Molto Gusto_ Easy Italian Cooking - Mario Batali [53]
BOTTARGA Once known as the poor man’s caviar, bottarga is the salted, pressed, and dried roe of either gray mullet (mugine) or tuna (tonno). In Sicily and Sardinia, the tradition of preserving seafood is well maintained to this day. There the long, fat roe sacs are salted and massaged by hand over a period of several weeks to preserve them. Then the roe is pressed under wooden planks weighted with stones and sun-dried for one to two months.
Both types are salty, but tuna bottarga has a lively, sharp flavor, stronger than mullet bottarga. Bottarga can be shaved, sliced, chopped, or grated, and just a little can add a lot of flavor to a whole range of dishes. I love a salad of bitter greens dressed with fresh orange juice, extra-virgin olive oil, and shaved bottarga. Keep bottarga tightly wrapped in the freezer.
BREAD CRUMBS We use bread crumbs in various forms in many dishes at our restaurants, both for coating ingredients before sautéing or frying them and in stuffings for vegetables, meat, fish, and poultry. They also make a nice crust when browned atop a dish or toasted, and we often finish a pasta dish with a sprinkling of crumbs toasted in olive oil.
To make fresh bread crumbs, just grind chunks or torn slices of bread to the desired size in a food processor. We use both finer crumbs and “fat boys”—crumbs that are about ¼ inch in size, which we usually toast, sometimes in a little oil.
To toast fresh bread crumbs, spread them on a baking sheet and bake in a 300°F oven for 12 to 15 minutes, stirring frequently, until golden brown.
To toast fresh bread crumbs in olive oil, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat until hot. Add ½ cup coarse fresh bread crumbs and cook, stirring occasionally, until golden brown. Transfer to a plate and let cool.
To make dried bread crumbs, thoroughly dry chunks or slices of fresh bread (don’t use stale bread) in a 250ºF oven, then break them up and process to crumbs of the desired size. Ready-made bread crumbs are available in the bakery department of some grocery stores and at specialty markets. The bread crumbs sold in canisters are unacceptable.
CAPERS/CAPER BERRIES Capers are the flower buds of a creeping shrub called Cappari spinosa that resembles something from an exotic nursery. During their very short season, the unopened flower buds are picked daily just before they open. Capers may be preserved in a vinegary brine or in salt. Packed in brine, they will lose much of their subtle flavor, but they will add a lot of magnificent acidity to your dish as a result of the formation of capric acid. I prefer capers packed in salt, which retain a sweet forest-floor flavor as well as the more subtle sea breeze scent that is lost in the pickling process. The best capers come from the island of Pantelleria, off the coast of Sicily.
At the end of the season, the fruit of the caper bush develops into a drupe, or berry, that looks kind of like a small tomatillo. Sold pickled or salted, these make a great flourish for any dish with capers in it—and show off your super-savvy Mediterranean pantry.
CEPHALOPODS Octopus, like squid and cuttlefish, is a cephalopod, a class of mollusks. Octopi can grow to as long as fifty feet, but the ones you will see in the market are from two to three feet long. Smaller octopus is usually the most tender, but even so, it must be tenderized (see below). Baby octopus, no larger than two to three inches, are increasingly available, and they are very tender. An octopus has eight tentacles, and both the tentacles and body are edible. Like squid, octopi have ink sacs, which,