Celebrating Italian-Style

What’s cooking? Crostini di Ricotta con Uva Rossa (Crostini of Ricotta with Red Grapes)

For a compulsive person with an inability to say no – that would be me – the holidays offer a number of traps that my hubby refers to as self-inflicted wounds. This year the problem was acute. Dinners for 8, 16, and 13 so far, with one to come for 12 on New Year’s Eve. And something like 400 decorated cookies – for the neighborhood party, my children and grandchildren, and one of those dinner parties. What was I thinking?

Then in the run-up to sending those cookies to my grandchildren, I discovered that my cache of cookie tins was down to zero. I stopped in at my local Container Store, where they always have a good supply, and discovered... nothing. A couple of very small tins, and a couple of very large ones, but none of the Goldilocks size that holds exactly three dozen cookies.

I grabbed a nice young man who was working there and challenged him.

“You sure?” he said.

“Pretty sure,” I said.

“Well, let’s go check. There might be some in a couple of other places around the store.” But no. Only more of the very big ones, which would mean baking more cookies, and the very thought of restarting the baking process had me ready to weep.

We discovered some square tins, which I thought might do, and some middle-sized tins that my helper swore to me were the middle-sized tins they’d always had. Still, when you’ve bought as many of these things as I have, you develop an eye for the right size. But how to prove it? I had a lightbulb moment.

“I’ll call my daughter-in-law,” I said. “She might have some of the old ones that we can measure.”

Sure enough, she had some. “So tell me what the measurements on them are. I’ll need height and diameter,” I said. The mathematician in me had awakened and figured to compare the volumes of these various tins. Even with different shapes, I could know how many cookies would fit.

“Hold on,” she said. “I have to find a measuring tape.” There followed a lot of rustling around, and a raised voice as she asked the darling children what they had done with the measuring tape.

“She’s looking,” I said to my helper. Finally, sounding slightly frustrated, my DIL said, “Well, I can’t find the measuring tape. So do you have a Metrocard [NYC Transit card]?”

“Uh, yes...,” I said, as I dug through my purse. Then she added brightly, “It’s the same height as a Metrocard.”

“Ok,” I said, “but I also need the diameter...” And that’s where the train derailed. In desperation, I bought a few of the faux-middle-sized tins and headed out. Amazingly, on my way home, the cookie gods smiled at me. My friend Elaine called to say that she’d just been to Michael’s where they had cookie tins on sale. The exact right size. A Christmas miracle.

And at that point, I also knew what to get my son and daughter-in-law for Christmas: tape measures.

* * *

On one of my many trips through the grocery store this season, I happened upon a display of Italian delicacies, and found a recipe for an hors d’oeuvre that sounded unusual, festive, and delicious. I was right on all counts. You get a full range of tastes – from the sweetness of the grapes to the salty pancetta and the slightly bitter, garlicky flavor of the shallots. The cool creaminess of the ricotta adds a great visual and textural contrast to the grape/pancetta/shallot mix. So it’s not just tasty – it’s also gorgeous.

Because of the slicing and dicing, this is a tiny bit tedious in the making; but if you enlist your mate or another helper in dicing the pancetta and slicing the grapes, it can all be done in an hour. Mise en place will again be very helpful, so start with the slicing and dicing. Once you begin cooking, the process moves along pretty quickly – less than 25 minutes on the stove. And while you’re cooking, your “helper” can make the little toasts.

Crostini of Ricotta with Red Grapes

Adapted from Central Market, Austin, Texas.

Serves 8-10.

Ingredients
1 baguette, cut diagonally in ½-inch thick slices
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 large garlic clove (optional)
10-12 ounces of ricotta (as fresh as you can find)
1-2 heaping tablespoons of honey (the KG fave is acacia honey)
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 ounces pancetta, sliced to thickness of bacon and cut in ½-inch dice*
1 pound seedless red grapes, sliced in half lengthwise
4 shallots (about 6 ounces), thinly sliced
¼ cup of dry white wine
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar (plain or fruit-flavored balsamic; I used fig balsamic)
Garnish: 1 bunch basil, chiffonade

*Kitchen Goddess note: Pancetta is essentially Italian bacon, but the two products aren’t made the same. Bacon is cured with salt, then smoked and sliced. Pancetta is cured with salt, black pepper, and spices and rolled into a cylinder. It is never smoked. Most of the time, you’ll find it in your grocer’s deli area, where you’ll have to have it sliced to order. For this recipe, you’ll want to get it sliced thin, 
but not wafer thin. Tell the deli guy/girl you want it about the thickness of bacon.



Directions
Preheat the oven to 350º or set it on broil. Brush one side of the baguette slices with olive oil, lay them on a baking sheet, and bake them for 10 minutes, or run them under the broiler for 45-60 seconds, until lightly toasted. You’ll have to keep an eye on the broiler version – they can burn in a heartbeat when you’re not looking. Brush the other sides and repeat to get both sides lightly toasted. The KG also rubs one side with a clove of fresh garlic, but that’s up to you. Set the crostini aside.

In a small bowl, whisk together the ricotta, the honey, and salt/pepper to taste. Don’t be stingy with the pepper – it adds great flavor. Set aside the flavored ricotta.

In a large skillet over medium heat, cook the diced pancetta until golden. Remove from the pan with a slotted spoon, leaving the fat in the pan. To the fat, add the shallots and sauté for 3 minutes, until they appear soft.

Add the grapes, stir together well, and increase the heat to medium-high. Leave the grapes and shallots to cook undisturbed for 5 minutes, then stir occasionally as the mixture cooks for another 5-6 minutes. The finished grapes are prettiest if they experience some browning, so try to get the cut side of the grapes exposed to the bottom of the skillet as much as possible. If the shallots start to burn, remove them to the bowl or plate with the pancetta, or push them to the side of the skillet.

Pour the wine into the skillet and stir well to scrape up any bits of pancetta/shallot/grape from the bottom. Add the pancetta back to the pan, and continue to cook, stirring, until the liquid in the pan has reduced to almost nothing. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the vinegar.

Serve the grape mixture atop crostini that have been spread with the ricotta, and sprinkled with chiffonade of basil. The Kitchen Goddess likes to serve the grape mixture and the ricotta in separate bowls, so that guests can assemble the crostini themselves, but you can also assemble them and serve on a tray or plate.

By the way, this should go very well with champagne or another dry sparkling wine.

Happy New Year to you all!!

Get Set... – Day 2 of This Year’s Marathon of Sides

What’s cooking? Fava-Mint Pesto

Fava beans are one of those foods I always expect to learn that Martha Stewart popularized. (And yes, I do remember the Hannibal Lecter line from Silence of the Lambs, but I think that reference more likely put people off this fine veggie.) In any case, it’s certainly true that favas currently enjoy a sort of cult following among foodies and chefs, including Mario Batali, Bobby Flay, Daniel Boulud, Thomas Keller, Giada De Laurentiis, and – laughably – 15 recipes at marthastewart.com. The woman is truly incorrigible.

Yet it happens that fava beans – known also as broad beans, field beans, and tic beans – have long been an integral part of cultures as far-flung as China, Colombia, Croatia, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Sudan, and Turkey. Whew. Even tiny Luxembourg, where I’m told (by wikipedia, of course) that smoked collar of pork with broad beans is the national dish. It seems that the U.S. is one of the few countries where these nutty, buttery members of the pea/bean family have not been widely celebrated.

That’s about to change, as the Kitchen Goddess is now a fan. Hahahaha... well, we must have our little joke. But seriously, the expanding popularity of favas in the U.S. has meant that they are much easier to find in your grocery store. (If you don’t find them, try the frozen food aisle.) And although the peak season for them is in the spring, I found some just the other day. I’d been saving today’s recipe for next spring, but was so delighted to see them that I decided what-the-heck. I’ll bet you can find some, too. And if you can’t, try this recipe with lima beans, which are not as flavorful but will take you in the same general direction.

One of the oldest plants in cultivation, fava beans are also one of the most densely nutritious. They’re a cheap and fiber-rich source of lean protein, with no saturated fat or cholesterol. What they do have is lots of thiamin, vitamin K, vitamin B-6, potassium, copper, selenium, zinc and magnesium.

So don’t be put off by the way they look, which is a bit like something Jack might have stolen from the giant. The only small downside is that they take a bit of time to peel:

1. Snap off the end of the pod, and pull the string – like you would with a sugar snap pea.

2. Use a finger or a paring knife to break open the pod along the seam, almost like a zipper. Remove the large, white shells.

3. The meat of the plant is inside those large white shells, and it’s easiest to extract the green insides if you drop the shells in boiling water for 30 seconds, then cool them off in an ice bath.







4. Make a small slit in the white shell, and you can practically squeeze the green insides out.

So, not really hard, just a little tedious. (This is where re-runs of Law & Order will come in handy.) The good news is that the green insides need very little cooking (30 seconds). And once they’re cooked, the pesto comes together quickly with a food processor. So for your Thanksgiving feast, this pesto recipe gives you a tastes-good and good-for-you spread to use on crackers or crostini as an appetizer.

Kitchen Goddess note: The recipe calls for Agrumato olive oil, one of the few items the KG doesn’t have in her larder. It’s an extra-virgin olive oil that has been pressed from olives and lemons, simultaneously. The idea intrigues the KG, but not enough to put off making the recipe. So she bought a lemon-infused olive oil, and was very happy with the results. Then, to satisfy the itch, she ordered some Agrumato. Will let you know how that goes.

The freshness of the lemon and mint flavors works beautifully with the nuttiness of the favas, pistachios, and Parmesan. And the color is outstanding.

Fava-Mint Pesto

Adapted from Los Angeles chef Jessica Largey, in Saveur magazine, June 2015.

Makes 2-2 ½ cups.

Ingredients
3 pounds fresh fava beans in their large, green pods (If you find shelled beans or frozen beans, you’ll need 2 cups of them.)
kosher salt
2 tablespoons raw pistachio nuts, lightly toasted and roughly chopped
1 garlic clove, sliced in half
6 tablespoons Agrumato lemon oil or another good quality lemon-infused olive oil
¼ cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
¼ cup loosely packed mint leaves, roughly chopped
finely grated zest of 1 lemon, plus 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

For presentation:
• seeded crackers or French baguette, sliced and toasted
• shaved Manchego cheese or Pecorino Romano, OR goat cheese with small, fresh basil leaves

Directions
Shuck the fava beans from their pods, then peel off and discard the white shells. (See directions above.) You want to have about 2 cups of cleaned fava beans.

Fava beans: the shucking process.

Prepare a bowl of ice with water and set it aside. Drop the beans into a medium saucepan of boiling, salted water, and when the water returns to a boil, cook the fava beans 30 seconds. Drain the beans and plunge them into the ice bath for a minute to stop the cooking and set the color. 

In the bowl of a food processor, pulse the pistachios with the garlic until well chopped. Use a spatula to scrape down the sides, then add 2 tablespoons of the lemon oil and pulse again to combine it well with the nuts and garlic.

Add the fava beans and pulse long enough to get a coarse purée. Scrape down the sides of the processor bowl, and add the remaining 4 tablespoons of lemon oil, the Parmigiano-Reggiano, mint, lemon zest, and juice. Continue to pulse long enough to reach a consistency you like. (This spread looks best when it’s slightly rough.) Season with ½ teaspoon of kosher salt and ¼ teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper.

Serve with seeded crackers or crostini on the side, or assemble the crostini with shaved Manchego or Pecorino, or goat cheese with a basil leaf.

* * *

I’ve shown the crostini paired with the Curried Butternut Squash Soup from yesterday’s post, but they’d work well with any of these other treats you can find here at Spoon & Ink (click each name for the appropriate link). And all of them can be made ahead of time and reheated on the big day:

• Cold Zucchini Soup
• Cream of Broccoli Soup
• Thai Curry Soup with Broccoli, Spinach, and Cilantro
• Wild Mushroom Soup with Madeira

Come back tomorrow for Smashed Carrots with Feta! We’re marching toward Thanksgiving...

A Little Something from Your Auntie Pasto What’s cooking? Roasted Red Peppers and Sausage-Stuffed Dates

Kitchen Goddess note: Roasted red bell peppers is only the first half of this post; the rest of what constituted my gourmet antipasto, including the recipe for those dynamite stuffed dates, follows the recipe for the peppers.

Another gourmet group dinner haunted me this month. The theme this time was Italian, and our assignment was the appetizer course. Which should have been easy, right? Antipasto. In Italian, the word “antipasto” literally means “before the meal.” And I even had the authentic set of dishes used to serve it. But what would go into a “gourmet” version? I needed it to be more than a bunch of things I bought ready-made. I needed it to be special.

The ingredients for an antipasto platter (plural is “antipasti,” though when or how you’d use that formulation is beyond me) would fill a book on their own. From what I've read in a ridiculous number of Google searches, here’s a summary of sorts:

■ Cured meats (pepperoni, prosciutto, soppressata, salami,...)
■ Pickled mushrooms and vegetables in oil and/or vinegar: artichoke hearts, asparagus, peperoncini (unrelated to pepperoni, these are little pale yellow peppers that come in jars, pickled)...
■ Olives
■ Anchovies
■ Italian cheeses: provolone, mozzarella, Parmigiano-Reggiano, ricotta, goat cheese
■ Fruits: chunks of fresh melon (cantaloupe, honeydew, watermelon), figs (dried or fresh), dates
■ Roasted nuts
■ Roasted red peppers

In short, food from Italy. Well now, that’s helpful, I said to myself.

Something about the number of combinations and permutations made me feel like I was back in my college probability class, and the probability was that I’d drive myself crazy figuring it out. So I used my gourmet “shout out”: I called my friend Barbara, who is the closest combination I know of (1) Italian heritage, (2) a great cook, and (3) a good enough friend that she wouldn’t mind if I called and whined about my dilemma. (She's also a very talented interior designer, with a website here.)

“First,” she said, “you have to have roasted peppers.”

“But I don’t like roasted peppers,” I whimpered. “And the times I’ve tried, that business of steaming them in a paper bag then peeling off the skin just made me crazy.”

“The reason you don’t like them,” she countered, “is that you’ve never had mine. And I have a much better way of cooking and peeling them.”

She was right on both counts. Turns out she halves the peppers, then marinates them before she cooks them on the grill. Grilling them on both sides (rather than whole, which most recipes dictate) induces the halves to flatten out, which makes the skins easier to peel off. It also introduces that lovely roasted flavor to the inside of the peppers. Once she gets the skins off, she marinates them again. The result is completely delicious – tender, smoky, slightly sweet yet suffused with the herb-and-garlic flavors in the final marinade. None of that briney taste you get with the ones in the jars. I’ll confess it was a bit of a project, but there’s nothing hard about it, and I now have plenty for other uses:

■ Stir chopped into scrambled eggs or a frittata;
■ Add chopped to pasta with sautéed onion, roasted tomatoes, and spicy Italian sausage;
■ Loosely puréed with olive oil, basil, cream, sautéed onions and garlic for a great pasta sauce;
■ Best of all, puréed with mayo, lemon juice, garlic, and some olive oil to make an aioli sauce that’s great as a condiment for grilled shrimp, crab cakes, fish, or chicken, or as a dip for veggies.

Kitchen Goddess note: I am now so dying to make the pasta sauce and the aioli that I will get you some recipes next week. Get busy and roast some peppers, so you’ll be ready.

Roasted Red Bell Peppers

Makes 1½ quarts, but you can easily halve the recipe if you want.

For the vinaigrette:
½ cup balsamic vinegar
½ cup good olive oil
1 clove garlic, chopped (or, for extra flavor, one clove of roasted garlic – You have some in the fridge, don’t you?)
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
½ teaspoon salt
⅛ teaspoon freshly ground pepper

For the peppers:
8 red bell peppers
12-15 cloves garlic, sliced
6 sprigs rosemary, cut in half
6 sprigs thyme, cut in half
olive oil, as needed

special equipment: one 1-quart mason jar plus one 1-pint mason jar, or 3 one-pint mason jars

1. Mix the marinade: Purée the vinaigrette ingredients and reserve in a jar or other pourable container.

2. Prepare the peppers for grilling: Halve the peppers, removing stems and seeds. Cut out the soft whitish interior ribs. Put the prepared pepper halves into a large bowl and pour about ¼ cup of the marinade over them. With your hands, slather the peppers inside and out with the marinade. Let the peppers sit for at least 15 minutes at room temperature, or up to a day in the fridge. (If you put the peppers overnight in the fridge, let them come to room temperature before grilling).

Notice the cuts I made that make it easier to flatten them while grilling.

3. Grilling the peppers: Preheat your grill to medium-high. Before grilling, make small (1-inch) cuts up the curvy ends, to allow the halves to flatten out as they cook. Grill both sides of the peppers for a total of 15-20 minutes – 5-7 minutes on the insides, the rest of the time on the outsides. The goal is to get the outsides about 70% charred.

You can see how the skin pulls away from the flesh, even on the lower left, which could use a bit more char.

4. Finishing the peppers: Let the grilled peppers cool a bit, then lay them on a cutting board, blackened side up, and with a paring knife, scrape or peel the skin off, removing as much of the char as you can. Slice the skinned peppers into strips about an inch wide. (They’ll be delicious now, but go through the next step anyhow.)

5. In the bottom of your mason jars, pour 2-3 tablespoons of the remaining marinade. Toss in a couple of cloves-worth of the sliced garlic, add about an inch of peppers and some of the herbs. Continue layering the jar with marinade, garlic, peppers, and herbs. If you run out of marinade (and you will), add plain olive oil. Close the jars and turn them up and down to thoroughly mix the marinade with the other ingredients. Store in the refrigerator for a day or up to 3 weeks.

In Praise of Bell Peppers: Remember that red bell peppers are sweet, not hot, nor acidic like green bell peppers. Moreover, these lovely orbs are a great source of Vitamin E as well as antioxidant and anti-inflammatory nutrients. Choose peppers that have a deep coloring, smooth skin without blemishes, and feel heavy for their size. The shape is not important.

The Complete Antipasto

Now that I had the roasted red peppers, what else would go on the antipasto?

I used as much as I could of homemade items, and I’ve included links here to the posts where you’ll find the tomato confit and the ricotta (that post also has instructions for the bruschetta). Sort of like the “something old, something new, etc.”, the goal should be to have a range of color, flavor, and texture.

■ Asparagus (roasted at 400º for 10 minutes), wrapped in half slices of prosciutto, for my cured meat and my green veggie.

■ A mix of Italian olives (Castelvetranos and black and green Cerignolas), for color and texture.

■ Sticks of Parmigiano-Reggiano with a plastic butter cup of fig jam to spread on it, for my hard cheese and something sweet.

■ Homemade ricotta cheese with herbs, for a soft cheese and the herbs.

■ Red and yellow cherry tomato confit, for color and because it goes well with the ricotta on bruschetta.

■ The perfect roasted red peppers, again for color and to pair with the ricotta on bruschetta.

■ Medjool dates stuffed with spicy Italian sausage, wrapped in bacon, and baked. I wanted something that would be served warm, and these offered the additional something sweet with meat. OMG – what a taste.

■ Separately, a basket of bruschetta (also called crostini – thin slices of toasted baguette, brushed with olive oil and rubbed with garlic), for the ricotta topped with either roasted red peppers or tomato confit.

And now, since I know you’re drooling over just the thought of those stuffed dates, here’s how to have some of your own.

Sausage-Stuffed Dates

Adapted from Giada De Laurentiis on FoodNetwork.com.

1 package seeded medjool dates (about 20)
2 links hot Italian sausage (raw)
10 slices bacon, halved
toothpicks

Preheat oven to 400º. Line a baking pan with baker’s parchment.

Remove the sausage from its casing. Pry open each date along the line where the seed was removed, and stuff enough sausage into the date to fill the interior (1-2 teaspoons). You should use enough sausage that the date no longer closes completely. Wrap a half slice of bacon around the stuffed date and secure with a toothpick. Place the finished dates on the baking sheet.

Bake the dates for 12-15 minutes, then turn them over and bake another 12-15 minutes, until the bacon looks crisp. Makes 20.

* * *

One Final Thought

You don't have to have a set of antipasto dishes to make an attractive antipasto spread. I got this set of Chinese soup bowls at a garage sale and recreated all but the stuffed dates for an alternate presentation. (We ate every last one of those delicious dates.)