Root Vegetable

Pork shoulders (also called butts or Boston butts) are terrific roasts, in my opinion, more delicious than pork loin and definitely less expensive. With a nice layer of fat on top, a good proportion of fat through the muscle, and lots of connective tissue, the roasted meat has wonderful flavor and soft, moist texture. It’s easy to roast—you don’t need to erect a foil tent for it—and the shoulder-blade bone, which adds flavor and speeds roasting, is simple to remove when you’re serving the meat. (It is also easy to braise, as you will find in the following recipe for Salsa Genovese). Shoulder roasts range from 4 to 8 pounds, bone-in, or larger. This procedure will work for any-size roast, though the vegetable and seasoning amounts are for a 5-to-7-pound shoulder, the size you’ll usually find in the butcher’s case. To feed a big crowd, ask the butcher to cut a larger shoulder for you, or cook two smaller roasts in one very big roasting pan. Be sure to increase the vegetables, seasonings, and cooking liquids proportionally with your meat. Some of the other choices you have with this easy roast: should you mash all the roasting-pan vegetables into the sauce—the simplest method—or cut and caramelize them to serve as a side dish? Or a bit of each? (See page 344 for more information.) It’s up to you. Do you want to glaze the roast? I’ve got a good maple syrup glaze to share—see recipe that follows.

You’ll need lamb shoulder chops again for this great dinner dish, but, unlike the thin chops for skillet cooking, the right ones for roasting won’t be in the meat case. Don’t just pick up a package of thick-looking chops: ask the butcher to cut lamb shoulder chops expressly for you, each one 2 1/2 inches thick (or as close to that as possible). If he or she looks surprised, it’s because she’s never cut them that thick before. The chop size is unusual, but the meat is exactly the same as everyday thin chops—so make sure she gives you the same price! Thick chops are treated here like roasts, following my covered/uncovered roasting procedure. To shorten the roasting time, I divide each chop into two pieces. Still, the meat needs 90 minutes or more in the oven, typical of the long cooking all shoulder cuts need, to melt the connective tissue and fat, to extract the flavor of bones, and to soften the meat fibers. Bigger pork and beef shoulders will take twice as long as these lamb chops.

Here’s an uncommon preparation for one of the most common and popular cuts of meat in the market: thin-cut lamb shoulder chops. They’re inexpensive, wide, and meaty. Barely 1/2 inch thick, they look like they’ll cook in a minute, perfect for fast family suppers. But shoulder chops also have lots of cartilage and gristle, and usually two sets of bones, which call for slow cooking (and the meat is tougher than it looks). Though it is a thin chop, it will take about 20 minutes to cook. Get out the big skillet to caramelize the meat and flavoring agents, and then bring everything together in a superb sauce. With surprising ingredients, this is a good recipe to add to your growing repertoire of aglio e olio base sauces. Also, as the sauce reduces, it actually braises the chops for a few minutes, which tenderizes the meat a bit, although it will still be chewy (which I love). What is surprising about the sauce? In addition to my usual aglio, olio, e peperoncino, I drop a couple of chopped anchovy fillets into the pan, where they quickly disintegrate. As part of the sauce, their flavor has a subtle presence but a remarkable impact: taste a bit of lamb by itself, then a morsel with sauce, and you’ll see. Here is delicious evidence that the anchovy is a potent source of umami—the amino acid that makes other foods taste better. You can omit the anchovies entirely, but I hope you’ll give this food synergy a try: if you’re doubtful, use just one fillet of anchovy. We all need to be adventurous!

I know that “boiled” anything is not a popular concept these days (one reason I call this “poached”), but don’t disdain or neglect this elemental dish. It is still one of the easiest and most satisfying one-pot meals we can give our families. It’s also faster to make than ever: the big birds I buy—plump, meaty, and best when organically raised—are thoroughly cooked, tender, and moist after barely 45 minutes in the broth. When you really want to make it festive, substitute a capon for the chicken. And with markets that offer an unprecedented array of produce and herbs in all seasons, we can surround the chicken with a greater variety of vegetables than our great-great-grandmothers ever had at one time. In this recipe, I’ve loaded the pot with seven hearty and aromatic vegetables (almost 5 pounds’ worth), but you can certainly choose others or vary the amounts. Just cut enough vegetables overall to give everyone a bountiful serving, drizzling the meat and vegetables with some extra-virgin olive oil and a few grains of sea salt to make it complete. But I also hope you’ll top each portion, as I do, with a dollop of salsa verde, a traditional condiment for boiled foods. The bright, acidic flavor and fresh, uncooked texture of the finely chopped salsa are a perfect counterpoint to the poached meat and vegetables—it makes a meal of boiled chicken exciting as well as comforting.

In my family, favorite dishes are always being altered according to what is available and what is best—especially when I’m cooking. Here’s a perfect example: chicken and potatoes, fried together in a big skillet so they’re crisp and moist at the same time, is my mother’s specialty. Growing up, my brother and I demanded it every week; our kids, Tanya and Joe and Eric, Paul and Estelle, clamored for it too. And now the next generation of little ones are asking their great-grandmother to make chicken and potatoes for them. When I am at the stove—and though I follow my mother’s basic procedures—I can’t resist playing around. Some days I add sausage to Grandma’s recipe, or capers or olives; I might douse the chicken with a splash of vinegar; sometimes I cut up a whole chicken, other times I’ll split little poussins or Cornish hens. If I’m in a hurry, I quickly cook small pieces of chicken breast with the potatoes. (You can see what experiments have worked well if you look through my previous books.) This recipe gives you Erminia’s classic formula—chicken, small potatoes, a bit of onion, and fresh rosemary—with two of my latest twists: pickled cherry peppers and bacon strips, in bite-sized rolls. Cherry peppers are plump golf-ball–sized antipasto peppers in vinegar that you’ll find in jars on the pickle shelves of the supermarket. They come in sweet and hot varieties—and the latter are explosive, if you take just a bite. But when they’re seeded, sliced, and added sparingly to the chicken, they imbue the dish with a mellow heat that I love. If you and your family are hot heads, cut up two or more peppers; otherwise slice only one, or use the sweet cherry peppers and see how you like that. My latest spin on our chicken-and-potato tradition is one everybody loves, especially the kids: we roll bacon slices into little bundles, pin each one closed with a toothpick, and caramelize them along with the chicken. The bacon fat slowly renders and lends the meat a layer of flavor that’s picked up by the potatoes and onions too. By the end of cooking, the rolls have turned into crisp morsels that are a treat to eat with the juicy chicken and tender potatoes. (But be sure to remove all the toothpicks!)

Most of the time when you buy a whole chicken, the packet of neck, gizzards, and chicken liver tucked in the cavity will leave you wondering what to do with them. Well, these are some of the best-tasting parts. So, packet by packet, collect and freeze the necks and gizzards for a good chicken soup, and the livers for this quick and delicious dish. Quickly sautéed chicken livers and slowly caramelized onions are such natural complements in taste and texture that they’re always a welcome supper dish in our house. The kids are a bit finicky about this dish, but I prepare it when Grandma, Giovanni, and I are at home. There’s nothing fancy about my version—though I do embellish the onions with a sweet-and-sour finish of vinegar and golden raisins. Chicken livers need a bit of attention—thorough trimming and rinsing, and fast cooking in a small amount of oil—and they’ll be crispy on the outside and tender on the inside.

Starting with a base of garlic and olive oil, similar to many of my pasta sauces, you build layers of flavor, toasting the garlic, peperoncino, and capers on the pan bottom, then draw the components together with broth and reduce the liquid to perfect saucing consistency. It’s all done in less than 15 minutes. The added challenge here is that you must cook six plump chicken breasts to perfection, in the same pan, in the same short time. The chicken takes up most of the room, so the hot spots will be harder to find. More important, you need to control the heat and timing with care: the chicken has to caramelize lightly at first, then, as the sauce comes up around it, cook to doneness in a couple of minutes of high-heat braising. You’ll be thickening the sauce with bread crumbs in the exciting finale too—so it’s good to have all the ingredients ready to go. Quick, tasty, requiring little effort, this is the kind of cooking I love to do for my family. I guarantee that after you’ve served this amazingly moist chicken and superb sauce to your family they’ll be requesting it often.

Brodo means “soup” in Italian, and brodetti are savory, soupy preparations that usually refer to fish. A brodetto is uncomplicated, quick, and very delicious— a preparation that you can use for many kinds of seafood. For this recipe I’ve chosen skate, an ocean fish that some of you may not be familiar with. It is immensely popular in Europe and one of my lifelong favorites. Fortunately, it is now widely available here, reasonably priced, and, when fresh, as sweet and luscious as lobster. It is particularly well suited for a brodetto, having naturally gelatinous flesh and bones, which enhance the richness and viscosity of the sauce. If you can, buy skate with the center cartilage, which is how I like it; see box on skate, below.

Using orange brightens and brings sunshine to fall and winter vegetables.

Squash is one of those vegetables that, when in season, are celebrated in Italy. It is used in pasta, stuffings, risottos, and soups. By being roasted, as it is here, the squash, like Cinderella, is transformed. It becomes the centerpiece rather than a side dish.

It may scare some of you, but garlic lovers will be excited about transforming 1 whole cup of raw garlic cloves into 1 cup of creamy garlic sauce. But don’t be intimidated: this simple reduction of garlic in a pan of milk creates a sauce that is surprisingly mild—though unmistakably garlicky. And if the whole-cup idea seems too extreme for you, despite my assurance, by all means make this with just 1/2 cup of cloves. At full or half strength, this is delicious with all sorts of vegetables—use it warm with hot vegetables and cold with crudités.

This way of cooking broccoli opens a whole new world of flavors for one of the most available vegetables. Make a medley in the skillet by cooking cauliflower, zucchini, or other cut-up vegetables at the same time. And even reluctant vegetable eaters (we have a few in my family) find broccoli irresistible with my Creamy Garlic Sauce.

You have certainly played around with fresh basil, particularly with pesto. Here the flavor is more subtle in its cooked form.

Lemon is such an everyday flavoring that we forget how unique it can make a dish.

Here you prepare the tomatoes and sauté the base of onions and garlic in the exact same way as in the previous recipe, but the final sauce is unique. First you soften the eggplant chunks in the pan before adding the tomatoes. Then you cook the vegetables covered for a long time, so the chunks break down even more. The aim is to soften the eggplant so much that it almost melts into the tomatoes—which explains the traditional name for this sauce, melanzana affogata: literally, “suffocated eggplant.” The eggplant does not disappear, though, either in flavor or texture, I assure you. If you love eggplant as much as I do, you will want to make this sauce—and plenty of it.

About half the tomato plants I put in our garden beds each summer are plum tomatoes, mainly Italian varieties but also some of the old-fashioned American “heirlooms” that are being revived. Of course, New York is not Naples, and our San Marzano and Roma tomatoes don’t absorb the intense sunlight that they would in Italy, but with my mother’s careful tending (and the kids’ attention too), the plants are prolific and the tomatoes big and sweet. When they ripen—by the bushel, it seems—we make these sauces, one with just tomatoes and the other with tomatoes and eggplant. They are simple sauces, mostly the primary vegetables and big “bouquets” of fresh-cut basil branches (and olive oil, onion, garlic, and peperoncino, naturally). Yet they have a freshness and intensity that are distinct from any sauce made with canned tomatoes, even the finest San Marzano tomatoes. We make both of these in large quantities, in part because the plants are so productive (and Grandma won’t let anything go to waste), but mostly because they are so delicious and versatile. I put them on pasta, eggs, meats, and other vegetables. They are key components in some of my favorite summer creations, including the vegetable lasagna and skillet gratinate that you will find elsewhere in this chapter. And I freeze as much of both sauces as I can—they keep for months and retain their fresh, summery flavor. It’s a joy to cook with them in December or January!

Poached zucchini, cut into rounds or cubes, is a terrific salad ingredient. This salad is a lovely combination of tastes and colors, but you can follow the same basic approach without the potatoes, without the eggs, or even without the onions. If you are preparing zucchini and potatoes for salad, it’s easy to cook them in one pot of water. Start boiling them together and remove the zucchini when they are “droopy,” as described in the main recipe. Usually the potatoes will need to cook a bit longer, until they are easily pierced with a fork or sharp knife. Let everything cool, then toss your salad and dress it just before serving.

Here is another unusual preparation of zucchini that will heighten your appreciation for a wonderful vegetable that is often abundant and underused. It’s my simplified version of a traditional method—in escabesce—in which sautéed zucchini is marinated in vinegar with fresh mint. Here, zucchini and scallion slices caramelize slowly in a skillet, are quickly coated with sizzling vinegar, and are tossed with fresh mint. The resulting layers of flavor are distinct but harmonious. This is a versatile addition to your repertoire of fresh-from-the-garden recipes. Made ahead and served at room temperature, it’s a lively side dish all summer long, especially good with anything off the grill.

I love making risotto for family meals. It’s not something I have time for every day—it takes a good 30 minutes, mostly at the stove—but it is one of those special dishes that focus my attention and engage all my senses in the amazing processes of cooking. I smell, see, and taste what’s in the risotto pan, of course, but I am listening too: for the clicking sound that tells me the rice grains are sufficiently toasted and it’s time to splash them with wine; for the distinctive bubbling as each addition of cooking liquid disappears in the pot, which tells me the rice is ready for more. If I’ve stepped away from the stove—I do take a break from stirring risotto now and then, and you can too—that sound brings me back. I add more liquid and stir (and stir and stir), and feel, through the wooden spoon in my fingers, the corner of the pan where the rice is almost sticking, the resistance that tells me yet another cup of broth is needed before I wander away again. The Basic Risotto recipe that follows is one that will give you this marvelous engagement of the senses. It’s a simple formula that will let you focus on the critical steps in cooking—in the end, creating a great risotto is 100 percent technique—not on a long list of ingredients. You can make this right out of the cupboard, building flavor and superb texture with just olive oil, onions, rice, wine, water, salt, and cheese. Nothing else, not even butter, is necessary. I give you choices, though: use butter or leeks or broth if you want, or more or less of the ingredients listed in ranges. I want you in the driver’s seat, following your senses and tastes, to achieve the texture and flavor you like best (see more on these choices in the box on page 228). With risotto, you see, it is more important that you understand what you are doing than that you add things in prescribed amounts. When you are in control of what’s happening in the pot, you will feel how powerful a few ingredients and a few techniques can be in creating an outstanding dish. To sharpen your focus, you’ll find each step of the recipe instructions accompanied by a brief explanation of its purpose and the chemistry of risotto—these are short, and, believe me, you will have plenty of time to read them while you are stirring! And if you have further questions about risotto, write me at www.lidiasitaly.com. I love teaching about this precious treasure of Italian cooking.