Root Vegetable

Thermometers—whether the instant-reading type used for meat, the large-dial models used to measure the temperature of oil for frying, or those used to test an oven’s temperature—are key tools to have in the kitchen. Why twice-fried potatoes? The first cooking, at a lower temperature, cooks the potato fully, and the second frying, at a higher temperature, makes a delicious crunchy crust. This comes in handy if you want to make the dish for company—the first frying can be done several hours in advance, and the second cooking takes only 5 minutes or so.

Make sure the radishes you choose are roughly the same size and have healthy-looking greens attached. If you find baby turnips in your supermarket or farmers’ market , try them the same way. These radishes go very well with the Veal Chops Stuffed with Taleggio and Broccoli on page 220 or the Chicken Breast Valdostana on page 271.

You can enjoy this dish slightly brothy, or lightly caramelized by continuing to simmer the fennel after it is tender, until all the stock evaporates. If you are serving the fennel with a grilled piece of fish or meat, keep it nice and juicy. On the other hand, if you are serving the fennel as a contorno with a piece of meat or fish that has its own sauce, then cook off the liquid and serve the fennel dry.

I’m sure this dish will take you back, whether you make it with “Italian” string beans (those flat wide ones), regular string beans, or the more expensive, thinner haricots verts. It isn’t necessary to start with a long-simmered tomato sauce for these beans; in fact, the flavor will be fresher with this quick-cooked marinara made right in the pan. The acidity of the tomatoes will turn the string beans a sort of olive green. That doesn’t bother me at all—it reminds me of the way my grandmother cooked vegetables. Maybe they weren’t the brightest-green vegetables I’ve ever seen, but they certainly were the most delicious.

Sometimes you see broccoli rabe cut into little pieces, but I like to serve the whole stems with the leaves attached. If you peel and trim them the way I describe below, the stalks will cook at about the same rate as the leaves. Broccoli rabe is a vegetable I like al dente. By that I don’t mean really crunchy, but with some texture left to it.

If you’re in the habit of throwing away broccoli stems, or even saving them for soup, I’d like you to try cooking broccoli this way. The stems are delicious, and if you peel them, they’ll cook in the same time as the florets. Nothing could be simpler than this way of preparing broccoli—after a quick boiling, just plunk the pieces into the hot oil and let them go till they’re tender. You can skip the boiling step and add the raw broccoli directly to the oil and garlic, keeping more of the nutrients intact. In that case, add some water to the skillet along with the broccoli, and add more from time to time as they cook.

You can chop the chard stems coarsely and cook them in the oil and garlic for a minute or two before adding the chard leaves, or you can save them to serve as a side dish for a separate meal. In that case, trim them, cut them into 3-inch lengths, and cook them for a minute or two in boiling salted water. Drain them, press them gently to flatten them out, then either sauté them in a little olive oil, or coat them with flour, eggs, and bread crumbs and fry them. Either way they are delicious, with a flavor like cardi or cardoons—a very Italian vegetable with a flavor that is a cross between artichokes and celery.

In Italy, this dish would be prepared with rombo (turbot), but flounder is certainly an excellent substitute. Flounder is a flakier fish and will cook quicker, so either cut the potatoes into slightly thinner wedges, or boil them a minute or two longer. The flounder you choose for this dish should be a thick one. The dark skin is removed while the white is left on the bottom so the fish does not fall apart when it is being served.

You can use 8-inch or longer metal or wooden skewers for this dish. If you use wooden skewers, soak them in water to cover for an hour or so before threading the ingredients onto them. That should help prevent the skewers from burning as they cook. If you are using fresh bay leaves or rosemary, you can use the thin branches from either herb as skewers, flavoring the ingredients even more. Because these branches will be shorter than store-bought skewers, you will probably need to make more and smaller skewers. Also, handle them carefully as they cook—herb branches aren’t quite as sturdy as metal or wooden skewers.

This recipe serves two, but it can easily be doubled or cut in half. Potatoes and eggs cooked like this are best when prepared from start to end in the same pan, so the potatoes stay crispy and hot. You might want to do one panful at a time the first time you try this recipe, but once you eat this, I guarantee it will become a favorite and soon you’ll get the knack of working two pans at once. Serve for breakfast, or as lunch with a salad.

For this dish I prefer luganega, a thin (about 1/2-inch-wide) pork sausage seasoned only with salt and pepper and without fennel or other seeds. If that is unavailable, use the wider (about 1-inch-thick) sweet pork sausages, preferably made without aromatic seeds of any kind. Cut the smaller luganega into 1-inch lengths, and the wider sausages into 1/2-inch lengths. When I cook a whole chicken, or any chicken on the bone, I always salt it three times: in its raw state, when I first begin to cook it, and as it finishes cooking. It seems that the first two saltings are absorbed and somewhat dissipated, especially if you add more ingredients as the chicken cooks. The last salting should be to balance the whole act. Each time you salt, it should be done judiciously, to avoid oversalting and ruining the dish.