Dairy Free

Lemon ice is simple and delicious and very Italian. This recipe was given to me by Maria at Carm’s in Chicago. It was not too sweet, with a nice tartness, and a bit slushy when she served it to me; I loved it.

Prickly pears—or fichi d’India, as they are called in Italy—grow wild and abundant in Sicily and are eaten simply as a fruit, as a salad, or churned into a dessert, as in this recipe for granita. In the Southwestern United States, the prickly pear grows abundant and wild, and when I visited the Salinas Valley in California, I was delighted to see acres upon acres of this cactus plant growing for commercial harvesting. The Mexican culture uses it in their cuisine, but I was especially happy to see a demand for it here in the States. When you find it nice and ripe in your market, buy it and make this simple and delicious granita with it.

Chicago is the birthplace of this sandwich, and Al’s “#1 Italian Beef Sandwich” claims to be the best. The last time I was there, there was a line, and the outside tables were full of people munching on the beef sandwich. However, I think the recipe below will give you a sandwich much closer to what the Italian American immigrants were and still are making for their families. The Italian beef sandwich seems to have its roots in Italian weddings and celebrations as a frugal way to offer meat. The boneless beef rump, an otherwise tough piece of beef, when marinated, roasted, and cut into thin slices, and then topped with lots of Italian-style vegetables, went a long way served as a sandwich. This recipe makes enough for a crowd, or you could halve the recipe and feed a smaller group. That will be a problem if you just want a sandwich for yourself, but I think the only true way to get this sandwich to be as good as it can be is to make it from a whole rump roast. You can always enjoy the leftovers later.

I am sure just about everyone who has traveled to Italy was offered limoncello at some point or other during the trip. This delightful lemon-flavored drink is a custom born in southern Italy, but now limoncello has crossed into not only all of Italy, but also across the Atlantic and into the United States. You can now make limoncello easily at home—no need to travel—and this recipe also works well with oranges. Limoncello is best served cold. Keep a bottle in the freezer for your guests.

I had this sandwich in Baltimore, in a small, quaint mom-and-pop shop in Little Italy. Turkey is not too popular in Italy. After all, it was brought back to Europe after the discovery of America, and in Italy chicken and rabbits ruled the roost, along with other courtyard animals. In America, though, the turkey is the celebrated and celebratory animal, the one that fed famished early explorers coming to America. Well, this is a great sandwich to make on the days following Thanksgiving—or anytime, for that matter. The condiment and the greens are the Italian part, and the turkey is the American part—the perfect Italian American civic club sandwich.

When in season, soft-shell crabs are a big seller in all of our restaurants. People just love them. We make a light batter, fry them nice and crisp, and set them over a salad for our guests. During one of my trips to Baltimore, I wanted to go visit Crisfield Seafood in Silver Spring, Maryland, known for its soft-shell crab sandwich. The experience was good: the soft-shell crab, nice and crispy, was the best part; the sesame bun and the coleslaw were the usual suspects. In this recipe I’ve added my own twist to the bread and ingredients. Get a good semolina roll, and top the crabs with an arugula-and-egg salad, an Italian American solution. If you want to serve this as a salad, double the salad and dressing and omit the rolls. Serve crabs on top of the greens, with dressing dolloped on the side.

Every region of Italy has its version of minestrone. The Italian American version seems always to have diced carrots, celery, potatoes, beans, and cabbage, rendering it distinct, with a touch of sour aftertaste. Variations include vegetables that were readily available in the small gardens Italian immigrants kept in their backyards or window boxes. Italian Americans love their minestrone so much that in 1949, Progresso Quality Foods began selling minestrone, as well as pasta e fagioli, in cans as a convenience food. At first the soup was available only in Italian American markets, but soon enough it hit mainstream America.

Free-range chickens, if you can find them, will make a superior stock. I also like the richness that turkey wings add to a chicken stock, so I use them all the time. You can save the chicken parts you need for stock over time, in a sealable bag or container to keep in the freezer, or perhaps your butcher can sell you what you need. Remove the livers from the giblet bag before making stock—livers will add a bitter flavor.

In Italy, it is called bruschetta, fett’unta, and by various names in different regions, but the basic concept is that bread, fresh or old, is grilled or toasted and then brushed with olive oil and rubbed with fresh garlic. Toppings are optional, and surely seasonal. In the United States, this Italian custom took on different versions and became garlic bread. Garlic bread was an open loaf of Italian bread brushed with butter or oil and lots of chopped garlic, sprinkled with dry oregano, and grilled or baked. I recall liking the grilled and warm bread from my Italian American restaurant visits, but the garlic was always too much for me. I must say that now, in most restaurants, the grilling and toasting of bread has come full-circle, and bruschetta as well as garlic bread graces the table. Here are three versions of the garlic bread made with the Italian American tradition in mind. Just keep a handle on the garlic.

Rhode Island’s Italian immigrants have made clam soup an integral part of the clam-shack cuisine. From Giovanni da Verrazano, the first Italian to visit Rhode Island, to the generations of today, the plentiful seafood of the Ocean State has been given an Italian twist. As I savored baked clams across the United States, in most cases the clams were chopped, but I like whole clams baked with bread crumbs in the shell. Small clams like littlenecks are the best.

This is a recipe from the Sardine Factory in Monterey, California. My longtime friends Ted Balestreri and Chef Bert Cutino smoke fresh sardines for this dish, but smoked canned sardines are delicious as well. However, I enjoy regular canned sardines packed in olive oil in this dish as well.

Baccalà, or salt cod, has a long tradition on the Italian table, and since it traveled well, immigrants brought it with them to the New World, where they used it as barter as well as for cooking. (One need only notice how popular baccalà is in Caribbean cultures.) The Italian immigrants have made baccalà a big part of the Italian American table, especially around the holidays. This simple salad recipe will satisfy any baccalà nostalgia, holiday or no holiday.

When I ate my way through Baltimore, crabs were to be had in many ways. It was spring, and soft-shells were on every menu, as were crab cakes, crab cocktails, and crab salads. Most of the dishes had some version of tartar sauce, ketchup cocktail sauce, or rémoulade served with them. I got a yearning for a crab salad Italian-style, so, without much ado, here is one that evokes a lobster salad they often make in Sardinia.

Seafood salad is common in Italian American households, especially on Christmas Eve, La Vigilia, and almost always as an appetizer on menus in Italian American restaurants. As popular as the seafood salad is in the United States, in Italy one is more likely to find a simple salad like this version, containing one kind of seafood. What is most important in this recipe is not to overcook the calamari.