With her mop of curly hair piled high on her head, it’s impossible not to notice chef Nancy Silverton behind the bar at Osteria Mozza, the restaurant she co-owns with Mario Batali, in Los Angeles. The chef best known for making some of the greatest bread in the United States and the author of countless cookbooks, including Breads from the La Brea Bakery (which I’ve used to make sourdough bread with a natural yeast starter), is a quirky, dramatic presence.
“I’m not one of those chefs who likes to wander around the dining room chatting with customers,” she tells me. “I need to be behind the counter handling food.”
Handling food is what Silverton does best; whether she’s prepping a focaccia for the oven or a simple plate of Prosciutto San Daniele with Warren Pear and Pomegranate Seeds, her hands are her primary tools.
“My mom always told me that I was terrific with my hands,” she says. “For years, I took art classes and didn’t believe her. It was only after I started cooking that I understood what she meant.”
Silverton uses her hands to build plates of food that are as notable for their visual beauty as they are for their deceptive simplicity.
On one white plate, for example, she sets down three perfectly thin slices of Meyer lemon. When I say “perfectly thin” I mean these are technical wonders, Platonic circles that would stun the likes of Leonardo da Vinci. On top, she piles a salad of sliced celery (“I slice it on the extreme bias”), scallions, tarragon, chervil, “pale green” celery leaves, chives, and tiny basil leaves dressed in a lemon vinaigrette.
To that she adds three chunks of fresh mozzarella, and on top of each chunk, she lays a single anchovy. “Alici di menaica,” she says. “You can get them from Buon Italia in New York. They’re much fresher than normal anchovies, and they’re the only sustainably caught ones you can buy” (see Resources).
Silverton, who clearly surrounds herself with the best ingredients, wasn’t always so particular about her food. “As a little girl,” she says, “I had three favorite meals: frozen Salisbury steaks with butter, Swanson TV dinners, and creamed tuna on toast.”
Everything changed when she got to college. “It was a fluke how I got into food,” she recalls. “I went to Sonoma State and when I moved into the dorms, I noticed a handsome guy in the kitchen. So I told him that I loved to cook [a lie] and he hired me.”
It may have been a fluke at the time, but Silverton’s career—a storied one that is still growing—proves that her mother was right: her hands were built for this profession. But it’s not all about her hands.
“I always cook from my heart,” she tells me before I go. “Never from my head. I cook from my senses and follow my instincts.”
Her instincts make her restaurants very popular (both Osteria Mozza and Pizzeria Mozza were packed the night I cooked with her), but it’s her hands that keep the customers coming back. She’s got something all of us should strive for in the kitchen: the magic touch.
“I love stoves, I love knives, I love beautiful wooden spoons. I don’t care about pumps and beakers and petri dishes.”
Serves 2 to 4
This recipe is 100 percent shopping and 0 percent cooking. Instead of thinking of it as an assembly project, though, think of it more as an opportunity to craft a still life. The arrangement of the three primary ingredients—the prosciutto, the pear, and the pomegranate seeds—requires a certain amount of finesse. Play around, and remember: once you set this out, you have a totally simple first course that people will love. And all you had to do was shop for it.
½ pound prosciutto San Daniele (or other high-quality prosciutto), sliced thin
1 Warren pear or any other pear that’s in season, cut into quarters (don’t core it; leave the seeds intact*)
Seeds from ½ pomegranate (see seed removal tips)
Good-quality olive oil
Lay the prosciutto on your nicest white platter and crinkle it a little bit to give it texture. Place the pear quarters in the center of the plate. Scatter the pomegranate seeds all around. Drizzle very lightly with olive oil and serve.
Serves 2 to 3
Once again, Silverton proves that if you find the right ingredients, it’s just a question of putting them together properly on the plate. Here, three perfect circles of Meyer lemon—use a mandoline to achieve that—form the base of a plate that includes fresh mozzarella, a crunchy, acidic celery salad, and special anchovies that Silverton gets from the Buon Italia store in New York’s Chelsea Market (see Resources; or use the best anchovies you can find).
FOR THE DRESSING
1 tablespoon minced shallots
¼ cup fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon champagne vinegar
Freshly cracked black pepper
¼ cup olive oil
FOR THE SALAD
1 celery stalk, sliced thick on the extreme bias
2 scallions, sliced thin on the extreme bias
4 or 5 chives, cut into pieces
Leaves from 1 celery stalk (6 or 7 leaves)
Tiny basil leaves
Kosher salt
FOR ASSEMBLY
3 very thin slices of Meyer lemon
3 chunks of fresh mozzarella (from one round ball)
3 anchovies (preferably alici di menaica*; see Resources
1 hard-boiled egg*
First, make the dressing by whisking together the shallots, lemon juice, champagne vinegar, and black pepper. Gradually add the olive oil, whisking all the while, to create an emulsification. Set aside.
In a bowl, gently toss the salad ingredients and a pinch of salt with some of the dressing. Taste to see if it needs more dressing; adjust accordingly.
To plate, lay the slices of Meyer lemon on a platter. Surround with some of the salad and then set down the chunks of mozzarella, one on top of each lemon slice. Lay an anchovy on top of each mozzarella chunk.
Pile more salad in the middle and, with a Microplane grater, grate the hard-boiled egg on top*, just before serving.
Serves 2 to 4
Most of the time, when fresh mozzarella is made, it’s stored in water. But mozzarella in panna, as Silverton explained to me, is different because it’s stored in cream. “You can fake it,” she says, “by pouring some cream on regular mozzarella.” I’ve taken it one step further by warming the mozzarella directly in the cream, a step that allows the mozzarella to absorb some of the cream and makes this whole dish even sultrier. As for the tomatoes, roasting them on a rack is a subtle change from roasting them directly on a cookie sheet, but the tomatoes intensify even more this way (it prevents them from steaming). And when they are combined with the pesto, the warm mozzarella, and the cream? Watch out. You may witness fits of ecstasy at your table.
A few bunches of cherry tomatoes*, still on the vine
Olive oil
1 cup heavy cream*
1 whole fresh mozzarella*
¼ cup pesto (use Melissa Clark’s recipe, minus the cilantro, or store-bought)
Baby basil, still on the vine
Small sourdough croutons (see Anne Quatrano’s recipe), optional
Preheat the oven to 250°F. Set the whole tomatoes, still on the vine, on a rack on a cookie sheet and drizzle with olive oil. Cook them for about 2 hours, until they’re slightly shriveled and the skins are just starting to fall off. Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly.
In a small pot, heat the cream until warm but not boiling (you’ll see a few bubbles around the edges and if you stick your finger in, it should feel just a bit warmer than body temperature). Turn off the heat and add the mozzarella in a few big chunks. Allow the mozzarella to steep for at least 15 minutes, soaking up the cream and warming up as it does.
Spoon the pesto onto a large serving plate or into a shallow bowl. Cube the warmed mozzarella and plate it with some of the cream on top. Place the slow-roasted tomatoes, still on the vine, alongside the mozzarella. Top with the baby basil and the croutons (if you’re using them) and serve.
