Vegan

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.

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.

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.

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.

It isn’t hard to make featherlight gnocchi. The main thing to keep in mind is this: the less flour you add and the less you handle the dough, the lighter the gnocchi will be. The less moisture there is in the potatoes before you start adding flour, the less flour you will need, so the following tips for making light gnocchi all have to do with removing as much moisture from the potatoes as possible: Don’t overcook the potatoes—their skins will pop open and the flesh will soak up water. Rice the potatoes while they are still quite warm and steaming—rubber gloves help. Spread the riced potatoes out in a thin layer so the steam rising from them has a chance to escape. Once you form gnocchi, they must be cooked or frozen immediately or they turn to mush. To freeze them, pop the tray with the gnocchi on them right into the freezer. When they are solid, scrape them into a resealable plastic bag.

Make this sauce with fresh tomatoes only when the juiciest, most flavorful ripe tomatoes are available. (Increase the amount of olive oil a little if you make the sauce with fresh tomatoes.) Otherwise, canned plum tomatoes make a delicious marinara sauce.

Olive oil perfumed with garlic is a very handy thing to have in the kitchen. But it must be handled carefully: there is a slight chance that uncooked garlic that is steeped for too long in olive oil could be a breeding ground for the organism that causes botulism. However, if you handle the garlic and oil carefully—and don’t let it steep too long—the risk is virtually nonexistent. If you are concerned about botulism, make the infusion with blanched or roasted garlic. It might not be as pronounced, but you will still have the flavor of garlic-infused olive oil.

If you’re making salad with the tender, inner leaves of a head of escarole, this is a good place to use the tough outer leaves. In fact, they’re even better for this soup. Just remove any bruised or yellow parts of the leaf and shred the rest. If you like, double the amount of beans in this recipe, fish half of them out of the pot after cooking, and save them for the Arugula and White-Bean Salad on page 60. Spoon off all but enough of the cooking liquid barely to cover the remaining beans before adding the escarole and finishing the soup. Whole dried peperoncino or diavolillo peppers are the type of chili peppers that are used, seeds and all, to make the crushed red pepper that you are familiar with. Toasting the whole peppers along with garlic cloves in olive oil brings out their nuttiness and spice. I like to serve them whole right in the soup, where they can be easily spotted and removed.

You can make this salad with Braised Cannellini, and save the rest for a side dish, or you can soak and cook an extra 1/2 cup of beans when you make the Escarole and White-Bean Soup on page 86. In that case, remove the beans for this salad before you stir in the escarole and finish the soup. If you do make this salad when you’re making escarole soup, substitute some of the tender, inner leaves of escarole for the arugula, and use the tougher, outer escarole leaves for the soup. You don’t have to use cannellini beans. Kidney beans, chickpeas, or just about any beans you like can go into this salad. Whichever beans you use, cut the onion thin and at the last minute so it stays crunchy.

Banana peppers are a long, thin-skinned mildly spicy variety of pepper that, because of their skin and fairly meaty texture, are perfect for frying. To serve them as a room-temperature salad, prepare them as described below. If you prefer to serve them hot, arrange the peeled peppers and their juices in a baking dish, sprinkle the bread crumbs over them, and bake in a hot oven until the crumbs are lightly browned.

This was one of the first dishes that brought the taste of contemporary Italy to the Italian-American restaurant scene. It came into vogue in the early seventies when red radicchio and arugula became available in the States. While the Italians will toss any vegetable in their salads, I think the addition of endive was a play on the color of the red, green, and white Italian flag. This salad is a great base for additions, from walnuts and pine nuts to different cheeses and cold cuts, such as salami or turkey, and even fish such as tuna, shrimp, or poached whitefish.

There is not much to peel in celery, just the strings that run along the ribs that can be annoying to eat. To remove them, I take a peeler and lightly run it along the back of the celery rib. Another way to remove them is with a paring knife. When you are trimming the base or the top of the stalk, don’t just chop away, but gently hold the stalk in your hands and cut from the inside of the stalk to the outside without cutting all the way through. Just before finishing the cut, pull the knife toward you and the strings should peel off down the length of the stalk.