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- Roasted peppers with herbs, olive oil, anchovies and goat cheese
- Spaghetti with mushrooms
- Roasted fish with potatoes, capers, anchovies and olives
Last month, I was lucky enough to travel to Italy for a few weeks. I was there to teach a class in Food and Memoir Writing with my partner, Domenica Marchetti, in the small town of Alassio, nestled between Genoa, Italy, and Nice, France. To say the food was good would be a vast understatement. To say the food was extraordinary would be getting closer to the truth.
Italians love to eat and have such respect for ingredients and the way they are presented. Almost nothing we ate was fussy or loaded with sauces or silly garnishes. The food we encountered was based on tradition, of centuries of home cooking and a respect for what grows locally and what is available from the Ligurian sea.
I brought home so many ideas for new dishes, but these three were the first ones I experimented with.
A roasted sweet pepper, draped with a fat anchovy, green olive oil and fresh herbs served alongside a local soft cheese. I have recreated the dish using good-quality jarred anchovies, herbs, and soft goat cheese.
Before the workshop began, we spent a few days on Lake Garda in the north. At a lakeside restaurant, we tasted two dishes that were as close to perfection as it gets. The first was homemade tagliatelle with foraged funghi porcini, a golden brown mushroom found in the Italian forest that is full of earthy flavor.
The next course was a branzino (European sea bass), roasted with paper-thin slices of potatoes, capers, anchovies, pitted black olives and halved cherry tomatoes. The waiter brought it to the table on a baking sheet lined with parchment, the whole fish surrounded by the briny, umami-rich accompaniments.
I knew, almost immediately, that when I returned home, I would roast a whole local fish with olive oil on parchment surrounded by paper-thin slices of potatoes, capers, pitted black olives, halved cherry tomatoes, and anchovies. The high oven heat would crisp the edges of the potatoes. The briny salty essence of the anchovies, capers, and olives would wake up the mild fish and potatoes.
Roasted peppers with herbs, olive oil, anchovies and goat cheese
This dish arrived at the table as part of a multi-course Sunday lunch at the charming Osteria i Matetti in the town of Alassio. Were the peppers the most impressive-looking dish? Were they the most innovative? Not really. But it was sexy and memorable, and I thought about the flavors and textures for weeks.
Silky soft wedges of roasted red pepper with a fat anchovy draped in the middle of each piece, drizzled with a gorgeous green olive oil, and a flurry of fresh herbs. Next to the peppers was a mound of soft, creamy goat cheese. It was the perfect combination of slippery sweet peppers, salty anchovies, fresh herbs and creamy goat cheese. Serve with a warm crusty bread like a ciabatta.
If you’re not a fan of anchovies, you can omit them and stuff the peppers with the goat cheese instead.
Serves 4.
INGREDIENTS
- 2 large red or yellow peppers
- 8 anchovy filets
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 tablespoon anchovy oil
- About 2 tablespoons fresh chopped herbs, like oregano, basil, thyme, rosemary or any combination
- Freshly ground black pepper
- Dash dried red pepper flakes, crumbled
- One 3-ounce round or log soft goat cheese, at room temperature
INSTRUCTIONS
- Roast the pepper: on a gas flame (or on a gas grill or under the broiler) cook the pepper until it is blackened on all sides, tossing it from side to side. The idea is to cook the pepper until just soft and blacken the skin so it will easily peel off. It should take about 6 to 8 minutes in total. Place the blackened pepper in a brown paper bag and seal tightly. Let sit in the bag for 5 minutes; this will steam the pepper and cause the skin to come off easily. Remove the pepper from the bag and, using your fingers, carefully peel off the blackened skin. Careful, it will be hot. Cut the pepper in half and remove the seeds and core. Cut each pepper into 4 wedges and arrange on a serving plate.
- Place an anchovy filet down the inside of each pepper wedge. Drizzle half the olive and anchovy oil on top of the peppers and scatter half the herbs on top. Season with a grinding of pepper and just a touch of the dried red pepper. Arrange the cheese next to the peppers and drizzle with the remaining oils and herbs and a grinding of black pepper and a touch of dried red pepper.
Spaghetti with mushrooms
“Tonight we have a special pasta. Homemade tagliatelle with just-foraged funghi porcini mushrooms. It is quite simple but quite magnificent.” We are sitting in a small dining room on the edge of Lake Garda, in northern Italy. We can hear the waves lap against the shore, break against the wooden dock with the blue and white diagonally-striped Venetian poles.
As if to entice us further, he brings a rustic basket to the table filled with the wild, golden brown mushrooms. He pretends to smell them, scooping his hand in the air in a wave to bring the aroma up, closer to his nose. He starts to recite some of the other pasta offerings on the menu, but we quickly say “No, no, per favore, the mushroom pasta.”
The pasta is silky and perfectly al dente. The mushrooms have been gently sauteed in garlic and a rich, grassy local olive oil, and there is little more to the dish. The chef lets the pasta and the mushrooms tell the whole story. A flourish of parsley provides green.
The mushrooms taste like meat, like the forest. They are every bit as satisfying as biting into a well-aged piece of beef. We are quiet as we wind the pasta around our forks. The dish is everything we hoped for. A dish that honors autumn and the earth and this magnificent part of northern Italy.
I knew this dish would be tough to recreate at home. Wild mushrooms are very much in season, but unless you are an educated forager I’m not recommending it. Look for shiitakes, portabellos, oyster mushrooms and others. But if you really want this dish to taste of the forest buy some dried porcini (available here or here) and soak the mushrooms in hot water for 15 minutes. It will add an extra earthy touch.
Tagliatelle is a traditional, long flat ribbon pasta. You can also use fettuccine, pappardelle, spaghetti or thick spaghetti.
Serves 2 to 3.
INGREDIENTS
- 5 ounces dried porcini mushrooms
- About 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
- 7 ounces portobello mushrooms, ends trimmed and coarsely chopped
- 5 ounces shiitake mushrooms, ends trimmed and coarsely chopped
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
- ⅓ cup heavy cream
- ⅓ cup finely chopped fresh parsley
- About ⅓ cup grated Parmesan cheese
- ½ pound tagliatelle, pappardelle, fettuccine, or thick spaghetti
INSTRUCTIONS
- Place the dried porcini in a heatproof bowl and pour ⅓ cup almost boiling water on top. Let soak for 15 minutes.
- Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to boil for the pasta.
- In a large skillet, heat the 1 ½ tablespoon oil over low heat. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Raise the heat to medium and add the portobello and shiitakes, salt and pepper and cook, stirring, for about 3 minutes. Mushrooms are like sponges; if the oil dries out, add the additional half a tablespoon.
- Drain the soaking porcini mushrooms but do not throw out the water. Dry them on a clean tea towel and then coarsely chop. Add the porcini to the skillet and stir to incorporate. Add the mushroom water to the skillet and cook for another 3 minutes. Add the cream, salt and pepper and simmer over low heat for about 8 minutes.
- Add the pasta to the boiling water and cook according to the package instructions, about 11 minutes. Add 1 tablespoon of the starchy water to the skillet with the mushrooms and cook for another 2 minutes.
- Drain the pasta when al dente and top with the remaining tablespoon of oil, salt and pepper. Top the pasta with the mushrooms and the sauce and sprinkle on the parsley and half the cheese. Serve the remaining cheese on the side.
Roasted fish with potatoes, capers, anchovies and olives
Feel free to omit the anchovies if you’re not a fan; simply double the amount of capers and olives.
INGREDIENTS
- 1 to 1.5 lb whole fish, gutted and scaled (use whatever is local to you like trout, bluefish, flounder, or snapper)
- 1 lemon, very thinly sliced
- Pinch salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 2 medium-sized potatoes, very thinly sliced
- 5 ounces cherry tomatoes, halved
- 4 to 5 anchovies, coarsely chopped
- 2 tablespoons capers, drained
- 2 tablespoons pitted black olives, cut in half
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 tablespoon anchovy oil, optional
INSTRUCTIONS
- Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
- Place a sheet of parchment paper on a baking sheet or cookie sheet.
- Place the fish in the middle of the baking sheet and tuck half the lemon slices into the cavity. Lightly sprinkle the fish with just a touch of salt and pepper, inside and out.
- Arrange the potatoes around the fish, being careful not to let them touch – really space them out. Scatter the tomatoes, anchovies, capers and olives on top of the potato slices. Season with pepper. (You don’t need salt since the capers and anchovies and olives are very salty.) Drizzle the olive and anchovy oil on top of the fish and potatoes.
- Roast on the middle shelf of the oven for 25 minutes. Remove and preheat the broiler. Broil for about 5 to 6 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender and crispy brown along the edges. The fish should have an internal temperature of 145 degrees. Remove and filet the fish and serve with the potatoes and tomatoes etc. Serve the remaining lemon slices on the side.
More Italian favorites:
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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