A Thousand Days in Venice (28 page)

Yield:
4 Servings

I was never able to convince the stranger about the merits of the iced yellow tomato soup adorned with a pair of grilled, anise-perfumed prawns that I made for our first supper in the apartment. Dishes like that seemed then and seem still too precious to him. But each time I set down this traditional Tuscan porridge of fresh, ripe tomatoes stewed with yesterday's bread and wine and olive oil, he sings this childhood folksong:
“Viva la pappa col pomodoro, viva la pappa che è un capolavoro.”
Freely translated it rings out: “Long live porridge with tomatoes, long live porridge that's a work of art.” When I sing it to my tomato man in our market, he sings, too, always telling me how he and his brothers yearned for this dish during the long, hungry days of the Second World War.

¾ cup extra-virgin olive oil

4 fat cloves garlic, peeled, crushed, and minced

1 large yellow onion, peeled and minced

4 large, very ripe tomatoes, peeled, seeds removed, and chopped (or two l-pound cans of plum tomatoes, lightly crushed with their juices)

6 cups good beef broth, preferably homemade or 6 cups water (do not use chicken stock)

1 cup white wine

fine sea salt and just-cracked pepper

2½ cups coarse-textured, crustless bread, torn into ½-inch pieces

1 cup just-grated pecorino cheese (optional)

⅓ cup basil leaves, torn (not cut)

½ teaspoon good red wine vinegar

In a large soup pot, warm the olive oil and sauté the garlic and onion until they're translucent; add the tomatoes, broth or water, wine, salt, and pepper and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the bread and simmer for another 2 minutes. Remove the pot from the stove, and add the pecorino and basil, stirring to combine the elements. Let the porridge rest for at least an hour. Stir in the vinegar and serve at room temperature (or reheat to tepid or warm), in deep soup plates with a drizzle of good, green olive oil. Refrigeration absolutely destroys the porridge's pure flavor.

Yield:
6 servings

When I saw the stranger nonchalantly licking his fingers after polishing off a lush little skewer like this one, I knew I'd chipped away at his long-standing indifference to supper.

If you're planning to serve this as picnic fare, leave the skewers intact. Allow the skewers to cool slightly; then place them in a heavy brown bag lined with branches of rosemary and leaves of sage; close the bag tightly and place it in a deep bowl to catch the juices that are bound to escape. As the quail and sausage cool, they will take on the perfume of the herbs and become even more delicious, eaten at room temperature, than they are just off the grill. Let each person deal with his or her own skewers while you pass the liver paste (see below), the wine, and napkins.

12 farm-raised quail, cleaned, rinsed, dried, salted and peppered, and stuffed with several leaves of fresh sage, a few rosemary leaves, and half a fresh black or green fig (reserve the livers for paste)

12 thin slices of pancetta

12 2-inch slices of fennel-scented sausage (or other Italian-style, sweet sausage) poached for 5 minutes in simmering water and drained

12 1-inch-thick slices of coarse-textured bread

½ cup white wine

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 shallots, peeled and minced

the reserved quail livers plus 3 ounces chicken livers, trimmed and chopped

2 tablespoons Vin Santo or other sweet wine

½ teaspoon ground allspice

sea salt and just-cracked pepper

Wrap each quail in a slice of pancetta, securing it with a wooden pick; thread the quail onto 6 skewers, alternating with slices of bread and sausage. Grill the skewers in the oven over a pan to catch their drippings; baste with white wine, giving each skewer a quarter turn every 3–4 minutes. Continue the basting and rotating until the quail are golden and the sausage crisp (18–20 minutes in all). Meanwhile warm the butter in a small pan and sauté the shallots until translucent; add the chopped livers and sauté for 3 minutes until they are colored outside but still pink inside; add the Vin Santo, allspice, salt, and pepper and sauté another minute, mashing the mixture to a coarse paste. (This paste can be made in greater quantities, using all chicken livers or a combination of the livers of chicken, quail, pheasant, and duck with proportionately increased measures of butter, shallot, Vin Santo, and allspice. It is nice to have ready to spread on thin slices of just-toasted bread to serve with
aperitivi
.) When the
spiedini
are cooked, let your guests slide the meats off their skewers onto warmed plates, spread the grilled bread with some of the liver paste, and sit each quail on its bread “pillow.”

Yield:
6 servings

If the stranger had let me cook for our wedding, I would have brought forth this roasted pumpkin as a first course. The natural sugars in the pumpkin caramelize and melt into the cheeses, while the truffles perfume the whole luscious mass, all of it sending up wonderfully sensual aromas. Even without the truffles, this is spectacular. If there's one dish to add to your repertoire, this is it. Actually it's a repertoire in itself.

1 large pumpkin or Hubbard squash, approximately 4–5 pounds in weight, its stalk end cut around to form a cap, seeds and strings removed from the cavity (retain stalk end for later)

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 large yellow onions, peeled and minced

12 ounces fresh wild mushrooms (porcini, cèpes, chanterelles, portobelli) rinsed, drained, dried, and sliced thinly (or 4 ounces dried porcini, softened in ½ cup warm water, stock, or wine, drained, and sliced thinly)

2 whole black diamond truffles from Norcia (or 2 canned black truffles or 3 ounces black truffle paste), optional

sea salt

1 teaspoon just-cracked white pepper

3 cups mascarpone

12 ounces Emmenthaler cheese, grated

4 ounces Parmesan cheese, grated

3 whole eggs, beaten

2 teaspoons just-grated nutmeg

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

8 slices firm-textured, day-old white bread, crusts removed, cut into 1-inch squares

In a medium sauté pan, melt the butter and sauté the onion with the mushrooms until both soften and the mushrooms give up their their liquors (if using dried mushrooms, strain the soaking liquid and add it to the sauté pan). Add the thinly sliced truffles or the truffle paste (if used) and combine well. Add the salt and pepper. In a large bowl, combine all the remaining ingredients except the bread and butter; season with liberal amounts of salt and pepper. Beat until well combined, then stir in the mushrooms, onions, and truffles. Melt the 4 tablespoons of butter in a sauté pan and brown the bread, tossing the pieces about until they are crisp. Place the pumpkin or squash in a large, heavy baking dish or on a baking sheet. Spoon one-third of the mushroom mixture into the pumpkin, add half the crisped bread, another third of the mushrooms, and the remaining bread, ending with the mushrooms. Top off with the pumpkin cap and roast at 375 degrees for 1½ hours or until the pumpkin's flesh is very soft. Carry the pumpkin immediately to table, remove its hat, and spoon out portions of its flesh with the stuffing. The dish needs only a cool, flinty, dry white wine as accompaniment.

Yield:
8 to 10 servings

And this would have been the main course at our wedding lunch if
I'd
been cooking. A beautiful autumn dish full of color and surprise—the grapes plump and softened in the wine and the warm tartness of the fruit against the sweetness of the veal make for a fine marriage. If you're not serving the pumpkin or any other substantial first course, serve this over garlic mashed potatoes. Change the veal to pork and the white wine to red wine. and you'll have a heartier set of flavors.

12 veal tenderloins (about 4 ounces each)

1 teaspoon fine sea salt

3 tablespoons fresh rosemary leaves, finely minced

10 whole cloves of garlic, crushed

6 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

1½ cups dry white wine

3 cups white or purple wine grapes (or table grapes)

1 tablespoon 12-year-old balsamic vinegar

Wipe the veal with paper towels and rub its surfaces with salt, rosemary, and crushed cloves. Heat oil and 4 tablespoons of butter over medium flame in a large sauté pan. When the butter begins to foam, add the tenderloins (only the number that fits comfortably in the pan without crowding). Sauté until golden on all sides, removing them to a holding plate while you cook the remaining ones. Rinse the sauté pan with the wine, scraping up any bits, and let the wine reduce for five minutes. Add the grapes and the browned veal to the pan and lower the flame so that the wine barely simmers. Gently braise the veal for 4 to 5 minutes or until the flesh begins to feel firm when you prod it with a finger. Don't overcook the veal. Remove the veal to a platter, covering it very loosely so as not to “steam” it, and let it rest. Raise the flame and reduce the braising liquids once again, until they begin to thicken. Remove from the flame, add the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter and the balsamic vinegar. Stir well and pour the sauce over the veal. Don't worry about the grape seeds or, if you must worry, America is full of the seedless ones.