Holiday Recipes

I’ve just returned from a fabulous vacation in Greece. While on Mykonos, I sampled a couple of salads that were delicious and refreshing. Our guide outlined the ingredients list, and I’ve tinkered with the recipes. I think these are close approximations of what I ate on the island. They're both really easy to make. Enjoy!

Taramosalata (Fish Roe Salad)

I find fish roe in the dairy case at my supermarket. 

50 grams red fish roe (about ¼ cup)

4 slices hearty day-old bread, crusts removed

½ pound potatoes

Juice of one lemon

NO salt

Pepper to taste

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

          

Soak the bread in warm water for about half an hour. Drain and squeeze out excess water.

Boil the potatoes, peel, and lightly break up the pulp with a fork.

Mix the fish roe and lemon juice and carefully separate the eggs from one another.

Place ingredients in a food processor and puree until smooth.

Taste and adjust seasonings. You may wish to add more lemon juice or dill.

Serve with bits of toast.

Tzatziki (Cucumber and Yogurt Salad)

Greek yogurt, made from sheep’s milk, is creamier and lower in calories that other yogurt. A suppler around the corner from where I live keeps it in stock, so I use it most of the time. If you are unable to find it, buy a plain (unsweetened) yogurt.

1 ½ cups Greek yogurt

2 large cucumbers, peeled, seeded, and grated

2 tablespoons fresh dill, chopped

2 tablespoons grated red onion (use more or less to taste)

Salt and pepper to taste

1.      Combine all the ingredients except the salt and pepper.

2.      Taste and adjust the ingredients to your taste (i.e. add more onion or yogurt)

3.      Season with salt and pepper.

4.      Chill and serve.

An Italian Thanksgiving

Note: Today, I’m a guest on Writers Who Kill. These crime writers are creating a Thanksgiving Potluck with recipes from a slew of sleuth creators. Check it out at http://writerswhokill.blogspot.com/ 

       Last year, I cooked a traditional American Thanksgiving for friends, complete with stuffed turkey and cranberries, and of course pumpkin pie. I’m doing Thanksgiving on a very small scale this year, using local ingredients and giving the feast a decidedly Italian flair.

I’ll serve a pumpkin pasta dish. When I wrote about pumpkins a couple of weeks ago, Ren left a recipe in the comments. I made it, and it was far too much for me, so I created something new with the leftovers. It was good enough to make again. I cooked together equal parts of onion and pumpkin. You could use canned pumpkin, but you’d need to cook the onions for a long time before adding the pumpkin so they’d be soft. In another frying pan, I cooked lean sausage in a bit of olive oil with a pinch of red pepper. When the sausage was done, I combined it with the pumpkin-onion mixture. I added a grating of nutmeg and fresh parmesan. This is already waiting in the fridge. Tomorrow, I’ll cook the pasta.

Involtini di Tachino

My main course is  Involtini di Tachino (Turkey Rollups). To make these, I will take turkey breast slices, top each with prosciutto, chopped spinach with a grating of nutmeg, and mozzarella. I’ll rolled them up and fasten with toothpicks or kitchen twine. Then I’ll brown them on all sides in a bit of olive oil. When they’re all good and brown, I’ll add a bit of white wine and braise for about twenty-five minutes. When done (and I’ll check with an instant meat thermometer to make sure they are done.), I’ll set them aside to rest while I finish everything else. Before serving, I’ll slice the rollups to make pinwheels.

My main veggie is Brussels sprouts with chestnuts. I’ve already washed and trimmed the sprouts, and Thursday morning I’ll pick up chestnuts from a chestnut roaster plying his wares on the street. That’s the lazy woman’s way out on a busy day, and since it isn’t a holiday here, everything else is business as usual. I’ll steam the sprouts a little ahead and plunge them in ice water to maintain the color. At serving time, I’ll melt a little butter and toss the sprouts and peeled chestnuts together.

I’ve made a compote of dried cranberries and oranges that’s tangy and sweet--just the right foil for the turkey. 

When I’m out buying the chestnuts, I’ll drop by the bakery for some crusty bread. I’ll pour a nice white wine from the Castelli and finish off with a cup of espresso and apple pie.

    I have a lot to be thankful for.

Bringing Home the Bacon

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare.

I’d like to paraphrase that to say that pancetta by any other name would taste as delectable. That other name is “bacon.” My sixteen-volume Encyclopedia of Italian Cuisine describes pancetta as a “cut of meat, principally pork, but it can be beef or veal.” Usually it’s pork. The curing process, according to the encyclopedia, depends on the cuisine of the region where the curing is done.

Here in Rome, pancetta is sold in various guises. The round roll of pancetta, recognized most often in the U.S., is available at the salumeria (delicatessen) counters. It costs about nine dollars for a pound. You can also find slabs of pancetta ready to be sliced to order. Or you can just ask for a chunk. In my neighborhood supermarket, the delicatessen counter carries two varieties, one roll and one slab. You can have it cut to order or you can pick up pre-cut packages.

In the meat counter, you can find thick slices of pancetta packaged like steak or pork chops. These are intended for eating as a main course, or for cutting into squares for kebabs.

But the bulk of the bacon sold here comes in plastic tubs sold in the cold cut case. This pancetta is cut into small cubes, and it is either smoked or not. The cubed pancetta is the basis for two Italian pasta favorites: spaghetti alla carbonara (smoked) and bucatini all’amatriciana (sweet).

My advice to any American cook who wants to make these dishes: buy thick-sliced bacon and cut it into cubes. It’s easy, it’s inexpensive, and it’s good.

Carbarnara is well-known in America, but Amatriciana, not so well. It’s easy to make, and while bucatini is the traditional pasta, you can serve the sauce on other types.

Bucatini all’Amatriciana

1 pound bucatini (or spaghetti)
4-5 slices of thick-sliced bacon (not smoked)
1 can crushed tomatoes
1/4 to 1/3 teaspoon red pepper flakes (more is desired)
1/4 cup grated pecorino romano (you can use parmesan, but it’s too delicate for the red pepper)
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Cut the bacon into 1/4-inch squares.
2. Place the bacon in a large frying pan and cook stirring to render out the fat and to brown lightly. Drain excess oil.
3. Add the tomatoes, red pepper, and salt and pepper to taste.
4. Cook for about 15 minutes.
5. Meanwhile, fill a large kettle with water and bring it to the boil. Cook the bucatini to the al dente stage. [NOTE: Al dente is reached when the pasta is completely cooked through. Test by biting into a piece. When there is no white, uncooked part in the center, the pasta is cooked. It should be chewy.]
6. Drain the pasta and place it in the frying pan with the sauce. Toss and cook for about two minutes.
7. Serve with the pecorino, and additional red pepper flakes, if desired.

Serves 4-6

May Day

May 1st is a holiday in Italy. The festivities in Rome end with an enormous concert not far from where I live. A couple of subway stops are closed to help corral the crowd, and the music goes on late into the night. This was an especially strange year because May 1st also saw the beatification of Pope John Paul II. Days in advance, subway notices about travel in the city began appearing in Polish, and traffic and public transport use increased. A million people showed up in St. Peter’s Square for a ceremony that lasted, and was televised, for hours.

The fava bean season officially kicked off May 1st, too. Known here as le fave, the beans have been in the market for a couple of weeks, and I’ve eaten them. So have lots of other people as witnessed by the hulls littering the sidewalk outside my local market. But on May 1st Romans traditionally eat raw fave with pecorino Romano, a sheep’s milk cheese with the consistency of parmesan. I don’t much like the combination, but it’s a Roman favorite. On the days preceeding May 1, the fave are stacked in crates in all the markets with big chunks of the cheese nearby.

A favorite way of cooking fave is with onion, olive oil, and hog jowl, which sounds ever so much more refined in Italian, guanciale (a word that also means pillow). There isn’t really a recipe for this simple dish. Put all the ingredients in a pot, add water just to cover, and simmer for about 30 minutes.

Fava beans must be peeled twice. First remove the outer shell. Then squeeze the bean from a hull that surrounds each separate bean. This can be done with raw beans, but I think it’s easier to blanch them for a couple of minutes in boiling water. Plunge them into ice water to help loosen the hull.
My favorite recipe comes from Sicily. At this time of year the artichoke season is ending and the fave and pea season is beginning. This is a noble dish to celebrate mid-spring.

Spring Vegetable Stew
1 cup shelled fresh peas
1 cup shelled fava beans, cleaned of their outer hull
4 artichokes, cleaned of all their hard, outer leaves and the choke, thinly sliced
1/2 cup chopped bacon or boiled ham
1 onion, finely chopped
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil plus a little more for serving
1/2 cup white wine
2 tablespoons chopped Italian flat-leaf parsley
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
Salt and pepper to taste

Put the onion is a large pan with 1/4 cup water. Cook over low heat until the water evaporates. Add the bacon or ham. Cook until you are satisfied with the consistency—especially of the bacon. I usually want it to be nearing the crispy state. Wipe out excess bacon grease with a paper towel.

Add the peas, fava beans, and the artichokes. Pour over the wine (my Italian recipe says to “bathe” the vegetables with the wine) and cook until partially evaporated. Add the olive oil and parsley. Simmer for about 20 minutes, covered. Stir from time to time. The vegetables should give off enough liquid to keep the stew moist, but add a little water if it seems dry.

At the end of cooking, add salt and pepper to taste. Just before serving, add the basil and pour on a little olive oil, what the Italians call a “thread of oil” which means pouring on a fine dribble of oil. This dish is good served as a main course or over pasta.

How an Idea Became a Story

            Fish Tales, an anthology of mystery stories from the Guppy chapter of Sisters in Crime, officially went on sale this week, following a week of ebook sales. I’m delighted to be one of the twenty-two authors.

The publication process spread over two years, including the writing, the evaluation, the editing, and the submissions to publishers. Wildside Press offered a contract last November, and now we have a book.

 As soon as the call for submissions went out, I knew immediately that I wanted to write a story spotlighting Caroline Woodlock, the protagonist in the novels I’m working on, and I had a plan. Then the call was amended. Each story had to include water, preferably water where fish would swim.

I was furious! To begin with, I thought the idea of a themed anthology was lame. Second, I thought the idea of using fish as the theme because our chapter of SinC is called the Guppies was even lamer. (For the uninitiated, let me explain that Guppy is short for Great Unpublished, a description that doesn’t fit many Guppies anymore.)

But I was wrong! I’ve read all the stories in the anthology, and they are a wonderful mix. Each author brings an original slant to the water/fish idea, and the central theme links the diverse stories. The back cover blurb tells the tale:

Fish Tales, The Guppy Anthology, casts a wide net across the mystery genre, delivering thrills, chills, and gills. This water-themed collection features locked room puzzles, police procedurals, cozy characters and hardboiled detectives. With a pool of motivations ranging from greed and revenge to loyalty and justice, these stories will lure you with killer hooks and fishy characters.

Come on in, the water’s fine. But be careful or you might find yourself sleeping with the fishes!

My original story featured neither fish nor water. I had to develop a new plan. Caroline lives in Rome, and while a river runs through the city, the Tiber doesn’t immediately bring fish to mind. She writes about food, so I realized that she could be cooking fish. A body of water was more problematic. A pot of water boiling for the pasta just wouldn’t do.

And then I had one of those “lightbulb” moments. The Trevi Fountain gushes water in the heart of Rome, and its imagery of fish and the sea provided a way to symbolize the murderer’s character. Once I had these two elements, the story practically wrote itself.

Throughout the story, Caroline cooks a fish stew from Livorno called cacciucco. The recipe follows. Originally a peasant dish, cacciucco has made its way into fine restaurants around the world. The recipe can be daunting, but if you take things in stages, it isn’t overwhelming.

Preliminaries

First, you need to make fish stock. You can make this ahead and store it in the freezer. Ask your fishmonger for fish scraps (the heads and bones left over from filleting fish); they’ll give them to you. Take these scraps home and put them in a pot with a white onion, a carrot, a rib of celery, some parsley stems and a little white wine. Cover with water, and bring to a simmer. Cook for about 30 minutes. Cool and strain. Boil it down to concentrate flavors if it seems too watery. You can freeze it at this point, and I recommend it. It’s like having gold in the freezer.

You can speed up the actual cooking process by doing preps of all the ingredients a few hours ahead and storing them in the fridge.

The Recipe

2-3 pounds mixed fish—really get a mixture varied flavors. If you can get a squid or an eel, so much the better. And a few small octopuses are also nice. And choose inexpensive fish; this was a peasant dish. (My story tells the legend of the soup’s origin.)

½ pound of mussels, cleaned of their beards

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

4 cloves of garlic

½ cup finely chopped Italian flat-leaf parsley

¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 medium onion, (I prefer red)

1 medium carrot

1 cup dry white wine

2 cups canned tomato sauce

2 cups of fish stock

6 large shrimp

6 slices of rustic bread (Tuscan bread is unsalted)

Salt and pepper to taste

Cut the fish into bite-sized pieces and reserve.

Chop together the onion, carrot and two of the cloves of garlic.

Put the olive oil in a large pot, add the onion-carrot-garlic mixture, ¼ cup of parsley and the cayenne pepper. Cook over medium heat for about four minutes, until the vegetables begin to lose their color.

Pour in the wine and cook for a minute or two, then add the tomato sauce and the fish stock. Salt and pepper to taste. Add the fish, reserving the mussels and shrimp for later. Cook for about 20 minutes. Add the mussels and shrimp, and cook another 5-7 minutes until the shrimp has cooked through and the mussels have opened. Taste again for seasoning.

Chop the remaining garlic together with the remaining parsley. Place a slice of bread in each soup plate, ladle in the cacciucco, and sprinkle with the garlic-parsley mixture. Serves six.