Receta Two Summer Favorites: Panzanella Salad and Crispy Smashed Roasted Potatoes
Top to Bottom: Panzanella Salad, Crispy Smashed Roasted Potatoes
Panzanella Salad with Tuna
Sometimes I am
astonished at what’s not on Chewing
the Fat. Just when I start to worry that
I’ll never find a recipe that I haven’t already tried, I discover amazing gaps
in our collection. Take these two
recipes, which I have been making for a whole lot longer than I’ve been
blogging. The first is an Italian
classic. Just as the season’s tomatoes
can’t get any sweeter and riper, I love to make this easy offering of garlick-y
toasted peasant bread, red onions, olive oil, vinegar and basil. The salad has its origins in Tuscany and is a
specialty of Firenze. It’s one of those
gifts of ingenuity to la cucina from
the poor for whom every scrap of bread was put to use. Almost every Italian cookbook has a recipe
for this salad and you can find plenty of recipes far more complex than the one
I share here. My old and dearly
remembered friend, Marcella Hazan, made her with capers, bell pepper, anchovy
filets, and cucumbers added to the tomatoes and red onions. Today, I bring you the most basic of all
Panzanella recipes. And thanks to Bebe Caggiano, the
Italian-American food writer and chef, the next day you can lunch on the
leftovers by adding canned tuna and
fresh basil to last night’s salad. The
crunch is gone but replacing it are intensely flavored ‘croutons’ and marinated
tomatoes. It’s so simple!
Less than a mile from our house...
Long Island Potatoes!The second item that I
was staggered to see that I had never blogged about is Smashed Potatoes. First of all, Long Island and potatoes are
like bread and butter. Everyday I pass
acres and acres of them growing around here.
I’m particularly partial to the baby reds that are the first to appear
at the farm stand. And they are ideal
for this recipe. I don’t even remember
when I was introduced to Smashed potatoes but it was love at first bite. I’ve made them all kinds of ways: Sometimes
fried on the stovetop in gobs of butter or even better, duck fat. But then I read about a roasting technique in
Fine Cooking magazine. This of course
is likely far healthier than fat frying your potatoes. That being said, Fine Cooking then suggested
topping the potatoes with sour cream and chives, which pretty much takes the
sanctimonious behavior of oven roasting off the table. And I discovered that the olive oil Fine
Cooking recommended could be swapped out for melted duck fat. These are heaven. And the next best thing to a great French
fry. Maybe even better. Here are the
recipes:
Recipe for Panzanella Salad.
Serves 4. Takes under 30 mins. to make.
In this recipe, stale bread is called for. If you have a great Tuscan loaf at your
disposal, by all means use that. I used a three day old baguette, revived with
my mother’s technique: She would leave the bread in its paper wrapper, run the
wrapper very quickly under the tap, put it in the oven and voila, the bread
came to life. (Mother was hardly Tuscan
but thrift was her middle name). There
may seem to be an obscene amount of butter and olive oil used here, but as
Andrew pointed out, ‘who doesn’t like
fried bread’ to which I would add ‘or fried bread with tons of garlic’.
½ cup
extra-virgin olive oil
3 cloves
garlic, peeled and sliced
Half a
baguette or other good bread, cut into ½" cubes
3–4 lbs.
any and all kinds and colors of the best vine-ripened tomatoes available
1/2 red onion, sliced thinly and soaked in water for 15 minutes prior to
adding to salad.
Salt and
freshly ground black pepper
1 handful
fresh basil leaves
For the
Tuna Panzanella the next day:
1 7 oz.
can of tuna, preferably Italian, in olive oil.
A handful
of fresh basil leaves
1. Preheat
oven to 350°. Heat ¼ cup of the oil and butter together in a large ovenproof
skillet over medium heat. When butter has melted, remove skillet from heat and
add garlic and bread cubes and mix well. Place skillet in oven and bake until
bread cubes are golden and crisp, 10-15 minutes. Remove skillet from oven and
set aside to cool.
2. Put toasted croutons on paper towels to absorb any excess butter and oil.
3.
Meanwhile, prepare the tomatoes: If using cherry tomatoes, remove stems and
slice in half. For larger tomatoes, core and slice into medium cubes. Put
tomatoes in a large bowl, add vinegar and remaining ¼ cup oil, then season to
taste with salt and pepper. Mix well.
3. Shortly before serving, toss bread and basil with the tomatoes.
Adjust seasonings. Spoon panzanella into each of four shallow soup bowls and
garnish with sprigs of basil, if you like.
4. Save the leftovers in a sealed container, leaving them out on the kitchen counter overnight.
5. The next day, put the tuna fish in a salad bowl, season generously
with pepper and salt and then toss the leftover Panzanella salad and the fresh
basil with the tuna. Serve on beds of lettuce.
Recipe for Crispy Smashed
Roasted Potatoes from Fine Cooking Magazine. Serves 6. Takes about 1 hour to
make in two ½ hour times slots, one for par-boiling the potatoes, one for
roasting them in the oven.
- 12 to 15 baby red or yellow potatoes
- (about 1-1/2 oz. each;
- 1/2 to 2 inches in diameter)
- 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil or
- melted duck fat or butter
- Boil
- the potatoes:
- 1. Put the potatoes in a large saucepan
- (preferably in one layer) and cover with at least an inch of water. Add 2 tsp.
- kosher salt to the water. Bring the water to a boil over high heat, reduce to a
- simmer, and cook the potatoes until they are completely tender and can be
easily pierced with a metal or wood skewer. Make sure they are cooked through
but don’t overcook. The total cooking time will be 30 to 35 minutes.
2. While the potatoes are cooking, set up a
double layer of clean dishtowels on your countertop. As the potatoes finish
cooking, remove them individually from the water, and let them drain and sit
for just a minute or two on the dishtowels.
Flatten
and cool the potatoes:
3. Fold another dishtowel into quarters, and
using it as a cover, gently press down on one potato with the palm of your hand
to flatten it to a thickness of about 1/2 inch. Repeat with all the
potatoes. Don’t worry if some break apart a bit; you can still use them.
4. Cover a large rimmed baking sheet with
aluminum foil; put a sheet of parchment on top of the foil. Transfer the
flattened potatoes carefully to the baking sheet and let them cool completely
at room temperature.
5. Remove the pan of potatoes from the
refrigerator, if prepared ahead. Heat the oven to 450°F. Alternatively, if you
have a convection function, turn it on and set the temperature at 400°F.
Sprinkle the potatoes with about 3/4 tsp. salt and pour the olive oil over
them. Lift the potatoes gently to make sure some of the oil goes underneath
them and that they are well coated on both sides. Roast the potatoes until
they’re crispy and deep brown around the edges, about 30 minutes if using a
convection oven, 30 to 40 minutes if roasting conventionally, turning over once
gently with a spatula or tongs halfway through cooking. Serve hot.
Do the busy work—boiling and flattening the
potatoes—up to 8 hours ahead. Let potatoes cool completely, and store them on
the pan, lightly covered, in the fridge. Then all you have to do at the last
minute is coat with oil and salt and roast.