briciole

finocchio

fennel

Some time ago, I mentioned finocchio as one of the elements of a traditional Italian appetizer called verdure in pinzimonio, which includes a selection of raw vegetables (carrots, celery, fennel, radishes, etc.) to be dipped into a sauce made of olive oil, salt and pepper, and possibly vinegar or lemon juice. Each guest gets his or her own small plate of sauce.

Growing up, I ate fennel salad often, the bulb cut into bite-size pieces and seasoned with the usual combination of oil, vinegar and salt. You can slice the fennel thinly instead: I like the bite-size version, because each morsel causes a little explosion of flavor in your mouth. Sometimes my mother would serve fennel cut vertically into 6 or 8 sections at the end of a meal, to be eaten plain: its crisp flavor is quite refreshing. I didn't know that finocchio is called Florence fennel here.  

Until recently, my favorite way of eating cooked fennel was au gratin. Then, to the old preference a new one was added: Fennel and Leek Soup with Fennel Greens (zuppa di finocchi e porri con foglie di finocchio) a dish that has become an instant hit in the household. The recipe comes from my beloved Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison. In it, Madison suggests to use the trimmings from its ingredients to make Quick (vegetable) Stock, something I recommend doing, because the result is a deeply flavored soup that will enchant your palate. I ended up making more stock than I needed for the soup, so I froze the rest, which means I have a little stash for future use.

I followed both recipes to the letter, halving the quantity of the ingredients for the soup and substituting the cream (which in any case is optional) with some of my own cheese, freshly grated. The thinly sliced fennel and potato and the chopped leek and onion form a great quartet of flavors, with the vegetable stock providing the background and the fennel greens a tasty decoration.

This post is my contribution to the current edition of Fresh Produce of the Month, an event created by my friend Marta, An Italian in the US. You have a few days left to send your fennel-flavored ideas to Marta.

Hear me pronounce the words on the finocchio audio file [mp3] or go to the finocchio audio page for more listening options.

cavolo napa

napa cabbage

(here you can read other names used to refer to this vegetable).

I must admit that, until recently, I had not used this type of cabbage. Then, one day, a beautiful head of it stared at me from the shelf of the grocery store and I could not refuse its proposal to hop on my cart.

I started my acquaintance with napa cabbage by cooking it very simply. The recipe I created was inspired by one in the book If the Buddha Came to Dinner by Halé Sofia Schatz: Braised (Napa) Cabbage, Fennel and Leeks (stufato di cavolo napa, finocchio e porri). I thought that the trio of ingredients formed a nice combination, so I adopted it. And I liked the idea of cooking the vegetables with some lemon juice (besides vegetable stock or water). For the rest of the recipe, I followed my impulse.

To braise means "to fry (food) lightly and then stew it slowly in a closed container." The Italian verb is stufare, which also means to cook something (usually meat) for a long time in a covered pan. Stufato is the resulting dish. But before I move on to the description of my stufato, let me share with you a couple of idioms that use the word cavolo:

1. c'entra come i cavoli a merenda (it has nothing to do with it — literally: it is as pertinent as cabbage for an afternoon snack, cabbage not being considered a food appropriate for that meal)
2. salvare capra e cavoli (literally: to save goat and cabbage, i.e., to find the solution for a situation where competing needs appear to be incompatible. The expression derives from the riddle of the farmer that needs to carry across a river on his boat a wolf, a goat and some cabbage. The wolf, left alone with the goat, would eat it, while the goat, left alone with the cabbage, would feast on it. The farmer's task is to organize the ferry service so as to carry across all the passengers without any loss)

Back to the recipe, here are the ingredients I used:

• two leeks (porri), washed and cut into thin half-moons
• leaves of a couple of sprigs of thyme (timo)
• a fennel (finocchio), thinly sliced using a mandoline
• half a napa cabbage, finely shredded
• a baby lemon (limone), thinly sliced using a mandoline
• two small or one big red bell pepper, roasted, peeled and diced
• salt and freshly-ground black pepper, to taste
• two tablespoons sunflower seeds (semi di girasole), lightly toasted in a dry skillet

Oil a sauté pan, add the leeks and thyme leaves, and cook for 5 minutes on gentle heat. Raise the heat to medium, add the fennel, napa cabbage and lemon slices, and stir. I have received a much-appreciated gift of baby lemons and I have been enjoying them a lot. They are 2-2.5" long, tender and delicately flavored.

After a minute or so, add a couple of tablespoons of water. Bring to simmer, lower the heat, cover the pan and cook for 10 minutes, stirring every now and then and making sure the pan is not dry. Add the red bell pepper and continue cooking until the vegetables are done to your liking: in my case, soft, but with still some crispness in the fennel. I must admit I did not keep track of the exact time. Add salt and pepper and serve warm, with the sunflower seeds on the side, to be sprinkled on the vegetables after they are plated: they add flavor and crunchiness to the delicate vegetable stufato.

This is my contribution to the event Fresh Produce of the Month: Cabbage, created by my friend Marta, An Italian in the US, and hosted this month by yours truly.

This post contains a roundup of the event.

Hear me pronounce the words on the cavolo napa audio file [mp3] or go to the cavolo napa audio page for more listening options.

In case you are wondering about the farmer tasked with saving goat and cabbage, one way to achieve the goal is to follow these steps (assuming A is the starting point and B the destination):

1. carry the goat from A to B (the wolf won't eat the cabbage)
2. go back to A then carry the wolf from A to B
3. bring back the goat from B to A (so the wolf won't eat it)
4. carry the cabbage from A to B (at this point cabbage and wolf are on the same side)
5. go back to A then carry the goat from A to B

porcellana

purslane or porcelain

From a December 1992 article in Agricultural Research:

It's known as purslane - a plant that is a troublesome weed in many U.S. crops, especially vegetables. But recent research findings confirm that purslane is also a rich source of fatty acids, vitamin E, and other key nutrients - making it a prime candidate as a new vegetable crop. There are about 200 species of purslane, the common name for a group of plants known as Portulaca. Scientists have focused on one annual species, P. oleracea, found around the world and in all 50 states. It is known for its persistence - it grows even in poor-quality soils with little water and resists disease...
P. oleracea contains more of one omega-3 fatty acid - called alpha-linolenic acid - than any other green leafy vegetable yet studied.

I must admit I was purslane-illiterate until a few weeks ago, when, while roaming around our farmers' market, a bunch of purslane attracted my attention. My friend Christine of Christine Cooks, with whom I was sharing the shopping adventure, invited me to taste a leaf: it was succulent, crunchy, with a slightly tart flavor. I was told I could use it in salads or cook it lightly, like spinach. I was convinced, and proceeded to place the bunch of purslane in my basket.

Had my memory functioned a bit better, I would have remembered reading about purslane salad with yogurt on Almost Turkish Recipe. Soon after my purchase, I made a hybrid soup/stew with hulled barley and decided, on the spur of the moment, to add to it the tender sprigs of the bunch of purslane during the last five minutes of cooking. Later on, I read that "Purslane’s high level of pectin thickens soups and stews," a retroactive justification of my impulsive action. I loved the result and the flavor of purslane, so much so that I have been buying a bunch at every visit to the market. I have also sautéed, together with baby spinach and boiled Swiss chard, and again the result was delicious.

In summary, purslane makes a nice addition to salads, soups and sautés. This is called versatility. Add to the list of good qualities the fact that it is tasty, either raw or lightly cooked, and that it contains precious nutrients, and the result is a really nice resume for a vegetable that, until not long ago, was considered a weed (erbaccia).

The Latin word portulaca is conserved in the scientific name of the plant. According to my Italian dictionary, the word had the variant porcillaca, ancestor of porcellana. As noted at the beginning of the post, the same word in Italian indicates also porcelain, china (for example, un vaso di porcellana, a china vase): in this meaning, the word porcellana has a different etymology. Cowrie is also porcellana in Italian.

This is my entry for Weekend Herb Blogging, a food blogging event started over two years ago by Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen and hosted this week by Gay, A Scientist in the Kitchen. Here is the roundup of WHB #133. 

Hear me pronounce the words on the porcellana audio file [mp3] or go to the porcellana audio page for more listening options.

asparago

asparagus

Asparagus officinalis is a perennial plant, whose tender shoots (or spears), also called asparagus, are eaten as a vegetable and, as it is well known, much appreciated. Asparagus have actually been prized since ancient times. The aerial stems of asparagus arise from rhizomes, which, together with the roots, constitute the underground portion of the plant.

The Italian words are asparago (the plant; plural: asparagi),  turioni (the edible shoots; singular: turione), rizomi (rhizomes; singular: rizoma), radici (roots; singular: radice). I must admit that I have never heard the word turioni in everyday language: I have always used asparagi to refer to the vegetable. Punte d'asparago are the tips.

A final reference to words: asparagina (asparagine) is an amino acid found in many proteins that is present in large amounts in some plants, such as asparagus. "The first amino acid to be isolated from its natural source, asparagine was purified from asparagus juice in 1806."

Besides the green variety, there are also white and purple asparagus. In my mind, asparagus are the harbinger of spring. When I was a child, we would eat asparagi about twice a year. Hence, to this day, having asparagus maintains an aura of excitement reserved for special occasions. Asparagi would be available at the fruttivendolo (fruit and vegetable store) for a brief period, then disappear, like a dream at dawn, until the following year. My mother boiled asparagus briefly and seasoned them, still warm, with lemon juice and olive oil. A few times in my life I have had frittata con gli asparagi selvatici (with wild asparagus, Asparagus acutifolius): my aunt Lucia sometimes received them as a gift from someone who had picked them on the hills around her village.

The abundance of asparagus in California is almost intoxicating, and whenever I cook them (oven-roasted asparagus sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds are a favorite dish of mine), I cannot stop eating them. Not long ago, however, I got to do something special with asparagus: I planted a bunch of them in the community garden in whose maintenance I have been involved for almost two years. My gardener friend told me to ask for asparagus roots at the nursery and I bought some of several varieties. When we planted them, I did the shoveling (which made me aware that I need to improve my shoveling skills), then placed each crown (rhizomes + roots) in its newly dug home and it was a bit of a challenge, as it was nothing like transplanting a seedling: the roots were quite long and the whole crown needed to be underground. I tend to be quite pessimistic about my gardening skills, so when, a few weeks later, I saw an asparagus shoot, I was ecstatic.

I read that it takes up to 3 years for crowns to develop enough to begin producing shoots. Once they do develop, however, they can produce for up to 20 years. So, at this point, I am focused on seeing signs of well-being of the plants. I want them to be happy in our garden. I love looking at the few asparagus that have produced shoots. Since we did not harvest them, some are now at the flowering stage, which I had never seen before. The spears have expanded into branched, modified stems, the cladophylls, which resemble and function as leaves (while the true leaves are scale-like structures at the tip of the spear and down the stem). There are also tiny flowers. Everything is delicate, almost ethereal about asparagus, which means that taking photos is a real challenge. In the image on the left, for example, the daffodils are predominant, but then you can see several asparagus, including one with flowers (background, right) and one that toppled over, due to its weight (background, left).

This is my entry for Weekend Herb Blogging, a food blogging event started over two years ago by Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen and hosted this week by Bee and Jai of Jugalbandi's fame. Here is the roundup of WHB #128.

Hear me pronounce the words on the asparago audio file [mp3] or go to the asparago audio page for more listening options.

cappero

caper

Before delving into the official topic of the post, I would like to thank Ilva of Lucullian Delights and Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen for mentioning  briciole in the context of Blog Day: grazie infinite per la squisita gentilezza.

And now a few capers about capers. I have always liked capperi, tiny green bubbles that burst in your mouth and tingle your taste buds. Adding a tablespoon or two of capers to a dish enlivens it. One of my mother's aunts, who lived outside Split, in Croatia, would gather capers and preserve them, pickled, in lovely jars: a true labor of love.

Last night we watched the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding (highly recommended), in which the heroine's father claims that the root of any word is Greek. He can make his claim about caper, which comes from the Greek kapparis. The non-vegetable caper, on the other hand, comes from capriole.

Capperi! is an expression of surprise in Italy (good gracious!). Many years ago there was a TV advertisement of a brand of pitted olives that said Capperi, che olive! It sounds funny in Italian, trust me.

I usually buy capers in bulk and have them always ready to be used to make, for example, pâté di olive, which is my husband's favorite spread. The ingredients I use, blended until the desired smoothness is achieved, are: chopped onion (about 2 tablespoons), pitted kalamata olives (1 cup), capers (2 tablespoons), dried thyme (half a teaspoon) or fresh thyme leaves (1 teaspoon), balsamic vinegar and olive oil (1 tablespoon each). I am not sure how long it can last in the fridge, because in our fridge it never lasts very long.

This is my entry for Weekend Herb Blogging, a food blogging event started almost two years ago by blogger extraordinaire Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen, hosted this week by the founder herself. Here's the roundup of WHB #98.

Hear me pronounce the words and expressions on the cappero audio file [mp3] or go to the cappero audio page for more listening options.

fagiolino

snap bean (Phaseolus vulgaris)

Fagiolino is a diminutive of fagiolo (bean) and it is most often used in the plural, fagiolini. I have always called fagiolini green beans here, but a recent post by Lisa of Champaign Taste featuring the purple and yellow varieties, besides the green one, made me decide to consult the dictionary. As a result, from now on I will try and call them snap beans, a term previously unknown to me.

I have always loved fagiolini, even as a vegetable-averse child and teenager. The day of the first written test at the end of high school, after six hours spent writing an essay, I went home exhausted and found a bowl of freshly-boiled green beans. I cut them into bite-size pieces, added a splash of vinegar and a thread of olive oil, and ate the whole bowl. After I finished, my somewhat dismayed mother commented: "Erano un chilo di fagiolini" (that was more than two pounds of snap beans).

I like my fagiolini boiled until they are on the soft side, but I am aware that most people like them on the crunchy side. Also, I sometimes use fresh lemon juice rather than vinegar as seasoning for my fagiolini.

As a child, the task of snapping off the top and tail of fagiolini before my mother boiled them fell upon me. In the process, the string along the seams can be pulled away, in case it is tough. The string nowadays is rarely a problem, because growers have selected beans without the undesirable trait that gave them one of their names (string beans). 

In Veneto (the region around Venice), fagiolini are called tegoline, a sweet-sounding word I just love. In Milan, on the other hand, fagiolini are called cornetti, which was utterly confusing to me the first time I heard it, since in my home town cornetti are croissants.

I have planted a few seeds of bush beans in my garden. Unlike pole beans, bush beans do not need to climb over a support. I am hoping some of the baby fagiolini of the photo will grow enough to be harvested and cooked to taste.

This is my entry for Weekend Herb Blogging, a food blogging event started by Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen, hosted this week by Melissa from Cooking Diva. WHB is rapidly approaching its second birthday: congratulations Kalyn! Here's the roundup of WHB #95.

Hear me pronounce the words on the fagiolino audio file [mp3] or go to the fagiolino audio page for more listening options.

cavolfiore

cauliflower (Brassica oleracea var. botrytis)

As a child I hated cooked cavolfiore no matter how it was prepared. I could smell cavolfiore bollito (boiled) and minestra di cavolfiore (soup) even before entering the house. Not that my reaction had any deterrent effect on my mother: she continued to cook those two dishes regardless of my opinion. I still have problems with the boiled version, but I love cauliflower roasted and as an ingredients of stews. 

As for raw cauliflower, that has never incurred my dislike. I even like the core: after I cut the florets, I reserve the torso, minus the tough end, and crunch on it while waiting for the rest to cook. I am particularly fond of the purple variety (cavolfiore viola) and like to mix it with the white one in a colorful combination. Taking a picture of the two varieties together was a bit of a challenge, because of the substantial difference of color.

My aunt Lucia made giardiniera a medley of pickled vegetables (verdure sottaceto, or sottaceti) and stored it in glass jars that she kept in a cupboard in the coolest part of her house. Of all the vegetables in the medley, cavolfiore was my favorite, because it was delicately crunchy and, in combination with vinegar, it was delicious. Unfortunately, I never asked my aunt to teach me how to make giardiniera, so now I can only use my memory to evoke a flavor that belongs forever to the past.

This is my entry for Weekend Herb Blogging, a food blogging event started by Kalyn's Kitchen, hosted this week by the founder herself, just returned from the BlogHer conference in Chicago. Here's the roundup of WHB #94.

Hear me pronounce the words on the cavolfiore audio file [mp3] or go to the cavolfiore audio page for more listening options.

melanzana

eggplant (Solanum melongena)

One of my favorite vegetables ever. Its color (light or dark purple, or white), its texture, its versatility: what's not to love about eggplant?

The only moment of tension that ever occurred between me and my friend melanzana was the day I decided to make baba ganoush and forgot to pierce the skin of the plump specimen I had selected for my experiment before putting it into the oven. After some time, I heard a soft plopping sound, which I almost dismissed. I opened the oven door and found what is probably the worst kitchen disaster that ever happened to me. Needless to say, I did not make baba ganoush that day: instead, I cleaned the oven. You have no idea how many seeds there are in an eggplant until you have to remove them from every nook and cranny of your oven.

The ancient Romans did not know about eggplants, so the word melanzana is not of Latin origin. It appears that the introduction of eggplants in the Mediterranean area is due to the Arabs, who got to know it in India. The word mela, meaning apple, and the Arab name of the plant, badingian led to melanzana. For centuries, melanzana had a bad reputation and it was even thought to cause madness. Its name was interpreted to mean mela insana, meaning both insane and not healthy. Such bad reputation comes from the fact that melanzana belongs to the Solanaceae family. It does not cause madness, but it contains the alkaloid solanin, and should not be eaten raw. Even undercooked, eggplant does not taste good. When it is thoroughly cooked, however, it is a pleasure to eat.

Probably the most famous Italian eggplant dish is melanzane alla parmigiana (also known as parmigiana di melanzane). Thanks to its spongy texture, eggplant absorbs oil easily. One way of lightening up the parmigiana is by grilling or baking the eggplant slices instead of frying them. Another famous eggplant dish is caponata di melanzane, a Sicilian sweet and sour delicacy of an intense flavor. Eggplants are a feature of Sicilian cuisine, so much so that last year in Palermo the Olympic Games of the melanzana were held, with participants from ten Mediterranean countries. My favorite dish marries melanzane and zucchine in a stew seasoned with basil and marjoram to which a couple of beaten eggs are added the last couple of minutes, so that they cook only partially and form a creamy sauce.

This is my entry for Weekend Herb Blogging, a food blogging event started by Kalyn's Kitchen, hosted this week by Anna from Anna's Cool Finds. Here's the roundup of WHB #93.

Hear me pronounce the words on the melanzana audio file [mp3] or go to the melanzana audio page for more listening options.

cavolino di Bruxelles

Brassica oleracea var. gemmifera, also called cavoletto di Bruxelles, Brussels sprout
The plural form, which is almost always used, is cavolini and cavoletti, respectively.

I was 22 years old and living in Milan the first time I ate cavolini di Bruxelles alla parmigiana at a friend's house, steamed and lightly seasoned with butter and parmigiano. I liked them then and still do. I am aware that in this country they get mixed reviews. I believe the trick is to offset their soft nature (when steamed) with something crunchy, like toasted hazelnuts or almonds, or to enhance their flavor with cheese (like, for example in cavolini gratinati, gratin).

Cavolino means small cavolo and there are many kinds of cavoli, which I will describe in future posts. Recently I learned that, besides the well-known green variety, there is also a purple variety: I don't know yet what these cavolini taste like, but the plant is lovely, as you can see here and here (two photos from our community garden).

The English expression 'mind your own business' has a literal translation in the Italian fatti gli affari tuoi. However, going down the path of increasing rudeness, the next stop is fatti i cavoletti tuoi. This is an expression I used a lot as a child when quarreling with my brother. It is actually a euphemism for a much ruder expression, which belongs to the category of definite no-nos.

This is my entry for Weekend Herb Blogging, a food blogging event started by Kalyn's Kitchen, hosted this week by Mele Cotte, a lovely Italian name which I am including in my audio snippet. Here's the roundup of WHB #90.

Hear me pronounce the words and expressions on the cavolino di Bruxelles audio file [mp3] or go to the cavolino di Bruxelles audio page for more listening options.

ravanello

radish (Raphanus sativus)

My mother would never buy this root vegetable and as a result, to this day, whenever I eat it, I feel like I am tasting some exotic product decked in lovely purple, with a pungent flavor and a musical name. Radish greens are also edible, something I have not yet told my mother.

The name ravanello (often pronounced rapanello) comes from rafanello, which is a diminutive of rafano, horseradish (Armoracia rusticana).

In Italy ravanelli are usually served with other raw vegetables (carrots, celery, fennel, etc.) to be dipped into pinzimonio, a sauce made of olive oil, salt and pepper (and possibly vinegar or lemon juice).

I believe (and certainly may be wrong) that pinzimonio in this country has given rise to the custom of offering small plates of olive oil-based dip together with bread or plain focaccia, a custom I have observed in many restaurants, at least in the Bay Area. However, when a plate of verdure in pinzimonio is served in Italy, usually as an appetizer, each guest gets his or her own small plate of sauce, so that there is no movement of oil-dripping morsels across the table. The guest is also provided with a bowl of water in which to wash his or her fingertips, which would otherwise leave around oily fingerprints.

This is my entry for Weekend Herb Blogging, a food blogging event started by Kalyn's Kitchen, hosted this week by Rachel's Bite. I got inspired to write this post by reading several entries from previous weeks that featured radish. Here's the roundup of WHB #87, though for some reason my post is not listed.

Hear me pronounce the words on the ravanello audio file [mp3] or go to the ravanello audio page for more listening options.