Celery

A wholesome twist on a traditional Thanksgiving side, this dish uses farro, also known as emmer wheat, an Italian grain that is high in fiber, magnesium, and vitamins A, B, C, and E. Other grains, such as pearl barley, can be used instead; cook them according to package instructions.

A cross between a cabbage and a turnip, rutabaga also belongs to the Brassica family and contains some fiber and potassium along with vitamin C. Peel away the tough exterior of the root vegetable to discover hearty, firm flesh that’s tasty and filling.

Latkes, traditionally served at Hanukkah, are typically panfried and topped with sour cream. This herbed carrot version eliminates much of the fat, requiring only a small amount of cooking oil and featuring drained low-fat yogurt as a topping. Be sure to squeeze all the juice from the onion to prevent the patties from falling apart.

Vegetables, of course, make healthy snacks, and are especially appetizing when served with flavorful dips. Yellow split peas are the protein-rich basis of one spread; tarama—cured carp or cod roe, used in Greek and Turkish cooking—flavors the other. The roe is soaked in water to remove much of its saltiness, then squeezed of excess moisture. Look for tarama at specialty food stores. Serve dips with crudités and toasted baguette or whole-grain bread slices.

This recipe makes good use of a bone-in cut that takes very well to braising. The ribs are marinated overnight in red wine to give them a deep flavor, then the marinade is reduced to a sauce that glazes the meat. You will need to start with more liquid than in other braising recipes, to avoid having to turn the ribs frequently during cooking, but this leaves excess liquid that must be reduced separately later, before it can be used for glazing (all that reducing is advantageous, since it concentrates the flavors for a rich and unctuous sauce). To do this, use a technique called depouillage, whereby the pan is placed off-center over the burner as the liquid simmers, allowing the impurities to collect on one side for easy skimming and discarding.

Consommer means “to accomplish” or “to finish” in French, and consommé is indeed a “finished” stock. (In a culinary context, one could say that to make a consommé is to bring out in full all of the flavors.) What gives consommé its purity and clarity is a bit of culinary magic: Egg whites (combined with mirepoix and ground meat) coagulate in the soup and rise to the top (forming a “raft”), drawing up any impurities that would otherwise cloud the stock. This mixture also infuses the broth with deeper flavor, as does an onion brûlé (or charred onion), which imparts deeper color to the broth. After an hour or two of simmering, the raft is also discarded, leaving behind a clear, intense broth. Consommé can be served either hot or cold, usually garnished in some way or another (there are literally hundreds employed in formal French cuisine); one of the more common embellishments is vegetables cut into julienne or brunoise (page 14), such as the blanched carrot and leek shown here.

Vegetable stock is an essential ingredient in many vegetarian soups, but it also provides incomparable flavor to many well-loved vegetable (but not necessarily meat-free) soups such as this one. Minestrone has become so familiar in the American kitchen that it might be easy to forget its Italian origins. But the name—minestre is the word for soup, while the suffix (-one) indicates bigness—hints at its universal appeal as a simple pantry-based soup that is also hearty and substantial. The foundation of flavor, called a soffritto, is a common element in soup-making: a trio of celery, carrots, and onion is sautéed first, then stock and more vegetables are added and slowly simmered to coax out their flavors. Beans are what distinguish minestrone from other vegetable soups; the type varies by region, as does the addition (if any) of pasta or rice (this version has neither). The beans are also what give the soup such heft, making it a good option for a meatless one-pot dish (if you leave out the prosciutto) that can stand as the centerpiece of any casual dinner. The beans need to soak overnight in the refrigerator, so plan accordingly. Then they need to boil for at least a half hour, so use that time to prepare the rest of the ingredients for the soffritto and soup.

Fumet is a white stock made from fish bones and aromatic vegetables, which are first “sweated” (cooked until soft but not taking on any color), then simmered in water. That initial step is a crucial building block, eliciting a touch of sweetness from the leek and developing the flavors for the next step, though it will produce a stock with less clarity than when the aromatics are simply brought to a boil with the rest. (To achieve that result, follow recipe for Basic Chicken Stock on page 41, bringing the fish bones and heads to a boil, then adding vegetables, bay leaf, and peppercorns and simmering 30 minutes before straining.) With its concentrated flavor, fumet is ideal for making fish soups and stews, or for steaming shellfish, such as the Clams in Herbed Broth on page 219. Like other stocks, fumet can be altered for different effects. Increase the ratio of bones to water and you will have a stock with more pronounced fish flavor. For a Mediterranean-style stock, chopped garlic and fennel (and its fronds) can be sweated with the other aromatics, then crushed tomatoes, crumbled saffron, and a few parsley stems added and simmered in the pot along with everything else.

For true vegetarian soups, stews, and other dishes (such as risotto), vegetable stock is a flavorful alternative to water and meat-based stocks. Some recipes call for the vegetables in the mirepoix to be added to the simmering liquid without first cooking; others call for them to be sweated first, without browning. In this recipe, the vegetables are lightly browned to give the stock intense flavor. The resulting richness and complexity are particularly important when there is no base of flavor provided by chicken, beef, or fish. You can vary the flavor by increasing the amount of garlic, replacing the carrots with parsnips, or changing some of the fresh herbs for others. Or add any of the following: dried mushrooms, such as porcini or shiitake (no more than two or three, since they can be overpowering), a few corncobs, some chopped tomato (seeded, if desired), or thinly sliced leeks. If the stock will be used to make Italian dishes, add a rind of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese once the water has been added. If making a vegetarian dish with other vegetables, use the scraps to flavor the stock, such as beet greens for beet risotto. But be careful to avoid adding anything that is less than fresh or that has too strong a flavor, such as most cruciferous vegetables (including broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage).

Brown stock gets its color—and its flavor—from the initial step of roasting bones and vegetables, often with a bit of tomato paste added to promote browning and impart a caramelized flavor, as well as a touch of acidity. After the contents of the pan are transferred to a stockpot, the pan is deglazed (either with water or red wine) to incorporate all the flavorful browned bits, which then, too, get added to the pot. In classical French cooking, brown stock is made with veal bones to produce a delicate-bodied soup. In the recipe that follows, beef is added for deeper flavor, but you can replace the beef with more veal bones (or veal stew meat) for the traditional version. Brown stock can also be made with chicken (see variation); this would be ideal for using in more robust dishes, such as braised meats. Heed the general rules for making all stocks, including simmering very gently, skimming frequently, and keeping enough liquid in the pot so that everything is submerged at all times. Brown stock is also the basis for other classic preparations, including demi glace and glace de viande (see page 52).

The first lesson in stock making is also the simplest: everything (bones and aromatics) is covered in a pot with water and gently simmered, yielding a stock with a pure, clean flavor. This technique can be applied to making stock with chicken, meat, fish, or only vegetables. Of these, no stock is more versatile and flexible than white chicken stock, which is flavorful but not overpowering, lending itself to a vast array of uses: white sauces, such as velouté; any number of soups (it is the default choice for many); and many stews and braises, among other dishes where there are layers of flavor (think risotto). White beef stock is equally classic, and a better option in dishes such as Wine-Braised Short Ribs (page 188). For this stock, there are several ways to alter the outcome, depending on how it will be used. The longer the stock simmers, the stronger it will taste. Simmer for 1 1/2 hours for vegetable soups or other delicate dishes (including white sauces), longer for more robust sauces and soups. To give the stock a more pronounced chicken flavor, add 1 1/2 pounds chicken thighs along with the other parts (take them out of the pot as soon as they are done if you plan to reserve the meat for another purpose, returning bones to pot after removing meat).

I order octopus every time I go to Babbo and have done so since long before I partnered with Mario and Joe, so when Mozza came about I knew I wanted to include an octopus dish on the Osteria menu. Most people’s experience of octopus is eating it raw at sushi bars, and we all know how chewy it can be, but, like Mario’s version at Babbo that I love so much, ours is tender and not at all rubbery. That tenderness doesn’t come without considerable effort, but as much effort as it is, the finished dish is certainly worth it. It’s our most popular non-mozzarella antipasto. In Italy people do all kinds of things to tenderize fresh octopus. They pound it with a meat pounder, they hit it with hammers, they throw it against rocks. Matt’s solution is to start with frozen octopus; freezing helps break down the octopus’s flesh the same way that pounding it does. He then sears the octopus, poaches it in olive oil, marinates it, and, lastly, chars it in a wood-fired grill. The wine cork in the recipe is something we do on Mario’s orders. He claims that in Italy they say the wine cork tenderizes the octopus. I think it must be an old wives’ tale, but it doesn’t hurt to throw it in there, so we do. Note: This recipe requires a huge sacrifice of oil. You can keep the oil and reuse it once to make the octopus again within a week.

One of the principles of Italian cooking—and maybe this is true of all of European kitchens—is not to be wasteful. Italian cooks find a use for every edible component of each animal or vegetable they cook. In the Italian spirit, I use all parts of the celery in this dish. I slice the celery ribs for the salad, and I use the leaves, so often discarded, both in a salad the cheese is served on and to make a celery-leaf pesto that gets spooned onto the cheese. The result is a bright, flavorful, and textural salad that is equally pretty and unexpected. We peel celery using a vegetable peeler anytime we are serving it raw; it takes only a few seconds and the celery is so much more tender with the fibrous strings removed. The pesto recipe makes 3/4 cup, which is more than you will need for this recipe, but it’s difficult to make pesto in a smaller quantity. Spoon the leftovers over grilled chicken, fish, or vegetables; use in place of basil pesto to make a tomato and mozzarella salad; or simply double the salad and the stracciatella in this recipe to make eight salads. Since stracciatella is hard to find, feel free to substitute burrata in this dish. I normally like to use only the pale green leaves from the celery hearts, but since this dish requires so many celery leaves, I call for you to use the darker green leaves for the pesto, reserving the light green leaves for the salad. If you were inclined to buy even more celery, then use the light green leaves for both parts of this recipe—and use the excess celery ribs as inspiration to make Basic Chicken Stock (page 27), Soffritto (page 28), Lentils Castellucciano (page 264), or any of our other recipes that begin with sautéed diced celery.

The crostini selection served at just about every restaurant near my house in Italy includes toppings of chicken livers, chopped tomatoes, and white bean purée, such as this one.We simmer the beans with tons of garlic and olive oil, and drizzle the crostini with saba, Sardinian grape must. If you can’t find saba, substitute vin cotto, a sweet, syrupy condiment that means “cooked wine,” or aged balsamico condimento. It is a nice option for vegetarians.We grill the radicchio for these crostini but gave instructions for cooking it on the stovetop because it would be unrealistic to light the grill just to cook a few leaves of the radicchio. That said, if you happen to have the grill on . . .

Soffritto is a combination of sautéed onions, celery, and carrots, and it is the base of much Italian cooking. We start many of our dishes by sautéing these ingredients, and then we have this, a very dark soffritto, that we cook for four hours, after which the vegetables are transformed into a rich, thick paste. We make the soffritto in big batches and use it as a starting point for many of our ragùs, such as the duck ragù (see Gnocchi with Duck Ragù, page 187), the wild boar ragù (see Maltagliati with Wild Boar Ragù, page 185), and the ragù bolognese (see Garganelli with Ragù Bolognese, page 189). We also use it to make a rich contorni—Yellow Wax Beans Stracotto in Soffritto with Salsa Verde (page 260)—that we serve in the Osteria. This soffritto might seem oily, but don’t let that scare you as it’s used to start dishes where olive oil would normally be used. At the restaurant, we chop the carrots and celery in a food processor, but we chop the onions by hand to avoid their becoming a watery purée.

This is a neutral chicken stock that doesn’t contain any seasonings other than peppercorns. We keep it simple because we use it in a variety of dishes, each of which will contain its own seasonings. We go through an astonishing amount of this stock and as you cook from this book, you will, too.

Set out a dish of peppery extra-virgin olive oil with a dash of aged balsamic vinegar, Vincotto (sweet Italian vinegar), or verjus for dipping.

You can make the dressing through step 2 a day ahead; refrigerate in an airtight container. Just before serving, stir in oranges, pine nuts, and parsley.

Use a mandoline or a very sharp knife to cut the celery and zucchini.

The grainy mustard and bacon dressing is best when made and served immediately. The artichokes, however, can be prepared in advance.

It may seem like a bit of trouble to brine the turkey, but it is well worth it: This is the best turkey we’ve ever tasted. If you don’t have a stockpot large enough to hold the turkey, you can use a new plastic tub instead. It is helpful to have an extra refrigerator to brine the turkey, as it takes up a lot of space.