Eating Italy: A Chef's Culinary Adventure (31 page)

Venetian cuisine is fish-based, but there are lots of vegetables, too. The vegetable market is right next door to the fish market, and it has everything you can think of. Depending on the season, you’ll see purple artichokes, yellow and green zucchini, eggplant,
cuore di bue
(big beef-heart tomatoes), long Roma beans, mounds of porcini and chanterelle mushrooms, and all kinds of radicchio, such as early and late Treviso (tardivo), Castelfranco, and Chioggia. The fruit there is off the charts. Cherries, peaches, plums, figs. . . you name it. If it’s in season, it’s there. With the fish and vegetable markets, and a pretty good selection of meat and cheese, the Rialto market is a full city block of incredible ingredients waiting to become plates of delicious food.

On that first trip, we picked up squid, skate wing, baby mullet,
arborelle
(tiny fish you can eat whole), swordfish, shrimp, onions, zucchini, eggplant, and a few other things and made our way back to the apartment. By the time we got it all in the fridge it was around eleven thirty a.m., also known as
l’andar per ombre
, the time to “move into the shadows.” It’s when everyone in Venice walks through the city, stopping at local
bacari
(pubs) to nibble little bites of food and sip prosecco, negroni, or Campari and soda.
Ombre
literally means “shadows” but is local slang for “wine”; apparently, the local tradition started when wine vendors on the street would move from place to place to find shade, especially those in Piazza San Marco who followed the shade of the Basilica di San Marco’s giant bell tower.

During the day, the pubs in every back alley of Venice display all manner of snacks, such as marinated octopus, fried calamari and anchovies,
baccalà mantecato
(creamed
baccalà
on bruschetta or polenta), and
sarde in saor
(sardines in sour onion and vinegar sauce). You’ll find
polpettini
(little meatballs) of pork and beef, fried eggplant and zucchini, and miniature sandwiches. These bar snacks, called
cicchetti
, are sort of like Italian tapas, and they’re some of the best eating in the city, if you ask me. Most places let you take the food outside. Going from pub to pub, it’s like having lunch in a citywide alfresco restaurant. The people-watching is unbeatable. And you really get a feel for the city. There are no cars. No scooters. Not even bicycles. Everyone is on foot, walking over bridges and down alleys to get where they’re going. You stand outside a pub, holding a glass of chilled Prosecco in one hand, some freshly caught fried fish or polpettini in the other, lean against a wall built six centuries ago, and relax, taking in the incredible history of the city itself. You don’t use maps. You don’t bother with street names. You just wander around getting lost until you eventually find something overwhelming to look at or delicious to eat. That’s the magic of Venice.

I found that magic when we got back to the apartment in the early evening. Claudia and I cleaned all the fish and shellfish and Pina heated up some oil in a big pot. She mixed together
tipo
00 flour and semolina flour and we soaked the fish in milk until the fry oil was hot. We spread brown paper bags all over the table, dredged the fish, fried it, laid it on the paper, and then seasoned it with salt and pepper. A few squeezes of lemon later, the three of us had satisfaction written all over our faces. It was the best
fritto misto
I’d ever had. The seafood was unbelievably fresh. The preparation was simple. Plus, it was springtime, the windows were open, and the late-day sun lit up Claudia’s high cheekbones, chestnut brown hair, and inviting smile in a way that I had never quite seen before.

PINZIMONIO
with
TARRAGON VINAIGRETTE
and
GOAT CHEESE

The Italian version of crudités is called
pinzimonio.
Use whatever vegetables look freshest at your market. Depending on the time of year, you could use baby zucchini, baby carrots, purple asparagus, white asparagus, blanched fava beans, peas, radishes. . . the sky’s the limit. Just slice the vegetables thinly or cut them into manageable lengths or bite-size pieces. You could even shave them with a vegetable peeler or on a mandoline. In Venice, you’ll find the best produce at the vegetable market near Ponte di Rialto, the oldest bridge over the Grand Canal. There’s also a co-op nearby that sells a creamy goat cheese that I fell in love with. It’s not crumbly like the goat cheese you find in logs. It’s more like ricotta cheese. One spring, I was staying at Pina’s timeshare a few blocks away from the market and put together this pinzimonio with that goat cheese and some market vegetables. When I got back to Philadelphia, I had a version of it on the Osteria menu all summer long.

MAKES 8 SERVINGS

1 packed cup (50 g) fresh tarragon leaves, plus 5 to 6 leaves for garnish

1 to 2 tablespoons (15 to 30 ml) red wine vinegar

1 cup (235 ml) olive oil

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

2½ pounds (1.1 kg) assorted vegetables, thinly sliced (8 cups)

About 4 ounces (114 g) fresh, soft goat cheese

Put the tarragon and vinegar in a blender and blend until the taragon is finely chopped, 1 to 2 minutes. With the motor running, slowly drizzle in the oil until thickened, 2 minutes. The mixture should be green and medium thick. Season with salt and pepper, then taste and adjust the vinegar and other seasonings as needed.

Toss the vegetables in the vinaigrette in a big bowl and season with salt and pepper. Arrange the vegetables on a wooden board or platter. I like to put them in a narrow line down a long board. Use two dinner spoons to scoop and shape the goat cheese into two football shapes (quenelles). Place them on opposite sides of the vegetables. Garnish with the remaining tarragon leaves and a drizzle of the remaining tarragon vinaigrette remaining in the bowl.

BACCALÀ CANNELLONI
with
CAULIFLOWER
and
PARMIGIANO

By now,
baccalà
is pretty well known in the United States, but in case you’re not familiar with it, it is salted cod. Not salt cod. Salted cod. Salt cod is usually very thin and very dried out. That’s not what you want here. You want baccalà that is at least half an inch (1.25 cm) thick and still somewhat pliable. It has to be soaked for two to three days to desalt it before using, so allow yourself some time when making this recipe. On the plus side, there’s so much natural gelatin in baccalà that it whips up into a creamy mousse the Italians call
baccalà mantecato
(creamed codfish). I do a similar preparation here but stuff it into cannelloni and then blast the pasta in a hot oven. The filling has the look and creamy texture of a typical cheese-based cannelloni filling, but it tastes completely different and totally delicious. It makes a great casserole for a crowd, but you could cut the recipe in half to serve fewer people.

MAKES 8 TO 10 SERVINGS

Pasta and Filling:

1¾ pounds (795 g) boneless baccalà

4 ounces (1 stick/113 g) unsalted butter

¼ cup (60 ml) extra-virgin olive oil

1 medium-size yellow onion, finely chopped (1¼ cups/200 g)

3 anchovy fillets

½ teaspoon (1 g) red chili flakes

⅔ cup (83 g)
tipo
00 flour (see
page 277
) or all-purpose flour

2½ cups (625 ml) whole milk

1 small garlic clove, smashed

1 bay leaf

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

8 ounces (227 g) Egg Pasta Dough (
page 282
), rolled into 2 sheets, each about
inch (1.5 mm) thick

4 tablespoons (57 g) unsalted butter, melted, plus a little more for greasing the pans

3½ ounces (100 g) Parmesan cheese, grated (1 cup)

Cauliflower:

½ head cauliflower, separated into florets

¼ cup (60 ml) extra-virgin olive oil, plus a little more for drizzling

Parmesan cheese for garnish

¼ cup (15 g) chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley for garnish

For the pasta and filling:
Soak the baccalà in water to cover for 2 to 3 days, changing the soaking water two or three times a day.

Heat the butter and olive oil in a deep sauté pan over medium heat. Add the onion and sweat until soft but not browned, 4 to 5 minutes. Add the anchovies and chili flakes, and cook for 2 minutes. Add the baccalà, and cook until the fish flakes easily, 4 to 5 minutes, breaking it up with a spoon. Scatter in the flour, and cook out the floury taste for about 5 minutes. Gradually stir in the milk in a few additions, scraping the pan bottom between additions. Add the garlic and bay leaf, and cook over low heat until thick and creamy, 30 to 40 minutes, stirring frequently to prevent browning on the pan bottom. Taste, and season with salt and pepper as needed. Remove from the heat, let cool, and discard the garlic and bay leaf. Spoon the filling into a resealable plastic bag and refrigerate until ready to use or up to 1 day.