The heavens have cleared here in NYC, finally.  After over twenty straight days of clouds and/or rain, we celebrated the welcoming warm and sunny weather with something light and bright.  Before this week, bathing suit season seemed very, very far away – then the heat and sun came and getting into a bathing suit began staring me in the face immediately. Barf.  I’ll need a few less choripáns and patacones and a few more lentils and fish to feel a bit less “Dance Your Ass Off contestant” and a bit more Gisele Bündchen pre-pregnancy (that ain’t no beer bloat, please).

With the abundance of basil out in the garden, we decorated our plate of lentils and quickly seared, sesame-crusted tuna steaks with some fresh, bright basil oil.  Easiest thing to make and extremely delicious.  Nothing much more to elaborate on except to say that this meal cost about $5 each and took about twenty minutes to prepare.  Can’t get any better than that (well except if I really did look like Gisele).

We’ve had such a cruddy spring here in NYC and it’s hard to believe the summer solstice is just a week and a half away. Luckily, it’s been chilly and wet during the work week and sunny and warm at the weekends. It doesn’t make you feel that much better, though. You can’t fully get into the swing of summer because the weather just isn’t matching up. It feels like early April and we’re two weeks into June. Sadness. I want to wear my freaking sandals again and eat dinner outside and not wear a COAT ANYMORE!

Venting over. The one way we’re finding we can brighten our rainy, cool day is by cooking meals like this one. Fish (and our Black Cod is sustainable… double happiness) reminds me of the beach, which reminds me of sunny days. Morels and peas remind me of spring which (usually) remind me of flowers and sunny days. Mint reminds me of my garden in the summer which, say it with me, reminds me of sunny days. It was cool enough outside to use my oven, but we could just as easily have done this on the grill. The minty pea puree was fabulous and could have been eaten with a spoon alone. We paired this dish with some sliced Yukon Gold potatoes in their skin, sprinkled with olive oil and some herbs de Provence and crispily roasted in a hot oven. While these are cooling down, you can finish your fish.

Here’s to warmer, sunnier days ahead wherever you are!

Spring hasn’t exactly sprung yet here in Brooklyn. The trees are still bare and are showing no signs of sprouting anything. Even the crocuses, let alone the daffodils, remain mostly tuberly and dormant.

Nonetheless, there are some signs of the changing season as our long-suffering chives are poking through all bright green and soft, and our tough little tarragon plant is also making a comeback. And, it’s these weak, but brave, first signs that we’re clinging to in order to retain sanity at the end of what seems like a very long and cold winter.

So, with these hints of verdant optimism poking through the bare earth, we’re looking ahead to the increasing bounty of our tiny garden, and asking you to nominate your Top Five favorite herbs. This month’s winner will receive a package including various herb seeds and a cookbook/guidebook to growing your own essential culinary flavorings.  Click here to read the rules of our monthly top five giveaways.

Amy & Jonny’s Favorite Herbs:

1. tarragon
2. chives
3. lavender
4. thyme
5. sorrel

If spring has already sprung where you are, why not try our very delicious recipe for Grilled Lamb Shoulder Chop with a Yogurt Herb Sauce and Grilled Pita or this Lavender & Herb de Provence-stuffed Pork Rib Roast?  How about a simple and healthy Artichokes Stuffed with Parsely, Garlic and Parmigiano?

Think spring, readers! Think spring.

Check out WANF’s other Top 5 contests and winners here.

One was a fabulous side dish we made that was our play on a typical tomato gratin. The difference in the way we made it and the way it is typically made is how we sliced the tomatoes. Most tomato gratin dishes use tomatoes just cut in half. We decided to thinly slice them which created a real concentrated tomato flavor with a nice crunchy and spicy top. It almost felt as though we were eating a form of pizza. The “sauce” (tomato slice) and the cheese (parmigiano) combined with the crunchy “dough” (breadcrumbs) was really nice in the mouth. What was only made for a side dish to some pork turned into the star of the show.

While tomato season is here, give this easy side dish a try. I’ll do my best w/ measurements, but remember, depending on how big your dish is, you may want to get creative with your own measurements. This recipe is just a guide.

THIN-SLICED TOMATO GRATIN (serves 4)

Ingredients:

• 1 glass oven ware dish (we used one that was 9×12)
• 4-5 large tomatoes, cut into 1/4 inch slices
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 6 leaves of basil, thinly sliced
• 1/4 cup parmigiano reggiano (plus extra for the breadcrumbs – see below)
• 1/4 cup olive oil
  
• For breadcrumb topping:
  • 1 cup of unseasoned breadcrumbs
  • 1/2 cup parmigiano reggiano or romano cheese
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon paprika/pimenton
  • 1 teaspoon oregano
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon peperoncino
  • 1 teaspoon dried basil
  • 1 teaspoon thyme (fresh or dried)
  • 1 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1 teaspoon onion powder
  • 1 teaspoon black pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt (or to taste)

What to do:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Put a bit of olive oil in the bottom of your baking dish. Arrange your tomatoes flat down, side by side, in your dish. Sprinkle with some salt and pepper, the minced garlic and 1/4 cup of the parmigiano reggiano.
3. In a separate bowl, mix your breadcrumbs with all of the herbs, spices and the cheese. Mix. Sprinkle some of the dry mixture (before you add the olive oil) on to the top of the tomatoes (about 1/8 of a cup).
4. With a fork, blend in the olive oil with the remaining dry mixture. It will look kind of chunky. Sprinkle as much of this mixture on to the tomatoes as well. You may not use all of this – eyeball it. Top with some fresh basil.
5. Put in oven for 15 to 20 minutes, until top is brown and crusty and the tomatoes have shrunk a bit.

Check out some other posts you may enjoy:

• PHILADELPHIA SCRAPE-STYLE LEMON WATER ICE
• AUTHENTIC THIN-CRUST PIZZA
• TORTILLA SOUP
• FARINATA (LIGURIAN CHICKPEA FLATBREAD

By the way, if any of you are still reading this far, we were surprised by our family with a visit to FRENCH LAUNDRY for dinner.  We’ll be telling you all about it soon.

There are a handful of things that have made Genoa famous, amongst them pesto and Christopher Columbus. Interestingly, in all the many, many stories told by Scheherazade (to persuade the emir not to have her killed) in the Arabian Nights, the only European city to be mentioned is Genoa. And, when you visit the city it is immediately apparent why Arabs, used to the mazy streets of the souks of North Africa and the Middle East, could base tales of intrigue and deception there.

Set on the side of a series of steep hillsides on Italy’s Ligurian coast, Genoa (Genova) has remarkably medieval feel to it with its rabbit-warren streets lined tightly with buildings that prevent sunlight from reaching the ground. This, together with the soupy local patios with its French and Portugese inflections, and you almost feel like you’ve left modern Italy and arrived somewhere in the 13th century.

All of which sounds terribly romantic and redolent of mystery and adventure, and, well, it is, except when you’re entering the city at rush hour without a clear idea of where your hotel is, and you desperately need to pee after a three hour drive. Happily though, once installed in our B & B and fortified by a few glasses of wine – hastily thrown back, we began exploring the city’s mazy streets in the growing dusk, emerging periodically, like moles from a hole, onto a variety of piazzas wondering how the hell we got there, and thoroughly enjoying it.

Eventually, we found some semblance of bearings, so that the next day we managed to locate a restaurant our host had recommended for its typical Genoese cuisine for lunch. The previous evening, we had dined on fried fresh anchovies and langostines near the harbor, and so that lunchtime we were looking for pasta. Call me predictable, but I had to have pesto, you know the basic pesto made just out of basil, pine nuts, parmigiano-reggiano and olive oil, so I ordered spinach tagliatelle with pesto alla Genovese. Amy, though, went for another Genovese specialty, ravoili with walnut cream sauce or salsa di noci.

Now, it’s not uncommon for us to rave on about something perfectly simple, and indeed, patient readers, this dish is precisely that, but at the same time, and as you probably know, we don’t get all worked up over nothing. This sauce really is a badass. Trust us, we wouldn’t steer you wrong. In fact, the only thing that could have made the remake – recipe below – as enjoyable as the original we ate in Genoa, would be if we could have placed another table in our apartment and installed the wiry, old gent who sat opposite us at it.

PASTA WITH SALSA DI NOCI (WALNUT SAUCE) AND MUSHROOMS (Serves 3-4)

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups walnuts, boiled for 25 minutes
• 1 cup of parmigiano reggiano
• 1/4 cup lite cream
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 slices white bread soaked in milk
• 1 pack of mushrooms (your choice – we used white button)
• salt and pepper
• 1 pound pasta (we used long fusilli)
• optional: fresh thyme for garnish
• blender or food processor

What to do:

1. This is so easy to make, I could cry. Boil your walnuts for 25 minutes to remove some of the bitterness and soften. Drain and set aside.
2. On a plate or in a deep dish, soak two pieces of crustless, cheap white bread in some milk so it soaks it all up. Allow to sit for 5 minutes or so.
3. Get out your blender or food processor. Throw on some extra salted water to boil for the pasta.
4. In a pan, add your sliced mushrooms along with some olive oil or a pat of butter and saute until firm-soft.
5. Blitz the walnuts until fine first then blend all the rest of the ingredients together : the milk-soaked bread, the walnuts, the cheese, milk and cream along with a pinch of salt to taste. Add your pasta to the boiling water and cook till al dente.
6. Add the sauce to the pan with the cooked mushrooms, stir and warm on low for a bit. When pasta is done, add a bit of the pasta water to the sauce (maybe 3 tablespoons at most) and then add your drained pasta to the warming walnut sauce. Toss.
7. Plate your pasta and top with some fresh thyme, a bit of freshly ground pepper and some extra parmigiano. Enjoy with a big glass of red wine.

With over 61,000 pizzerias in America, how many do you think have really got it right? My guess is about 100. I’ve had some really, really, really shitty pizza in this country (Colorado!? San Francisco!!?) I’ve had some really, really shitty in my own neighborhood of New York City! I still have yet to find a place that really rivals the pizza I’ve eaten in Italy, until now when I realized I can make it myself in the comforts of my own home.

There’s place called Franny’s here in Brooklyn that is one of those annoying, overpriced and over-trendy but packed every night. When we finally decided it was time to see if it lived up to the hype, we were totally disappointed. When I eat something as simple as pizza, I don’t feel like dealing with a pretentious, trendy, annoying hipster attitude or staff. I don’t feel like being charged $16 for a pizza the size of a medium-sized plate and leave hungry. We ate reasonably-priced pizza at Isabella’s Oven, but the crust just didn’t quite do it for us. So, we decided to take matters into our own hands. We will never eat thin-crust pizza around New York City again. There’s no reason. For $20 worth of ingredients, a $15 pizza stone (genius, will never live without it – GO BUY ONE NOW), a $9 bottle of Chianti and my ipod, I can have a better, less expenisive, tastier and more relaxing culinary experience in my small Brooklyn kitchen then going to any of those shit-house, wannabe, up-their-own-asses Italian-style pizza places up the street (sorry, I think you’re finding out my true feelings on Frannys). Remember folks, there’s a difference between the type of pizza we’re going to show you how to make here and the many delicious New York City Pizzeria’s I love and adore (Lombardi’s, Arturos, John’s, Pino La Forcetta, Grimaldi’s, Di Fara, Totonnos, etc. etc.).

In fact, if you don’t feel like making pizza dough from scratch, go ask your local pizzeria for some fresh dough. More than likely, they’ll sell it to you. Just make sure it’s simple – nothing more than flour, yeast and water. No crazy bits of roasted garlic, no honey, no nothin’. The other thing that you must, must have, as I mentioned earlier is a pizza stone. This is KEY to making the best pizza at home. Third thing you must have is a really, really simple sauce recipe. Naturally, I recommend using my sauce recipe - it’s simple and delicious – just make sure you simmer it much longer than what is called for. The sauce should not be very wet, but more concentrated. Fourth is space to roll your dough out and a bit of muscle. I can’t toss friggin’ pizza dough in the air for the life of me so I spend my time rolling and rolling and rolling this pizza dough till it FINALLY does what I need it to do – roll out thin. Finally, you need a hot oven. If your oven has a hard time making it past 425 degrees, this may not work as well for you. You need to whack it up as high as it goes (550F+) and allow the pizza stone 20 minutes to heat up before you heat up the dough. Follow these simple instructions and you’ll have perfect pizza every time.

Here’s pictorial of all the pizza’s we’ve made recently to give you some ideas of toppings, most recreated from ones we ate while in Italy. Immediately following the picture you will find a really great recipe for pizza dough from Jeffrey Steingarten’s book It Must’ve Been Something I Ate. Buon Appetito!

Pizza with Cipollini Onions and Tonno

Pizza Romana (Pizza w/ Capers and Anchovies)

White Pizza with Mushrooms, Leeks and White Truffle Oil

Pizza with Anchovies and Cabrales (or Gorgonzola)

Bresaola, Arugula and Parmigiano Pizza

Pizza Romana (Capers and Anchovy) with Cracked Egg on Top

So, hope your mouth is watering and now YOU will think about a new pizza with toppings you love! Check out how to make pizza dough below.

PIZZA DOUGH ALA JEFFREY STEINGARTEN (an adaptation)

Ingredients:

• 6 to 6 1/2 cups of flour

• 1 1/2 tsp instant or active dry yeast

• 1 tbsp. plus 1 teaspoon salt

• 3 1/4 cups cold water

• 1/2 cup cornmeal or semolina flour

What to do:

1. In the mixer bowl of your food processor, stir the flours, yeast and salt together. Pour in the water and stir vigourously with a wooden spoon until everything comes together into a “shaggy dough”.

2. Put the bowl on the mixer and attach the beater – not the dough hook. This dough is too wet for regular kneading. Mix on low speed for a minute then beat on high speed for 3 1/2 minutes, scraping down the beater and bowl halfway through.

3. ***Steingarten explains the way to knw when your dough is perfect: With well-floured fingers, pull off a piece of dough about the size of a walnut and roll it in flour. You should be able to stretch it with the fingers of both hands without breaking for at least 3 inches across.

4. Scrape the dough out onto a heavily floured work surface. Fold one side over the other and allow to rest for 10 mintues. After 10 minutes, cut dough into 4 equal pieces and shape each piece into a ball and place each in a well-oiled bowl to rise until double in size – about 3 hours. ***NOTE: Steingarten likes to then put his dough balls in the fridge for an hour… if you have the time, do so, otherwise, I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary.

   

5. Preheat your oven to as high as it can go (at least 500 degrees!) and allow the pizza stone to heat up for a half hour to one hour.

6. On a well-floured surface, pat each dough ball into as flat of a circle as possible. Stretch it by draping the dough over your fists, knuckels up, passing it from hand to hand until it reaches about 12 inches. ***NOTE: This is the thing, do not despair at this point if it’s not going as perfectly as you want. This is not as easy as Steingarten says. With practice, it’ll be easier. But, we give the fist to fist way a try for a bit, then bust out a well-floured rolling pin and litterally attack the dough with our pin until it gets as thin as we need it to be. We like it to be about 1/2 a centimeter thick when we first cook it on the pizza stone.

   

7. ***This is where I do things a bit differently than Steingarten. Using oven mits, take your pizza stone out of the hot, HOT oven. Scrape your pizza dough off your floured surface and place on the hot stone (it will begin to cook immediately) and place back in the oven for two minutes or until there is a tiny bit of color on the surface and edges of the dough. Remove from oven and place back on your work surface. It will be ‘stiff’ but not fully cooked.

8. Depending on what type of pie you are making (red pie, white pie, olive oil and herbs-brushed pie), put down your ‘wet’ ingredients first (ie: tomato sauce). Don’t put too much on, just a thin layer for taste.

   

   

9. Add your toppings (go light like the italians! you don’t need to have 2 inches-worth of toppings to make this pizza taste good) and then your cheese (get low-moisture mozzerella and fresh buffala mozzerella that’s as low-moisture as possible – the moisture in the cheese could moisten your crust and cause it to be too wet and heavy).

10. Add the topped pizza back to your pizza stone and put back in the hot oven for 4 to 7 minutes, making sure all the cheese is melted and bubbley and the crust has some color to it. Remove from oven and allow to rest for a moment before biting in.

    

***If you’re interested in learning how we made any of the pizzas you see pictured above, let us know. We don’t mind posting the recipes. For the most part, you can kind of get a feel for the recipe by looking at the picture and the title of the pizza. But, we’re here to help. You’ve gotta give these thin-crust pizza’s a try!

Now that the recipe has been tested, I offer it to you. Bring the flavors of Florence and Coco Lezzone into your home (damn, that sounded like an info-mercial…kill me!). ***Notice that my recreation looks a bit chunkier than the Coco Lezzone one. Personally, I think part of that has to do with the fact that my leeks were not FINELY chopped. If you can use a chopper to really finely chop your leeks, I recommend it.

PAPPA AL POMODORO ALA COCO LEZZONE (Tuscan Tomato and Bread Soup the Coco Lezzone Way)

Ingredients (Serves 2-3 for a good hearty portion):

• 4 1/2 cups (or two 28oz. cans) of pureed plum tomatoes (San Marzano are best)
  • **buy the Whole/Peeled canned tomatoes in thick puree and puree it in a food processor yourself. Not necessary, but this helps you adjust the texture of your puree.
• 1-2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 1 leek, finely chopped (the finer the better) – only the light green and white parts
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 1/2 cup of beef broth (or a mixture of half beef broth/half chicken broth)
• 10 slices of day-old, dense bread (sliced in 1/2” to 3/4” slices) – I used a Portuguese “baguette”
  • **Traditionally, this dish is made with Tuscan salt-less bread. My guess is, no one will find this bread in their local shop considering once you leave Tuscany you can barely get this bread.
  • **Also, you can put your slices in the oven to create that “day old” feel if you didn’t give it a day to get more stale. Just heat your oven to like 275 and heat your slices up for about 15 minutes.
• Salt and Pepper
• Chiffonade of fresh basil

What to do:

1. Drain the insides of your whole, peeled tomatoes. Sometimes the juice that is in there (and the seeds) are just unnecessary when making a nice, thick sauce or soup. Puree the tomatoes along with the thick puree they came in.
2. Add your olive oil to your pot and sautee your garlic for a minute and a half over medium heat.
3. Lower your heat a bit (to about medium-low) and add your finely chopped leek . Do not let your leeks brown, you just want them to get soft. This could take 10-15 minutes.
4. Add your pureed tomatoes and the broth and let simmer (adjust heat to allow simmer) for 20 minutes.
5. After 20 minutes, add your ‘stale’ bread slices to the puree, make sure each piece is completely submerged (fold in).
6. Turn off the heat and cover your soup. Let sit for another 10-15 minutes.
7. After it has rested, stir for a few moments with a wire whisk. All your bread should actually have ‘dissolved’ into the soup creating a thick, porridge-like look.
8. Add a pinch of salt and pepper, whisk again. Serve with Mozzarella Croutons (melt some sliced mozzerella on some extra slices of your bread with a bit of olive oil, pepper and basil).

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