Eat like the Romans

Did they do this on purpose?

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 08:50:10 +0100

Photographed last October at 28th Street and Park Avenue South, on the site of the late, lamented Belmore Cafeteria.

Those of you who speak Italian will understand the problem inherent in the Fika Espresso Bar’s name. Those who don’t will just have to ask someone to explain it, because I am embarrassed to spell it out. I will simply ask the owners of this establishment: “Are you stupid?”

This really is one for the archives of dumb product names, even if it was intentional. Most people who get the allusion would think it was a mistake, not clever. And an espresso bar! So of course you think of the Italian word!

In Italian the names of trees are always in the masculine and fruits in the feminine: un melo, an apple tree, una mela, an apple. There is one exception. A fig tree is un fico, and a fig is also un fico, plural fichi (you always eat them in the plural, preferably with pizza bianca and prosciutto). The feminine form is not for polite company (except among consenting adults).

The signs says: “Fika is a Swedish verb that roughly means ‘take a coffee break.’” So that’s what they call it in Sweden. Nudge nudge.

Broccolo romanesco, its game

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 08:41:09 +0100

In the photo you can see the difference between a broccolo and a cavolfiore. There are also green cavolfiori, which taste more like regular cauliflower than like broccolo. The broccolo behaves like a cauliflower but tastes more like broccoli. It’s very good. Here are some of the things I do with it.

To prep the broccolo: cut off the stem and separate the head into florets. You can save the core for soup or throw it away. The smaller leaves are good and should be kept with the florets. The outer leaves can be saved for veg broth, etc. Put the florets in a large bowl of cold water for a few minutes, then lift out into a colander and rinse. They look very clean, but can conceal quite a bit of grit. They can also conceal green caterpillars, so look in all the nooks and crannies.

All’agro. Drop the florets into boiling salted water and boil until quite tender, at least about 8–10 minutes. Lift directly into a serving bowl. Swirl some extra-virgin olive oil on top, toss, and serve with lemon wedges. Each diner should ideally squeeze his own lemon. If you have any leftovers, you don’t want them to be marinating in lemon juice. This can be served in place of a salad.
Ripassato in padella. Drop the florets into boiling salted water and boil until quite tender, at least about 8–10 minutes. While the veg is boiling, pour a generous amount of extra-virgin olive oil into a large frying pan and, over medium-high heat, cook a crushed garlic clove (or two) and about an inch of chili until the garlic is golden brown. Discard garlic and chili. With a slotted spoon, lift the broccolo out of the water right into the frying pan. Sauté over medium heat until the vegetable is well coated with the oil. You can also mush it up a bit with a wooden spoon. Serve as a side dish with unsauced meats.
Ripassato in padella with a bullet. Make the above recipe but frizzle some pieces of guanciale, pancetta, or prosciutto (including some fat) along with the garlic.
Pasta con i broccoli. Drop the florets into boiling salted water and boil until very tender, about 10-11 minutes. While the veg is boiling, pour a generous amount of extra-virgin olive oil into a very large frying pan (large enough to hold the pasta later), cook a crushed garlic clove (or two), about 4 anchovy fillets, and about an inch of chili until the garlic is golden brown and the anchovies have disintegrated (mush them around with a wooden spoon to accelerate the process). Discard the garlic and chili. When the veg is quite tender, lift it with a slotted spoon into the pan, reserving its water in the same pot. Bring the veg water back to a boil and add pasta, which is canonically penne (or conceivably rigatoni). (The proportion of pasta to veg is not that important. If you’re trying to eat less pasta, the veg gives you so much volume that this is a very good recipe for you. One large broccolo to one pound of pasta is about right, but we usually use half that much pasta and have the dish heavy on the broccolo. We always have leftovers, which are yummy reheated the next day.) As you sauté the vegetable, add small ladlefuls of the water in which the pasta is cooking and let them cook away. Don’t be stingy with the water. The water helps turn the veg into a creamy sauce. If you’re using good pasta (and if you’re not, go read somebody else’s blog, not mine), the pasta will absorb any extra liquid. When the pasta is al dente, lift it out of the water with a handheld colander, or whatever works for you, and add to the broccolo in the frying pan. Toss the pasta with the veg and serve immediately without grated cheese. If the pasta looks dry, stir in some of the water. You can always add another swirl of extra-virgin olive oil at any point too.
You can also use regular broccoli, cauliflower, or broccoli rabe (broccoletti in Rome) in any of these recipes. Any questions?

G. Franco Romagnoli

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 23:06:41 +0100

Ever see “The Commitments”? It’s one of my favorite movies. In it, the fellow who was interviewing musicians for his Dublin soul band asked each candidate “Who are your influences?” So who are mine? Marcella, sure. And today, Oretta, and probably Paola Di Mauro and my mother-in-law and various Testaccio vendors. But in my formative years—the Boston years, between grad school and moving to Rome—I was a faithful viewer of the Romagnolis’ Table on WGBH. Franco and Margaret Romagnoli were like people you might actually meet someday; they were home cooks and ambassadors of “real” Italian cooking. They laughed and were funny, and Margaret wasn’t Italian. Years later, in Perugia, I saw one of those serpent-shapes pastries and thought of Franco Romagnoli mugging with theirs on the show.
I sent away for the index cards with their recipes, or maybe I got them for contributing to PBS, and consulted them at least as often as Marcella’s first book. I lost the index cards along the way, but was compensated years later, by meeting and becoming friends with Franco and Gwen, his second wife. My pal Bonnie Shershow, who brought us together, and I nicknamed Franco Romagnoli “Franco Uno” to distinguish him from the younger Franco, my Franco, who became “Franco Due.” We met at dinner at our local, La Piazzetta, between via Cavour and the Colosseum, which is to say, in the shadow of La Sapienza’s engineering school, where Franco Due teaches. Well, turns out that was Franco Uno’s alma mater, and they were staying with a colleague of Franco Due. They were off and running, while Gwen and I found much to bond over as well. After that we saw them only on our too-infrequent trips to Boston, but they had automatically become A-list friends, the ones we made sure to visit. We fell in love with their house in Watertown -- with Franco’s gallery of Karsh-worthy portraits from his photographer days and his found-metal sculptures.

He was a lovely, funny, impish guy. I think that comes through in the photograph, just a nothing snap from a party last summer at Bonnie’s, in Cambridge. And he was a beautiful writer too.

Click here to read the NY Times obit.

Sole for bambini

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 09:26:38 +0100

In Rome, at the Testaccio market, I am always telling my visitors that I never see anybody buy sole without announcing first that it is intended for the children or, more usually, child. Here finally is written proof. These soles, photographed last week in Venice at the Rialto market, are specifically labeled for children.

The “x” is a cute Italian abbreviation. It means “per,” for, but also “multiplied by,” hence the x. The sign is thus understood as “per bambini.” “Nostrani” means “ours” in the sense of local.

Market falling ...

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 22:57:11 +0200

... or should I say autumning? In many ways it’s still late summer—and the weather was seriously hot this past week. Some of the zucchine romanesche are on the large size. There are plenty of eggplants of all shapes and shades and local bell peppers and tomatoes. There are tons of borlotti beans, but also now cannellini and white borlotti. But there are also the first cauliflowers and broccoli. I saw the first cipolline all peeled and ready to cook in agrodolce.

In fruit, peaches and nectarines are strong, as are melons and plums of all colors. Grapes are firmly established—sweet pointy pizzutello, sweet, spotty baresana, and others. And there are lots of small figs, known as settembrini.

Late August at Testaccio market

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 17:43:34 +0200

The funny peppers in the picture are labeled pupacchielle. I don’t know where they came from, but they appeared suddenly two or three years ago. They are very handy for stuffing and baking in the toaster oven.

Otherwise, we still have plenty of regular bell peppers, not the hot-house giants, but nice normal-size ones from local farmers in the patriotic Roman colors of yellow and red (ask any soccer fan what I mean). Roman zucchini are strong, and eggplants are available in every shade of purple, from white-streaked lavender to near black. Local tomatoes are, of course, all over. Well, that’s summer: peppers, zucchini, eggplants, and tomatoes. And the bean family: borlotti, al corallo, and fagiolini.

While some stalls always manage to have broccoletti, bieda, spinach, and various chicories, these leafy greens are primarily winter items. The first of the new season are now appearing, along with some hesitant broccolo romanesco, cauliflower, and artichokes (from France).

There is more action in fruit: pere coscie, bite-size pears, tiny green plums, local francesini melons, lots of peaches, plus the first grapes, including some very early (I think too early) pizzutello. I glimpsed some fichi d’India (prickly pears), but they are way too early. The September figs are out, having appeared, complained one vendor, a month ahead of schedule.

Broccolo romanesco, its name

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 16:02:48 +0200

Most people outside Italy have still never seen this yummy vegetable yet already a hash is being made of its name.

To my knowledge, it is properly known in most western languages by its Italian name, broccolo romanesco. But people are calling it simply romanesco. That is wrong, folks, terribly wrong. It is like calling an English muffin an English or French fries Frenches. Romanesco is only the adjective, meaning native to Rome; the noun is broccolo. We need to keep romanesco available for describing the local dialect and the best zucchini in the universe.

How I make bruschetta al pomodoro

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 10:51:46 +0200

Note the title here. It specifies pomodoro, tomato. Tomato is not a necessary condition for a piece of toast to become bruschetta. If you don’t use decent tomatoes, don’t use any at all. It’s still bruschetta. Carmelo the tomato man always gives me a mix of very sweet and quite tart.

I put the tomatoes in a bowl and run cold water over them for a while, then drain, core, and dice as finely as I have the patience for. The dice go into a cute bowl (unless I’m going to do everything in the kitchen, in which case they go into any container at all), with as much juice as I can scrape up off the cutting board. To the diced tomatoes I add a pinch of hot red pepper flakes, a larger pinch of dried oregano (in winter) or several fresh leaves of basil (summer), torn into pieces, and a couple of glugs of extra-virgin olive oil.

They will need salt, but when you add it is up to you. If you are not going to serve the bruschetta immediately, know that as soon as you add salt, the tomatoes will start throwing off water. Actually, if you’re trying to limit your oil intake, this extra liquid moistens the bread and is not a bad thing, but you don’t want the tomatoes to look spent and wilted when the guests arrive, so salt as late as possible.

Now make the toast. You can grill it over coals or toast it in the toaster, whatever you like. The important thing is to start with really chewy bread that has a rough surface when you cut it. Peel a clove of garlic and rub it vigorously over one side of each piece of toast. You should be consuming the garlic rapidly, like cheese on a grater.

Put the toast on a platter or individual plates and spoon some tomatoes, and juice, over each slice. The bruschetta can be eaten by hand while you hang over the sink or with a knife and fork at the table. Give the juice a minute to soak into the bread before you dig in.

What we cooked this week

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 10:21:41 +0200

The lazy hazy days of summer around here bring a slew of labor-intensive dishes that can be prepared ahead (if you have no other responsibilities in life or don’t need much sleep) and placed on the terrace table so your guests can imagine that you’ve just thrown together a cold supper when in fact you’ve been slaving over a hot stove frying, baking, broiling, slicing, dicing, peeling, and all the rest. Also these summer dishes are gluttons for olive oil. Thank heaven for green beans. Fagiolini just get boiled and dressed with a little oil and lemon. Fagioli al corallo, once you get them started stewing with fresh onions and tomatoes, practically cook themselves. Zucchine a scapece, invece, are a pain in the neck.

Here’s some of what we made this week:

bruschetta al pomodoro
frittata con le zucchine romanesche
cipolle bianche al forno
pasta e fagioli
fagioli borlotti lessi
melanzane alla piastra
tzatziki
alici marinate (Franco makes these)
spigola alla brace (again Franco)
- pizza bianca con prosciutto e fichi

Market report

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 22:43:59 +0200

Zucchine romanesche have taken over. Peppers, big and multicolored, are good. Eggplants, both the “black” dark purple and the “white” lavender, are well established. Borlotti beans are wonderful now. Fagiolini (haricots) are all over the place in varying diameters, including ini-ini.

I got a yummy meloncino-ino-ino francescino-ino-ino from the fellow with the white mustaches. From the stall of the older couple near him I got some truly delicious figs, their own. When I asked the lady where her (short, toothless, and simpatico) husband was, she said she didn’t know, probably with his girlfriend. I also bought strawberries from her, loose, not packed in baskets where they start to get moldy right away. Delicious. This is the time to buy strawberries. Also cherries. Peaches, nectarines, plums of many colors and sizes, and tiny pears are also around. The only nespole are from Spain. The Egyptian fake tarocchi have been replaced by something anonymous of unknown provenience that may be Valencias, which are in season in June.

Summer has arrived at Testaccio

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 22:48:49 +0200

Having eaten pizza bianca con prosciutto e fichi twice this week, we can say that summer is here. Other signs are friggitelli, borlotti beans, and gorgeously fresh zucchine romanesche, and lots of tomatoes. Eggplants and peppers are not far behind. In fact, today we went to the market at Sermoneta (near Latina) and saw peppers that actually looked real. With the arrival of non-hothouse peppers, I will have to make pollo con i peperoni.

Things are really happening in fruit. Figs, for one thing. Even though it’s early, we’ve eaten them from our terrace tree (very sweet). The huge ones at the market were from Puglia, not great flavor, and there were some little ones from Mentana, no flavor at all. It’s still early. Cherries are a bit pumped up with water, but pretty good. Peaches are asserting themselves. Apricots have been around a few weeks now. Those tiny pears are out, but we haven't bought them this year. There are oranges from Egypt, in case you didn’t really believe the season was over. Plums have appeared, both large and purple and tiny and golden. The first watermelons have appeared. The tiny francesini melons (photo), which I love, are now available locally grown. Till now they have been from Sicily, and really I think the best ones are from Pachino, better known for tomatoes, but they seem to be gone for the season now. They really do seem to be French, and later in the summer we will have them from France, I seem to recall, and it’s one item I wouldn’t hesitate to buy imported. In fact, last summer in Provence, those little melons were the one ortofrutta item that was consistently delish. The tomatoes were pretty awful.

The friendly frittata

Thu, 5 Jun 2008 06:06:41 +0200

I can’t remember when I started making frittate, but now I like making them even more than I like eating them. I also get very cross with people who recommend browning the second side under the broiler or finishing in the oven. A properly made frittata is easy to turn over and finish on top of the stove, without heating up another, too-large-for-the-job appliance, to say nothing of the planet.

Turn the frittata like this. When the eggs have set, take a spatula (I like a flexible rubber one), loosen the frittata from the bottom of the pan. Grab a plate or lid in your left hand and the pan in your right (or left for southpaws) and slide the frittata onto the plate. Invert the empty pan over the plate and flip the assembly 180 degrees. Remove the plate and put the pan back on the stove. To serve, slide the frittata out of the pan onto a serving plate (I use the same plate I turned with).

So that’s how you finish it, but how do you start?

Use an omelet pan or other nonstick or well-seasoned curved-sided pan. 10 inches is about right for 3 or 4 eggs, but you can make the frittata thicker or thinner as you like. Roman frittatas are about half or 3/4 inch thick, that is, on the thin side.

Choose ONE basic ingredient or well-thought out pair. We’ll talk about embellishments later. Do not confuse the frittata with (a) the kitchen sink or (b) the garbage can. The following basic ingredients are very good in frittatas:

zucchini: the best are the ribbed zucchine romanesche; slice them and sauté them in extra-virgin olive oil in your frittata pan until they are soft and just turning golden brown. Season with salt and pepper.
artichokes: this is an honorable end for the artichokes you’ve been using to practice your trimming skills on. Use only tender, edible pieces (obviously) and proceed as for zucchini.
mushrooms: chop or slice and see zucchini, above.
mushrooms and leeks: you can handle this one
asparagus: trim and wash the asparagus. Cut off the buds and set aside. Cut the stems into small pieces. Toss in the pan with some oil, then add a teensy bit of water and sprinkle with salt. Cover and steam till quite tender. Remove them and add the buds, cut into two or three pieces if they are large. Stir-fry the buds till tender.
onions: slice lots and lots of white onions very thin and sauté in extra-virgin olive oil very slowly until they are practically mush.
cooked pasta: leftover pasta, any shape (though spaghetti is probably best), sauce and all, just as is.
cheese: grated, shredded, or diced, mixed or just one type, this is when you can empty out all the odd bits in the fridge (or make a pasta al forno), but see remarks about cheese under embellishments, below.

In a bowl beat 3 or 4 eggs with a wire whisk. You want to mix them thoroughly but not incorporate a lot of air. Pour the vegetable or leftover pasta into the eggs and stir thoroughly. Usually the salt and pepper you used on the veg is enough, but add more if you see fit. Mix well. Heat a little oil in your pan if you’re afraid of sticking, but there is probably enough residual, esp considering you’re using a nonstick pan. Pour the egg mixture into the pan. Gently distribute the veg if it needs help, then leave it alone, over medium heat, till the eggs have set. You can accelerate the setting of the egg by judicious use of a lid too. I always use a flame diffuser under the pan. You can poke around the edges with a flexible spatula if you’re a fidgeter. When the eggs are set enough so you can move the frittata comfortably, turn it over as described above.

Embellishments (i.e., adding other stuff): Far be it from me to stop you from adding some sliced or coarsely chopped onion to your zucchini or mushrooms, but know that it is not really needed. You should get used to actually tasting the real flavor of your food. If your zucchini does not have a nice zucchini taste, no amount of onion is going to solve its problem. Cheese and eggs are natural partners, but if you add cheese, serve the frittata warm so the cheese is soft. Truffles are great with eggs, any way, any kind. This is when to use up all those little jars of truffle stuff you couldn’t resist on your trip to Italy, or that friends brought you. But try to keep the mixing of flavors under control. Truffle is a main flavor, so let it shine. Mix it only with cheese.

What to do with a frittata: Serve warm or at room temperature. Slice it like a pie, in wedges, to eat with a fork. Cut it into cubes and serve as an hors d’oeuvre with toothpicks. Stick a slice between two pieces of bread or, better, toast for a sandwich. These are wonderful for train picnics because they don’t drip.

Involtini al sugo (beef rolls, Roman style)

Mon, 26 May 2008 09:20:55 +0200

There was a New Yorker cartoon in which the wife says to the husband “We need to talk, so I booked us on the Somethingorother Show.” Evidently in order to make myself write down how I made something, I have to publish it on the Internet.

The meat: We just asked the butcher for eight slices of beef for involtini. He gave us 750 g (1.6 lb) of what might have been rump, but in any case large boneless slices with a pronounced grain. The slices were about the size of an envelope; I cut them in half across the grain, trimmed the little bit of fat/gristle from the edge, and pounded them feebly with a meat pounder.

The filling: There is some leeway here for personal discretion, if you’re discreet. But you usually need some prosciutto, ideally thin slices, with some fat, approximately the size of your beef slices. Franco decided it should be “listarelle,” meaning small strips, and cut a hunk of rather dried out prosciutto (that is actually a tautology, but that will be for another day) into sort of small prosciutto jerkies and left for his morning kayaking on the Tiber. I got out the carrots and celery but then became paralyzed over the bread-crumb question. I used to have a wonderful recipe for veal birds and it used breadcrumbs, and our Calabrian friend Angelica recently made us exquisite Calabrian involtini with a lot of bread, but I knew the Romans didn’t use it, hence the paralysis. So I called Franco’s mother. She thought I was insane to even ask the bread question, so that took care of that, but then we had the drama of the celery. Franco expected it, but Mamma said she didn’t use it. More paralysis followed by compromise: a little celery. (I’ll tell you something else you can use instead of celery: the stem of an artichoke.) Nobody had even mentioned onion, but for reasons not worth going into I had some odd pieces of nice white onion it seemed a shame not to use. This is where the discretion comes in. I didn’t ask, I didn’t tell. Here’s what I did:

Into the food processor I tossed two beautiful carrots cut into chunks, my odd bits of onion, about 1/4 cup of grated parmigiano, about a teaspoon of salt, and some grindings of black pepper. And a few pieces of celery. Chop chop chop till the carrots are finely minced, then glug-glug of extra-virgin olive oil because the prosciutto jerky was so lean and dry. It would be more traditional to skip the mincing and just use rather coarse pieces of the vegetables and little pieces of the cheese.

Assembly: On each pounded slice of meat (which, remember, were half slices) I placed some bits of prosciutto and about 2 tsp of the carrot mixture, though less would have been fine, maybe better. (If you are being traditional, lay the prosciutto slice on the meat, and on that place a piece of carrot, even a big one, and a piece of celery and some parmigiano.) Then I rolled them into a cylinder, not worrying about tucking in the ends or anything, and placed them on a plate. At this point, it is not a bad idea to chill them for an hour, but I didn’t bother. The rolls were not yet fastened, so I tried a toothpick, which is the official way you’re supposed to do it, but found it too difficult in every respect. So I just tied a piece of kitchen twine around the middle and thought that worked great, though I was later taken to task for not following tradition. Do what you like. I’m sticking with twine.

Cooking: Heat some olive oil in a pan large enough to hold the rolls in one layer. Brown the rolls in the oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper Splash on some white wine and let it bubble till you get tired of watching it. Then pour a bottle of tomato purée or crushed tomatoes or a can of plum tomatoes over the meat, bring it to a boil, and simmer very gently, covered, till the meat is tender, about 40 minutes. You can lift the lid and pester it every so often, or remove the lid and let some liquid boil off, if that seems appropriate.

Serving: Lift the rolls out of the sauce into a serving dish and cover them with a little sauce. The rest of the sauce gets reserved for pasta at another meal. Or the same, if you want. Or serve the involtini with mashed potatoes. You will have to deal with the twine either by snipping it off in the kitchen (then you have to treat the rolls very gingerly) or simply warning your guests.

At Testaccio, one week later

Thu, 22 May 2008 08:23:00 +0200

The action is largely in fruit—cherries are in their second week (still early), while nespole and fragole are waning. The francesini melons were mostly from Maccarese (near Fregene, near FCO, known for good produce), and they’re good, but not as good as those from Pachino, in Sicily, which I bought last week but didn’t see this week. Oranges are passé—even the stall that boasts “tarocchi” all year round (from one place or another) was selling Valencias, which, have a later season. There were some unconvincing peaches too and some nice-looking apples and pears. The first plums have appeared.

In vegetables, we saw the first borlotti beans and the last, tired artichokes (but a lot of the little ones to be preserved in oil), also agretti, asparagus, some peas, fave, broccoletti, some cicoria, nice salads, beautiful green onions, and zucchine romanesche and their flowers.

At Testaccio market yesterday

Wed, 14 May 2008 08:55:33 +0200

Practically the only artichokes, except the little ones for preserving, were at the big stall at the front. The season is over. (Checchino has removed them from the menu.) Thin-thin fagiolini were around. Fagioli al corallo are asserting themselves. Agretti and asparagus are still strong. Zucchine romanesche and their flowers were a decided presence. White baking onions are still strong. Fave and peas were around but waning.

In fruit, nespole (picture), which are medlars in English or loquats, are well established. They are always the harbingers of summer around here. Yummy little melons of the kind called francesini are being brought up from Pachino, in Sicily. Fragole, strawberries, have been strong for some weeks now. Apricots have arrived, but I’m not sure from where, and there were peaches, suspiciously early. Oranges are lingering, and cherries are making tentative inroads.