leaves
  • ¼ teaspoon hot red pepper flakes or to taste
  • 2 cups canned plum tomatoes with puree*
  • 2 cups white beans or chickpeas*
  • 1 cup white or red wine
  • Chopped Italian parsley or basil leaves and stems
Instructions

  1. Partly fill a large bowl with water and stir in 2 tablespoons salt. Add mussels and more water if needed to cover. Let soak in refrigerator for 1 to 2 hours to purge sand (if mussels are the cultivated rope-raised kind, they may not need treatment).

  2. Cut fish in thick 2-inch pieces. Cut squid bodies in rings; split tentacles into clumps with 2 or 3 tentacles. Peel shrimp.

  3. Dice potatoes in 1-inch pieces. Dice fennel in ½-inch pieces (about 1½ cups). Chop onion. Finely chop garlic.

  4. Heat ¼ cup olive oil over medium heat in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan. Saute onion until golden. Stir in fennel, garlic, 2 teaspoons salt, bay leaves and red pepper flakes. Cook until vegetables are softened but not browned.

  5. Add tomatoes, breaking them up with a wooden spoon (alternatively, puree tomatoes with their puree in a blender). Simmer for 10 minutes or so. Add potatoes and enough water to barely cover. Continue to cook, with lid ajar, until tender.

  6. Add fish and squid. Add more water to barely cover. Simmer until just cooked, about 10 minutes. (Heat can be turned off at this point for up to an hour.)
  7. Meanwhile, drain mussels, place in a large, deep skillet and add wine. Bring to a simmer, cover and cook until mussels open (discard any that do not).

  8. Add mussels and cooking liquid to saucepan with stew if there’s room; if not, combine liquid with stew and leave mussels in skillet.

  9. Stir shrimp into stew. Cook for about 5 minutes, until just cooked.

  10. Taste broth and add more salt and red pepper flakes if needed.

  11. To serve: Spoon stew into broad, shallow bowls. Top each serving with several mussels and sprinkle with parsley.

Recipe Notes

Notes

• Choose good-quality canned Italian tomatoes such as San Marzano. For a thicker stew base, add a couple tablespoons of tomato paste to the stew base. If fresh tomatoes are in season, you could substitute several for canned tomatoes; peel, seed, dice fresh tomatoes before adding to the stew.

• Fresh shrimp are great, but as a time saver, I sometimes use individually frozen wild shrimp. Unless thawed first, they need a little extra cooking.

• If using canned beans, drain and rinse them before adding. Beans cooked from scratch are even better; you can add some of their cooking liquid to the stew base.

• The easy path to a richer-tasting broth is to add a small bottle of clam juice to the stew base. A more labor-intensive but more flavorful route is to make broth from heads and frames of mild-tasting fish; strain and substitute for water called for in recipe.

*For a bright finish, stir in zest of 1 tangerine or orange just before serving.

 

 

Mushroom Tart, Fresh from the Woods

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My path to making a shiitake tart started with a walk in the North Carolina woods. It had rained and fungi had popped out. I wasn’t tempted to cook with them, but they were worth a look. Some were gorgeous and others just weird.


Toward the end of the stay, our friends took us to Deep Woods Mushrooms, where Greg Carter farms and forages for mushrooms that do belong in the kitchen.


Some of the foraged ‘shrooms looked as strange as those we’d seen in the woods. Indigo milk caps were new to me. Lion’s mane mushrooms were sweet and chewy, tasting a little like crabmeat. We also sampled thin raw slices of beefsteak mushrooms, known as “sushi of the woods.”

Among farmed mushrooms at Deep Woods, shiitake rule. “There are a blue million varieties, with different properties,” says Carter. “Some grow in the fall, others in spring.” His favored varieties grow outdoors (rather than in sheds used in large commercial operations), sprouting on logs positioned upright or in a tipi design.

An outdoor log can take more than two years to produce a fruiting body that results in mushrooms. Sometimes the logs can be stressed into picking up the pace–a whack with a sledge hammer might do the trick.

After eating mushroom pizzas from Carter’s wood-burning oven, we returned home with bags of dried shiitake and a sack of fresh ones. What to make? Pasta with mushroom sauce, risotto with mushrooms, polenta with sauteed mushrooms. All were considered. Morrison and David, our dear hosts, liked the idea of a tart so that’s what I made.

The dough for this tart is pasta frolla, made with a beaten egg as well as butter. It’s parbaked, which ensures a crisp crust when the filling is moist. I went heavy on mushrooms, using just enough egg and cheese to hold the filling together.

I’ve made this tart with all shiitakes and with a mixture including oysters and cremini. Both versions were excellent.

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MUSHROOM TART
Ingredients
Crust:
  • 2 cups flour, plus more for rolling
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 10 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut in pieces
  • 1 egg, beaten
Filling:
  • 1 pound mushrooms, such as shiitake, cremini or oyster
  • 1 large shallot
  • 2 ounces pancetta in a thick slice (optional)
  • 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
  • Kosher or sea salt
  • Freshly ground black pepper
  • 3 eggs
  • ½ cup heavy cream
  • ¼ cup shredded sage leaves
  • 1 cup Italian Fontina, raclette or gruyere cheese, grated
  • 1/3 cup pecorino
Instructions
Prepare crust:
  1. Mix flour and salt in large bowl. Add butter and toss to coat with flour. Blend in butter with a pastry cutter (or, if you move quickly, your fingers). With a fork, moisten flour mixture with egg. Add cold water, a tablespoon at a time, until mixture holds together.

  2. Roll dough between two pieces of parchment paper to make a circle about 13 inches in diameter. Line a 10-inch tart pan and trim top edges with a knife. Fit parchment paper into shell and fill with weights (lightly oiled dry beans work well).

  3. Preheat oven to 375F. Cook tart crust for 10 minutes. Cool slightly. Remove paper with weights. Cook 10 minutes longer until lightly colored. Cool.

Prepare filling:

  1. Slice mushrooms, chop shallot, and cut pancetta (if using) in 1/8-inch dice. Heat olive oil over medium-high heat in a large skillet. Cook shallot and pancetta until golden. Scrape into a bowl.

  2. Melt butter in same skillet. Saute mushrooms, stirring, until softened and lightly browned. Season with salt and pepper. Stir in shallot and pancetta. Cool.

  3. In a medium bowl, whisk eggs with cream. Season with ½ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper.

Assemble tart:

  1. Spread mushroom mixture over pastry shell. Sprinkle with sage leaves. Pour egg-cream mixture over mushrooms and tilt to distribute evenly. Top with Fontina and pecorino. Bake until filling is just cooked and cheesy top is browned, about 25 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Bresaola with Arugula and Other Italian Deli Salads

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When a student in a cooking class vows to make a certain dish that very night, it’s the ultimate compliment. There were several enthusiastic promises along those lines when I demonstrated a classic salad consisting of thinly sliced bresaola topped with a heap of arugula and shaved Parmigiano Reggiano cheese.

Everyone assembled their own salad, seasoning it with olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper passed at the table.

The fact that you can make the salad in three minutes flat probably had something to do with its popularity. Also the fact that bresaola, an air-cured beef from northern Italy, is new to many people.

I ate a perfect version of this salad in a casual outdoor cafe overlooking Roman ruins in Fiesole. Supple slices of bresaola, tangy arugula, paper-thin slices of cheese so tender it crumbles under its own weight. It’s easy to bring these flavors back home. Just make sure the ingredients are the best and this salad will deliver, every time.

Here’s a deli salad with prosciutto di Parma that dishes up like a dream: frisee dressed with a mustard vinaigrette, with the prosciutto draped along the side and a poached egg tucked in the middle.

Sometimes it’s great to mix up all the good flavors normally displayed separately on an antipasto platter. That’s what happens in a chopped salad I like to make with cubed Genoa salami, mozzarella, black olives, pickled Italian peppers, chickpeas and chopped romaine or escarole–good things from the deli case plus a few fresh ingredients (recipe below).

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Bresaola with Arugula and Parmigiano Reggiano Shavings
Prep Time
10 mins
 

What a flavor pay-off, with minimal effort! 

Course: Main Dish
Cuisine: Italian
Servings: 2 servings
Ingredients
  • 3 ounces thinly sliced Bresaola air-cured beef
  • 4 ounces arugula or mixed micro greens
  • 12 grape or cherry tomatoes
  • 8 oil-cured olives optional
  • 2 lemon wedges
  • Extra virgin olive oil
  • Balsamic vinegar or white wine vinegar
  • Sea salt
  • Freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
  1. Arrange Bresaola slices on two plates. Lightly top each with arugula. Place tomatoes and olives (if using) around edges. Garnish with lemon wedges.
  2. Pass olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper at the table.

 

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Chopped Italian Deli Salad
Prep Time
20 mins
 

Try this salad: crisp greens tossed with good things from the deli case. The recipe is from PIATTO UNICO, by Toni Lydecker. (Wrong photo: Sorry, can't seem to remove from the recipe template!)

Course: Main Dish
Cuisine: Italian
Servings: 4 servings
Ingredients
  • ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil plus more to taste
  • 2 tablespoons red or white wine vinegar
  • ¼ cup snipped basil dill, chives or parsley leaves
  • Sea salt or kosher salt
  • Freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 cup fresh mozzarella cubes or halved bocconcini about 5 ounces
  • 2 to 3 ounces thick-cut Genoa salami cut in small cubes
  • 1 can chickpeas (19 ounces), drained and rinsed
  • 8 black oil-cured olives pitted
  • 2 or 3 pickled Italian peppers
  • 3 cups shredded crisp greens such as romaine escarole, or a mixture
Instructions
  1. Whisk together the olive oil, vinegar, basil, ½ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper in a bowl large enough to hold the salad. Add the mozzarella, salami, chickpeas, olives and peppers; stir until coated with the dressing. Place the greens on top. (At this point the salad can be refrigerated for several hours.)
  2. Toss the greens with the ingredients at the bottom of the bowl. Taste and add more olive oil, vinegar, salt or pepper if needed.
Recipe Notes

Note: This salad can be varied in keeping with deli ingredients you might have on hand or want to try. For example, thin strips of mortadella and small cubes of semi-soft Asiago or provolone could be substituted for the salami and mozzarella. Marinated artichokes or mushrooms could stand in for the peperoncini.

 

Brothy Bread Soup with Poached Eggs

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Acqua cotta means “cooked water,” a name that undersells a delicious and nurturing bread soup prepared in less than an hour.

Travelling in the Maremma, on the Tuscan coast, I started seeing this soup on menus. It didn’t sound promising. But the soup itself was a delight.

No need for brodo! Vegetables, including onion and some kind of greens, create their own broth. Each serving, as it’s dished up, is enriched by adding bread, grated hard cheese and, most important, an egg poached in the soup itself.

Acqua cotta belongs to the same tradition as ribollita, making thrifty use of stale Tuscan bread, but it’s a far less time-consuming soup to make. Of course, authentic Tuscan bread is hard to come by in the States, but I’ve found that croutons made from any bread with a dense texture–including rye and other whole grain breads–work reasonably well.

As I gathered recipes for Piatto Unico, my cookbook on one-course Italian meals, this soup came to mind. Later on, Tina Rupp’s photo of acqua cotta, its elements suspended in a light but nourishing broth, looked so appetizing we chose it for the book cover.

A simple soup like this is easy to forget until the larder is almost empty. The last carrot, some greens, a few crusts of bread–aaahh! The makings of acqua cotta.

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Brothy Vegetable and Bread Soup with Poached Eggs
Prep Time
20 mins
Cook Time
30 mins
Total Time
50 mins
 

This recipe for this soup, typical of coastal Tuscany and Lazio, is eaten along the coasts of Tuscany and Lazio.

Course: Main Dish
Cuisine: Italian
Servings: 4 servings
Ingredients
  • 1 cup medium bread cubes cut from a country-style white or whole-wheat loaf about 2 slices
  • Extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 small onion chopped
  • 1 small carrot thinly sliced
  • 1/2 cup thinly sliced celery 1 small stalk
  • 1 large garlic clove finely chopped
  • 1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary or 1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
  • 1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes or to taste
  • Sea salt or kosher salt
  • 1 cup chopped or shredded chard, spinach or kale
  • 1 cup chopped canned plum tomatoes with some of the puree
  • 4 eggs
  • Grated Parmigiano Reggiano or pecorino cheese
Instructions
  1. Preheat an oven or toaster oven to 400°F. Toss the bread cubes on a baking sheet with a little olive oil. Cook until dry to the touch and lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Turn off the heat, leaving the cubes in the oven.
  2. Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Sauté the onion until soft but not colored, stirring often. Reduce the heat and add the carrot and celery, sauteing for a couple of minutes longer. Add the garlic, rosemary and red pepper flakes, cooking just until the garlic is fragrant.
  3. Add 2 quarts cold water and 2 teaspoons salt; bring to a boil. Stir in the chard and tomatoes; reduce the heat to low and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes, to blend the flavors. Taste the broth, and season as needed with more salt and hot red pepper.

  4. Break the eggs one by one into a small dish and, holding it close to the surface, slide into the soup. Poach for about 3 minutes. The eggs will sink from sight but rise to the surface when almost fully cooked. The whites should be opaque and the yolks slightly firm but still soft.

  5. Using a skimmer or slotted spatula, lift each egg and slide into a soup bowl. •  Top each with a sprinkle of Parmigiano Reggiano and some warm croutons.

Recipe Notes

Note: In addition to the other garnishes, add small torn strips of prosciutto di Parma to the soup bowls just before serving.

 

Making Pizzoccheri with Buckwheat Tagliatelle

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I’d been curious forever about the northern Italian dish known as pizzoccheri, but never tasted it. I just knew it combined short buckwheat tagliatelle with potatoes, cabbage, onions and lots of luscious cheese.

Looking on a map, I could see how this hearty dish came to be. Its place of origin, Valtellina (with Teglio as its capitol), is to the far north of Lombardy, not far from Switzerland. Pizzoccheri is border cuisine from a place where the traditions of what are now two countries mingle–a dish for people who work and play hard in a challenging climate.

Buckwheat has long been grown here, turning up in whole-grain breads and steaming bowls of whole-grain polenta taragna. So why not pasta? Italy takes pride of ownership and I was interested but not surprised to find a site by a group called Accademia del Pizzocchero di Teglio that shares the story of this northern dish as well as a recipe from a participating restaurant.

According to the Accademia, pizzoccheri is the sort of dish locals conduct spirited conversations about–how the flour should be milled, how to fry the garlic, the ideal age of the cheese. Everyone has an opinion that remains intact at the end of the discussion.

After consulting several recipes, including one from The Silver Spoon and another from a Slow Food collection of recipes from Italy’s osterias, I concluded that there’s room for variation in ingredients and proportions as long as the essentials are retained. For instance, the most authentic mountain cheese would be Valtellina Casera. But other, easier-to-find Alpine cheeses can be substituted–Italian Fontina Valle d’Aosta, French Comté or Swiss Gruyère.

Most recipes call for piling the steaming mixture onto a platter, but I gravitated toward layering the pasta, vegetables and cheeses to create a casserole for baking briefly. It can be held after assembly for a while and, if any is left over after cooking, reheated successfully the next day.

Don’t count on leftovers, though. Pizzoccheri is an absolutely delicious dish and I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to discover it.

Like any dish made with homemade pasta, pizzoccheri takes time but is especially worthwhile because you’d be hard put to buy buckwheat tagliatelle. It’s a great group project–my husband and I had a blast making pizzoccheri with our friends Maria, Mel and Vivian.

Next on my Valtellina cooking agenda is sciatt, a dialect word for “toad.” I’ll have to look into the story about that, but only after test firing a batch of these cheese-filled buckwheat fritters, served on a bed of chicory.

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Pizzoccheri
Prep Time
40 mins
Cook Time
20 mins
Total Time
1 hr
 

This buckwheat pasta dish is a specialty of the Italy's Valtellina area, close to the Swiss border.

Course: Main Dish
Cuisine: Italian, northern Italian
Servings: 6 servings
Ingredients
  • ½ cup butter 8 tablespoons
  • 2 large onions thinly sliced
  • Sea salt or kosher salt
  • 2 large potatoes peeled, diced small
  • 5 cups shredded cabbage preferably Savoy
  • 2 or 3 garlic cloves peeled, slivered
  • Leaves from 2 sprigs sage snipped in ribbons
  • 1 pound buckwheat tagliatelle recipe follows
  • 6 ounces Alpine cheese such as Italian Fontina Valle d'Aosta, French Comté or Swiss Gruyère shredded (about 2 cups)
  • 2 ounces Parmigiano Reggiano or Grana Padano cheese shredded (about 1 cup)
  • Freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
  1. Use 1 tablespoon soft butter to coat a large baking dish.
  2. Melt 3 tablespoons butter in a large skillet. Saute onions until soft and golden brown. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a small skillet. Saute garlic and sage until bronzed but not browned. Mix with sautéed onions.
  3. Bring a large saucepan two-thirds filled with water to a boil. Add a small handful of salt. Cook potatoes 5 minutes. Add cabbage and cook until vegetables are just tender. Dip vegetables out with a strainer (an Asian kitchen “spider” works best) and transfer to skillet with onions. Mix gently.
  4. When water returns to a boil, add tagliatelle, stirring gently to separate strands. When water returns to a boil, cook until tender, about 3 minutes. Using a strainer, transfer to a bowl. Add remaining 2 tablespoons butter in bits and toss gently to coat as butter melts.
  5. Preheat oven to 375°F. Assemble dish: Spread one third of tagliatelle on bottom of prepared pan. Spread one third of potato-cabbage-onion mixture on top. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Add one third of fontina and Parmigiano Reggiano cheeses. Repeat layers twice.
  6. Cook uncovered until heated through and top is lightly browned, about 20 minutes.
Print
Buckwheat Tagliatelle
Prep Time
45 mins
 

These noodles, cut shorter than regular tagliatelle, are used in the Valtellina to make a dish called pizzoccheri.

Course: Pasta
Cuisine: Italian
Servings: 6 servings
Ingredients
  • 1¾ cups buckwheat flour about 200 grams
  • 1½ cups all-purpose flour about 200 grams (preferably Italian doppio zero), plus more flour for the counter
  • 2 large pinches kosher or sea salt
Instructions
  1. Make tagliatelle: Whisk together buckwheat and all-purpose flour with salt in a bowl. Drizzle with water, mixing with a fork, until dough begins to cohere (about 1 cup altogether). Knead until smooth and not sticky, about 10 minutes. Cover with a towel and let rest 10 minutes.

  2. Break off a piece of dough the size of an extra-large egg. Flatten into a square, dust with all-purpose flour and run through widest setting of pasta maker.* Change setting to next slot and run pasta through again. Continue to narrower settings, stopping on the second or third to last. Cut sheet horizontally in half if necessary for length of about 8 inches. Lay sheet on floured counter or tray, and continue in same way with remaining dough.

  3. Attach handle to pasta cutter. Cut each sheet to make tagliatelle. Place on floured trays, with a tea towel or waxed paper between layers, or on spokes of a pasta dryer. Dry for at least 20 minutes before cooking.
Recipe Notes

* Alternatively, roll the piece of dough until very thin and cut in narrow strips. 

New Year’s Risotto with Lentils and Black-eyed Peas

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This risotto, rich with legumes and savory bits of pork, promises good luck and prosperity whether you’re celebrating New Year’s in Italy or America.

It’s lentils, with their vaguely coin-like shape, that many Italians will be eating on New Year’s Day. Often they’re consumed with a fatty pork sausage called cotechino or the equally over-the-top zampone, a sausage-stuffed pig’s trotter.

I love dishes like that but my supermarket is lacking in cotechino and zampone. Plus, like lots of other Americans, my family insists on eating black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day. Always some variation on Hoppin’ John, the Southern dish made with rice–savory, spicy, nourishing, delicious.

Still, nudging our New Year’s custom a little closer to Italy seemed like a worthy goal.  I was happy to learn that in Piemonte, Italy’s premier rice-growing region, lentils are sometimes mixed into risotto as a New Year’s dish.

I set out to put a good-luck dish that hit all the key ingredients. Rice, check. Pork, check. Lentils, check.

Leaving black-eyed peas out didn’t feel right, though. And why should I? Italians were introduced a few centuries back to fagioli dall’ occhio, along with other New World ingredients, and they’re widely available.

My cross-cultural risotto has both lentils and black-eyed peas. You can choose just one or the other, of course, but for stepping into the new year with maximum confidence, I recommend including both.

Be sure to serve this risotto with currency-colored greens–spinach, kale, collard greens, your choice–prized in Italy and America alike as a food that promises good things in 2018.

Print
Risotto with Lentils and Black-eyed Peas
Prep Time
30 mins
Cook Time
30 mins
Total Time
1 hr
 

Believed to bring good luck, these legumes are eaten on New Year's Day.

Course: Appetizer, Main Dish
Cuisine: Italian
Servings: 6 servings
Ingredients
  • 6 cups vegetable broth
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 cup chopped onion
  • 1 cup diced celery or fennel
  • 2 medium carrots diced
  • 3 ounces thick-cut pancetta cut in small cubes
  • 2 cloves garlic finely chopped
  • 2 cups Arborio or Carnaroli rice
  • 1 cup cooked lentils, preferably the French/green kind* drained
  • 1 cup cooked black-eyed peas* drained
  • Sea salt
  • Freshly ground black pepper
  • Ground red pepper or hot sauce optional
  • ½ cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano or Grana Padano cheese plus more for the table
Instructions
  1. Bring broth to a simmer in a small saucepan. Heat butter and olive oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add onion, celery, carrots, pancetta and garlic. Cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are just tender and pancetta has given off most fat. Stir in rice. Cook for a couple of minutes until grains are coated and smell toasty.
  2. Add broth to barely cover pan’s contents and stir well. Simmer until most liquid is absorbed. Continue adding broth, stirring, until rice is just tender. Gently stir in lentils and black-eyed peas. Season to taste with salt, pepper and, if using, ground red pepper.
  3. Stir in a final dose of broth (you may not need it all) and grated cheese. Let stand, off heat, for 5 minutes.
  4. Serve in shallow bowls and pass cheese.
Recipe Notes

* I usually cook dried lentils and dried or fresh black-eyed peas, separately, adding onion, celery and carrot trimmings and bay leaves to the cooking water. Any surplus can be used for other purposes. But you could also use canned or frozen legumes.

Perfect Eggplant Parmesan

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Nobody needs more than one recipe for eggplant parmesan, any more than you need multiple methods for perfect scrambled eggs or a perfect grilled cheese sandwich.

Problem was my eggplant parmesan recipe, acquired years ago from an Italian-American cook, wasn’t perfect. The eggplant slices were brushed with oil and broiled. It contained ricotta as well as mozzarella and parmesan.  Sounds okay but the result was always a bit disappointing. Eventually I drifted away from it.

Then I tasted eggplant parm–otherwise known as melazane alla parmigiana–as executed by Maria Silvestri, co-owner of Casa del Pane in St. Pete Beach. Under a bronzed crust, a meltingly delicious marriage of fried eggplant, cheeses and tomato sauce.

At Casa del Pane, you can savor a mozzarella & grilled veggie sandwich made with Pugliese bread still warm from their ovens.  Or sip a cappuccino at the bar while chatting in Italian with a regular. Or stock up on artisanal pasta, regional wines and choice canned tomatoes.

But you can’t eat Anna’s eggplant parmesan at Casa del Pane. “It’s a family dish we enjoy at home, made the way I learned in Puglia,” she says.

Anna agreed to share the recipe for publication in Food + Art: Cooking around Tampa Bay with the Museum of Fine Arts (buy a copy if you haven’t already). To make sure I had it right, I asked lots of questions. Are the eggplants peeled? “I do but it’s the cook’s decision.” How thick are the slices? She held thumb and forefinger a fraction of an inch apart. What kind of canned tomatoes? “A good imported brand such as La Valle.” What else makes her version special?  “No breadcrumbs! I think they make the dish too heavy.”

The eggplant is fried, after being dipped in flour and beaten egg, and I’ve never had a guest who didn’t ask for a second helping. I think there’s a connection. That never happened with my broiled eggplant parm.

I could give you the argument that, when food is fried properly, most of the oil stays in the pan. That happens to be true, but the real reason I make this classic dish Maria’s way: It tastes perfect.

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Eggplant Parmesan
Prep Time
45 mins
Cook Time
40 mins
Total Time
1 hr 25 mins
 
Course: Main Course
Cuisine: Italian
Servings: 8 people
Ingredients
  • 1 small onion peeled and finely chopped
  • 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 28-ounce can good-quality plum tomatoes in puree
  • Salt
  • 4 small eggplants about 2½ pounds
  • ¾ cup all-purpose flour or as needed
  • 4 or 5 eggs
  • Vegetable oil
  • 1 pound mozzarella cheese coarsely grated, divided
  • 4 ounces Parmigiano Reggiano grated, divided
  • 1 cup basil leaves divided
Instructions
  1. Make sauce: Saute onion with olive oil until golden in a medium saucepan. Add tomatoes and ½ teaspoon salt. Cook at a brisk simmer, breaking up tomatoes with a wooden spoon, until onion is cooked and tomatoes soften, about 10 minutes. Cool to warm. Using a blender or food processor, process to a chunky sauce.
  2. Preheat oven to 450°F. Peel eggplant or not, depending on preference. Cut in ½-inch slices. Place flour in a shallow bowl and, in a second bowl, beat eggs with 1 teaspoon salt. Coat slices with flour on both sides, dusting off excess.  Dip in egg, allowing excess to drop off.
  3. Fill large deep skillet with at least ½ inch vegetable oil. Heat over medium-high heat until shimmering. Fry eggplant until golden brown on both sides. Drain on a platter lined with paper towels and blot with more paper towels.
  4. Ladle sauce over bottom of a 13x9x2-inch baking pan (see Note). Arrange a layer of eggplant on top. Sprinkle with half the mozzarella, Parmigiano Reggiano and basil. Repeat layers, finishing with sauce and cheeses.
  5. Bake uncovered for 25 to 30 minutes until bubbling and browned on top. Cool at least 15 minutes before cutting.
Recipe Notes

Note: In a smaller pan, you may need to repeat the sequence of layers three times rather than twice.

 

 

 

Giardiniera and Other Pickled Vegetables

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Pickling isn’t just for cucumbers anymore. It’s a huge trend, whether taking the form of traditional mixes like Italian giardiniera or the wildly creative combinations of someone like Ilene Sofranko, owner of Urban Canning Company here in St. Pete.

Their exuberantly flavored offerings include chili and fennel Brussels sprouts, sraracha peppered okra and ginger-spiced beets. Sign up for one of Ilene’s classes–the upcoming session on making chow chow from summer’s end vegetables, for instance–and she’ll spill her hardwon pickling secrets.

I’ve made pickles myself–most often giardiniera (“from the garden”), Italy’s most famous pickled-vegetable combo. The brine is sweetened with a little sugar, giving it the sweet-sour flavor profile much loved in Italy. I start with cauliflower, carrots and onions, then add whatever is seasonal or appealing–perhaps peppers, green beans, fennel, zucchini. It’s important to take care in cutting the vegetables–the pieces need to be about the same size and look pretty.

A new cookbook called Preserving Italy, by Domenica Marchetti, is an excellent source on the Italian art of pickling. I earmarked a recipe for wine-spiked julienne carrots to remember when I run across heirloom carrots and instead made her pickled beets and spring onions. Apple cider, though not a traditional Italian ingredient, gives fruity verve to this pickled combo, with spicy notes added by juniper berries, peppercorns, cloves and bay leaves.

Domenica and Ilene can tell you how to do the water-bath canning that keeps jars shelf stable for up to a year, but I don’t bother with that. However satisfying it would be to survey shelves of jewel-like pickled vegetables, I don’t have the space–or, frankly, the inclination. Instead, I prepare a small batch, transfer the vegetables and their brine to jars and refrigerate for a few days to infuse the flavorings. Then we eat them at will, always returning the jars to the fridge, in the course of about a month.

How to eat giardiniera and other pickled veggies? Drain well and eat on the side with burgers, fish, roast chicken or just about anything, really. Add to an Italian rice salad. Chopped a bit finer, they turn into a condiment with a special affinity for sandwiches. In our Chicago days, I remember giardiniera on Italian beef sandwiches. The mix can also be subbed for olive salad in a muffuletta and would be delicious on a hot dog.

Or have a party (I recommend a barbecue) and clear out your pickled vegetables in one fell swoop. When you feel like making more, see what’s in season and go for it.

PICKLED
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Giardiniera with Pearl Onions
Prep Time
35 mins
Cook Time
15 mins
Total Time
50 mins
 
Course: Salad, Side Dish
Cuisine: Italian
Servings: 2 quarts
Ingredients
  • 10 ounces cipolline or pearl onions
  • 1 small head cauliflower
  • 3 medium carrots
  • 3 celery stalks or 1 small head fennel
  • 4 cloves garlic
  • 1 1/2 cups wine vinegar
  • 1 1/2 cups distilled vinegar
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 3 tablespoons sugar
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons salt
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 2 small fresh or dried hot peppers
  • 1 teaspoon black or mixed peppercorns
Instructions

  1. 1. Cut the cauliflower florets and stems in small pieces (about 4 cups). Cut pepper in square pieces about the same size. Angle cut the carrots in thin slices. Cut the fennel in thin wedges. Halve the garlic cloves.

 

Giardiniera

Makes about 2 quarts

10 ounces cipolline or pearl onions
1 small head cauliflower
3 medium carrots
3 celery stalks or 1 small head fennel
4 cloves garlic
1 1/2 cups wine vinegar
1 1/2 cups distilled vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons salt
2 bay leaves
2 small fresh or dried hot peppers
1 teaspoon black or mixed peppercorns

1. Bring a medium saucepan of cold water to a boil. Add the onions and cook for about 15 seconds. Drain, cool under running water and slip off the skins; clip the tips with shears as needed but do not cut off the stem ends (the onions would fall apart). Separate the cauliflower florets from the stalks and cut both in small (1- to 1 1/2-inch) pieces. Angle cut the carrots and celery in similar-sized pieces. Halve the onions if large and cut the garlic lengthwise in half. You should have about 2 pounds of vegetables altogether.

2. Combine the vinegars and olive oil with 1 1/2 cups cold water in a large saucepane. Add sugar, salt, bay leaves, hot peppers and peppercorns. Bring to a boil and stir to dissolve the sugar and salt. Add the cauliflower, carrots, celery, onions and garlic. When the liquid returns to a boil, adjust the heat to a brisk simmer and cook for 2 minutes. Cover and cool.

3. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the vegetables into two quart jars or four pint jars. Make sure the vegetables are well covered with the brine. Refrigerate for a few days to blend flavors. Use within a month, discarding the bay leaves and peppercorns.

 

Making Ricotta at Home–Worth the Trouble?

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Homemade ricotta had been on my “to do” list for awhile. Not a big deal: three ingredients and maybe 10 minutes of active attention. So I can’t explain why I didn’t get around to it. But one fine afternoon…ricotta making rose to the top of the list.

Ricotta means “recooked” and for a cheese maker, is a thrifty way of capturing remaining nutrients in whey, a byproduct of the process for more celebrated cheeses such as Parmigiano Reggiano. Whey isn’t exactly a supermarket staple, so homemade ricotta is usually made from milk and sometimes, for extra richness, with cream.  Instead of calling for rennet or a cheese culture, ricotta is formed by adding an acid, usually white vinegar or citric acid, to the heated liquid. Curds are separated from the whey, draining through cheesecloth to make the soft cheese.

How-tos are not to be found in the works of Pellegrino Artusi, the so-called “father of Italian cooking” or in a sampling the several hundred Italian cookbooks on my shelves. These sources assume that ricotta is a purchased ingredient unless you happen to own a cow or ewe.

Instead, I found advice by diving into Internet adventures of cheese making enthusiasts–some chefs or professional cheese makers but mostly hobbyists. Invariably they rave about the ease of making ricotta and urge the rest of us to get going. But even before heading for the kitchen, I picked up a pattern from the troubleshooting hints and reader comments. It seems that sometimes quantities of fluffy ricotta rise magically to the top of the hot milk, and sometimes they do not. The fact is that milk can behave in a temperamental way, presenting challenges even for a simple cheese such as ricotta.

For instance, it makes sense that you’d want to start with the best possible milk–perhaps your favorite organic brand. In my case that’s Organic Valley. But organic milk is typically ultra pasteurized and, uh oh, often doesn’t curdle properly. Ditto for heavy cream.

A second issue: The amount of acid needed to maximize curdling can vary. I discovered this on my first test, which happened to be with raw goat milk. The milk failed to curdle and, hesitant to add more vinegar for fear of creating an off taste, I discarded it.

Next I did several batches using pasteurized whole milk. These were my most successful, especially after I learned a trick for maximizing the quantity of ricotta formed. According to a cheesemaker’s site, keep adding vinegar until the liquid stops looking milky and becomes a watery whey with floating islands of curd. After straining the cheese, stir in a little baking soda to neutalize the acid and eliminate any off flavors. It sounded too chem lab to be true, but I have to say it works.

My last batch was made with the same brand of pasteurized milk, to which I added a little cream. That  mixture failed to curdle no matter how vinegar I added–which seemed to confirm the idea that ultra-pasteurized dairy products don’t take well to ricotta making.

After coming home, my husband was treated to a blind tasting of three ricotta samples. Two were ones I had made. They were received kindly but the winner was the third, which he described as “creamy and mild, with a nice milky finish.”

It came not from our kitchen but from Mazzaro’s, a local Italian specialty market.

So my personal answer to “Worth the trouble to make ricotta at home?” is no–although I do want to try goat milk one more time–because I have a good source of freshly made ricotta. If your only choice is a supermarket brand, bland tasting and laced with stabilizers, give homemade ricotta a try. I suggest you do it in small batches (say, two cups of milk) until you get the results you’re going for. Then ramp up to as much as 1 gallon of milk at a time.

There are a zillion things to do with good ricotta–I use it to make spinach-ricotta gnocchi, baked ricotta (a Sicilian dish), a layered zucchini casserole and, for dessert, a ricotta tart or fried ricotta fritters drizzled with honey. Whether you’ve made ricotta or bought it, be sure to eat some in a simple way. Spread it on crostini, finishing with sea salt, pepper and a drizzle of olive oil. Or place a generous dollop on pasta dressed with a fresh tomato sauce. The flavor is pure, comforting and always welcome in my kitchen.

Ricotta
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Ricotta Made at Home
Prep Time
10 mins
Cook Time
12 mins
Total Time
22 mins
 
Course: Ingredients, Products
Cuisine: Italian
Servings: 1 cup
Ingredients
  • 1 quart whole milk pasteurized, NOT ultra pasteurized
  • 1/2 teaspoon sea salt or kosher salt
  • 1 to 2 tablespoons vinegar or more
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda optional
Instructions
  1. 1. Suspend a medium strainer over a bowl. Line it with a double layer of cheesecloth or paper towels.
  2. 2. Over medium-low heat, bring the milk and salt to a gentle simmer in a medium saucepan. Add vinegar and stir once or twice. Cook for 1 to 2 minutes, and remove from the heat. Let rest for 10 minutes.

  3. 3. Scoop off curds with a skimmer and place in the strainer. If the liquid in the pan looks milky, reheat it gently and drizzle in vinegar until more curds form and the liquid turns a translucent yellow-green color. Transfer curds to the strainer (or pour mixture into the strainer).

  4. 4. When curds have drained to a consistency you like, spoon into a bowl. Taste and, if you have added extra vinegar or detect a sour flavor, stir in the baking soda. Refrigerate and use within three days.