Spotlight Dishes

We're offering a vibrantly diverse group of Spotlight Dishes tonight! Start off with our Insalata di Mercato (Fresh Market Salad), with gorgeous Thanksgiving Farms Patty pan squash, zucchini, crisp cucumber, young onion, basil, parsley, mint, and carrots.

Then the explosively flavored Sgombro in Carpione. It's a pickled mackerel with sliced Thanksgiving Farms carrots, red onion, cucumber, celery, fennel, and radish.

Our Lamb “T-Bone” is a custom-cut lamb loin chop seasoned with rosemary, chili flake, garlic, salt and pepper, pan-seared and served medium rare over a delicious blend of New Jersey corn, Stokes farms green beans, and leeks.

Finish things off on a cool and fresh note with our delicious Lemon Granita, a true Southern Italian favorite, topped with Red Jacket Orchards black cherries.

See recipes below for the Granita and the Sgombro.

Sgombro in Carpione

(Pickled Mackerel)

EVOO for frying

1 med. sized Spanish Mackerel, filleted, pin bones removed, skin on, cut into 1-2 oz portions

All Purpose Flour for dusting

Salt and Pepper

1 C thinly sliced red onion

1 C thinly sliced celery on the bias

1 C thinly sliced carrot rounds

1 C thinly sliced fennel

3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

1 pt Red Wine Vinegar

1 pt water

Salt and Sugar to taste

Pinch of red pepper flakes

Mint leaves and lemon wedge for garnish

Sicilian EVOO for finishing

1. Heat 2” EVOO in a large roundeau. Season flour in a large bowl with salt and pepper. Toss fish pieces to coat evenly and shake off excess.
2. When oil is shimmering but not smoking, add fish, skin side down, being careful not to overcrowd the pan.
3. Cook until golden and flip, about 5 minutes. Flip again and get color on the other side. Drain well on a rack or paper towels.
4. Bring vinegar and water up to a boil. Season with Salt, Pepper and Sugar to taste. Add vegetables and cook 1 minute.
5. Arrange fish in hotel pan, skin side up. Pour liquid with vegetables over it and let cool.

To pick up, place 1 piece fish on a plate and top with some vegetables, no juice.

Drizzle with Sicilian Olive Oil, sprinkle with a pinch of sea salt and finish with 1 mint leaf.

Granita di Limone

(From my cookbook Italian Cooking For Dummies)

1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

1/4 cup sugar

1 tablespoon liqueur (optional)

Combine lemon juice with sugar. Add a tablespoon or so of your favorite liqueur, if desired. Pour the liquid into a 13 x 9 x2 inch ceramic or glass pan. ace the pan in the freezer for 30 minutes. Using a large metal spoon, stir frozen crystals from around the edges of the pan back into the liquid. As the mixture continues to freeze, scrape the spoon against the sides and bottom of the pan to loosen and break up frozen crystals. REpeat this scraping process every 30 minutes or so until the mixture is frozen and a bit creamy, about 3 hours total. Scoop the crysals into individual bowls or goblets, top with fresh cherries, and serve immediately.

Spotlight Dishes and Diary Entry

Tonight's Spotlight Dish is the perfect finish to the perfect summer meal. Torta di Susina. This recipe comes from Cesare Casella's Diary of a Tuscan Chef and I have included it so that you can try it at home.

We will be having Torta di Susina which tonight is a baked peach tart with lemon pastry cream. "Peach?" You may ask. Yes, peach. Although the recipe calls for Plums we came across the most delicious peaches from Locust Grove, and could not pass them up.

Torta di Susina-
Plum Tart
Serves up to 8.

1/2-3/4 cup pastry cream
1 pastry crust
1 1/2-2 cups tart plums, sliced, (do not skin) *as we have tonight, you can substitute fresh peaches or kiwis or another fresh, thin-skinned fruit.
2 tablespoons sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spread the pasty cream inside the pie crust creating a layer 3/4 inch deep. Arrange the plums in overlapping circles on top. Sprinkle the top with the sugar and cover with aluminum foil. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for another 10-15 minutes. The tart is ready when the crust is golden brown and the fruit curls slightly at the edges. Serve the tart warm or at room temperature.


Our second Spotlight Dish tonight is Maiale con Peperoni. (Pork with Peppers) Which is pork tenderloin marinated with rosemary, sage and red pepper flakes.The pork is a Pasture-fed Duroc Pig from Good Farm in Kansas. It will be sautéed with Stokes Farm roasted red green and yellow peppers and Thanksgiving Farms young onions and capers, with garlic, and white wine, and finished with sage and rosemary. The recipe comes from Cesare Casella's The Diary of a Tuscan Chef, and we have included it so that you can try it at home.


Maiale con Peperoni
Pork with Peppers
Serves 4

2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary
2 tablespoons chopped fresh sage
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
4 boneless center cut pork chops each 1 inch think
3 bell peppers, one each of red, yellow, and green. Halved and seeded.
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 medium red onion, sliced
1 tablespoon drained capers
salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
1/3 cup white wine

Mix together half of the chopped herbs and red pepper flakes and rub them into the pork chops. Wrap the meat in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for 48 hours. (If you don't have the time to marinate it, the dish will be less flavorful but still good.)
Preheat the broiler. Place the peppers, skin side up on a broiler pan. Broil the peppers, watching them carefully. When the skin blackens, turn them over, until they are black on both sides. It will take about 10 minutes. Remove the pepper and place them in a closed plastic bag for 5 to 10 minutes. Rub off the skins and slice the peppers into thin strips.
pout 2 tablespoons of the olive oil into a large frying pan. Add the garlic and onion and cook over medium heat until the mixture colors lightly, about 5 minutes. Add the other half of the herbs, the sliced peppers and the capers. Season with salt and pepper and cook for ten minutes. Remove from the heat, and keep warm.
In another large frying pan add the 2 remaining 2 tablespoons of oil and the pork chops. Saute the chops over medium heat for 7 minutes on each side. Add the salt and pepper and white wine. Continue to cook until the wine reduces completely, about 5 minutes. Add the pepper mixture, warm through, and serve.

Daily Diary Entry: Insalata di Pomodori, Cipolle, Fagioli, e Tonno

Tonight’s Daily Diary entry is a delicious cool salad from my cookbook Diary of a Tuscan Chef. Rest assured that you won’t even work up a sweat preparing it, as it is simple and easy to assemble...just don’t forget to soak those cannellini beans overnight. (Why not do that right now--your dinner for tomorrow will be taken care of!)

Insalata di Pomodori, Cipolle, Fagioli, e Tonno

Tomato, Onion, Bean, and Tuna Salad

(Serves 4)

1 ¼ cups dried cannellini beans

9 cups cold water

1 tablespoon salt, plus extra to taste

2 medium tomatoes, cored and cut in bite-size piees

½ sweet red onion, sliced thin

1 cup Italian tuna, canned in oil, drained and flaked

⅛ - ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh basil

Fresh ground black pepper, to taste

2-4 tablespoons red wine vinegar

Rinse the beans, picking them over to remove any pebbles. Soak them overnight in 4 cups of cold water. Drain them, add 5 cups of fresh water, and, in a medium saucepan, bring the beans to a simmer over medium heat. Add the tablespoon of salt and cook the beans until they are tender, 40 to 45 minutes. Drain and cool. Place the beans and the other ingrediuets in a serving bowl. Toss and serve.

Daily Diary Excerpt

Today’s Diary Entry is a little anecdote about Chef Casella’s most favorite herb.

Rosemary

Rosemary is my favorite herb, but since it is such a staple in Tuscan cooking, I think it is under appreciated. Whenever I have the chance, I try to promote rosemary. For black-tie functions, I always put few sprigs in my tuxedo pocket; when I’m working I mix it with other herbs and carry them in the pocket of my chef’s jacket. I use rosemary as a bed to grill sea bass, as skewers for roasted meats, and to garnish french-fries. At Vipore I used to grow bushes of rosemary, some as big as trees. One year, I had almost 1000 plants, which were too many, even for me. When we cut them back, there were enough trimmings to fill a dump truck, so we decided to make a bonfire. As the rosemary was burning, we wet the fire so it would smoke. The whole countryside was filled with the scent of roasting rosemary.

Excerpt from Diary of a Tuscan Chef

TORTA DI MELE CON SALSA DI SULTANA

Apple Cake with Raisin Sauce

Serves 6-8

1 Stick (1/2 cup) sweet butter

1 cup sugar

Grated rind of 1 lemon

4 eggs

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2-1 cup milk

2 pounds Golden Delicious or Rome apples, cored, peeled, and sliced (squeeze lemon over the cut apples to keep them from turning brown)

Salsa di Sultana (recipe follows)

Preheat oven to 350०. Grease the 9-inch cake pan.

In a bowl, cream together the butter and 3/4 cup of the sugar. Add the lemon rind and blend. Add the vanilla and eggs and blend well. Add the flour and baking powder and 1/2 cup of the milk. If the batter is too sticky, add more milk, a little bit at a time. It should be like a thick cake batter. Fold in the apples, reserving a large handful to arrange on the top of the cake, and pour the batter into the cake pan. Arrange the remaining apples on top and sprinkle with the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, until golden brown. Cut in slices and spoon the sauce over each slice.

SALSA DI SULTANA

Raisin Sauce

1 cup milk

4 egg yolks

2 tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoons cornstarch

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 tablespoons white raisins, soaked in warm, sweet white wine such as Marsala or Vin Santo for an hour

3 tablespoons toasted chopped walnuts

Put the milk in a small saucepan and bring it to a boil. Remove from the heat and set aside.

In a bowl, beat together the egg yolks, sugar, cornstarch, and vanilla until the yolks turn lemony yellow, and pour into the top of a double boiler. Add the boiled milk, beating continuously until the mixture thickens. The sauce is ready when it coats the back of a spoon. Before serving, squeeze out the raisins and add them to the sauce. Then add the walnuts. Mix, and spoon over the apple cake.

Diary of a Tuscan Chef Excerpt

Snack time! If you had the pleasure of dining at Coco Pazzo then you may have tried this before. Delicious!

SOPPRESSATA DI POLPO CON SALSA DI CAPPERI ED OLIVE

Baby Octopus Salami with Caper and Olive Sauce

I first made this dish when I was at Coco Pazzo. I’d just come back from a vacation in Italy, where I’d had a similar dish at my friend Lorenzo’s restaurant. Walter, my sous chef, and I came up with our own version. I especially like it in the afternoon as a “lite” snack.

Serves 8-10

2 (1-pound) baby octopus, cleaned*

1 large red onion, quartered

3 cloves garlic, peeled

2 stalks celery

2 carrots

1 sprig each fresh rosemary, sage, thyme, and basil

8 cups well-washed arugula

Caper and Olive Sauce (recipe follows)

If you are using regular octopus, freeze it overnight, then defrost it before you start to cook. That will help tenderize the meat.

The day before you want to serve the soppressata, fill a large pot with water and add the octopus, onion, garlic, celery, carrots, and herbs. Bring the water to a boil, then simmer for approximately 1 hour, until the octopus is tender, not chewy.

* NOTE: Most good fishmongers will sell octopus already cleaned, but if you want to try cleaning the octopus yourself, start by locating the valve (it almost looks like an eye) on the underbelly. Remove it with a sharp knife. Make a slit under the eyes and cut them out of the head. Use that opening to turn the octopus head inside out. Scrape off the brains and reverse the head to right side out. Rinse the octopus well. If you don’t want your hands to smell, I suggest wearing surgical gloves to clean the octopus. Otherwise, you can rub your hands with lemon after you’re done cleaning up.

For the next step, you’ll need two 9-inch loaf pans or 2 small, deep containers, one of which fits exactly into the second.

Drain the octopus and place it immediately in one of the containers. Make sure all the tentacles are inside, and force the second container on top of the octopus. Squeeze down as hard as possible so you are compressing the octopus into a small block.

Tape the 2 pans together with heavy-duty packing tape. Set the pans on a counter top and weigh them down with something very heavy. Once the octopus has cooled, after 1 or 2 hours, place the pans in the refrigerator, still weighted, overnight.

When you are ready to eat, remove the tape from the 2 pans. Insert a knife inside the rim of the top pan and run it around the edge to loosen the soppressata. Turn the inside of the pan up-side down and bang it on the counter. It might take 2 or 3 tries, but eventually, the soppressata will pop out.

Arrange the arugula on individual plates. With a very sharp knife, cut slices of the soppressata as thin as possible. Lay 3 or 4 pieces on top of the salad and drizzle each serving with the caper and olive sauce.

NOTE: There are a few different types of soppressata in Italy. One, found in both Emilia-Romagna in the north, and Puglia and Basilicata in the south, is a stuffed sausage made with cut instead of ground meat. It is aged, not cooked. Before machines, it took two people to make this type of soppressata, one to hold the sausage casing and one to stuff it with meat. The sausage had to be packed in tight--soppressata means super-pressed--to eliminate pockets of air where bacteria could grow.

In Tuscany, soppressata is a cross between paté and salami, made from all the poorest cuts of the pig: the head, ears, nose, cheeks, hooves, knuckles, and skin. They are first cooked, then either stuffed into a casing and cooked again, or stuffed into the skin from the head of the pig and cooked. When a butcher wants his clients to know he’s got soppressata, he just leaves the pig’s head on the counter and sells the “salami” by the slice. It goes in a flash.

SALSA DI CAPPERI ED OLIVE

Caper and Olive Sauce

2 tablespoons drained capers

2 tablespoons pitted and chopped imported black olives

1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano

1 cup roughly chopped plum tomatoes

1 teaspoon chopped garlic

1 tablespoon fresh Italian parsley

1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

1 tablespoon sherry vinegar

1 tablespoon red wine

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

1/4 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Put the capers, olives, red pepper flakes, oregano, tomatoes, garlic, parsley, and basil in the bowl of a food processor and puree. Pour the mixture into a bowl and add the vinegars, red wine, lemon juice, black pepper, salt, and olive oil. Stir to combine.

BASIL: There’s more to basil than pesto: It was sacred to the Greeks, who called it “The King”; it was used as an embalming agent in ancient Egypt and to ward off dragons in medieval Europe. I think basil is best fresh, or cooked as little as possible. You can eat the whole leaves in a salad or with tomatoes. I love basil with lobster or a delicate white fish such as bass. Basil is easy to grow at home on a windowsill with lots of light. Please don’t use dried basil.

Excerpt of Diary of a Tuscan Chef

What a delicious dish perfect for a lighter meal.

Spaghetti con Cozze

Spaghetti with Mussels

Serves 4 as an Appetizer

3 quarts water

1 1/2 Tablespoons salt, plus more to taste

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves

1 tablespoon finely sliced garlic

5 tablespoons chopped fresh italian parsley

1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

2 pounds of Mussels, cleaned. (beard them just before cooking.)

5 tablespoons white wine

1/2 pound plum tomatoes, chopped

fresh ground black pepper to taste

1/2 pound spaghetti

Bring the water to a boil in a large pot and add the 1 1/2 tablespoons of salt.

In a large saute pan, place the olive oil, thyme, garlic, 2 1/2 tablespoons of the parsley, the red pepper flakes and mussels. Heat over medium. When the mussel shells open and the garlic colors, after about 5 minutes, add the white wine and let it reduce completely, another 1 to 2 minutes. Add the tomatoes and salt and black pepper. Lower the heat to medium-low, cover, and cook for 5 minutes.

Add the spaghetti to the boiling water. When it is very firm, drain it , add it to the sauce and cook uncovered for 5 more minutes, until al dente. Stir in the remaining 2 1/2 tablespoons of parsley and serve.

Daily Entry of Diary of a Tuscan Chef

Tonight’s Dish a perfect seafood and starch combination.

Rombo con Crosta di Patate

Turbot with Potato Crust

Serves 4

1 cup fresh basil leaves

1 cup plus 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

4 (1/3 lb) turbot fillets, skin intact. (Turbot is a type of flounder; mahimahi or sole can also be used.)

6 cups spinach, well washed and stemmed

3 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed

1 Idaho potato

2 tablespoons flour

3 beefsteak tomatoes

1 lemon, sliced thin

In a blender, puree 1/2 cup of the basil with 1/2 cup of the olive oil, and salt and pepper. Salt and pepper the flesh side of the fish fillets, then coat them with the basil mixture. Cover and refrigerate for 2 to 3 hours.

Place the spinach , with the water still clinging to the leaves, in a pot large enough to hold it. Cook over medium heat, covered, until the spinach is just wilted, about 7 minutes. Drain it well in a colander, pressing out the excess water with the back of a spoon.

Put 1/4 cup of the olive oil, and the garlic in a medium saute pan and heat. When the garlic begins to color, in about 5 minutes, add the spinach and cook it briefly, about 2 minutes, adding salt and pepper to taste. Keep the spinach warm.

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Peel the potato. If you don’t have an electric slicer, it is probably easier to cut the potato in half lengthwise. Trim each half into a rectangle, then slice them crosswise. Coat the slices in 2 tablespoons of the olive oil to keep them from oxidizing, or, keep them in a bowl of ice water. Arrange the potato slices on top of the basil mixture, so that they overlap and cover the fish fillets. If you’ve kept the potato in ice water, you may want to drizzle a bit of olive oil on top to help the slices stick together while cooking.

Pour 2 tablespoons of olive oil into a saute pan and bring it to the smoking point. Dust the tops of the fillets with flour to keep them from sticking. Place the fillets in the pan, potato side down. When the potato side is brown and crispy, flip the fillets, transfer them to an ovenproof dish and bake, skin side down. The fillets will be ready in 5 to 8 minutes, when the skin is crispy.

While the turbot is cooking, chop the tomatoes and remaining basil. Toss to form a salad. Add the salt and pepper to taste, and then drizzle the salad with the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Remove the fish from the oven, remove the skin, and serve the fillets on beds of spinach, surrounded by the tomato-basil salad. Garnish the dish with lemon slices.

Diary Excerpt

Today's excerpt is a fun anecdote about Chef Casella as a teenager in Italy. More summer fun recipes to come in the next few days!

"As I always imagined it, normal teenagers, or at least other Italian teenagers, passed their summer nights at the movies or in the disco. But in the country, for me and my friends, the height of summer fun was stealing fruits and vegetables from the local farmers. Conditions were ideal--the nights were long and there was no school in the morning--at least that was our reasoning.

I remember the night we did onions. There were about ten of us. During the day, each of us had gone around checking different farmers’ crops to see how their onions were progressing. That night, we met at Vipore with our reports: who had the best, the biggest, the readiest, the most plentiful onions. I made spicy spaghetti and a salad of tuna, beans, tomato, and onions, and over dinner, we discussed strategy.

Usually our favorite targets for vegetables were Beppe del Lombardo, Leo del Micheli, and Sisto Colombini, because they cultivated the best of everything. But the idea was that no one farmer should suffer too much, and that we’d never drive anyone so crazy he’d stop growing a certain crop. That night, we set our goal at somewhere between forty and fifty onions.

As we talked, we knew our main obstacle would be lightning. In the dark, it would be difficult to tell the difference between onion and garlic stalks, and if we weren’t careful, we’d end up with baskets of garlic. Also, the closer the garden was to the house, the more likely it was we’d be heard by the farmers and caught, which is why we decided to split up into teams.

That night, three squads went out, while I stayed at Vipore to work. Each team left at a different time, but all three came back with great onions, all the same size and color, really perfect. I thought, how odd that everyone in Pieve Santo Stefano is growing their onions the same way. But when my friends started talking, it turned out that the reason the onions all looked the same was that all three teams had raided the same farmer: Sisto. I felt so bad that the next day I went into Lucca, bought some young onions, and without letting myself be seen, left a basketful on Sisto’s doorstep.

That night, Sisto showed up at Vipore. 'Ragazzi,' he said, 'Boys, I already planted the onions once. What do you want, that I plant them again so you can rob me again? Se volete mangiare le cipolle, ve le piantate da voi.'

'If you want to eat onions, plant them yourselves."