The Omnivorous Fish

Making Pasta

Hands up if you’re sick of hearing about pasta!

Ok, let’s see… nobody. Good.

I’m locked in the kitchen in lovely Long Beach, CA trying to come up with a few actual pasta recipes. Fool’s errand? Maybe, but I’m trying. Today I bought two dozen eggs, ten pounds of King Arthur AP, and smaller quantities of semolina, rye and whole wheat flours. I’m taking copious notes, weighing everything carefully and gridding out things in Excel as I go.

I really should put some plastic wrap over the keyboard.

So far I’ve made semolina pasta, rye pasta, egg pasta and- new to me- semolina pasta made with just semolina and water (which is what comes in the box). I thought it might be tricky, but it was actually very easy. I’ll let you know how it was to work with (it’s resting now).

As I’ve mentioned in the past, I have vacillated on the subjects of oil and salt. I have never been a big advocate of oil, especially in egg pastas; salt has been the larger existential struggle (not to be confused with an eggsistential struggle- I’m here all week, try the veal!).

What do these controversial elements contribute, you may ask? Well, let’s start with the simpler one: oil. Olive oil has been added to pasta probably about as long as flour, and, in small quantities, contributes little more than flavor. 1 teaspoon of extra-virgin olive oil (good stuff, not that crap that looks like machine oil gone jaundiced) can add a delicate olive flavor to one pound of pasta. It’s true. Larger quantities, however, will add body- especially in the absence of eggs- and make the dough, well, oily, so it doesn’t stick without being dry. This is the desired result for pici, for example, which are like a hand-formed, very thick spaghetti. Some people lean on this aspect heavily when making doughs with less glutinous elements, like buckwheat. I however, am not a fan either of the taste of olive oil in pasta, nor of the texture it creates. If I need to prop up a low-gluten element in pasta, I’ll make the dough with semolina rather than white flour, since semolina was probably used in early rubber bands. That stuff is bad-ass.

Salt is in one sense a much more complicated matter, but in another, very simple. I’ve talked before about hygroscopy in dough, but basically it’s the concept that salt in suspension in the dough will attract water to the interior of the pasta, making it fall apart.

It’s true that flavor is the only thing that salt contributes; its structure is unchanged with or without it, but here’s what I’ve realized: if you’re cooking pasta properly it’s being cooked in very salty water, water that should taste as salty as the sea, probably saltier than you think it should be. When the pasta intermingles with the water, excess starch is released and water is taken in: salty water. Here’s the difference: when salt and water are taken into the pasta, the fundamental elements remain the same, only wetter. When there’s salt in the pasta to begin with, it’s part and parcel with the structure of the pasta, and its dissolution affects that structure. That’s what I’m telling myself, anyway. Point being: I’m no longer putting salt or oil in pasta dough. The water- if salted properly- is more than enough to flavor the pasta with salt.

On Sunday, we had a bunch of people at the house, so naturally I started cooking. With pasta on the brain, I thought of a simple crowd-pleaser: a rotolo of pasta. It’s a large sheet of pasta, rolled out in one piece, filled with cheese, herbs, vegetables, meats or whatever you’d like, rolled up and poached like a salmon. Very often, it’s then sliced and baked with a sauce.

Like most Italian dishes, it can either be a grand special occasion preparation, or an efficient way to deal with leftovers. The one I made is more or less traditional, and the spinach could become chard, dandelions, escarole or some combination of any of them. Herbs are also nice in the filling, if you have them. A little chopped oregano or marjoram would be nice, but certainly not necessary

This dish seems complicated, and there are a lot of steps, but they’re all very simple. The only tricky thing is making the pasta, which you’re becoming an expert at anyway, right?

Oh, and remember, if you have bleached flour in your house, make cakes until it’s gone, and never buy it again.

Rotolo of pasta with spinach and cheese
Serves 6-8

for the pasta
AP Flour 2 cups
large eggs 2
tepid water as needed

for the filling
ricotta cheese 2 lbs
fresh spinach 1-1/2 lbs
small onion, chopped 1 (about 2/3 cup)
extra-virgin olive oil 2 tbsn
large eggs 2
egg yolks 1
grated pecorino, grana or parmiggiano cheese ¾ cup
chopped parsely ½ cup
nutmeg to taste
salt and white and black pepper

for the sauce
light cream 2 cups
gorgonzola cheese, crumbled 4-6 oz
(do not use that garbage they sweep up off the floor called “Stinkfinger Cheese Crumbles.” Buy a whole piece of gorgonzola cheese, put it in a bowl and break it up with a fork.)
sage leaves 3 or 4, optional
grated pecorino, grana or parmiggiano cheese 1/2 cup
salt and black pepper

Start the filling. As far in advance as you can remember to do it (this time I did it as soon as I got home from the store, which is to say about 10 minutes before I made the pasta) put the cheese in a sieve or in a colander lined with cheesecloth set over a bowl to drain.

Wash the spinach by placing it in a sinkful or bowlful of cool water. Agitate it slightly, and allow it to sit for a minute or two, then lift the spinach out, leaving behind sand, rocks, flies, memories. Repeat until you’re left with clean water. You bought that prewashed spinach? That’s nice, so did I. Do you want me to tell you what I found in the bottom of my water? I didn’t think so.

Dry the spinach in a salad spinner, if you have one, but don’t go crazy. Some water is good for steaming the spinach, but you want to have as little water as possible when you’re done cooking it. Chop the spinach coarsely.

Heat the olive oil in a wide pan over medium heat and add the onion. Sweat it until softened, but not brown (this is what is meant by sweating). When the onion is soft, raise the heat to medium-high and add the spinach. Cover. If all the spinach won’t fit, don’t smush it in; wait until what’s in the pan has wilted, then add more. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Cover partially and cook for 5 minutes or until the spinach is thoroughly wilted and dark green. If there seems like there is a lot of water, uncover the pan and raise the heat to cook away as much of it as possible. When it’s cooked, turn the spinach out into a colander set over a bowl and allow to cool and drain while preparing the pasta.

Make the pasta. Mound the flour on the counter (or a bowl if you’re skittish) and make a well in the center. Beat the eggs together with 1 tablespoon plus one teaspoon (four teaspoons) of water and pour into the well. Stir the eggs into the flour, working outward as more flour is absorbed. When it’s too thick to stir, knead the dough until smooth and uniform, sprinkling with flour if it’s too wet. In the unlikely event it is too dry, flatten the dough out and sprinkle with a teaspoon of water, then start kneading again. When the dough is smooth, uniform and supple, cover it with plastic wrap and rest at room temperature while you finish the filling.

Finish the filling and make the sauce. Set several inches of salted water to boil in a salmon poacher or as wide a pot as you have (like a big Le Creuset pot or stockpot).

Put the drained cheese in a bowl, add the eggs and yolk, parsley, cheese, salt and pepper and beat until smooth. Grate some nutmeg over the mixture, add the cooled spinach, squeezing the water out by handfuls, and stir it in.

Heat the half and half (or light cream or heavy cream if you want) over medium heat and add the sage leaves if using. Allow it to come to a gentle simmer and cook, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon until it has thickened enough to coat said spoon, maybe 10 minutes. Discard the sage and add the gorgonzola. Cook the sauce over low heat until all the elements are melded together. Season with salt and black pepper.

Roll the pasta. While the sauce simmers away, roll the pasta out in a single sheet until it’s thin enough to read the newspaper through. Some people say the thinness of a dime; I think that may be too thick. Don’t roll much in the center of the dough- the dough will stretch itself in the center as you roll out the edges. Try and keep the sheet somewhat square.

When you have the dough rolled, lay a clean kitchen towel or long piece of cheesecloth out so that it is partly underneath the edge of the pasta furthest away from you.

Spread the filling out over the pasta into an even layer, leaving an inch border on either side and a 3 inch border on the edge furthest from you. When all the filling is evenly spread out, roll the pasta as tightly as you can away from you, until it is rolled up like a jelly roll [I had originally said “giant burrito” but it’s not like a burrito since it rolls up inside itself, not just around the filling, like a burrito -jf 8/8/07] and sitting on the towel. Twist the ends and fold under, then roll up the pasta tightly in the towel. Tie the bundle tightly at the end, and half-hitch your way up its length every three inches or so, and tie up the other end. Or- if you’re not familiar with roast-tying- tie the ends tightly then tie the roll every two or three inches along its length to keep its shape. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

When the water is boiling, lower it in and adjust the heat so it boils gently. If you’re using a round pan, lower in the center, then lay in the sides around the perimeter of the pan. Poach the roll for 25 minutes.

About the water- you might want to have a slightly lower water level than you’ll need, plus a kettle of boiling water. Once the roll is in the water, you can add more boiling water to cover it, so there’s less danger of it overflowing and sending scalding hot water all over you and your kitchen.

When cooked, take the roll out and let it cool for five minutes or so, so you can handle it. Cut the strings and unroll it, being careful to avoid the steam. Cut off the doughy end, then slice the roll into 1-1/2 to 2 inch slices (you’ll get around 12-16).

Spread 1/3 of the sauce over the bottom of a 9x13” baking dish. Lay in the slices of pasta roll on their sides (spiral up), then pour over the rest of the sauce and sprinkle with the remaining cheese. Cover loosely with wax paper (to prevent the cheese from browning) and bake for 15-20 minutes, until the sauce is thickened and bubbly. Serve immediately.

Listening: Jake the Dog, doing his thing.

I am sometimes accused of eating things because they sound like nobody should be eating them. Let me assure you that this is not the case. The simple fact of the matter is that I will eat anything known not to be directly harmful. By directly harmful meaning it will immediately cause my death or extreme illness; it has nothing to do with cholesterol.

I’m not particularly fond of heart, and I do not like beef liver. I haven’t had brains, but I would, with good provenance and an experienced cook.

That said, stinging nettles rock my world. Yeah, I said it: stinging nettles. They’re a weed, very common in Europe and in many parts of North America. Yes, if you touch them, you can get a horrible rash, that’s true, but it’s not like I’m recommending you put them in a salad.

Urtica dioica is covered with tiny, white, delicate hairs that break very easily when touched. These hairs, when broken, emit chemicals that combine to cause a rash as a defense against grazing animals (like me). They don’t actually sting you. Cooking destroys both the hairs and the chemicals, and creates one of the most sexually herbaceous food experiences on the planet. (Wikipedia says chopping the leaves will do this as well, I’m not going to find out.)

In Italy, nettles make curative soups and teas, and if you’ve ever smelled it cooking, you know why. It’s savory in the extreme, tasting and smelling of health, saunas and caber-tossing. Also useful for making rope and beer- apparently- it tastes something like a cross between an artichoke and kale.

I was out in Jersey last Monday for the first barbecue of the season, which was fantastic. The Sound Gal hosted and made steaks and a wicked roasted vegetable tart. I made soup, because soup rocks in the springtime, being the last chance to eat hot soup before everyone starts sweating their nads off. I bought eggs and nettles at the farmers’ market, thinking I would make nettle omelets, but I just wasn’t feeling it, so I hard boiled a dozen eggs- which we tore through- and made a less than traditional soup out of the nettles with gorgeous Red French Fingerling potatoes, which have a mottled rosy core inside a creamy white exterior.

Last Minute Nettle Soup
Serves 6-ish

I totally pulled this out of my ass, and it is a perfect example of how you have to learn how to cook properly before you can pull recipes out of your ass. There’s nothing earth-shattering here, but the components are put together in a way that makes it intriguing.

2 bunches stinging nettles, the younger the better, washed in several changes of cold water, with the stems removed (wear gloves!!)
3 qts light stock or other flavorful liquid, hot (we made it with ½ strength bouillon from cubes- omg)
1 lb red french fingerling potatoes, scrubbed and chopped (you could peel them for a finer textured soup, I enjoy the peels and their nutritional value)
1 large onion, or 1 smaller onion and 1 leek, peeled and chopped (at least 1 cup)
2 slices bacon, chopped coarsely
1 ¼” slice of ginger root
1 sprig thyme
1 cup heavy cream, warmed
freshly grated nutmeg
salt and freshly ground white and black pepper

Blanch nettles in boiling water for two minutes and drain. Chop the leaves coarsely. (Save the water for tea. Someday they will prove it cures cancer, foot odor and depression.) Cook bacon in a deep saucepan, rendering its fat and crisping the bacon. Add onions to bacon and fat and sweat until softened (do not allow to brown- this is what is meant by sweating).

Add hot stock, potatoes, ginger, thyme, salt and pepper. Bring to a gentle boil and cook for 5 minutes, add nettles and simmer until potatoes are cooked, about another 5-7 minutes. Add cream and cook through until all elements are combined, 2-3 minutes. Remove ginger and thyme and puree soup with an immersion blender if desired. I think it’s best medium-textured. Season to taste with salt, pepper and freshly grated nutmeg, serve hot or cold (although cold I would recommend a smoother puree), but not warm. Warm means you screwed up.

Now comes the challenge: What to do with all these leftovers before they go bad? I have half a pound of maytag blue cheese leftover; maybe some gnocchi are in my future. Ham sandwhiches for the rest of the year, certainly, and there’s enough beer left in there to keep a frat house busy for an hour. I feel some cheddar quesadillas coming on, for sure.

And cookies? Forget it.

One thing still blows me away: We ran out of gravy. No, not ham gravy, tomato gravy. What most of the world calls tomato sauce, in Philadelphia (and New Orleans) we call gravy. I make a lot of different tomato sauces, some traditional, some not, but they’re tomato sauce. But when I make the gravy like Mamma makes, I’m makin’ gravy.

“What, you’re eating spinach?” you gasp! Yes, dumbass, I never stopped eating spinach. The spinach I’m eating was grown in Shushan, NY, and it went from the field to a crate to a truck to me. End of supply chain. There wasn’t a packing plant with migrant workers living in and around it to impregnate it with E Coli, and even though nobody likes getting something free more than me, that is one thing I’ll pass on. Do you have any idea where your food comes from? I do.

Holy christ, I love Le Creuset. I remember seeing those enormous enamelware beauties on The French Chef and Today’s Gourmet when I was a kid, wondering how much better they would cook than much of the disappointing cookware my mother had around the house. Her basic pots (from when she got married) were pretty good, but other than those 3 or 4 pieces, the cookware at our house was lacking. Assorted nonstick pieces bought at the supermarket, and crap, flimsy stainless steel inherited over the years made up the balance. Revereware was a highlight.

Now I have several Le Creuset pieces, and I know why Julia and Jacques were so wild for them. They are heavy, but lighter than their counterparts in copper, excellent conductors of heat, move effortlessly from stovetop to oven to table and are exceptionally easy to clean. Besides, you can get them in different colors. Come on.

I have a few sizes of round oven, and they’re great in a small kitchen, because they often become my second sink. The 9 quart oven was filled with soaking spinach all morning waiting to become spinach strascinata. After trimming and two changes of water, the gorgeous iron-laden spinach was ready for cooking with leeks and garlic. It all made an excellent lunch over crostini drizzled with a little extra virgin olive oil. Vinegar would perk this up, too, but wine or cider vinegar, not that root beer-like concoction you bought at the supermarket, speciously labeled as “Balsamic Vinegar.” That garbage is not worth cleaning your toilet with, and I don’t know why people buy so much of it. Even cheap wine vinegar has much more flavor, and that black-tinted garbage bears no resemblance to real balsamic vinegar anyway. If you really have to know, drop the $30 it will take to get a tiny bottle and eat it on fantastic bread or with grana.

Crostini of Spinach Strascinata
Strascinata means “dragged”, literally vegetables dragged around the pan with garlic and olive oil. You can strascinare just about any vegetable, blanching if necessary, or steaming in the pan. I tend to prefer steaming, except broccoli when it’s being served with pasta. Then, I have to wash another pot anyhow, and I like the broccoli for pasta a little softer than broccoli for a side dish or main. Mainly, it’s about not having to clean another pot.

I personally don’t think there is ever a reason to blanch spinach, unless you’re making a puree out of it. In full winter, the whole stem can be removed, since it pretty much taste like crap no matter how long you boil it, but the rest of the year, just tear away the thickest part of the stem and drag that bad boy around the pan.

Serves 4 as lunch

1 small loaf semolina bread or other Italian bread (this is an excellent use for bread that is day or two old), sliced ¾” thick, on the bias if using a narrow loaf
2 pounds fresh spinach, trimmed judiciously
3-4 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
1 medium onion, peeled and chopped (on this particular occasion, I used leek, you could use about 1 cup of any onion relative, chopped)
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, plus more for toasts
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 pinch freshly grated nutmeg¹

Preferably an hour ahead of cooking, wash the spinach in several changes of cold water, lifting the spinach out, leaving behind the dirt collected in the bottom of the sink or pan, until no dirt is left behind by the spinach. Drain in colander while you listen to All Things Considered. If you must cook the spinach immediately, spin dry half of it, or shake the water from it vigorously by the handful. The residual water will steam the leaves, but too much will make your dish soupy.

Heat a large dutch oven, with a lid, over medium high heat. I like how Julia Child always called dutch ovens “kettles.” I don’t think I can get away with it.
When the pan is hot, add the olive oil and heat for one minute. Add the onions and cook, stirring occasionally, for about five minutes, until softened. If the onions begin to brown, lower heat and cover the pan. They should soften and stay white. Season onion with salt and pepper.

Meanwhile, in a toaster oven, broiler or hot oven (450 degrees), toast the bread slices until crisp and lightly browned on both sides. Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil and, if desired, rub with a cut piece of garlic.

When onions are sufficiently soft, turn heat up to high, add garlic and stir. When garlic is fragrant and barely beginning to brown, add the spinach, season with salt and pepper and cover (if all the spinach won’t fit, relax- read on). After about thirty seconds, stir the spinach vigorously to prevent the onions from burning. If the spinach wouldn’t all fit, add the remaining spinach now. Cover and cook, stirring once or twice, until the spinach is wilted, but still green, about 2 minutes.

¹I feel like I give you the real deal when something is bullshit, so I hope you’ll believe me when I tell you this whole fresh nutmeg thing is for real. I keep a little bowl on the shelf with the spices, and in it are a teeny tiny little grater and nutmegs, LOW MAINTENANCE.

Listening: Chris Smither “Desolation Row”

Back too quickly from the mountains. There are many fantastic photos to share, but I am in the last moments of battery life, and I want to save them for dinner tonight, so you may have to wait until Monday to see them. Like the nimrod I am, I brought the connection cable for the camera, but not the battery charger.

Sheesh.

Anyway, we’re back and as well fed as can be. We hung around watching Steller’s Jays that we had set peanuts out for, learning from the neighbors that if you put out mixed bird seed, the connoisseur Jays would pick the peanuts out. I can’t blame them, they are far superior to the sunflower seeds, chaff and gravel that constitutes the rest of it. That and a hike into the woods, where we met the edge of the recent fires (a chilling fifty yards from their home) rounded out most of the afternoon, so we went inside to scrabble together some dinner.

The high holy days are upon us once again. What does this mean to me? Well, nothing, really, but it means something to the Agent and it’s an excuse to cook, so here we are. Monday was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and for some reason, you can’t eat and atone at the same time, so you fast from sundown to sundown. Afterwards, naturally, you break the fast- as soon as is humanly possible- traditionally with lots of carbs. The Agent’s experience has been that a broth type soup relaxes the contracted stomach and allows you to eat more easily after the fast. I don’t think I’ve ever gone twenty four hours without eating in my life, and I’m not about to start, so I’ll have to take his word for it.

It’s nice to be home again. I haven’t posted much because the Agent and I have been averaging about 6 bags of trash per day since I got back. Throwing out old stuff, cleaning other stuff, unpacking my stuff, etc. About half of my dishes are out and gleaming. 3/4 or so the batterie de cuisine is out and about. Next week the butcher block table arrives. The 50 bottle wine fridge is in place. It’s a rental so I’m dealing with the stove. Otherwise, life is good.

The other day, the Agent came home from work and I cooked dinner for him. It sounds easy, doesn’t it? Well, in our world it’s not. It’s not easy when you’re living with the roommate from hell who thinks the kitchen should be cleaned no less than once a year. It’s hard when I’m on the road. It’s hard when he gets done work at 6:30 and I leave for work at 6:15. It’s hard when your whole life is in boxes. But for right now, it’s easy- and it’s nice.

I have a crush on the girl from Stokes Farm. Really, she’s a woman, but in my head (like The Secret Egg Guy) she’s The Girl From Stokes Farm. I have a crush on her tomatoes, her garlic, her eggplants and her seedlings, but I have a crush on her, too.

She teases me every August with her breathtaking dark black brandywines, her saucy federles and her sexy, racing-striped green zebras. No matter what happens, I keep coming back for more.

This Summer I will have to do without her, having only just glimpsed her wares before they were really in swing. The Agent may get to enjoy her smiling gaze, without me, and I must pine.

(The Stokes Farmstand is at the Northeast corner of the Saturday Greenmarket at Union Square. The Girl from Stokes Farm is a curly-haired redhead with an enormous smile, but I don’t know her name.)

Tomato Soup with Purple Basil
A note about the photo: I hate that tablecloth. I hate it because it’s ugly, and because it makes the soup look weird. I doctored up the contrast a little bit, but I’m no expert. -JF

Tomato Soup with Purple Basil
Serves 6-8

The recipe¹ that follows is in progress, and is easily adjustable and addable and subtractable.

1 cup chopped onion, about 1 medium
2 tbsn extra-virgin olive oil
2 tbsn butter
1 small serrano chile, minced (I remove the white ribs, more on that later)
2-1/4 to 1-1/2 lbs ripe tomatoes, almost any variety, chopped. Sauce varieties (roma, federle) will make a thicker soup and, well, taste more like sauce (this isn’t necessarily a bad thing)
Salt and freshly ground black AND white pepper
up to 1 tbsn sugar, optional
1 handful purple basil leaves, torn (about 1/2 cup)
1 cup (or more) vegetable or chicken stock
6 splashes champagne vinegar, optional
6 tbsn or more sour cream, optional

Saute the onion in butter and oil over medium-low heat until translucent, stirring as needed. Do not brown. Season with salt and pepper. Add serrano chile and saute until fragrant (careful, it will wrinkle your nose, and possibly irritate it, also your eyes). Add tomatoes, juice, seeds, the whole schmear. Add salt and pepper to taste, and if the tomatoes are very acidic, add a small amount of sugar, if needed². Add the basil and stir well, add 1 cup vegetable stock and stir again.

Partially cover and adjust temperature so that tomatoes perk slowly. Simmer over low heat, stirring regularly, for 20-25 minutes, until tomatoes are more or less liquid. This might be an ideal moment to use the immersion blender (hint hint), but since I don’t have one, I can’t tell for for certain. What I can say is that a food mill with a medium blade did the perfect job, leaving in a reasonable amount of seeds, which I like. If you used the finest blade, the texture would be slightly lighter, but all the seeds would be eradicated.

Adjust the thickness of the soup with more vegetable stock, if needed, and simmer soup for a minute or two. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serve in hot bowls with a splash of champagne vinegar stirred in at the last moment and a dollop of sour cream, if desired (but why the hell wouldn’t you desire either?).

As Jacques Pepin used to say, Happy cook-EENG!

¹ As a rule, I will only post a recipe in formal recipe format if it meets one of the following two criteria: 1) it is in the testing stages, meaning measurements and cooking times can be reasonably believed, and then it will be marked as “in progress” or 2) if it is fully tested, and recipe-following-ready.

² Use it sparingly: sugar with tomatoes is one of those voodoo things that’s difficult to explain. If you just add it at the end, it doesn’t do much, but when you put it in the beginning, it reaches caramel temperatures, and although it doesn’t “caramelize” in the traditional sense, it cooks in a way you might not expect. At any rate, if you like tomatoes, it’s better to err on the acidic side; the sour cream will go a long way in your absolution.

Zucchini alla Sara

The word Siciliy, in Italian, is pronounced see-CHEEL-ya. The way people actually say it in Sicily is more like see-JEE-ya. The “L” is annunciated, but rolled, sort of like Latinate “R”s. It’s almost aspirative, but the breath doesn’t really resonate the way it does with, say “pit.” Long story short, things that are Sicilian are often referred to as “SEE-jee” by Italians and “SIH-jee” by Italian Americans. (Sometimes Sicilians will also refers to things as al isola or isolata, meaning more or less “from the island.” I think this is archaic now, however.)

By ethnic extraction, I am half Sicilian, but most of my family of that side had either died or become completely Americanized by the time I was old enough to be cognizant of such things. My real immersion in the culture happened when I got into the pizza business, and worked with three different owners and their families who were direct-from-the-mountain Sicilian, two of whom were from the same town. I worked literally thousands of hours with these families, and learned a lot about Sicily past and present from them.

Two things that I took away from cooking with them (cooking for ourselves, not for the christiani, or customers) were freedom from tomatoes (although I love them) and a deep and meaningful respect for and admiration of vegetables. I once watched my first boss’s wife, Sara, slice an enormous zucchini, the likes of which I had never seen before, and had come from her garden, salt it in a colander and weight it with cans of tomatoes, a treatment I had only ever seen for eggplant (by my mother for her absolutely ethereal eggplant parmigiana). After a few hours (the lunch rush), Sara unceremoniously dropped these limp, wet slices of squash into the deep fryer, creating a cacophony of gurgling and splattering that was the antithesis of everything I had learned to want from safe deep frying. It was magical. Once they emerged, she sauteed some garlic in olive oil and we ate the whole mess on pasta. Specifically dry spaghetti, only occasionally did we eat short pasta, and fresh pasta was infrequently seen and reserved for more refined sauces.

The zucchini slices were tranformed into mahogany-bubbled crispy-mushy pieces of heaven. They were sweet and savory and salty and greasy, in a good way. That meal has stuck with me the way few have. The way it was “Italian food,” which I had been eating all my life, but was completely alien to me, the care Sara took preparing it and the warmth with which she included me in her family’s meal.

We have kitchens in the hotel here in Greenville, SC, and I went to the “Bi-Lo” with my boss when we got here. It’s pretty unremarkable as chain supermarkets go, and it was actually kind of bizarre to be in one. The only supermarkets I ever go in in are Whole Foods or Fairway, which are by and large unlike most supermarkets (at least the Whole Foods on 24th and 7th in Manhattan). So I bought all these groceries, including the aforementioned eight-ball squash and was stranded at the hotel this morning, so I decided to cook. As a point of information, the recipe below will require about 40 packets of salt and about 5 of pepper, if you’re making it in a hotel room.

Pasta con Zucchini alla Sara
amply serves 2 for lunch, 3 if one of them is an anorexic actor

1/2 pound dry pasta, short or long (I used Barilla rotini)
1 large eight-ball squash (8-10 oz)
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil, approximately

3 or 4 cloves garlic, chopped (about 1.5 tbsn)
1/2 small serrano chile, chopped finely (about 1 tsp)
1 small tomato, diced (about 2/3 cup)

salt and pepper
grated (or chopped) hard cheese, such as sharp provolone or romano (this is an instance where the richness of parmesan cheese would be inappropriate), for sprinkling on pasta

Slice the squash in half through the stem and trim it away. If the squash is very seedy, you can scrape some of the seeds away, but try not to lose any/much flesh. Slice the squash into half-moons (or crescent moons, if you’ve seeded) and layer into a colander set over a sheet pan or plate, salting every layer thoroughly. Invert a plate over the zucchini (one of small enough diameter not to be impeded by the colander as the zucchini level lowers) and place weights on the plate, such as cans of tomatoes or gold bricks. If your arrangement is such that there is any chance of the zucchini or its juice contacting the weights, wrap them in plastic wrap just to be safe. Let this sit for at least an hour, until the zucchini are softened and the drip of moisture into the sheet pan is no longer noticeable. This will vary a lot on your squash.

Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil and add 1 tbsn salt for every 2 quarts. (I once heard someone say that it mattered whether you salted the water before or after the water boiled. That’s ludicrous. [My mother claims that the salt makes the water boil faster. There’s no scientific basis for this that I’m aware of, and informal kitchen experiments tell me this is not, in fact, true.])

Meanwhile, lay the zucchini out on paper or clean cloth towels to drain. Heat a saute pan over medium-high heat and add extra virgin olive oil until it is about 1 cm (3/8”) deep in the pan. Test the oil by dipping the corner of one zucchini slice in the oil. If it sizzles violently, it’s ready. Add the zucchini slices in a single layer, working in batches if necessary. If you end up between batches without a full pan, adjust the heat so that the oil doesn’t darken and smoke. Fry the zucchini until darkened and blistered all over its surface, about 2 minutes per side. When turning the zucchini, turn it away from you, so if the oil splatters it splatters away from you.

As you take the zucchini out of the oil, put it on a plate and grind black pepper over it (or shake your packet). Do not drain on paper towels, this zucchini-olive oil will become the sauce.

Add the pasta to the boiling water, stirring occasionally. If your stove sucks, like the one at my hotel and can’t keep the water at a vigorous boil, cover the pot about half-way. DO NOT cover it completely. Dump out the oil you’ve cooked the zucchini in (unless it is really clear and flawless) and add 2 tbsn fresh oil to the pan. Add the garlic and the chili and saute until the garlic barely begins to brown around the edges. Add the zucchini and heat through. Add the tomato, stir and take off the heat.

Cook the pasta until just barely al dente, or “to the tooth,” meaning when it has softened, but still needs to be bitten through. It should be neither crunchy nor mushy. Keep in mind the pasta will continue to cook after it has been drained.
Take some of the pasta water out of the pot with a pyrex or metal cup and reserve. Drain the pasta. With some water still clinging, add the pasta to the zucchini and toss thoroughly. If the sauce seems a little “tight” or if you like it liquid, add some pasta water. Keep in mind, however, this does not make a sauce like you might me used to. There are three autonomous components to the dish: pasta, vegetables and lingering juices.

Put the pasta in bowls and sprinkle with grated cheese. Serve immediately.

Listening: Dogs Among the Bushes by the Chieftans from the The Best of the Chieftans