In the Hands of a Chef (47 page)

MAKES 6 TO 8 SERVINGS

SOUP

2 pounds fish bones, including the heads, from white-fleshed fish, such as cod, halibut, haddock, or flounder

1 pound inexpensive white fish pieces, such as cod bellies, perch, or pollack

2 pounds lobster bodies (the body—where the legs attach—should be rinsed clean of tomalley and any loose viscera; discard the carapace, the outer shell)

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

1 medium onion, skin on (for color), coarsely chopped

1 leek, white part only, trimmed of roots and tough outer leaves, thinly sliced crosswise, and swirled vigorously in a bowl of cold water to remove any grit

1 celery stalk, thinly sliced

1 small fennel bulb, trimmed of stalks and tough outer layers, cut in half lengthwise, cored, and thinly sliced crosswise

1 small carrot, thinly sliced

4 garlic cloves, cut in half

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 cup dry white wine

2 cups chopped fresh tomatoes or high-quality canned tomatoes

2 oranges, peel and pith removed, cut into chunks, plus juice from an additional orange if necessary

⅓ cup Pernod, or more to taste

1 teaspoon fennel seeds

6 sprigs flat-leaf parsley

3 bay leaves

2 teaspoons paprika, preferably Spanish

2 large pinches of saffron

GARNISH

½ cup extra virgin olive oil

1 baguette French bread, sliced into 18 to 24 slices ½ inch thick, toasted

1 cup Rouille (page 13)

1 cup grated Gruyère

DO AHEAD:
The soup will keep for 4 to 5 days refrigerated, so there’s no problem if you want to make it a day or two ahead. Make the rouille, the spicy garlic mayonnaise garnish, the day of serving.

1.
Using kitchen shears, remove the eyeballs and gills from the fish heads. Put the bones and heads (not the fish or lobster bodies) in a large pot and rinse under cold running water for at least 30 minutes. Drain.

2.
Preheat the oven to 450°F.

3.
Spread the fish bones and heads in a large roasting pan and pat dry with paper towels. Add the fish and lobster bodies. Drizzle with 2 tablespoons of the olive oil and toss well. Spread everything in an even layer. Roast for 30 minutes, or until everything is golden brown. When cool, chop or break the bones and lobster bodies into 2-inch pieces.

4.
Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large stockpot over high heat. Add the onion, leek, celery, fennel, carrot, and garlic; season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring frequently, until the vegetables are golden brown, about 10 minutes.

5.
Add the roasted fish bones and heads, and fish and lobster bodies, along with the white wine. Continue cooking until the liquid has reduced by one-third. You will have to use your best judgment, since the pot will be full of seafood and vegetables; in any event, cook no longer than 2 to 3 minutes.

6.
Add the remaining soup ingredients to the stockpot and add enough water to just barely cover the bones. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook for 40 minutes.

7.
Purée everything—bones and all—in the food processor, as finely as possible. You will have to do this in batches, pouring the purée into a bowl or other container as you finish each batch. Then pound the purée firmly
through a coarse China cap (metal strainer) to strain out the large pieces. The resulting soup will be slightly grainy. If the soup seems too thin, return it to the stove and reduce. Taste for seasoning and add more orange juice, Pernod, salt, and pepper if necessary.

8.
To serve, pour the olive oil into warmed soup bowls, then ladle in the soup. Serve immediately, offering the croutons, rouille, and Gruyère. It’s accepted practice to place a dollop of rouille on a crouton, sprinkle it with grated cheese, and then set it afloat in your soup.

A
quacotta, literally, “cooked water,” is
a dish eaten by shepherds and herdsmen of the Maremma region of Tuscany roughing it in the hills with their sheep or cattle. The dish begins with a pot in which foraged ingredients are cooked with a little oil—often no more than a little garlic and wild greens. Hot water is poured into the pot, and the flavored broth is then ladled into bowls containing a piece of bread and a beaten egg. Numerous variations testify to the resourcefulness of cooks who rely on whatever is at hand: garlic, onions, greens, mushrooms, tomatoes, and perhaps some sheep’s milk cheese.

This is an unabashedly luxurious reworking of the hot-water-goes-over-the-starch-and-egg technique. Chicken broth, unavailable to herdsmen on the move, is flavored with dried porcini mushrooms and poured over polenta with melted Taleggio. This is one case where I always use a homemade stock. A poached egg slips into the broth at the last moment. The touch of a soup spoon breaks the yolk, releasing a rich vein of gold into the mushroom broth. A drizzle of truffle oil doesn’t hurt either.

MAKES 4 SERVINGS

BROTH

1 ounce dried porcini mushrooms, reconstituted in 1 cup warm water (see page 271), coarsely chopped (soaking liquid reserved)

4½ cups Chicken Stock (page 31)

¾ cup dry Marsala

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

POLENTA

2½ cups water

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

½ cup coarsely ground cornmeal

2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan

1 tablespoon distilled white vinegar

4 extra-large eggs

1 teaspoon vegetable oil

¼ pound Taleggio, trimmed of rind and cut into 12 pieces

Freshly ground black pepper

4 teaspoons truffle oil (optional)

1.
Combine the chopped porcini, soaking liquid, chicken stock, and Marsala in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer, and cook for 45 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. If you like a clear soup, strain out the mushrooms; if not, leave as is. Keep warm.

2.
Meanwhile, bring 2½ cups of water to a boil in a medium saucepan. Add ¾ teaspoon salt and then add the polenta in a slow, steady stream through your fingers, whisking constantly
with the other hand so it doesn’t clump up. If you get any lumps, mash them against the side of the pot with a wooden spoon and keep stirring. Lower the heat to a simmer and cook, stirring frequently, until the polenta is thick and shiny and begins to pull away from the sides of the pan, about 30 minutes. Regulate the heat as necessary so the mixture doesn’t boil over or cook too quickly. Stir in the Parmesan. Season with salt and pepper. Cover and keep warm.

3.
Bring a small pot or skillet of water to a boil. Add the vinegar and season with salt. Lower the heat to a simmer. Crack an egg into a teacup. Tilt the cup and slowly lower it into the simmering water. When the egg is covered with water, tip the cup and release the egg. Repeat with the other 3 eggs. Poach the eggs until the whites are set, 3 to 4 minutes. While the eggs are poaching, rub a small baking dish or deep plate with the vegetable oil. Scoop the eggs out with a slotted spoon and transfer to the dish. Set aside.

4.
Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350°F.

5.
Divide the polenta among four large warm ovenproof soup bowls. Set 3 pieces of Taleggio on the polenta in each bowl and put a poached egg on top. Sprinkle the eggs with salt and pepper. Put the bowls in the oven until the eggs are heated through, about 4 minutes.

6.
While the eggs are heating, bring the porcini broth back to a simmer. Remove the bowls from the oven.

7.
Pour the hot broth into the bowls around the polenta. Drizzle with the truffle oil, if using. Serve immediately.

E
very August, zucchini seem to
multiply on their vines like the vegetable equivalent of the animated brooms in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” an explosion of late-summer fecundity that exhausts the cravings of even the most ardent zucchini lover. I say, throttle them in their infancy—pick the zucchini flowers (“squash blossoms,” as they’re also known) before they can grow up.

This dish naturally evolved out of ingredients purchased one afternoon in an open-air market—beautiful fresh goat cheeses and several different tapenades. I’ve since lightened the goat cheese mixture with ricotta. The tapenade should be served as a small garnish on the side, a complementary taste rather than a big spoonful.

MAKES 4 SERVINGS

½ cup unbleached all-purpose flour

¼ cup cornstarch

1 extra-large egg, separated (the white should be chilled)

½ cup very cold beer

6 tablespoons high-quality ricotta

6 tablespoons soft goat cheese

1 teaspoon minced shallot

3 tablespoons minced fresh chives

3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh chervil

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

20 large squash blossoms

4 cups vegetable oil for deep-frying

¼ cup Green Olive Tapenade (page 25; optional)

1.
To make the batter, mix the flour and cornstarch in a bowl. In another bowl, beat the egg white and beer together. Stir this into the flour mixture. Do not overbeat, or the batter will be tough; there should still be some lumps. Cover and refrigerate (it can rest, chilled, up to 2 hours) while you make the stuffing.

2.
Mix the cheeses in a bowl with the egg yolk, shallot, and herbs. Season with salt and pepper and 1 teaspoon of the lemon juice.

3.
Carefully pry apart the petals of each blossom. Remove the stamen. Place a small spoonful of the cheese mixture inside each blossom and gently twist the tips of the blossoms shut.

4.
Heat the vegetable oil in a large deep pot over medium heat to 350°F. Use a deep-fry thermometer to check the temperature.

5.
Remove the batter from the refrigerator and stir it once. Dip the blossoms into the batter, then carefully lower them into the hot oil. Fry
them in batches until they are golden brown and crisp, 3 to 5 minutes.

6.
Divide the blossoms among four warm plates. Drizzle with the remaining 2 teaspoons lemon juice. Garnish each plate with spoonful of tapenade, if using, and serve.

L
ike the Robert Frost poem,
this is a two-roads-diverged-in-a-wood recipe. At the end of one road awaits a luscious dish of ravioli with the brown butter and sage sauce traditionally served with squash ravioli. The other road will take you—after many a twist and turn—to one of the most flavorful dishes in this entire book, a fabled taste combination from France, confit plus a slightly sweet root vegetable.

At first glance, Crispy Pork Confit sauce seems like a daunting effort: first you make confit, and that takes
hours and hours,
and then you make celery root purée, and
then
you make ravioli from scratch.
Puh-lease!
Actually, the dish requires more advanced planning than actual labor, and if you buy high-quality pasta sheets to make the ravioli, then even that is reduced. The advanced planning comes in with the confit. True, it does take several hours to make, but it also keeps for several weeks, so all you have to do is find a time when you know you’re going to be home for several hours while it cooks. You can even make the ravioli several hours ahead, leaving you with the simple dinner tasks of boiling the ravioli and sautéing the ingredients that accompany the confit. This ought to be reserved for people whom you really care about—and who’ll bring lots of expensive red wine when you tell them what you’re planning for dinner.

MAKES 4 SERVINGS (40 RAVIOLI)

CELERY ROOT

1 celery root (about 1¼ pounds)