Garlic

In addition to seasoning the Roasted Eggplant White Bean Spread (page 25), roasted garlic with a little smoke adds great flavor to hummus, mashed potatoes, and butter or olive oil spread on bread or over a steak. Blend roasted garlic with some mayonnaise for burgers and sandwiches.

To tear at a beautiful, newborn bread and eat it with fat, salty olives, a potent red wine sipped between them, is a meal everlasting in its innocence and sensuality. Here follows the simplest of recipes that pairs the soft creaminess of roasted garlic with the olives for a lush result. The dish asks only a little dalliance in the oven. Roasting the olives plumps them, renders them voluptuously fleshy, tender. And when whole, fat garlic—caramelized in a long, slow roasting—confronts the salt-tinged meat of the warm olives, the whole becomes quietly paradisiacal. As beautiful as it is, stray for a moment from the red wine idea and consider a fusion, instead, with an iced Marsala Superiore Riserva or Marsala Vergine or Marsala Soleras Stravecchio—altogether different wine from the often industrially produced sweet varieties that find their way to the States and are used to make zabaglione or to splash sautéed veal. The crackling, almost dry golden chill of them leaves just a point of sweetness on the tongue.

The jots of coast and whatever sea fish they might offer have little embellished the Lucanian cuisine, yet the fat, brown trout from her rivers and lakes are coveted, stalked. The most characteristic prescription for their cooking is to scent them with the wild herbs one finds near the water, stuff them with a few crushed olives, wrap them in a slice of pancetta, and roast them, on site, over a beech or chestnut wood fire.

Creamy evidence of how savory and seductive can be a naïve little pap made from a handful of dried beans.

A simple-to-make and delectable little paste with which to dress just-cooked pasta, to spoon into vegetable soups, to thin with milk or vegetable stock into, itself, a fine soup, to stuff into fat, ripe tomatoes, to present alongside roasted meat or fish, to spread on great chunks of olive-oil-toasted bread, to eat with a spoon while waiting for bread to bake.

This is the poorest of dishes for the days when the seas are as empty as one’s belly, when even the clams have forsaken one. Fashioned from seawater—sometimes bits of seaweed—a tomato or two, some fat, firm garlic, a dried red chile, and a thread of good oil or a spoonful of sweet, rendered pork fat, hoarded from an easier day.

...in the style of Nereto. An old Longobard town in the north of Abruzzo’s province of Teramo, Nereto grows walnuts and breeds turkeys. And when the turkeys grow fat on the walnuts, their just-dressed flesh, roasted with aromatics, indeed tastes of the sweet, smoky nuts. A classic dish for Christmas there, I fix it for our Tuscan version of Thanksgiving. And because our local turkeys, as is likely the case with yours, do not feed on walnuts, I gift the bird with a luscious paste of them smoothed under the skin of its breast. I like the Neretese-inspired turkey infinitely better than the more famous tacchino alla Canzanese, turkey in the manner of Canzano, which typically asks that the bird be relieved of his bones and poached with a calf’s foot and knuckle, then cooled and presented in its jellied broth.

The cooling green tint of the sauce, its reserved, sensual sort of piquancy, make this a pasta good for high-summer lunch or supper after insalata di cantalupo (see page 22).

Here is a simple presentation of the components of Rome’s saltimbocca embroidered with spring peas and tomatoes.

For nearly a century, the mattatoio, the slaughterhouse, of Rome was fixed, south of the city’s center and flanked by Porta San Paolo and the Piramide di Caio Cestio, in the quarter of Testaccio—a hillock formed by the dross of terra-cotta amphorae that held olive oil and other comestibles imported into the city. Of an eloquent, uncompromised Roman character, the quarter grew up simple little houses in whose kitchens were cooked the humble remains of the butchers’ art, transforming the offal into i piatti fortissimi—the strongest plates—to serve to the workingmen for lunch. Il mattatoio has long since been relocated, but the Testaccio still practices the most orthodox Roman gastronomic traditions, building dishes such as nervetti in insalata, a salad of poached calves’ feet, coda alla vaccinara, (see page 4), pajata, the grilled or braised intestines of a calf or an ox, and trippa. As prosaic as are the formulas for these dishes, the manner in which they are presented is also prescripted. First, if the proprietor in any one of the neighborhood’s tabernae—Romans swing easily in and out of Latin, as in this usage for taverns—doesn’t approve one’s general look or demeanor, he will point, steely, to a little sign marked COMPLETO, reserved, that is fastened, permanently, handily for such occasions, to a rope of salame suspended from the rafters. If he does deem to seat one, neither he nor his colleagues will be charmed if one speaks Italian. It is only the dialect of Rome that is shouted in the Testaccio. It seems best to communicate, through eye-rolling and hand-flailing, that one wishes all decisions to be made by the house, that one is armed with magnificent appetite, and that one shall remain serene and unrepining at whatever part of whatever animal may be set before one. Our place of choice to be fed like a Roman is called Da Felice, an unsigned post in Via Mastro Giorgio. We go always of a Saturday so we can always eat tripe. Soaked in water and vinegar, urging the nastiness from its pores, the tripe is poached before it is sautéed in a battuto (the fundamental vegetable, herb, and fat flavoring for a sauce) of pancetta, olive oil, and garlic, then braised overnight on the quietest flame in tomato, white wine, and wild mint. A Saturday ritual in the Testaccio, as well as in every genuine osteria and trattoria in Rome, la trippa is served in deep bowls, under a dusting of pecorino, with chunks of rough bread and a jug of Frascati. Food of the poor is this tripe, flotsam conjured into a flavorful, cockle-warming stew, one that a sage Roman wouldn’t trade for a big, bloody beefsteak, not even one flounced in truffles.

Braised meats are ideal for any large gathering because much of the work can be done the day before. In my opinion, braises actually taste better when the flavors have had time to meld and develop. And in the braising process, not only have you cooked the meat, you’ve also created a sauce. Osso buco is a classic braised dish of northern Italy, usually garnished with gremolata, a popular condiment made of minced lemon zest, parsley, and garlic. That’s fine in the winter, but in spring, I like to add two of my favorite spring ingredients: peas and pea shoots. It’s a brighter rendition of the traditional preparation. The risotto, perfumed with saffron, is the perfect starch for spooning up with the braising juices. I’m usually pro-cheese, but in the case of this risotto I find myself torn. Though the Parmesan gives the risotto richness, without it the dish is a little lighter and “more of the season.” You decide.

This dish is the Italian equivalent of the French grand aïoli. In France, a colorful assortment of vegetable crudités is accompanied by a large bowl of garlicky homemade mayonnaise. In Italy, instead of dipping the vegetables into aïoli, they dunk them into a bowl of bagna cauda, a “warm bath” of garlic and anchovy simmering in butter and olive oil. In this dish, I toss my favorite winter vegetables with the bagna cauda and pair them with a meaty Australian bass, barramundi. Feel free to adapt the recipe to your location, season, and cravings. If you’re in the mood for asparagus or potatoes, add them to the mix. And if you can’t find barramundi, this dish is delicious when made with another bass, snapper, or halibut.

The amount of oil called for in this recipe might shock you, but to get the rapini nicely sautéed and coated in all the flavors of the chile, shallot, and thyme, it really is necessary. If you don’t want to end up eating all that oil, you can remove the rapini from the pan with tongs, leaving the oil behind. Or you can serve it all together, and let the olive oil pool beneath the rapini on the plate. Of course, I can never resist sopping up the oil with a crusty hunk of bread!

This pasta might sound unsubstantial, but I promise you won’t leave the table wishing you’d made a roast instead. The caramelized cauliflower, rich cavolo nero, and chewy pasta, sautéed with rosemary, chile, garlic, anchovy, and onion, meld together into a filling, savory whole. Although sautéing the pasta isn’t traditional, I love the integration of flavors and the slightly crisped noodles.

Maine has lobster and Maryland has soft-shell crabs, but the prize shellfish of Southern California is the Santa Barbara spot prawn. Spot prawns have a softer texture than most shrimp and are best when cooked in their shells, heads on. As the shrimp shells caramelize in the pan, they leave behind crispy bits that infuse the sauce with a rich shellfish flavor. Besides, they’re fun to eat out of the shell, and they make for a beautiful and dramatic presentation. Serve the spot prawns with salt and lemon and a big hunk of crusty bread. This is a messy feast, so choose guests who will enjoy participating in such a primal feeding frenzy.