Dairy Free

One of the unique and really great things about duck is that if you do everything right, you are able to get the skin deliciously crisp, as it is here. We borrowed the idea for cooking the duck from a similar dish that is served at Mario and Joe’s Lupa Osteria Romana, in New York. We call it “al mattone,” a term that refers to something (generally chicken) cooked under a brick, because it has the same crisp skin as if you had put pressure on the bird when you cooked it. We serve the duck with either a side of sautéed corn or Brussels sprout leaves. Even though we gave you recipes for both, the idea is that you make only the one that is in season. The duck also comes with a ramekin of pear mostarda, a spicy Italian condiment whose sharp spiciness cuts through the richness of the duck and really makes the dish. To confit the ducks, buy rendered duck fat from the same source as you buy your ducks. We serve half a duck to each guest, but it’s a dish that people often order, along with two or three contorni, to share. Served family style with the corn or Brussels sprouts, and two or three additional contorni, four duck halves could feed six or eight people. After cooking the ducks we like to rest them in the fat they were cooked in for at least 24 hours. Plan accordingly.

If I had to name a signature secondo at the Osteria, this agrodolce preparation of quail would be it. The quail are stuffed with a savory mixture of pancetta and herbs, and then drizzled with honey and aged balsamico condimento. When Matt and I travel to fund-raising and other food events around the country, this is the meat dish we most often choose to serve because it can be prepared ahead of time, and I’ve never met anyone—not even quail skeptics—who wasn’t completely enamored of it. It’s also easy to pair with wine. The gamey flavor of the bird and the pork can handle a big, fruity wine, and it doesn’t overpower even the finest wines.

I’ve been making a version of this condiment for as long as I can remember. Currants and pine nuts are a traditional Sicilian combination, so anytime I use this I feel like I am making a Sicilian dish.

Marshmallow sauce is one of those things that can’t be made in a small batch. It must be served the day it is made, so making it is a great excuse to feed the Caramel Coppetta with Marshmallow Sauce and Salted Spanish Peanuts (facing page) to a crowd.

Braised guinea hen served on a big piece of toasted bread and smothered in a rich, gravy-like sauce made of the hens’ livers and pancetta is the house specialty of Ristorante Masolino, my favorite restaurant in Panicale. I felt I would be remiss in not including it on the menu at Mozza, and since we all know how generous and open the Italian people are, I was more than a little surprised when I asked Masolino’s owner, Andrea, for the recipe for this dish, and he refused. Evidently he was not interested in sharing the secrets of his specialty with the world. So I did the only thing I could do. The summer before we opened Mozza I went to the restaurant countless times and each time forced someone in my party to order the guinea hen so I could have a bite and try to figure out how to make it—or how to tell Matt to make it. This recipe requires a lot of preparation, so it’s important to have all of your slicing and dicing done before you start cooking. You can get guinea hen thighs at poultry shops, or order it online from specialty sources such as D’Artagnan. If all you can get are thighs connected to the legs, use the legs to fortify your chicken stock. (Put the chicken stock and guinea legs in a stockpot, bring the stock to a boil over high heat, reduce the heat, and simmer for up to 2 hours, skimming off the foam that rises to the top.) As important as I believe it is for food to look as good as it tastes, I do not delude myself. I know that this dish is not going to win any beauty contests. Rest assured that what it lacks in beauty it makes up for in flavor. I think even Andrea would approve.

We should call these “Lyn’s Leeks” because Lyn, who tested many of the recipes in this book, had to make them several times before getting the recipe right. In each instance the leeks she made were delicious, but she pushed on until she achieved the caramel color and glazed look of those we serve in the restaurant.

It takes a lot of olive oil to make these artichokes, but that’s what gives them their buttery texture and delicious flavor. The good news is that you can use the oil a second time for the same purpose. For this recipe you want to use baby artichokes. If you use the bigger artichokes that are commonly found in grocery stores, you’ll have to remove the choke before braising the artichokes and the final result won’t be quite as pretty. If you like sweetbreads, make a double batch and use half for the Veal Sweetbreads Piccata with Artichokes (page 239), one of the stars on our secondo menu.

I love a fish in meat’s clothing, and that’s what this is: a mild-flavored fish cooked in a rich veal jus. I got the idea for it at a restaurant called Ribollita, in Chiusi, the nearest large town to my house in Italy. There, they wrap a pork filet in lardo and then smother it with green peppercorn sauce. Eventually the lardo found its way onto fish instead of pork. We use veal stock that we have left over from making the Veal Breast Stracotto (page 235), but if you haven’t made that dish recently, you can substitute any quality veal or beef stock.

For these beautiful, sweet tomatoes on the vine, we start with Sunsweet tomatoes, which you can find sold in plastic boxes in grocery stores. I love the delicate, organic look of the small tomatoes dangling from the long stems. This recipe makes more than you will need for four servings of the Mozza Caprese. We did this to tailor the recipe to the size of the boxes the tomatoes are sold in and because you are sure to lose some tomatoes to anyone who walks by after they are out of the oven. If you can find tomatoes on the vine at your local famers’ market, even better.

I am a red wine drinker, so any fish preparation that can be enjoyed with red wine, such as this one, which is served with a rich lentil stew and pickled red cabbage, is a winner for me. Sea trout is a freshwater fish that drifted into the sea, so although it is trout, it looks and tastes like it wants to be salmon with pink flesh and the same moist, oily quality that you get from really good salmon. Sea trout is much more consistent in quality than salmon and also less expensive, so I hope you will enjoy this salmon alternative. Sottaceto means “pickled” in Italian. The cabbage here is slow-cooked in balsamic vinegar, so it’s like a pickle, which cuts through the richness of the lentils and the fattiness of the fish. The recipes for the cabbage and lentils both make more than you will need for four servings of fish. You can double the number of fish fillets you prepare, or serve the remaining cabbage and lentils on the side. Since the cabbage is pickled, it will keep, refrigerated, for at least a week.

When we first opened the Pizzeria, we made a choice not to offer bread, but we often had customers who requested it. We served breadsticks, but we didn’t want to get involved with bread service. We asked Mario for his advice about people wanting bread, and he said, “They want bread, give them bread. But make it into something and charge them.” And then he told us about fett’unta, sliced bread that is grilled and then drowned in olive oil. The word comes from fetta, or “slice,” and ’unta, which means “oily.” Matt made some in the pizza oven, we both loved it, and we added it to the menu immediately. Today, we offer fett’unta at both restaurants. At the Pizzeria, we suggest people order it when they want items that have sauce to sop up, such as the Eggplant Caponata (page 104), Mozza Caprese (page 66), or to accompany a plate of prosciutto. At the Osteria we serve it with a sampler of mozzarella. We serve this bread year-round, but my favorite time for it is late fall and early winter, just after the olive harvest in Italy, when olio nuovo—green, peppery “new olive oil”—is released. If you happen to have a charcoal grill lit, that is my first choice for making this, but you can also make it in a grill pan or sandwich press—but be prepared for a bit of smoke. At home it’s always part of my Umbrian tavola.

The first time I ate at the Atelier of Joël Robuchon in Paris, I saw a whole fish delivered to another customer that I could tell had been boned and deep-fried. The skeleton had been removed but the head and tail, which flipped up so nicely on the plate, had been left intact. I watched in awe as the diner carved into the fish and ate it head to tail, without any of the usual fuss required to eat around the bones of a whole fish. I was so impressed that I told Matt I wanted to put something like that on the Osteria menu. He chose to grill the fish rather than fry it, but it’s the same idea. We chose to use orata, also called dorade or sea bream, a classic Mediterranean variety, because you see whole branzino on every Italian menu from California to Campagna, and we wanted to introduce our customers to something different. We wrap the fish in a fig leaf in the fall and a radicchio leaf the rest of the year before grilling it in order to contain the herbs stuffed inside the fish. Boning the fish is the most difficult part of making this dish—and I won’t lie to you: it is tricky. I promise that with patience, a good sharp knife (preferably a fish knife or a 6-inch boning knife) and fish tweezers, you will be able to do it.

This is a classic olive tapenade spruced up with the zest of oranges and lemons, and I have to say that it’s the best version I’ve ever had. Note when buying olive purée to look for a product that has just olives or olives and olive oil, such as the olive pâté made by Rustichella d’Abruzzo.

Romesco is a Catalan condiment traditionally made of fried bread and dried peppers, and served with seafood. We make our Romesco using roasted red peppers because we love their charred, sweet flavor. We serve it with mozzarella because we love the way it contrasts with the mild flavor of the cheese—and because we are a mozzarella restaurant! If you happen to have Garlic Confit, use it in this recipe; but if not, your Romesco will still be delicious without it.

Toasting pine nuts brings out their subtle, nutty flavor. Because they are so small and oily, they go from toasted to burnt in no time, so keep a close eye on them. Pine nuts turn rancid very quickly so try to buy them from a source with high turnover and store them in the refrigerator.

We serve this mayonnaise alongside many dishes, including the Bacalà al Forno (page 215) and, mixed with spicy red chile paste, Mussels al Forno (page 109). The goal in making it is to form an emulsion, and there is only one way to do this: by whisking vigorously as you add the oil as slowly as humanly possible. When it looks like you have successfully formed an emulsion, you can begin to add the oil a bit more rapidly, but not quickly, by any means. If you get impatient, just remember: it’s easier to go slow than it is to fix a broken emulsion.

When the Pizzeria first opened we hosted a book signing for Lidia Bastianich’s book Lidia’s Italy, and we served Lidia’s peppers as an antipasto. I found myself nibbling on them all evening. Shortly after, I spotted tiny, bright-colored peppers in a grocery store. They were so pretty, with red, yellow, and orange colors mixed in one bag. Motivated by those peppers, I decided to put a version of Lidia’s peppers on the Pizzeria menu. For the stuffing, we start by poaching tuna in olive oil, but you could use quality olive oil–packed tuna. If you don’t want to make 48 peppers, save the excess tuna stuffing and serve it on a salad of arugula dressed with lemon vinaigrette.

Matt added pancetta to this classic dish. It’s such a perfect addition that it feels as if it’s always been there.

These crispy toasts are a staple of our kitchen. If you have a sandwich press, you can use it instead of the oven to toast the bread slices.

Just when I think we have perfected a dish, I come across a version that someone has done better, and that’s what happened here. I always thought we did a great job with the chicken liver pâté we served at the Pizzeria, and it is one of the most raved-about items we serve. The combination of pancetta, lemon, and capers is delicious, and we hand-chop it, which gives it great texture, so I was totally happy with these crostini until I went to the Spotted Pig in New York City and had theirs. April Bloomfield, the chef, served her chicken livers on bread that was doused with—not drizzled and not brushed, but drowned in—olive oil, which made the chicken liver taste that much better. When I came back from that trip, we started doing the same thing, drowning the toast for our chicken liver pâté in the best finishing-quality olive oil we have. After I copied April’s bread, I think our version of chicken liver crostini went back to number one—or at least we’re tied for first place.