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6 Weeks of Home Cooking All rights reserved Danielle Oteri & Christian Galliani In March of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic upended our daily lives. Restaurants were closed and whether we liked it or not, we were forced to cook. This book is a memory and an inspiration from that time. Arthur Avenue Food Tours arthuravenuefoodtours.com Instagram @arthuravefoodtours RECIPE 1 POLENTA AND SPINACH SOUP Mondays are often soup days in Italy. Sunday dinners are often large, heavy meals enjoyed with family that get balanced out by eating lighter on Monday. Broth and vegetables will always get you back on track. This traditional soup comes from the Friuli region in Northern Italy where polenta rules over pasta and good soup greens like spinach and dandelions are coming up. The addition of just half of teaspoon of nutmeg brightens the flavor of the corn and perfectly compliments the spinach. Don’t have spinach? No worries, any sturdy green will do including swiss chard and kale. Polenta and Spinach Soup Serves 4 1/2 cup yellow polenta or a medium or coarsely ground cornmeal. 4 cups of hot chicken or vegetable broth (broth made from bouillon is fine) 3 3 garlic cloves, smashed with the back of a knife 3 tablespoons of salted butter (If you only have unsalted butter, you’ll just add more salt at the end) 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg Kosher salt to taste 1/2 pound spinach leaves, rinsed (or any hearty spring green you can find) Heat up the broth over a low flame in a wide sauce pan. Just as it starts to boil, whisk in the polenta so that it mixes with the broth to be smooth and loose. Add the garlic cloves, butter, nutmeg and a teaspoon of salt. Cook the soup at a bubbling simmer for about 15 minutes, whisking it frequently to avoid lumps. Add the spinach leaves and cook for 10 minutes more. Taste the soup to see if it needs more salt. Some like more, some less — it should be salted to your desired taste. Serve immediately. Wine Notes From Christian On the surface this might seem like a simple, rustic soup, but the nutmeg elevates it and highlights the sweetness and round notes in the polenta. Graceful, elegant and understated, it calls for a Chardonnay to tie it all together. The “baller” pairing would be Gaja “Rossj-Bass 2017 from Piemonte but if you don’t feel like parting with $110 a bottle for your soup pairing, then try Sturm Chardonnay “Andritz” from Friuli for around $22 or any nicely balanced Chardonnay really- just make sure it isn’t too oaky, as it will run over the the soup’s flavors. 4 RECIPE 2 TUNA RAGÙ WITH SPAGHETTI Italian food is simple. It relies on good ingredients, not fancy techniques. Just like a closet with a few key pieces of high-quality clothing, a good Italian pantry will take you far. This dish is proof. Feel free to use any canned tuna you have in the cupboard. I recommend the Rio Mare brand from Italy because it has an excellent reputation for best practices. I’m not getting a kick back or a commission on this, I just really appreciate the quality. For years I thought I hated capers, but that’s because I had only tasted terrible vinegar capers and would roll them off of smoked salmon or whatever dish they’d intruded upon with a sneer. Good capers, packed in salt, not vinegar, have a bright lemony flavor. They taste like olives that come from the sea. Agostino Recca is an excellent brand. Finally, anchovies have gotten a bad rap for years, again, because people have often only tried the way-too-salty ones from those flat yellow cans. Good anchovies are plump and meaty in the center of the fillet. They completely dissolve inside a sauce, leaving behind the coveted umami flavor; that subtle rush you get when you just want to keep on eating because damn… there’s something in there that tastes so good! Finally, you may be wondering what “ragù”means. I know what you’re thinking…Isn’t that a bad brand of jarred tomato sauce? Ragù comes from the French word ragout, because France and Southern Italy were both under the same crown for intermittent centuries. Ragù and ragout refer to meat stewed in vegetables. 5 Tuna Ragù With Spaghetti Serves 2 Bring 4 quarts of salted water to a boil. The water should taste as salty as the sea…go ahead and taste, this is part of developing your instincts in the kitchen. 1 6 oz. can of tuna 3 cups of passata (pureed tomatoes) 1 tablespoon of salted capers, lightly rinsed, but with some salt left clinging to them 2 anchovy fillets 1 teaspoon of red pepper flake (optional) 4 oz spaghetti, bucatini or linguine If you’re using tuna packed in water, add 1 tablespoon of olive oil to the bottom of a saucepan and place over a low flame. Drain the water, then add the tuna to the olive oil, and break it apart gently with a wooden spoon. If you’re using tuna packed in oil, dump the entire can, tuna and olive oil, into the sauce pot. Add the tomatoes and stir everything together for two minutes. Be sure to keep the flame low. Add the anchovies and the capers (and pepper flake), stir once again, then cover it, and lower the flame to a whisper. Add the spaghetti to the boiling water for 8-10 minutes. Grocery store brands like Barilla cook very quickly while the higher quality ones will take up to 15 minutes. Bite into the pasta to see when it reaches al dente texture — you want some resistance, but the 6 noodle should be fully cooked through. Drain the water or remove the pasta from the water with tongs. Add the spaghetti to the pot of tuna ragù and stir everything to together with tongs over the low flame. Plate and serve immediately. It drives me nuts when I see advertisements that show a blob of sauce sitting on top of pasta. That’s some weird American thing because Italians coat their pasta with the sauce to enjoy every last drop of it. Often I like to cook my pasta in boiling water until it is 75% of the way cooked, then I let it finish cooking inside the sauce so that all the flavors fully absorb into the pasta. Wine Notes From Christian This dish features Sicilian staples: capers, spicy anchovies, tuna, olive oil, and tomato. If it grows together, it goes together so I pair this dish with Frappato. Frappato is a light, aromatic, earthy and fruity red that will highlight this light tomato ragù and the salinity of the capers, without upstaging the tuna. My go-to is COS Pithos Rosso from Sicily for $35. (Click the link to purchase from Arthur Cantina on Arthur Avenue. Another really good one: Planeta Frappato 2017 for $23 7 RECIPE 3 CHICKEN CUTLET CAPRICCIOSA Ready to learn a little Italian? The word is capricciosa. You may have heard of pizza capricciosa that has a capricious assortment of things on top! Today, it applies to a chopped tomato and red onion salad that we’re putting on top of a crispy chicken cutlet. If you’re a vegetarian make this with a cutlet of fried eggplant instead. The inspiration comes from Cafe Al Mercato, the little Italian diner in the back corner of the Arthur Avenue Retail Market. This version doesn’t exactly match what chef Ralph Esposito makes — his you’ll just have to wait to experience for yourself, hopefully someday very soon. In the meantime, this is a version you can easily make at home. What you’re aiming for with this dish is the contrast of a hot, freshly fried cutlet and an acidic tomato salad on top. (Fat is balanced by acid.) It’s wonderful with those little grape tomatoes I find to be the most flavorful in the cold months, and stellar in the height of tomato season. Just be sure to use plums or beefsteak tomatoes. Heirloom tomatoes are usually too sour and don’t provide enough contrast. Chicken Cutlet Capricciosa The chicken capricciosa at Cafe al Mercato Serves 4 First make the tomato salad so that the flavors have time to come together. 8 Tomato Salad Ingredients About 2 pounds ripe tomatoes, cut into 1/2-to 1-inch chunks (about 4 cups) 1 small red onion, thinly sliced 6-8 leaves fresh basil or mint, torn or coarsely chopped 1/2 teaspoon salt, more more to taste 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil A splash of red or white wine vinegar. Nothing fancy. I don’t recommend balsamic here. Mix everything together in a serving bowl, then put it aside on the counter while you prepare the cutlets. Chicken Cutlets Ingredients 1 cup breadcrumbs 1 tablespoon dried oregano 1 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper 9 2 large eggs 1 pound boneless chicken breasts sliced into thin cutlets 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil Method: Stir the breadcrumbs, oregano, salt, and pepper together in a shallow bowl. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs well with a fork. With a fork or tongs, dredge the chicken in the beaten egg, then transfer to the breadcrumb bowl to coat evenly. In a heavy skillet, warm the olive oil over medium heat, then add the breaded cutlets, about two at a time. Cook approximately 4 minutes per side, turning when the cutlets are crispy and golden brown.

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