I had friends to dinner Saturday night. Because I was making the meat dish from the April 7 2008 menu, I decided to do a home-sized version of the Pugliese antipasto, because it keeps people busy and fed while a more complicated dish finishes.
One thing that makes this workable and tastier is that not everything is made at the last minute, or even made at home. I served no meat or fish because the course that followed is very meaty, but with something like prosciutto, pancetta or a few spicy mussels, I would consider this antipasto a whole meal and be happy to have it. I am not, however, all Italian– yet.
The dish on the left is of fried red peppers, but I think they are more accurately called braised peppers. It’s peppers, salt and oil, cooked covered for a long time and then served at room temperature. Directly in front, in a tray made just for antipasto, are fresh green olives, goat’s cheese for the potatoes, a cheese called “Crema di Maggio” or May cream cheese, and black olives. The olives are both from tubs and are not very salty. I don”t know why that is, because olives are picked once a year and I think they must be preserved the same length of time, but anyway, I like these very much and often buy them. This tray illustrates Judy Witts’ oft stated philosophy of shop more and cook less. Those four things are really good and I tried a lot of less-good things before deciding these were worthy of replacing something homemade.
To the left is a plate of tiny baked potatoes cooked under salt. On the right is a loaf of pane di Altamura, a DOP bread that is trucked into my Coop from the south every morning. The hand is Paolo’s, who is pouring a Pugliese rosé wine.
This is, once again, purea di fave secche, which recipe was published here a few posts back. It is served warm. My Umbrian guests really liked it, and it surprised me to find that none of them had ever had it before.
Eating like this, among a few friends, is just about my favorite thing. I’m not so busy that I don’t get to talk and eat with everyone else, because they are friends I can experiment a little, and the evening feels relaxed and healthy.
April 28th, 2008
This is another dish from last Monday’s dinner. It’s an antipasto/appetizer from Puglia. Although recipes I found when I first tried to make it called for using vegetable broth to cook it, I soon discovered that I could make the vegetable broth and cook it all at the same time. It is a very healthy dish in the highest level of Mediterranean attention to vitamins, fiber and animal fat completely replaced with healthy olive oil. I cannot tell you where to buy dried fave in your country, but I know people have bought them in every country I know. If all you can find are fave with their skins, you can use them, but it will have to cook longer and you will need to use a food mill to remove the skins which I am told cause really dramatic intestinal gas.
I was served this garnished or plain in Puglia several times, but this version is my favorite one so far. I ate this by itself for supper yesterday. Jump to the recipe:
Purea di Fave
1 carrot cleaned and diced
1 leg of celery cleaned and diced
1 onion cleaned and diced
1 small dried red pepper crushed
1 teaspoon salt
water to cover
1 large or 2 medium potatoes peeled and diced
250 g or 1/2 pound dried fave/favas/broadbeans without skins
water as needed
salt to taste
Garnish:
red sweet pepper/peperone/capsicum, cleaned and cut in thin slivers
good olive oil
salt to taste
In a tall pot, put the first list of vegetables and salt, then cover with water and bring to a boil. When it is boiling, add the diced potato and water to keep it covered. When it comes back to a boil, add the dried fave and more water to cover.
Cook this at a simmer for about 45 minutes, adding water periodically so that there is always about 1/2″ or one finger’s thickness of water over the top of the vegetables. At 45 minutes, take a fava out and bite it. It should be soft throughout. If it isn’t cook a bit more until it is. Check for salt at this point and stir in more until it tastes right to you.
You can use a stick blender to puree this in the pot, or you can cool it a bit and put it through a medium-fine plate on a food mill. If you do that, you will need to rewarm it before serving.
Before serving, heat the olive oil in a frying pan and quickly fry the pepper slivers with a bit of salt. Scatter them over the purea, drizzle the pink oil as well, and then add a thread of raw oil. Serve warm.
Leftovers will need a bit of added water to become semi-liquid again. You can, however, make this quite a while ahead and keep it in the refrigerator, then warm the amount you want to serve.
April 16th, 2008
