The Recipe

Source: Cucina del Sole: A Celebration of Southern Italian Cooking by Nancy Harmon Jenkins:

1 cup dried white beans, soaked for 6 hours or overnight
1 large bunch of escarole (about 1 pound)
1 or 2 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
1 crisp green celery stalk, coarsely chopped
5 or 6 flat-leaf parsley sprigs, coarsely chopped
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus oil for serving
12 cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
1 dried red chili (optional)
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
toasted slices of bread, for serving

Drain the beans, put them in a saucepan, and add fresh water to cover by about 1 inch. Bring to a simmer over low heat, cover, and cook for 40 to 60 minutes, or until the beans are tender. Drain the beans, reserving the bean liquid.

Measure the bean liquid and add enough water to make 2 ½ cups.

Rinse and core the escarole. Chop the leaves into pieces about 1 inch long. Add them to the saucepan in which you cooked the beans, cover the pan and cook the escarole over gentle heat in the water clinging to its leaves until it is tender. Be careful not to let it scorch, adding a little boiling water to the pan if it starts to burn. When it is tender, set it aside with any liquid remaining in the pan.

Chop together the garlic, celery, and parsley to make about ½ cup finely minced aromatics. In a small skillet, cook the aromatics gently in the olive oil for about 10 minutes or until they give off fragrance but are not brown. Stir in the halved tomatoes and continue cooking until the tomatoes have shriveled somewhat and given off lots of juice.

The Recipe

Source: A Taste of Southern Italy by Marlena de Blasi

8 tiny artichokes, preferably the purple-lipped variety, or 4 small, very young artichokes, several inches of their stems still intact
1 1-pound fillet of baccala, skinless and boneless
1 cup whole milk
juice of 1 lemon
1 small head red lettuce, radicchio or red oak leaf, washed, spun dry, and coarsely shredded
4 ounces large green Sicilian or Greek olives, crushed lightly with a mallet, stones removed, the flesh coarsely chopped
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 fat cloves garlic, peeled, crushed, and finely minced
1 small, dried red chile pepper, crushed, or 1/3 to ½ teaspoon dried chile flakes
1 ½ tablespoons good red wine vinegar
fine sea salt

Prepare the artichokes, trimming just a snip from their still-tender leaves and leaving them whole if they are tiny, slicing them in two, or even in fourths, if they are a bit larger, cutting out the choke should it have begun to develop beyond an innocent embryo.

Soften the baccala a bit with a mallet and soak for 24 hours in cold water (change the water three times, adding 1 cup of milk to the final water), rinse the baccala in cold water, cover again with cold water, and poach for 15 minutes. Drain and set aside.

In a large bowl, acidulate the artichokes with the juice of a lemon, add the shredded lettuce, the copped olives, and the poached baccala, cut into 1-inch pieces.

Make a simple warm vinaigrette by heating the olive oil, softening the garlic without coloring it for a minute or two, and scent the oil with the crushed chile. Remove from the heat, add the vinegar and a whisper of sea salt. Beat the dressing with a fork and pour it over the elements in the bowl, tossing them about and combining them well.

Present the salad with a young, cooled red wine that will do its best to stand up to both the artichokes and the baccala.

The Recipe

Source: A Taste of Southern Italy by Marlena de Blasi

1 small head white or green cauliflower
2 tablespoons fine sea salt
1 pound cima di rape [Hard-to-find Italian turnip greens] or dandelion greens, beet greens, or red chard
2 ounces anchovies, preserved under salt
2/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon fennel seeds
1 small, dried red chile pepper, crushed, or 1/3 to ½ teaspoon dried chile flakes
3 fat cloves garlic, peeled, crushed, and finely minced
3 ounces dried black olives, stones removed (optional)
12 ounces orecchiette
coarse sea salt for the pasta water
1 cup just-grated pecorino
1 cup just-made fine bread crumbs, sautéed in ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

Trim the cauliflower of its leaves and place it, whole, in a pot, covering it with cold water, adding 1 tablespoon of the fine sea salt and poaching it until tender. Drain the cauliflower and set it aside. Wash and trim the rape and place them in a pot, covering them with cold water, adding the remaining table of salt and poaching them for 3 minutes. Drain the rape very well, transferring them to absorbent paper towels. When the rape are cooled a bit, squeeze each piece, extracting as much water as you can before chopping them coarsely and placing them in a bowl. Add the poached cauliflower, breaking it up and blending it lightly with the rape.

Rinse the anchovies and remove their heads and bones. Dry them on paper towels and crush lightly with a fork.

In a sauté pan over a medium flame, warm the olive oil, scenting it with the fennel, crushed chile, and garlic, taking care not to color the garlic. Add the anchovies and the olives, if you wish to use them, stirring and blending the components. Add this hot mixture to the bowl with the rape and the cauliflower, smashing the whole against the sides of the bowl, permitting the vegetables to inhale the hot, spicy bath.

Cook the orecchiette in abundant, sea-salted water until al dente, draining the pasta but leaving it somewhat wet. Reserve ½ cup or so of its cooking liquids. Transfer the pasta to a large, shallow, warmed bowl. Add a few tablespoons of the cooking liquids and the pecorino to the sauce, thinning it only slightly. Add a few drops more of the cooking liquids only if the sauce is still extremely thick. Add the sauce to the pasta, tossing it and coating each little ear.

Dust the pasta with the browned bread crumbs and present the dish with a rough but honorable red wine.

The Recipe

Source: The Babbo Cookbook by Mario Batali

4 shallots, trimmed and peeled
2 tablespoons plus ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 head of escarole, cored and roughly chopped

Preheat the oven to 400 F. Drizzle the shallots with 2 tablespoons of the olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and place in a small roasting pan. Roast until very soft and golden brown, about 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and, when cool enough to handle, cut each shallot in half. Do not worry if the shallots start to come apart a little.

In a 12- to 14-inch saute pan, heat the remaining ¼ cup of olive oil over high heat. Add the escarole and shallots and saute over high heat until tender, about 7 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and serve immediately.