Dairy Free

Anna Cornino Santoro’s memorable couscous with scorpion-fish brodetto inspired me to create this version when I got home. I use grouper, a delicious fish, widely available and easy to work with (and certainly with fewer bones than scorpion fish!). Making couscous by hand, as Anna does, is not feasible for most of us, I realize. Fortunately, good-quality packaged couscous is in every supermarket these days. Almost all commercial couscous is precooked, so it takes barely 5 minutes to make a flavorful, fluffy base for the brodetto.

Manfredi’s version of chicken cacciatora was chock-full of delicious Sicilian eggplant. Indeed, the vegetable chunks shared the spotlight with the meat and made it more bountiful and satisfying. Undoubtedly, I realized, this dish must reflect the resourcefulness of cooks in Sicily in generations past. With many mouths to feed, and a limited supply of chickens (or money to buy them), they could extend the dish with the sweet tomatoes and meaty eggplants that grow so prolifically in every small garden patch. I hope you’ll be creative with this recipe too: if your chicken is smaller than the one called for here, or if you want to serve more people, fry up more eggplant and cook up more tomatoes for sauce. From one small chicken, you’ll have prepared a feast, all in one pot. Serve this with panelle (page 281) or polenta (page 109), or dress a bowl of pasta with the sauce and eggplant. Rest assured, no one will leave your table hungry.

Of the treasures taken from the sea that surrounds Sicily, tuna is among the most prized. Sicilian cooks prepare tuna with care and respect, which usually means simply, as exemplified by these grilled tuna steaks. Aromatic wild oregano is found all over Sicily, and bouquets of the dried herb hang in almost every Sicilian home. When the tuna steaks come off the grill, they get a drizzle of virgin olive oil and a shake of the oregano bouquet—simply perfect.

This recipe is much like the wonderful salad I had at Manfredi’s house. In Palermo, as I mentioned earlier, the insalata cruda e cotta that you can buy at the markets will vary with the season. In America, we can enjoy that same variety, so do not feel confined by these ingredients: use other greens, such as escarole, mesclun, and frisée, together with cooked vegetables such as roasted squash, boiled leeks, boiled beets—anything else you have on hand or enjoy.

This is the warm salad we enjoyed at Manfredi Barbera’s as one of the appetizers. It is also delicious at room temperature—and in the heat of summer, it makes a marvelous main course or an accompaniment (contorno) to grilled fish or chicken.

Caponata is a dense condiment of chunky fried eggplant and other vegetables and seasonings, jam-packed with flavor—sweet, sour, and salty all at once. Sicilians make caponata in many variations and enjoy it in countless ways. Here’s a version I love. Use it as a condiment on grilled meats and steamed fish, as a sauce for pasta, or as topping for bruschetta.

In Sicily, citrus fruits (agrumi) are enjoyed as a savory as well as a sweet, usually served between courses or at the end of a meal. A salad—called pirettu—is made from thick-skinned citrons (cedri). The green rind is peeled off, the center pulp is discarded, and the pith is sliced and dressed with salt, pepper, oil, and a pinch of sugar. Since fresh citrons are hard to find in America, here’s another citrus salad popular in Sicily, especially in the winter months, when oranges are at their best. Customarily it is made with blood oranges—sanguine or tarocchi—and that’s the way I like it best, though any small, juicy oranges will be delicious. Serve this in the Sicilian style, laying the rounds of orange and rings of red onion artfully on a platter with the dressing drizzled over, rather than tossing everything together. It is great as an appetizer, a refreshing end-of-the-meal salad, or an accompaniment to boiled or grilled meats.

Escarole is a great vegetable that is used much in Neapolitan cuisine, in soups and salads or just braised with garlic and oil. In this recipe, blanched escarole leaves are wrapped around a savory stuffing (as cabbage often is) and baked. Serve these rolls as an elegant antipasto, or as a vegetarian main course.

With thin vermicelli and tender small clams, this is a very quick-cooking (and very delicious) pasta. To yield their most intense flavor, though, the clams should be freshly shucked and totally raw when they go into the sauce, rather than being steamed in the shell. The method given here—freezing the clams briefly before shucking—makes this task easier than you can imagine, even if you are not a skilled shellfish shucker.

The Golfo di Gaeta teems with octopus, and Nonna Lisa can buy them fresh all year round to make this delicious tiella filling. With rare exceptions, however, octopus sold in the United States has been frozen (and usually cleaned) before coming to market. And while I almost always prefer fresh seafood, properly frozen octopus is easy to handle and tastes excellent—some claim that freezing helps to tenderize the flesh. Buy octopus still frozen (not thawed) from a reliable fishmonger or online merchant.

This is one of those simple recipes loaded with flavor that I am sure you will make part of your cooking repertoire. The fennel’s sweetness and tinge of licorice are concentrated by the braising and balanced by the acidity and the saltiness of the capers. Almost all of the moisture needed in cooking comes from the fennel itself, rather than from other liquids, concentrating the vegetable’s natural flavors.

Fresh fennel is one of my favorite companions for good Italian sausage. Here meat and vegetables are skillet-cooked, separately and then together, until their flavors are merged and concentrated. It may seem that a lot of fennel is called for, but in cooking it diminishes greatly. Fennel prepared this way is also excellent with any grilled meats; it is even good with grilled fish.

The following is a simple recipe that will give you all the sensations of fresh fennel as the vendor would have it.

Chicken braised in tomato sauce is always good, but it’s especially flavorful when chunks of fresh young artichokes are added to the cooking pot. You can serve this with polenta, mashed potatoes, rice, or anything that will sop up the sauce. Some slices of grilled country bread are my favorite, particularly on a summer day. The dish tastes even better if it is cooked in advance and then allowed to cool and rest in the pot. Reheat just before serving. If you have some left over, try pulling the remaining chicken off the bone and returning it to the sauce, and bringing it to the boil; after letting it all cook for a few minutes, you have a great dressing for pasta. I like rigatoni or shells with this.

Everyone loves roasted potatoes, and here they are tossed with slivered artichokes (already skillet-cooked with onion and garlic), lots of fresh oregano, and extra-virgin olive oil. It is a completely vegetarian dish full of flavor that will transport your table to the Seven Hills. Serve with grilled fish or meat, especially grilled lamb chops. Or simply turn this dish into a crispy baked treat by adding some shredded young Pecorino Romano, spreading it over the potatoes and artichokes in the last 5 minutes of baking.

This dish accents the meatiness of the artichoke. Braised slowly with the tomatoes, it develops a harmonious flavor, sweet with a refreshing licorice finish. Since this recipe calls for a lot of artichokes, I make it when they are plentiful. Serve with a piece of grilled meat or fish, or make some extra to spread on bread as an appetizer. Use as a dressing for pasta, or to make a risotto. These braised artichokes can be frozen, so make a big batch to pull out when unexpected guests come by.

Literally fichi al galoppo means “galloping figs,” an intriguing name for such a simple dish. As the figs poach slowly in bubbling syrup, it sounds like galloping horses. The trick here is to cook them with enough sugar so the fruit will absorb the syrup, rather than release its own juices. When this balance is reached, the silky figs remain whole and deliciously impregnated with the syrup.

Castagne al vino are a delightful reminder from Maremma that the simple pleasures of rustic life are truly irreplaceable. Roast some chestnuts, and while they are still hot, wrap them in a wine-soaked cloth . . . wait a few minutes . . . then peel and enjoy them with a glass of wine. The question is: red or white wine? The maremmani enjoy, as I do, red wine, a good Morellino. But white wine is also delicious.

Bistecca fiorentina is what everyone eats when traveling to Tuscany, but since I have taken you to Maremma, I want to share with you the way they cook and eat bistecche in Maremma. One would expect that in this cattle-grazing region, the bistecca would be from the longhorns that roam the hills and pastures there, and traditionally it was. But the Maremma is not known for tender meat, and today on the grills of the best places and homes in Maremma you will find beef from Chianina. Still, although the meat may be Chianina, the preparation still reflects Maremma. The cut of the meat is a porterhouse steak, which is similar to a T-bone steak but with a larger cross-section of the tenderloin (filet mignon) along one side of the “T.” The loin of the Chianina is enormous; hence the big pieces of meat that surround the T-bone. Choose a prime or “top choice” steak that has been aged properly for 2 to 3 weeks.

Antico peposo, a very old recipe for cubed beef, is cooked with lots of pepper and no other condiment—not even a drop of oil or any other fat—and it becomes a delightfully savory and peppery dish. The dish probably dates back to medieval times, when there was no refrigeration and meat was preserved with salt or lots of pepper and herbs. Once the meat was embedded with the pepper, it was cooked just as it was. Or with a little wine and garlic. My peposo uses only a fraction of the amount of black peppercorns that are in traditional recipes, but it will still please even the most fanatic pepper-lover: this is peppery! To balance the spiciness of the meat and mop up the sauce, you need some starch. I like to serve the peposo with one of the following: polenta, boiled or mashed potatoes, gnocchi, or just beans cooked with olive oil.