Seafood

This dish is indigenous to Savannah and our lifestyle. Calling up a dozen friends for a cookout is a great casual way to entertain, especially if the food is cooked outside over an open flame (you can also use a portable gas fish cooker). Once the Low Country Boil has been cooked and drained, I like to pour it out on a table covered with newspaper.

This is a traditional favorite down here. We try to use female crabs, but you can use either male or female.

Fish cooked with beans is traditional fare in Tuscany, and this basic skate brodetto can easily become a hearty one-dish meal with the simple addition of cannellini.

Simple fried skate was a supper treat when I was growing up, and it is still one of my family’s favorites of all fried seafoods. . . .

Here’s an uncommon preparation for one of the most common and popular cuts of meat in the market: thin-cut lamb shoulder chops. They’re inexpensive, wide, and meaty. Barely 1/2 inch thick, they look like they’ll cook in a minute, perfect for fast family suppers. But shoulder chops also have lots of cartilage and gristle, and usually two sets of bones, which call for slow cooking (and the meat is tougher than it looks). Though it is a thin chop, it will take about 20 minutes to cook. Get out the big skillet to caramelize the meat and flavoring agents, and then bring everything together in a superb sauce. With surprising ingredients, this is a good recipe to add to your growing repertoire of aglio e olio base sauces. Also, as the sauce reduces, it actually braises the chops for a few minutes, which tenderizes the meat a bit, although it will still be chewy (which I love). What is surprising about the sauce? In addition to my usual aglio, olio, e peperoncino, I drop a couple of chopped anchovy fillets into the pan, where they quickly disintegrate. As part of the sauce, their flavor has a subtle presence but a remarkable impact: taste a bit of lamb by itself, then a morsel with sauce, and you’ll see. Here is delicious evidence that the anchovy is a potent source of umami—the amino acid that makes other foods taste better. You can omit the anchovies entirely, but I hope you’ll give this food synergy a try: if you’re doubtful, use just one fillet of anchovy. We all need to be adventurous!

Duck has in most cases been something you eat in a restaurant. I love duck, and I love serving it at home to family and guests. I hope that this two-step method of cooking cut-up duck pieces in a big skillet or casserole will make you comfortable with cooking duck at home. First you fry the duck by itself for about an hour, slowly; the skillet takes all the fat out of the bird and melts it into a frying medium which leaves the skin golden and crispy and the meat moist, flavorful, and, amazingly, not at all greasy. In the second stage, you build a small sauce and infuse the duck with its savor. I prefer cooking just the duck legs here, as I do for the guazzetto on page 154, as they require minimal trimming and the meat stays moist through the long cooking. If your supermarket doesn’t have duck legs, ask if they can order them; call a few specialty butchers or even a local restaurant provisioner if necessary. Duck legs are worth looking for, because they’re not only convenient and delicious but often less expensive than whole duck. If a whole duck is all you can get, though, it will work fine in this recipe. See below for a simple cutting-up procedure.

When traveling through Sicily, you will often encounter tuna or swordfish rollatini—or involtini, as the Sicilians call them. It is a traditional dish. What makes the dish particularly delicious and interesting is that they roll the rollatini in seasoned bread crumbs before grilling. The way I prepare the rollatini, they get a marvelous range of flavors by marinating before grilling in garlic, olive oil, and fresh thyme; then I smother them with a fresh tomato-and-lemon salsa after they’ve cooked (and try not to eat them for a couple of hours). The longer they sit—before and after grilling—the more flavorful they become. This is also a versatile preparation. Make as many rollatini as you want from a big piece of tuna, as I explain in the box, and schedule their marinating periods and quick grilling to your convenience. Serve them hot off the grill or later, at room temperature, when they taste even better. One rollatino makes a beautiful first course; two make a satisfying main course; a few rollatini slices make a terrific tuna sandwich for a picnic. And if you want to enjoy these any time of year—or if you don’t have a grill—just pop them in your oven (see below).

Fresh cod fillets are flaky and sweet and a favorite in my family for baking or broiling. In summer, I love thick cod steaks, cooked on the grill. Unlike fish more commonly cut for steaks—tuna, swordfish, shark, and others with firm texture—the softer flesh of cod can be a challenge to the griller, sometimes sticking to the rack or flaking apart. These problems are lessened by tying the steaks with twine, marinating in garlic oil, and searing on a hot clean grill. But even if you lose the perfect appearance or a flake of fish tears off, cod steaks are so sweet and delicious when grilled, it’s worth it. I serve cod with any (or all) of the cold sauces listed below; grilled lemon slices (see below) are a nice garnish too. Follow this basic procedure for any fish steak—tuna and the other firm-fleshed ones, or salmon, halibut, or bass.

This beautiful brodetto is brimful of colors, tastes, and textures, and extends the flavor of lobster to bowls of polenta or pasta. Lobster and corn cooked together in a brodetto is not traditionally found in Italy. I discovered this combination of flavors when I was traveling through Maine and other parts of the Northeastern coast of the United States, and I liked it so much that I took the liberty to Italianize the duo. The preparation follows the basic steps of all red brodetti: First the floured lobster pieces are fried to seal the flesh and caramelize it. Then they’re put back in the skillet with aromatics, tomato, and seasonings to create the brodetto, and the addition of corn adds sweetness and texture. Most people eat only the tails and the claws of lobsters, but don’t you disregard the heads and tiny legs—they are the sweetest parts. After having enjoyed the polenta and the sought-after parts of the lobster, set yourself up with a wet towel and a clean plate, and begin to nibble and suck on those little legs, biting into them now and then to squeeze out the meat. Then pull the head piece up close and pull the inside part from the shell, lick the shell, and set it down. Slowly begin to pry open the chest chambers, and with an oyster fork pry out morsels of some of the sweetest lobster meat. At our house it is the heads of the lobsters that are rationed, not the tails.

This is one of those almost miracle dishes: it is ready in 10 minutes, it is quite inexpensive, it is full of flavor and texture and very gratifying, and all of my grandchildren love it. The brininess of the sea will come forth with the underlying garlic, lemon, and olive oil, the flavors all tied together by bread crumbs, then captured in the opening shells of this sweet mollusk. But one thing is required of you in order for this miracle to happen. The mussels you buy must be absolutely the freshest; otherwise, turn the page and go to another recipe. To enjoy this dish best, you must serve it piping hot in hot bowls, because the shells cool quickly. Grilled country bread and spoons will help scoop up every last drop. If you have some left over, remove mussel meat from the shells and return it to the sauce to make a great condiment for a plate of pasta the next day.

This brodetto follows essentially the same steps as the preceding skate recipe, flouring and frying to seal and caramelize the fillets, then returning them to the skillet as you create the sauce. But here the sauce is built on a light purée of poached garlic, lemon juice, and white wine, rather than onions, tomato paste, and red wine vinegar. You can take other fish and seafood in this direction. Skate is as delicious in white brodetto as it is in red. Shrimp and scallops—even chicken breast—are excellent done this way as well. An important point to remember, though, with seafood variations: shrimp, scallops, and fillet of skate will be overcooked if they’re in the sauce too long. After the initial browning of these delicate fish, get all the sauce liquids cooking first, then add them to the brodetto for just the last couple of minutes before serving.

Brodo means “soup” in Italian, and brodetti are savory, soupy preparations that usually refer to fish. A brodetto is uncomplicated, quick, and very delicious— a preparation that you can use for many kinds of seafood. For this recipe I’ve chosen skate, an ocean fish that some of you may not be familiar with. It is immensely popular in Europe and one of my lifelong favorites. Fortunately, it is now widely available here, reasonably priced, and, when fresh, as sweet and luscious as lobster. It is particularly well suited for a brodetto, having naturally gelatinous flesh and bones, which enhance the richness and viscosity of the sauce. If you can, buy skate with the center cartilage, which is how I like it; see box on skate, below.