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Usually, pasta recipes contain something substantial such as sliced mushrooms, vegetables, seafood, or meat. This recipe, like the aglio e olio on page 103, has a very simple sauce and will make 6 “Italian” portions. Simplicity goes a long way, especially with intense flavors such as anchovies and capers. If you’d like more substantial servings, increase the spaghetti to 1 1/ 2 pounds and the rest of the ingredients by one-half.

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.

Stock will make a much more flavorful soup, but if you do not have any handy, use canned broth or even water—the soup will still be quite good. When using canned stock for this soup, I always dilute it by half with water. In most cases, the flavor of canned broth is too pronounced when taken straight and masks the fresh vegetal flavor of the other ingredients.

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.

Banana peppers are a long, thin-skinned mildly spicy variety of pepper that, because of their skin and fairly meaty texture, are perfect for frying. To serve them as a room-temperature salad, prepare them as described below. If you prefer to serve them hot, arrange the peeled peppers and their juices in a baking dish, sprinkle the bread crumbs over them, and bake in a hot oven until the crumbs are lightly browned.

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.

This was one of the first dishes that brought the taste of contemporary Italy to the Italian-American restaurant scene. It came into vogue in the early seventies when red radicchio and arugula became available in the States. While the Italians will toss any vegetable in their salads, I think the addition of endive was a play on the color of the red, green, and white Italian flag. This salad is a great base for additions, from walnuts and pine nuts to different cheeses and cold cuts, such as salami or turkey, and even fish such as tuna, shrimp, or poached whitefish.

I like this and other seafood salads served at room temperature as soon as they are made, but most people like this dish chilled. If you are one of them, refrigerate it just long enough to chill it, a half-hour or so. Longer will dull the fresh flavors of the salad. Toss well and check the seasonings just before you serve it.

This is one of those dishes you can take in any direction you like. You can use whatever seafood is available—scungilli (sea conch), crabmeat, scallops, or any firm fish fillets. You can use lemon juice in place of part or all of the vinegar and dress the salad up with capers, black or green olives, roasted peppers, or diced tomatoes. However you make it, it’s best prepared about 1/2 hour before you serve it, to give the flavors a chance to develop. You can refrigerate the salad, but not for too long. And be sure to bring it to room temperature and check the seasonings before you serve it.

Salt cod is expensive. This salad is a good way to use trimmings from a whole boneless or bone-in side of baccalà you bought to make the Marechiara on page 298. If you trim the baccalà before you soak it and save the unsoaked trimmings in the refrigerator, you can take your time making the salad. If you trim the baccalà after soaking it, you’ll have to make the salad within a day or two. I picture this dish as part of a beautiful buffet, but it would make a nice first course at dinner, or a lunch dish all by itself. The directions below will give you a warm salad—the way I like it. If you’d rather have a room-temperature salad, just let the potatoes and beans cool all the way. But please don’t make this with chilled potatoes. Cooked potatoes should never see the inside of the refrigerator. They become waxy and tasteless.

I love this salad—it’s so fresh and clean-tasting. Sometimes I make a meal of it. Because I really want you to make this salad, I’m calling for store-bought fillets. But if you have a whole striped bass that you’ve filleted, this salad is a great way to use odds and ends from the fish. Poach the fish head and the belly parts you’ve trimmed from the fillets in the court bouillon. Remove the meat from the cheeks and along the top of the head, and trim the bellies of bones and skin. I like the crushed red pepper to be conspicuous in this salad, so don’t be afraid to use it. Start with about 1/2 teaspoon and go from there. And don’t throw the cooking liquid out: save it to make the salad nice and juicy. You could use crabmeat or even chicken instead, I guess, but white fish, like the bass, is perfect prepared this way.

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.

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.

Just as you use trimmings from baccalà to make salt-cod fritters, you can use this same method to make fritters from other types of fish. Whether using baccalà or other fish, finely diced fresh tomatoes or sliced scallions would make a nice addition to the batter.