Nut

Ever since I ate my first Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, I’ve been a fan of chocolate and peanut butter, and I have a lot of fun taking that flavor combination to new levels. This dessert has many textures and flavor dimensions and is a winner in more ways than one. I entered this recipe in a Peanut Advisory Board competition, and it came away with first prize. This is one of my most complicated desserts. Make sure to read through the entire recipe before beginning. Freeze any leftovers: they will be fine for about one month, and you can eat them like frozen Snickers bars.

I always thought it was a shame that you had to burn the alcohol off when you flambéed bananas, so I’ve reintroduced the rum in a different form—in ice cream. Peanut Phyllo Crisps add the crunch you need to play off the soft bananas and ice cream.

Pumpkins and pine nuts are in the same boat in that both are easily influenced by other ingredients. I felt they needed each other in this dessert, which I created particularly for this book. In addition to flavor, the pine nuts provide structure in the cake and texture in the streusel.

The technique here is traditional and French. The fresh and dried cranberries and the star anise are modern and provide bright hits of flavor in every bite. You’ll need two 6-cavity Flexipan savarin molds (the 2 3/4-inch size) if you want to match the shape of the dessert in the photograph. But you could also freeze the nougat in a baking sheet and cut pieces to serve.

The origin of this dessert is Tarte Vaudoise, a traditional European pastry. I’ve replaced the original heavy cream with crème fraîche and added different nut textures. It may look simple on the plate, but it’s complex in flavor.

I’ve always considered corn a borderline fruit, so why not incorporate it into the pastry menu? Here I pair it with buttery Madeleine Sponge Cake, my adaptation of the classic seashell cake, with a shatteringly crisp sugar crust. And I pile on the garnishes: kettle corn and freeze-dried corn bring their own special crunch to the dessert, and they’re easy because you can find them readymade in good grocery stores. I use plastic tubes that I’ve had cut to my specifications when I make this panna cotta at the restaurant. You can, too, if you have access to a plastic supply shop; the tubes I use have a 1-inch diameter, and they’re 18 inches long. But you can also make the panna cotta in cannoli forms or muffin tins (see Make It Simpler).

One summer, the peaches were so amazing that I didn’t want to do anything to them. Unfortunately, you can’t put a peach on a plate and send it out to a customer. So I chose ingredients—mellow cheeses, sweet and crunchy pistachios, and a mild balsamic vinegar glaze—that complemented the sweet raw peach.

This dessert was inspired by “Tomato Tim” Stark of Eckerton Hill Farm at the Union Square farmers’ market in New York City. We were talking one morning and he gave me some tomatoes that were so sweet they tasted like berries. So I roasted them and paired them with super-ripe blackberries for an after-dinner fruit salad. Use a mix of tiny tomatoes for the best-looking and -tasting dessert.

So this, my finale, is the ultimate in Everyday Italian cooking. Sure, there’s some cheating involved—I’m not asking you to bake a pound cake. But this distinct combination of Italian flavors will transport you to a piazza-side café, nibbling this great dessert, sipping espressos, and people-watching, instead of struggling in the kitchen for hours upon end. That’s been my goal in this book. I hope I’ve succeeded

Biscotti means “twice baked,” a cooking method that results in the firm, crunchy cookies that have recently become wildly popular here in America. These cookies were eaten by sailors back in Columbus’s day because they last for a long time without going bad. They’re great for dunking in coffee or tea, which is how my mom, nonna, and I would eat them when I was growing up. The citrus zests provide an extra little zing, and really evoke the tastes of Italy. If you want, you could use just orange or lemon; it doesn’t have to be both.

Pine nuts and fennel seed aren’t necessarily ingredients you expect to find in cookies—really, they sound much more like they’re going into a pesto—but they’re the secret flavors in this buttery, flaky shortbread dough that will melt in your mouth. Ground fennel seed isn’t as easy to find as the whole seeds, so buy them whole and grind them at home in a mortar and pestle or coffee/spice grinder. I like to make this dough ahead of time and freeze it, then bake it off as needed.

Amaretti is strictly translated as “little bitters,” but colloquially it refers to light, airy, crunchy, dome-shaped almond cookies. The cookies are great on their own, but I also love them as an ingredient in a cake; the soft cake batter and the crunchy cookie provide a wonderful contrast. So when you can’t decide whether to have cookies or cake, just have both.

Pineapple doesn’t quite qualify as Italian, but Nutella (a chocolate-hazelnut spread) is definitely an Italian favorite of cult-like proportions, so this can certainly pass as an Italian-American recipe. Grilling the pineapple enhances its sweet flavor, provides the great grill marks, and of course warms it up, bringing a new level of comfort to this incredibly comforting dessert.

Italians aren’t afraid of using spicy and slightly bitter greens in their salads, and you shouldn’t be either. Belgian endive are small, pale (white) heads of lettuce with yellow tips; they can be eaten raw (as in this salad) or grilled or roasted—the possibilities are endless. Frisée has slender, curly leaves that are a yellow-green color. The blood oranges add a hint of tart sweetness and a beautiful refreshing color to this salad—they’re orange with bright red or red-streaked white flesh. The dressing, nuts, orange segments, and lettuces can all be prepared ahead of time, no last-minute fuss.

In my family, this is a traditional side during the holidays, but that’s just my family—it’s really perfect any time of year. The trick is to blanch the broccoli rabe in boiling water for a minute or so to get rid of some of the bitterness and partially cook it.

I’m not going to tell you that this is a traditional dish from Umbria; it’s not. But it is a traditional dish in my family. And family is what tradition is all about, isn’t it?

Wild mushroom ravioli are my very favorites, so I always have a box of them in my freezer. In the time it takes the water to boil and the raviolis to cook—no need to thaw or defrost them—I can make this sauce, and have this great dish on the table in a flash.

Pumpkin ravioli is easier to find in the fall through the holidays, when the Halloween mascot is in season and on the minds of cooks. The sauce can also work nicely with any ravioli filling, but the pairing of pumpkin (or another sweet squash) with sage is particularly perfect, especially with the nutmeg and hazelnut flavors. This is truly a seasonal dish; to me, it tastes like autumn—even autumn in Southern California, where I’m from.

In the past few years, Americans have been treated to a dazzling array of new convenience food; the supermarket aisles are lined with items you can eat right now! I’m not a big fan of most of these. But I am a big fan of prewashed, pretrimmed greens, like the bags of baby spinach that are almost universally available. Cleaning fresh spinach is no treat: The bunches are filled with sand and grit, requiring multiple changes of water to remove; and it’s time-consuming to separate the fibrous stalks from the tender leaves. But these bags of baby spinach, on the other hand, are ready to go: Tear open the bag, dump the greens into a salad bowl, and they’re ready to dress. Or just toss into the sauté pan with a little olive oil and garlic, and you can be eating bright, fresh spinach in mere seconds. Or throw into the blender with some other ingredients—and bingo! Pesto!

The most basic, most traditional pesto is this basil-based one that was invented in Genoa, in northern Italy; it’s bright green and wonderfully aromatic. Be sure to add your oil slowly, so that the sauce fully emulsifies—that is, all the ingredients bind together, creating a thick, uniform consistency. Lots of basil varieties are available, some sweeter, some spicier, and in fact basil is an important ingredient in the cooking of southeast Asia, especially in curries. Each variety will impart its unique flavor to a pesto, so be adventurous, and try whatever type appeals to you. Just remember: You need a lot of it, and it should be fresh and crisp, not wilted or soggy.