1. Soak and clean the zucchini as directed, slice off both ends, and cut each zucchini into 2 shorter pieces. Using a vegetable corer, or the blade of a peeler, or any narrow enough sharp tool, hollow out the zucchini pieces, taking care not to pierce the sides. Keep the thinned-out wall of the zucchini at least ¼ inch thick. The scooped out flesh is not needed in this recipe, but you can use it in a risotto or a frittata.
2. Choose a saute pan that can subsequently accommodate all the zucchini pieces snugly, but without overlapping. Put in the onion and the oil, turn on the heat to medium low, and cook, stirring, until the onion wilts and becomes tender. Add the parsley, stir 2 or 3 times, then add the diluted tomato paste, turning it thoroughly with the onions, and continue cooking for 15 more minutes.
3. At the same time, put the milk in a small saucepan, warm it without bringing it to a boil, mash the bread into it, and set aside to cool.
4. Put the ground beef, the egg, the grated Parmesan, the chopped prosciutto or ham, the bread and milk mush, salt, and pepper into a bowl, and knead with your hands until you obtain an evenly blended mixture.
5. Stuff the mixture into the hollowed-out zucchini, packing it tightly, but being careful not to split the vegetable’s fragile walls. Put the stuffed zucchini into the pan with the onion and tomato, cover, and cook at medium low heat until the zucchini are tender, about 40 minutes, depending on their youth and freshness. Turn them over from time to time while cooking.
6. When done, if the juices in the pan are watery, uncover, raise the heat to high, and boil them down. Taste and correct for salt. Turn the zucchini once or twice, transfer the contents of the pan to a serving platter, and allow to settle for a few minutes before bringing to the table.
Ahead-of-time note Here is one of those dishes that has nothing to gain from being served the moment it’s done. Its flavor improves when it is served several hours or even a day later. Reheat it gently in a covered pan, and serve warm, but not steaming hot.
Female and Male zucchini blossoms
Crisp-Fried Zucchini Blossoms
THE LUSCIOUS orange-yellow blossoms of zucchini are very perishable, so you are likely to find them only in those markets that handle local, seasonal produce. There are both male and female blossoms, and only the male, those on a stem, are good to eat. The female blossoms, attached to the zucchini, are mushy and don’t taste good.
For 4 to 6 servings
1 dozen male zucchini blossoms
Vegetable oil
The flour and water batter, pastella
Salt
1. Wash the blossoms rapidly under cold running water without letting them soak. Pat them gently but thoroughly dry with soft cloth or paper towels. If the stems are very long, cut them down to 1 inch. Make a cut on one side of each blossom’s base to open the flower flat, butterfly fashion.
2. Pour enough oil in a frying pan to come ¾ inch up its sides, and turn on the heat to high. When the oil is very hot, use the blossoms’ stems to dip them quickly in and out of the batter, and slip them into the skillet. Put in only as many as will fit very loosely. When they have formed a golden brown crust on one side, turn them and do the other side. Transfer to a cooling rack to drain or to a platter lined with paper towels, using a slotted spoon or spatula. If any blossoms remain to be done, repeat the procedure. When they are all done, sprinkle with salt, and serve immediately.
Mixed Baked Vegetable Platter
For 6 servings
4 medium round, waxy, boiling potatoes
3 sweet bell peppers, preferably yellow
3 fresh, firm, ripe, round OR 6 plum tomatoes
4 medium yellow onions
A shallow baking dish
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
Salt
Black pepper, ground fresh from the mill
1. Preheat oven to 400°.
2. Peel the potatoes, cut them into 1-inch wedges, wash them in cold water, and pat dry with cloth towels.
3. Cut the peppers along their folds into lengthwise sections. Scrape away and discard the pulpy core with all the seeds. Skin the peppers, using a peeler with a swiveling blade.
4. If using round tomatoes, cut them into 6 to 8 wedge-shaped sections; if using plum tomatoes, cut them lengthwise in two.
5. Peel the onions and cut each one into 4 wedge-shaped sections.
6. Wash all the vegetables, except for the onions and the already washed potatoes, in cold water, and drain well.
7. Put the potatoes and all the vegetables into the baking dish. They should not be too snugly packed or they will steep in their own vapors and become soggy. Add the oil, salt, and several grindings of pepper, and toss once or twice. Place the dish in the upper third of the preheated oven. Turn the vegetables over every 10 minutes or so. The dish is done when the potatoes become tender, in about 25 to 30 minutes. If after 20 minutes you find that the tomatoes have shed a lot of liquid, turn up the oven to 450° or higher for the remaining cooking time. Do not be concerned if some of the vegetables become slightly charred at the edges. It is quite all right and even desirable.
8. When done, transfer the vegetables to a warm platter, using a slotted spoon or spatula to drain them of oil. Scrape loose any bits stuck to the sides or bottom of the baking dish and add them to the platter, for they are choice morsels. Serve at once.
Charcoal-Grilled Vegetables
PLEASE READ this recipe through before you begin to cook. You will find that at any one time you may be handling several vegetables at different stages of their cooking. It is not at all a daunting procedure, it can be, in fact, rather a lot of fun to do, but it will all go much more smoothly if you first get a sense of its rhythm.
For 4 to 6 servings
2 fresh, glossy, medium zucchini
1 large flat Spanish onion
Salt
2 sweet yellow or red bell peppers
2 fresh, ripe, firm, large round tomatoes
1 medium eggplant
2 heads Belgian endive
Extra virgin olive oil
Crushed black peppercorns
1 teaspoon chopped parsley
⅛ teaspoon chopped garlic
½ teaspoon unflavored bread crumbs, lightly toasted
A charcoal-fired grill or gas-fired lava rocks
A pair of tongs
1. Soak the zucchini in cold water for 20 minutes, then wash them in several changes of water, rubbing their skins clean. Slice off both ends and cut the zucchini lengthwise into slices less than ½ inch thick.
2. Cut the onion in half at its middle, and score the cut sides in a cross-hatch pattern, stopping well short of the skin. Do not remove the flaky outer skin or cut off the onion’s point or root. Sprinkle the cut sides with salt.
3. Wash the peppers in cold water, keeping them whole.
4. Wash the tomatoes in cold water and divide them in two at their middle.
5. Wash the eggplant in cold water. Trim away its green top. Cut the eggplant lengthwise in two, and make shallow cross-hatched cuts on both cut sides, staying well short of the skin. Rub salt liberally into the cuts.
6. Split the endive heads lengthwise in two. Make 2 or 3 deep cuts at their base.
7. Light the charcoal or turn the gas-fired grill on to very hot.
8. When the coals have begun to form white ash, or the lava rocks are very hot, put the onion, cut side down, on the grill. Place the peppers alongside. Check the peppers after a few minutes; when the skin facing the fire is charred and the peppers begin to shrink, turn them with the tongs, bringing them closer together to make room for other vegetables as described below. Continue turning the peppers each time the skin facing the fire becomes charred, eventually standing them on end. When they are charred all over, put them into a plastic bag, twisting it tightly closed.
9. While cooking the peppers, check the onion. When the side facing the fire becomes charred, turn it over with a spatula, being careful not to separate any of the rings. Coat the charred side with olive o
il, working it in between the cuts, and sprinkle with salt. Let the onion cook another 15 or 20 minutes, when it should feel tender, but firm when prodded with a fork. Remove its charred, outer skin, put the onion on the serving platter that will hold all the vegetables, cut each half into 4 parts, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with cracked black pepper.
10. When you first turn the peppers and draw them closer together, use the space you made available on the grill for the tomatoes, placing them cut side facing down. Check them after a few minutes, and if they are already slightly charred, turn them over. Season each half with olive oil, salt, and some of the parsley, garlic, and bread crumbs. You needn’t do anything else about the tomatoes until they have shrunk to nearly half their original size. Then transfer them to the serving platter.
11. When you put on the tomatoes also put the eggplant on the grill, its scored side facing the fire. Let that side become colored a light brown, then turn it over. Brush generously with olive oil, working the oil in between the cuts. You should soon see the oil begin to simmer. From time to time, drizzle a few drops of oil into the cuts. When the eggplant flesh feels creamy at the point of a fork, it is done. Transfer it to the serving platter.
12. At the same time that you put the eggplant on the grill, put on the endive, cut side facing down. If there is no room, put it on as soon as some opens up. When the cut side of the endive becomes lightly charred, but not deeply blackened, turn it over. Sprinkle with salt, and brush it generously with olive oil, working it in between the leaves. You need do nothing else with the endive except test it from time to time with a fork. When it feels very, very tender, transfer it to the platter.
13. When you see that the eggplant is nearly done, and you have room on the grill, put on the sliced zucchini. These easily become burned, so you have to watch them. The moment the side facing the fire becomes mottled with brown spots, turn it over, and when the other side becomes similarly pockmarked, transfer it to the platter. Season immediately with salt, cracked black pepper, and olive oil.
14. By now, the peppers you’ve put in the plastic bag should be ready to be peeled. Take them out of the bag and have plenty of paper towels available for your hands, because the peppers will be very moist. Pull off all the charred skin, split the peppers open, remove the pulpy core with all its seeds, and add the peppers to the platter. Season with salt and a little olive oil.
Ahead-of-time note All the grilled vegetables are good at room temperature or the temperature of a warm day outdoors. They can be cooked, therefore, before whatever meat or fish you are planning to do on the grill.
SALADS
The salad course The literal meaning of the Italian for a salad—un’insalata—is “that to which salt has been added,” but the word also enjoys popular metaphorical usage, applied disparagingly when describing, for example, an interior decor or a set of thoughts that appears to be rather mixed up. Then there is L’insalata, which specifically refers to the salad course, a course with a clearly defined role in an Italian meal’s classic sequence. L’insalata is served invariably after the second course to signal the approaching end of the meal. It releases the palate from the grip of the cook’s fabrications, leading it to cool, fresh sensations, to a rediscovery of food in its least labored state.
The principal, and usually only components of the salad course, are vegetables and greens, either raw or boiled, on their own or combined. The choice changes as the season does: raw finocchio or shredded Savoy cabbage or boiled broccoli in fall and winter; in the spring, boiled asparagus and green beans, followed by zucchini or new potatoes; in the fullness of summer, raw ingredients prevail, with tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, lettuces, and an assortment of small greens. The broadened availability of many vegetables through much of the year has, of course, blurred some of the seasonal distinctions, but we still want the salad course to speak to us of the season that produced its components.
There are certainly a great many other kinds of salads, such as rice and chicken salads, rice and shellfish, tuna and beans, or any number of dishes that contain cold meats, fish, or chicken mixed with legumes or with raw or cooked vegetables. Such salads may be served as an appetizer, as a first course instead of pasta or risotto, as the principal course of a light meal, or as part of a buffet table. In fact, they may be served as anything except as L’insalata, the salad course.
Dressing the salad course Italian dressing is extra virgin olive oil, salt, and wine vinegar.
Many variations on the same proverb give us the formula for a perfectly seasoned salad. One version says, for a good salad you need four persons: A judicious one for the salt, a prodigal one for the olive oil, a stingy one for the vinegar, and a patient one to toss it. Olive oil is the dominant ingredient, and a properly made salad ought not to taste shy of it. Italians will never say, when savoring a well-tossed salad, “What a wonderful dressing!” They do say, “What marvelous oil!”
When washed raw greens go into a salad, they must first be shaken thoroughly dry because the water that clings to them dilutes the dressing. Salad spinners do the job, or you can wrap the greens in a large towel, gather all four corners of the towel in one hand, and give the towel several abrupt shakes over a sink.
The salad course is dressed at the table when ready to serve; it is never done ahead of time. The salad for the whole table should be in a single large bowl, with ample room in it for all the vegetables to move completely around when tossed. The components of the dressing are never mixed in advance, they are poured separately onto the salad.
First put in the salt and bear in mind that judiciousness does not mean very little salt, it means neither too much nor too little. Give the salad one quick toss to distribute the salt and begin to dissolve it, then pour in the oil liberally. From observation, I have found people outside Italy never use sufficient oil. There should be enough of it to produce a gloss on the surface of the vegetables. Add the vinegar last, just the few drops necessary to impart aroma, and never more than one skimpy part vinegar to three heaping parts oil. A little vinegar is sufficient to be noticed, a little too much monopolizes all your attention to the disadvantage of every other ingredient. Also bear in mind that the acid of vinegar, like that of lemon, “cooks” a salad, which explains why the oil is poured first, to protect the greens. As soon as you put in the vinegar, begin to toss. The more thoroughly a salad is tossed, and the more uniformly the salt, oil, and vinegar are distributed over every leaf and every vegetable, the better it will taste. Toss gently, turning the greens over delicately, to avoid bruising and blackening them.
Other seasonings Freshly squeezed lemon juice is an occasional, agreeable substitute for vinegar. It is excellent on cooked salads, such as boiled Swiss chard, which are then described as all’agro, in the tart style. Lemon is also welcome on carrots shredded very fine, or in summer on tomatoes and cucumbers.
Garlic can be exciting when you turn to it sporadically, on impulse, but on a regular basis, it is tiresome. Its presence should be an offstage one, as in the Shredded Savoy Cabbage Salad, or in the tomatoes in this recipe.
Pepper is not common. It was probably too expensive a spice originally to become part of a humble, everyday dish like salad. But if you like it, there is certainly a place for it in Italian salads, as long as it is black pepper, because it has a more complete aroma than the white.
Balsamic vinegar, however unfamiliar it may have been until recently to other Italians, has been used in Modena for centuries to lift the flavor of the basic salad dressing. But the Modenese have never used it every day, and neither would I. Its sweetness and its dense fragrance are qualities that can be called upon, from time to time, to amaze the tastebuds, but call on them too often and they become cloying. When dressing a salad, balsamic vinegar is used to enrich regular wine vinegar, not to replace it.
Either basil or parsley will do most salads some good. The uses of mint, like those of marjoram and oregano, are more limited, as the recipes in this chapter will illustrate.
Sliced onion quickens the flavor of most raw salads, particularly those with tomatoes. To blunt its sharp bite, the onion must be subjected to the following procedure, beginning 30 minutes or more before preparing the other ingredients of the salad:
• Peel the onion, slice it into very thin rings, put it in a bowl, and cover amply with cold water.
• Squeeze the rings in your hand for 2 or 3 seconds, closing your hand tightly and letting go for seven or eight times. The acid you squeeze out of the onion will make the water slightly milky.
• Retrieve the onion rings with a colander scoop or strainer, pour the water out of the bowl, put fresh water in. Put the onion back into the bowl and repeat the above procedure 2 or 3 more times.
• After squeezing the onion for the last time, change the water again and put the onion in to soak. Drain and replace with a fresh change of water every 10 minutes, until you are ready to make the salad.
• Before putting the onion into the salad bowl, gather it tightly in a towel and squeeze out all the moisture you can.
La Grande Insalata Mista—Great Mixed Raw Salad
For 8 servings
½ medium onion, preferably of a sweet variety, such as Bermuda red, Vidalia, or Maui, sliced and soaked as described, OR 3 or 4 scallions
2 small carrots
1 squat, round finocchio
½ yellow or red sweet bell pepper
1 celery heart
½ head curly chicory, Boston lettuce, or escarole, OR 1 whole head Bibb lettuce
½ small bunch mâche or field lettuce
½ small bunch arugula
1 medium artichoke ½ lemon
2 fresh, ripe, firm, medium round tomatoes
Salt
Extra virgin olive oil
Choice quality red wine vinegar
Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking Page 60