Introduction to the Recipes

Most of the recipes in this collection come from Mediterranean kitchens, where cooks and chefs have been using olives and olive oil for thousands of years, developing an impressive body of culinary wisdom as they have experimented, studied, tasted, learned from each other and from previous generations and then passed that learning on—exchanging information, adding new ingredients (the tomato above all), and refining and improving basic ideas. At the same time, I’ve also included a few recipes from other parts of the world, even from India, a cuisine that is only now discovering olive oil for its healthful properties and adapting recipes to use oil instead of traditional ghee, which, as a butterfat, is high in saturated fat. I’ve also added a few fundamental American recipes like chile-stuffed steak, buttermilk biscuits, and Southern fried chicken, all of which have been adapted to olive oil—just to prove that you don’t have to have a Mediterranean grandmother to cook with olive oil.

In truth, olive oil can be used in almost any recipe that calls for fat, whether butter, lard, coconut oil, or some more esoteric substance. In most cases, it’s simply a straightforward exchange, a tablespoon of olive oil for a tablespoon of butter or whatever. Only in baking must the cook be attuned to the fact that olive oil is a liquid, whereas both butter and lard are solids. So a simple exchange doesn’t always work and some adjustment is required. But I’ll explain all that in the section on cakes, where it’s most important.

Be advised that the olive oil used herein is always and only extra-virgin. This is the only oil allowed in my kitchens, whether in Tuscany, Maine, or New York. Sometimes I do use a little butter—I find it helpful for that business of “greasing and flouring” a cake pan, when olive oil doesn’t really stick to the sides of the pan. But regular olive oil, light olive oil, or—perish the thought—pomace oil has no place in any kitchen that is dedicated to creating healthful, delicious food. Only extra-virgin will do.

A Note About Ingredients

• Olive Oil: I cannot stress it strongly enough: The only olive oil used in my kitchen is extra-virgin olive oil. I don’t call for extra-virgin as such in the recipes that follow because I want cooks and readers to understand that it is a given and that there’s no reason to use regular olive oil or light olive oil. Extra-virgin is the key to excellence for everything—cooking, garnishing, topping the breakfast toast or the baked potato for supper, dribbling atop the soup at lunch, whatever. Except on rare occasions, I don’t use fine estate-bottled oils for cooking—that would be a waste of the exquisite flavors that tend to dissipate with heat. Instead I buy from trustworthy distributors 3- or 5-liter tins of excellent-quality extra-virgin that has nonetheless been economically produced to give good value for money. You’ll find some of these listed in the Appendix.
• Olives: The selection of olives in American supermarkets has improved enormously in recent years, and we now have available brine-cured green olives, salt-cured black ones (often mistakenly referred to as “oil-cured”), purple tart-sweet Kalamatas, tiny green Picholines, big fat Gordals or Sevillanos and even fatter Bella di Cerignola. Beyond supermarkets, specialty food stores stock an even greater variety, and you might find small Amfissa olives from Greece or black salt-cured Nyons and tiny wrinkled Niçoises from France; seek these out and taste them—you may discover as many different uses as there are olives.

  One type of olive to be avoided is the canned black olive, often called, somewhat unfairly, “California style.” These are artificially ripened green olives, cured in a lye solution to turn them black, canned and then heat-treated to prevent contamination. Any flavor is, to put it gently, absent.

• Sweet and Hot (Chile) Peppers: I use a wide variety of different kinds of peppers, starting with sweet peppers, meaning mild fresh peppers with plenty of flavor but no discernible heat. The most familiar are bell peppers, available throughout the year in every supermarket produce section, but there are also seasonally available, in supermarkets and farmer’s markets alike, peppers such as banana, cubanelle, pimento, ox horn or bull’s horn, and others, all of them “sweet” in the sense that they’re not at all hot. If a recipe calls for sweet peppers, any one of these may be used unless a specific kind is mentioned.

  For fresh hot chile peppers, I tend to use whatever my market offers me, usually serranos or jalapeños—but not fiercely hot ones such as habaneros or Scotch bonnets.

  For dried chiles, there is a remarkable selection from all over the world, although not every one of these is available everywhere. My first choice for dried ground red chile pepper is almost always piment d’Espelette, from the Basque region of southern France—a ground chile that, while spicy, fragrant, and flavorful, is lightly pungent but not at all fiery. After that come various ground chiles from Spain: pimentón de Murcia, or its smoky cousin pimentón de la Vera, both of which come in hot, medium, and sweet (dulce) varieties; then the flaked or crushed red chile pepper, so-called Aleppo (little enough actually coming from Aleppo these days, unfortunately) or Turkish red pepper, from the Middle East. Occasionally, whole dried red chiles are called for, and when that’s the case, I look for the milder flavors of New Mexico (Anaheim), pasilla, or ancho chiles.

• Tomatoes: The very best tomatoes, of course, are those that come fully ripened in the sun fresh from your own or a neighbor’s garden. But tomatoes are also one of the vegetables (fruits) that take well to canning, and good cooks are never afraid to use canned tomatoes. Just be sure you get the very best quality you can find. This does not always mean imported. San Marzano tomatoes from the countryside around Naples in Italy are probably the finest in the world, but they are expensive, and Muir Glen tomatoes, organically grown in California, run a close second. When a small amount of very intense tomato flavor is required, I use tomato paste, also sometimes called tomato concentrate. Sicilian estratto di pomodoro (extract of tomatoes) is a dense paste made by crushing fully ripe tomatoes and drying the paste in the hot Sicilian sun; if you can find it, it’s the best of all and seems to give a sunny Sicilian flavor to whatever it’s added to.
• Cheese: The finest imported parmigiano reggiano is, in my humble opinion, the greatest cheese in the world. But it is expensive and, if you wish, where parmigiano reggiano is called for, you may substitute a similar type of Italian cheese called Grana Padano.
• Ricotta: True ricotta is made by reheating the whey after cheese is made. The word comes from the Italian and means “re-cooked.” There is a regrettable fad, especially in restaurants, for “homemade” ricotta—basically, whole milk to which a small amount of lemon juice or vinegar is added to curdle it. This is a far cry from the real thing.

  One good source for real ricotta: Paula Lambert’s Mozzarella Company (www.mozzco.com). They are located in Dallas but will ship all over the country.

• Herbs and spices: Parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme—all such green herbs, including basil and tarragon, are far, far better fresh than dried. The singular exception is oregano, which has a far more pungent flavor when dried. If you can find it, Greek or Sicilian oregano has the finest flavor.

  Two rather unusual dried herbs are used in the recipes: Wild fennel pollen, made from the mustard yellow flowers of wild fennel that grows in abundance all over Italy; and za’atar, a combination of wild thyme, sesame seeds, and tart sumac that is a favorite seasoning in Lebanon and Palestine. Both are available from specialty stores and mail-order outlets.

  Spices used here are commonly available—cinnamon, cloves, caraway, cumin, and so forth. But they are all much more flavorful if they are ground to order, so to speak. Keep a small coffee grinder especially for grinding spices (and wipe it out after each use so as not to contaminate the next spice with a previous one). And take a tip from the Indian kitchen and, before grinding, roast spices in a dry skillet just until the aromas start to arise, then transfer to the coffee mill for grinding. The flavors are astounding.

• Pancetta, bacon, prosciutto, guanciale, jamón serrano, and jamón de pata negra or jamón ibérico: These are all slightly different types of cured pork, made mostly in Italy and Spain, and used both as hors d’oeuvres or tapas and, when chopped with onions, garlic, parsley, and other aromatics, to flavor many dishes. The last is a very expensive ham from Spain, but pancetta, guanciale, and jamón serrano should not break anyone’s budget for the small amount used as the basis for soups, stews, and pasta sauces.
• Bread and bread crumbs: I refer often to “a rustic country loaf,” by which I mean a bread that is full of flavor and texture, usually made at least in part with whole wheat flour, and with a thick crust that comes from or mimics baking in a wood-fired oven. I keep the ends of such a loaf and when I have an accumulation, I whizz them in the food processor to make bread crumbs. The crumbs can be frozen for long storage, or they can be toasted in a low oven to dry them thoroughly, after which they don’t need refrigeration.