Dairy Free

Another pure product, this sorbetto consists of nothing but coconut milk and sweeteners. My favorite way to eat it is alongside Chocolate Sorbetto (facing page), or with Hot Fudge Sauce (page 316) and toasted almonds, so it’s like the frozen dessert version of an Almond Joy candy bar.

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 . . .

Matt makes a point to return to Italy every year for inspiration. On a recent trip, he happily returned with the idea for this sea urchin pasta dish, the only cold pasta we serve. I love sea urchins, or ricci. They are a delicacy of many seaside regions in Italy, such as Puglia and Sicily, but many aficionados say that the best sea urchins come from the waters off Southern California. Cooked lump crab meat is readily available at seafood stores and in the seafood sections of high-end grocery stores.

This isn’t really a recipe, just a method for toasting almonds, but I felt that it was important to talk about almonds since, as I’ve said, they are my favorite thing to set out before a meal, not to mention to snack on while setting up at work or at home. Toasting the almonds enhances their flavor, and then tossing them with olive oil and sea salt turns them into something really worth eating. We call for toasted almonds in various recipes, such as Burrata with Asparagus, Brown Butter, Guanciale, and Almonds (page 76). Anytime we ask for toasted almonds I suggest you make more than what the recipe calls for, as I know you’ll want some to snack on.

In the Italian tradition of stuzzichini, I don’t like to put out so many appetizers that my guests will ruin their appetites, but two things that I must serve whenever I entertain are roasted olives and toasted almonds tossed with olive oil and sea salt. These olives, which are tossed with citrus zest and garlic confit, are as beautiful as they are delicious. If we get an unusual olive variety, we might throw that in, but normally the combination we use is Lucques, Castelvetrano, Taggiasche, and Picholine. You can use whatever combination of olives you want or have access to, as long as they’re not the canned pitted things I grew up with. Also, keep in mind that it’s ideal to have a variety of colors and sizes. You can prepare the olives up to a month in advance. Keep them in the refrigerator and roast them just before serving. If you are preparing them in advance, however, omit the garlic confit and garlic oil, as they will cause the olives to spoil more quickly. Prepare the olives with only the regular olive oil, and add the garlic and garlic oil up to several days before you are ready to roast them.

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 our most basic vinaigrette, used to dress many of our salads, and as a starting point to make other dressings, such as the mustard vinaigrette that is spooned over leeks in one of our most popular Mozzarella Bar items, Burrata with Leeks Vinaigrette and Mustard Bread Crumbs (page 72). Because it contains shallots, which can get a bit of an “off” flavor, you don’t want to keep it for more than two or three days.

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.

Like the name suggests, this is a basic tomato sauce that we use in a variety of dishes. You can keep it in the freezer for up to six months, so you may want to double the recipe and freeze the extra. The only “secret” to this sauce is that you start with good canned tomatoes. Our preference, hands down, is San Marzano, a variety of plum tomatoes from Campania praised for its tart flavor and bright red color.

These tomatoes are part of the arsenal of ingredients that we reach for to bring layers of flavor to other dishes. They add not just the flavor of tomatoes but also the slightly charred flavor that you get from cooking the tomatoes at very high heat. The tomatoes need to fit snugly on a baking sheet, which is why this recipe calls for you to roast four pounds of them. But you can always freeze them to use at a later date. I recommend you freeze them in batches of four halves, as we always call for them in multiples of four.

Passata comes from the word passare, which means “to pass” in Italian, and passata di pomodoro, often referred to as passata, is the name given to tomatoes that have been passed through a food mill, or through a gadget made especially for the task called a passapomodoro, or “tomato passer.” Anyone who has ever successfully tried to grow tomatoes or who has ever visited a farmers’ market in the late summer knows that when the time comes, you get all the tomatoes you could ever dream of—more than you could possibly eat or give away—and you get them all at once. During this time in the Italian countryside, they pass the tomatoes through the passapomodoro, which extracts the skin and seeds, and bottle the sauce that is extracted. A typical Italian larder might contain dozens of these bottles, which look like wine bottles and which allow cooks to use “fresh” tomato sauce year-round. Our passata is a little different from a traditional passata in that we cook it and season it to enhance the flavor, but it is still a very pure product.

This tangy and chewy candy uses pecans and a generous amount of orange marmalade.

A sparkling coating of clear glaze enhances the beauty of fresh fruit. Because this glaze is fragile, the fruit must be eaten the same day it is prepared. Use only fruit that is perfectly ripe and unblemished, and make sure that the fruit is very dry before glazing, since humidity breaks down the glaze. A display of glazed fruit makes a stunning centerpiece for a buffet table or dinner party.

Sparkling and clear, these fruit jellies are fun to make.

Dried apricots and dates are mixed with honey, shaped into balls, and rolled in coconut to make a chewy, delectable confection.

Lighter than air, these sweet puffs of divinity will melt in your mouth.

Torrone is the Italian version of nougat. The origin of torrone is uncertain, but legend has it that it was served in Cremona, Italy, during the reign of Francesco Sforza, in the fifteenth century. Torrone is full of almonds, hazelnuts, pistachio nuts, and honey.

Natural marzipan is flavored with chopped candied orange peel and Grand Marnier, then cut into heart shapes.