Italian Grill - Mario Batali [39]
In a medium sauté pan, heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil over medium-low heat. Add the anchovies and garlic and cook, stirring, until the anchovies are falling apart and the garlic is lightly browned, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the asparagus and cook, stirring, just until the slices are barely tender in the center, about 1 minute. Season with salt if necessary and pepper, remove from the heat, and let cool.
Cut six 12-inch squares of heavy-duty aluminum foil. Fold each one in half to mark the center, then unfold it. Season the fish fillets aggressively on both sides with salt and pepper. Drizzle 1 tablespoon of the remaining olive oil over the bottom half of each piece of foil and top with one-sixth of the asparagus mixture. Place the fish on top and arrange about 3 orange sections and 2 lemon sections (or half-sections) on top of each fillet. Sprinkle with the thyme.
Fold up ½ inch or so of the three bottom edges of each packet to make a shallow container, and drizzle 2 tablespoons of the white wine over and around each fillet. Fold over the top of the foil to cover the salmon, fold over about ¼ inch of the open edges together to seal them, and then make a double fold for a tight seal.
Place the packets on the hottest part of the grill and wait until you can hear the wine bubbling, about 2 to 3 minutes, then cook for 5 minutes more. Transfer the packets to a large platter or a baking sheet and allow them to stand for 5 minutes.
Place a cartoccio on each plate and serve, letting your guests cut open the fragrant packets themselves.
This is a lovely dish, simple to make but far more than the sum of its parts. Cooked in cartoccio (traditionally wrapped in parchment paper, here in aluminum foil for the grill), the salmon fillets grill-poach in their own little steam baths and emerge succulent and flavorful. Listening is always part of cooking, and for this recipe you really need to rely on the audio—when you hear the wine bubbling, you know you’re in the right spot.
POULTRY
Everyone loves grilled chicken, although Italians are more likely to grill smaller birds such as game hens and quail. But we, unlike most Italians, are lucky enough to have a ready and ever-increasing supply of farm-raised organic and free-range chickens and other birds that have succulent, tasty meat and take perfectly to grilling. Forget that image of “barbecued” chicken charred black on the outside and still raw inside—the recipes in this chapter will give you juicy, tender results.
Most of these recipes call for marinating the bird, whole or cut-up, before grilling: the Chicken alla Diavola in a zippy mix of hot red pepper flakes, sweet Spanish smoked paprika, and citrus zest and juice; the Spicy Black-Pepper-Coated Drumsticks in a buttermilk marinade seasoned with Tabasco sauce, fennel seeds, and black pepper. For Il Galletto al Mattone, marinated butterflied whole chickens are grilled under the weight of a brick, a classic technique that results in incredibly crisp skin and moist flesh. The Guinea Hen Breasts with Rosemary and Pesto are fragrant with some of my favorite flavors, and the Quail (with Artichokes Vinaigrette) are marinated in a delicate combination of balsamic vinegar, olive oil, honey, and thyme that makes it easy to cook the little birds perfectly.
If you have never tried rotisserie cooking, the results you will get by spit-roasting whole birds are reason enough to try it (rotisserie attachments that fit most grills are readily available and relatively inexpensive; see page 9 for more on this). As the chicken or other bird rotates on the spit over the hot grill, it “self-bastes,” and you end up with amazingly succulent meat—there’s a reason you see chickens rotating on a spit in every butcher shop in small towns across the entire rural landscape in Italy. And when I was growing up in Seattle, we knew that Sunday supper was always going