Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking - Marcella Hazan [261]
4. Wash half a dozen small mint leaves, tear them into 2 or 3 pieces each, and sprinkle them over the orange, radish, and cucumber slices.
5. Add salt, olive oil, and lemon juice, toss thoroughly to coat well, and serve at once.
Pinzimonio—Olive Oil, Salt, and Black Pepper Dip for Raw Vegetables
THE WORD pinzimonio is a contraction, facetious in origin but long since firmly established in respectable usage, of pinzare, to pinch, and matrimonio, matrimony. It describes the custom of holding a raw vegetable between thumb and forefinger—“pinching” it—and “marrying” it with a dip of olive oil, salt, and pepper.
In restaurants pinzimonio is sometimes brought to the table when one sits down, even before one looks at the menu, but its most appropriate and refreshing use is after the meat or fish course of a substantial and palate-taxing meal.
The usual assortment of raw vegetables for pinzimonio includes all or most of the following: carrots, sweet peppers, finocchio, artichokes, celery, cucumbers, radishes, and scallions. Here is how to prepare them:
1. Wash and peel the carrots. If they are small and they have fresh, leafy tops, leave the tops on to hold them by. If you have larger carrots, take a slice off the top, and split the carrot in two lengthwise.
2. Split the peppers in two to expose and remove the pulpy core with all the seeds. Cut the peppers lengthwise into strips about 1½ inches wide.
3. Trim away the leafy tops of the finocchio, take a thin slice off the butt end, discard any blemished outer leaves, cut the finocchio lengthwise into 4 wedges, and wash them in several changes of cold water.
4. Detach and discard the stems of the artichokes. Trim away all the tough parts as described. Cut the artichoke lengthwise into 4 wedges, remove the choke and spiky, curly inner leaves, and squeeze a few drops of lemon juice over all cut parts to keep them from discoloring.
5. Separate the celery into stalks, keeping the heart whole but dividing it lengthwise in two. Pare away a thin slice all around the heart’s butt end. Leave the leafy tops on the heart, but discard all the others. Wash in several changes of cold water.
6. Wash the cucumbers and split them lengthwise in two, or into 4 sections if very thick.
7. Wash the radishes and do nothing else to them, leaving their leafy tops on both for looks and to hold them by.
8. Choose scallions with thick, round bulbs, pull off and discard the outer leaves, and cut off the roots and about ½ inch off the tops. Wash in cold water.
9. Put all the vegetables in a bowl or jug where they will fit snugly.
There should be a saucer prepared for every guest with olive oil, salt, and a liberal quantity of cracked black pepper. Guests help themselves to the vegetable of their choice from the bowl, and dip it into the saucer, thus having a pinzimonio.
Panzanella—Bread Salad
Throughout Central Italy, from Florence down to Rome, the most satisfying of salads is based on that old standby of the ingenious poor, bread and water. Stale bread is moistened, but not drenched, with cold water, the other ingredients of the salad you’ll find below are added, and everything is tossed with olive oil and vinegar. The bread, saturated with the salad’s condiments and juices, dissolves to a grainy consistency like loose, coarse polenta. Given the right bread—not supermarket white, but gutsy, country bread such as that of Tuscany or Abruzzi—there is no change one can bring to the traditional version that will improve it. If you have a source for such bread, or if you have made the Olive Oil Bread and have leftovers, make the salad with it in the manner I have just described. If you must rely on standard, commercial bread, the alternative solution suggested in the recipe that follows will yield very pleasant results.
For 4 to 6 servings
½ garlic clove, peeled
2 or 3 flat anchovy fillets (preferably the ones prepared at home as described), chopped fine
1 tablespoon capers, soaked and rinsed as described if packed in salt,