2. Put the oil and onion in a saute pan, and turn on the heat to medium high. Cook and stir the onion until it becomes colored a deep gold, then put in the garlic. Stir rapidly, add the parsley, stir quickly 2 or 3 times, then put in the tomatoes with their juice. Stir to coat well, and adjust heat to cook at a steady simmer.
3. When the tomatoes have simmered for 5 minutes, add the cut-up sunchokes, salt, and pepper, turn the sunchokes over completely once or twice to coat them well, and adjust heat to cook at a very slow, intermittent simmer. Cook for about 30 to 45 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the sunchokes feel very tender when prodded with a fork.
Ahead-of-time note The dish may be cooked through to the end several hours or even a day in advance. Do not reheat more than once.
Braised Sunchokes and Scallions
For 6 servings
1 pound sunchokes
8 bunches scallions
3 tablespoons butter
Salt
Black pepper, ground fresh from the mill
1. Skin the sunchokes with a paring knife or a swiveling-blade peeler, wash them in cold water, and pat thoroughly dry with paper towels. Cut them into very thin slices, preferably no more than ¼ inch thick.
2. Trim away the scallions’ roots and any blemished leaves, but do not remove the green tops. Wash in cold water, pat dry, and make 2 short pieces out of each scallion, cutting it across in half. If some have thick bulbs, split them lengthwise in half.
3. Put the butter in a saute pan and turn on the heat to medium high. When the butter has melted and is foaming, put in the scallions, turn them to coat them well, lower the heat to medium, and add ½ cup water. Cook until all the water evaporates, turning the scallions from time to time.
4. Add the sunchoke slices, salt, and pepper, and turn them over thoroughly to coat them well. Add another ½ cup water, and cook at a steady, but gentle simmer until the water evaporates completely, turning the scallions and sunchokes from time to time. Check the sunchokes with a fork while they cook. If very fresh, they may become tender before all the water evaporates. Should this happen, turn the heat up to high and boil away the liquid quickly. If, on the other hand, the water has evaporated and they are not yet fully tender, add 2 or 3 tablespoons of water and continue cooking. In most cases, the sunchokes will be done within 20 or 25 minutes. Taste and correct for salt and serve at once.
Fried Sunchoke Chips
For 4 servings
1 pound sunchokes
Vegetable oil
Salt
1. Skin the sunchokes with a paring knife or a swiveling-blade peeler, and cut them into the thinnest possible slices. Wash them in several changes of cold water to rinse away traces of soil and some of the starch. Pat thoroughly dry with paper towels.
2. Pour enough oil in a skillet to come a little more than ¼ inch up the sides, and turn the heat on to high. When the oil is hot, slip in as many of the sunchoke slices as will fit loosely, without crowding the pan. When they become colored a nice russet brown on one side, turn them and do the other side. Transfer them with a slotted spoon or spatula to a wire cooling rack to drain or to a platter lined with paper towels. Put in the next batch and repeat the procedure until all the sunchokes are done. Sprinkle with salt and serve at once.
ASPARAGUS
How to buy The first thing to look at is the tip of the spear or the bud. It should be tightly closed and erect, not open and droopy. The hue of green asparagus should be fresh, bright, and with no hint of yellow. White asparagus should be a clear, even, creamy color. The stalk should feel firm and the overall look should be dewy. Although asparagus, like nearly everything else, is now marketed through most of the year, it is freshest in the spring, from April to early June. A thick spear of asparagus is not necessarily better than a skinny one, but it is usually more expensive. If you will be cutting up asparagus for a pasta sauce, or a risotto, or a frittata, you certainly don’t need to pay a premium for size. If you are serving the asparagus whole, however, a meatier stalk may sometimes be more satisfying.
How to keep Ideally, asparagus should go from the market into the pot, but hours or even a day may elapse during which you’ll want to keep it as fresh as possible. Bunch the asparagus if loose, and stand it with its butts in a container with 1 or 2 inches of cold water. You can store it thus in a cool place, unrefrigerated, for up to a day or a day and a half.
How to prepare for cooking All but a small woody portion at the bottom of the stalk can be made edible, if the asparagus is properly prepared. Begin by slicing off about 1 inch at the thick butt end. If you find that the end of the stalk you exposed is parched and stringy, slice off a little more until you reach a moister part. The younger the asparagus is, the less you will need to trim from the bottom.
Even though the center of the stalk is juicy and tender, the darker green fibers that surround it are not, and must be pared away. Hold the asparagus with the tip pointing toward you, and using a small, sharp knife, strip away the hard, thin, outer layer of the stalk, beginning at the base, at a depth of about 1/16th of an inch, and gradually tapering to nothing as you bring the blade up toward the narrower section of the stalk at the base of the bud. Give the stalk a slight turn and repeat the procedure until you have trimmed it all around. Then remove any small leaves sprouting below the spear’s tip.
Soak the spears for 10 minutes in a basin full of cold water, then wash in 2 or 3 changes of water.
How to cook Choose any pan that can later contain the trimmed spears lying flat. Fill with water and bring it to a boil. Add 1 tablespoon salt for every pound of asparagus, and as the water starts boiling rapidly again, put in the asparagus. Cover the pan to hasten the water’s return to a boil. When it does so, you can uncover the pan. After 10 minutes, you can begin testing the asparagus by prodding the thickest part of the stalk with a fork. It is done when easily pierced. (If very thin and exceptionally fresh, it may take a minute or two less.) Drain immediately when cooked.
Gratinéed Asparagus with Parmesan
For 4 servings
2 pounds fresh asparagus
Salt
An oven-to-table baking dish
Butter for smearing and dotting the dish
⅔ cup freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese
1. Preheat oven to 450°.
2. Trim and boil the asparagus.
3. Smear the bottom of a rectangular or oval baking dish with butter. Place the drained, boiled asparagus in the dish, laying them down side by side in partly overlapping rows, with all the buds pointing in the same direction. The tips of the spears in the top row should overlap the butt ends of the stalks in the row below. Sprinkle each row with salt and grated cheese, and dot with butter, before laying another row on top of it.
4. Bake in the uppermost rack of the preheated oven until a light, golden crust forms on top. Check after 15 minutes’ baking. After taking it out of the oven, allow to settle for a few minutes before serving.
Variation with Fried Eggs
For 4 servings
To the ingredients in the preceding recipe, add:
2 tablespoons butter
4 eggs
Salt
Black pepper, ground fresh from the mill
1. Prepare Gratinéed Asparagus with Parmesan as directed in the recipe above.
2. Take the baking dish out of the oven, and divide the asparagus into 4 portions, putting each on a warm dinner plate.
3. Put the butter in a skillet, turn on the heat to medium high, and as the butter foam begins to subside, break the eggs into the pan and sprinkle with salt. Do not put any more eggs in at one time than will fit without overlapping. If the pan cannot accommodate all of them at once, fry them in two or more batches.
4. Slide a fried egg over each portion of asparagus, then spoon juices from the baking pan over each egg. Sprinkle with pepper and serve at once.
Asparagus and Prosciutto Bundles
For 6 servings
18 choice thick spears fr
esh asparagus
½ pound Italian fontina cheese, cut into thin slices (see note below)
6 large thin slices of prosciutto
2 tablespoons butter plus more for smearing and dotting a baking dish
An oven-to-table baking dish
Note If you cannot find true imported Italian fontina, rather than substituting bland imitation fontina from other sources, use parmigiano-reggiano cheese shaved into thin, long slivers. If you do so, substitute boiled unsmoked ham for the prosciutto because both Parmesan and prosciutto are salty and the two combined might make the asparagus bundles too salty.
1. Trim and boil the asparagus, cooking it more on the firm than on the soft side.
2. Preheat oven to 400°.
3. Set aside 12 slices of fontina (or 12 long slivers of Parmesan), and divide the rest of the cheese into 6 more or less equal mounds.
4. Spread open a slice of prosciutto (or boiled ham) and on it place 3 asparagus. In between the spears fit all the cheese from one of the 6 equal mounds. Add 1 teaspoon butter, then wrap the prosciutto tightly around the asparagus spears. Proceed thus until you have made 6 prosciutto- or ham-wrapped clusters of asparagus and cheese.
5. Choose a baking dish that will contain all the bundles without overlapping. Lightly smear the bottom of the dish with butter and put in the asparagus bundles. Over each place 2 crisscrossed slices of fontina or slivers of Parmesan taken from the cheese you had earlier set aside. Dot every one of the sheaves lightly with butter and place the dish on the uppermost rack of the preheated oven. Bake for about 20 minutes, long enough for the cheese to melt and form a lightly mottled crust.
6. After taking it out of the oven, allow to settle for a few minutes before serving. When serving each bundle, baste it with some of the juices in the baking dish, and provide good, crusty bread for sopping them up.
FAVA BEANS
Until the discoverers of America came back home with beans, as well as with gold and silver, the only bean known to Europe up to then was the fava, or broad bean. Curiously, although it has been grown and consumed for close to 5,000 years, its popularity in Italy has never traveled above the south and center. Tuscans grow them by the acre and eat them by the bushel, even without cooking them, dipping them raw in coarse salt and chasing them down with pecorino, ewe’s milk cheese. But in northern Italy, most people have never had them, and would have no idea what to do with them.
When and how to buy Their season lasts from April to June, but the best beans are the earliest and youngest. When shelled, they should be the size of lima beans or only slightly larger. Bigger fava are tougher, drier, and more starchy. Look for pods that do not bulge too thickly with overgrown beans.
How to cook When cooking fresh fava beans, the best advice is, do as the Romans do. The classic Roman preparation, which in the spring you can sample in every trattoria in the city, has few peers among great bean dishes. I have never gone through a single spring without cooking it at least half a dozen times, and no food I can put on the table is ever more warmly received. In Rome, the dish is known as fave al guanciale, because the beans are cooked with pork jowl, guanciale. In the version given here, pancetta—which is far easier to find—replaces pork jowl with total success.
Fava Beans, Roman Style
For 4 servings
Pancetta in a single slice ½ inch thick
3 pounds unshelled young fresh fava beans
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons onion chopped fine
Black pepper, ground fresh from the mill
Salt
1. Unroll the pancetta and cut it into strips ¼ inch wide.
2. Shell the beans, discarding the pods. Wash the fava in cold water.
3. Put the oil and onion in a saute pan, and turn on the heat to medium. Cook and stir the onion until it becomes translucent, then add the pancetta strips. Cook for about 2 to 3 minutes, then add the beans and pepper, and stir to coat them well. Add ⅓ cup of water, adjust heat to cook at the slowest of simmers, and put a lid on the pan. If the beans are very young and fresh, they will cook in about 8 minutes, but if they are not in their prime, they may take 15 minutes or even longer. Test them with a fork from time to time. If the liquid becomes insufficient for cooking, replenish it with 3 or 4 tablespoons water. When tender, add salt, stir thoroughly, and cook another minute or two. If there should be any water left in the pan, uncover, raise the heat to high, and boil it away quickly. Serve at once, accompanied by thick slices of crusty bread.
GREEN BEANS
Spring and summer are generous with their gifts of vegetables, but none is more precious, or more characteristic of the Italian table, than young green beans at their freshest. When on a June day in Italy, you have let yourself fall in with the rhythm of an Italian meal and have had pasta, followed perhaps by scaloppine or chicken or fish, and then to the table comes a dish of still lukewarm boiled green beans, glistening with olive oil and lemon juice, you may well think, after a bite of those beans, that nothing could taste better.
There is no magic in making a dish of plain boiled beans look and taste wonderful. The quality of the olive oil is tremendously important, of course. But it really starts with the beans, how they are chosen and how they are cooked.
How to buy Although they are now available throughout the year, the ones grown locally in spring and summer are still the best. Their color should be a uniform green, either light or dark, but even, without spots or yellowing patches. Their skin should be fresh looking, almost moist, not dull. And the beans should not be a mixed lot, but all of one size, preferably not too thick. If you can, take a bean from the basket and snap it: It should snap sharply and crisply.
How to cook Beans must be cooked long enough to develop a round, nutty, sweet flavor: They should not be overcooked, but not undercooked either. When undercooked, theirs is not the taste of beans, but the raw taste of grass. When boiling beans, you must add salt to the boiling water before dropping in the beans in order to keep their color a bright green. This principle applies to all green vegetables, particularly spinach and Swiss chard. The vegetable does not become salty because virtually all the salt remains dissolved in the water.
Boiling 1 pound of green beans
• Snap both ends off the beans, then soak the beans in a basin of cold water for 10 minutes.
• Bring 4 quarts water to a boil. Add 1 tablespoon salt, which will momentarily slow down the boil. As soon as the water is boiling rapidly again, drop in the drained green beans. When the water returns again to a boil, adjust heat so that it boils at a moderate pace. Cooking times will vary depending on the youth and freshness of the beans. If very young and fresh it may take 6 or 7 minutes; if not, it may take 10 or 12 minutes or even longer. Begin tasting the beans after they have been cooking 6 minutes. Drain when firm, but tender, when they have lost their raw, vegetal taste.
Sautéed Green Beans with Parmesan Cheese
For 6 servings
1 pound fresh, crisp green beans
3 tablespoons butter
¼ cup freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese
Salt
1. Trim, soak, boil, and drain the green beans as described above.
2. Put the beans and the butter in a skillet and turn on the heat to medium. As the butter melts and begins to foam, turn the beans to coat them well. Add the grated cheese, turning over the beans thoroughly. Taste a bean and correct for salt. Turn them over once or twice again, transfer to a warm platter, and serve at once.
Smothered Green Beans with Carrot Sticks and Mortadella or Ham
For 6 servings
1 pound fresh, young green beans
3 or 4 medium carrots
Salt
¼ pound mortadella OR boiled unsmoked ham, diced into ¼-inch cubes
3 tablespoons butter
1. Trim, soak, boil, and drain the green beans. They will undergo more cooking later in the pan, so drain them when quite firm.
2. Peel the
carrots, wash them in cold water, and cut them into sticks slightly thinner than the beans.
3. Choose a saute pan that can accommodate all the ingredients without crowding them. Put in the beans, the carrots, salt, the diced mortadella or ham, and the butter. Turn on the heat to medium and cook, turning the beans and carrots over frequently to coat them well. When the butter begins to foam, cover the pan. Cook until the carrots are just tender, checking after 5 to 6 minutes, and turning them and the beans from time to time. Taste and correct for salt and serve promptly.
Green Beans and Potato Pie, Genoa Style
NOWHERE IN ITALY is the cooking of vegetables raised to greater heights than it is on the Genoese coast. The fragrance and the satisfying depth of flavor that characterize that cuisine is well represented by this savory pie that combines green beans with potatoes, marjoram, and Parmesan. It’s a dish that will fit into any menu scheme, as an appetizer, a vegetable side dish, a light summer luncheon course, or as part of a buffet table.
For 6 servings
½ pound boiling potatoes
1 pound fresh green beans
2 eggs
1 cup freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese
Salt
Black pepper, ground fresh from the mill Chopped marjoram, 2 teaspoons if fresh, 1 teaspoon if dried
A 9-inch round cake pan
Extra virgin olive oil
Unflavored bread crumbs, lightly toasted
Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking Page 52