Megan Rapinoe here.
This week on A Touch More.
I'm talking to my good friend, former soccer player and current soccer analyst, Lori Lindsey, about all things NWSL the past, the present and the future.
Plus, I'm taking a look at the athletes who crushed at the Met Gala and Angel Reese's firm boundaries with the media.
Check out the latest episode of A Touch More wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube.
I'm Francis Lam and this is The Splendid Table from APM.
You know they're the restaurants you go to because you want to be blown away by something you've never seen before.
And then they're the restaurants you go to and go back to, because you just want great, honest cooking.
Chisiamo is one of those places for me here in New York where two of my favorite dishes are a bowl of beans and a tart shell filled with caramelized onions.
But each time I go I marvel at how the food is just so much better than you might expect, just based on how simple it looks.
So much more flavor.
And I was thrilled when the chef, Hilary Sterling, finally wrote a cookbook filled with some of her signatures from the menu and dishes from her family and life as a Jewish New Yorker who became obsessed with Italian food.
That book is called Amazza, which is Roman slang basically for wow.
She joins us now.
So, hey, chef, it's great to see you.
Thanks for making the time.
Thank you for having me.
Okay, so the first thing I want to talk to you about is you have this lauded restaurant, which I love.
You are working on opening a second.
But while I was reading your book, I noticed that you reference your early jobs at pubs and burger joints.
Like more than any other chef I've ever met,
So what were those jobs and why do you still hold them so dear?
It's a great question.
I, you know, we all wouldn't be who we are and, you know, without where we came from.
Right.
That's the easy answer.
And I just, you know, I found my place in these situations.
And these restaurants.
So my first restaurant job was a place called the Blue Marlin.
It's right off the train station in Montauk.
And now in that building has been like 100 other things since then.
And it was this husband and wife team that ran it.
And you know, in true like fashion, the wife ran the door and you know Tom, the husband was the chef.
And he wore like a neckerchief and a toque and he was scary.
And I feared every time I had to go in the kitchen.
I was learning how to bus tables and be a support member for these like two servers of a restaurant.
That was enormous.
Like I now I look at it now and I was like, how did only two people do that job?
And it was just a community.
And it was the same people over and over again.
And it was the same orders.
And they taught me how to dance in a dining room.
And it was just magical.
I always loved team sports.
I played soccer growing up.
And this was kind of like the next iteration of a team sport.
I was like their backup and I was needed and it was so fun.
And the kitchen always intrigued me at the time.
And I worked at this restaurant for many years during the summers and I would come home whenever they needed.
We had in Montauk, whenever we'd go out there, I'd pick up shifts.
And it was just like they paid you cash and you walked out the door with like 80 bucks.
And I was like, whoa, this is amazing.
It's all the money in the world.
Yeah.
And a couple of summers after that, I started working at a pub called the Murphy's Pub.
And Montauk was right in town.
And Nancy Neff was the owner.
And she was there every night.
And every night she sat at this corner table at the end having her dinner with red wine on ice and smoking Newports.
And I just watched – and then I know – she was like – and she was just there and she would give me feedback every night of what I did well, what I did wrong, how I could become – a better server for my burger joint with like Lamb Chop Mondays, you know.
And the kitchen always intrigued me.
And another chef named Tom as well in the kitchen there.
And all of his brothers worked there.
And it was this really like big family.
And I tell the story in the book that one day I came in for my lunch shift with my green apron on and my polo shirt and ready to serve these burgers.
And Nancy was cooking in the kitchen.
On the line, bandana, sweating, like cooking.
And I was like, Nancy, are you okay?
Like, what's going on?
What happened?
And she's like, well, Shane called out.
I mean, she said a couple other choice words as well.
But and I...
Shane called out and she showed me that the restaurant always opens.
Yeah.
And it stayed with me for so many years until the point where I was like, okay, I –
I want to be like Nancy.
If someone calls out and I'm, you know, my own restaurant, those doors are going to open.
So I went to culinary school because that one day, just in case, I needed to ever work the line professionally, like I'd dabbled in frying fries and like washing dishes and baking some salads at O'Murphy's.
And I was like, well, I'll just go to culinary school after college just in case one day I need to.
When culinary school was a little bit more affordable and like it wasn't it wasn't a big deal.
And if it wasn't for that moment and that day, I would not have walked in the door of a cordon bleu.
You know whatever many years later after college and put my whites on that.
I haven't taken off.
So that's why I love my first jobs.
And it's the same feeling with Lupa.
Lupa brought me back to being lost in Italy.
And these moments triggered things for me.
And I owe them so much because if they didn't do those things for me, I wouldn't be who I am.
Yeah.
I love that.
I love the idea that you went to culinary school not like because it was your dream, but because you felt like a sense of responsibility.
Like what if one day, at some point, you were in a restaurant and something had to happen but you could like?
It was like yeah, I learned to be an EMT.
Just so, just in case you know.
I actually have thought about that, too, but I can't handle blood.
I just want to know how to do all the things.
Some days I'm like man I would love to know how to change the oil in my car, but I don't know how and I'm never going to learn that.
But I was like, man, it would be really great if I knew how to do that.
I don't know if this is the year for me to learn.
But all of those things, I really, I just find it fascinating.
And I owe them so much because of all those little moments that they probably never realized.
Well OK, you mentioned Lupa which, for listeners who don't know, was an iconic Italian restaurant here in New York City.
And you know from those early burger joints.
You know your career progressed and you became infatuated with Italian food.
But tell us a little bit about the title of the book.
It's Amatsa.
Amatsa, yeah.
So Amatsa means – it technically translates to you killed it or murdered.
Oh, God.
But in Roman dialect, it's more of like amazing –
So you came over to my house for dinner and we did – had an amazing time and I cooked an amazing spread and you would say a matzah in that kind of way.
Oh, okay.
Oh, like in the way that you would say like –
Oh, yeah.
You killed it.
You know, that's one of those words that she would come back to all the time when she would have people over.
And there's a whole chapter about, you know, having guests over and dining.
And the recipes are slightly harder in that chapter for a reason because if those are the ones that you're really trying to impress your friends with, those are the recipes you go to.
They're like the show-off dishes.
Yeah, the ones that take a long time and they're so complicated that I can't believe we put them in there.
So we found a great little loophole how to put these recipes in there to be like listen, this is the moment when you want to impress somebody.
Go to the Amatsu chapter.
Yeah.
Well, look, I love your food and I would – love to come to your house and eat those dishes.
But when I come to your restaurant, I have to say I am often most excited to eat what seem like the simplest dishes on the menu.
And a lot of times your vegetable dishes, some of which are you know now that I see the recipe for them, are much more of a project than I realized.
You have this caramelized onion tart that is like...
Unreal.
Just absolutely unreal.
I'm like, oh yeah, it's six pages of recipe.
Okay, cool.
I'll come back and order it again.
Probably not going to make it.
But some are really simple.
And you know, I think a lot of chefs sort of recognize that simplicity in a lot of ways is like the height of sophistication, right.
And if you can make something really simple taste like more delicious than someone else, then you're really doing something right.
And I feel like you have, you've killed that.
Yeah.
So I want to talk about one of the most basic sounding dishes, both on the menu and in this book.
It's so good.
I order it every time.
It's the Parmesan braised beans.
And even now that I have the recipe, there's really not that much that seems unusual to it.
But why are these simple beans and a little bit of broth like so extra delicious?
The beans.
The beans.
I would love to take credit for the beans, but it's our... I can't.
I...
It is that simple.
It's about the beans, though.
And I know I've told you this many times.
It's the people we get the beans from.
And it's their relationship with their people that bring them the beans.
And some days I don't even know what beans are going to come to this restaurant.
But I know that they're going to be the most amazing beans.
One of the things when you cook beans at home, when you get them at the grocery store and then you have all those shriveled ones that go to the top, like when you're soaking them.
Yeah.
And like those beans are old.
Those are old.
And those beans are never going to taste good or cook.
Our beans never, ever, ever do that.
Like we get our beans only from SOS chefs in the East Village.
And to the point where we have to meet, like, an Uber outside to, like, get these beans.
And we buy 250 pounds of beans a week and like they can't deliver to us so we have to meet at Uber.
And we've been doing this for four and a half years, and the receiver – like I don't even know how it happens anymore, but like –
They call the receiver.
The receiver meets the Uber outside in winter, spring, summer.
It doesn't matter if it's raining.
We are loyal to them for the beans.
But we also cook them separately.
That's like the little bit of a key touch.
What do you mean by that?
Because every bean is different shapes and sizes.
So if you're cooking four different kinds of beans, which is part of what this actual like why it makes it so special because there's different textures throughout and there's different flavors throughout.
Those beans have to be cooked separately and you have to have so many cheese rinds around and which you can buy at a store.
So if you don't have them.
And it's about the love of the taking the time and the simmering, right?
You have a four-burner stove at home.
Imagine cooking four beans the entire day.
Like, who's going to commit to that unless we go back to another pandemic?
You don't have time to cook four different beans on all four of your burners the entire day and then soak them the night before in your small New York City fridge.
So I think it's the way we treat them and respect them and we do soak them.
We do cook them separately.
We do cook them slow and low.
And I don't have a lot of space here as well.
I have six burners and we take four of them up like three times a week and we cook them in large batches.
But we cook them separately and we season them separately and before we mix them we make sure they're cooked properly and honestly, it's just about the love of the detail and the team loves the beans so much.
It's also the easiest pickup for them, so like they're like yeah beans, let's do them all day long.
We'll be back in a minute with more from Chef Hilary Sterling.
Author of Amatsa.
I'm Francis Lam, and this is The Splendid Table from APM American Public Media.
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Hey, I'm Matt Buchel comedian, writer and floating head you may or may not have seen on your FYP, and I'm starting a brand new podcast.
Wait, don't swipe away.
It's called That Sounds Like a Lot.
I'm going to start by breaking down whatever insanity is happening in the world, and then I'll sit down with a comedian or actor or writer or honestly, anyone who responds to my DMs.
This is not the place to get the news, but it is a place to feel a little bit better about it.
You can watch on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts.
That Sounds Like a Lot, part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
I'm Francis Lam, and this is The Splendid Table, the show for curious cooks and eaters.
We're talking right now with Hilary Sterling, chef of one of my favorite Italian restaurants in New York, Cicciamo.
She's also author of the cookbook Amazza.
Let's get back to talking about her food.
Okay, let's go to the charred leeks with pistachio yogurt.
They're like, we take leeks and we char them, but steam them.
So they're accepting the smoke, but also becoming buttery on the inside.
So this is something, one of my favorite techniques that we do here.
We do it with a few different things, but mostly with alliums.
So the leeks, we cut them in half and then we put them on a sheet tray with lots of olive oil and salt and then just a small layer of water.
So you can do this in your home oven.
Put your oven on high, 450, and we put them in there so that –
They char the outside and that outer layer of leeks that's a little bit tougher, that you're probably not going to eat anyway protects it.
And so that it keeps that steam in.
And then it also like basically flavors that water with char and smoke.
And so that it's like you're cooking the leeks in one time, but you're doing two different techniques at the same time.
And then we pair it with a pistachio yogurt.
So we take pistachios and we puree them with pistachio oil.
A little ode to way back Lupa days of beets with pistachio butter.
It's a little bit different.
And we add yogurt to that.
So it's just like bright green yogurt.
And then chop pistachios in some lemon juice, and that's it.
I mean, it's so easy.
You can actually just, if you don't want to make the pistachio puree, just chop some pistachios, fold them into yogurt and put it on the leeks, and it'll be just as good.
This idea of both charring the outside and cooking the inside to their tender.
Like you know, you're really sort of emphasizing that sort of that like silky melting texture of them.
And without adding butter to it, like I do love.
I mean, we use a lot of butter in our pasta but I try to avoid butter in a lot of my vegetables and proteins, just because unless it's like really good butter.
You know, this year we were doing some like smoked butter with sweet potatoes and we were only using French butter for it, because it was like
Half the dish was butter.
So we had to make sure it was like it was great butter and great ingredients.
And that's a lot of what Amats is about is just start with great ingredients.
But I think people underestimate how easy it is to cook vegetables.
They're so afraid of them.
But like especially a leek, right, it's such an easy thing.
You can grab three of them at the store.
You don't have to buy a lot.
Take the tops, put them in your freezer for your stock.
Like the dark green part.
Yeah, sometimes I get really easy.
I just put the dark green part in the freezer and my wife does not appreciate the dark green graveyard of leek tops.
And – save it for a spring onion brodo later on down the line.
And these leeks just like, because we can turn them into this really creamy, delicious whey with char and water and oil without adding a lot of fat to them.
They also become super healthy and they are so easy to do and you have everything in your house.
So It's really about transforming the vegetables and almost manipulating them to what you want, drawing out that sweetness, drawing out the flavors from them and not being afraid to almost let them go too far sometimes, right.
If you're in Italy, most of your vegetables are pretty overcooked and they're definitely not green.
If you have a green vegetable,
They're like cooked to like army green.
Yeah, but they're delicious.
But delicious, yeah.
Right.
So I think you know here I don't want to generalize, you know, but like we cook with our eyes a lot and people eat with their eyes a lot,
Sometimes I think you just have to close them.
And I have I have a bad habit of doing this to cooks, where I want them to relax a little bit and listen to what's happening behind them.
We're like and to taste something without like looking at it, and i'll be like, let's close your eyes, trust me, and listen to the fish on the grill, or listen to the vegetables cooking and don't react and just wait because it'll tell you when it's ready.
I think we think we need to use our senses a little bit more.
Yeah, You know, I actually it's funny, because another recipe I was really drawn to is one you probably can't listen to.
And it's the salt roasted zucchini.
So salt-baked fish right, is a thing that sometimes you see and it's like you know.
You like bury a whole fish in, like this giant mound of salt, and you bake that off.
And the idea is the salt basically helps steam the fish inside the salt crust and, like you, get a very tender fish.
I've never seen anyone use that technique with zucchini, though.
So...
You know, restaurants, we do a lot of volume and I a lot of times I and I love cooking vegetables.
Right.
So two things.
But I have to cook a lot of vegetables here.
And I was I am always trying to figure out how I can remove error and like watching like.
Cook sear.
One and a half inch, cut like rounds of zucchini and like make them all universally cooked the same.
And there's six pieces on a plate and everyone's cake testing to make sure they're correct.
And I was like, I can't do that.
I need to figure out something better.
And then it took me down this rabbit hole with most of the dishes when we're creating them.
I go down some crazy rabbit hole and hopefully I come out with the answer I'm looking for.
And I was like, okay, what other cooking techniques can I do?
I can poach.
I can roast.
But that still requires us to use like there's still error involved.
So then I found like an old school like, OK, salt roasted, right?
Salt roasted fish.
That sounds delicious.
And I was like, why can't I salt roast a zucchini?
And the first time I did it, it blew my mind because it changed the texture completely.
And, you know, and the flavor of the zucchini also rocked my world.
Right.
Like all of a sudden, like that's what zucchini should taste like.
So it's like it's just like sweet and grassy and like it just kind of blows your mind in like this way where, like all of a sudden, you don't have that exterior crunch when you're cooking zucchini.
A lot of times you have that exterior where it's still a little raw because it has to cook all the way through.
And this way it cooks all the way through.
And it's like that beautiful, like when you nail a steak, right?
And it's cooked all the way through and there's not lines.
That's the same thing.
So the outside has a different flavor than the inside, but they mimic each other at this point now.
So when we bury them in salt.
They take on the flavors of the salt.
We use coriander seed and fennel seed in the salt and citrus zest.
So it absorbs all of that flavor as well.
And then when you open it up, the zucchini is perfectly cooked, like exactly the same.
There's no like white on the exterior and the insides mush.
It is completely cooked flawlessly every time.
So i was like okay, i figured, all right great, let's do this.
And then now we like the first year.
They're like, please don't ever do that to us again.
Like the cooks were like please don't, please don't.
It was just like.
And then they figured out how to do it and then they were like oh, this is great, we can cook all of our zucchini in one time for the day.
But we um, We keep reusing the salt over and over again.
We call it our – it's our salt graveyard.
That's amazing.
So after we like – because we're cooking especially here zucchini.
We cook celery root salt roasted.
There's so much we salt roast here.
We reuse that salt.
We just put it back in like our food processor or our like KitchenAid mixer, just to break up the chunks.
And then we continuously reuse it until it's dark.
So because salt's really expensive.
You know, this is like.
I mean.
It seems like such a like a, like a, a dorky thing to talk about.
But yeah no, it's true, like you buy a box of salt and it takes a lot of salt to like actually bury something in the salt, you're talking several boxes of salt, that's like 20 bucks of salt.
There is a salt byproduct though, just so you know, that Diamond Crystal makes that you can buy.
You wouldn't want to season your food with it, but they make a finer salt.
Basically, after you get those crystals, they dust it out.
And we use like 50-pound bags of that like byproduct for salt, roasting and seasoning big blanching water and pasta tanks all the time.
So if you can find that, it will save you, and then you'll even have a better version of your salt roasted anything at home.
Yeah.
But actually, let me ask you this.
I think a lot of people would look at that and be like well, isn't it going to come out like crazy salty, like you're burying something in salt.
Why does it work?
Do you know why?
Why don't these things end up being super salty?
I mean, they can be.
They absolutely can be.
Okay.
You're not seasoning the zucchini first.
And the zucchini is also filled with water, just like a fish is.
So, you know, what's happening within that, because you're creating a crust with egg whites.
And if you don't want to use egg whites, you can use water for this, where you're almost making the salt into like a wet sand.
And it does the same thing.
We actually make it most of the time with water here, so it's vegan.
Okay.
But, I mean, if I'm making a small batch at home, I'll probably use an egg white.
But what it does is basically the steam that's rising out of the zucchini inside creates this little cocoon.
So you're technically like it's not soaking in it.
Like it's not becoming you're not basically submerging it in salt.
You're just crusting it.
So we stab our zucchini just a little bit with like a cake tester, just so that some of it gets inside there.
And then we just dust it off at the end.
And it has like the appropriate amount of salt inside because we're not seasoning it first.
But if you don't make a crust on it and it doesn't form that, then I could see where you can get a really salty zucchini.
But yeah, as long as you're protecting it and then dust off when whatever's excess afterwards, the inside will save you.
That's so interesting.
Cool.
I have a little bit of time left.
And actually, there's something I'm dying to ask you about.
It's the whipped pecorino.
And at first, I'm like, oh, cool, like whipped ricotta, whipped cheese.
And then I was like, wait, pecorino is really hard.
Like, what do you mean whipped pecorino?
You know, I made it and a friend of mine was like egging me on.
They're like, you can't whip pecorino the same way.
And I was like, yes, I can.
I can absolutely whip pecorino.
And then there goes that rabbit hole again.
Right.
OK, so essentially what's in aioli?
Right.
Fat, water or lemon juice and oil.
Mm hmm.
So think about the same concept, right?
The pecorino is a fat and we add water to it to puree it and then we add oil to emulsify it.
So it's the same concept as a naoli.
It's just without the egg in it.
So we're replacing the egg with pecorino.
Oh, interesting.
So like you have all the same components that you need to emulsify.
But the trick with the whip pecorino is you can't put like all your stuff in really fast.
Like, right.
You have to treat it like a naoli, where you slowly build this and you put it in your Vita prep or your hand blender or whatever your mixer is at home.
Right.
You need a high-powered, fast one.
A food processor won't essentially create that as much.
You just have to add a little water, a little oil and then kind of build this emulsion back into it.
And we add yogurt to it just to kind of balance out the salinity of it, because it does get really salty.
That one definitely gets salty if you're a pecorino.
Yeah.
Parmigiano doesn't work as well because there's a lot of oil in Parmigiano, but the Pecorino accepts the water and accepts the oil.
And then a really thick Greek yogurt and you have an amazing dip crudite.
Put it on lamb, make tacos.
It has unlimited things that you can do with it.
I put it on like toasted, like grilled bread and whipped pecorino and some like olive oil.
Oh, it's so good.
Matzah this year, we were killing it with the whipped pecorino.
There, a matzah.
There you go.
Well, thank you so much, chef.
I had such a fun time talking with you and I can't wait to see you in the restaurant again soon.
As always, thank you so much.
Hilary Sterling is the author of the cookbook Amatsa.
And if you want to taste her food but aren't going to make it tonight yourself, go check out her restaurant Chisiamo in New York City and soon in Boston.
And if you do want to make it yourself, she left us with her recipe for those great creamy Parmesan braised beans.
Find them at splendidtable.org.
The list of dolci, sweets, at the end of an Italian meal can stretch for miles, right?
Maybe you want a little gelato, or a tartufo of gelato encased with cherries in a chocolate shell, a little wedge of olive oil cake, or some boozy zabaglione with fruit my favorite tiramisu, just to name a few.
Or if you want something a little leaner, it can be biscotti and an espresso, some cheese.
Or once at the end of a truly epic meal I had in Italy, we just went into the restaurant's wine and salumi cellar and poured liquors for hours in the hammy haze of prosciutti hanging above our heads.
But for all the love Italian food and Italian sweets get, I haven't ever really met anyone truly passionate about Italian cookies.
Well, the culinary teacher and nine-time cookbook author, Domenica Marchetti, is out to change that with her newest book, Italian Cookies.
So hey, Domenica, it's so great to see you.
Hi, Francis.
It's great to be here.
I am really excited about this conversation because well, this might sound disrespectful and I don't mean it to.
I have had a lifelong, like truly lifelong obsession with Italian food.
When I'm cooking at home, probably half the time for dinner, it's pasta.
I just have always loved this cuisine.
And if I'm being fully honest with you, The cookies have never been the thing I've gotten most excited about.
I understand.
Oh, my God.
Okay, well, I'm glad.
I'm glad I'm not starting off on the wrong foot.
Because I also mentioned this to a chef recently, who is also a great lover of Italian cuisine actually cooks Italian cuisine in their restaurant.
And I mentioned the same thing and she was kind of like, yeah, me neither.
Yeah, I totally get it.
So we're not just Philistines, though.
I am here to put an end to that stereotype, for one thing.
Great.
Because I think it's outdated.
I really do.
Look, I too have had very anise-heavy cookies or dry cookies or stale cookies.
That haven't been great.
And that is what the stereotype is.
However, what I discovered when I was working on the book is that there is such a diversity in Italian cookies.
And when done well with good ingredients, they really shine.
Okay.
So early in the book, you have this great line where you say...
You know, you have to look at the map of the north of Italy and you see all these cookie towns.
And it's a little funny to think, oh, OK, let's talk about cookies first.
Take out a map.
But, you know, A, that's very Italian.
There is this very Italian sense of specialties of an area or ingredients or dishes of an area.
And they're named after that area.
And there are all these towns for which there are these sort of iconic cookies.
That's where they get their name.
So tell us about some of those.
Yeah, that's really something that fascinated me.
So I was in Genoa and I... tasted a butter cookie that I hadn't had before.
It's a very plain looking cookie. in the shape of a flower, six petal flower.
And it just had a purity of flavor.
And it just kind of melted in my mouth as I bit into it.
It was very crumbly and delicious.
And it was called a Canestraletto di Toriglia, Toriglia being a town outside of Genoa.
And so I wanted to find out more about this cookie.
And so I went to Torilla and found that this cookie has an incredible history, dating to the 15th century, and that there are numerous bakeries in town devoted to making this cookie.
And I was talking to a friend of mine from Genoa about it and she said well, you need to go to Gavi where they have some of the best amaretti my husband's favorite amaretti.
And so Gavi is just over the border in Piemonte.
And I went there and they have these lovely soft amaretti that have kind of pinched tops like a tricorner hat almost.
And when I was there, somebody said well, you need to go to Voltaggio, where they have amaretti di Voltaggio.
And so that's like nine miles down the road.
And everywhere I went, I kind of learned about Voltaggio.
Another cookie in another town that is named after the town.
And I determined that there's like this swath of northern Italy, from Liguria all the way to the Veneto, where you will find cookies associated with a specific town.
And You know, some of them, like the amaretti, have similarities between them, but some of them are really distinct.
There's a cookie called Imperialini di Omenia, and Omenia is a beautiful little town on the shores of Lago D'Orta, in the Lake District.
And they're like little cat's tongues almost, and they're sandwiched with chocolate.
And I feel like they're like the original Milano cookies, you know, and they're from Lombardy.
Oh, like the Pepperidge Farm?
Yes, those, which are fabulous.
I grew up on mint Milano.
See, so you do love Italian cookies.
Yeah.
You know, by way of like some factory in Indiana, sure.
Yeah, yeah.
But I so I feel like these emprialina are kind of like the OG Milano cookies and they're so delicious.
So anyway, everywhere I went, I kind of encountered these cookie towns, and That's kind of when I decided okay, there are so many stories here.
I need to keep going and turn this into a book.
I love that.
Okay.
So first of all, if this entire interview were just me listening to you naming these cookies in Italian, that would just be musical.
The names are so beautiful, even if I only understand what they mean half the time.
But I love this idea that every time you went to a town they said well, we're very proud of our Amoretti, but go to this other town, you know 12 kilos away or whatever, and you should see what they do as well.
I'm curious, though.
Okay, so I am also I think in that region.
I was there once in my entire life.
And I remember driving past this town called Radicchio.
I was like, oh, that's funny.
I wonder, you know, because there's the bitter lettuce, Radicchio.
And then, like I looked on the map and I don't know, like six minutes over there was Castelfranco, which is, if you go to a fancy Italian restaurant, they'll give you Castelfranco instead of the Radicchio or Indigene 2.
And then next to that was Tardivo.
So if you go to really like a Michelin star restaurant, you get your salad with Tardivo, with the Castelfranco and the Radicchio.
And I'm like, oh, my God, all these towns are named after Tardivo.
These greens or the greens are named after the towns rather.
And so I love that there are people who do that with cookies.
I mean, there's people who do that with pasta shapes.
Cheeses.
It's such a fascinating culture.
Yeah.
Gorgonzola is a town.
Asiago is a town.
And it can be that way with the cookies as well.
If you go outside of Omeña, you won't see those imperialines because they're really specific to that town.
So I found that so fascinating.
And that's not the case with all of the cookies.
So for instance, in the South, there's a cookie called mostacholi.
And these are kind of sturdy, slightly spiced cookies.
They sometimes have honey in the dough, or mostocotto, which is cooked grape must syrup, and they're often covered in chocolate.
But depending on where you are in the South, they're made quite differently.
So in Abruzzo, where my family is from, which is kind of like mid-calf on the boot, that is Italy, they are these diamond-shaped cookies and they're coated in chocolate.
Um elsewhere, like in pulia or um campania, they also have most actually, but they're quite different.
Some aren't iced, some are like very large and um, just kind of uh, shaped differently.
So you know, as with all Italian food and cooking, there is a lot of confusion, because things that have the same name might be different in different regions.
So it was just like this whole fun thing to unravel.
And I'm sure that somebody is going to see my recipe for mostacholi and be like that's not how you do it.
You know, that's not how my nonna did it.
Yeah, sure, sure.
Yeah.
Domenica Marchetti is the author of Italian Cookies.
We'll have more with her in just a minute.
I'm Francis Lam, and this is The Splendid Table from American Public Media.
I'm Francis Lam, and this is The Splendid Table, the show for curious cooks and eaters.
We're talking with Domenica Marchetti, author of Italian Cookies.
Let's get back to it with her.
Okay, I want to go back to the amaretti, because this is a type of cookie that okay, truth be told, I have always enjoyed.
And first, I'd love for you to describe... what good amaretti are like.
And again, you have different versions of them.
So how do you make them generally and what are some of these variations?
Yeah, so amaretti.
I guess maybe almond macaroons would be what we would call them in English, or maybe just amaretti.
Now,
But you will find them throughout Italy, from Piemonte all the way down to Calabria and out to the islands Sicily and Sardinia.
And they're local really more or less made with the same three ingredients, which are ground almonds, egg whites and sugar.
And so you would think, okay, with these three ingredients, how much variation can there be?
But there can be quite a lot.
So there are soft amaretti, and they tend to be made with almond flour or very finely ground almonds.
And, you know, they kind of have crackled tops.
But when you bite into them, they're nice and soft inside.
And maybe they have a little bit of lemon or orange zest in them or a little bit of almond extract.
And those are like amaretti di gavi are like that.
But if you travel a little bit east from Piemonte towards Lombardy, you get to the town of Saronno.
So we all know those amaretti di Saronno.
They are the very crunchy little discs.
Sometimes they have a little bit of pearl sugar on them.
Those are the ones that you crunch up and put in.
You know, like a trifle or maybe even in tiramisu.
And they come in those paper wrappers and you can light the paper wrappers on fire and they sort of, you know, puff up into the air.
And that's what Italian kids like to do.
But anyway, so those are very crunchy amaretti.
They date to like the 18th. century, but they're still made with the same three ingredients.
It's just that the ratio of the egg white and the sugar to the almonds is different.
They're mixed differently.
They're mixed kind of into a very fine batter.
So depending on the ratio of ingredients, how they are mixed, how they are piped or rolled or shaped, and then how they're baked, you can get a very different result.
One of my favorite amaretti is the amarettus from Sardinia.
And these are quite rustic.
They're kind of big balls of amaretti dough.
And you roll them in sugar and then you poke an almond into the center and bake them.
And they come out with these beautiful domes with these crackled tops.
And again, they're a little bit crunchy on the exterior and then tender inside.
And what I discovered while working on the amaretti recipes is if you use the Italian almonds, specifically the Sicilian almonds, it's like you don't even need almond extract because the almonds are the essence of that almond flavor, a little sweet, a.
If you bite into a Romana almond from Sicily and kind of chew it and let it turn into a cream in your mouth, you understand what the flavor of almond extract and where it comes from.
So if you have not had an amaretto in Italy, you really should because they're kind of a revelation.
Yeah.
The first time I had one of these like sort of soft, chewy ones, I was like totally taken by it.
It's almost...
I love the flavor of almond.
And actually, it's funny because like every kid, like, oh, chocolate, everything.
And now I find myself gravitating more towards fruit desserts and nuts.
And yeah, these amaretti, like the nice ones really just make you feel like.
They're like confections.
It's almond everything.
Yeah.
Well, and in Sicily and Sardinia especially, except for like cannoli, just about every confection and sweet starts with that almond base, almond paste and almonds and sugar.
So many cookies are made that way.
And they're shaped as S's or they're shaped as balls or they're piped into little stars.
But it's all that almond base.
And I too love the flavor of almonds.
And I think, you know, when you use almond extract judiciously, it's really good.
When you overdo it, you know, it can be overwhelming.
The same thing with anise.
I know a lot of people really wrinkle their noses at anise, but I happen to love anise.
And, like you, my tastes have changed over the years and I didn't really care for it when I was younger, but I really love it now.
And like I said before, people think of Italian cookies as, oh, too much anise, dry.
Well, there's a cookie in the book that is just that.
It's like a dry cookie- with anise flavor.
It's from Sardinia.
It's called Anicini.
And it's almost like a melba toast, but it's so light and airy.
And when you dip it in your morning coffee or your tea or a little bit of wine, it's so good.
So some of these cookies you may think of as dry, but they're meant to be dry because they're long lasting.
You know this is a a lot of these cookies go back many generations and they were created in a time before you know that sugar was a common ingredient.
I mean, people worked with what they had around them.
So there's a whole history to them.
Once you start to understand that, I think you understand a little bit better where these cookies come from and why they are the way they are.
Oh, that's so.
OK, I am.
I'm totally feeling you right now because now you're saying part of is how you enjoy them.
Like if you think of them as a cookie, that's how you eat it.
And you're like, oh, that's kind of dry.
But you're supposed to have them with a coffee or in some cases I read wine, and you're supposed to like actually dip them in.
And you had actually pointed out to me a cookie that you particularly like the biscotti.
Biscotti da insuppo yeah, and i don't speak italian, but i have like spent enough time staring at italian menus.
Does the name of this translate as like Biscuits, like for to be in soup?
Yeah.
It sounds like it's inzuppare means to soak.
Okay.
Yeah.
So when you think of zuppa, soup, it's a liquid.
And so the word inzuppare means to – to soak something or, yeah.
So like the way a sponge might soak something up.
So this biscotti d'anzuppo, there are many different kinds throughout Italy.
It's kind of a generic term.
And I have a recipe in the book.
It's a very basic cookie.
It's made with olive oil instead of butter.
I first had it at a bakery in Basilicata, which is the in-step of Italy.
And there are these big fingers, and they're flavored with just a little bit of vanilla.
I can't remember if there's zest in them or not, maybe a little bit of zest.
And then...
Some finely chopped chocolate.
And they come out crunchy.
They're sort of plain.
They're mildly flavored.
But they are the best thing when you take one of these big fingers and you dunk it into your morning cappuccino or your morning coffee.
And the cookie absorbs the liquid and it sort of takes on the flavor of the coffee.
And that is their purpose in life.
And if you've never sat down to breakfast of cappuccino and a cookie, you're missing out.
It's like my favorite breakfast.
It's only the second most perverse breakfast in Italy behind the gelato in a brioche bun.
Oh, yeah.
Well, nothing beats that.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, my God.
The first time I saw that, I was like, I don't think I'm on this earth anymore.
I've actually ascended into heaven.
Like, what is this?
The best.
Yeah.
On a hot summer day, especially.
Oh, man.
Okay, so now we're in the South, right?
Because you said the cookie, the recipe you have is made with olive oil.
And famously...
There's butter Italy, which is in the north, and then there's olive oil Italy, which is in the south.
Obviously, you can mix the two, but traditionally, much less dairy in the south.
I was intrigued by the southern cookies in particular because...
I've seen a butter cookie before.
I kind of know what they're like.
I want to see what these other items are.
And I mean, you have cookies in here where the dough is made with red wine.
Tell us about that.
Yeah, so these are cookies that my mom used to make when I was growing up.
So there's a variety of wine cookies in the book.
And yeah, they have olive oil instead of butter.
And they have, instead of milk or whatever, they have wine in them.
And it's possible that this was a way to use up leftover wine.
I honestly am not sure where they originate, but I think it's just the same as so much of Italian cooking.
You just use what you have on hand.
And so they're very simple cookies made with olive oil sugar flour, a little baking powder or baking soda or, in some cases, baking ammonia, which is kind of the precursor to baking powder and baking soda.
And maybe a little bit of flavoring.
I have one version that's got a spice mix in it.
And then the wine.
And it's a very kind of soft supple dough because of the olive oil.
And you can roll them into rings or you can just kind of pinch off pieces and roll them into ovals.
I like to coat them in sesame seeds.
Then you bake them and they crack on top and they're very crispy.
And I think the wine contributes to this crispiness.
But it also adds this kind of extra layer of flavor.
You can taste that red wine or even white wine.
There are some cookies you can make with...
I mean, really, you can use them interchangeably.
The color of the cookie just ends up differently.
But they're very appealing because they're very crunchy.
And you can dip them in coffee.
You can dip them in tea.
But one of my favorite things to do after dinner is just to take whatever wine I have left in my glass and dip a wine cookie into it.
And it's like the perfect little dessert.
It's not too indulgent.
It kind of takes care of that if you have a little desire for sweetness after dinner.
You know, because they've got olive oil, they don't have that much sugar.
It's not even, you know, they're almost like a health cookie.
I mean, at least I tell myself that.
It's like I remember when, like when, chocolate became healthy and then like, red wine became healthy, and now, like sure, the cookies made with red wine should be healthy.
And olive oil, right?
Oh, sure, yeah.
Live forever.
I love that.
But actually, now that you mentioned the crispiness, I don't know if this is really an impact.
But you know, I've seen so many great recipes for fried food, batters of fried food, like fried chicken where you put like vodka in the batter.
And the idea is or vodka and pie dough.
And the idea is alcohol evaporates more quickly than water.
And so if some of that liquid is actually alcohol, I wonder if it evaporates more quickly and so it speeds up the crisping process.
To me, that makes sense.
Yeah, it makes sense.
My dad was a chemist, but I was an English major, so I was terrible at chemistry.
But, you know, the same thing with cannoli dough.
My mom used to make cannoli and I used her recipe and she had a little bit of marsala in her dough.
Um, cannoli dough recipe, and that contributes to the crispiness and i think it also helps create those bubbles that are, you know, um very specific to the, the cannoli shell.
Um, so i think there's something there francis about uh, using wine to add crispiness to your cookies.
Yeah, That's cool.
Okay, so last question.
I mean, you've talked about these wonderful travels you've had, and I'm jealous of them.
But for those of us who want to taste some of these cookies here, are there brands available here that you like?
Or are there bakeries in our country that you really admire?
Yeah, that is a great question.
And as far as brands go, I would say you can get Chiostro di Saronno.
So they're the amaretti di Saronno.
I have seen that brand available in the U.S.
I know you can get it online.
This is the company that started making these crunchy amaretti back in the 18th century.
And I went to see their archives in Saronno and they are actually located in a cloister in the town of Saronno.
But they, you know, here we are centuries later and they're still producing these crunchy cookies, and you can get those in the US.
But of course there are Italian bakeries all over the US.
In the back of the book, there's a list of bakeries throughout Italy.
And these are bakeries I visited.
And I highly recommend, if you are traveling to Italy, Go to the bakeries, because that's where you will see the local cookies.
That's where you will get the local bread made with local flour.
That's where people who live in the towns shop.
You'll find some gems.
And in the U.S., which is a much bigger country, there are Italian bakeries all over the country.
And I put together a list in the back of the book of.
I can't say they're necessarily my favorite bakeries, but they were just ones that stood out to me.
Some I've been to.
One of my favorites is Termini Brothers in South Philadelphia.
It's a beautiful spot.
It's got these black and white tiled floors and these beautiful sort of vintage windows, wood framed display cases where they have all their cookies and pastries displayed.
And, you know, they make all sorts of cookies like the butter cookies.
They make the ventaglia, the palmieres.
They make pignoli cookies, the pine nut cookies which I just have to go off on a tangent for a second.
So pignoli cookies, the pine nut cookies are so popular in the U.S.
They originated in Liguria, but you don't see them that much anymore in Liguria or anywhere.
Anywhere else in Italy.
They're much more popular here than they are over there.
And that is the case with some cookies that came to the U.S. with immigrants.
And you tend to see some of the more old-fashioned cookies here rather than over there.
Right.
Yeah.
And so...
I'm trying to think of other bakeries that I've been to.
Of course, there's Venereo's in New York.
In Virginia, where I live, there's a little bakery.
It's kind of by order, only called Bisnonna Bakery, which means great grandmother, and is started by a young Italian-American woman, and she makes a variety of beautiful cookies, like the pignoli cookies, leaf-shaped cookies, which I think are more popular here in the US than Italy.
But I feel like wherever you are in this country, there's probably an Italian bakery not too far from you and you should check it out.
Right on.
Well, thank you so much, Dominica.
This has been super sweet.
No pun intended.
It's been my pleasure.
Thank you for having me.
Domenica Marchetti is the author of Italian Cookies.
She left us with a recipe for amarettus, amaretti cookies from Sardinia.
Check them out, splendidtable.org.
Well, that is our show for this week.
We hope you enjoyed it.
We'll talk to you again next week.
Splendid Table was created by Sally Swift and members of the Casper and was made this week by technical producer Jennifer Lutke, producers Erica Romero and Maria Wartel and managing producer Sally Swift.
Jordan Turgeon's our digital producer, with help from Delonix Wynn.
Our intern is Ruby Sigmund, and Lauren Humpert is our senior podcast production manager.
Thank you for listening.
I'm Francis Lam, and this is APM, American Public Media.
