Fish

You can use 8-inch or longer metal or wooden skewers for this dish. If you use wooden skewers, soak them in water to cover for an hour or so before threading the ingredients onto them. That should help prevent the skewers from burning as they cook. If you are using fresh bay leaves or rosemary, you can use the thin branches from either herb as skewers, flavoring the ingredients even more. Because these branches will be shorter than store-bought skewers, you will probably need to make more and smaller skewers. Also, handle them carefully as they cook—herb branches aren’t quite as sturdy as metal or wooden skewers.

It is a good idea to roll up and fry one of these fish balls before forming the whole batch. You can check the seasoning and add a little salt and pepper if you like before you cook them all. Cooking a little sample is a good thing to keep in mind when you’re making meatballs, too.

I love this prepared in individual baking dishes, as described in the note below. But I know most people don’t have six such dishes, so I’m offering the recipe prepared in a single large baking dish—I don’t want you to miss out on the wonderful flavor of fresh anchovies just because you don’t have small baking dishes. If you serve the anchovies from a large round dish, cut them into wedges, like a cake. Don’t be alarmed if the “slices” crumble a little; that is the nature of the dish. You can easily prepare this recipe for two people: decrease the amount of anchovies by two-thirds to 1/2 pound, but cut the remaining ingredients in half.

Wild-caught striped bass are the best for this recipe, but you can use fillets from any firm-fleshed ocean fish. Whatever fish you choose, the shape and thickness of the fillets is important. Each fillet should be about 1 1/2 inches thick and narrow enough so you can fit all six fillets in the pan with the sauce. If your pan isn’t large enough to hold all the fillets, cook the sauce first, then divide between two skillets of fillets. As with any dish, you can take this recipe in a lot of different directions. I sometimes prepare it using scallions in place of the onions, or black olives and capers in place of the green olives. Rather than add the olives and capers to the tomatoes, I like to cook them along with the onions for a minute or two to bring out their flavor. This “layering”of flavors is one of the little tricks we professional chefs use to get the most out of our ingredients.

Cod is a very delicate fish—it will flake apart easily—so a nonstick baking pan is a great help. The seasoned bread crumbs I use as a topping for the cod are very versatile; if you don’t care for cod, or if you can’t find it, keep this preparation in mind for seasoning other baked fish. Traditionally, salmoriglio is prepared with parsley, and that is how I present it here. But you can substitute other herbs, like thyme, that will marry well with the herbs you use to top the fish. If you have fresh basil, shred a few leaves and toss them in with the tomatoes.

You know how much I love olive oil, but there is a time and place for everything. When sautéing foods that cook quickly, like these sole fillets, using some butter along with the oil helps the sole brown before they overcook. Thicker sole or flounder fillets are ideal for this dish, but if yours are thinner, you may find it easier to handle them if you cut them in half first. Traditionally, the fillets are simmered in the sauce, but I like to cook the sauce separately and spoon it around the sole fillets—they stay crispier that way.

Although this method for cooking capellini in a small amount of liquid is a little tricky—and somehow the opposite of everything I have told you about cooking pasta—the end result is a richly flavored pasta with a velvety texture. Be patient and thorough when you stir the capellini into the broth, making sure to separate the strands as they cook.

Some people dislike anchovies, but it would be a shame to leave them out of this dish. They add such wonderful flavor and, most likely, people won’t even know they are there. They dissolve during the cooking and add complexity to the other assertive flavors in this dish. I like to crush canned tomatoes with my hands, so I can feel when they are the right size and how tender or firm they are. That helps me to judge the cooking time better. If you prefer, you can mash them with a wire whisk or use a food processor. If you choose to process them, use just a few quick bursts—otherwise you’ll chop them too fine and incorporate a lot of air into the tomatoes, and they will turn pink. You can add basil to this sauce if you like, or stick to the traditional Italian-American accent of fresh parsley. I choose Pecorino Romano cheese for this dish. It is made from sheep’s milk and is much sharper than Parmigiano-Reggiano, which is made from cow’s milk. But if you prefer, you may use Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Usually, pasta recipes contain something substantial such as sliced mushrooms, vegetables, seafood, or meat. This recipe, like the aglio e olio on page 103, has a very simple sauce and will make 6 “Italian” portions. Simplicity goes a long way, especially with intense flavors such as anchovies and capers. If you’d like more substantial servings, increase the spaghetti to 1 1/ 2 pounds and the rest of the ingredients by one-half.

Pick the youngest, crunchiest romaine heads you can find. Keep them crisp, before and after cleaning, in the vegetable drawer of the refrigerator. Even if you pick young, crispy lettuce, you should use only the pale-green and yellow inner leaves for this salad. But don’t throw out the outer leaves. Shred them and stir them into soups, or into a panful of sautéed fresh peas. The dressing shouldn’t be too dense; it should be just thick enough to coat each leaf lightly. The cheese that is added at the end will thicken it a little. Oil and vinegar stirred in at the end is a little touch of mine. It’s how we serve the salad at Lidia’s Kansas City and Pittsburgh. Another little touch that looks nice on a plate is to set one or two whole romaine leaves on the plate and pile the cut leaves over it. Shaving Parmigiano-Reggiano over the finished salad looks nice and tastes nice, too. It’s a good thing to keep in mind for other salads as well. Traditionally, Caesar salad was made with a barely cooked egg. Here I use a hard-boiled egg, as I do in my restaurants, for safety reasons.

In Tuscany, cannellini beans would be paired with tuna for a similar dish. I don’t see why black-eyed peas or kidney beans couldn’t be used as well. Just make sure the beans are tender—almost to the point of breaking—so that they absorb the tuna flavor and stay put on the toasted bread, if that’s how youchoose to serve them. Don’t be afraid to crush them lightly!

I love this salad—it’s so fresh and clean-tasting. Sometimes I make a meal of it. Because I really want you to make this salad, I’m calling for store-bought fillets. But if you have a whole striped bass that you’ve filleted, this salad is a great way to use odds and ends from the fish. Poach the fish head and the belly parts you’ve trimmed from the fillets in the court bouillon. Remove the meat from the cheeks and along the top of the head, and trim the bellies of bones and skin. I like the crushed red pepper to be conspicuous in this salad, so don’t be afraid to use it. Start with about 1/2 teaspoon and go from there. And don’t throw the cooking liquid out: save it to make the salad nice and juicy. You could use crabmeat or even chicken instead, I guess, but white fish, like the bass, is perfect prepared this way.

We made this dish at Ristorante Buonavia in the early 1970s with white bread. Now I find I like the flavor and texture of wheat bread, and I like it even more if the bread is lightly toasted before you put the sandwiches together.Vegetable stock is nice here—it cuts the acidity of the white wine without adding a definitive flavor. If you don’t have vegetable stock, use water or, if you want to add a richer flavor, chicken stock.

The flavorings in this dish are zesty—a combination of the traditional and a few touches of my own. The anchovies add a lot of flavor, but if you don’t like them, don’t use them. Lemon zest lightens the flavor of this hearty dish a little. (You might find that adding just a little bit of zest to other robust dishes will do the same for them.) It may seem strange to chop the crushed red pepper—especially as they fly around the chopping board a bit while you’re trying to do so—but it prevents you from biting down on a big flake of pepper in the stuffing. If you have vegetable stock or chicken stock, you may use it in place of the water called for in the recipe. It will surely add flavor.

Even a dish as simple as grilled tuna can get out of hand if the sauces and sides are calorically wacky. In this recipe, most of the minimal fat comes from the tuna—and the rest is from toasted sesame oil, which provides a lot of flavor. The ingredient that I really love here is the furikake, a Japanese rice seasoning made with bonito flakes, nori flakes, and other seasonings like sesame seeds, dried anchovies, or bits of egg—the sky is the limit. It can be found, along with prepared seaweed salad, at most Asian markets.

Bouillabaisse is a rich, traditional seafood stew from the south of France. It always contains garlic, saffron, and, of course, seafood. It’s almost always served with a garlic-and-mayonnaise concoction called rouille spread on grilled bread. In order to save time, this version calls for prepared clam juice, mussels, and boneless fish fillets (in the traditional version, usually several types of small flavorful fish are sautéed in olive oil and simmered for some time). The clam juice and mussels are very flavorful. In order to save on fat and calories, there’s no added olive oil—and I omitted the rouille and grilled bread altogether. This version is quite delicious as is and goes together quickly, so it’s fine for a weeknight meal.

Meunière is fancy French for a brown butter sauce. So why would I take on a dish whose deliciousness is dependent on butter—the enemy of healthy people? Well, because first of all, it’s not—the enemy, that is. The key to good taste and good health is moderation, which, as we know, is the key to many good things. Second, because I love a challenge—and because I know you’ll love the result.