Hiatus

SOSP is on hiatus until January 2009. See you then!

Insalata caprese, kicked up a notch

You’re already familiar with the delightful combination of tomatoes and mozzarella known as insalata caprese. Here’s an alternative which starts with the same basic ingredients, but yields a somewhat heartier dish. In fact, this insalata is so rich, it can be served as a main course for lunch or a light dinner. And, of course, it also works as a colorful appetizer.

The key to making this taste as good as it looks is to ensure that your ingredients are nothing less than superlative: ripe, organic tomatoes; farm-fresh eggs; fruity Italian olive oil; and very little basil (not because basil is bad, but because the basil grown here in the States overwhelms all other flavors in a dish).

As for the star of the dish – the mozzarella – well, I have to admit that because of the recent garbage crisis in and around Naples, I’ve been steering clear of mozzarella di bufala. There are many who believe that such precaution is unnecessary, and that reports of contaminated food products from the region are greatly exaggerated. While I respect the data and their opinions, I nevertheless have been using American mozzarella products for the past few months, and will continue to do so until the situation in Campania improves. You may feel differently. One thing is certain, this garbage problem is sad indeed – the foods of Campania are matchless, and genuine mozzarella is a luxurious treat for which there are absolutely no satisfactory surrogates. My taste buds grieve and hope that a rapid, but appropriate solution is just around the corner.

Enough carping already – on with the recipe. (BTW, the source of this recipe is Il Cucchiaio d’Argento, Italiano).

Serves 4

3 large organic eggs, hard boiled about 7-8 minutes, cooled and sliced
3 small, ripe, organic tomatoes, sliced
2 large mozzarellas, drained of their fluid, sliced
4 pitted black olives, sliced
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
¼ cup Italian olive oil
2 medium organic basil leaves, sliced into thin ribbons
Salt

1. Place the crushed garlic and the olive oil in a small ramekin and infuse for a least an hour. Please don’t infuse in the refrigerator, and please don’t substitute a long infusion with a last-minute zap in the microwave: the former will result in no flavor, while the latter will result in overwhelming flavor (and warm oil – ick!).

2. Layer the sliced tomatoes, mozzarella, and eggs on a large platter. Sprinkle the basil and olives on top, salt and season with infused olive oil. Serve right away.

Accompany with a minerally Riesling and thickly-sliced, grilled ciabatta bread.

Drunken watermelon

This is an adaptation of a recipe called anguria al rum, which I found in my Italian version of Il cucchiaio d’argento (Silver Spoon).

I serve it pretty much any time I happen upon a well-ripened watermelon, whether or not we’re entertaining. There isn’t enough alcohol in it for anybody to catch much of a buzz, but if you’re concerned, don’t serve it to kids. (They’ll definitely think you’re a party-pooper, and I would have to agree with them, but cultural rules are cultural rules, so pooper as you must).

If you don’t care about the presentation, you can use pre-cubed watermelon instead of a whole watermelon (Whole Foods does a pretty good job of selecting well-ripened fruit, so if you shop there, you shouldn’t have a problem). Once you’ve mixed it with sugar and rum, seal it in a glass bowl and refrigerate for at least two hours.

Serves 4

1 small, well-ripened, organic, seedless watermelon
3 tablespoons sugar
1-1/2 shots of white rum

1. Cut off the top portion of the watermelon and set aside.

2. Using a melon baller, scoop out small balls of watermelon and place in a good-sized bowl; avoid cutting into the white part. Continue until all of the red pulp has been removed. Pour any remaining juice out of the shell. Set the shell aside.

3. Sprinkle the red pulp with sugar, add the rum, and blend gently. Place the dressed pulp back into the watermelon shell. Fit the watermelon lid on top if the shell and refrigerate for two to four hours. Present on a platter of ice, but serve in chilled cups with chilled spoons.

Dandelion: odio o amore?

In Italy they’re called tarassaco, from their Latin name taraxacum, and dente di leone – lion’s tooth. In France their name is a somewhat less regal pissenlit – which roughly means “pee in bed.”

Regardless of what you call them, you probably find yourself firmly planted in one of two camps: you either champion their place in the kitchen or you want to brutalize them with OrthoWeedKiller. I am a card-carrying member of the former camp; Ale is an OWK-carrying member of the latter.

I’m guessing that it’s probably the intense bitterness of dandelion greens that polarizes: some people relish the bite, others detest it utterly. And no matter how you serve these babies, raw or cooked, the bitterness persists.

For older generations of Italians, a small plate of boiled dandelion greens dressed with a bit of salt and vinegar is classic restorative fare for il mal di fegato, a malady peculiar to the French and Italians, and what in English we might call liver indisposition.

Because my liver is half American and therefore less prone to indisposition, I prefer more robust preparations. For instance, I boil my dandelion greens in a bit of salted water until they’re al dente, then chop roughly and sauté them with a bit of garlic and pancetta – a welcome accompaniment to simply broiled, grilled, or pan-fried meats.

Or I prepare them like a spinach salad: wilt the greens just barely, then toss gently with hot, crisp lardons and chopped egg.

Of course, the flowers of the dandelion add a touch of color and zing to spring and fall salads, and they’re also quite useful as necromantic aids when held under a person’s chin (if the skin glows golden, the person either loves butter, loves money, loves somebody in close proximity, or is a ninny).

As much as I enjoy dandelion greens, I don’t usually serve them when we have company. I once served a risotto al tarassaco, thinking that I had tamed the bitterness sufficiently. Suffice it to say, I’ve never repeated the experiment.

Frullato di banana

Got overripe bananas? Good, because if they aren’t overripe, we don’t want them - at least, not to make a toe-curling, spine-tingling frullato! (Just to be clear, we don’t want rotten bananas either – what we want is fruit that’s beautifully mottled and that’s just a bit too soft to eat – roughly of the same ripeness suitable for banana bread).

Here's how: you'll need one average-size, sliced banana per person and about ½ cup of milk (or just enough milk to barely submerge the sliced banana in the blender). Blend at medium-high speed for about 30 seconds, until creamy. Pour into tall glass.

I used raw milk in these frullati to mouthwatering effect, but organic whole milk is a perfect alternative. I’d stay away from defattened kinds of milk and from non-dairy milks – however, these are personal preferences.

You can make frullati with virtually any kind of fruit – except citrus. Try strawberries, peaches, pears, kiwis, apricots – each make luscious frullati.

If you want to kick things up a notch, add a small scoop of organic vanilla ice cream to your fruit and milk, and blend away. Technically, once you add the ice cream, the drink is no longer a frullato, but a frappé (a language tip that may come in handy on your next trip to Italy).

Enjoy!

All things coffee – including stealing from baristas?

I’ve always thought that Starbucks coffee sucked and that its drive to dominate the world was gauche. But – word?! – pilfering from poor baristas?

From the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal:

Starbucks must pay $105M in tips to California baristas

Coffee-shop giant Starbucks Corp. was ordered to pay $105 million in penalties because supervisors in California took part of the tips left for baristas.

San Diego Superior Court Judge Patricia Y. Cowett cited California law that prohibits employers from taking employees' tips. The suit, filed in 2004, included about 1,400 Starbucks locations in California and was filed on behalf of 100,000 baristas.

Seattle-based Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX) said it intends to appeal.

Under California law employees can pool tips but owners, managers and supervisors can't be paid out of the pool.

You know a company’s finances are hurting when it’s forced to pinch from the lowest rung on its corporate ladder.

As a matter of fact, notwithstanding its let’s-sell-everything-but-good-coffee approach to business, Starbucks apparently hasn’t been faring well, and in an effort to turn things around, the company has decided to return to its roots and focus on “all things coffee.” This new focus involves – drum roll please – setting up a social networking website a la My Space and paying a larger pizzo to Conservation International. Oh, and it also means that baristas need to dump coffee that’s older than 30 minutes.

Notice that the new focus does not mean learning something as simple as how to make a good cappuccino or how to make a good iced espresso. Thank goodness Starbucks has finally realized that it needs to get back to “all things coffee,” otherwise we might all still be fooling around on My Space sipping paper cup after paper cup of crap.

From the Dayton Business Journal:

Starbucks plans several changes at stores, free coffee program

Starbucks Corp. CEO Howard Schultz on Wednesday told 6,000 shareholders that the Seattle coffee giant was returning to its roots.

Schultz said the company plans several new initiatives, including adding more coffee aroma in stores.

Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) will begin selling a new Pike Place Roast (the company's first location was in Seattle's popular Pike Place Market) next month. Baristas will brew smaller batches of coffee, holding coffee for no longer than 30 minutes. The company also unveiled a new espresso machine made by Termoplan AG called the Mastrena. Schultz said that 75 percent of all Starbucks locations will have the new espresso machine by the end of 2010.

Schultz added that Starbucks Card holders will be given a few more benefits, including free beverages when buying a pound of coffee.

The company is also adding an online social community site, mystarbucksidea.com, and is expanding its relationship with Conservation International, which is based in the Washington, D.C., area.

Starbucks also announced the purchase of Coffee Equipment Co. of Seattle.

"By embracing our heritage, returning to our core -- all things coffee -- and our relentless commitment to innovation, we will reignite the emotional connection we have with our customers and transform the Starbucks experience," Schultz said in a prepared statement.

Starbucks has nearly 16,000 stores ,including seven full-service locations in the Dayton area, plus several smaller kiosks or small cafes.

Peas, please

Ale and I have been dining out more often in recent weeks because of our hectic schedules, and one of the things we’ve noticed is that in many restaurants contorni or side-dishes are depressingly unimaginative. It’s almost as if they function more like decorative parsley than integral elements of the meal. In fact, all too often, they’re served on the same plate as the main course – everything squished and lumped together in a most unappetizing jumble. Just because all of our food ends up in our stomachs does not mean that the contents of our plates need to resemble the contents of our stomachs. In the same way that we don’t want what’s on our plates to look like what’s in our bowels, even though there’s an intimate connection between the two. Common sense. That’s all it is.

For the moment some of our scheduling problems have been resolved and we can look forward to indulging in more home-cooked meals. Last night we paired contorni of piselli stufati, stewed peas, with grilled onions, and grilled rack of lamb. So very easy and so yummy! Peas aren’t in season quite yet, so I substituted a bag of Columbia River Organics frozen peas instead. Most frozen food in the States sucks, but the folks at CR are definitely doing something right: these peas taste like the frozen peas in Italy – that is, they taste like real peas! Bravissimi – please keep up the good work!

1 small bag CR frozen peas
¼ cup pancetta
1 small shallot, sliced thinly
1 small garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon olive oil
a pea-size squeeze of double concentrated tomato paste diluted with ¼ cup of organic chicken broth or water

1. Place the olive oil, the sliced shallot, and the minced garlic in a heavy pan and cook over a low flame until the shallot and garlic are soft, but not brown. Add the pancetta and continue cooking over a low flame for three or four minutes.

2. Add the diluted tomato paste to the pan, and bring to a simmer. Cook for another three or four minutes.

3. Add the peas, stir, place a lid over the pan and let simmer for 10 to 15 minutes. Check back every few minutes: the liquid will condense into a dense, lovely sauce, and should not dry up.

R U Gonna Arugula?

It’s gray and cold. You’ve had a dozen varieties of stew each night of the past three weeks, and you’ll absolutely scream if you see or smell another steaming bowl of the stuff. You’re thinking you’d maybe go for some pasta, but not the kind overdressed in heavy sauces. You want something light but filling, something piquant, something to remind you of golden sunlight streaming through lush green leaves. You want…penna alla rucola?

Here’s what you do (serves 2).

1. Get your pasta water going (make sure to throw in that all-important handful of salt), and then boil your pasta. Set the timer for 2 -3 minutes short of the full cooking time. If you use your teeth and tongue instead of a timer, check the pasta when it’s really al dente.

2. While the pasta’s cooking, place about ¼ cup of best quality olive oil, a shake of dried peperoncino, and about ¼ cup of pasta water into a pan. Heat through (low flame).

3. Meanwhile, chop up about ½ cup of arugula and toss into the olive-oil emulsion; add salt to taste. Check back on the pasta and, when it’s still quite al dente, drain.

4. Place the drained, semi-cooked pasta into the pan with the arugula-olive oil-peperoncino emulsion, toss gently. Cook until the pasta has absorbed some of the liquid and is neither too hard nor too soft.

5. Give a quick, decorous check in your mirror immediately upon eating, and if necessary, excuse yourself to pick teeth as needed.

Cotolette alla Milanese

Friday night – friends; a hot, on-demand movie; some fabulicious fare: this is the image the creator of cotolette must have been ruminating over when she came up with her legendary idea. It’s definitely what I think of when my weekend calendar opens up.

Actually, cotolette aren’t usually considered party fare – they’re what mom would toss together on days when she’d indulged in too much retail-therapy and didn’t have time to arrange an elaborate dinner. In fact, they’re a favorite culinary standby for many busy Italian families, and a good number of butchers in Italy now sell cotolette (and costolette, the bone-in version made with veal chops) already prepped. Incredibly, the breading on their cotolette doesn’t suffer the soggy fate reserved for the homemade kind: you can buy them in the morning and they’re still absolutely perfect when you’re ready to fry them up at 8:00 p.m. I’ve never had such luck – if I prep my cotolette ahead of time, I merely get sodden clumps of sad veal.

Cotolette are easy to make, but, unfortunately, they’re easily screwed up if you don’t follow a few basic regolette: (1) use only the best veal; (2) have your butcher slice the veal nearly carpaccio-thin or pound it with a mallet yourself – whatever, just think thin; (3) make sure the veal is completely dry before you bathe it in the egg wash (some cooks actually dredge the veal in flour before passing through the egg wash, but I’ve found that this is unnecessary if the meat is perfectly dry); (4) make sure you use enough frying fat; (5) make sure the fat is really, really hot; (6) don’t crowd the frying pan; (7) cook quickly – usually no more than 1-2 minutes per side; (8) after frying, soak up excess oil with paper towels before plating; and (9) serve immediately – don’t wait!

1-lb thinly sliced veal
2 large eggs
2 cups plain breadcrumbs
½ cup grated Parmigiano
Clarified butter
Safflower oil
Pinch of salt

1. Make an egg wash with the two eggs and pinch of salt.

2. Make the breading with the breadcrumbs and Parmigiano.

3. Pass each slice of veal first in the egg wash and then through the breadcrumbs. Tap off any excess breadcrumbs.

4. In a heavy frying pan, heat the clarified butter and safflower oil. (Traditionally only clarified butter is used, but I find that the addition of high-heat safflower oil makes it easier to fry up multiple batches. The proportions I aim for: half clarified butter, half safflower oil.). When the fat’s hot, fry the cotolette on both sides until golden (1-2 minutes max). Soak up excess oil with paper towels. Serve with sunny wedges of lemon.

Creamed spinach and a medley of steamed veggies dressed in salt and a little olive oil are particularly pleasing accompaniments.

Zuppa inglese

Had a post-holiday-back-to-the-grind afternoon coffee klatch with the girls yesterday, and snapped this picture as I was setting up the buffet. These colorful cups are small Italian trifles, known as zuppa inglese or English soup. They’re a rich combination of lemon and chocolate creams layered over soft savoiardi cookies drenched in Alchermes and milk. Because they need several hours of refrigeration, prep them in the morning.

Serves 4

4 egg extra-fresh yolks (from large not extra-large eggs)
4 tbsp sugar
2 ½ cup whole, organic milk
4 tbsp flour
the peel from one, organic lemon (in one or two pieces)
1 small tablet of bittersweet chocolate, plus half a handful of very small chocolate chips
1 package soft savoiardi cookies
Alchermes, about 2/3 cup
Milk, about 2/3 cup

1. Prepare a bain marie. As the water is heating up, mix the eggs, sugar, milk and flour in a heat-resistant bowl, and when the mixture is uniform and lumpless, add the lemon peel and place the bowl over your bain marie.

2. Cook over a low flame, stirring constantly, until the cream is thicken enough to coat the spoon. Remove from heat and remove the lemon rind.

3. Divide the cream evenly into two separate bowls. Melt the tablet of chocolate in the microwave and add the melted chocolate to one of the bowls of cream. Then add in the chocolate chips to this chocolate cream.

4. Place the Alchermes and milk in a flat casserole dish, soak the savoiardi in this mixture, and line small trifle bowls (or one large trifle bowl) with the soaked cookies. Spoon a layer of the lemon cream over the savoiardi. Soak more savoiardi, add to the trifle bowl(s), and spoon the chocolate cream over this layer of savoiardi. Continue alternating savoiardi and the lemon and chocolate creams. It is traditional for the top layer of zuppa inglese to be formed by soaked savoiardi, but I have no patience to form the layer so that it looks lovely. Instead, I hide my last layer of savoiardi under a thin coating of cream.