One of the most familiar (and enjoyable) flavor combinations to many cultures – sour and sweet or, as the Italians call it, agrodolce.  There is something about tartness and sweetness that just makes you want more.  Think Sour Patch Kids, Pisco or Whiskey Sours or your favorite Chinese take-out order.  Yes, sweet and sour is everywhere.

A traditional agrodolce is very basic and usually only includes vinegar, sugar and maybe wine.  Similar to the French gastrique, agrodolce was thought to have been brought to Sicily from the Arabs.  We took a few other sour/sweet combos and added them to our basic sauce, just to up the flavor a few notches.  Let me tell you folks, this is a winner.  Thanks to the amazing vinegar sauce we ate at Prune a while back, we figured the addition of raisins and cornichons wouldn’t hurt. In fact, we wished we had made more of the sauce just to eat it by itself.

This agrodolce would work well with many other things besides cornish game hen such as pork, chicken or fish.  Get a nice crust or crispy skin on any of those and the sauce will meld perfectly with it.  We hope you give this a try.

The Italian region of Liguria is famous for its dramatic landscape of mountains plunging into crystal clear waters, and narrow terraced fields leading down to tiny, colorful villages precipitously perched on the edges of cliffs of which the Cinque Terre (five lands) of Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore in La Spezia province are the most famous. It’s a region of hot, dry summers and cool, wet winters, though the rugged terrain creates many tiny sub-regional micro-climates, and driving through it, you can go from dry scrub oak and wild thyme to olive groves to chestnut forests and back again in half an hours’ journey.

So it is that Ligurian food, like all Italian regional cuisine, reflects the landscape from which it comes, and because of this much of the local food has traditionally come from the few plants that are able to withstand the poor, dry soil, the salty air at low altitudes, and the cold at higher elevations, supplemented by seafood and, occasionally, game and poultry.

**Sorry for interrupting your reading, but I had to find a place to put this picture in. No lie, we passed this goat going about 45 mph in the Ligurian countryside and I thought I was hallucinating. I made Jonny reverse about 1/4 of a mile down a very winding, thin road to find out if I really was on drugs. This Gandolf-looking creature was smiling from behind a very primitive and small barn about 5 inches off the side of the road. I fell in love at that moment. He looked mythical!

In her recent paean to the Liguria of her ancestors, The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken, author Laura Schenone recalls that while things have changed in modern times, for millenia the fortunes of most of the region’s inhabitants have been directly related to the availability of chestnuts from which many staples were made — including the ubiquitous gnocchi and pasta.

Another plant that grows very successfully in Liguria’s poor soils, as they do a few hundred miles west in the rocky garrigues of Provence where they remain the principle diet of many peasant farmers and, indeed, their livestock, is the chick pea (ceci/garbanzo), and like the chestnut, Ligurians pound the dried cecis into a flour which they use to make a kind of flat bread found nowhere else in Italy save certain parts of Sicily (which is deep fried chickpea dough often used in between bread or as a snack called Panelle – we hope to make this version soon), farinata. The French have their own version of this called Socca, but today we will focus on farinata. Farinata is a kind of street food found in Liguria and can often be treated like pizza as it is often cut into wedges and can come with various toppings like onions.

While we were in Genoa last summer, we saw farinata in bakeries all over the city but, curiously, found that it wasn’t offered in restaurants, though it was probably because of the glut of delicious seafood and various pesto preparations we gorged ourselves on rather than this reason, that we missed out on trying farinata in the region of its origin. Not to be denied though, we sought out some chick pea flour (yes, I know, if weren’t such post-modern bourgeois slacker-tourists we would have pounded our own from dried beans…) at a wonderful gourmet grocers in Park Slope and proceeded to use the wonderful invention that is Babelfish to translate any number of recipes on Italian websites to find out how to make it authentically. If you can not find chickpea flour in your local grocery store, check out some health food shops, Indian and/or Middle Eastern specialty stores. Chickpea flour is a key ingredient to many Indian and Middle Eastern foods.

Regular readers will know that we strive to find and make the most authentic preparations we can, but you will also know that this kind of research often leads to the unfortunate conclusion that there is rarely only one “authentic” version. Referring again to Laura Schenone, who describes farinata as almost like a chick pea flour focaccia – crispy on top and soft and chewy underneath and baked in a wide, shallow pan in a brick pizza oven, we found that this conflicted with our recollections and other recipes we had come across for thinner, almost completely crispy flatbreads. In fact, what we discovered was that the longer the cooking time and the less batter you add to your skillet, the crisper the farinata. Like, duh, right? For a more baked polenta-like consistency underneath with a crisp top, I would recommend pouring enough batter so that it is 1/2-deep and cooking our recipe for 1/2 the time, possibly finishing it off under the broiler for a few minutes. The recipe below will be for a crispy version of farinata – one that almost can crack like a cracker.

**Window shopping in Genoa – check out the farinata being served in the upper right-hand corner

We would like to try the softer version so we can decide which we prefer. Regardless, we thoroughly enjoyed the crispy, thinner and darker bread with its nutty, salty flavor that we made and are enthused to attempt the latter as soon as possible.

Typically, farinata is eaten either alone or dipped in good Ligurian olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt, whereas we decided to use it almost as a canvas for a rather overly decorative carpaccio of zucchini (courgette) with pine nuts, shaved pecorino, and lemon juice. We encourage you to make yourself a farinata or two (preferably not in the hot months as we did, unless you have a good AC!) and eat it anyway you like, reminding yourself, yet again, that peasant food made from humble ingredients is almost always good, and because that’s often all there was/is to eat, it has to be.

CRISPY FARINATA (LIGURIAN CHICKPEA FLATBREAD) WITH ZUCCHINI CARPACCIO SALAD – (makes about 1 12-inch farinata)

Ingredients for farinata:

• 1 1/4 cup of chick pea flour
• 1 1/2 cups of water (maybe a bit more to get the consistency somewhere between whole milk and lite cream)
• 1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil (or enough to cover your pan)
• plenty of freshly ground black pepper
• 6 sage leaves, thinly sliced
• 1 teaspoon of chopped rosemary (optional)

Ingredients for zucchini salad:

• 1 large zucchini, sliced into paper-thin slices using a mandoline
• 1 ripe roma tomato, sliced into small dice
• 2 tablespoons pignoli nuts (pine nuts)
• 1 scallion (spring onion), sliced into thin rings
• 3 tablespoons good extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon whole grain mustard
• 1 salted anchovy filet
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• pinch of salt and black pepper

What to do:

1. Sift your chickpea flour in a bowl and add your salt, pepper, sage and rosemary. Stir generously.
2. Slowly add your water, whisking the whole time allowing everything to be incorporated (again, you want the batter to be about the consistency of whole milk/light cream).
3. Allow your batter to rest for at least 1 hour or as long as overnight.
4. When you are ready to cook, preheat your oven to 425 degrees. If any foam has surfaced on your chickpea batter, remove with a spoon.
5. Pour olive oil into your 12-inch baking pan – preferably a cast iron skillet. You want the olive oil to generously coat the bottom and sides of your skillet.  Add your batter until it is about 1/4 of an inch  if you want it super crispy or  1/2 inch deep if you want it thicker and possibly softer.
6. For a crispier farinata, bake for about 30 minutes. Check on it, though, as ovens differ and you do not want the batter to burn! If you want it a bit softer, I would recommend baking for about 15-17 minutes and then finishing it under the broiler for a minute. Allow to cool before cutting!
7. Slice zucchini into very thin, long slivers using a mandolin or a very sharp chef’s knife and thinly slice/dice your other veggies. Arrange everything on top of your farinata and sprinkle with pine nuts.
8. Using a mortar and pestle, pound the anchovy and the mustard together and squeeze in the lemon juice and then mix well. Immediately before serving, whisk in the olive oil to make the vinaigrette. Season with salt and pepper and drizzle all over the zucchini carpaccio and farinata.

Check out some other posts you may enjoy:

• BEET AND RICOTTA FILLED RAVIOLI WITH BROWN BUTTER AND POPPY SEEDS
• ITALIAN-STYLE SLOW ROASTED PORK SHOULDER WITH SALSA VERDE
• FUSILLI WITH SALSA DI NOCI AND MUSHROOMS (WALNUT PESTO)
• European Roast…? (Why Coffee Tastes Better There)
• Drink of the Month: Vin Santo (May, 2008)

Although we were the lucky recipients of a gorgeous red tagine as an engagement pressie from my parents friends a few years ago, we decided to forgo using it in the 95 degree heat New Yorkers were forced to endure last week. For those who may not know, a tagine (or tajine) is a clay vessel used for the North African dishes of Moroccan cuisine. It’s a two-parter type of deal – the bottom is like a heavy clay pot about five inches in depth and the top is a cone-like lid. There are no air holes in a tagine and this is specifically for keeping the steam inside. It almost creates a small clay oven on your stovetop or in the oven. What’s absolutely brilliant about this cooking vessel is that, due to its conical shape, it retains the moisture which is emanated from the ingredients inside and as it rises, it gathers on the conical top and falls right back into the food braising perfectly. This creates real depth of flavor as well as moist and delicious meats, especially those cuts that are tougher or cheaper. Tagines are really made for slow and low type of cooking and are used for a variety of different types of meals including meat or fish tagines and even soups. I highly recommend getting one of these babies for your kitchen and trying it out – but wait until it’s not 90 degrees outside.Which brings me to the actual recipe portion of this post – it’s friggin/freaking/fricking/fuggin/fucking (however the heck you express it) hot here in my neck of the woods. H-O-T. The last thing I felt like doing was turn on my oven. Luckily, on a shop-a-holic spring weekend in April we got summer-fever and spent about $300 we don’t really have at Lowes. At that time (and in my “holy s&it it’s the first 60 degree day” happiness fog), I thought it would be a great idea to purchase a $99 gas grill for our “backyard”. Somehow, miraculously, we shoved this very large gas grill in our small ‘backyard’ in Brooklyn (I use the word backyard lightly considering our plot of bricked-over land is about 7 feet by 3 feet – but I AM NOT COMPLAINING… honestly!). It’s the best financial investment I’ve made since buying my husbands greencard 5 years ago!

I’m rambling. Apologies. I’m writing this as I’m at the beach, pink with a light sunburn, and I’m 3/4 of the way down a very strong vodka tonic (twist of lime, thank you very much!). Anyways, it was freaking hot in New York, I was craving a tagine and I did not want to turn on my oven or stovetop. What’s a girl to do? Buy all the ingredients for a tagine and cook them on the grill separately. So, that’s what I did and let me tell you kind readers, it was freaking fabulous. We grilled every bit of what I would’ve put in a tagine and we served it with a nutty and fruity couscous. It’s been done time and time again, but, like I’ve mentioned before in another “deconstructed meal”, sometimes you just want to cut into things with a knife and fork. This meal was super easy and obviously much quicker to cook than a tagine. It’s perfect for the hot summer. Just rub your favorite Moroccan spice blend over your lamb (or use chicken if you’d prefer!) like a Ras el hanout, and grill along side fresh apricot and olives. Yes, we grilled olives. Although I don’t think it’s necessary to grill, the olives did take on a nice flavor by grilling them. Throw it all together with some cous cous and (as my British husband would say) you’re laughing.

I have submitted this dish to Grill It! this months “Monthly Mingle”. 

TAGINE-STYLE MOROCCAN LAMB WITH GRILLED APRICOTS AND OLIVES – serves 2

Ingredients:

• 2 lamb shoulder chops
• 1 large onion, cut into thick slices (about 1 1/2 to 2 inches)
• 10 large whole green olives
• 2 apricots (you can use dried apricots or other stone fruit like plums if it’s not the season)
• For Moroccan Spice Mix:
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 2 teaspoons coriander
  • 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 2 teaspoon cumin
  • 1/2 teaspoon ginger powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon chile powder or cayenne
  • 1/2 teaspoon paprika
  • 1/2 teaspoon tumeric (optional)
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• For Cous Cous
  • 1 cup of couscous (your favorite brand – if it’s packaged, no problem
  • chicken stock to cook it in
  • 1/2 onion, minced
  • handful of fresh coriander, minced
  • 2 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted
  • 1/2 lemon
  • 1/2 cup raisins
  • 1 teaspoon of the moroccan spice
  • 1 can chickpeas
  • 1 teaspoon lemon zest

What do to:

1. Add all the spices together and mix with a fork or spoon to create your Moroccan Spice Mix.
2. Rub spice mix generously on lamb and allow to sit for at least 30 minutes using a little olive oil to help it adhere.
3. Make sure to reserve at least one teaspoon of the mix to flavor your couscous.
4. Heat grill to medium-high and grill your chops for at least 4 minutes (perhaps as many as 6 minutes – use “poke” test to check) per side for a nice medium-rare pink.
5. After a couple of minutes, oil the onions and begin grilling. These need around five minutes per side and be careful turning them as they tend to separate.
6. After turning your chops over, add the olives, neatly threaded on some skewers. These don’t need that long, they just need to blister a little on all sides.
7. Remove chops to a plate, cover with foil and allow to rest.
8. Oil, salt and pepper the asparagus and begin grilling them.
9. Add chicken stock to couscous, cover and let absorb.
10. When stock is absorbed, add pistachios, spice mix,herbs and lemon zest and fluff together. Aromas will be wonderful!
11. Remove onions, asparagus and olives from grill. Add all to plate and sprinkle generously with some more pistachios. Enjoy!

Check Out Some Other Posts You Might Enjoy:

Knowing Your Tagliatelle from Your Tagliolini
At the Desk Gourmet: It’s the Future
Free Lunch for Inner-City Kids: Does Free Mean It Needs to be Crap?
I’m Dreaming for Some Cured Pigs Cheeks

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.

The owners, the Abi-Najm family, had a really cute ‘coming-to-America/America the land of opportunity’ story that is often unheard of these days. They fled Lebanon on a cargo ship during the civil war with only a few belongings. In 1976, they settled in Arlington and by 1979 they bought a small pizza place called Athenian Taverna and had only enough money to replace half the sign, and the first Lebanese Taverna was born.

Warms your heart, right? Maybe makes you reconsider your opinions on the current immigration policy, huh? Maybe it’s just me?

Anyways, that night I ate the most delicious and different meal. The dish was called Fatteh Djaje – seasoned, shredded chicken with crispy pita bread, smothered in a yogurt sauce and (my favorite part) sprinkled with pomegranate seeds. Every time I visited Shannon, I asked if we could go to Lebanese Taverna so I could satisfy my craving.

After the second time dining there, I knew I had to try to find a recipe to recreate the dish. This was 1999 and the internet was shockingly different than it is today. After much searching, I found something that slightly resembled it, but I knew I would have to get creative and figure it out based on my memory of the dish at the restaurant.

To this day, the Lebanese Taverna’s menu includes Fatteh Djaje (with chicken) and Fatteh Blahmeh (with lamb). Here is how the Fatteh Blahmeh is described on their menu:

Pretty great description for a pretty amazing meal. I know many of you may be scared of this recipe, but if you try it once, I guarantee you’ll be hooked. Since 1999 (and one marriage to an Englishman later), I’ve grown to love lamb and eat a decent amount of it, so this recipe will be the lamb version. Feel free to substitute the lamb for chicken if you’re not a lamb eater. If you like the taste of Moroccan spices (nutmeg, cinnamon, clove, etc.), you’ll love this meal.

LEBANESE SPICED LAMB OVER CRISPY PITA SMOTHERED WITH A GARLIC-YOGURT POMEGRANATE SAUCE (FATTEH BLAHMEH)

For the Lamb

• 3 lbs lamb for stew (small bits still on the bone)
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 two to three inch stick of cinnamon
• 5 cloves
• 1/2 of nutmeg (or about 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg if you must)
• 2-3 cups of chicken stock
• pinch of salt
• 1 can of chickpeas

For the Yogurt Sauce

• 1 1/2 cups of plain yogurt, strained
• 2 cloves of garlic, mashed into a paste
• some mint leaves, roughly chopped
• a squeeze of lemon (Optional: zest of half of lemon)

Garnish and Bottom Layer:

• 3-4 pita bread, sliced through the middle (so they are thin), cut into triangles and toasted till crispy
• 1/4 cup of toasted pine-nuts
• 1/4 cup pomegranate seeds (if seasonally available)
• some roughly chopped mint

What to do:

1. Season your lamb with some kosher salt, a bit of nutmeg and cinnamon. Heat up a small bit of olive oil in your pressure cooker. Over medium heat, sear your lamb until brown – about 1 1/2 minutes per side. ***NOTE: You could also slow cook the lamb in your slow cooker for 5-6 hours during the work day and still get that wonderful, falling-off-the-bone thing.
2. Add your onions and garlic to the pressure cooker and using the leftover oil, saute briefly, stirring around the meat to make some room for the onions/garlic to cook.
3. Make a bouquet garni (if you have cheesecloth or do what I did in a bind tonight – get a misfit (CLEAN!!) sock, cut it, wrap your spices in it and tie with kitchen twine) with the cinnamon stick, nutmeg half and cloves.
4. After another 30 seconds or so, add your stock. Throw in your bouquet garni. Bring to a boil and follow your pressure cooker directions. Cook in pressure for 30-35 minutes.
5. While that’s cooking, mix your strained yogurt with the garlic paste, chopped mint, squeeze of lemon and lemon zest. Stir and let sit so the flavors meld.
6. Slice your pita and toast in the oven for about 4-5 minutes at 385 degrees till crispy. (OPTIONAL: Traditionally, the pita should be fried in butter for a more intense taste).
7. If you have a pomegranate, slice in half and remove seeds. It’s easier to submerge it in water and take seeds out that way – the little bits of sinew will separate from the seeds more easily. Strain so you just have the seeds.
8. When lamb is finished cooking in the pressure cooker/slowcooker, using tongs, remove lamb only out of the sauce and put in bowl. Allow to cool for a few moments.
9. Meanwhile, turn heat on medium to reduce the sauce just a bit more – about 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, add the drained chickpeas and let simmer for another 3-4 minutes.
10. With two forks (or your fingers!), remove the bones from the lamb meat and shred the lamb meat. It should be super tender and fall off the bone easily.
11. Assemble your dish. Put 4-5 toasted/fried pita triangles on the bottom of your dish. Using a large spoon, spoon some chickpeas with sauce over the crispy pita bread. You want a decent layer of chickpeas. Next, top the chickpeas with some shredded lamb. Finally, add a layer of yogurt and top with a sprinkling of pomegranate seeds, toasted pine nuts and chopped mint. Dig in!

CHECK OUT SOME OTHER PRESSURE COOKER RECIPES:

• WINE-BRAISED LAMB SHANKS WITH ROSEMARY AND THYME IN PRESSURE COOKER
• LEMONGRASS BEEF SHORTRIBS
• KOREAN-STYLE PORK RIBS IN PRESSURE COOKER