Cheese

I like a mixture of beef and pork for meatballs, but you can use all of one or the other if you prefer. If you do use all beef, try this: moisten the bread crumbs in milk for a minute or two before adding them to the meatball mixture. It’s not traditional, but it will help with the somewhat drier texture of beef. You can use a spoon or spatula to mix the meatballs, but I like to use my hands. I think it’s the most efficient way, and I can feel the texture of what I’m mixing. The mix of vegetable and olive oils gives you a higher smoking point for the oil with the benefit of the flavor of olive oil. The reason for flouring and browning the meatballs is to add flavor and to seal them so they hold together in the sauce, not to cook them all the way through—they will finish cooking in the sauce.

Some people dislike anchovies, but it would be a shame to leave them out of this dish. They add such wonderful flavor and, most likely, people won’t even know they are there. They dissolve during the cooking and add complexity to the other assertive flavors in this dish. I like to crush canned tomatoes with my hands, so I can feel when they are the right size and how tender or firm they are. That helps me to judge the cooking time better. If you prefer, you can mash them with a wire whisk or use a food processor. If you choose to process them, use just a few quick bursts—otherwise you’ll chop them too fine and incorporate a lot of air into the tomatoes, and they will turn pink. You can add basil to this sauce if you like, or stick to the traditional Italian-American accent of fresh parsley. I choose Pecorino Romano cheese for this dish. It is made from sheep’s milk and is much sharper than Parmigiano-Reggiano, which is made from cow’s milk. But if you prefer, you may use Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Bocconcini, literally “little mouthfuls,” are small rounds of fresh mozzarella that are often sold wherever larger rounds of fresh mozzarella are made. (If you can find bocconcini made from water buffalo’s milk, they’re even better for this pasta.) Bocconcini can vary in size from store to store. If yours are larger than the type called ciliege (cherries), you may want to cut them into quarters, so they fit neatly on a spoon alongside the pasta. If you can’t find bocconcini of any type, cut larger pieces of fresh mozzarella into 1-inch cubes.

I like to eat the pasta hot with room-temperature sauce, but you could just as well serve it all cold. In that case, toss the tomatoes and pasta while still hot, then set them aside until you’re ready to serve them. Finish the pasta by tossing in the basil and bocconcini and serve. I can go on detailing recipes with minimal changes in the ingredient list or techniques, but what I want to leave with you is not only recipes but the understanding, and hence the liberty and confidence, to deviate from the recipe path and come up with a version of the plate that reflects your personal taste and local produce. When you reach this point, cooking is truly a joy.

The “riga” in “rigatoni” means “stripe.” It is those stripes and rigatoni’s wide, hollow shape that make them perfect for a chunky sauce like this one. You can make the sauce a day or so in advance; just don’t add the ricotta and grated cheese until the last minute.

Spaghettini is very similar to vermicelli, and both are somewhere between capellini and spaghetti when it comes to thickness. Because they cook quickly, it’s best to remove them from the boiling water when they are still undercooked, and to let them finish cooking in the sauce. I find this pasta very delicate but zesty and wouldn’t serve it with cheese. But if you love cheese in your pasta, have it.

You have all seen those large, wax-coated provolone cheeses hanging like oversized pears in Italian groceries. When the same cheese is made into smaller shapes, which are hung to dry only briefly, they are sold as a softer, milder cheese known as provola. The wonderful soft texture of the cheese is perfect for this reinforced soup. If you cannot find provola, substitute a young soft cheese like Fontina or fresh Pecorino. You can use fresh mozzarella, but it will be very stringy when ladling and eating the soup. Boiling the meatballs before adding them to the soup may seem a little odd, but it removes some of the raw-meat flavor and helps keep the clear flavors of the soup intact.

When I make a brodo—clear soup with a little something in it—I think of my father. He loved all kinds of soup, but especially these simple and elegant ones. My father was a very proper man who insisted on beautiful place settings and crisp linens. When we were young, my grandmother made this soup with duck eggs, chicken eggs, or even goose eggs—whichever type was freshest. Prepared without the spinach, this is a perfect soup for infants.

Rice salad can be made with long- or short-grain rice. I prefer short-grain rice, like Arborio, because it cooks up fluffier and absorbs more of the flavors of the other ingredients in the salad. Long-grain rice, like Carolina and Uncle Ben’s, stays firmer and has a more “staccato” effect—that is, it’ll stand more separately and distinctly from the other ingredients. The one good thing I can say about pasta salads is that people feel comfortable improvising with them. Feel free to treat rice salads the same way. Although there are some traditional combinations, like seafood rice salad or shrimp-and-asparagus rice salad, you can really be creative and make any combination. And they are a great way to use leftovers. For this dish, I took the classic salad of mozzarella, tomato, and basil from Capri, added rice, and dressed it with virgin olive oil and lemon juice. Some of my other favorite combinations are shredded grilled chicken, tomatoes, and arugula; cubes of grilled fresh tuna, Gaeta olives, Cerignola olives, cherry tomatoes, sliced red onion, and basil; grilled vegetables like peppers, zucchini, eggplant, and mushrooms with shavings of Parmigiano-Reggiano; thinly sliced raw baby artichokes, diced celery, and shavings of Parmigiano-Reggiano; rice-salad “antipasto” with cubed prosciutto, mortadella, cacciatorino, provola, Pecorino, Gaeta olives, roasted peppers, pickled mushrooms, and pickled artichokes.

Pick the youngest, crunchiest romaine heads you can find. Keep them crisp, before and after cleaning, in the vegetable drawer of the refrigerator. Even if you pick young, crispy lettuce, you should use only the pale-green and yellow inner leaves for this salad. But don’t throw out the outer leaves. Shred them and stir them into soups, or into a panful of sautéed fresh peas. The dressing shouldn’t be too dense; it should be just thick enough to coat each leaf lightly. The cheese that is added at the end will thicken it a little. Oil and vinegar stirred in at the end is a little touch of mine. It’s how we serve the salad at Lidia’s Kansas City and Pittsburgh. Another little touch that looks nice on a plate is to set one or two whole romaine leaves on the plate and pile the cut leaves over it. Shaving Parmigiano-Reggiano over the finished salad looks nice and tastes nice, too. It’s a good thing to keep in mind for other salads as well. Traditionally, Caesar salad was made with a barely cooked egg. Here I use a hard-boiled egg, as I do in my restaurants, for safety reasons.

Cherry peppers are plump, round peppers that are usually sold pickled in vinegar. They range in color from bright red to dull green, and in spiciness from mild to hot. Good in salads and as part of an antipasto tray, they add a kick to cooked dishes, too, like the Chicken Scarpariello on page 262.These stuffed cherry peppers will look very nice and go a long way to dressing up an antipasto table if you use both red and green peppers. Sometimes you will see these already stuffed hot peppers marinating in oil and vinegar. You can do the same by packing the stuffed peppers into a clean jar and pouring the liquid from the jar of cherry peppers and some olive oil over them. Store them in the refrigerator for up to a few days like that, but be sure to drain them well before you serve them, or they will be messy to eat.

If you can buy fresh mozzarella “hot off the press,” before it’s been refrigerated, it will be easier to cut and fill. There are a lot of different fillings you can use in place of the prosciutto—olives, salami, fresh basil leaves, or pesto. Choose a thin-bladed knife with a blade long enough for you to see what the blade is doing as it cuts through the cheese.

If you haven’t bought a deep-frying thermometer yet, this is a good time to do it. A few of the pizzette may “spring a leak” while they fry—you can minimize the risk by not overfilling the pizzette, and by wetting and sealing the edges well as you form them.

What makes this frittata different is the bread. It soaks up the egg and cream and gives the frittata a firm but still tender texture. It also makes it easier to slide onto a serving plate, if that’s how you want to serve it.

We made this dish at Ristorante Buonavia in the early 1970s with white bread. Now I find I like the flavor and texture of wheat bread, and I like it even more if the bread is lightly toasted before you put the sandwiches together.Vegetable stock is nice here—it cuts the acidity of the white wine without adding a definitive flavor. If you don’t have vegetable stock, use water or, if you want to add a richer flavor, chicken stock.