Extra Virgin (33 page)
Authors: Gabriele Corcos
Prosciutto and Taleggio Sandwich with Fig Preserves
PROSCIUTTO AND TALEGGIO SANDWICH
with fig preserves
PROSCIUTTO FORMAGGIO E MARMELLATA PANINO
SERVES 2
D:
Salty and creamy, tart and sweet, cool and hot, this sandwich is sexy. If you press it in the heated pan until it’s just barely warm and melty, you’ll be rewarded with a bite that yields the best flavor from all the ingredients. You’ll start wondering why fig preserves can’t be in everything you make from now on.
2 (4-inch-wide) slices ciabatta, split lengthwise
2 tablespoons fig or apricot preserves
¼ pound Taleggio cheese, sliced
6 slices prosciutto
½ cup thinly sliced radicchio
Extra virgin olive oil, for brushing
Heat a medium cast iron skillet or grill pan over medium heat.
Spread the bottom half of each ciabatta piece with 1 tablespoon fig preserves. Top with one-half of the Taleggio, prosciutto, and radicchio. Close with the top slice of bread and brush the outside of the sandwich with the olive oil.
Place each sandwich in the pan and press with a flat, heavy lid or sandwich press until the cheese is just melted.
Remove from the heat, slice in half, and serve.
DATE NIGHT
With kids, our routine of home life is as busy as a beehive, with all energies usually directed toward them. Getting the children to school, picking them up, scheduling their activities, arranging their play dates, transporting them here and there, and, of course, feeding them well.
That doesn’t always leave a lot of alone time for us, however. And sometimes when that alone time presents itself, we’re simply too exhausted to take advantage of it!
We love our special date nights, planned so meticulously, with the night split in two—making something simple for the children, then enjoying a more sophisticated and intimate dinner for us after they go to bed.
It does require a bit of a night-owl mentality to begin eating a meal as late as eleven o’clock. But when we’re set up in advance, the anticipation of quality time is enough to keep us awake. Plus, there’s always espresso.
What we like to do is, first and foremost, make a meal plan. The idea is to feed the kids something that keeps their mood light and happy, so that they might—fingers crossed!—be amenable to going to bed early. This is a great time to pull out leftovers. If there’s
Red Sauce
or
Pesto
available, spaghetti’s an easy choice. Above all, we’re looking for a smooth evening, since we’re planning two dinners. If we’re having a pasta dish, we’ll make sure that when the kids finally hit the hay, all that’s left to do is boil the pasta. The sauce will have already been made.
The meal that’s just for us is an opportunity to enjoy adult flavors that kids don’t necessarily like. It’s a chance to indulge in a bold cocktail, like a
Negroni
or
Caipirinha
.
The Pecorino and Honey Dip
is a wonderful, mood-setting appetizer for date night, as are the
Fried Squash Blossoms
. We might indulge in a
Risotto with Squab and Mushrooms
or the intensely flavored
Spaghetti Puttanesca
. Dessert adds something rich and decadent, so we might make a fruit tart or
Panna Cotta
well in advance and let it sit in the refrigerator. It’s a chance for us to make the most of our more elegant menu favorites. Then, when that blissful silence is all that’s detectable from the children’s rooms, the real show begins. We’ll bring out a nice, rarely used tablecloth, the good dishware, and cloth napkins. One of us will light the candles and turn on the playlist, at an appropriately soft volume. Then we get dressed. That’s right: we
eagerly
shed our everyday clothes and treat the upcoming hours as if we had a reservation at a fancy restaurant. We turn home into the most romantic place in town.
Date night has taken all kinds of turns with us. It’s been fast and frisky, slow and luxurious, and sometimes the day has just been too exhausting to do much but eat quickly and fall asleep. But at heart it’s not about the tablecloth, or the flowers, or the food. It’s about the time and energy we put into making a moment for us to be together.
SEMOLINA ROSEMARY PIGNOLI COOKIES
OLIVE OIL GELATO WITH CHERRY COMPOTE
ROASTED PEACHES WITH AMARETTI FILLING
G:
It’s become a sort of perceived wisdom that Italians are not wild and crazy dessert eaters, but I want to make something clear: We definitely enjoy our sweets. Talk to my ten-year-old self when he was wolfing down a bag of
Cenci di Carnevale
, or my dad when he has a syrupy
Macedonia
in front of him, or any Italian on a blazing summer day when near a
gelateria
. But our pleasure in sweets isn’t predicated on intensely filling, elaborate concoctions. Although you can find complicated cakes and desserts in Italy, you’re just as likely to find a wonderful meal ending with something as simple as fruit, a pastry, a bite of chocolate, or a scoop of gelato with a cookie. The perfect punctuation mark to a beautiful sentence is what a sweet bite should evoke.
D:
I think of dessert as an indulgence, but one that should bring about the same warm, homey feelings that your entree hopefully aroused. When you have children, they’re likely to think of dessert as the main course.
G:
But for me, if we’ve just had ribs, my dessert might be one more rib!
D:
Which just goes to show that we approach desserts as a complement to a menu, but something that should also be able to stand on its own. In our diet-conscious world, how often at restaurants do you hear your tablemates saying, “I couldn’t possibly eat anything else,” and then as soon as someone orders a sorbet, and someone else thinks they’ll try the tiramisu, everyone’s got room for a bite? That’s why our desserts aren’t the kind that weigh you down: they bring you in for a soft, happy, delicious landing.
G:
These recipes aren’t solely about the sweet end to an evening. There are cookies and tarts that could bring a smile to any afternoon tea or coffee, and a few items that—trust me on this—you’ll want for breakfast. This chapter is about the many ways you can add a hint of sweetness to the day, and the recipes certainly don’t require a master
pasticcere
(pastry chef).
