What’s for dinner?
When I know that I am going to be cooking very special meals, I plan way ahead. When things are in season I make them into other things, ready to use. Sometimes they are canned, like jams and pickles. Sometimes they’re frozen, like broths and glazes. These are things that are useful and special that fit into a whole menu plan.
One of the mistakes people often make is trying to make every dish a star. If you do that, nothing stars. In an Italian meal, every course is as important as every other course, so you don’t just throw some celery sticks stuffed with cheese on the table to keep hungry people from whining. Instead you make something that pricks up the appetite and prepares the diner for what follows. That’s when the preserves and specialty foods are very useful. The work may have been done months in advance and they are ready when you need them. Some of them you can buy, too, like mostardas or special honey and jams to be served with carefully chosen cheeses perhaps.
The first of these three meals was designed to open eyes to Italian cooking and Italian ingredients. The star here is the summer truffle, which is neither as strong nor as expensive as the precious winter truffle, but has a milder version of the same perfume of its more pungent cousin. You can afford to use more and experience teaches you a lot of how to enhance it and pull out its best.
Here is the final menu:
Pecorino Sardo con Mostarda di pesca e balsamico
Insalata di cannellini
Panzanella
Petto di tacchino al tartufo nero estivo
Fiori di zucca fritti
Crostata di susine con zenzero e zucchero di canna
This meal started last Autumn when I used peaches from my own tree to make a mostarda that I would serve with balsamic vinegar and sheep’s cheese. The recipe can be altered slightly, but if you change it a lot, you’d better freeze it. If you refuse to make it, buy a special honey instead.
Peach Mostarda
1 kilo (2.2 lb.) of peeled, stoned and sliced peaches
.75 kilo (26.5 oz.) sugar
3 long red dried hot peppers (these although much bigger pack the same punch as 3 little dried bird peppers)
1 packet of pectin suitable for a kilo of fruit
a splash of white wine or cider vinegar
Balsamic vinegar
Before you start, thoroughly clean sealable jars and tops and a heatproof ladle and put them into a big pot of water and boil them. Once they are boiling, cut back the heat to keep them at a simmer. Have tongs available for removing them as you need them. You will need about 4 half pint jars.
Make a funnel out of doubled aluminum foil with a fairly wide mouth that fits into your jars.
Have a section of countertop available near the cook top and spread a doubled clean dishtowel over it. You may also need pot holders.
Put all of the above except the balsamic vinegar into a tall pot and cook as directed on the pectin package. Mine says bring it to a full, rolling boil—which means a strong boil that you cannot stir down. Stir the whole time it is coming to a boil. Boil it for five minutes, stirring it once in a while. This will boil up and get quite big, so use a pot bigger than you think you will need. A lot bigger.
When it is done, remove the peppers, then, using the tongs remove a jar and set it on the towel. Put your funnel into it and using the sterile ladle, pour the hot mixture into the jar up to about 1/3” of the top. Tip the jar and pour balsamic vinegar down the side. Remove a cap, screw it onto the jar almost tight, then turn the jar upside down. Continue with all the jars until you run out of mostarda. The bit that doesn’t fit into the last jar you can have with some cheese for your supper. It will be quite piquant, but will lose a lot of the heat in the jars over time.
So now you have jars of spicy stuff with a dark streak down one side. Put them into the big pot you used to sterilize the jars, making sure they are covered with water, and simmer them for five minutes. Take them out of the water and using the pot holder, tighten the lids down well and leave them upside down on the towel for five minutes. Turn them right side up and leave them to cool. You should hear “pop” every so often, which is your jars vacuum sealing.
When you serve this, pick out a rich and well-aged cheese, your choice. I like Pecorino Sardo from Sardinia, but many cheeses go well. Spoon some of the mostarda into a shallow bowl, pour some balsamic vinegar over it and serve with a spoon to spoon it over the cheese on a small plate. You do not eat bread or crackers with this, just the cheese and the spicy jammy stuff with a fork.
The other antipasto is simply a white bean (cannellini) salad.
It is equally good made with home cooked beans or with canned ones. For six people I used about 900 g or 32 ounces of cooked cannellini, not quite drained. In a bowl I squeezed a big lemon, and added a couple of teaspoons of fresh thyme leaves, then the beans. I sliced a small spring onion of about 2” diameter into thin slices and scattered them over the beans. Drizzle all this with about 118 ml (4 ounces) of great olive oil. Stir it up and salt to taste. Cover with a clean towel and leave at room temperature for at least 2 hours. Refrigerate it after 4 hours if you want to keep it. This is served at room temperature, so if you make it ahead, marinate at room temperature, chill to keep, but bring it back to room temperature to serve. Simple and very good. Check seasonings again before serving.
The first course is panzanella. To make panzanella you need coarse white bread. There are many available here in Italy, and in the USA I used semolina bread from Whole Foods. I’m sure there are others, but this is the one I remember. The bread should be a day old, as it is a way to use leftovers. For six people I use 4 to 6 thick slices of 4” X 7” approximate dimension.
Bread obtained, put the slices into a bowl and pour cold water over them and leave them to soak it up.
You can put all kinds of things in it, but I like these, all diced to a similar size:
2 large ripe tomatoes or 8 oz of cherry tomatoes—whatever is good in your area
2 mild onions
2 legs of celery
2 cucumbers – I peel strips off to leave some of the green
1 sweet red pepper or capsicum
Some like shredded carrots, but not me. Sometimes I use a few coarsely chopped capers.
You will also need fresh lemon juice and some cider or wine vinegar as well as a bunch of hand torn basil leaves. Great olive oil comes next. Salt and pepper at the end.
One by one, take the bread slices out and squeeze the water out back into the bowl, and then into a big salad bowl, use your hands to crumble the softened bread. Add the diced vegetables and toss it all together. Drizzle with some of the lemon juice and then a couple of spoonfuls of vinegar. Drizzle generously with the oil. Toss around, sprinkle with some salt, mix, taste. How is it? Does it sparkle with acid and is it balanced with salt and oil? Then you’re done! Chances are you have to add, taste and toss a few times before it is Mmmmm! When it gets there, stop. This is a bright and simple food and does not need to be pushed. If you add canned corn to it, I will never speak to you again. Cheese cubes means immediate excommunication… you just ate Pecorino, you pig! Tear the basil over it and toss it in at the last moment so it won’t go black. Grind pepper over the serving at the last moment to get all the perfume pepper offers.
Petto di tacchino al tartufo nero
Maybe you can’t find even a local truffle but you can find jarred truffle sauce or paste? Use it. It’s pretty good stuff. If you ever do get a truffle, this is a good way to use it and show it off. There are American truffles if you look for a vendor.
I bought the breast of a free range dad turkey that had had a happy life on a nearby farm. It cost a fortune, but all things considered it was worth it. It had all the great flavor Grandma’s turkeys used to have. It weighed about 6 pounds with no bones, but it did have skin and that’s important. You also need Sherry or Marsala wine and some salt.
Slice the truffle or open the jar.
Preheat the oven to 170°C or 340 °F. On the bottom of the breast, rub in some wine then salt. Loosen the skin with a wooden handle of a spoon and your hands, leaving it attached on one side. Drizzle the wine over it and rub it in with your hands. Salt the whole top, then lay the truffle slices over the meat or spread what’s in the jar over it. Lay the skin back on it. Put it into a shallow roaster and cook to 180°F (80° C) internal temperature then remove from the oven and leave it alone for 15 minutes. Then you can slice it. That is it.
Fiori di zucca fritti
Choose fresh squash and/or pumpkin flowers. I picked them, three per person. Open each and check to make sure there are no residents. If there are any, chase them out.
In a bowl put about a cup of flour, add a half teaspoon or so of salt. Using a whisk, gradually add cold water, slowly so that it makes first a dough and then gradually a thin batter. This is to prevent lumps. Some use fizzy water, I don’t. The batter should be about the consistency of cream when it is done.
Heat a half-inch (1.5 cm) of olive oil in a large frying pan until it is just short of smoking hot, then adjust the fire to keep it there. Have paper towels ready for draining.
One by one, dip the blossoms into the batter and then out, ho9lding on by the stem. Let any excess drip off, them lay the flower in the oil. Do a bunch of them, leaving room for frying—don’t crowd them because they like to stick together and they are painful to separate. They will look as if all the batter went to the bottom, but worry not, it didn’t. When they are golden on one side, use tongs to turn each one over and fry the other side. Remove the crispy critters to paper towels.
It’s better to serve half at a time so they are crunchy and hot, rather than to do them all and let them go soft. You have to be feeling very generous to stand at the stove while the others eat their crispy flowers, but that’s the life of a cook.
I would serve Prosecco with the antipasto and probably the panzanella. A big Chardonnay would be nice with the turkey, or a soft and fruity red, like Pinot Noir or Carbio.
I will do the dessert separately, because I am tired and the keyboard keeps switching countries on me. Go shopping. Start eating. This is a feast for someone special—like you or me.
14 comments July 12th, 2007
