Vegetarian

The flavors of oranges and black olives are quite harmonious and make an unusual and interesting sauce.

Asparagus frittata and pasta . . . If you think you have seen a recipe of mine that sounds like this one, you are right. In an earlier book I gave a recipe for an “Asparagus Frittata with Capellini.” And here’s “Spaghetti with Asparagus Frittata.” But they are not at all the same, even though the ingredients are nearly identical. In the earlier recipe, a bit of leftover cooked pasta is stirred into a frittata as it cooks and bakes into a tender cake, which is then served in wedges. Here you have a quick skillet pasta. In fact, it is a “two-skillet” pasta. In the big skillet you make a very simple sauce with oil, scallions, and pasta water. In another skillet, you scramble up a soft frittata with sautéed asparagus. You also cook a pot of spaghetti. When everything is tossed together—in the big skillet—the textures, tastes, and colors blend beautifully. Follow the recipe instructions for coordinating the cooking the first time you make this. Once you see and sense how everything goes together, you’ll have added a truly wonderful dish to your repertoire of family recipes. This is a good dish to make with fresh homemade egg pastas, such as fettuccine, garganelli, pappardelle, capellini, spaghettini. Instead of asparagus, you could use another vegetable in your frittata, such as zucchini, broccoli, or just onions; or ham, prosciutto, or bacon. Or have a plain frittata.

Passatelli are a traditional soup garnish that resemble fat round noodles (see the photo, above) but they’re made with dried bread crumbs rather than flour. This gives them lots of flavor and a pleasant crumbly texture; in fact, they may remind you of matzoh balls, the Jewish soup dumplings that are also made from dried crumbs and eggs. Passatelli are a snap to make—well ahead if you want—and they cook in less than 5 minutes, right in the soup pot, just before you serve the soup. They are a splendid addition to plain broths, either All-Purpose Turkey Broth (see page 80) or chicken poaching broth (see page 328), and they’d be a nice addition to Savory Potato Broth as well (see page 63). For this small amount of passatelli, I suggest using the simple method of rolling and cutting in the recipe. The shape is not traditional but the taste and texture are exactly as they should be. It doesn’t seem like a lot but the passatelli swell up nicely in the soup. If you want a larger quantity, just multiply the formula here.

Both lentils and pasta absorb liquid from the soup base, so add water from the beginning and more during cooking to get the consistency you like.

Try this with poached garlic purée too.

Winter squash and chestnuts are a wonderful combination with this base, adding nutty and sweet flavors and hearty texture. Any firm winter squash is suitable. Use fresh chestnuts or packaged peeled chestnuts (sold frozen or freeze-dried). If using fresh chestnuts, see my peeling method below.

Poached garlic lends its lovely flavor to the soup, and then everything gets a quick whirl in the food processor, producing a light, creamy soup—without cream. Add some crunch to this with Cheesy Crostini (page 60).

This soup is nice without the addition of garlic purée, marvelous with it. If you like, add short shreds of Savoy cabbage in place of some of the cauliflower, or make Savoy-cabbage soup with poached garlic purée instead.

You can make a cup or a gallon of delicious soup by cooking rice in the soup base: multiply or divide this formula as needed. If you like the lighter consistency, use 1/4 cup of uncooked rice per quart of base; for a denser soup, use 1/3 cup. Don’t start cooking the rice more than 15 minutes before serving, though, since the grains continue to expand and absorb broth even off the heat. Serve immediately after the rice is cooked.

This is a traditional Tuscan soup from the area of Arezzo, made with bread grilled over an open fire and virgin olive oil, unfiltered, straight from the press—the frantoio. Believe me, a pot of beans never tasted this good. As bread is a principal ingredient here, use one with fine flavor, preferably an artisan-baked loaf that has great crust and an airy crumb with lots of holes. Old bread—pane vecchio—is best, because it is already dry, but day-old or even fresh bread can be used.

Make soup with any of the greens (and reds) in the chicory-endive family, including the various kinds of radicchio now in the markets, escarole, curly endive (or frisée), or Belgian endive, as well as unrelated leafy vegetables such as Swiss chard, spinach, or arugula. The procedure is the same, though cooking times will vary.