Italian

My mom used to make stuffed peppers, but I don’t like peppers. What I liked was the stuffing. So I’ve taken my mom’s recipe, tweaked it, and stuffed it in cabbage instead. I’ve also added chicken livers. The livers add an earthy richness that makes this dish super-special. If you don’t like chicken livers—or think you don’t—this is one time where you should get beyond the ick factor, accept that they’re worth adding, and move on . . . because this dish rocks.

In Tuscany, every town has a market day. This is when trucks carrying all kinds of delightful edibles pull into the center of town, open up their sides, and become little grocery stores on wheels. Of course my favorite truck was always the porchetta truck—who doesn’t love a truck that sells a delicious crispy pork product? Traditionally, porchetta is a whole pig that’s been boned and cooked for hours, until the skin gets totally brown and crunchy and the meat becomes wonderfully tender. It’s most often seasoned with garlic, sage, and black pepper—and while pepper is not usually how I roll, it’s appropriate in this dish to keep the classic flavors intact. What is totally unique in my version is to cook the pork on a bed of autumn vegetables—they soak up the lovely porky juices and help create the ultimate one-pot dinner for a crowd. Be sure to save some leftovers for a sandwich the next day!

To me, absolutely anything fried is delicious. In this recipe I take a traditional crispy, crunchy, salty, fried preparation for chicken and apply it to pork. I serve the pork with escarole—the unsung hero of the salad world (I’m on a mission to popularize escarole). Then I toss some chopped nuts and pickled onions into the mix. My mouth is so excited it just doesn’t know which way to go; there’s crispy pork, crunchy escarole, salty sweet nuts, and bright acidic onions. So many different things are going on in this dish that even though it’s super-easy to make, it’s also incredibly exciting to eat!

Duck is one of those dishes that can be intimidating because it seems fancy and elegant. But there’s nothing to be scared of—making great duck just takes patience. To get a really beautiful, crackling, brown piece of skin you have to take your time and render the fat SLOWLY. If you rush it, you’ll end up with crispy skin but a thick layer of fat between the skin and the meat—which is totally icky. Taking your time to render the fat will not only make your duck absolutely delicious, but it will also leave you with a treasure trove of duck fat—an ingredient that in restaurant kitchens is considered liquid gold and makes killer Crispy Crunchy Duck Fat Potatoes (page 219). I think that duck lends itself to sweet flavors, so in this dish I use a sweet Tuscan wine—Vin Santo—to reconstitute dried fruit to make a chutney-like sauce with rich chicken stock. Together the rich, meaty, succulent duck and the intense, fruity sauce make this dish perfect for a holiday, a special occasion, or even a Tuesday.

When you use my Risotto-Without-a-Recipe technique (opposite), you can flavor it with anything you like. Sweet little rock shrimp, bright lemon, and fresh herbs are one of my favorite combos.

Farro is an ancient grain that’s used in traditional Tuscan and Umbrian cooking—kind of like a cross between barley and wheat berries. I love making farro in the style of risotto—a.k.a. farrotto. By using my Risotto-Without-a-Recipe technique (page 136) and substituting farro for rice, you end up with something rich and chewy and nutty all at the same time. Like risotto, farrotto is a blank canvas for whatever you’re feeling passionate about. Whatever ingredients are in season, whatever flavors you’re in the mood for, whatever’s freshest. Whenever I cook for big events and have to feed a lot of people, I always make farrotto because it’s quick, it doesn’t cost a lot, and it’s a huge crowd pleaser. It’s a win-win-win.

If you wheel your grocery cart down the rice aisle, you will not find “risotto.” Risotto is not a type of rice—it’s a method used for cooking Arborio or Carnaroli rice. And once you learn how to make risotto using my Risotto-Without-a-Recipe method, you’ll be able to make any kind of risotto simply by adding ingredients and flavorings to this basic technique.

These gnocchi are also called malfatti (which translates to “badly made”) or gnudi (which means “nude”) because essentially these are ravioli without the pasta—they’re naked! No matter what you call them, I ADORE these delicate little cheese dumplings. They’re little bundles of spinach and ricotta sitting on top of melted Fontina mixed with heavy cream, mascarpone, and egg yolks. A little bit of this dish goes a long way—right to my booty usually!

This is an amazing dish because it takes everyday ingredients and joins them in a delicious and unexpected collaboration. Both the squash and the broccoli rabe have their own strong personalities—one sweet and one bitter—and each brings something to the party that would be sorely missed if one of them didn’t show up. Combined with the nutty, earthy flavor of the whole wheat pasta, this is what I call a real team effort.

Fava beans are one of those things I wait for all year long. When you talk about seasonal cooking, fava beans immediately come to my mind because when they’re fresh, there’s really nothing like them. I was one of the weird kids who grew up liking lima beans—in fact, I asked for them every birthday dinner (why my mother didn’t just serve them to me on a regular basis I’m not really sure). Fava beans to me are a jacked-up version of lima beans, so you can imagine how much I like them. I feature them in this sauce, but then I tuck some sweet pea and cheese action into the ravioli so you get a little pocket of pea-ness on your plate along with those lovely favas!

When people think pesto, they think basil. But I like to mix pesto up and use broccoli rabe—one of my very favorite vegetables. Broccoli rabe makes a delicious starting point for pesto. Add some sharp cheese and pistachios and you’ve got an amazing way to transform an old classic. I stick with a traditional combo—bitter rabe and sweet sausage over orecchiette (translated as “little ear”)—but I tweak it just enough to make it fresh and fabulous!

I LOOOOOVE meatballs—who doesn’t? This is my interpretation of the classic Italian-American dish. What makes these meatballs special are two things: First, I cook the onions before putting them in the meatball mix. Second, I add water—this helps ensure a moist ball every time!

I first encountered this sauce while working in Umbria, and it’s one of my favorite summertime pastas. To me, this is Mother Nature’s last blast, her crescendo before fall. This is where you take everything she has to give, all those glorious summer ingredients, and toss them together to let the wonderful flavors marry. Then you just barely heat everything up, never actually letting the veggies cook, so they maintain their fresh flavors. Punctuate this with a salty grate of ricotta salata and say, “Mmmmm . . .”

I LOOOOOVE nuts. And this super-classic preparation, which is hugely flavorful and really easy to make, is all about them. I start by toasting and puréeing walnuts—both of which help bring out their flavor and natural fattiness. Combine them with some sharp cheese and spicy arugula, and you end up with a dish that’s luscious and palate cleansing at the same time.

I used to go to Lupa, Mario Batali’s Roman trattoria on Thompson Street in Manhattan, and eat preserved tuna belly with beans. It was SOOOOO good! The tuna belly—which is a highly underrated ingredient—becomes succulent and delicious when it’s slow-poached, and that’s exactly how I cook it. I use it in a pasta sauce that’s full of tomatoes, fennel, and lots of garlic to create a wonderful tomato-y, perfume-y, olive oil-y dish that just screams of Sicily. One of the great things about tuna belly is that because it’s considered the throwaway part of the fish, it’s really cheap. You have to spend some time cleaning it, but usually if you pay a bit more you can get it already prepped from your fishmonger (much easier!). If you can’t find tuna belly or don’t feel like making it, a good substitute is Sicilian tuna packed in olive oil.

After culinary school, I spent a year in Italy learning to cook Italian food the way the Italians do, the right way. That year was probably one of the most important of my education; I learned a ton from the chefs I worked for—techniques and methods I still rely on every day. I also learned how to make this dish—which is a total showstopper. Uovo means “egg,” and that’s what this dish is all about: a lovely golden egg yolk nestled in a bed of creamy ricotta cheese all wrapped up in a tender blanket of pasta. Cut these lovelies open and the yolk flows out of the center. It’s an incredibly sophisticated and sexy dish, but deceivingly easy to make—the only catch is you have to cook the raviolis in batches. I realize this may seem like a pain, but it’s really the best approach as these ravs are very fragile (and they do cook really quickly, so it’s actually not that big a deal). I promise it’s worth it, because this recipe will make you a rock star!

When I’m in the mood for tomato sauce, Amatriciana is my go-to. It’s all about onions, spicy tomatoes, and pork products. Guanciale—cured pork jowl—is the key here. It has a sweeter, more interesting flavor than bacon. In a pinch, pancetta can be substituted, and in a double pinch bacon will suffice (though it does add a smokier flavor, so be warned). What else can I say? This sauce makes me want to dive into the bowl head first with my mouth wide open!

Eggs, bacon, and cheese, oh my! After a long shift in the kitchen and a few glasses of wine, carbonara is a chef’s late-night favorite. It’s fast, flavorful, and oh-so-satisfying. The thing is, as much as I love it, carbonara poses a bit of a dichotomy for me because while it involves some of my very favorite ingredients (eggs, bacon, and cheese), it also includes my nemesis: black pepper. The thing is, this is such a classic preparation that black pepper really belongs here—so I use it.

I love beans—any time, any way. And while my preference is to cook my own beans (see page 55), I’m the first to admit that sometimes a can of beans is a lifesaver. For this recipe in particular I have no problems using canned beans, and you shouldn’t either. Having a few cans in the pantry means whipping up this dish is easy—it’s one of my very favorite things to make when I want something super comforting to slurp up and stick to my belly while sitting around watching TV on a Sunday afternoon.

When I was working in Tuscany during porcini season I always wanted to go foraging for mushrooms, but the Italians are so secretive about where they find their prized porcini that I could never convince anyone to take me with them. So, while I never got to go hunting for fresh porcini, I did learn how to use dried ones to make this gorgeous sauce. If you’ve never used them before, dried porcini are a fantastic way to add a huge bump of mushroomy goodness to almost anything. And, because you have to soak them first, you get the added benefit of the fastest, most flavorful vegetarian stock ever; one that you can then add to your sauce to give it an even richer, earthier boost of flavor—just like I do here.