I really like this time of 12 months, when summer time produce is at its superb finest, although I do know it received’t final for much longer. Its finish brings ripe peppers of all kinds, in numerous shades of orange and scarlet, candy from a season within the solar and much more scrumptious than the hothouse sorts may ever hope to be. Likewise, the deeply flavorful tomatoes we look ahead to all 12 months are actually able to take pleasure in. Stone fruit remains to be going robust, with juicy peaches on show at each market stall. However it’s the late-season plums I’m most enthusiastic about.
This menu incorporates all of those presents from the backyard, for a leisurely Italian-leaning lunch or dinner.
A typical sight in lots of eating places in Italy is an antipasto desk, laid out with an assortment of platters piled excessive with marinated greens, salumi, olives, anchovies or cheeses from which diners are invited to make their very own first course. It’s a customized nicely price adopting, a strategy to put together a fairly appetizer that requires no last-minute cooking.
In a house setting, this antipasto may be served on particular person plates or as a part of a buffet desk. Roasting your individual in-season candy peppers is finest: As soon as roasted, the peppers maintain for as much as every week, refrigerated, so that you don’t essentially must make them the day of the meal. (Or you possibly can all the time use good-quality jarred roasted peppers from an Italian deli.) Spring for top-quality anchovies for those who can. Then, alternate the shiny strips of roasted pepper and anchovy fillets, and add a number of slices of recent mozzarella.
For a major course, I all the time discover friends admire a fish dinner, particularly those that are timid about cooking one for themselves. This explicit technique ensures a succulent consequence. First, you make a fast basil-scented tomato broth — fairly like a really recent tomato sauce, however brothy — with onion, chopped ripe tomatoes and a splash of white wine.
Then, you gently simmer seasoned fish fillets within the broth, turning off the warmth and masking the pan to permit the fish to complete steaming. Use any firm-fleshed white fish, corresponding to halibut, bass or rockfish. Served in a low soup bowl, with a little bit of zucchini, a number of basil leaves and an all-important drizzle of fruity extra-virgin olive oil, this straightforward preparation actually satisfies.
It additionally makes about twice as a lot broth as you’ll want — deliberately. Use the remaining tomato broth for a relaxing soup the following day; or use it as the bottom for a clam pasta. It received’t go to waste.
For dessert, how a couple of showstopping Italian-style tart of summer time stone fruit? It appears to be like dramatic and vivid, however it’s not troublesome. You’ll nestle sliced juicy ripe plums — or substitute pluots, nectarines or apricots — right into a candy pastry shell, sprinkle the fruit with a bit sugar and bake it in a scorching oven. Crimson or purple plums placed on essentially the most spectacular present.
Right here once more, the recipe makes further, sufficient pastry for 2 crusts: Save the second within the freezer (pressed right into a tart pan), so you can also make one other tart any time you want.
A smart cook dinner all the time thinks forward.
