Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking - Marcella Hazan [32]
2. Put the sliced mushrooms in a shallow bowl or platter and toss immediately with the lemon juice to keep them white. Add the sliced celery and the flakes of Parmesan cheese. If you own a truffle slicer, use it to slice the optional white truffle very thin into the bowl. Otherwise, use a vegetable peeler in a light sawing motion.
3. Toss with the olive oil, salt, and pepper. Serve promptly.
Tomatoes Stuffed with Shrimp
For 6 servings
6 large, round, ripe firm tomatoes
¾ pound small raw shrimp in the shell
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
Salt
Mayonnaise, made as directed, using the yolk of 1 large egg, ½ cup vegetable oil, and 2½ to 3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1½ tablespoons capers, soaked and rinsed if packed in salt, drained if packed in vinegar
1 teaspoon English or Dijon-style mustard
Parsley
1. Slice the tops off the tomatoes. With a small spoon, possibly a serrated grapefruit spoon, scoop out all the seeds, and remove some of the dividing walls, leaving three or four large sections. Don’t squeeze the tomato at any time. Sprinkle with salt, and turn the tomatoes upside down on a platter to let excess liquid drain out.
2. Rinse the shrimp in cold water. Fill a pot with 2 quarts of water. Add the vinegar and 1 tablespoon of salt, and bring to a boil. Drop in the shrimp and cook for just 1 minute (or more, depending on their size) after the water returns to a boil. Drain, shell, and devein the shrimp. Set aside to cool completely.
3. Set aside 6 of the best-looking, most regularly formed shrimp. Chop the rest not too fine, put them in a bowl, and mix them with the mayonnaise, capers, and mustard.
4. Shake off the excess liquid from the tomatoes without squeezing them. Stuff to the top with the shrimp mixture. Garnish each tomato with a whole shrimp and 1 or 2 parsley leaves. Serve at room temperature or even just slightly chilled.
Tomatoes Stuffed with Tuna
For 6 servings
6 large, round, ripe firm tomatoes
Salt
2 seven-ounce cans imported Italian tuna packed in olive oil
Mayonnaise, made as directed, using the yolk of 1 large egg, ½ cup vegetable oil, and 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 teaspoons English or Dijon-style mustard
1½ tablespoons capers, soaked and rinsed if packed in salt, drained if packed in vinegar
Garnishes as suggested below
1. Prepare the tomatoes for stuffing as described in Step 1 of the recipe for Tomatoes Stuffed with Shrimp.
2. Put the tuna in a mixing bowl and mash it to a pulp with a fork. Add the mayonnaise, holding back 1 or 2 tablespoons, the mustard, and capers. Using the fork, mix to a uniform consistency. Taste and correct for salt.
3. Shake off the excess liquid from the tomatoes without squeezing them. Stuff to the top with the tuna mixture.
4. Spread the remaining mayonnaise on top of the tomatoes, and garnish in any of the following ways: with an olive slice, a strip of red or yellow pepper, a ring of tiny capers, or one or two parsley leaves. Serve at room temperature or slightly chilled.
In Carpione—Fried Marinated Fresh Sardines (or other fish)
Carpione, a magnificent variety of trout found only in Lake Garda, used to be so abundant that, when too many were caught to be consumed immediately, they were fried and then put up in a marinade of vinegar, onion, and herbs that preserved them for several days. Carpione has become so rare that few people today have seen one, let alone tasted its extraordinary flesh, but the practice has survived, applied to a large variety of fish, of both salt and fresh water. Similar methods are used in Venice, where they add raisins and pine nuts to the marinade and call it in saor, and in southern Italy, where it is called a scapece and the herb used is mint.
The tastiest of all fish for the in carpione treatment is, for me, the fresh sardine. Unfortunately, one doesn’t see it often in North American markets.