Cookbooks

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.

We change our gelato pies throughout the seasons—we make strawberry in the summer, pumpkin in the fall. We’ve experimented with others, such as caramel, banana, and coconut. But as good as they all are, the Meyer Lemon is the standout. The graham cracker crust, candied citrus peel, and champagne vinegar sauce turn a simple, familiar dessert into one with many layers of flavor and texture. It’s one of my favorite desserts. The recipe for the graham crackers makes double what you will need for one pie, and the vinegar sauce makes even more than double what you will need, so plan to make this recipe twice within a short period.

I have never met anyone who doesn’t like these squash blossoms. It would seem like it would be hard to go wrong, considering the combination of deep-fried batter and ricotta cheese, but I find that rarely do restaurants get the filling right. It took us a lot of tries to come up with ours, but luckily Matt and I both knew what we wanted and we both wanted the same thing, which was a light fluffy filling that also had a melting component, which is why we added mozzarella. We dip the blossoms in tempura batter because we like how light and crunchy tempura is. I try not to be brand-specific in my recipes, but in this case we recommend you use Mochiko rice flour, which you can find at conventional grocery stores, and which we think makes for the crispest finished product.

Pizzelle, which some say are the original cookie, are thin waffle cookies from the Abruzzo region of Italy. They’re made of a simple batter of flour, eggs, sugar, and butter, and are cooked in a pizzelle iron (available at cooking supply stores and online sources) that is either electric, like a waffle iron, or handheld over the stove, which is what we use. Note that this recipe makes enough batter for 16 pizzelle. They should be served the day they’re made, but the batter lasts for a week in the refrigerator so you can reserve the extra batter to cook fresh pizzelle whenever you want them. We serve pizzelle with the Caramel Coppetta with Marshmallow Sauce and Salted Spanish Peanuts (page 296) and also sticking out of each serving of gelato or sorbetto. Thin wafer cookies are often served in a coppetta of gelato in Italy, and it just makes the presentation more festive.

Gnudi are little dumplings, like gnocchi, but made with ricotta instead of potatoes. Most places don’t do gnudi justice. They are often mushy and heavy, instead of light and fluffy, like these. This recipe makes 36 to 40 gnudi, or enough for 6 to 8 people as a first course. The dough does not keep well, so you need to plan on serving a crowd, or serve hearty, main-dish-size portions.

Traditionally, lamb shanks such as those in this recipe would be braised and served in all their glory, and subsequently, making lamb ragù would be a way to turn a relatively small amount of leftover meat into tomorrow night’s pasta dinner. We braise the lamb just so that we can pull it apart and turn it into ragù. It’s a decadent thing to do, and results in a luxurious and delicious pasta. Enjoy.

Ricotta means “recooked,” and is so named because it is a by-product of making mozzarella. This version is only cooked once, so it really isn’t ricotta at all. Still, the result is a creamy and delicious fresh cheese, which you can use in any recipes in this book that call for ricotta. (If you are making the Ricotta Ravioli, however, you need to strain the cheese for at least 24 hours.) I especially like the cheese still warm, fresh after it’s made. The recipe can be doubled or quadrupled, depending on how much you need.

At the restaurant we call these Love Sticks, because everyone loves them so much. Before I tried them, I might have thought it was lily gilding to serve butter with prosciutto, even though ham and butter has always been one of my favorite sandwich combinations. And I never would have considered truffles and prosciutto together, because truffles are so pungent and are usually paired with mild flavors. In fact, the combination is so perfect that I’m sorry to have to admit that I did not invent it. These are something Matt brought home from Del Posto. They are also really fun to eat and make for the ideal handheld appetizer. If you have leftover truffle butter, wrap what you don’t use tightly in plastic and refrigerate to make Love Sticks, spread it on a ham sandwich, or shave it over scrambled eggs. It will last for several days, after which the truffle flavor may begin to fade.

This is a cross between a cookie and a crostata. Orange marmalade is one of the only fruit tart fillings that we don’t make from scratch because there are so many good versions of orange marmalade available in stores. Almond meal is available in the baking section of specialty food stores. If you can’t find it, grind fresh almonds in a food processor with a small amount of confectioners’ sugar until the almonds are the texture of fine meal. You will need a 3 1/4-inch round cookie cutter to make these.

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.

The recipe for this was a gift to me from Fred Chino, one of the members of the Chino Farm family. Fred loves to bake—and he’s really good at it. The first time I tried his coconut cookies, they were so good I couldn’t stop eating them. Now we make a slight variation at Mozza2Go to make them feel more Italian. Even though I see the cookies every day, I still have a hard time resisting them. You will need a 2-inch round cookie cutter to make these.

Prior to his working at Del Posto, Matt went to Italy with Mario for a story for Gourmet. The premise of the story was that Mario was taking his chefs and the general manager from Del Posto to Italy, specifically to the center of Emilia-Romagna, to show them what it was like to eat there. They ate sixty-two courses in five days and Matt had a lot of dishes to talk about, but the one he was most excited about was the ragù bolognese he had at Diana, a restaurant just outside the main piazza in Bologna. It was as if his eyes had just been opened. He called me right after that meal: “It was rich but delicate and with a touch of sweetness,” he told me. When they got back to New York, while Matt was relegated to the soup station of the kitchen, Mark Ladner and Mark’s team at Del Posto attempted to create a bolognese that captured the spirit of the one at Diana. When Matt tasted Mark’s version, he called me again, excited: “They did it!” he said. “They nailed it.” And that— the Del Posto version of the Diana bolognese—was what Matt was going for when we opened Mozza. Having eaten at Diana myself, I can also tell you that Matt nailed it. When making bolognese, the most important thing is to go slow. You never want the meat to cook directly against the pan, because you want to braise the meat, not brown it. The “secret” to it is the Soffritto, which takes several hours to make—so give yourself time. This is slow food!

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.

It seems like just about every culture has a version of a crumbly, melt-in-your-mouth cookie made with ground nuts. In Mexico, they make Mexican wedding cookies. In the American South, they have pecan sandies. These cookies are based on a Greek version made with ground walnuts. We press a walnut half into each cookie, which looks very pretty. You will need a 1-inch round cookie cutter to make these.

This refreshing cocktail is a play on the traditional British cocktail, Pimm’s Cup, made with gin instead of Pimm’s.

This cocktail is named after the brand of amaro, or bitters, that we use to make it. You could use another bitters if you can’t find Meletti.

We serve this rich, meaty ragù alternately with gnocchi (page 172) and pici (page 168). When the ragù is tossed with gnocchi, the flavor becomes like a rich and delicious meat-and-potatoes dish. It manages to be exotic and familiar at the same time. We use only duck legs and not the whole duck because the meat from the legs is more moist and lends itself better to long cooking. You will probably have to special-order the legs from your poultry purveyor, so when you do, make sure to ask for the livers, too. Alternatively, you can make this ragù with one whole duck, cut into pieces. Not only will this be easier to find but also you’re guaranteed to get the liver with it.

I don’t rent out my house in Italy but I do let friends stay there. The “rent” that I charge is always the same: one book and one DVD. Our collection of both is pretty random, but thankfully someone at some time thought to bring the movie Il Postino, one of my all-time favorites.