by Marc Vetri
½ teaspoon unsalted butter
Mix the apricots, 1½ cups of the sugar, and the lemon juice in a stainless-steel or other nonreactive saucepan, stirring vigorously to mash up the fruit a little. Let stand for 1 hour at room temperature.
Set up a canner by bringing a large stockpot of water to a boil. Drop a wire rack into the bottom of the pot. Using tongs, a jar lifter, or heatproof silicone gloves, immerse the pint jars and their lids and rings in the boiling water and boil for 5 minutes. Remove and keep warm.
Put the pan of apricots over medium heat until the mixture is warm, 3 to 4 minutes, mashing the fruit with a potato masher or large spoon as it heats. Mix the remaining 1½ cups sugar with the pectin and stir into the warm fruit. Attach a candy thermometer to the pan and increase the heat to medium-high. Bring to a boil, stirring gently and skimming any foam from the surface, and heat to 217°F. Stir in the butter and let it cool slightly. Ladle the mixture into the warm jars to within ⅛ inch of the top. Wipe the rims clean, put on the lids, and tightly screw on the rings.
Using tongs, a jar lifter, or silicone gloves, immerse the sealed jars in the boiling water for 10 minutes.
Remove and let cool on a wire rack. As the jars cool, the center of the lids should get sucked down. To test, press on the centers of the lids, which should feel firm, not flexy. If they feel flexy, immerse the jars in the boiling water for another 5 minutes.
KIWI JAM
Mix 5 cups peeled and chopped kiwi (about a dozen kiwi or 2¾ pounds), 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, and 1¾ cups sugar in the pan. Let stand for 2 hours, then heat as directed. Mix another 1¾ cups sugar with 1½ teaspoons pectin and stir it into the pan. Proceed with the recipe.
PEACH JAM
Mix 10 cups pitted, peeled, and sliced peaches (about 18 peaches or 4¼ pounds), ¾ cup sugar, and ¼ cup fresh lemon juice in the pan. Let stand for 1 hour, then heat as directed. Mix ¼ cup sugar with 2 tablespoons pectin and stir it into the pan. Proceed with the recipe.
CHERRY JAM
Mix 4 pounds pitted cherries, 1¼ cups sugar, and ½ cup fresh lemon juice in the pan. Let stand for 1 hour, then heat as directed, mixing another 1¼ cups sugar with 2 tablespoons pectin and stirring it into the pan. Proceed with the recipe.
BLACKBERRY JAM
Mix 5½ pounds blackberries, ¾ cup sugar, and ¼ cup fresh lemon juice in the pan. Let stand for 1 hour, then heat as directed, mixing another ½ cup sugar with 2½ tablespoons pectin and stirring it into the pan. Proceed with the recipe.
PREP AHEAD
You can keep the sealed jars of jam in a cool, dark place for up to 8 months. Refrigerate after opening and use within 3 weeks.
MEATS
AND FISH
Brining Meat, Roasting and Grilling, Fish Freshness, Procuring a Spit and a Suckling Pig, Trussing a Pig to a Spit, Preparing a Chicken for Grilling, Thanks for the Complement
• • •
Slow-Roasted Lamb Shoulder
Spit-Roasted Suckling Pig
Shaved Pork with Summer Fruit
Chicken Halves on the Grill
Sal’s Old-School Meatballs
Veal Breast “al Latte” with Fried Sage
Grilled Beef Cheeks
Turkey Cutlets Milanese Style
Braised Monkfish
Mixed Seafood Grill
Halibut with Peas
Fish Poached in Olive Oil
Tuna Tagliata with Fennel and Orange
MY GRANDMOTHER JENNY LIVED IN SOUTH PHILLY on 725 League Street, right behind the Italian market. When I was growing up, we went to her house every Sunday for a family meal. My brother, Adam, and I, and our cousins would run around the alleys until dinner was ready. We used to play stickball right in the middle of the street. At one o’clock, my mother would yell out the door, “Dinner’s ready!”
That was my favorite part of Sunday. We would walk in the house all sweaty and there would be a bowl of fruit on the table. I would grab an apple right away for something juicy. And there was always a bowl of nuts with nutcrackers and shells strewn all over the table. My grandfather Mario would be sitting in his lounge chair smoking a cigar. Jenny sat in a chair next to the oven in the kitchen. She’d get up, finish prepping some food, put it on the big family table, and sit back down again. Mario would help out and put a few dishes on the table here and there.
There were thirty of us on Sundays, and everyone pitched in. My father, Sal, usually made the meatballs. He would mix together ground veal, pork, and beef; soak some bread in milk; toss in some Parmesan and parsley; and mix the whole thing up by hand. He rolled and rolled and rolled dozens of perfect little meatballs. Sal learned to make them from his Sicilian grandmother Angelina in 1946 or ’47. Back then, all people did was cook on Sundays because they didn’t have refrigerators. You went to the market, bought food fresh, and cooked it that day. You were always in the kitchen.
It hadn’t changed much when I was growing up in the 1970s. Sure, we played outside as kids, but we also spent time in the kitchen helping with family meals. We did have refrigerators, of course, but Jenny still bought food fresh every Sunday and started cooking it in the morning. She made all kinds of things: mussels, stuffed calamari, macaroni and gravy, lasagna, sausage and eggs, sausage and peppers, stuffed artichokes—Italian dishes that were always simple yet completely delicious. Jenny’s artichokes had a wet stuffing of Parmesan, garlic, and bread crumbs. It was salty, moist, and crunchy, all at the same time. I couldn’t get enough of it as a kid. She always had some kind of cutlet, too—a breaded fish or chicken or eggplant or pork Milanese. And always a braised meat. Some kind of braciole (meat rolls). If it was a special occasion, we had a straightforward roast of veal, lamb, pork, or beef.
When everything was ready, we all sat down together. Nobody answered the phone. Nobody got up from the table. If you got up and left before you were excused, you usually got a whack on the back of the head. This was family meal. It was a special time. We ate slowly, and the meal lasted from one to four in the afternoon. I loved it then, and I still love it today with my family.
It’s not surprising, then, that whenever I go to Italy, the best meal I have is always a family meal in someone’s home. It’s not at the Michelin-starred restaurants—although I have had some amazing meals in those, too. It’s usually a spur-of the-moment invitation, when a friend says, “Why don’t you just come over, and I’ll invite a few people.”
Two things happen at these dinners: there is always a wood fire going, and there is always a piece of meat with a story behind it. Someone’s uncle shot this wild boar the other day and made it into ragù. Or those beef cheeks come from the finest cattle raised in the mountains. Or my friend raises pigs and he feeds them acorns or hazelnuts or almonds to make the ham richer and more tender. It doesn’t matter. There is always meat. There is always a story. And there is always a wood fire.
The Sunday dinner—or any leisurely meal with family or friends—brings out so many stories in people that it gives you a deeper connection to everyone at the table. Somehow, it also gives you a deeper connection to the food itself.
BRINING MEAT
I realize that my favorite way to cook meat is to keep it simple. Just brine it and roast it over wood. I’ve cooked meat every way you can imagine, from sautéed to sous-vide, and to this day I have not found any cooking method more satisfying.
Soaking meat in saltwater is nothing new. It’s one of those techniques with years of proven success behind it. It just makes the meat taste better. Salt is the reason. The salt in a brine makes meat juicier, more tender, and more flavorful. The most important effect is juiciness. What happens is that the salt starts to break down the protein in the meat, and exposes more surface area for water in the brine to bond with that protein. So when the meat cooks, it has more water in it than before and stays about 10 percent juicier throughout the cooking. Brining gives you a flavor boost, too, because the extra water that enters the meat also carries the flavors of your brine’s herbs, spic
es, and other seasonings deep into the meat. Plus, you get some tenderness because the salt loosens up the muscle fibers that cause muscles in meat to contract, making the meat softer and less chewy when cooked.
Just be sure not to overbrine your meat, or the salt will have the opposite effect. It will actually dry out the meat by causing the proteins to tighten and force out all that the moisture you wanted to get in there. As a rule of thumb, dense and thick meats like whole suckling pig can brine for a few days, but tender and thin meats like boneless chicken breasts need only a few hours. Check out the brining times in the recipes in this chapter to get a sense of how long to brine various meats.
ROASTING AND GRILLING
I put a wood grill in my restaurant, Osteria, because it creates a welcoming atmosphere, like a fireplace in someone’s home. That restaurant is like my second home. And I love roasting meat in it. Some people swear by charcoal for grilling and roasting, while others can’t be bothered with anything but gas. Personally, I love wood and wouldn’t trade it for anything else. Wood burns the hottest and gives off the most incredible smoky flavor. I usually use a mixture of red and white oak in my wood grill. If you have a charcoal grill, add some chunks of oak to the coals for a similar smoky aroma. You could even use a gas grill or grill pan (minus the woodsmoke aromas).
No matter what kind of grill you have or even if you decide to roast in a gas oven instead, the most important factor to bear in mind is the heat itself. What creates delicious flavor on the surface of roasted and grilled meat is high heat. As the outside of the meat gets hotter and hotter, sugars and proteins on the surface react with each other and change color, becoming a darker and darker brown. These browning reactions (called Maillard reactions) form hundreds of new flavor compounds that make roasted and grilled meats taste delicious. It’s where those deep, savory, toasted, malty, earthy flavors in roasted meats come from. Simply put, the higher the heat, the deeper the browning, and the better the flavor. Of course, you don’t want to take things too far and burn the meat. Then all you get is bitterness. Sometimes, as with thick steaks and small roasts, that means searing the meat over a high fire, then moving it to a lower-heat area of the grill—or just farther away from the heat—to finish cooking. Other times, usually for larger roasts and whole animals, it means roasting at a short distance from a more moderate fire throughout the cooking so the meat can gradually brown on the surface while cooking all the way through.
Two other notes about browning: it doesn’t happen when foods are wet. If the food is wet when it hits the grill or oven, it won’t brown as easily and will take longer to develop that great roasted flavor. Moisture can only reach 212°F before it evaporates, but browning doesn’t start to happen until about 250°F. Pat your meats dry before roasting or grilling to get rid of the surface moisture so the meat can brown better.
Second, you don’t want to take cold meat right from the fridge to a hot grill or oven. The fact is, warm meat sears and browns better than cold meat does. Put your finger over a candle and you’ll see what I mean. When your finger is warm, it will feel the heat right away. But if you stick your hand in ice and then put it over the candle, you’ll be able to hold your finger there longer before you feel the heat. When cooking meat, you want it to feel the heat right away. Before you grill or roast, let the meat warm up at room temperature for 15 minutes or so to take the chill off. Large roasts may take 30 minutes. Feel the meat to see if it is cool but not cold. You’ll get better flavor—and better grill marks when you take the chill out of the meat.
While we’re on the subject, be sure to keep your grill grates clean and well oiled. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve started to grill something and the last person who used the grill didn’t scrape it clean. It’s like putting a dirty dish in the sink and just leaving it there! Think of your grill like a grill pan. You want it clean and hot with a little oil on there before you add the meat. A clean grill is important because it helps prevent sticking (especially when grilling fish), and it gives you better grill marks. I usually scrape the grill when it’s hot, then I rub some fat on the grate to lubricate it. Sometimes, I’ll use a chunk of fat trimmed off a piece of meat; sometimes it’s a paper towel dunked in grapeseed oil. Rubbing some fat on the grill pulls any fine soot off the metal grate, and the oil helps prevent sticking. The fat also helps the heat of the grill transfer more quickly and evenly to the meat.
FISH FRESHNESS
The same principles apply when roasting or grilling fish. But the flesh of fish is less dense and more delicate, so you want to turn down the heat to keep from drying it out. Fish is also much wetter, so don’t expect them to brown quite as well. If anything, undercook the fish a little bit. Even after you take it off the grill or out of the oven, the heat in it will continue to cook it as it rests.
In 1994, at a restaurant outside Venice called Dall’Amelia, I got the best seafood education a chef could ever hope for. I had been working there for a few months, and they had the best seafood I had ever seen. The most impressive dish on the menu was always the fish of the day. Whatever fish was running that day ended up on your plate. Sometimes it was plump scampi or lean sole; other times it was seppie (cuttlefish), squid, briny clams, or meaty swordfish. We just grilled the seafood for two, four, six, eight, or more people and put it on giant silver trays. People would smile and even cheer when they saw those platters coming to them.
We would lightly grill the fish, because the whole dish was all about capturing the freshness of the food itself. Taking fish from water to grill to plate is a simple way to illustrate that food is a fleeting pleasure in life; you have to enjoy it while you can. And freshness is still the best guide for buying fish today. I encourage you to forget about your favorite variety of fish. Everybody loves salmon. But it isn’t always fresh. And there’s so much more to taste and enjoy! Just walk into the market and ask them, “What is the freshest fish you have today?” No matter what it is, buy it. Whatever they have, you can use it to make Fish Poached in Olive Oil or Mixed Seafood Grill. I put these two recipes in this book for that very reason. There are lots of ways to prepare fish and various factors to consider—bone-in, boneless, whole, fillets, steaks, fat content, firmness, roasted, grilled, broiled, sautéed, pan-seared, poached—it’s endless. But none of it matters if the quality isn’t there. No matter what variety you like, fish is one of the most perishable foods we eat. Freshness trumps variety here. If the fish is very fresh, you have a better chance of it tasting good no matter how it is prepared.
Slow-Roasted Lamb Shoulder
SLOW-ROASTED Lamb Shoulder
I first tried brined and roasted lamb in Rome years ago, and I’ve never had more flavorful lamb in my life. I now follow the same basic process for most of my roasted meats: brine it, roast it, and slice it into portions, then crisp up the slices in a hot pan. I like to serve the lamb slices on a plate with Rosemary Roasted Potatoes. You might think 8 pounds of lamb will cost you an arm and a leg. But while lamb chops are expensive, lamb shoulder is cheaper. This recipe turns an economical cut of meat into an incredible meal.
MAKES 6 SERVINGS
Rosemary-Garlic Brine
1 bone-in lamb shoulder, about 8 pounds
1 large onion, cut into large chunks
2 large carrots, peeled and cut into large chunks
3 ribs celery, cut into large chunks
3 tablespoons grapeseed oil
Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
Fresh rosemary leaves, for garnish
Put a large, heavy-duty trash bag in a large bowl or tub (something large enough to hold the lamb) and carefully pour in the brine. Add the lamb and push it down until it is completely submerged. Press the air out of the bag, tie it closed, and put the container and bag in the refrigerator for 3 days.
Preheat the oven to 300°F. Make a layer of the vegetable chunks on the bottom of a roasting pan that is large enough to fit the lamb. Pull the lamb from the brine and discard the brine. Place the lamb on the
vegetables and roast until fork-tender, 4 to 5 hours. Let cool to room temperature.
Remove the cooled lamb to a cutting board and remove the bones. The lamb should be tender enough to pull the bones right out of the meat. Try to keep the sections of meat as whole as possible.
Slice the lamb sections into 1-inch-thick pieces. Heat the oil in a large skillet over high heat. Brown the lamb pieces in the hot oil until crispy, 3 to 4 minutes per side, turning occasionally. Serve the seared lamb pieces on a platter sprinkled with salt, pepper, and fresh rosemary leaves.
PREP AHEAD
The brine can be prepared up to 2 days in advance. You’ll need another 3 days for brining the lamb. After you roast the lamb, you can cool the sections and refrigerate them for a day or two before searing them in a hot pan. Plenty of options here for working ahead.
BEVERAGE—Cantina Santadi, Carignano 2007 “Grotta Rossa” (Sardinia): The deep flavor of lamb pairs well with the richness of this warm-climate Carignano. The wine feels soft in the mouth, with a nice, full body.
SPIT-ROASTED Suckling Pig
We make one of these every day at Osteria. If you’ve never spit-roasted and are at all intrigued, give it a try. You can make this recipe with a backyard spit-roaster (see Sources), which is exactly how we tested it for the book. But I will say up front: this recipe is not for the faint of heart. Trussing a whole animal onto a spit is fairly graphic. Invite some friends over to help hoist the animal to and from the spit-roaster. And enjoy the feast.
MAKES 14 TO 16 SERVINGS
Fennel Brine
1 suckling pig, dressed for spit-roasting, about 20 pounds
1 cup grapeseed oil
⅓ cup olive oil
