tuttipiatti

Mid-spring Moroccan dinner

2010-04-28T08:42:00.006-05:00

Hesitant spring, sun and warmth mixed in with rain and fresh winds. The weather calls for some light middle-eastern fare - something Moroccan. Good friends for dinner last night, all good cooks, so some effort needed in the kitchen - but in the 8th month of pregnancy, one can't stand on one's feet for too long.

I decide to make a lamb tagine with a tomato "jam" and string beans, which are awaiting their fate in the fridge. Paula Wolfert's recipe. Easy enough, and rather quick. Garlic and ginger, and ras-al-khanout which I add, saffron; add the cubed meat, get it to colour all over, add grated onion and tomato juice (I used Pomì), and salt. Simmer, covered, for about 1 hour. Once enough juice is made, use a cup of it in which to simmer the green beans, in a different saucepan, with chopped parsley and coriander. Once the meat is tender, take it out of the pan, add a big can of tomatoes (pelati) - in the summer one would use ripe fresh ones -with a little sugar and cinnamon, crush the tomatoes, boil down to about 1-2 cups, then put the meat back in, add chopped parsley and coriander, and it's done. Meanwhile, I soaked the Basmati rice, with which I served the tagine - colouring the rice, as ever, with curcuma and a little saffron.

I was going to serve this also with carrots cooked Moroccan-style - boiled whole, then chopped in roundels, seasoned with lemon, olive oil, ground cumin, coriander and parsley. Instead I served those carrots as a starter - and with tahina, which I hadn't made in years because it's so calorific. Old home recipe, as my father used to make it: buy a jar of sesame paste (preferably with the oil already separated so one can discard it, to reduce the fat a little). Mix in the juice of 3 or 4 lemons, depending on the lemons and how much paste you are using, until you get the right acidity (tahini is very alkaline). Add enough water to have a manageable, not overly thick nor overly liquid, cream-like mixture. Add lots of finely chopped parsley, salt, and half a garlic clove, crushed (I boiled it beforehand to avoid garlicky pungency). Delicious with the carrots, and some Gaeta olives. Wines: first a St-Joseph brought by one set of friends, then a Cote du Rhone by Texier.

Then, simple rucola salad and cheese, then unapologetically not home-made ice-cream. Boisterous, fun dinner-party that was. Lots of dishes tonight for some reason, but everyone helped out, and husband managed to get them all done in two machine loads. Another friend appeared at around 11:00pm and we had lemon verbena tisane over wonderful anecdotes and much laughter.

Lemony dinner in early autumn

2009-10-05T08:08:00.005-05:00

A golden, early October day, last days of summer waving goodbye, a touch of warmth left over, fragile and precious. A day for lemons, to secure the sun for the months to come. Dinner for six, mostly light appetites: it would be my lemon and rucola risotto; flounder, with chopped parsley, coriander, capers, lemon; sorrel. Everything except for the arborio rice, but including the butter, from our local farmers' market, still replete with gorgeous produce these days. I decided to serve everything together: the lemon and rucola risotto tastes a bit like sorrel, and I thought it would be good as an accompaniment to the fish - and vice versa.

Lemon and rucola risotto: melt the onion in butter and oil, add the grated rind of two unwaxed, washed lemons; add the rice, salt it, and make the risotto as normal (I used a vegetable stock, but a chicken stock is fine), progressively adding the juice of both lemons as well as the stock, and handfuls of chopped rucola. I stopped the risotto before it was finished, to make the fish at the last minute once the guests arrived. To finish the risotto, turn off the flame, add a good dollop of butter and some oil, salt and pepper to taste, and cover. I normally add parmigiano but not this time, since it was to be eaten with fish.

In the meantime, I had marinated the fish for a half hour or so with lemon and a mixture of finely chopped parsley, coriander and salted, rinsed capers. Some of that mix I put in a small bowl with lemon juice and olive oil, to serve as a salsa verde. Then I melted butter in a pan, added the washed, coarsely chopped sorrel, and added the fish. I cooked it over a low flame, and finished the risotto. Once the fish was ready, I plated it, catching the sorrel, and reduced the sauce with some prosecco which everyone was drinking, added some pepper and salt, and poured it over the fish on each plate. I served the rice on the same plate, and à table people helped themselves to the salsa verde. The dishes complemented each other in colour - white, yellow, green - and taste. The combination of all these herbs - rucola, parsley, coriander, sorrel - was lovely, and the resulting meal rather sophisticated, light and satisfying. No one wanted anything else after - just ice cream.

A light dinner for the first hot summer night of 2009

2009-06-28T14:07:00.008-05:00

Long absence from Tuttipiatti - we had no kitchen of our own for about a year, what with the return to New York from Italy first, then a nine-month wait for the renovation of our new apartment to be finished, requiring far too many restaurant meals. Now we are happily settled at home - and cooking.

This June there have been weeks of rainstorms and thunderstorms, much cloud and humidity - then some sunshine, but the equinox is now just behind us, and the New York heat is on. Parents in town, many meals at home. And a few days ago, we were eight for dinner, including a refined 92-year old lady who likes her meals light and elegant.

So we started with my cold avocado and cucumber soup, a favourite for hot weather, and very easy to make. I quite unexpectedly found the recipe some years ago in the free "AM New York" paper they give outside the subway (haven't found anything as good in there since):

Mash two or three long cucumbers, or 5-7 short ones, along with two avocados. Transfer to the serving bowl, add a cup or so of tomato puree, a whole pint of good, plain, full-fat yogurt, stir. Pour in the juice of a lime or two, a good handful of chopped coriander, and about a teaspoon of freshly powdered cumin. Salt to taste, add black pepper. Put in the fridge. If time is short and the ingredients weren't very cold, throw in a few ice cubes.

Then, some simple tilapia fillets, cooked with shiitake mushrooms, tamari (soja sauce), ginger, and fresh lemongrass:

First, sauté the sliced shiitake with a bit of olive oil in a wok, and once they start to sweat, add the tamari and chopped ginger. Continue to cook on a medium-low flame, add a piece or two of fresh lemongrass, and a little white pepper. Add some water - the combination of mushroom and soja naturally form a thick sauce, which requires some dilution. Once the liquid is of a good consistency, throw in the fish fillets. Keep the flame on for about two minutes, then turn it off, grind some black pepper over the fish, scatter some chopped coriander, a little bit of salt, and a pinch of espelette pepper. Cover the pan tightly.

Meanwhile, chop some courgettes into roundels, and cook them in olive oil and garlic in another pan, over a high flame.

Cook some jasmine rice with chopped coriander.

Once you are ready to eat the main course, uncover the fish pan: the steam should have finished cooking it through to tender perfection. Transfer the fillets to the serving dish, or to the plates if you are plating individually. Turn the flame back on - high - add some water, and reduce the sauce just enough - it should be quite thick. Pour over the fish, dispersing the shiitake mushrooms carefully. This is the umami dish par excellence. Serve along with the rice and courgettes. All very healthy, fresh, light, and virtually fat-free.

Dessert was straightforward Haagen Dasz ice cream - vanilla and strawberry - served in little pots with raspberries and blueberries scattered on top.

Wines: whites. After the excellent Bison Prosecco, we drank first the Brunier brothers' "Le Pigeoulet en Provence" - Roussanne, Grenache blanc, Clairette - vin de pays du Vaucluse, 2008, fabulous; then a substantial Vin de pays du jardin de la France by the Couillaud brothers - pure Chardonnay, "Domaine Petit Chateau" at La Regripière, 2006.

31st December Dinner in Paris

2009-01-09T05:22:00.003-05:00

For the last day of 2008 I had 8 people at dinner at the Passage, among whom some very serious gourmets, so I decided to try something new.

In honor of my friend Pasquale, the first entrée was a sautée des coques. I have learned to do this quickly during my summer in Bretagne, where we spent long afternoons collecting coques on the beach and cooking them for the dinner. The best and quickest way to prepare a delicious sautée, is the following:

In a pan, put some olive oil, chopped garlic and ginger. Fry for two minutes, than add some fresh chopped tomatos and a little bit of curry. Then the coques, that you have previously washed many times in salted water to eliminate the sand. You raise the fire, add some white wine, let it absorb and then cook the whole stuff for ten minutes at low temperature. It must be a kind of soup, the liquid is a mixture of the sea water contained in the coques and the one left by the tomatoes. Delicious. You serve it in small cups with fresh pepper and olive oil. Do not overcook the tomatoes: the broth shouldn't resemble to a tomato sauce, it must be much more transparent and light.

Then, I decided for a second entrée, a brand new invention: A carpaccio of coquilles St. Jacques slightly cooked in a fry pan just for 10 seconds with butter and lemon and served on a hot trevisana salad, cooked in a pan with oil, garlic, soja sauce, sugar and balsamic vinegar. I've added some sesame seeds on the coquilles in the end and decorated with a leaf of peppermint. Very good.

The I went on with a more traditional veal tajine with apricots, but you have plenty of tajine recepies on Tuttipiatti so I stop here.

The dessert was a selection of Berthillon's colorful sorbet cubes brought by Davide and Anna (Davide suggests to buy Berthillon's sorbets only on the Ile-St-Louis' original shop, and it is not just a snobbery: he's right, they are much better). They were beautifully served on two long trays and children enjoyed them a lot.

Davide and Anna brought a nice Chianti 2004 Castello di Ama and Pasquale an intresting bottle of syrah, but I have to ask him the details.

Happy 2009.

Riso ai cranberries ispirato da Ottolenghi e tajine di pesce ai kumquat

2008-04-19T04:19:00.002-05:00

Di ritorno da Londra, dove Alba mi ha fatto scoprire il meraviglioso Ottolenghi, ristorante, traiteur, bistrot per la prima colazione (i croissants sono migliori di quelli parigini) ho deciso di fare una cena non italiana per circa 40/50 invitati a casa di Ariel. La cucina italiana mi ha stufata, e che i parigini si aspettino da me paste e risotti alla milanese mi ha stufata ugualmente. Insomma, l'identità italiana mi ha stufata, e non mi piacciono quei piatti che trasudano con orgoglio olio d'oliva (è da tanto tempo che cerco di ribellarmi all'autorità dell'olio d'oliva, ma i mei amici italiani si indignano alla sola idea di metterne in questione i meriti).

Dunque, si cambia: il risotto è sempre risotto, ma ai cranberries e pistacchi. Ho cominciato il soffritto come al solito, olio, cipolla tagliata fine e ginger (ma candito, non fresco: effetto molto migliore e aggiunge un che di caramellato ai piatti davvero delizioso). Poi ho aggiunto i pistacchi (non salati, ovviamente!) e una parte dei cranberries, che avevo fatto gonfiare in una mistura di acqua tiepida e vino rosso, un po' come si fa per l'uva passa. Ho aggiunto zafferano e un po' di quei fagiolini piatti, le tàccole credo si chiamino in italiano, tagliati a pezzetti. Il riso era basmati, e il brodo vegetale. Tirato a cottura come al solito, verso la fine ho aggiunto il resto dei cranberries.
Voilà, squisito e originale.

Poi il secondo: avevo voglia di fare marinare del pesce negli agrumi e poi cuocerlo, una sorta di tajine agli agrumi che in realtà mescolava reminiscenze di piatti diversi (carpaccio di pesce agli agrumi imperante nei ristoranti italiani e tajines varie che avevo assaggiato in questi anni). Così ho fatto: ho comperato un grosso pesce bianco che mi sono fatta tagliare a pezzettoni (colin in francese, credo sia il nasello, o il merluzzo, insomma un pesce bianco dalla carne ferma e fresca) e l'ho lasciato marinare in una marinata di succo d'arancio, limone, limone verde, olio d'oliva, pepe, sale e un po' di erbe (origano che avevo riportato dalla Sicilia e verbena). Poi l'ho messo in un grande tegame di ghisa dal fondo spesso dove avevo giusto riscaldato un po' d'olio. Ho aggiunto degli squisiti kumquat che avevo trovato al mercato e ho lasciato cuocere una ventina di minuti senza coperchio, perché il liquido della marinata si riassorbesse. Ho verificato pepe e sale e ho servito così. Questi piatti sono l'ideale per un gran numero di invitati, perché una volta pronti, resistono a lungo nel tegame, anzi, migliorano senza scuocere.

Per dessert: crumble di mango e mele: ho fatto saltare le mele in padella con limone, zucchero e cardamomo, le ho disposte delicatamente sul fondo di una teglia in ceramica imburrata, ho aggiunto le fette di mango sopra e le briciole di impasto per il crumble (ricetta classica: 200g di farina, 200g di burro e 200g di zucchero di canna).

Buona cena, ma la gente era troppa, le voci confuse, le facce sconosciute, e sono crollata a letto alle dieci e mezza, dopo aver finito di servire tutti quanti, e ho dormito profondamente mentre in salotto la festa impazzava.....

Indian risotto!

2008-04-08T13:31:00.002-05:00

Cold-ridden again and sneezing away on this suddenly chilly April evening, and what with the two of us afflicted with a slight belly ache, we wanted something light healthy and simple. I suddenly craved the tomato rice I make occasionally, with more ginger even than usual. Husband suitably shared the craving. There was no basmati rice in the house, though, for the usual method - only some vialone nano for risotto.

Well, why not make an Indian risotto? I began the usual way, a soffritto of one small shallot and lots of chopped fresh ginger, but added a few fresh curry leaves (from India by way of New York - I keep them in the freezer), a dried red Calabrian chili, and the tiniest super hot green chili I could find in the fridge. Then I added a good amount of quartered tomatoes - a mixture of the local, rounded type and the fabulously sweet "datterini" one finds here, already ripe, either from southern sun or from well appointed greenhouses, I still haven't determined. Then, the rice, salt, curcuma, and cold water. I brought the whole thing to a boil, added a mixture of cumin, coriander seeds and yellow mustard seeds, all ground together in the mortar; one clove, two whole peppercorns. Stirred as one does with risotto; added some fresh chopped ginger; needed more water, so boiled some in the kettle and added it, together with a little more salt, and a few pinches more of the ground spice mix. Took out all the curry leaves but one. Switched off the flame, added some ground black pepper.

Well: here is an avowedly strange dish that, what with the ginger, chili and specific spices, delivered all the medical properties required for our little ailments. But the result, I must confess, was excellent.

A simple, warm salad - potatoes and more

2008-03-13T20:17:00.003-05:00

A few vegetables in the fridge, a desire for something simple - no spices, just straightforward, healthy ingredients. I thought up a novel combination (novel for me at least) to create a warm salad as a "piatto unico", one main dish: cavolo nero just about to go but still good enough; lovely, organic new potatoes; crunchy organic carrots. There were black Gaeta olives; the old Sicilian capers faithfully sitting in the big glass jar; and untreated lemons from Sorrento, deformed and beautiful, with the leaves still on.

And so: I put some water to boil, grossly chopped and washed the cavolo nero, sauteed it in the wok in olio-aglio-peperoncino (oil-garlic-chili), salted the boiling water and threw in the halved or quartered potatoes along with the peeled, whole carrots; as these all cooked, I added some of the cooking water to the cavolo nero, which continued shrinking but preserved its agreeably deep green colour. I took a large fistful of capers, another of olives, rinsed all of those in cold water to shake off some of the intense saltiness; chopped them. Wok flame off. Exeunt the carrots, sliced into half cm roundels, deposited in the wok; exeunt the potatoes, from the saucepan into the wok to join green and orange, stirred gently; capers and olives stirred in turn. The mix thrown into a large bowl, lemon juice and Sicilian olive oil poured over it; and I added some rind off the gorgeous Sorrento lemons, along with freshly ground black pepper.

I thought of adding a touch of Moroccan preserved lemon, to add extra bite; next time. Tonight the dish worked as it was - it is pretty, satisfying, balanced, healthy, simple and rather delicious. We also had a bit of cheese - a fresh Sardinian pecorino, a creamy Emilian cow's milk cheese - and a pleasant though overall mediocre Salento wine. Rustic homey meal to end a spring-like day in Bologna.

A Keralan meal

2008-02-17T09:17:00.002-05:00

One evening a couple of weeks ago I cooked a potato masala, of the sort one has in Kerala with dosas, for breakfast. Boil potatoes (with their skins on), peal them and then grossly crush them in a "soffritto" you'll have prepared of mustard seeds, cumin, curry leaves, one fresh green chili, onion, ginger, curcuma and cayenne. One can add the potatoes' cooking water for extra creaminess, as I did. (The recipe could be simpler, and consist of the boiled pealed potatoes being cooked in a soffritto of onion-garlic-ginger-curry leaves, and curcuma added at the end.) I also made a fish "tagine" of sorts, a simple, quick and delicious dish directly and unabashedly copied from Gloria - prepare a soffritto of shallots, ginger and carrot; add a teasponful of "raz al hanout", a Moroccan spice mixture made of the same spices used in India, and which one can find at the Bon Marché's Grande Epicerie in Paris and also at Kalustyan in New York, for instance - curcuma, chili, ginger, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, mustard seeds, black pepper, fenugreek seeds, nutmeg, cinnamon, cardamom, clove, star anise, salt). Into that mix you add a light white fish, cut into big squares, cook on low flame until coloured, just a few minutes, then add water and that's it. One can serve with fresh coriander leaves. Perfect with Indian dishes, given the identical nature of the spices used.

My husband wasn't hungry enough for all this, so we planned to have the leftovers for lunch the next day. So I decided to go for it and within one hour I'd made a few other dishes. First I made some dhal, the equivalent for Indians of pasta for Italians, more or less. I used yellow lentils, boiled, to which I then added a soffritto of mustard seeds-dry red chili-curry leaves then onion-garlic, then a masala of cumin seends, curcuma and cayenne. Water, salt, another 10mn on a low flame. Add lemon juice at the end, though I forgot to do that then. This recipe is from Maya Kaimal's "Savoring the Spice Coast of India", as was that for the potato masala, and the rest of the meal, which included:

- fresh spinach, sauteed in a soffritto of mustard seeds, a whole red chili, curry leaves, shallot, to which I added, half-way through cooking, some grated coconut mixed with water and a masala of cumin, cayenne and curcuma and a whole fresh green chili;

- a raita, made my usual way, with coriander, cumin and sweet paprika - had no cucumber in the house so left that out;

- basmati rice, made with some curcuma and saffron.

A proper Indian lunch then, easy to make, healthy, colourful and very good.

Orange dinner on a dark cold night

2008-01-13T14:23:00.000-05:00

Tonight, a few evenings after our return from a marvelous few weeks in India, where we ate more and better than we had in a long while - a simple dinner for two with whatever was in the fridge.

But orange-themed: the riso all'orientale, tonight with the juice of half an orange (tarocco, but the sort with spots of red rather than the truly bloody kind); and the fennel-orange-etc salad, with the other half-orange, and black olives, and left-over mixed salad leaves, and the extraordinary "sua maestà" Parmigiano-like cheese from the Emilian Appenines, and radishes; and the dressing combined orange juice, lemon juice, a hint of aceto balsamico, Sicilian olive oil. Salt, pepper.

Not much to it, and no real menu or recipe news here, but somehow this little dinner, and the little variations on precedents posted on tuttipiatti, felt worth recording.

An Indian meal in Bologna

2007-09-17T16:19:00.000-05:00

After three weeks in Bologna, a need came over me tonight to return to my beloved spices - painstakingly collected and stored in coloured spice jars I found here - and cook up a decent curry, at least in honour of eastern humours, and just for the two of us. Food here is very good, but I wanted some other dimensions, longed to play with aromas and alchemy. It would be quick and simple, nothing fancy, just chicken, vegetables, rice. I walked to the wonderful central market, ten minutes from home, and bought two chicken breasts at the butcher; fiery, flavourful, thin green chilis and fresh coriander from the Bangladeshi grocers (they know me by now, and when I ask for those sorts of ingredients that Bolognese, and generally Italian cooking has little use for, they readily go to the back of the store to retrieve exactly what's needed); some cooking tomatoes; and more of that fabulous, thick, lively Greek yogurt one thankfully finds here, at the bountiful meat, salumi and cheese counters of the town's delis.

Back home, I thought of making a tomato curry and a simple chicken curry with yogurt, not with the guidance of Camellia Panjabi, as usual, but with that of Nigel Slater and his elegant Kitchen Diaries. Then I decided to combine the chicken, tomato and yogurt, and, although I began with Slater, I quickly closed that inspiring book, as one must. I ground a teaspoonful each of cumin seeds and coriander seeds, about half a teaspoon of black mustard seeds, heated a little sunflower seed oil in the wok, threw in the spices, let the aromas start wafting through the flat; added a chopped onion, a chopped knob of ginger, a little garlic; let the onions cook a little, then added two longitudinally sliced green chillis, and a dash of chopped coriander. (Here I would have added five or six fresh curry leaves, had I had them - we'll have to bring them back from New York. The grocers in the market, being Bangladeshi, don't quite know about southern curry leaves - or so it seems.) After about five minutes, I added the chopped tomatoes, salt, a teaspoon of curcuma; let the tomatoes melt, another five to ten minutes. Then, lowering the flame, I added a good cupful of the yogurt, and mixed everything well. Now I added the chicken, cut into good-sized chunks, some more salt, and a little more fresh coriander. I kept the flame low.

I had some lovely zucchini in the fridge, so in the meantime, I chopped them into not-too-thick roundels, heated a little oil in a pan, cooked a large chopped shallot and a knob of chopped ginger for a few minutes, added a little ground coriander and cumin seeds, as well as some curcuma, and then the zucchini roundels, which were perfectly cooked within about ten minutes.

While the chicken and zucchini cooked, I had rinsed and then soaked the basmati rice - only partly refined, highest quality - for a few minutes, boiled water in a saucepan, added salt, then threw in the rice, adding two cloves, two cardamom pods, and some curcuma. Five minutes later everything was ready. (I usually soak the rice for much longer, but this time there was no point making a fuss.)

The result was a hearty, wholesome, homey Indian meal, not particularly refined, sophisticated or deep - the chicken should have been marinated, or at least I should have salted it before cooking it, and so on - but very satisfying. Cooling spices and warming chilli and ginger, the balance between tastes and textures, between the acidic tomatoes and the alkaline yogurt - those are the guiding principles of Indian cooking. One feels good after such a meal. This is only the first one of this kind in Bologna, then.

Noga

Pesto alla trapanese

2007-08-29T10:55:00.001-05:00

On holiday at friends' house in southern Tuscany, a Palermitan friend there made an exquisite Sicilian dish one evening, a pesto that has little to do with Ligurian pesto other than the abundant use of basil, and perhaps not so much to do with Trapani, though of that I am not sure, since another key ingredient is ground almond. The friend was rather reluctant to let me stay in the kitchen, and dislikes sharing recipes because he believes, perhaps rightly, that each recipe is unalienably personal insofar as it cannot be repeated exactly by two people; so I hope I don't betray any secrets by conveying the recipe anyway. But the result was so utterly delicious, it is irresistible. I tried to repeat what I had seen and tasted a few nights later, at my in-laws' near Viterbo - and, in fact, pace our friend, I succeeded.

So: take a large bunch of excellent cherry tomatoes (in Tuscany, we picked all the tomatoes left in the garden - luckily, in fact, since a massive storm hit us that night - so that made a difference, they were so dense and sweet) and a large bunch of basil. Thinly grind a good handful of almonds. Parboil the tomatoes for a few minutes, then drop them in cold water, drain them, put them in a bowl, crush them a little. In a mixer, grind the basil with about a cup of virgin olive oil, at least, until you get a dark green mush. Mix the mush into the tomatoes. Take a deep saucepan, heat some more olive oil. Transfer to it the tomato and basil mush, add some salt, crush the tomatoes a little more, and cook over a high flame for about two minutes. Add the ground almonds, and lower the flame. Cook for another 15-20mn, stirring and crushing as needed. About two minutes before you're done, add a good handful or two of grated or ground parmesan. In the meantime, you'll have cooked pasta - fusilli, spaghetti, or even short pasta, it seems to work with everything - until al dente. Drain it, cook it in the sauce for a short minute over a high flame, and serve. You can add parmesan on the plate.

Noga

New Age Gaspacho and Mild Tajine for Dan's birthday

2007-06-27T10:38:00.000-05:00

June 20 was Dan's birthday and we decided to celebrate it at home with few friends. It was a sunny day in Paris, an instance of the new tropical French summer, humid and stormy.
I went to the Grande Epicerie of Le Bon Marché, my favourite place in Paris: my mind calms down as soon as I enter the store, and I have a feeling of perfection, of being in a perfect world (it reminds me of Audrey Hepburn's escapades to Tiffany's in New York, in Breakfast at Tiffany's).

I've opted for an Italian entry, I had in mind the classical prosciutto e melone, but I get nervous in preparing this sort of things. I don't know how to serve it: if you put the ham on the top of the melon, it gets moist and disgusting, and if you put it aside the presentation is shallow. Also, you need to cut the melon at the last minute, to keep it juicy and fresh. So I decided to transform the entry in a melon gaspacho with thin Parma ham slices on the top. For 8 persons:

In a blender, I've mixed 2 melons with four tomatoes, add some bread crumbs, half a scallion, some piment d'espelette (can't translate it, can't replace it: you MUST have it in your kitchen) and four large spoons of very good olive oil. Then I put the soup in the refrigerator. At the last minute, I poured it in 8 bowls and added some thin rectangular slices of very good Parma ham (5 cm. long and 1 cm. large), a sort of ham tagliatelle, no more than 5 for each bowl. I've added a leaf of fresh mint. The result was marvelous, tasty and refreshing, everybody loved it.

As for the main course, I prepared a chicken tajine with olives, lemon confit, cilantro and almonds. It was a very good organic chicken of the Grande Epicerie, and I had asked to the kind lady at the comptoir volaille to cut it in small pieces. I've started the preparation it in a soffritto of scallions, garlic, turmeric, ginger and curry, then added some water and a spoon of honey, let it cook for one hour, then added the olives, the lemon slices (not too many: half a lemon confit for almost 2 kilos of chicken, it's a very strong taste), let it for 20 minutes more and in the end the almonds and the cilantro. The color was so beautiful: a light, cadmium yellow, due to the turmeric, contrasted with the deep green of the cilantro.

The dessert was the unforgettable, unimaginable dreamy cake conceived by Pierre Hermé: the Ispahan, rose macaron biscuit, lytchees, rose petals cream and raspberries. Un régale as the locals say. Dan really deserved it this year.

Spring supper on the terrace

2007-05-15T17:32:00.000-05:00

Last week, there was the first dinner on our replanted, spring terrace, the last there with friends who were leaving too soon for us to enjoy it all just once again, before our final departure from the flat in which we've spent the last two and a half years.

It had been pleasantly warm, mild, luminous. It was all to be simple and vegetarian. There were lovely baby artichokes at Fairway, so we bought eight of those, and prepared them alla romana - stuffed with chopped parsley, mint and a bit of garlic, and cooked in olive oil and water, for a good half hour or more. They came out quite tasty, sweet, and melting enough - except for a few leaves I should have cut off. The main was simply pasta - trofie al pesto, as classic as it gets. Real trofie (though made in Puglia rather than Liguria, I think), cooked with radiant green beans. The pesto itself was the usual lovely stuff: basil, parmigiano, manchego (instead of pecorino, it's milder, softer), pine nuts barely toasted, the whole thing in the mixer with salt, and the olive oil only at the end; no garlic (the first time I realized how superior it was without garlic was at Gloria's; since then, I never even looked back). Then there was a simple summer "Israeli" salad - cubed cucumber and tomato, romaine lettuce, radishes, black olives, lots of mint, with a simple lemon juice and a olive oil dressing. No one was in the mood for much more after that, though some ice-cream from Grom was produced.

Let's hope we manage a few more terrace dinners before packing up and leaving the much loved plants.

Tagliatelle al ragù di pesce

2007-03-05T03:21:00.000-05:00

Una cena improvvisata sabato sera con vecchi amici e bambini. Che fare se il pomeriggio è stato interamente occupato a intrattenere mio figlio seienne? Le tagliatelle! Un gran divertimento collettivo: io impasto, 200 grammi di farina per un uovo intero, un po' d'acqua tiepida e un pizzico di sale perché la pasta sia più elastica, Leo stende la pasta con il mattarello e gira la manovella della macchina dove io inserisco le striscie spianate di pasta per assottigliarle il più possibile e poi trasformarle in tagliatelle. Il pavimento è ricoperto di farina: mettiamo a seccare le tagliatelle sul banco di marmo completamente infarinato che chiude lo spazio aperto della cucina. Gli ospiti arrivano accolti da un décor di tagliatelle che pendono dal banco.

Da un po' di tempo cercavo una ricetta di ragù di pesce che non fosse stucchevole e fosse semplice da fare. Ho pensato al pesce spada, saporito e di facile cottura, ma non l'ho trovato in pescheria: non è la stagione. Allora ho preso un gran filetto di merluzzo. L'ho tagliato a cubetti. Ho preparato un gran soffritto con due scalogni tritati, una carota, un bel pezzo di zenzero e uno spicchio d'aglio e un po' di rosmarino. Li ho messi a soffriggere in tre cucchiai di buon olio di oliva (il migliore che ho trovato ultimamente è provenzale, non italiano: Chateau Virant, prodotto a Lançon de Provence). Ho poi messo a soffriggere i cubetti di pesce per 5/6 minuti e aggiunto piano piano pomodorini tagliati a metà. Ho lasciato insaporire il tutto ancora per una decina di minuti e poi ho aggiunto alla fine abbondanti foglie di menta fresca.
Ecco fatto. La pasta fresca cuoce in pochissimi minuti (ricordarsi di aggiungere un cucchiaio d'olio all'acqua di cottura per evitare che la pasta si incolli). Ho scolato la pasta e l'ho messa nella padella del ragù, la mia padella in inox Lagostina con fondo leggero e lievemente collante, perfetta per questo genere di salse italiane dell'ultimo minuto.
La pasta fresca è un vero regalo: molto più leggera e gustosa, ingentilisce qualsiasi sugo e conserva un sapore e una tenuta particolari.
Il ragù era saporito e fresco, lo zenzero aiuta a togliere il retrogusto stucchevole del pesce. Un'aggiunta possibile che non ho fatto, ma che solitamente è il tocco della mia milanesità in cucina, poteva essere un po' di scorza di limone grattata. Ma non ne abbiamo sentito la mancanza.

A large Indian meal vaguely described

2007-02-24T00:15:00.000-05:00

A large dinner for eleven of us tonight - good friends, new friends, and friends-t0-be. The cold outside called for warming curries. For once, I made a variety of them - not just meat but also vegetables.

First, the alu ki sabzi - potatoes cooked (uncovered) with thickened yogurt and spices - from Smita and Sanjeev Chandra's lovely, historically deep Cuisines of India: The Art and Tradition of Reginal Indian Cooking. Boil potatoes until tender, then cool them and dice them; heat grated ginger and whole cumin, add a mixture of ground cumin and coriander seeds, turmeric and cayenne, then pour in thickened yoghurt (I used the labneh we buy at Fairway and usually have at breakfast), then add some garam masala some salt, some water, and the diced potatoes; boil briefly, reduce heat, cook 20 mn,m add garam masala and coriander at the end.

While the potatoes were first boiling, I sauteed onion for gajar mutteer, peas and carrots with cumin, from my bible of Indian cuisine, Camellia Panjabi's 50 Great Curries of India. Once brown (ish), I added to them green chilli, garlic and ginger, then coriander and cumin seeds, and red chili power (forgot cumin seeds), then some tomato; then peas (frozen) and diced carrots. The whole thing cooked a while, covered.

And the simplest curry of all, also from Panjabi, cabbage with mustard seeds: pop mustard seeds, add chilli, ginger and curry leaves, then shredded cabbage (in the length), some salt, a tiny bit of sugar - cook uncovered. The mustard seeds and curry leaves - even though they were no longer fresh, indeed had dried - conferred on the cabbage an earthy, smoky taste.

It took about two hours to make these three curries. Last, I made the kaalee mirch cha mutton, lamb with herbs and black pepper, not the first time I cooked that. Came out exquisite tonight, partly because I used fresh coconut, which Marcello opened with a large hammer. There are dozens of ingredients, and the recipe is too long and too precise to write out now and here. But in fact it is easy enough to make, and only took an hour to prepare.

While it cooked, and after I'd changed, I soaked the rice - with a bit of turmeric and saffron - and made two raitas, one with cucumber and one with spinach.

To drink: too many different wines, rhough all excellent (from a Cotes du Rhone at aperitivo, to a Brunello di Montalcino, a Pic Saint Loup, and a Costieres de Nimes).

A fun, pleasant evening - and, yes, rather delicious.

Noga

Evviva la cucina povera

2007-02-14T21:15:00.001-05:00

"Valentine's Day", they say. Well, it was cold and snowy tonight, and no great romantic plans were made in the name of a saint I'm not sure I know very well, or of a market that pounces upon punters with all those pink hearts. Tonight, while all New York was probably dining in the best restaurants, the less lucky or grand assigned to oddly-timed tables at 6:40 or 10:20, we stayed put. And realized we had nothing, or virtually nothing left in the house to eat. No desire to step out to shop, even in our beloved Fairway, just three blocks away. What to do? Go out? No, all decent places would be jammed. And it was too cold anyway. Order in? Certainly not. Not tonight: not on Valentine's!

Thank goodness for the reliable standbys, those that I sometimes fantasize, in my more pessimistic moments, we should hoard in vast quantities in case of war or natural disaster: dried pasta (pastasciutta); capers (sotto sale - in salt, not, God forbid, vinegar); feta cheese (miraculously long-lived, until the vacuum plastic pack is opened, and even then, it does rather well); dried pepperoncino, the whole, tiny, fiery ones; olive oil; and garlic - probably less of a shelf life than the feta, but tonight this was not the issue, and we had a few cloves left, more than enough, given the interdict on excessive garlic promulgated by one's Italian husband. (Canned tomatoes, canned tuna and olives would feature on the hoarding list, but actually not tonight.) And the key to it all for our purposes: the remnants of broccoli-rabe, not much of it, but enough (of course one could freeze that, in case of war or natural disaster: and be fine, so long as the electricity grid held up).

So, what to do with these paltry, but excellent ingredients? We did have running water, and saucepans. Simple: a pasta with broccoli-rabe, rinsed and chopped, sauteed in a base of olio-aglio-peperoncino - olive oil in which a clove of garlic, sliced in half, and two crumbled peperoncini cook long enough to infuse it. The green vegetable quickly wilted. I added a handful of rinsed and chopped capers, those magnificent, whole buds from the Eolie Islands I usually travel with, but which a Neapolitan friend brought along in November, proud to have fooled the dogs at customs (not such a feat, given how low on the A-drug list capers are, but I am grateful all the same). And since the broccoli-rabe was not plentiful enough for a whole dish, I crumbled in the packed-long-ago-in-Greece but still-fresh-in-New York feta cheese, that ever reliable, extraordinary, ancient, and banal cheese that can give such an edge to dishes, and that I dare love so much. For it to become creamy and serve its purpose of stretching the broccoli, I slowly stirred in the water in which the pasta was cooking (not overly salted, since the sauce, what with the capers and feta, would be salty on its own). Gradually, the texture of the melted feta became creamy, liquid but dense, perfectly toned, so to speak. I added some olive oil, white pepper, and some black pepper too, then a little more water. The pasta - linguine - was finished off "in padella", cooking the last 30 seconds in the mixture, with a bit more water. The result: refined, satisfying and even admirable, the deep flavour of the broccoli rabe bouncing off the heat of the chili, and the creamy cheese and capers serving as the basso continuo. (Some anchovy paste might have been in order, but I forgot I had a tube of that, another staple one might want to hoard, however much I dislike anchovies themselves; well, no matter.) The wine: simply Los Vascos 2005, always reliable, and meaningful - it is the wine we used to drink at Ashton. Those days are over, but tonight, we had a perfectly happy little "Valentine". All hail to poor food.

Noga

A mid-autumn dinner for good friends and good wine

2006-12-05T04:30:00.000-05:00

There have been a host of unreported, good dinners. A few times there was the lamb tagine with preserved lemons and olives, as told by Paula Wolfert, reintrepreted by me for (organic) veal. A couple of other times, for fish-eating vegetarians, I served the Goan fish curry, or "Meel molee", from Camellia Panjabi's fabulous "50 great curries of India". I've also grown confident enough with spices to have made a couple of improvised vegetable curries, with onion, curcuma, ground cumin and ground coriander seeds, sometimes mustard seeds, a mix in which the vegetables are sautéed - courgettes, carrots, flat beans, anything - with a little tomato or a little lime, and possibly coconut milk, or yoghurt. For everyday cooking, there have been various versions of the pasta "alla Noga", with shallots or with garlic, always with ginger, and tomatoes, curcuma, saffron, rosemary or thyme, chili pepper and a little Espelette, a knob of butter and Marsala wine - for pasta and sometimes with fish added, fresh red snapper or canned tuna, sometimes then with olives, sometimes with carrots, sometimes with both. Throughout the prolonged late summer, I often served as a starter the wonderful, elegant salad of fennel, feta cheese, dry-cured black olives, sliced orange, pomegranate seeds, and a little arugula, with a dressing of pomegranate molasses, balsamic vinegar, mustard and olive oil - a combination of recipes. Now that season is over.

In fact the first serious, cold days of a late New York autumn are finally here, and tonight something large, generous, unself-conscious and classic was needed. There were four of us, one Neapolitan friend, Rosanna, visiting and partly staying here, who's been eating with us almost every day; and another dear friend, David, who arrived expecting the good meals he's usually served, needing the treat - and deserving it. Last time he'd brought a bottle of Margaux, Prieuré-Lichine 1996, and tonight the meal would be conceived around it. It was duly decanted early on.

And so I decided to cook Patricia Wells's beef daube, the one with white wine and mustard. A simple, basic, reliable recipe sure to produce a warm, rich, spicy, tender meat that would honour the claret. But we started with another Wells recipe described elsewhere in this diary, from the same Wells provençal cookbook - fennel, sliced, sautéed then slow-cooked in chicken broth, to which one then adds some ground black pepper and sliced or grated parmesan before putting it under the grill for a few minutes. The result tonight, perhaps because the fennel is rather watery these days, was a bit mushy, and pale, so I served it on a bed of fresh rucola, whose spiciness and crunch counterbalanced the sweet softness of the fennel.

The daube had been cooking for over two hours by the time we got to it: the (organic) meat browned in a little oil, then set to a side, with salt and pepper, in a bowl; a whole bottle of white wine (I mixed half of one left-over and half of the Falanghina we had for aperitivo - feared it was a mistake but it wasn't, as it turned out), simmered until reduced by about two thirds. (I added curcuma to it...) Then, one stirs in two tablespoons of Dijon mustard, and whisks, as she suggests, until creamy. The beef is then returned to the pan, along with three thinly sliced onions, three sliced garlic cloves, a can of tomatoes with the juice, and a bouquet garni (I only had our fresh thyme, some rosemary, fresh parsley - had to use dried tarragon, not much, and a couple of dried bay leaves; fresh is better though). I added a couple of strands of saffron. I thought of adding grated orange peel but then decided to keep it all very simple and classic tonight. The pan was covered, and so the daube simmered, releasing lovely aromas throughout the flat.

Meanwhile, I made the fennel; quartered potatoes and roasted them in olive oil with garlic, our rosemary, salt and pepper; and made a dish from the River Café Cookbook, reported once before in this diary: mashed celeriac, simply sautéed in olive oil in which one has browned some garlic, with chili pepper and thyme, then cooked with chicken stock and grossly mashed with a fork once soft. Once we were ready for the main course, I presented the potatoes at the center of a bowl, surrounded by the mash. The daube was presented on its own, of course. The result was lovely, and certainly did do justice to the elegant, sober, subtly delineated, slightly melancholy, wholly satisfying wine, which responded as gracefully as could be to its accompaniment.

For dessert, we had some blueberries and blackberries, and a "fond" of vanilla ice cream: I spooned the ice-cream into four small bowls, topped it with the berries, threw on them a little of our fresh mint (still alive, on December 4th), some ground pepper; and inserted on the side a slab of 85% Lindt chocolate, also a left-over. Worked well. Tisane to finish - a mix of verveine, tilleul, and the "grand restaurant" mix from the Herboristerie du Palais Royal. Homes away from homes.

Noga

Riso rosso - all'orientale

2006-10-17T13:34:00.000-05:00

There is little food left in the house today. It is raining outside. I had no lunch-date, and quite a bit of work ahead. I didn't want pasta, again. Nor did I want to order in. But I was hungry. I wanted something simple and healthy from the east, somewhere. There's plenty of basmati in the cupboard, which I usually prepare as an accompaniment to curries (soaked and then cooked with curcuma, a little saffron, one or two cardamoms, one clove). But I used to cook a nice tomato rice. Today I improvised a sophisticated version - and so here is the recipe for a quick, satisfying, sophisticated and fragrant, yet simple autumn lunch for one or two. (There is quite a bit left-over.) It probably could be served also as a side dish to veal, poultry or fish.

Rinse two cups basmati rice in cold water; soak in cold water. Meanwhile, chop a scallion and a thin 2cm-piece of fresh ginger; slice a pealed carrot into thin rounds. Sauté all these in olive oil. Once the shallots are transparent, add a few chopped-up fresh tomatoes, together with a dozen strands of saffron. Add a whole, medium-hot red pepper. Add one long pepper, a tiny pinch of dried fenugreek (if desired), and some salt to taste. Lower the flame. Now add the soaked, rinsed-out rice. Immediately add a can or carton of chopped tomatoes. Add two or three pinches curcuma, and some more salt to taste. You can also throw in a few pinches powedered Espelette pepper, to taste. (The result shouldn't be too hot, but a little bite is needed.) Stir well. Add two cups of water, stir again. Cover, and cook over a low flame. After about five minutes, add half a cup white wine, and then a knob of butter. Stir gently and cover again. The rice should be ready within another 6 to 10 minutes, depending on the quality of the grain and the amount of time it soaked. Serve with a drizzle of olive oil and some freshly ground black pepper.

Noga

Food and meta-food

2006-03-27T23:17:00.000-05:00

Mildly jet-lagged still, and neither of us having had proper meat in a while, we were both in need of some serious animal protein. I bought two tenderloin steaks at Whole Foods - naturally fed beasts, no hormones or antibiotics, not organic because the grass they ate was not pesticide-free, but still, gleaming enough. I also bought attractive organic mustard greens, which I parboiled in nearly boiling salted water before sauteeing in olio aglio peperoncino, and then covering and letting stew with a little of the cooking water. The thick, round, gorgeous steaks were browned on both sides on a high flame - on a non-stick pan, without any fats - along with our fresh rosemary and thyme in abundance, some fresh oregano, some sel de Guérande, and very coarsely ground black pepper, in abundance too. They then waited on a plate while I déglacéd the pan with some Marsala, before returning them to the pan, on a lower flame, for a few minutes more than planned, having realized that, thick as they were, they were not only rare, as wished, but still cold and raw inside. Meanwhile, I uncovered the mustard greens to let the remaining liquid evaporate.

The steak turned out positively melting, a luxurious, sensuous dish and a magnificent piece of meat, well paired with the slightly bitter greens. To match the quality of the animal we were eating, I opened a bottle that had been given us, a Chateau Beychevelle 1999 - already mellow, profound, precise and powerful but subtly layered, medium-bodied but tannic, long en bouche but without insistence, dark with a discreet and almost jocular brightness. I had also bought some organic - Canadian-made - sopressata, which we had as aperitivo while we waited for everything to be ready, and again after the main course, with the usual arugula and fennel salad, seasoned with olive oil, lemon and a little salt, this time with Manchego sliced in rather than parmesan. The wine had matched the steak in mellowness but accompanied the slightly sharp, mildly sweet cheeses and the crunchy salad too. It also rose up to the level of Handel's Dixit dominus, which we listened to as we finished the bottle, munching on a little parmesan in order to match the composer in counterpoint. Sensorial heaven, metaphysical joys only achieved with the best of material things.

Noga - 27 March 2006

A winter dinner - to recollect before spring

2006-03-09T17:59:00.000-05:00

Spring is approaching, so I would like to record a dinner we had in New York a few weeks ago, before the winteriness of it becomes unsavory. The guests were writers, none vegetarian. Lamb was decidedly to be a central feature. We began with fennel, thinly sliced, sauteed in olive oil and a little salt, then cooked until soft and nearly melting in good chicken stock - transferred it to an oven pan, covered with sliced parmiggiano and grilled until golden for ten minutes or so. Patricia Wells's Provençal recipe, excellent and never fails. Then, the lamb: from Ada Boni, "alla cacciatora" or "alla romana" - cubed, browned in oil, then cooked further with garlic, sage, rosemary, to which I then added a spoonful of flour for thickness. It then cooked in vinegar diluted in water, covered, for a good 45 mn. Meanwhile, I had sliced lengthwise carrots and fingerling potatoes and put them in the oven, with olive oil, rosemary, garlic. I had also chopped and sauteed some celeriac, then cooked it in chicken stock (not unlike the fennel) with garlic, chili pepper and rosemary, until soft - then grossly mashed it with a fork; that recipe from the River Café Cookbook I. The lamb was good, albeit acidic - the (Sherry) vinegar I used was too young. But it went beautifully with the rather hot celeriac mash, and the potatoes and carrots completed it all very well, in terms of taste, texture and colour. The wines: a chaotic evening to which friends brought some forgetable labels, although I did open a 1996 Cos d'Estournel (I think). I forget the dessert - might have been the vanilla ice-cream with hot chocolate sauce again, and blood oranges and clementines on the table. A good evening that was. The next menu will definitely be less wintery.

Noga

Penne lisce al radicchio e ginger

2006-03-06T08:16:00.000-05:00

Dopo anni di tentativi e aggiustamenti, ho trovato la ricetta ideale per la pasta al radicchio. Spesso troppo amaro, o troppo acquoso, il radicchio, così congeniale al risotto, è più difficile da utilizzare come condimento della pasta.

Ho tagliato il radicchio a fettine sottili (4 radicchi per 1 kilo di pasta, ossia 8 persone), l'ho messo in una padella dove avevo preparato un soffritto di scalogno, ginger e un po' di rosmarino tritato. Ho cotto il radicchio per circa venti minuti, fino a renderlo morbido. Ho alzato la fiamma e aggiunto un po' di vino bianco che ho poi fatto ridurre. Durante la cottura ho aggiunto anche un mezzo cucchiaino di zucchero. L'ho assaggiato e mi sembrava ancora amaro.

Allora ho messo un po' d'olio nella mia teglia di alluminio per le verdure al forno, un po' di scorza di limone grattuggiata, ho disposto il radicchio e l'ho lasciato in forno per ancora venti minuti (forno molto caldo, termostato 7, 230°)

Intanto ho cotto le penne lisce, ideali per questo tipo di condimento, di cui esaltano la testura liscia e lievemente vischiosa.

Le ho scolate e versate nella teglia, aggiunto un po' d'olio crudo, abbondante parmigiano e un po' di basilico tritato (ma sarebbe stato meglio un po' di prezzemolo, che non avevo in casa, dato il retrogusto amaro del radicchio)

Squisito e molto apprezzato dagli ospiti vegetariani.

Gloria

Maccheroni alla romanesca

2006-02-27T15:50:00.000-05:00

Il freddo parigino di questa fine inverno mi ha spinta domenica fino al mercato di Buci, dove ho comperato della buona salsiccia dell'Aveyron, che abbiamo mangiato a pranzo con un Touraine 2004 Le Clos du Tue-Boeuf, produttore accurato e biologico.
Con l'avanzo della salsiccia (circa 120 grammi) questa sera ho preparato una pasta romanesca niente male. Ho spelato la salsiccia, l'ho ridotta a pezzetti e messa a soffriggere in una padella con olio, una cipolla rossa tritata e mezza carota tritata. Ho aggiunto del vino bianco (un cepage che non conoscevo: Melon, estremamente profumato, con una nota proprio di melone), una foglia di alloro (mmmhh, l'alloro, con il suo profumo di carne, di terra, di rame: è il punto di volta in cucina tra mondo animale, vegetale e minerale) e ho lasciato ridurre per 5 minuti. Poi ho aggiunto due pomodori a pezzetti e un po' di curry (mezzo cucchiaino). Ho cotto dei maccheroncini fini, quelli che in Francia si usano per il gratin, la cosa che avevo in casa di più simile ai bucatini. Scolata la pasta, l'ho saltata in padella, aggiunto parmigiano e pecorino grattati e mischiati insieme e molto pepe. Una delizia, ideale per far risalire il morale con questo freddo. Il vino, sempre dello stesso produttore, Le Clos du Tue-Boeuf, era un Cheverny, 100% Pinot Noir, pieno, rotondo e fruttato, davvero inaspettato piacere.

Gloria

Caper fusilli for lunchtime

2006-02-25T14:31:00.000-05:00

I came up with this pasta as a solution for when you have little food left in the house, can't be bothered to go out and shop and have no time or inclination to cook, yet want a satisfying, simple, healthy, warm lunch. You do need to have good capers at hand (sotto sale, and the big ones, from the Eolie preferably).
For two people:
Take a handful of capperi sotto sale; rinse them well but quickly; chop them roughly. Put in serving bowl. Open a 250g pack of Greek feta cheese, take about half of it, crunch it along with the capers. You may add a tablespoon of stracchino cheese, and/or some good ricotta, the result will be creamier. Add some fresh thyme, a little bit of white pepper. In the meantime, boil the water, don't salt it too much, throw in the pasta - fusilli or fusilli bucati. (It doesn't really work with spaghetti or even penne.) Use the pasta water to liquefy the feta mix a little (just a few teaspoons, as needed). Add to the caper mix a tablespoon of good olive oil. Mix in the pasta, stir carefully. While you stir, you can throw in some rucola leaves, which will of course wilt in the heat. Add black pepper. Eat immediately. It's quick, clean, delicious.
Noga da New York (ma che viaggia ovunque coi suoi capperi)

Dinner, 24 February

2006-02-25T00:58:00.000-05:00

Here too, we began the dinner, after the usual guacamole, with the pasta alle verdure al forno - parallel lives. Used a glass pan, in which I put in two large fennels, four small aubergines, one red pepper, five or six cherry tomatoes, three or four small courgettes, a couple of garlic cloves cut in half, all finely chopped except for the garlic; olive oil, salt and rosemary, no black pepper but some Espelette. It stayed in the oven for about as long as yours, I mixed it occasionally. At the end, as I mixed the vegetables and the fusilli, I added, thinking of your trick, a little bit of crumbed feta. Then, we had the red snapper fillets described below, served on a bed of rucola (another coincidence with your dinner in Paris - parallel lives again). The pure red and white thing on the plate would have been perhaps better, I was too eager for green stuff, one might say. Still, it met with success. Wine-wise, we remained in the south of France: we drank first the Pic St Loup (Lauret) Chateau de Cazeneuve 1997 "Le Roc des Mates" (producer: André Leenhardt), followed by a lovely Cotes du Rhone Villages brought by our friends Claude and Winsome, who drink it as their vin de la maison - a non-filtered thing called Mas de Boislauzon, from the Orange area (producers: Monique et Daniel Chaussy). Both spicy, the first probably rounder; both functioned perfectly in accompaniment to the spicy, multi-coloured food. Four bottles in all, for seven of us. But feeling fine. Conversation turned quite political by the end so no one realized that Marcello had prepared a cup of vanilla ice-cream with melted chocolate for everyone. Sweet relief.
Noga

Straccetti all'orientale

2006-02-24T19:28:00.000-05:00

Allora, ho preso la ricetta degli straccetti classica: marinare le fettine di manzo (io compro carpaccio già tagliato dal macellaio) con olio, harissa, aceto balsamico, un cucchiaio di miele, sale, pepe (un cucchiaio da zuppa di olio per 100 grammi di carne, un cucchiaio di miele per 300 grammi di carne). Ho aggiunto alla marinata citronella tritata con un po' di zenzero e ho lasciato il tutto un paio d'ore. Poi, tre minuti a scottare in una padella molto calda. Li ho serviti con la rucola cosparsa sopra, troppo tradizionale, avrei dovuto cercare una combinazione più originale con la citronella: pepperoni arrostiti? o magari crescione?
Per la carne, bisogna contare circa 120/150 grammi di carpaccio per persona.
Li ho serviti di secondo dopo una pasta alle verdure al forno in cui ho messo: trevisana, un pepperone giallo, mezzo arancione, una melanzana, una cipolla rossa, tre cipollotti freschi, un finocchio, una zucchina, un po' di rosmarino, il tutto tagliato a fette sottili e cotto un'ora e venti in forno in una teglia d'alluminio (importante) condito con olio sale, pepe e rosmarino.
Delusa dalla mia degustazione "orizzontale" di Bourgogne: due côtes de nuit 2002, un Marsanay senza nessuna grazia (Domaine Philippe Naddef), un Gevrey-Chambertain, stesso domaine più interessante e un côte chalonnaise più strutturato, sempre 2002, un Mercurey (domaine Jeannin-Naltel). Vini che non si prestano alla cucina italiana. Aromi che evocano cacciagione e terriccio, che si sposano male con verdure e olio d'oliva.

Gloria

Red snapper Noga style

2006-02-24T11:43:00.000-05:00

In some olive oil, sauté shallot, ginger, hot pepper (dried - Espelette, or small Calabrian, or a bit of both), one carrot, chopped finely. You may also replace the carrot with a finely chopped red pepper (à la Gloria).

Add a can of tomatoes and/or a few chopped fresh tomatoes.
Add some turmeric, to colour.
Add some saffron, to taste.
Variations: you may add a small amount of finely chopped orange rind; a capful of Madeira, Sherry, or Marsala wine; and a knob of butter. You can also perfume the sauce with fresh rosemary, some fresh thyme, or, for a Persian twist, with dried fenugreek (leaves, not seeds).

Once the sauce has an agreeably thick consistency, turn off the flame. Place the skinned red snapper fillets - or any other light, white fish - in the pan, spooning the sauce over them. Cover pan with lid. A few minutes or so before eating, turn on the flame, low. The fish should be done within 5 mn or so. You may eat it on its own, or with basmati rice cooked in salted boiling water after having carefully rinsed and soaked it.

You can also turn this tomato sauce into a pasta sauce, with or without the fish. Without the fish, it is an unusual, somewhat wintery variation on tomato sauce; and if you want to include the fish, you should use a light white fish, cut into chunks before putting it into the sauce. This tomato base is also good with fresh tuna and even with canned tuna (the Italian kind, sott'olio di oliva). The variations are endless, since the taste changes according to the amount of saffron, ginger, butter, wine or orange you use, if any, and to whether you use carrot or pepper, if either, shallot or garlic, or which herbs you choose (fenugreek does not work with pasta). In any case I always use turmeric (curcuma) because it adds a very subtle edge, confers a beautiful colour, and adds thickness (and apparently it has anti-cancerous properties, too).