Bottega - Michael Chiarello [76]
½ cup finely diced unpeeled Yukon gold potato
1 cup finely diced peeled carrots
1 cup finely diced red onion
Sea salt, preferably gray salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons golden raisins
2 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted
2 teaspoons grated orange zest
¼ cup white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons finely shredded fresh basil
Heat three medium sauté pans or skillets over medium-high heat. Add 3 tablespoons of the olive oil to one pan and 2 tablespoons olive oil to each of the other two pans. Add the eggplant to the first pan (with the 3 tablespoons oil), the potato to another, and the carrots and onion together to the third pan. Season all the vegetables with salt and pepper and sauté until each vegetable is completely soft, 5 to 7 minutes for the eggplant, 10 to 12 minutes for the potatoes, and 12 to 15 minutes for the carrots and onion. Add the raisins, pine nuts, and orange zest to the pan with the carrots and onion and continue cooking for another 5 minutes, until the flavors are well infused.
Meanwhile, in a small, nonreactive sauté pan or skillet, combine the vinegar and the sugar, bring to a boil over medium-high heat, and cook to reduce until slightly syrupy, 3 to 5 minutes. Combine the hot vegetables in one pan, pour on the vinegar syrup, toss in the basil, taste for salt and pepper, and serve hot or at room temperature.
If a Caponata Could Talk
I think side dishes can sometimes tell the measure of a chef. It’s obvious that you go for glory on the big dishes—the short ribs and the stuffed pig—but what do your side dishes say about you? This caponata says a lot about Bottega’s chef de cuisine, Nick Ritchie. You don’t often see carrots in caponata, and Nick, who created this version, has taken some heat over it. One of the chefs I respect most, Mariano Orlando, once muttered, “This isn’t caponata. There are no carrots in caponata.” While it’s true that Sicilians don’t add carrots, northern Italians sometimes do, and since Nick worked for a year at La Campognola di Salò, a restaurant in Salò, Italy, on the shores of Lago di Garda, his instincts in the kitchen usually serve him well. Like my own, Nick’s cooking is a blend of the Napa Valley and Italy, but Nick is a St. Helena baby all the way. He might even be the St. Helena baby. At the venerable Ernie’s Meats, owned by Ernie Navone, Nick began a tradition when his dad placed him on the meat scale. (Nick weighed in at a whopping 8 pounds, 6 ounces.) Many, many babies graced that meat scale, part of St. Helena’s history, and I like knowing that Nick led the way.
It might seem excessive to use three skillets for the vegetables, but I like the end result. When Sicilians cook caponata in one big pot, you get a sort of a ratatouille softness, the vegetables gray and unrecognizable, the eggplant often too oily, and the onions overcooked. With Nick’s method, each vegetable is tender but distinct, and the potatoes are golden brown all over and perfect.
Heirloom Toscanelli Beans al Fiasco
SERVES 6
Watch as I get enthusiastic about a bean. Toscanelli beans are, in the bean world, what lobster is to seafood and bistecca is to beef. Toscanelli are the beans that set the bar.
Al fiasco means cooked “in the flask,” and this manner of cooking is at once romantic and very practical. During a time when fuel cost more than beans, the last embers of a fire were used to cook beans slowly in a glass bottle until they were perfectly tender. These days, I like this method because it adds a theatrical touch, and beans are way overdue for some time in the spotlight (see for another way of cooking these beans, and see Resources on where to find them).
Ask your butcher for a prosciutto “heel,” the end that is left when the ham is not big enough to get one more slice from the meat. Have him or her cut the heel into two or three pieces.
3 quarts water
2 cups dried Toscanelli beans, cannellini, or other dried white bean, rinsed and picked over
2 tablespoons sea salt, preferably gray salt, plus ½ teaspoon
2 tablespoons extra-virgin