Authors: Gabriele Corcos
Extra Virgin (8 page)
½ pound striped bass (or other sushi-grade fish), skin removed
3 ounces cold-smoked fish, preferably striped bass
4 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
12 leaves fresh flat-leaf Italian parsley, coarsely chopped
1 orange, supremed, juices reserved (see note)
1 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon lightly chopped fennel fronds
½ cup halved heirloom cherry tomatoes (mixed colors)
½ shallot, minced
2 tablespoons Vin Santo
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Extra virgin olive oil, for drizzling
Chill 4 plates.
Slice the raw bass paper-thin, on a slight bias and against the grain of the fish. Depending on how thinly you slice, you should have between 16 and 24 slices. Arrange the slices in two separate groupings of 2 to 3 slices on each of the chilled plates. This is two parts of the crudo trio.
For the third part of the trio, thinly slice (or, if easier, flake) the smoked fish into 12 to 20 pieces and divide into 4 portions. Add to the chilled plates.
On each plate, sprinkle 1 teaspoon lemon juice, ¼ teaspoon lemon zest, one-quarter of the coarsely chopped parsley, and one quarter of the reserved juices over one of the groupings of sliced bass.
In a small bowl, combine the orange segments, red pepper flakes, and fennel fronds. Stir to combine. Spoon 3 orange segments over each second grouping of sliced bass.
In another small bowl, combine the tomatoes, shallot, and Vin Santo. Stir to combine and spoon over each grouping of the smoked fish.
Lightly season each fish grouping with salt and pepper to taste. Top with a drizzle of finishing extra virgin olive oil. Serve immediately.
IMPORTANTE!
Supreming is a way of extracting the juiciest, purest segments from a fruit, and an easy technique to master. Using a sharp knife, trim the top and bottom of the orange (by either a ¼-inch or ½-inch). Do this over a bowl to capture the juices. Then, carefully cut away the peel, making sure to remove the pith just under the peel as well. (Do this by cutting from the top down.) Then, remove the wedges by cutting as close to the white membrane as possible, through the fruit to the center, then following through along the very next membrane. This should result in nice, juicy-looking segments.
D:
Gabriele and I believe that pasta brings a family together at mealtime like no other food. We get so much enjoyment out of the looks on our daughters’ faces when they dig into their favorite pastas that sometimes it feels like that bowl of shells and pesto, or penne and red sauce, is as Italian a way of saying “I love you” as blurting out “Ti amo!”
G:
Pasta is at the heart of so many of our fondest memories. For me it’s being twelve years old and making spaghetti and meat sauce on Saturday nights for me and my brother when our parents would go out with friends.
D:
For me it’s having a connection with my mother and grandmother by way of a big bowl of well-sauced rigatoni. Pasta is the best comfort food, and when I met my husband, it quickly dawned on me how much the Tuscans think of that comfort food in terms of simplicity, freshness, and the balance of ingredients. You won’t find vodka and cream sauces or overcheesed, overloaded pastas in Tuscany. Where Gabriele grew up it was about that melding of herbs, or the drizzle of olive oil, or the spark of flavor that garlic and pancetta bring.
G:
And yes, pasta has carbs, which have had a rough go of late in the often diet-obsessed American culture. But pasta can also bring healthy vegetables to your kids’ mouths, or protein-rich meats—and since we all need carbs at some point anyway, wouldn’t you rather carbs be delivered to your children by way of delicious, life-affirming pasta?
DRIED VERSUS FRESH
In Italy, the conversation is never about whether to make tricolore (tri-colored) pasta, or whole wheat pasta, or gluten-free pasta. To Italians, that isn’t pasta. It’s a question of dried versus fresh, and even then the answer can only come when you know what sauce you’re making. Something as simple as a
Red Sauce
or a
Carbonara
goes well with perfectly cooked dried pasta, and if you stick to sturdy, reliable imported Italian brands like De Cecco and Barilla, you’ll be in good shape. Whereas if you’re spending hours on a succulent
Duck Ragu
or highlighting an in-season vegetable like porcini mushrooms, you might want the more complementary taste of a softer, silkier handmade noodle. Plus, taking that extra time to make with your own hands something that brings such enjoyment to people is often worth the effort.
SHAPES
Since pasta is a vehicle, the construction and shape of your pasta has the power to literally and figuratively “transport” your sauce. If your sauce is chunky and meaty, a pasta with the ability to capture it, like shells (conchiglie, lumaconi, orecchiette), spirals (fusilli), or ridged tubes
(rigatoni, penne rigate), works best. With the classic strand pastas like spaghettis, we love their ability to hold oil-based sauces like
Aglio e Olio
, a wine-infused seafood sauce such as
Vongole
, or tomato sauces if using a thicker variety of strand pasta like bucatini.
COOKING PASTA
How much water you want to use when boiling it for pasta is up to you, but a good rule is 6 quarts per pound of pasta, although you can cook up to 2 pounds in that amount of water, too. (For every 1 pound after that, increase the water amount by 2 quarts.) The less water you use though, the more you need to pay attention to it to ensure the pieces don’t stick together. Don’t fall for the pervasive myth that adding olive oil or butter to a pot of water prevents pasta from sticking together. All the oil will do is sit on the surface of the water, go straight down the drain when you pour the water out, and if anything, work against your pasta adhering to the sauce you’ve made, which is the “sticking” you want! The only tried-and-true technique is stirring your pasta a few times as it cooks, and most important, right after the pasta goes into the boiling water.
As for salting, remember that pasta by itself is fairly flavorless, which is why you salt the water before adding the pasta. Think of it as getting ready for a hot date: a pasta giving off its own unique flavor thanks to the salt can only help attract the savoriness of a sauce waiting to be approached. Two good pinches of salt (or about 1 tablespoon) is all it takes. We prefer salting the water even before turning on the flame underneath the pot. If you’ve oversalted your pasta, it’s not the end of the world. You can quickly rinse it in warm water in a strainer after you’ve drained it.
What you’re looking for from your dried pasta in terms of doneness is what’s called al dente, meaning “to the tooth,” which lets you know that it’s firm and slightly chewy, but thoroughly cooked. This requires setting the timer to go off a couple of minutes before the box recommends, then start tasting it early. The moment it’s al dente—boom—rescue your pasta from the water. Remember that in many instances you’ll be cooking it a tad further when it gets added to your sauce, so even pasta the tiniest bit underdone will get a chance to reach its ideal texture once wedded to the sauce. We’re all our best selves, after all, once we meet that special partner, no?
Lastly, with most of the following dishes, we implore you not to let your cooked, naked pasta sit in bowls, waiting for sauce to be plopped on top. You see that so often in commercials, or on packaging: the white pasta with what looks like
ladled soup on it. It’s not appetizing. Toss your just-cooked, quickly drained pasta in your sauce and let the two enjoy their first bonding, if only for 30 seconds or a minute. (One exception is ragus, which tend to get placed atop pasta in the bowl because of their natural thickness.) Save some of the pasta water, too, for those moments when a splash of the starchy liquid might help “loosen” the grip your sauce has on the pasta. Your marriage of pasta and sauce—much like the human kind of matrimony—should be close and comforting, but not suffocating!
THE SOFFRITTO
G:
Throughout the pasta recipes, and in many of the sauce-heavy or stewlike dishes in this book, you’ll see that the steps often start with extra virgin olive oil heated up, followed by the sautéing of herbs and/or vegetables. This first burst of aromatic flavor is what we call the soffritto. It comes from the Italian herb soffriggere, which means “to fry lightly.” Think of it as the prologue to your dish, the way you set the tone. (Or, if we’re thinking passionately, the back rub before things move from the couch to the bedroom!) It might be garlic and olive oil for a red sauce, or a mixture of onions, carrots, and celery for something more complicated.
