Carciofi alla romana
Roman-style artichokes
Artichokes are like Tilda Swinton as the White Witch in Narnia: beautiful, formidable, and with an insincere sweetness, which comes from the cyanin. Their flavor is intriguing and subjective (I say it’s a combination of cooked asparagus, hazelnuts, and truffle). It’s the thick, velvety, and yielding texture, though, of the gray-green saucer of a heart that’s so special. I think one of the best ways to appreciate this is in carciofi alla romana, a quintessentially Roman dish of trimmed artichokes stuffed with wild mint and garlic, then cooked slowly in a little water and olive oil, stems to the sky, until all the liquid has been absorbed and they are meltingly soft and tender. In the spring, on entering a trattoria or restaurant in Rome, you will often see a platter of artichokes cooked this way, like fat, gray-green tulips, stems upward. If you do, that is what you should order. They are also surprisingly simple to make at home.
serves 4, plus one to argue over
1 lemon, halved
2 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons very finely chopped flat-leaf parsley (optional)
2 tablespoons very finely chopped mint, ideally mentuccia (lesser calamint)
salt and freshly ground black pepper
8 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
½ cup white wine
You will need a large, heavy-bottomed pan with a tight-fitting lid, tall enough to accommodate the artichokes, which are to go in standing up.
Prepare the artichokes by pulling the dark, tough outer leaves downward and snapping them off just before the base. Then, using a sharp knife, pare away the tough green flesh from the base of the artichokes and stem. As you work, rub the cut edges of the artichoke with a cut lemon or sit them in a bowl of water with lemon juice.
Chop the garlic very finely. In a bowl, mix together the chopped herbs and garlic, and add a generous pinch of salt and a few grindings of black pepper. Using your thumbs, open up the artichoke flower and use a teaspoon to scrape out the hairy choke (if they are not a chokeless variety). Next, press one-fifth of the herb-and-garlic mixture into the hollow cavity. Sit the artichokes, stems upward, in the pan. Add the olive oil, wine, and enough water to come a third of the way up the leaves. Cover the pot with a damp tea towel or a piece of doubled-over paper towel and put the lid on over the towel. Bring the edges of the towel back over the top of the pan. Place the pan over medium-low heat and cook for 40 minutes. The liquid in the pan should bubble and steam purposefully but not aggressively. The artichokes are ready when a fork easily pierces the thickest part of the stem near the heart.
Once cooked, use a slotted spoon to move the artichokes onto a serving plate, stems upward. Allow them to cool to room temperature. Reserve the cooking juices and pour these over the artichokes just before serving.
Vignarola
Spring vegetable stew
Rome through the eyes of a two-year-old is simple. The Colosseum is the house of the giants; the Roman Forum is the dinosaur house; San Pietro is a big chiesa; and the fountains are taps, except the fountain in piazza Navona, which is a tap with a fish (the fish being the dolphin that Neptune is wrestling with). Each landmark, however familiar, is greeted with a comedy gasp, announced as though for the first time, then repeated until I have a headache: “House of the giants! House of the giants! House of the giants!”, possibly trailing off into a whisper, “house of the giants.” The market is similarly straightforward. Yesterday, Luca marched three feet ahead, pointing and announcing the stalls like a town crier: fish, meat, flowers, pane, dog (a pet stall), fruit, and then, at our stall—having eaten the first of this year’s fresh ones yesterday—yelled peas, peas, peas! Gianluca immediately obliged and handed Luca a pod, which he grabbed while I made a futile attempt at “What do you say when you are given something?” But Luca was too busy opening the pod—crack!—and then, at discovering six tiny green balls suspended in the bright green case, said, “babies!”
They were babies: tiny pouches of sweet and savory that pop in your mouth, the sort of peas that elude me most of the time. We bought 3 pounds. Then, rather than listening to myself and getting us out of the market as quickly as possible by offering and revoking the usual bribes, I listened to Luca, who was shouting and pointing at a bench. So we sat in the sun and ate 1 pound, straight from their pods.
With the remaining peas I made something I look forward to each year: a spring vegetable stew, a vignarola of sorts, a dish of scallions, artichokes, fava beans, and peas braised in olive oil and water or white wine until tender. The key is adding the ingredients according to their cooking requirements, ending with the peas, which just need a caress of heat and the warm company of the other ingredients to release their sweetness and tease out their color. Important, too, is to add just enough liquid to moisten the vegetables and encourage them to release their own juices, the effect being an intense but gentle, graduated braise in which flavors remain distinct but harmonious. Precise timings are impossible to give, so tasting it regularly is imperative.
Tender wedges of velvety artichoke, sweet peas, buttery but slightly bitter fava beans, all bound by a weave of smothered scallion, make a dish that celebrates and captures the fleeting brilliance of spring vegetables, and one of the best lunches I know. It’s especially good with a piece of quivering-but-tensile mozzarella di bufala that erupts beneath your knife, and a toddler standing on a chair singing “Voglio peas and cheese!” before falling off and taking the glass water bottle with him.
serves 4
3 large artichokes
1 lemon
2¼ pounds fava beans in their pods
2¼ pounds peas in their pods
2 large or 6 small scallions
6 tablespoons olive oil
½ cup white wine or water
salt
Prepare the artichokes by pulling the dark, tough outer leaves downward and snapping them off just before the base. Then, using a sharp knife, pare away the tough green flesh from the base of the artichokes and stem. Detach the trimmed stems and slice them into 4 lengthwise. Cut the trimmed artichoke globes into 8 wedges. Drop the wedges and stems of artichoke into a bowl of cold water acidulated with lemon juice.
Shell the fava beans and peas. If the fava beans are large and have tough outer coats, remove them by plunging the shelled beans in hot water for 1–2 minutes, then into cold water, then squeezing and pinching off the opaque coats. Thinly slice the scallions.
Warm the olive oil in a heavy-bottomed sauté pan or enamelled cast-iron pan over medium heat. Add the scallions and cook until soft and translucent. Add the artichoke wedges and stems, stirring well so that each piece is glistening with oil. Add the wine and a pinch of salt, then stir again and cover the pan. Cook for 15 minutes, stirring and jiggling the pan from time to time.
Add the peas and fava beans, stir, cover the pan, and cook for another few minutes. Taste, season with salt, and taste again. The vignarola is ready when the vegetables are tender and the stew has come together into a soft, moist, tumbling whole. Let it settle for a few minutes, then serve just warm. It’s also good at room temperature.
Patate e fagiolini conditi
Potatoes and green beans
This is an assembly more than a recipe, but it’s a good one that we eat all the time in the summer: waxy boiled potatoes, tender green beans, mint, olive oil, salt, and a dash of vinegar.
There are five things to remember. Scrub, but don’t peel, the potatoes, then cook them whole. Cook the beans in well-salted, fast-boiling water until they are tender with just the slightest bite, but absolutely no squeak. Tear the mint into tiny pieces with your fingers. Dress the vegetables while they are still warm with a generous pinch of salt, launched from high above so that it disperses evenly, and enough extra-virgin olive oil to make a dietician bristle and each chunk and bean glisten. Let your dressed vegetables sit in a cool place, but not the fridge, for a while before serving.
Patate e fagiolini conditi are delicious served with grilled lamb. Romans call briefly cooked young lamb cutlets, burnished outside but still pale pink and tender within, costolette di abbacchio alla scottadito, or simply abbacchio a scottadito. Literally translated, this means “lamb cutlets to burn your fingers,” reminding you that they should be eaten as quickly as possible from the grill or coals—so blisteringly hot—with your fingers.
serves 4
4 large Yukon Gold potatoes, or 8 smaller ones
about 1 pound fine green beans
salt
a few small fresh mint leaves
extra-virgin olive oil, for the dressing
red wine vinegar (optional)
Scrub the potatoes and top and tail the beans. Put the potatoes whole in a large pan, cover them with cold water, add salt, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a lively simmer and cook until the potatoes are tender to the point of a knife.
Bring another large pan half filled with salted water to a rolling boil, add the beans, and boil them hard, uncovered, for 8 minutes, or until they’re tender but still have the slightest bite. Drain the beans.
When the beans and potatoes are cool enough to handle but still warm, put the beans in a large bowl. Using a sharp knife, pare away the potato skins, then roughly chop and break the potatoes over the beans. Tear the mint leaves into the bowl. Season generously with salt, then pour over some olive oil and the vinegar, if you are using it. Use your hands to gently turn and mix the ingredients. Taste and add more salt and olive oil if necessary. Leave to stand for at least 30 minutes before serving. Turn again before serving.
Pressed potatoes
The English cookbook most at home in a Roman kitchen is Fergus Henderson’s Nose to Tail Eating, a favorite book from a favorite London restaurant, St John. That’s mostly due to the meat and offal (Nose to Tail, as its name suggests, is about eating the whole animal, something offal-loving Romans know all about); to the recipes involving salt cod (about which the Romans are fanatical); but also to the vegetable and salad recipes, which are punctuated by brilliant Roman ingredients like capers, curly endive, anchovies, lemons, olive oil, mint, and parsley. The recipes have much in common with Roman food philosophy (if I can call it that): simple, good, unfussy. This is adapted from one of them.
Pressed potatoes is a brilliantly simple dish that consists of layers of sliced potatoes alternating with scant layers of tiny capers, which grow just a few yards from my flat here in Rome—not that I pick those. Having built up your layers in a loaf pan lined with plastic wrap, you put a heavy weight on top, which presses the ingredients into a sliceable loaf. The slices are both beautiful and delicious, especially with a spoonful of salsa verde (green sauce) and some smoked fish, ham, or hard-boiled eggs draped with anchovies.
You really do need a heavy weight, as the potatoes need to compress fully to form the sliceable loaf that’s so appealing. I use an old iron that usually acts as a doorstop, which works a treat, as does a slim book with a large can of tomatoes on top. If the loaf does fall apart, don’t panic: simply reinvent it by crumbling it into a potato and caper salad.
serves 4–6
4½ pounds waxy potatoes (such as Yukon Gold or the like), peeled
a healthy handful of capers (extra fine, if possible, roughly chopped if not)
salt and freshly ground black pepper
salsa verde (here), to serve
Put the potatoes in a large pan of salted water, bring it to a boil, and cook until tender but not falling apart—check with a sharp knife in order to catch them at the right moment, then drain well.
Line a loaf pan or terrine mold (I use a 9 × 5 × 3-inch loaf pan) with plastic wrap, leaving it to overhang the sides. As soon as the potatoes are cool enough to handle but still warm, slice them into ⅜-inch-thick rounds. Place a layer of sliced potatoes in the bottom of the loaf pan—don’t be afraid to patchwork this, breaking pieces into bits if needed—sprinkle cautiously with some of the capers, and season with salt and pepper. Cover with another layer of potatoes, more capers, and salt and pepper, and repeat until the pan is full. Cover with plastic wrap and place a heavy weight on top. Place in the fridge overnight. The next day, tip the pressed potatoes out of the mold and slice with a thin, sharp knife.
Salsa verde
Green sauce
At times, I have found myself paralyzed by kitchen advice, strong opinions, and come si fa (how to do something); or rather, non si fa, (how not to). I brought it upon myself, of course, by being eager to learn, eager to be authentic—whatever that means—and eager to please. This was very much the case with green sauce, or salsa verde, until a good friend and even better cook reminded me that once you’ve listened to all the advice and tried and tested something, you must make the recipe your own.
So I did. This is my version of salsa verde, which owes something to every spoonful I’ve tasted, from Milan to Sicily, and every recipe I’ve read. It doesn’t contain chopped egg or bread crumbs, and I don’t usually include vinegar, just masses of green herbs—parsley, basil, mint, and I’d fling some dill in there if I had any—along with anchovies, the best I can find in oil, and capers, ideally those packed in salt, otherwise slightly fewer of the vinegar-packed ones, chopped and loosened with extra-virgin olive oil into a gorgeous green goddess of a sauce that precipitates a number of adjectives you could be fined for overusing: grassy, peppery, warm, musty, briny, fishy, oily, brilliant.
It’s wonderful and companionable beside or over pressed potatoes, boiled meats, grilled fish, hard-boiled eggs, in sandwiches, on your face. These are merely guidelines, since in reality for a sauce like this there are no rules or strict measures. It’s important you keep tasting, as the exact quantities will depend on the strength of the ingredients. In short, make the recipe your own.
When it comes to hand versus machine, it’s not that one is better than the other, only different. I personally prefer it chopped by hand, as it has more substance and a more distinct, coarser texture, which is obliterated into a more consistent, pleasing smoothness by a food processor. You really do have to try both ways to decide which you like best.
makes enough to fill half a standard jam jar
a large bunch of flat-leaf parsley
a large bunch of basil
a handful of mint
a small tin of anchovy fillets in oil, drained
a handful of capers, rinsed if salted
2 garlic cloves
1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
extra-virgin olive oil
black pepper
To make the sauce by hand, chop the herbs very finely with a knife or, better still, a mezzaluna (a two-handled crescent-shaped chopper). Roughly chop the anchovies and capers and mix them with the herbs in a large bowl. Peel and smash the garlic with the back of a knife, then chop it very finely and add it to the bowl. Add the vinegar, if using, then stir in the olive oil a little at a time until you have a dense, spoonable sauce. Taste and season it with pepper. The anchovies and capers mean you probably won’t need extra salt.
To make it in a food processor or blender, pulse-chop the herbs, anchovies, capers, and garlic until roughly blended. Transfer to a large bowl, add the vinegar, if using, then add the olive oil, stirring continuously until you have a dense, spoonable sauce.
Patate al forno con rosmarino, aglio e limone
Roast potatoes with rosemary, garlic, and lemon
I was an extremely diligent and irritatingly helpful little girl who thrived on being given jobs. One of these was being sent out into the garden with the big kitchen scissors to cut a sprig of rosemary from the bush by the garage wall. I took this job very seriously. My brother, Ben, however, took sabotaging it almost as seriously and we inevitably ending up scrabbling in the bush, the strident pine and eucalyptus scent rushing up our noses and the woody branches scratching our calves. The final blow would be Ben, faster and keener, stealing my job by grabbing the branch and taking it into the kitchen to Mum.
Despite the childhood bush incident, I like rosemary very much. Romans do too, and pair it beautifully and boldly with lamb, pork, and rabbit. They also put it with potatoes for a quintessential Roman contorno that you find in every trattoria every day of the year: patate al forno (roast potatoes). It also features on one of the best pizzas ever, the unlikely sounding pizza con le patate (potato pizza). In both cases the sap-green and pine-fresh flavor of the rosemary needles jolt the sturdy, yielding potatoes.
I have come to the conclusion that the more primitive my oven, the better my roast potatoes. I have never made such good ones as in the comedy gas oven I’m using now. I’m also vaguely cabbalistic about my baking pan, never washing it with detergent and turning it three times before I put it away. That said, I have also asked my entire family to test this recipe in various ovens and various pans. It’s hardly a recipe, just lots of yellow potatoes, peeled and cut into half wedges, tossed with extra-virgin olive oil, good salt, garlic, a sprig of fresh rosemary, and lemon juice, roasted (door opened and pan shaken), roasted (door opened and pan shaken), and served hot.
serves 4
2¼ pounds potatoes (not too floury or too waxy)
3 garlic cloves
a sprig of rosemary
salt
4–8 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
juice of ½ lemon
Preheat the oven to 400°F. Cut the potatoes into quarters, and the quarters into eighths if they are large. Smash the garlic with the back of a knife. Tip the potatoes into a baking pan, pull the rosemary leaves off the stem and sprinkle them over the potatoes along with a good pinch of salt, the garlic, lots of olive oil, and the lemon juice. Roast for 50 minutes–1 hour, or longer if they need it, shaking the pan every 10 minutes, until they are crisp and golden.
Fennel
Alice Jones, my mum’s mum, was happiest when her name was written above the door of the Gardeners’ Arms pub in Oldham, Manchester. I have a photo of us all standing in the pub doorway in 1977, which captures her happiness and pride quite precisely. It also captures her style: practical-with-flair blue trousers and polo neck with a belted tunic, hair set and secured with Elnett lacquer, lips tilting into a smile.
She didn’t want to leave the pub and did her best to forget this fact by diligently looking after her grandchildren, my cousins, and gardening, rambling, making wine, and cooking. She was a good cook, possessing both resourcefulness and fastidious good taste. This resourcefulness, along with Grandpa Gerry’s cautious stomach, meant she mostly cooked straightforward English food: a stew made with beef skirt, a breast of lamb cooked slowly in the oven while they went to the pub for a drink, a steak-and-kidney pie. Every now and then, though, when we were staying, she would pull her Jane Grigson or Elizabeth David down from the shelf and cook us something different and suggestive of somewhere else. I always had the sense that Alice wished she was somewhere else, however happy she claimed to be.
Rather incongruously, it was in her small kitchen near Dewsbury that I first helped cook fennel, which seemed a most exotic and curvaceous vegetable. She peeled away the outer layers before slicing it thickly, steaming it, and layering it in a well-buttered dish, and scattering over bread crumbs and Parmesan. I still make this dish in Rome, where the sweet, bulb or Florentine fennel known as finocchio is one of the prizes of the market in autumn and winter. Resembling a swollen hand, with stems like pointing fingers sprouting feathery fronds, fennel is related to anise but has none of its cousin’s aggressive sharpness, but rather a clean, faintly licorice aroma. It’s crisp, cool, and sweet, and one of my favorite vegetables. Mostly we eat it shaved very thinly and dressed with salt and oil, or if it is particularly succulent and sweet, more simply still, in fat wedges instead of fruit.
Finocchio alla parmigiana
Fennel baked with Parmesan
This is the Jane Grigson recipe that my granny Alice followed. The combination of soft, tender fennel in melted butter and a golden lattice of baked Parmesan, alongside a large dose of nostalgia, makes it my favorite fennel dish.
serves 4
6 fennel bulbs
butter, for greasing
salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 tablespoons grated Parmesan
2 tablespoons bread crumbs
Preheat the oven to 400°F and generously butter an ovenproof dish. Prepare the fennel by trimming the base of each bulb, cutting away the finger-like fennel tops where they meet the bulb, and pulling away any outer layers that seem particularly tough, damaged, or bruised. Quarter them lengthwise.
Bring a pot of well-salted water to a boil, add the fennel, and cook until tender but not floppy. Drain the fennel and arrange it in the prepared dish. Season with pepper, then sprinkle over the Parmesan and bread crumbs. Bake for about 15 minutes, or until the cheese is golden and the fennel is bubbling in the buttery juices.
Finocchio al tegame
Braised fennel with olive oil
Rather like the recipes for zucchini, potatoes, and artichokes, this one calls for the fennel to be braised very slowly in olive oil and a little wine or water until it is extremely tender and all the cooking juices have been reabsorbed. Cooking vegetables in this way—it works for nearly all of them—produces the most deeply flavored dish of utmost tenderness. I love this with baked fish or alone with nice bread and a lump of cheese.
serves 4 as a side dish, or 2 as a main course
2 large fennel bulbs or 4 smaller ones
6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
salt
⅞ cup white wine or water
Prepare the fennel by trimming the base of each bulb, cutting away the finger-like fennel tops where they meet the bulb and pulling away any outer layers that seem particularly tough, damaged, or bruised. Cut each bulb in half, then quarters, then eighths.
In a deep sauté or frying pan, warm the olive oil over medium-low heat and arrange the fennel wedges in a single layer. Let them sizzle gently for a moment, then turn them over. Season with salt, pour over the wine or water, and increase the heat until the liquid bubbles for a minute or two, then reduce the heat. Cook the fennel, turning the wedges from time to time, until they are tender, glossy, and caramelized around the edges and the liquid has evaporated, apart from a little of the olive oil. This will take 20–40 minutes, depending on the age of the fennel. If the pan starts to look a little dry, add a couple more tablespoons water. Once cooked, toss the wedges a couple of times in the oil at the bottom of the pan, turn onto a warm serving dish, and serve immediately.
