ANTIPASTI
STARTERS
MANELL’
Fried Polenta Fritters
Serves 4 to 6
At Trattoria Masella, a working farm in Cerreto Sannita (near Benevento) with a restaurant and rooms for rent, a snarling dog defends the pigsty. On one recent trip to this family-run establishment, proprietor Dino held his protective canine back as I inspected his hogs, a couple dozen happy animals who supply the farm and restaurant with meat and fat. The area around the farm, which sits at the edge of steep Apennine peaks, is known for rustic mountain fare that never wastes. Even the scraps left over from rendering pork fat are used, making their way into dishes as a savory flavoring known as cicioli. For manell’, so called because they take the form of one’s hand (mano) as they are shaped, cicioli are mixed with cornmeal. These fritters are served at festive meals and especially holidays, but Dino or his mother, Maria, will make them upon request at their trattoria.
2⅔ cups instant polenta
⅓ cup small-diced cicioli (see Note)
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup boiling water
Neutral oil (see this page) or lard, for frying
Line a large platter or baking sheet with paper towels.
In a medium bowl, mix together the instant polenta, cicioli, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Add the boiling water, about ¼ cup at a time, mixing vigorously to incorporate all the ingredients until a compact mass has formed.
In a medium frying pan or cast-iron skillet, heat 2 inches of oil to 400°F.
When the corn mixture is cool enough to handle, grab a fistful and squeeze it between your palm and fingers, creating a crescent-shaped fritter with your fist. Repeat. Fry the manell’, working in batches as needed, turning once for even browning, about 4 minutes. Drain on the lined platter and serve hot, sprinkled with salt.
NOTE Cicioli are a common ingredient in the south, but they come in various incarnations depending on where you are. Sometimes they are pressed fat, layered, and sliced to be used like fatback or pancetta. In this case, they are the fatty and meaty substance that has been left behind when pig fat is rendered. The remaining material is pressed into tiles and used to impart savory flavor. If you cannot find cicioli, you can substitute pancetta, guanciale, or lardo.
Time is the enemy of mozzarella di bufala, mozzarella made from the milk of water buffalo. When this fresh cheese turns two days old, it begins to lose its juiciness, and its sweet lactic flavors turn to biting acidity. The most fastidious mozzarella consumers won’t even eat day-old stuff. At Tenuta Vannulo in Capaccio, that’s not even an option. The farm’s five hundred water buffalo produce milk for mozzarella that sells out every day by early afternoon. It’s the only place in the world to get the farm’s cheese.
Vannulo is set just off the SS18, an unsightly stretch of state road that connects the A2 highway to the hulking, honey-hued Greek temples at Paestum. Tonino Palmieri has been making cheese on his family’s farm there since 1988. Vannulo operates a café serving yogurt and gelato, a restaurant, and, most important, a shop where they sell their small-batch mozzarella. To ensure the best-quality product, they don’t have any off-site distribution.
Tonino’s grandfather began raising water buffalo for their milk about a century earlier, but Tonino was the first in his family to enter the production arena. His devotion to quality has enabled him to create a completely closed system. The mozzarella is made exclusively by hand and only with the milk from the farm. It is combined with whey “starter” from the previous day’s production and veal rennet. The resulting curd is broken twice, then left to ferment under the whey for 3 to 4 hours. Next, the filatura (stretching process) forces water from the cheese before the final step, shaping. The cheese is mozzato (pinched) into shapes: bocconcini (tiny balls), trecce (braids), palle (balls), and nodi (knots).
The global demand for mozzarella di bufala means Italy’s water buffalo are exploited to produce as much milk as possible, naturally to the detriment of their well-being. Indeed, most farms sell their milk to large, industrial producers. Not Tonino, though. In contrast, the water buffalo at Vannulo are the happiest animals you’ll find anywhere in the region. Their stalls are mechanized to allow them to take cool showers at will. They autoregulate their own spa treatments—their weight triggers moving bristles that clean and massage their rough black skin. They only eat food produced on Tenuta Vannulo’s 110 hectares, each consuming around 50 pounds of fresh herbs daily. When they want to rest, they retreat to rubber mattresses. It’s hard to imagine that any water buffalo have ever had it so good since they landed in Italy in the Middle Ages—and I swear you can taste the difference in their milk.
PEPERONI IMBOTTITI ALLA BENEVENTANA
Bread-Stuffed Peppers
Serves 4 to 6
Dozens of pepper varieties thrive in the soil of Campania. The flat and bulbous papaccella is pickled and served with pork; bell peppers are halved, sprinkled with bread crumbs, and baked until caramelized and nearly falling apart; and the horn-shaped cornetto is stuffed with seasoned bread crumbs and gently cooked in oil. The filling changes from village to village—and even from house to house—but in Benevento, an ancient city deep in Campania, you may find olives, anchovies, capers, pine nuts, or even raisins in the bread crumb mixture. Some also add canned tuna, while others prefer Parmigiano-Reggiano, but all cook the peppers until they nearly burst open, spilling out their flavorful contents.
2 cups soft bread crumbs
1 ripe tomato, chopped
¼ cup black olives, rinsed, pitted, and chopped
4 anchovy fillets, cleaned (see this page) and chopped
1 tablespoon capers, rinsed and chopped
1 egg, beaten
¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
¼ cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
Sea salt
2 pounds red peppers (ideally long or short horn-shaped red peppers), tops and seeds removed
In a large bowl, mix together the bread crumbs, tomato, olives, anchovies, capers, egg, ¼ cup of the olive oil, oregano, garlic, and Parmigiano-Reggiano. Season with salt, taking care not to add too much, as the capers and olives are already salty. Stuff the peppers loosely to the tops with the bread mixture.
In a large skillet, heat the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium heat. When the oil begins to shimmer, add the stuffed peppers and cook, turning occasionally, until the peppers are cooked through and very soft, about 20 minutes for small ones, 25 minutes for larger ones. Serve immediately or at room temperature.
FRITTELLE DI ZUCCHINE
Zucchini Patties
Makes about 15 patties, to serve 4 to 6
Summer in the south is a season of grilled zucchini, fried zucchini, fried and marinated zucchini, stuffed zucchini, baked zucchini…This New World import is abundant in the summer months, so cooks have invented all sorts of ways to use it up. These zucchini patties offer a super-simple way to do just that. If you have zucchini flowers, you can tear them and fold them into the batter, too.
3 cups grated zucchini (about 2 medium zucchini)
½ cup fresh mint or parsley, chopped
3 eggs, beaten
½ cup finely grated Pecorino Romano
Sea salt
¾ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil, for frying
Line a large platter or baking sheet with paper towels.
In a medium bowl, mix together the zucchini, mint, eggs, Pecorino Romano, and a generous pinch of salt. Add the flour and mix well, eliminating any lumps. The batter should be thick and pourable.
In a large frying pan or cast-iron skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat. When the oil begins to shimmer, working in batches, spoon the zucchini mixture into the pan with a large spoon, making discs between ¼ and ½ inch thick and roughly 3 inches in diameter. Fry the fritters until you see even browning coming up the sides, about 2 minutes, then flip and fry until browned on the second side, about 2 minutes more. To prevent hot oil splatters, steer the oil to the bottom of the pan and flip the fritter toward the top of the pan.
Drain the fritters on the lined platter, sprinkle with salt, and serve immediately or at room temperature.
NOTE Zucchini, like all produce, develops throughout its growing season. It is sweet early in the season and may develop bitterness later on. To see where your zucchini is in the seasonal spectrum, just take a bite. If the zucchini is very bitter, salt it in advance. Place the grated zucchini in a colander set over a bowl or the sink and sprinkle it with salt. Allow the zucchini to sit for an hour or so; some liquid will drain out. Squeeze out the excess liquid before transferring to a bowl to combine.
Like grapes, olives were domesticated in Asia Minor—and slowly migrated west into the Mediterranean basin. By the eighth century BC, olives and their oil were an important commercial product in Italy’s Phoenician and Greek colonies; their role as an ingredient for cooking, cosmetics, and fuel only intensified during Roman times, when any area with a climate amenable to olive production participated in the empire’s robust global oil trade.
Since ancient times, people on the Italian peninsula have harvested olives in the fall, pressed them into a paste, then used mills to extract the oil from the olive pulp and water. The basic methods haven’t changed much over the millennia, although the pressing process has been mechanized. Most of Italy’s olives—at least those destined to become extra-virgin olive oil—are still harvested by hand and pressed the same day, as they have been for thousands of years. Naturally, quality hand-harvested olives come at a cost. Prices for extra-virgin olive oil from Italy are much higher than prices for Spanish or Greek oils, but the quality difference is undeniable. And it’s quantifiable. Olives pressed within hours of picking haven’t deteriorated or developed acidity levels that create unbalanced flavor or a foul taste.
Today, olive oil is a major commercial product in the south, where conditions permit trees to grow at altitudes of up to 800 meters above sea level (as opposed to just 450 meters in northern regions). Thanks to mild climates and vast production zones, Puglia and Calabria are Italy’s top oil-producing regions, contributing much of the three gallons a year that Italians consume per capita and the thirty thousand tons the country exports.
Drive through either area, and you’ll see the twisted trunks of ulivi secolari, centuries-old olive trees. In the spring, white flowers bloom on the trees’ ancient branches, which then bear fruits that are tiny at first and then grow and mature into full-fledged olives by October. There are hundreds of varieties of olive trees in Italy, but several have suffered a serious decline in the past five years. A blight called Xylella fastidiosa has been spreading through Salento, the heel of the Italian boot. The EU, once dedicated to protecting Puglia’s olive trees, is now powerless in doing so as this bacterial disease ravages the ulivi secolari, moving closer to Brindisi and Bari with each harvest. You can support Puglia’s oil industry by purchasing oils from the blight-adjacent areas around Brindisi, Otranto, and Bari (see Resources, this page).
OLIVE SALATE
Cured Olives
Makes about 1 pound
The first time I saw an olive tree in the flesh was on a school trip through Italy when I was sixteen. On my second trip, years later, I got close enough to a tree to taste its fruit (I have a habit of eating things I see growing in nature). To my surprise, it was completely inedible. Thanks to an astringent compound called oleuropein, almost all olives must be cured before they are eaten. There are numerous ways to do this. Companies processing olives in industrial quantities use lye (scary), while small producers and farmers use salt, brine, or even water. If you’re lucky enough to have access to freshly harvested olives, here’s how to make them taste delicious.
1 pound raw uncured fresh olives
1 cup kosher salt
Place the olives and salt in a glass container that fits them snugly. Seal and set aside in a dark, cool place until the olives have lost their bitter, astringent flavor, about 6 weeks. Start tasting them after the fourth week to check their progress. The olives will keep in a sealed container in the refrigerator for several weeks, or longer if covered with extra-virgin olive oil.
VERDURE SOTT’OLIO
Marinated Vegetables
Serves 8 to 10
Until just a few decades ago, virtually every country kitchen in the south would have been equipped with tools for harvesting and drying fruits and vegetables so they could be preserved for future use. Nothing was ever wasted, and there was an intense necessity to preserve abundant summer produce for the impending winter. Today, implements like hay mats used to dry figs and tomatoes have either been chucked out or relegated to wall hangings as decorative reminders of a rural past. On rare occasions, while driving through the olive groves around Lecce, you might spy some halved tomatoes or peppers laid out to dry naturally in the sun on the roofs of stone buildings called pagghiare, while you’re more likely to find eggplants strung up to dry in the remote villages of Parco del Pollino in Basilicata. Homemade preserved produce is less common than it once was, but I would wager there isn’t a single kitchen in the south that doesn’t at least have a jar of sun-dried tomatoes.
Serve the verdure sott’olio with cheese, on bruschette, or on their own as part of a larger antipasto spread.
FOR WILD ASPARAGUS, BROCCOLI RABE, CARROTS, ARTICHOKE HEARTS, ONIONS, OR MUSHROOMS
3 cups good-quality white wine vinegar, plus more as needed
3 cups water
3 tablespoons sea salt, plus more as needed
3 tablespoons sugar, plus more as needed
3 bay leaves
1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
1 pound wild asparagus, broccoli rabe, carrots (cut into ¼-inch-thick slices), artichoke hearts (halved), onions (halved and cut into ¼-inch-thick slices), or mushrooms (halved)
Leaves from 10 sprigs fresh thyme
Extra-virgin olive oil
FOR RED OR YELLOW BELL PEPPERS
1 pound red or yellow bell peppers
Sea salt
1 tablespoon salted capers, rinsed
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
Extra-virgin olive oil
FOR EGGPLANTS
2 medium eggplants, cut into ¼-inch-thick rounds
Sea salt
¼ cup fresh mint leaves
Extra-virgin olive oil
FOR ROASTED TOMATOES
1 pound small cherry tomatoes, halved
Large pinch of sea salt, plus more as needed
1 teaspoon dried oregano
Extra-virgin olive oil
FOR STUFFED CHERRY PEPPERS
3 cups good-quality white wine vinegar, plus more as needed
3 cups water
3 tablespoons sea salt, plus more as needed
3 tablespoons sugar, plus more as needed
1 pound cherry peppers, tops and seeds removed
1 tablespoon salted capers, rinsed and chopped
2 (5-ounce) cans tuna in oil
2 salted anchovy fillets, cleaned (see this page) and cut into ½-inch pieces
Extra-virgin olive oil
In a medium pot, bring the vinegar and water to a simmer over low heat. Add the salt and sugar. When both have dissolved, taste the brine; it should taste balanced, like something you would use to dress salad. Adjust as needed, then add the bay leaves, peppercorns, and asparagus, broccoli rabe, carrots, artichoke hearts, onions, or mushrooms. Cook each vegetable individually, working in batches, until they are al dente. Drain, set aside to cool completely, and pat dry with paper towels. Layer the cooled vegetables and thyme into glass jars and add olive oil to cover. Seal the jars and store in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
Grill the bell peppers on a hot grill or in a grill pan, turning as needed, until the skin is charred all over, about 10 minutes. Transfer to a brown paper bag or airtight plastic container, seal, and let cool completely, about 30 minutes. Peel off and discard the charred skin. Cut the peppers into ½-inch strips, scraping off and discarding the seeds. Season with salt to taste. Layer the cooled peppers, capers, and garlic in glass jars and add olive oil to cover. Seal the jars and store in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
Grill the eggplant rounds on a hot grill or in a grill pan, turning as needed, until evenly charred, about 5 minutes. Set aside to cool, about 10 minutes. Season with salt to taste. Layer the cooled eggplants and mint in glass jars and add olive oil to cover. Seal the jars and store in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
Preheat the oven to 225°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Place the tomatoes cut-side up on the prepared baking sheet. Sprinkle with the salt and oregano. Bake for 2 to 2½ hours, until the tomatoes shrivel and shrink by about half. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely. Season with salt to taste. Layer the cooled tomatoes and oregano in glass jars and add olive oil to cover. Seal the jars and store in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
In a medium pot, bring the vinegar and water to a simmer over low heat. Add the salt and sugar. When both have dissolved, taste the brine; it should taste balanced, like something you would use to dress a salad. Adjust as needed, then add the cherry peppers and cook until al dente, about 4 minutes. Drain, set aside to cool completely, and pat dry with paper towels. Season with salt to taste.
Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, combine the capers, tuna, and anchovies. Mash with a fork until the mixture has nearly formed a paste.
Fill the cooled cherry peppers with the tuna mixture. Place the stuffed peppers in glass jars and add olive oil to cover. Seal the jars and store in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
FRITTATA AI FIORI
Frittata with Spring Flowers
Serves 4 to 6 as a starter or 2 to 4 as a main
In May, the hills around Cosenza in northern Calabria are blanketed in patches of yellow and white. The yellow hue is from ginestra, a flowering plant ubiquitous just about everywhere south of Naples with fibrous stalks once used for clothing. The white patches are fiori di sambuco, elderflower blossoms (no relation to the clear, anise-and-fennel-flavored Sambuca liqueur popular in central Italy), which are harvested and folded into frittate to impart a slightly sweet and floral flavor. You may have fiori di sambuco in your own backyard—it grows across North America—but if not, you can substitute borage, acacia, nasturtium, or other edible flowers. If using zucchini flowers, remove the pistils and clean the flowers gently before using.
8 eggs
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup fiori di sambuco (elderflower blossoms), plus more for garnish
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
Preheat the oven to 375°F.
In a large bowl, whisk the eggs with salt and pepper to taste. Gently stir in the flowers.
Heat the olive oil in a large ovenproof skillet over low heat. When the oil begins to shimmer, add the egg mixture. Using a wooden spoon, stir a few times, moving from the outside of the pan toward the center. When the eggs begin to set around the edges, turn off the heat and transfer the pan to the oven. Bake the frittata for 10 to 15 minutes, until the edges start to come away from the sides of the pan and the center starts to rise.
Remove the pan from the oven and allow the frittata to cool before unmolding, about 30 minutes. To unmold, run a heatproof spatula around the edges and underneath the frittata and slide it onto a serving plate. Serve at room temperature, sliced into wedges and garnished with additional flowers.
POLPETTE CASCE E OVO
Bread “Meatballs”
Serves 4 to 6 as a starter
South Italy’s menus are full of balls—meatballs, fish balls, and even bread balls. Frugal cooks who needed to use every last food scrap created all sorts of recipes to make the most of their stale bread. And in many villages, bread would be baked in communal ovens just once a week, so stale bread– and bread crumb–based recipes were particularly prevalent. Today, the custom of using every crumb has vanished—bakeries and supermarkets sell bread super cheap and daily—but bread balls are still very popular in the south. To serve this dish as a main course for four to six, double the recipe.
4 cups cubed stale bread with crusts
5 eggs, beaten
¾ cup finely grated Pecorino Romano
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 onion, diced
1 (14-ounce) can whole tomatoes, crushed by hand
4 or 5 fresh basil leaves, torn
In a large bowl, combine the bread, eggs, Pecorino Romano, salt, and pepper. Mix thoroughly by hand.
Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium-low heat. When the oil begins to shimmer, add the onion. Season with salt and cook, stirring, until soft and translucent, about 15 minutes. Add the tomatoes, season with salt, and cook until the sauce thickens and the tomatoes have lost their raw flavor, about 10 minutes more. Stir in the basil leaves.
While the sauce is cooking, using your hands, form the bread mixture into balls roughly the size of walnuts.
Transfer the balls to the pan with the tomato sauce, increase the heat to medium, and cook, undisturbed, for about 5 minutes to allow the balls set up. Cook, turning occasionally, until the balls are cooked through and slightly firm to the touch, about 15 minutes more. If the sauce gets too thick, add water to the pan as needed, pouring it in at the sides of the pan. Serve warm or at room temperature.
NOTE If the bread mixture is sticky, wet your hands with warm water before rolling it into balls.
MELANZANE A’ SCARPONE
Stuffed Eggplants
Serves 6
The city of Naples is packed with simple trattorias, like Cibi Cotti in the Mergellina Market and Osteria Donna Teresa in Vomero, where items are priced between 3 and 5 euros to attract budget-conscious locals. Many dishes are baked just before service (often in wonderfully seasoned cast-iron pans) and served at room temperature throughout the day. More than a few of these staples feature stuffed vegetables; melanzane a’ scarpone, eggplant cooked until it nearly falls apart, is among them. In Naples, you will encounter a much oilier version than what I’ve shared here. If you wish to authentically replicate, simply double the listed olive oil quantity.
Eggplants, like tomatoes, peppers, and tobacco, are part of the nightshade family, a group of plants containing alkaloids that cause bitterness. Cooking eggplants (and in the south, we always do) breaks down that compound, eliminating bitterness, so there’s no need to salt them in advance.
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for greasing
6 small eggplants, halved lengthwise
Sea salt
2 onions, diced
¼ cup Gaeta olives, rinsed, drained, pitted, and roughly chopped
1 tablespoon capers, rinsed, drained, and roughly chopped
¼ cup tomato sauce
8 ounces mozzarella or scamorza cheese, cut into ½-inch cubes
¼ cup water
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a baking dish large enough to fit the eggplant halves snugly.
Place the eggplants in the prepared baking dish, skin-side down. Season with salt and bake until soft and creamy, 25 to 40 minutes. Remove from the oven, leaving the oven on. Allow the eggplants to cool slightly, then scoop the flesh into a large bowl using a knife or melon baller, leaving about ¼ inch of flesh on the skin. Return the eggplant shells to the baking dish, skin-side down.
Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium-low heat. When the oil begins to shimmer, add the onions. Season with salt and cook, stirring, until the onions become soft and translucent, about 15 minutes. Add the olives and capers and bloom in the hot oil for about a minute, then add the tomato sauce, season with salt, and cook until the sauce reduces slightly, a few minutes more. Add the eggplant flesh, stir, and cook for about 5 minutes to allow the flavors to marry.
Using a spoon, divide the mixture between the eggplant shells. Scatter the mozzarella evenly over the filling. Add the water to the bottom of the baking dish, cover the dish with aluminum foil, and bake until the eggplant shells begin to lose their shape, about 25 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.
CAPUNATA CON FRISELLE
Endive, Tomato, Tuna, and Mozzarella with Twice-Baked Pugliese Bread
Serves 4 to 6
Friselle are South Italy’s answer to rusk and hardtack, dried breads that were practical, shelf-stable foods for fishermen. Fishing boats would leave Pisciotta, Scilla, Bari, and other coastal towns on long voyages in search of tuna and swordfish, and nonperishable foods like friselle would anchor meals during those outings. To soften these hard breads and render them edible, fishermen would sprinkle them with seawater. Today, home cooks use water from their kitchen sink instead, and you can, too. Simply drizzle a bit of water over the friselle and let them sit until softened, then break them up into pieces, kind of like big croutons. They pair well with summer produce, especially capunata, a fresh seasonal salad that should not be confused with Sicilian caponata (sweet-and-sour eggplant). It’s the perfect combination for a no-fuss, healthy, South Italy–inspired salad or lunch on a hot day.
1 garlic clove
4 Friselle (this page)
3 tablespoons water
2 cups packed curly endive, chopped
8 salted anchovy fillets, cleaned (see this page) and cut into ½-inch pieces
¼ cup Gaeta olives, rinsed, pitted, and chopped
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
2 celery ribs, cut into ½-inch pieces
1 tablespoon capers, rinsed
1 (5-ounce) can tuna in oil, drained
8 ounces mozzarella di bufala, cut into ¾-inch cubes
8 fresh basil leaves, torn
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Rub the raw garlic over the friselle’s rough surface. Break the friselle into chunks and place in a large shallow bowl. Discard the garlic. Drizzle the water over the friselle and set aside to soak until softened.
In a large bowl, mix together the endive, anchovies, olives, tomatoes, celery, capers, tuna, mozzarella, basil, olive oil, and vinegar.
Drain any excess water from the bowl with the friselle. Add the friselle to the endive mixture. Toss well, season with salt and pepper, then allow the mixture to marinate for at least 15 minutes before serving.
PORCINI IMPANATI
Fried Porcini Mushrooms
Serves 4 to 6
The woods of Calabria’s Parco Nazionale della Sila are thick with larch pines and chestnut trees, their canopy of branches offering shade and trapping humidity to create the ideal conditions for porcini and other mushrooms to grow. Visit Calabria’s mountainous villages in the fall to find heaps of porcini sold from the trunks of foragers parked on the side of the road.
In homes and restaurants, porcini are prepared in dozens of ways, including deep-fried. In the Sila, this starter is served on its own, unadorned except for the occasional sprinkling of parsley. If you wish to lighten things up a bit, serve a wedge of lemon on the side to provide an acidic note to cut through the fat.
Porcini mushrooms are cheap and abundant in Italy during the fall. If you don’t have an affordable source in your part of the world, substitute portobello or cremini mushrooms or even king oyster mushrooms, which are widely available at Asian markets.
1 cup all-purpose flour
4 eggs
4 cups bread crumbs
Sea salt
1 pound fresh porcini mushrooms, cut lengthwise into ¼-inch-thick slices
Neutral oil (see this page), for frying
1 tablespoon roughly chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
Line a large platter or baking sheet with paper towels.
Set up the breading station: Place the flour in a shallow medium bowl. Beat the eggs in a medium bowl. Place the bread crumbs in a shallow medium bowl. Season the flour, eggs, and bread crumbs with salt.
Dredge each mushroom slice first in flour, shaking off excess, then dip in egg, allowing excess to drip off, and finally coat in bread crumbs. Set aside.
In a medium frying pan or cast-iron skillet, heat 2 inches of oil to 350°F. Working in batches as needed, fry the breaded mushroom slices until deep golden brown, turning once to ensure even browning, 4 to 5 minutes.
Drain on the lined platter, sprinkle with salt, and serve hot, garnished with the parsley.
