Tomato

If you’re starting with a whole head of celery, choose the right-size stalks for this dish: Use the larger, outer stalks and leaves for stock or soup, and the celery hearts as a snack or as part of an antipasto spread. Those medium-size stalks in between are ideal for baking. What you’re doing here is making a small amount of marinara sauce to bake the celery in. If you have on hand a little leftover marinara, you can certainly use it instead.

The traditional zuppa di pesce that you most likely encountered in Italian-American restaurants was based on garlic and tomato sauce, which was simmered along with assorted fish to make a savory dish. Sometimes the sauce was used to dress pasta, and the shellfish and fin fish would be enjoyed as a second course. This version is more in a brodetto style, lighter and clearer than the traditional version, with saffron as a flavoring ingredient. This kind of preparation can be found with slight variations along the entire coast of Italy from Liguria to the Adriatic coast to the heel, Puglia, and the island of Sicily. I have given you the recipe with fish fillets, although traditionally zuppa di pesce is made with slices of whole fish with bones and skin intact. But it is tricky to eat that way, even though the flavor is more complex.

It is a good idea to roll up and fry one of these fish balls before forming the whole batch. You can check the seasoning and add a little salt and pepper if you like before you cook them all. Cooking a little sample is a good thing to keep in mind when you’re making meatballs, too.

I love this prepared in individual baking dishes, as described in the note below. But I know most people don’t have six such dishes, so I’m offering the recipe prepared in a single large baking dish—I don’t want you to miss out on the wonderful flavor of fresh anchovies just because you don’t have small baking dishes. If you serve the anchovies from a large round dish, cut them into wedges, like a cake. Don’t be alarmed if the “slices” crumble a little; that is the nature of the dish. You can easily prepare this recipe for two people: decrease the amount of anchovies by two-thirds to 1/2 pound, but cut the remaining ingredients in half.

Wild-caught striped bass are the best for this recipe, but you can use fillets from any firm-fleshed ocean fish. Whatever fish you choose, the shape and thickness of the fillets is important. Each fillet should be about 1 1/2 inches thick and narrow enough so you can fit all six fillets in the pan with the sauce. If your pan isn’t large enough to hold all the fillets, cook the sauce first, then divide between two skillets of fillets. As with any dish, you can take this recipe in a lot of different directions. I sometimes prepare it using scallions in place of the onions, or black olives and capers in place of the green olives. Rather than add the olives and capers to the tomatoes, I like to cook them along with the onions for a minute or two to bring out their flavor. This “layering”of flavors is one of the little tricks we professional chefs use to get the most out of our ingredients.

Cod is a very delicate fish—it will flake apart easily—so a nonstick baking pan is a great help. The seasoned bread crumbs I use as a topping for the cod are very versatile; if you don’t care for cod, or if you can’t find it, keep this preparation in mind for seasoning other baked fish. Traditionally, salmoriglio is prepared with parsley, and that is how I present it here. But you can substitute other herbs, like thyme, that will marry well with the herbs you use to top the fish. If you have fresh basil, shred a few leaves and toss them in with the tomatoes.

I prefer olives with the pits—I think they have better flavor. Adding the olives directly to the oil after the garlic has browned will give you a more pronounced flavor of olives. If you like a milder flavor, add them to the sauce once the tomatoes have come to a boil. Baccalà has a tendency to curl up as it cooks. If yours does that, press on the fillets lightly with a metal spatula so they caramelize evenly. In order to keep the sauce light—as its name says—spoon in a little hot water from time to time as the sauce simmers.

This dish is excellent served as a main course or as a dressing for pasta. (Toss the pasta with the sauce and top the plates with shrimp.) It is also delicious spooned over hot Soft Polenta (page 346).

This is a more contemporary version of one of the standbys of Italian-American cooking. Instead of coating a thin, breaded, and fried chicken cutlet with tomato sauce, I like to top a chicken thigh with sliced fresh tomatoes and slices of fresh mozzarella or Fontina cheese.A light sauce made with fresh tomatoes and basil finishes the plate. Fontina is a mellow, lightly aged cow’s-milk cheese that melts beautifully. Take the time to search out Italian Fontina—you’ll appreciate the creamy difference. You can prepare this dish using veal or pork cutlets as well (see variations below).

The caccia in cacciatore means “hunt,” so I guess this is chicken hunter’s-style. Somewhere along the line—probably on its trip from Italy to America—the hunter’s pheasant or guinea hen in this dish was replaced by chicken. If you don’t want to cut up a whole chicken, you can buy pieces—get all legs and thighs, if that’s what you like; they are very good in this dish. It can be made using only chicken breasts, if that’s your preference, but to keep the chicken from drying out, you should cut the cooking time in half, and reduce the wine to 1/4 cup and the tomatoes to 3 cups. Best of all, though, is to make this dish with an older hen. In that case, increase the cooking time by 20 minutes, adding more water or stock as needed to keep the hen pieces covered as they cook. When you cut up chicken, or anything for that matter, your knife should glide along. If you’re struggling, stop for a second and take a look at what you’re cutting; you should be cutting between the bones at the joints, not actually cutting through the bones. If you’re off target, just wiggle the blade of the knife to get a feel for where the joint is, then make another cut. With practice, you’ll get a sense for where the joints lie.

Cooking is all about making decisions. Sometimes you have to decide if you are going to have great looks or great flavor. Of course, I try to have both, but if it is ever a question of giving up one or the other, I always go for the best flavor. In this dish, for example, lightly cooked peppers would look brighter, but I prefer the flavor of peppers that have simmered until they begin to break down. So I cook them longer, for better flavor. Choosing two different-color peppers helps make up for what little we lose in appearance by cooking the peppers fully. Fresh herb sprigs serve as more than decoration. The heat from the dish releases the aroma and adds to the enjoyment.

Texture is a very important part of the gustatory pleasures of tripe. Tripe should be soft and yet resilient; you do not want it mushy. In this recipe, as I do when making many long-simmered sauces, I keep a pot of hot water near the tripe as it simmers. From time to time, I check the tripe, ladling in water if the sauce has cooked down and some of the tripe isn’t covered. At the end of cooking, there should be enough sauce so the tripe is nice and juicy but not watery.

This sauce is traditionally simmered for hours, until a finger’s width of oil floats on top. Typically that oil was then reincorporated into the sauce. In true Italian family style, pass platters of the meat with some sauce spooned over them, and bowls of pasta dressed with the sauce around the table. Buon appetito.

Let as much liquid as possible drain from the tomatoes by cutting out the cores and allowing the juices and seeds inside to escape, and then squeezing them gently with your hands. If the tomatoes are too wet, the crust won’t cook properly. Whether you choose a food mill or food processor to grind the tomatoes, make sure they stay a little chunky. As with all the measurements for seasoning in this book, the amount of oregano I call for is a guideline. If you like a pronounced flavor of oregano, by all means add more.