Murder and Marinara: An Italian Kitchen Mystery (Italian Kitchen Mysteries)

by Genova, Rosie

  I wanted my fictional world to be a Jersey Shore that was untouched by the ravages of Sandy, a place where readers could find escape in descriptions of the beach and boardwalk. I wanted to present a picture of the Jersey Shore that I, and so many of us, remember and hold precious.

  I also worried it might be insensitive to fictionalize an event that had such a drastic impact on so many lives. As of this writing, many people in shore towns remain homeless, businesses are still shut down, and thousands of residents are struggling to put their lives back on track. Perhaps I will include a hurricane in a later book in the series, but only at a respectful distance from an event that shook us all to the core.

  To support rebuilding efforts along the Jersey Shore, please consider a donation to www.restoretheshore.com.

  Recipes from the

  Italian Kitchen

  Vic’s nonna makes her marinara with peeled and seeded tomatoes she puts up herself each August, as does my brother, who’s an awesome cook. My version takes a couple of shortcuts and can be served either chunky or smooth. (I don’t bother with peeling and seeding. Don’t tell Nonna. Or my brother.) My sauce takes only about an hour from prep to table and requires just a knife and a cutting board. In the summer, I make it with any kind of tomatoes my gardener friends are kind enough to share—plum, beefsteak, even cherry. Out of season, plum tomatoes will give you the closest approximation of that garden taste. Make this once, and you’ll never open another jar!

  Rosie’s Quick Marinara Sauce

  10–12 fresh basil leaves, snipped into small ribbons

  2 large cloves of garlic

  2–3 lbs. fresh plum tomatoes (about a dozen)

  ¼ cup of chopped fresh parsley

  2 tbs. extra-virgin olive oil

  Salt and pepper, to taste

  1. Prep fresh herbs and set aside.

  2. Using the side of your knife, bruise the garlic cloves so that the peel slides off easily. Slice off the stem ends and cut cloves long ways; remove the “sprout.” Chop garlic roughly and set aside.

  3. In a 4-qt. heavy-bottomed pot, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add garlic and stir so that pieces are coated in oil. Watch them carefully—once they start to sizzle, turn off the heat. The garlic will continue to cook in the hot oil without burning.

  4. Slice off stem ends of tomatoes and cut into large dice. Turn heat back on to medium high and add chopped tomatoes to garlic and oil. As tomatoes start to soften, stir to coat them in oil and their own juices. Press on tomato chunks with the back of your spoon. Add herbs and stir until well blended.

  5. Allow tomatoes to cook, uncovered, at medium high until mixture comes to a moderate boil (about ten minutes or so). Smoosh tomatoes again, turn heat down to low and cover the pot. Simmer the mixture for 30–35 minutes.

  6. Turn off the heat and season with salt and pepper. (I use about two teaspoons of salt and about 10 twists of the pepper mill, but I have a heavy hand with both. Go light and taste first!) Continue pressing tomatoes with spoon until preferred consistency.

  7. If you like a chunky sauce, you’re good to go. But if you like a smoother sauce and have the time, allow the mixture to cool, uncovered, for at least 20 minutes. Pour into food processor and pulse until the tomatoes lighten and consistency is smooth. Put back into pot and heat gently for about 10 minutes.

  I generally don’t follow a recipe when I make pesto, so the measurements below are only guidelines. Depending upon whether you prefer your pesto herby, cheesy, or nutty, feel free to play around with the proportions. Use more oil for a thinner paste and less for a thicker one. For a milder pesto, substitute pignoli nuts for the walnuts and parmesan for the Pecorino Romano.

  Tim’s Basil Walnut Pesto

  ½ cup of walnuts, lightly toasted ½ cup of extra-virgin olive oil

  2 cloves of garlic

  2 cups of fresh basil leaves

  ½ cup freshly grated Pecorino Romano cheese

  Freshly grated pepper and salt, to taste

  1. In a shallow skillet, toast the walnuts quickly over medium heat. Turn off the heat as they become golden brown and fragrant—don’t scorch them.

  2. Set nuts aside to cool. Use about ¼ cup of the olive oil and pour into the same pan; heat the oil over a medium flame. Peel garlic cloves, slice long ways and remove the green sprout. Drop garlic pieces into the hot oil. Once small bubbles form, turn off the heat and tip the pan so that cloves are completely coated in oil. They will continue cooking in hot oil without burning; set them aside.

  3. In a food processor, pulse the basil leaves, the nuts, the garlic, and the oil from the pan until mixture is smooth. With processor running, slowly add the rest of the oil until the desired consistency. Add the grated cheese. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

  Think of a frittata as an Italian quiche without the buttery crust (and the extra calories). This supersized omelet can accommodate any number of vegetable/meat/cheese combinations and works for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. In my family, no frittata is complete without the addition of flavored bread crumbs for a crispy topping. This version is similar to the one served in the Casa Lido.

  Chef Massimo’s Frittata with Arugula

  1–2 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil

  1 quarter of a Vidalia onion, thinly sliced

  5 ounces of baby arugula

  8 large eggs

  ¼ lb. of Fontina cheese, cut into ½ inch cubes

  ½ teaspoon of salt

  ¼ teaspoon of black pepper

  Italian-flavored bread crumbs for topping

  1. Preheat oven to 350°

  2. Heat oil in a well-seasoned 10-inch cast-iron pan or other heavy ovenproof skillet. Cook the onion over medium heat, separating it into ribbons, until nicely browned. Add arugula and cook, stirring frequently until wilted, for about 1–2 minutes.

  3. Whisk together the eggs, cheese, salt, and pepper until frothy. Pour over arugula and onions in skillet and cook over medium heat without stirring until almost set, for about 5–6 minutes.

  4. Remove from heat and sprinkle flavored bread crumbs over the top. Bake for 15–20 minutes until edges are golden brown and center is set.

  Read on for a sneak peek

  at the next Italian Kitchen Mystery,

  The Wedding Soup Murder

  Coming in summer 2014 from Obsidian.

  “What are you doing in here, Vic?” The deep, familiar tones of my ex’s voice still had the power to set my heart pounding. But I didn’t look up.

  “What does it look like I’m doing, Tim?” I released the scoop, gently dropping the thirteenth meatball onto the sheet pan. That left a mere 987 to go. At the rate I was going, I’d be spending my thirty-fourth birthday in the Casa Lido kitchen, still scooping ground meat from this bottomless aluminum bowl.

  He stood with his hands on his hips, frowning. “Who said you could make the meatballs?”

  “I’m not making them.” I tried to keep the impatience out of my tone. “I’m forming them.” I held up the scoop, covered in flecks of raw meat. “Nando mixed them up.”

  “Good.” Tim strode over to the stockpots, lifted the lid of the nearest one, and sniffed. Then he stuck a spoon into it, blew on it, slurped its contents noisily, and nodded. He pointed the spoon at me. “You didn’t make this stock.”

  I slammed the scoop down on the worktable. “No, I didn’t make the stock. My grandmother started it and Nando finished it.” I gestured to the slow simmering pots. “But it will probably be my job to pick every piece of edible chicken from those bones, right after I finish making—sorry, forming—a thousand tiny meatballs for the Wedding Soup.” I imagined tray after tray of meatballs, lined up until the crack of doom, and shook my head. “It’s like some mythological punishment Nonna dreamed up.”

  “You wanted to learn the business.” His voice was terse. “That’s why you came back, wasn’t it? I mean, it sure wasn’t for me.”

  I tried to concentrate on the task in front of me. I had
to make these quickly, while the meat was still cold. Aside from health reasons, if the ground beef, pork, and veal mixture sat out too long, I’d get misshapen polpetti. And then there would be hell to pay, extracted by my eightyish, but still formidable, grandmother.

  But even fear of my nonna wasn’t enough to take my mind from Tim’s powerful presence a few feet from my elbow. I’d come back to Oceanside Park to learn the family business and research a new book, a departure from my mystery series. Instead, I’d stumbled into a murder and briefly back into Tim’s arms. But my role in its outcome had left him furious with me. I glanced up and met his cold gray stare.

  “Yes,” I said, “that’s why I came back.” It was only a partial truth, and we both knew it. I’ve been in love with Tim Trouvare for more than half my life, and trying to push away those feelings was about as easy as fighting a riptide. “Look, Tim, I’m sorry about the way things turned out in May. But it could have been much worse.”

  “Right,” he said. “I could have been arrested for murder.”

  “Can’t we just get past this?”

  “Oh, I’m past it, sweetheart.” He patted me on the shoulder, and I jumped. “I’m past it all.” And with that, he swept through the kitchen’s swinging door.

  “Ohhhh-kay.” I stuck the scoop back into the meat and tried to concentrate on the task at hand. I could only work in two-hour intervals, as Nonna was strict about how long the meat could stay unrefrigerated. I looked down at the raw mixture, catching whiffs of fresh parsley and garlic. Once the stock was skimmed and strained, it would be brought to a simmer, and the polpetti would be quickly dropped in to cook. But that was only the last step of the process. There was still the escarole to be cleaned and blanched, another job that would likely fall to me. And the whole thing had to be done in stages. I dropped another meatball onto the sheet pan and counted. Again.

  As a favor to an old friend of my dad’s, we’d agreed to make our special Wedding Soup for his daughter’s reception. With two hundred guests, we needed God knows how many gallons of soup. My grandmother had specified five meatballs per bowl—hence the thousand count. But while we could make the stock ahead of time, we needed to complete the last steps at the reception just before serving. That meant making up all the meatballs and freezing them. Prepping the stock and greens. And transporting all of it to the Belmont Beach Country Club a couple of hours before the service. And Nonna had put me in charge.

  “You wanted more responsibility,” she’d said with a shrug. “So now you’re responsible.”

  “But, Nonna,” I told her, “Belmont probably has its own staff. But you know Chef Massimo—he’ll want to oversee the prep and service. And we’ll never keep Tim out of there. How will we do this with two kitchen staffs butting heads?” The panic rose in me as I imagined all those culinary egos clashing in one small space. “Can’t we just make it here and drop it off?”

  “No.” She crossed her arms, frowning over the top of her glasses. “The polpetti and greens must be cooked just before service.” She shook a knobby finger at me. “Not one moment sooner.”

  I could still hear her voice in my ears as I shook out the last tiny meatball. At fifty per tray, I’d need twenty sheet pans. Each would have to be double-wrapped in plastic and set carefully into the freezer. How would we get it all there? How many trips in my little Honda would it take? Not to mention the soup itself—how would we transport all those gallons of chicken stock down Ocean Avenue?

  “Good Lord,” I said, staring down at the tray of tiny pink spheres. “How did I get myself into this? If I never see another meatball again, it will be too soon.”

  But as it turned out, meatballs were the least of my troubles.

  • • •

  “Now, darling,” my mom said, fluttering around me in the Casa Lido kitchen like a stiletto-wearing butterfly. “When you go over there, make sure you clear everything with Elizabeth Merriman. She’s very particular about how things are done.” Mom smoothed the collar of my cotton blouse. “Would you like me to give this a quick press before you go? It is the Belmont Beach Country Club, after all.”

  I looked into my mother’s freshly bronzed face. Her long curls, now a purple-tinted auburn, brushed her shoulders, bared slightly by her lime green boat-neck top. The combination of colors was blinding. “Mom, I’m fine. I’ll be spending most of my time in a hot kitchen. Once that soup is made and served, I’ll be hightailing it out of there.”

  “No, you won’t.” Like an avenging ghost, my grandmother materialized out of nowhere, pronouncing her words with a finality that sealed my fate. And whatever it was, it wouldn’t be pleasant. But it was a price I was willing to pay. I’d even left my apartment in Manhattan to come back to the Jersey Shore so I could spend a year learning about our restaurant business. But thus far, things hadn’t quite turned out as I’d planned.

  “You will stay until the end of the reception,” Nonna said, setting a tray of cookies down on the butcher-block worktable. I stared at the pale, plump pillows with golden brown edges, each perfectly formed. The licorice scent of anise wafted upward, pulling my hand toward the tray like a magnet. And then the sound of my grandmother’s slap resounded across the kitchen.

  “Hey!” I rubbed the back of my hand. “Why can’t I have one? You know your ricotta cookies are my favorites.”

  “They are for the reception. You’ll put these out on the dessert table.” She crossed her arms, pressing her lips together in a tight red line of warning. It was a line I knew better than to cross.

  Waiting for the dessert service meant I’d be stuck at that wedding all night. I’d hoped to be back at my cottage and at my computer by seven to put in a couple of hours of work on my novel.

  “But why?” I wailed, sounding like the ten-year-old who’d helped my grandmother set tables in the restaurant more than two decades ago. “Aren’t they having some overloaded Venetian table filled with cannoli and eclairs and napoleons? Do they really need more cookies?” The second the words dropped from my mouth, I realized how foolish they were. This was an Italian wedding, after all. We always need more cookies. Then a sense of dread overcame me like fog over the ocean. “Nonna,” I said slowly, “these aren’t iced.”

  “Of course they aren’t. You’ll ice and decorate them two hours before service, not a minute before or after.” She produced a plastic container of what looked like silver BBs. “One teaspoon of icing per cookie and three nonpareils on top. No more, no less.”

  My mouth gaped open like one of my brother Danny’s fresh-caught tuna. “I . . . but . . .”

  “‘But’ nothing, Victoria.” Nonna glared at me from behind her bifocals. I turned an imploring look upon my mother.

  “Now, Mama,” my mom said. “We can prep these ahead, don’t you think?”

  Nonna turned her stony gaze on my mom, who despite forty years’ acquaintance with her mother-in-law, still flinched. “Nic-o-lina.” My grandmother pronounced each syllable separately and crisply, a sure sign of danger. “The Casa Lido has a reputation to uphold,” she said. “I will not be sending out dry cookies that are imperfectly iced.” Nonna trained her laser beam stare back on me. “Especially after what happened in May.”

  St. Francis, give me patience, I prayed. “Nonna,” I said gently, “what happened in May was no one’s fault.” But I knew that on some level, she held me responsible. “And we’ve recovered.”

  “Thank God,” my mom said. “In any case, Mama, can you really expect Victoria to make all that icing as well as oversee the soup service at the club? It seems like an awful lot to ask.”

  “No. Tim will make the icing.” My grandmother’s tight lips curved into either a smile or a sneer. With her it was hard to tell. But Tim had been in her bad graces ever since that little mishap in the pantry, and this was her version of revenge. Tim saw himself as an up-and-coming chef de cuisine, not an assistant baker. It was bad enough we’d have to work together all night, but now he’d be in a fouler mood than usual.

>   I exchanged a look with my mom, who gave a small shake of her auburn extensions that spelled it out for me: Give it up.

  “Okay,” I said. “So fill me in on how all this is going to work.”

  My grandmother rested her palms on the worktable in a war room pose. Any minute now she’d get out a wall map and pushpins. “All right,” she said. “The polpetti will remain in the freezer until the moment we are ready to load the van. The stockpots are sealed. The escarole is prepped. Both are in the walk-in. Nando will load the van and drive; Chef Massimo will follow. You will take Tim in your car.”

  Just what I needed. Forty minutes alone in the car with my ex-boyfriend.

  “And when we get there?”

  “By all the saints, have we not gone over this?” My grandmother shook her head at my obtuseness. “ You set the stock to simmer, adding the greens in bunches. At the very last, you add the polpetti, and you cook them only until they are no longer pink inside. Understand?” She spread her fingers wide. “And when you plate, only five meatballs per bowl. As for the cookies—”

  “I know: Ice before service and only three silver balls per cookie. I get it.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me. “Remember that you are representing the Casa Lido, Victoria.”

  “I will, Nonna. Speaking of which, what about our service here tonight?”

  “Nando will drive back for prep, and Massimo will return after the soup is served at the reception. You and Tim will stay for the dessert service and bring back our stockpots.”

  “I probably have to wash them, too,” I muttered.

  “What was that, Victoria?” my grandmother asked sharply.