After about 30 minutes, add the cherry tomatoes, the rest of the scallions, the vinegar, and the thyme. Keep cooking until these tomatoes burst and their juices thicken also, and the whole mess is thick and savory.
Taste and adjust the salt, black pepper, vinegar, and chile flakes. And of course, add a bit more olive oil. Serve warm or at room temperature.
MORE WAYS:
Dress up breakfast: Spoon over a simple cheese omelet.
Create an instant comfort food: Top a bowl of creamy polenta.
Add a savory topping: Serve with slices of braised pot roast.
Transform simple seafood: Spoon over a fillet of cod or halibut and bake.
Red Pepper, Potato, and Prosciutto Frittata Topped with Ricotta
At its heart, this is a Denver omelet in frittata form . . . but I daresay a lot better. Loaded with sweet roasted peppers, potatoes, and fluffy ricotta, the frittata is slightly fragile because of all the moist ingredients, so I never do the classic flip when getting it out of the pan. Instead, I just loosen it from the pan and slide it onto a plate. I love this served with a simple spicy green salad.
» Serves 3 or 4
½ pound potatoes, peeled if the skins are mature
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 red bell peppers or other large sweet peppers, seeded and cut into julienne strips
1 bunch scallions, trimmed (including ½ inch off the green tops), sliced on a sharp angle
4 ounces prosciutto, cut into thin strips
6 eggs
½ cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
Extra-virgin olive oil
½ cup whole-milk ricotta cheese, seasoned lightly with salt and pepper and stirred so it’s creamy
Put the potatoes in a large pan of water and add salt until it tastes like the sea. Bring to a boil and cook until they are tender but not mushy, 15 to 20 minutes, depending on their size. Drain.
When cool enough to handle, cut into small chunks.
Heat the oven to 400°F.
Heat the butter in a 10-inch skillet (nonstick if you have one, with an ovenproof handle) over medium-high heat. Add the bell peppers, scallions, and prosciutto, season lightly with salt and black pepper, and cook until fragrant and the bell peppers are softening but not browning, 5 to 7 minutes. Add the potatoes.
Crack the eggs into a large bowl, add 1 teaspoon salt, many twists of black pepper, and the Parmigiano. Whisk until the eggs are nicely blended. Pour the eggs over the ingredients in the skillet, scraping everything out of the bowl with a rubber spatula.
Reduce the heat to medium and let the eggs sit peacefully for about 2 minutes. Then carefully slip the spatula around the edges of the eggs, releasing them from the pan, allowing more liquid egg to flow underneath. Let that new layer of egg set up a bit and then repeat the process. You are building layers of cooked egg, which will help the frittata have a lighter texture than if you simply let the whole thing set as one.
After most of the liquid egg has cooked, but the top is still runny, dollop the ricotta over the top of the frittata in 8 blobs, evenly spaced so each slice will get some ricotta. Transfer the pan to the oven and finish cooking the frittata all the way through, about 5 minutes or so. It should puff a bit and the top will get lightly browned.
Let the frittata sit in the pan for a couple of minutes, then run the spatula or a small knife around the edge of the frittata and as far under the center as you can go. Slide the frittata onto a cutting board or cooling rack. If a bit sticks to the pan and rips, don’t worry, just piece it back together.
Serve the frittata on the warm side of room temperature, cut into wedges. It’s delicious the next day, too.
For a neat julienne, cut away the top and bottom of the pepper. Slice open, cut out the seedy core, and lay flat. Cut away interior ribs, then cut into strips.
Cheese-Stuffed and Pan-Fried Sweet Peppers
A bit like a Mexican chile relleno, this dish takes advantage of the natural container that a pepper provides, once you’ve cored and seeded it. I like this combination of cheeses—feta for tang, Fontina for melting, ricotta for sweet dairy flavor—but you can play with whatever you have on hand.
» Serves 2 as a main dish, 4 as a first course
½ cup crumbled feta cheese
1 cup whole-milk ricotta cheese
½ cup grated Fontina cheese
2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
2 scallions, trimmed (including ½ inch off the green tops), thinly sliced
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 large bell peppers or 8 smaller chiles, such as poblano or Anaheim, roasted, peeled, and seeded, but don’t slit the sides—keep the “container” shape of the pepper intact
Flour, for dredging
1 egg, beaten well
Extra-virgin olive oil
Pickle Salsa Verde (optional)
Mix together the feta, ricotta, and Fontina cheeses in a small bowl. Add the parsley and scallions and season generously with salt and black pepper. Taste and adjust the seasoning.
Carefully fill each bell or chile pepper with the cheese mixture, pinching the tops to seal in the cheese as well as you can. Put the flour on a plate and the beaten egg in another plate or shallow bowl. Lay out a double layer of paper towels on a tray or plate to drain the finished peppers.
Heat ½ inch of olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. As the oil is heating, you can prep the peppers: Dredge a pepper through the flour to coat it lightly and evenly, then dip into the egg. Let the excess egg drip off and carefully lay the pepper into the hot oil in the pan. Be careful; the oil may pop.
Fry until the pepper is nicely browned on one side, 2 to 3 minutes, then carefully flip and fry the other side. Repeat with the remaining peppers, but don’t add too many at once, as that will lower the oil temperature and make the peppers greasy.
Transfer the peppers to the paper towels to drain and serve warm on their own or with the salsa verde.
Sweet and Hot Peppers, ’Nduja, and Melted Cheese
’Nduja is an spreadable fresh sausage from Calabria, with a spicy bite and the tang of a good salami. If you can’t find it, you could substitute a small dice of Spanish chorizo or soppressata. The dish is best eaten right out of the oven, so have some cold white wine or good beer and crusty bread at the ready.
Serves 4
Extra-virgin olive oil
3 or 4 garlic cloves, smashed and peeled
1 bunch scallions, trimmed (including ½ inch off the green tops), cut into 3-inch slices
1 to 3 jalapeños (depending on how hot you want the dip), seeded, deribbed, and thinly sliced
¼ pound ’nduja
1 large sweet red pepper, roasted, seeded, peeled, and cut into thin strips
A few sprigs thyme
¼ pound Fontina cheese, grated on the coarse holes of a box grater
½ pound Taleggio cheese, cut into chunks
Toasted country bread, Whole-Grain Carta di Musica, or vegetables, for serving
Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Add a couple of tablespoons olive oil and the garlic and cook slowly to toast the garlic so it’s very soft, fragrant, and nicely golden brown—but not burnt—about 5 minutes.
Add the scallions and jalapeños and cook until they are soft, fragrant, and lightly browned, another 5 minutes (if the garlic threatens to burn, scoop it out and then return it to the pan when the other ingredients are ready). Smash the garlic as you’re cooking so it breaks up into little bits.
Heat the oven to 450°F.
Spread the ’nduja in an even layer on the bottom of a small casserole dish, something that holds about 4 cups, or among 4 individual baking dishes. Layer on the roasted red pepper and the cooked scallions,
garlic, and jalapeños. Sprinkle the thyme all over and then mix the two cheeses together and pile them in. Drizzle with a healthy shot of olive oil and bake until bubbling and melty, about 10 minutes.
Serve hot with toasted bread or carta di musica or as a dip with raw vegetables.
Shell Beans
Fresh shell beans were a revelation to me many years ago when I first realized that those hard, dry things in plastic bags actually start out as fresh, moist beans. Shell beans are grown primarily to be processed for long storage, but there’s a short window when you can eat them fresh. Immediately after a summer in the sun, shell beans are plump with just enough starch to make them creamy.
Get ’em while you can. Shell beans are still a specialty, to be found only at a few stalls of your farmers’ market, though I’m starting to see some varieties even in grocery stores in late summer. I love any variety, but borlottis are favorites of mine because my cooking is strongly Italian inflected. Also called cranberry beans, they are meaty and sweet, creamy but with enough integrity to hold their shape. Cannellini, purgatorio, and other white beans are also incredible, and lately I’ve had fun experimenting with fresh chickpeas.
Buy as many as you can, and shell them within a day or two so they don’t get moldy inside. Shell beans freeze well, so pack up the overflow in a freezer bag and stash it for fall or winter.
The recipes in this section will also be delicious made with dried beans, so don’t let unavailability of the fresh version stand in your way.
In the kitchen Salt isn’t the culprit that prevents dried beans from cooking properly—acid is. Salt your cooking water generously, so the beans get seasoned all the way to the interior, and don’t add tomatoes, wine, or other acidic ingredients to a bean dish until the beans have reached tenderness.
Perfect Shell Beans
The exact quantities and times will vary depending on what type of bean you’re using and whether it’s fresh or dried, and even within those categories, each batch of beans will have its own personality and behavior.
But that doesn’t matter! This method will guide you to perfectly cooked beans no matter what, as long as you pay attention. The key is to obsessively watch them as they cook over low heat. You need to cook the beans right until the point that they are almost done, allowing carryover cooking to bring them to the exact doneness as they cool. This way of cooking also helps the beans retain their shape, especially if you’re reheating or using them in another dish. There is really nothing better than a perfectly cooked bowl of beans with good extra-virgin olive oil.
» Makes 5 cups cooked beans and liquor (the flavorful cooking liquid)
4 cups fresh shell beans (from 3 pounds beans in the pod), or 2 cups dried beans
1 big sprig rosemary
1 small whole dried red chile
1 bay leaf
1 garlic clove, smashed and peeled
Kosher salt
8 to 10 cups water
Extra-virgin olive oil
If you’re using dried beans, put them in a bowl or pot and add cool water to cover by a couple of inches. Soak them overnight on the counter. Drain and rinse; you should have about 4 cups now. Continue with the recipe.
Put the beans, rosemary, chile, bay leaf, garlic, and 1½ teaspoons salt in a large pot. It needs to be big enough for the beans to expand, so make sure there’s plenty of room. Add water to cover the beans by 1 inch—about 8 cups for fresh beans, 10 cups for dried.
Bring everything just barely to a boil over high heat, then immediately reduce the heat and adjust so that the beans are simmering merrily, but not actually boiling hard at all. Cook uncovered until the beans are about halfway soft. You can tell by biting into a few—they will be soft enough for you to easily bite them with no crunch, but they’ll still be quite dry and crumbly inside. This could take as little as 30 minutes for fresh or 1 hour for dried, so taste early and often!
At this point, add another heaping teaspoon of salt and a glug of olive oil. Keep cooking at a gentle simmer and check frequently—the closer you get to doneness, the more frequently you should check. You want to stop cooking the beans when they are very creamy and tender all the way through but not yet mushy or broken up (though a few will split).
When you are just about at that perfect point, move the pot off the heat and let the beans cool in their liquid. They’ll finish softening the last few degrees as they cool. (If you worry that you’ve gone a bit too far and the beans risk getting mushy, as soon as you take them from the heat, transfer them from the pot to a bowl set into some ice water and stir gently to cool things down quickly.)
Once the beans are starting to cool, taste and add more salt if needed, and add another nice glug of olive oil. Once cool, you’re in business. Be sure to keep the bean cooking liquid, because you’ll use it in several of the recipes here.
MORE WAYS:
Bake a quick cassoulet: Pile some beans into a baking dish, slice some good garlic sausage and nestle it into the beans, cover the top with breadcrumbs, drizzle with olive oil, and bake until bubbling.
Puree to make a dip: Scoop out some beans and liquid and puree in a food processor. Add roasted garlic, a touch of spice such as cumin or smoked paprika, and olive oil of course. Serve slightly warm with hunks of bread or vegetables for dipping.
Make a hearty soup: Brown some diced bacon or pancetta in a soup pot. Add a few diced tomatoes (canned are fine) and cook a few minutes to concentrate. Add several ladlefuls of beans and liquid, some chicken or vegetable broth to thin, and a big sprig of thyme. Simmer until nicely married and flavorful. Puree half and leave the rest chunky.
Beans on Toast
When you have great beans and the beans are cooked right, this is a perfect dish. My great beans are Ayers Creek Farm borlotti beans, grown by Anthony and Carol Boutard from Gaston, Oregon. Every year Anthony and Carol grow more and more and we buy them all. So source some good beans in your area, eat as many as you can while they’re still fresh, and then freeze the rest.
» Serves 4
2 garlic cloves
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon very roughly chopped fresh rosemary leaves
Dried chile flakes
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 cups Perfect Shell Beans, with some bean cooking liquid or water
4 thick slices country bread
Slice one of the garlic cloves as thinly as you can. Cut the other garlic clove in half and set aside.
Pour ¼ cup olive oil into a small saucepan. Add the sliced garlic, rosemary, a pinch of chile flakes, and a pinch of salt. Warm gently over low heat until nicely fragrant (whatever you do, don’t overheat to the point where the garlic browns). Set aside for about 15 minutes for the flavors to infuse the oil.
Put 2 cups of the beans into a food processor and puree them. Once they’re relatively smooth, drizzle in a splash of the bean cooking liquid and another ¼ cup olive oil. Check the consistency and add more liquid or oil to make a smooth, thick, but spreadable puree—stiff enough to hold the marks of your spoon, but not thick like refried beans. Taste and adjust with salt, black pepper, or chile flakes.
Toast, broil, or grill the bread so it’s lightly browned but still chewy inside. Rub the slices with the cut side of a garlic half.
Spread the puree thickly all over each piece of toast, like you’re frosting a cupcake. Put the toasts on plates and then spoon over the remaining whole beans and drizzle with the infused oil and some of the bits in it. Serve right away.
Beans and Pasta
Beans and pasta—or pasta e fagiole in Italian—is a Roman classic. What may sound like an unlikely combination at first—two starches in one bowl—leads to a rich, creamy, and well-balanced dish with the addition of tomato. I love to make this with fresh shell beans in late summer, because in my part of the country, the nights are already cooling.
If you can’t find fresh beans, any small, dried white bean will work just as well throughout the year.
» Serves 2 or 3
Kosher salt
4 ounces pasta (huge rigatoni is great here, as are small shapes such as ditalini)
Extra-virgin olive oil
3 garlic cloves, smashed and peeled
2 tablespoons Tomato Conserva or tomato paste
2 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary
¼ teaspoon dried chile flakes
½ cup canned crushed tomatoes
2 cups Perfect Shell Beans, plus about ½ cup bean liquid or pasta cooking water
½ cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese or a mix of Parmigiano-Reggiano and Pecorino Romano
Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add salt until it tastes like the sea. Add the pasta and cook according to the package directions, but stop just shy of al dente (the pasta will cook a bit longer once added to the beans). Right before you drain, scoop out about a cup of the pasta water and set it aside.
Heat a glug of olive oil in a large pot over medium-low heat. Add the garlic and cook slowly to toast the garlic so it’s very soft, fragrant, and nicely golden brown—but not burnt—about 5 minutes. You want it cooked enough so that it will easily smash and blend with the other ingredients.
Add the tomato paste, rosemary, and chile flakes and stir and spread it around as you cook it. You want the paste to lightly caramelize and take on deeper flavors and start smelling slightly toasty, which should take 5 to 8 minutes. Use a heatproof silicone spatula to scrape up anything that sticks to the bottom of the pan.
Add half the crushed tomatoes and cook down in the same manner until it is concentrated, too, another 3 to 4 minutes. Everything should be dark red and nicely oily now.
Six Seasons Page 23
