THE PORK STORE “STRING BEAN SALAD”
SERVES 4
This is a very popular dish that you could get in any Staten Island pork store. You know, the places you’d go and buy the same meat they got in the supermarket, but for three times the price—like those sausage pinwheels with parsley and grated cheese? Then they got all kinds of prepared salads that you can buy too. These places thrive in the summertime because anytime you barbecue, you can get anything you need there. Seriously, you can’t get out of a pork store in Staten Island without spending at least fifty dollars. It’s so stupid, but everybody does it.
This salad, though—Fran’s mother would make it herself all the time, especially in the summer because it’s really nice served cold. All there was to it was boiling the string beans and potatoes just enough that they cooked, but not too much, so they still had some body on them, then dressin’ ’em in some oil and vinegar, salt and pepper.
4 white potatoes, peeled and quartered
1 pound fresh string beans
8 garlic cloves, chopped
¼ cup olive oil
2 tablespoons white vinegar
Put the potatoes in a saucepan, add just enough cold water to cover them, and bring the water to a boil. Reduce the heat to maintain a simmer and cook until the potatoes are tender, 10 to 20 minutes (check every 5 minutes after 10 minutes). Remove the potatoes from the water using a slotted spoon or spider, keeping the water at a boil, and put the potatoes in a colander to drain and cool.
Meanwhile, remove the tips of the string beans and wash them thoroughly—this is a great job for the kids. Place them in the water you used to cook the potatoes and cook for 1 to 2 minutes, until they’re tender but still crisp. Drain the green beans and let them cool.
In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients and refrigerate until ready to serve.
EGGPLANT CAPONATA
SERVES 5 TO 6
Caponata, or “gabbonatin,” was a real popular dish in our house. It’s like a Sicilian version of baba ghanoush, only we don’t blend everything together, so it’s real fast to make. At the base of it you have eggplant with the skin on, then you add a little bit of celery, some capers and green olives, and then tomato paste or sauce. We’d serve it cold and eat it like a dip the way people do in the Middle East—only with Italian bread. You could also do our grandfather proud and make this with Pickled Eggplant (here).
1 cup white vinegar
¼ cup sugar
1 cup olive oil
2 medium eggplants, ends trimmed, diced into 1-inch cubes
1 large onion, diced
4 stalks celery, diced
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 (16-ounce) can tomato sauce, or 2 cups Marinara Sauce (here)
½ cup kalamata olives, pitted
½ cup drained capers
¼ cup pignoli nuts
1 loaf Italian bread, for serving
Provolone cheese, for serving
In a large saucepan, bring the vinegar to a boil over high heat. Add the sugar and continue boiling until the mixture has reduced by about half. Remove from the heat.
In a large sauté pan, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the eggplant, onion, celery, and garlic and sauté until browned and tender. Add the tomato sauce and reduced vinegar mixture and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove the mixture from the heat and set it aside to cool. Stir in the olives, capers, and pignoli nuts.
Serve the caponata at room temperature with crispy Italian bread and pieces of provolone.
PICKLED EGGPLANT
MAKES 8 (16-OUNCE) BALL JARS
Whenever our grandfather wasn’t cooking, he’d be bottling sauce and makin’ bread crumbs and, best of all, picklin’ eggplant. And after he moved to Florida and retired, he really went nuts. When he died, he left an entire garage packed to the ceiling with it. You woulda thought he had a factory, there was so much. No kidding, we were eatin’ that eggplant ten years after that. That was his legacy, all that friggin’ eggplant. And it was delicious—real tangy and sour, all vinegar. The best way to describe the flavor would be Extreme Pickle. We’d eat it mixed into Eggplant Caponata (here), with olives and sopressata on Italian bread, or plain—right outta the jar. When we were sixteen, we went to visit him out in Florida. We’d just gotten our licenses, which is pretty much the coolest thing in the world to a teenager, and we’d rented a Cutlass, the International Series. It was a nice car, like a muscle car. So we go to our grandfather’s house, went on his boat, and so on. When we left, of course he gave us a coupla jars of eggplant. So we’re drivin’ across Florida to get back to the airport, which was four or five hours away, and at one point, Fran turns to Sal and says, “Wanna eat the eggplant?” So we set up the jar in the center console and start eatin’ it with our fingers, grease gettin’ all over the seats, the steerin’ wheel, our pants. It was that good.
One of the secrets to the pickled eggplant was that it never touched heat, so it never got all mushade. And before our grandfather pickled it, he’d submerge the eggplant in water and salt—“to take the agita out of it,” he’d say. Then it would get bottled with vinegar, olive oil, red pepper flakes, salt, and garlic. And that was it.
½ pound (¾ cup) salt
4 large eggplants, ends trimmed, cut into ¼-inch-thick rounds
3 cups white vinegar
1 cup olive oil
6 garlic cloves
1 teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons red pepper flakes
Fill a large pot, bowl, or tub with enough water to completely cover the eggplant. Add salt, using enough to make the water taste salty, like seawater. Put the eggplant in the water and make sure it stays submerged by weighting it down with a pot lid or plate. Cover the container and let it sit overnight. Periodically check to see if the water has turned brown. When it has, drain off the water and replace it with clean, salted water.
The next day, transfer the eggplant to a large bowl and add the vinegar, olive oil, garlic cloves, 2 teaspoons of salt, the black pepper, and the red pepper flakes.
To sterilize your jars for storage, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Submerge the open jars and lids and boil for five minutes. Dry out the jars and fill them with the pickled eggplant and brine. Close the jars and return them to the pot of boiling water. Boil the jars for another 5 minutes to create a vacuum seal. The pickles should be ready for eating in 10 to 14 days.
ORANGE SALAD
SERVES 1 TO 2
Our grandfather was always making this as a light snack. He’d peel the oranges; toss ’ em with oil, salt, and pepper; and eat it just like that.
We have two versions of this salad.
Grandpa made it simple:
2 oranges, peeled and segmented
Olive oil
Salt and black pepper
Combine the ingredients in a bowl and serve.
In the restaurant, we made it a little more fancy:
2 oranges, peeled and segmented
1 bag mesclun lettuce mix
1 tomato, cut into 8 wedges
1 stalk celery, sliced
4 walnuts, toasted and crushed
¼ red onion, sliced
½ cup red wine vinegar
½ cup olive oil
Salt and black pepper
Combine the ingredients in a bowl and shake it like a Polaroid picture.