Brunch

This is my son Jamie’s recipe. It’s the best! For a little variation, try adding walnuts and canned mandarin oranges or grapes for a Hawaiian taste.

The enormous residual heat of polenta is sufficient, as the saying goes, “to cook an egg.” Do just that to make this treat for breakfast or brunch.

A simple dish that I loved as a child (and still adore) is beaten eggs cooked in a small pan of bubbling melanzana affogata (or Slow-Cooked Summer Tomato and Eggplant Sauce, page 259). Here’s how to make enough for 4 servings:

If you have leftover poached chicken, the moist meat makes a wonderful warm salad, with raisins and pine nuts and a lively, sweet dressing (similar to the Cooked Carrot Salad with Pine Nuts and Golden Raisins, page 45). Three cups of dressed chicken would serve 3 or 4.

These are my favorite kind of cakes to make: mix a batter in a bowl; put it in a pan with fruit; set the cake in the oven; remove when done—and that’s it! They’re ready to enjoy, with no fancy finishing or decorating needed. Such cakes are perfect for afternoon tea or as a simple dessert after a big dinner. But you know when I most love these cakes? In the morning—I just cut a small piece from the pan and sit down with a cup of excellent coffee, a copy of the New York Times, and my torta. It’s a great way to start the day. Simple as they are, both of these cakes have interesting, and lovely, touches: the torta invertita is (as you may have guessed) an upside-down cake. You put sugared rhubarb in the bottom of the pan, spread the batter on top, and bake. The fruit cooks and caramelizes and moistens the cake on top; then, when the torta is partly cooled, you invert the pan so the fruit turns into a glossy topping. I love rhubarb, and in this recipe I’ve incorporated a great technique I learned from my editor, Judith, who grows rhubarb in Vermont. The cut-up fruit is tossed with sugar and sits overnight, to soften and release lots of its liquid. The drained pieces go right into the cake pan, and I cook down the juices to make rhubarb syrup (to drizzle on the cake). When rhubarb isn’t available, other fruits make a great torta invertita: ripe stone fruits like apricots, nectarines, peaches, or plums; ripe pears, figs, and pineapple are good, too.

When we arrived in Vermont to visit my editor for several intensive days of work on this book, she had made the focaccia from her children’s bread book for our lunch. Several days later, when we were winding up, I noticed on the windowsill a pint basket of fresh figs we hadn’t used up, and, remembering how much I loved the sweet fruit-studded focaccias I had had as a child, I suggested we improvise with those figs. So here is the recipe we put together, which celebrates a warm childhood memory reborn in the northern hills of Vermont. It fits right in with our dessert theme in this book of fresh fruits embedded in crusts, and is lovely for breakfast, for tea, or with after-dinner coffee.

I love custards—when they are properly baked, that is, so each spoonful feels like velvet and truly melts on the tongue, releasing all its flavors. This is one of the most basic pleasures of eating, one that my family enjoys and that I want to share with you. Here is a custard that has everything: lots of the flavor of fresh mushrooms, dried porcini, sage, garlic, and leeks, all concentrated and deepened in the skillet, and a creamy custard that holds all these flavors in suspension. When a spoonful of this melts on your tongue, you’ll understand why I love custards. Serve it as a first course at a special dinner, or as the centerpiece of a holiday brunch. This recipe is for eight small custards and is easily multiplied to make more. The recipe details the important steps in making any custard, so, if you haven’t made one particularly successfully before, pay special attention. For uniform baking, I recommend that you use identical molds to bake up a batch, if possible. If you don’t have any, I encourage you to buy a set of inexpensive 1/2-cup ceramic molds—get eight or a dozen; either a small shallow soufflé shape or the taller traditional custard cup is fine. You’ll use them forever, I hope.

These small frittate make a wonderful appetizer cut in wedges and served at room temperature. Or serve one per person as a nice lunch dish. We always thought they were best made in the springtime, when nettles, fennel fronds, young shoots of wild asparagus, or ramps could be gathered in the fields. But if you are more city-bound, you can infuse the eggs with fresh thyme leaves, parsley, and chives, which you can get year-round.

In Sicily, citrus fruits (agrumi) are enjoyed as a savory as well as a sweet, usually served between courses or at the end of a meal. A salad—called pirettu—is made from thick-skinned citrons (cedri). The green rind is peeled off, the center pulp is discarded, and the pith is sliced and dressed with salt, pepper, oil, and a pinch of sugar. Since fresh citrons are hard to find in America, here’s another citrus salad popular in Sicily, especially in the winter months, when oranges are at their best. Customarily it is made with blood oranges—sanguine or tarocchi—and that’s the way I like it best, though any small, juicy oranges will be delicious. Serve this in the Sicilian style, laying the rounds of orange and rings of red onion artfully on a platter with the dressing drizzled over, rather than tossing everything together. It is great as an appetizer, a refreshing end-of-the-meal salad, or an accompaniment to boiled or grilled meats.

This is one of the simplest recipes in this book, and it is one of the most sublime. Yes, truffles add a mystique—but even without them this is my favorite way to cook eggs. Essential to this procedure is never to allow the olive oil to reach temperatures at which heat alters and degrades the flavors. Hence, you will ultimately have the full presence of fresh olive oil in a natural state intermingled with the egg and truffle flavors. Thus, the quality of the olive oil is paramount here, more than in most cooked dishes. I like using lighter and more vegetal olive oils from the Lago di Garda district, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, or Istria. Another important point is to keep the curd of the egg large and soft. The steady but gentle dragging of the curds—strapazzati means “dragged”—and controlled heat prevents any part from cooking solid, and in this moist state all the natural flavor of the egg comes through. As with olive oil, the best quality eggs are essential—as fresh as can be, and organic if possible. There is a basic lesson to be learned in this recipe that applies to Italian cooking—for that matter, to all cooking—get the best ingredients, do not overcrowd the flavors, and work the food as little as possible. Along with this lesson, I am sure, you’ll get some of the best scrambled eggs you’ve ever tasted—even without truffles.

These cheese-encrusted rounds of cooked chard, similar to frico, are from Carnia, a district of quaint cities and towns scattered along the Carnic Alps. The milk from the cows grazing on its high-altitude pastures makes some of the best Montasio in all of Friuli. I like to serve these unusual and irresistible cakes as a highlight of lunch or brunch, topped with a poached egg, or in between slices of country bread, as a delectable vegetarian “cheeseburger.” They’re a marvelous accompaniment to grilled meats, or, cut into small wedges, a great party nibble.

Crusty fried potatoes are as popular in northeastern Italy as they are in the United States. This Trieste version is as delicious as any I have ever tasted. You will get best results using a nonstick or cast-iron pan, browning and turning the potatoes over and over, so the caramelization is dispersed throughout. Use the timing here as a guideline, but follow your own tastes to create just the degree of crustiness you love.

I want to thank Victor Gomar for sharing the recipe for these quick and fun morning pastries that are more like cookies. The sugary cocoa dough in the center helps shape them like a belt buckle and the same dough can be used to make playful worms (gusanitos) filled with jam (opposite page), Pastry Cream (page 164), or Cheese Filling (page 103).

Requesón is a slightly grainy, lightly salted cheese somewhere between ricotta and pot cheese. Lime zest complements the cheese filling hidden inside the golden, flaky crust. These are a really nice option for a brunch menu, and if you make the dough ahead of time, you can make these in a jiffy!

You know how people love to eat muffin tops? Well, these muffins have a topping on the sides as well. Whenever we bought them, my mom would always take a bit off the top, then the sides, and leave the center in the tray as if it was the most natural thing to do! Their flavor is deliciously subtle and they are a favorite among my whole family.