Eating Italy: A Chef's Culinary Adventure (16 page)

The next day, we didn’t leave our room at the Hotel Florida until three in the afternoon. We had a gorgeous view of the ocean. It was the first time I told Claudia that I loved her.

COCKLES
and
EGGS
with
BRUSCHETTA

Scrambled eggs and clams are two ingredients I never would have thought to put together. But this makes a fantastic springtime dish. The first time I tasted it was when Brad Spence, the chef at Amis in Philadelphia, made it for me for lunch. I was blown away. It’s no more difficult than making scrambled eggs. You just cook cockles in the pan first. When you scramble the eggs, they cook right inside the opened cockle shells, getting seasoned with all the briny juices. The best time I ever tasted this dish was on my last trip to le Cinque Terre. The intensely orange eggs and mineral-rich cockles in Liguria made it taste even better.

MAKES 2 TO 4 SERVINGS

2 tablespoons (30 ml) olive oil, plus some for the bread

2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

30 cockles, New Zealand clams, or small hard-shell clams, scrubbed (18 to 20 ounces/510 to 570 g)

½ cup (120 ml) dry white wine

⅛ teaspoon (0.25 g) chile flakes

4 large eggs, lightly beaten

3 scallions, thinly sliced (green parts only)

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

4 slices rustic country bread

Heat the 2 tablespoons (30 ml) of oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add the garlic, and cook until the garlic begins to toast and turn light brown around the edges, 3 to 4 minutes.

Remove from the heat and add the cockles, wine, and chile flakes. Return to the heat, cover, and steam until all the cockles open, 5 to 6 minutes.

Once all the cockles open, add the eggs to the pan and scramble the eggs in the cockle liquid until soft and just cooked through, 1 to 2 minutes. Stir in the scallions and season with salt and pepper.

Brush the bread with a little olive oil and grill or broil until lightly toasted. Transfer the cockles and eggs to warm plates and serve with the toasted bread. Allow your guests to scoop the eggs and cockles from the shells.

GRILLED SARDINES
with
TAGGIASCA OLIVES
and
CELERY SALAD

You find grilled sardines in trattorias all along the Ligurian coast. They usually serve them as an appetizer with a drizzle of lemon and olive oil. Cooking them on the bone releases collagen as they cook, making them moister and richer. If you fillet these little fish, they tend to dry out. I love them with the salty punch of Taggiasca olives, the heart of Liguria’s prized olive oil. Serve this starter dish with a few lemon wedges for squeezing over the fish.

MAKES 4 SERVINGS

8 whole sardines, fins removed, gutted, cleaned, and rinsed under cold water

2 tablespoons (30 ml) grapeseed oil

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 tablespoon (15 ml) freshly squeezed lemon juice

3 tablespoons (45 ml) blended oil (
page 276
)

4 medium-size ribs celery, strings removed, thinly sliced on a diagonal

½ cup (60 g) Taggiasca or other Ligurian olives, pitted and chopped

4 small bunches mâche (lamb’s lettuce), about 2 cups (70 g), cleaned, for garnish

Flake salt, such as Maldon sea salt, for garnish

Heat a grill to medium-high heat.

Coat the cleaned sardines with grapeseed oil, then generously season with salt and pepper. Lightly oil the grill and grill the sardines until just grill-marked and cooked through, about 2 minutes per side. Transfer to plates.

Meanwhile, pour the lemon juice into a medium bowl. Whisk in the blended oil in a slow, steady stream until combined and thickened. Add the celery and olives, then season with salt and pepper.

Spoon the salad over the sardines. Garnish with tight bunches of the mâche and drizzle the remaining vinaigrette from the bowl around the plates. Sprinkle each serving with flake salt and serve immediately.

GRILLED STUFFED CALAMARI
with
MEYER LEMON
and
BEETS

I’d always heard in cooking school—and among Italians—that you never mix cheese and fish. But it’s a myth. Cheese tastes good with seafood as long as it’s not overpowering. Mild squid and a creamy ricotta filling work great together. You usually see stuffed calamari braised in tomato sauce, but I wanted to give this a lighter spin to capture the romance of my first trip to le Cinque Terre. I put the grilled calamari on a bed of arugula and topped it with a lemony roasted beet salad. If you can find them, use Meyer lemons. They’re sweeter and more floral, like the lemons in Liguria. If you use common Eureka lemons, add a pinch of sugar to cut the sourness.

MAKES 4 TO 6 SERVINGS

8 ounces (227 g) red or Chioggia beets

About ½ cup (68 g) kosher salt

12 small whole calamari (squid), cleaned

¾ cup (175 ml) extra-virgin olive oil, divided

6 stalks Swiss chard (8 to 10 ounces/227 to 285 g)

1 garlic clove, sliced

1 cup (235 ml) white wine

2 pounds (1 kg) fresh whole-milk ricotta cheese (1 quart)

1 ounce (28 g) Parmesan cheese, grated (¼ cup)

1 large egg

½ cup (54 g) plain, dry breadcrumbs

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

16 Meyer lemon segments

¼ cup (60 ml) freshly squeezed Meyer lemon juice

2 tablespoons (6 g) minced chives

6 ounces (170 g) arugula (about 6 cups)

Preheat the oven to 500°F (260°C). Scrub the beets well, then rinse them and leave them wet. Put the salt in a heatproof dish, add the beets, and pack a thick layer of salt around each beet. Transfer to a baking sheet and roast the beets until tender enough for a fork to slide in and out easily, 2 to 3 hours. Let cool, then rinse the beets and cut them into very small cubes. You should have about 1 cup (136 g). Set aside or refrigerate for up to 3 days.

To clean each squid, pull away the head and tentacles from the hood (tubelike body), and then reach into the hood and pull out the entrails and the plasticlike quill, taking care not to puncture the pearly ink sac. Cut off the tentacles just above the eyes, and discard the head. Squeeze the base of the tentacles to force out the hard “beak,” and rinse the tentacles and the hood under cold running water. Using the back of a paring knife or your fingers, pull and scrape off the gray membrane from the hood. Cut off and discard the two small wings on either side of the hood. Refrigerate the hoods in ice water until ready to stuff. Pat dry the squid tentacles.

Heat 1 tablespoon (15 ml) of the oil in a large cast-iron skillet over high heat. When smoking hot, add the tentacles, and cook until curled, firm, and browned here and there, 4 to 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and let cool.

Separate the leaves from the stems of the chard. Trim any rough spots, then coarsely chop the stems and leaves. Heat 3 tablespoons (45 ml) of the oil in the skillet over medium heat. Add the chard stems and garlic, and cook for 2 minutes. Add the wine, and cook until the stems are almost tender, 8 to 10 minutes. Add the leaves, and cook, stirring now and then, until the liquid evaporates and the leaves wilt down a bit, 2 to 3 minutes. Let cool slightly, then transfer to a food processor, along with the seared tentacles. Mince the chard mixture using short pulses. Transfer to a bowl and whisk in the ricotta, Parmesan, egg, and breadcrumbs. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Spoon into a resealable plastic bag and refrigerate for up to 1 day.

Snip a corner off the bag and pipe the mixture into the squid bodies, stuffing them full. Close the ends of the squid with toothpicks. If you have any leftover filling, you can use it as a ravioli filling. Season the squid all over with salt and pepper and coat lightly with oil.

Heat a grill to medium heat. Brush the grill, coat with oil, and grill the stuffed squid directly over the heat until grill-marked and set in the center, turning a few times, about 8 minutes.

Gently combine the beets, lemon segments, lemon juice, chives, and remaining ½ cup (120 ml) of olive oil. Season with salt and pepper.

Divide the arugula among plates. Place two stuffed calamari on each plate and top with the beet salad. Drizzle with the remaining dressing in the bowl.

CORZETTI
with
CLAMS, TOMATOES,
and
PEPERONCINO

When my family came to Italy to meet Claudia’s family, we made a special trip to Liguria to find a corzetti pasta stamp. They’re pretty rare (see the Sources on
page 289
for some suggestions). We first looked in a little town called Bergeggi, about an hour north of Genoa. When we got to le Cinque Terre, we looked in each of the five towns. We couldn’t find a single stamp, and it started driving Claudia crazy. But I was obsessed. Finally, in Monterosso, in the last shop I looked in, I found them. Beautiful ones. I bought four of them. The traditional sauce for corzetti is a spin on basil pesto made with only pureed pine nuts, marjoram, and milk. But to remind me of the amazing Ligurian seafood, I like to serve corzetti with clams and little summer tomatoes.

MAKES 6 SERVINGS

Corzetti Dough:

4¾ cups (595 g)
tipo
00 flour (see
page 277
) or all-purpose flour