In the heat of July, when stepping outside during sunlight hours seems like asking too much, we tend to eat more than our fair share of salads and cold foods. But sometimes, we want something more, something actually cooked -- albeit quickly, so as not to warm up our kitchens too much. Preparing a quick, easy seafood dish seems about right.
This mussel dish, Saute' di Cozze, is just perfect: it's a taste of the sea that's light and flavorful and only takes a few minutes to prepare. It's great as an appetizer on its own, or as a main course (maybe with some homemade fries?), and can even be tossed with some pasta for a filling primo piatto. Add some chopped tomatoes for color and sweetness, a pinch of saffron for a southern French twist. Substitute the parsley with cilantro for the Portuguese version of this dish, or grind a lot of black pepper into the mussel pot as they're cooking for an Italian variation called pepato di cozze. There's lots to play with here. Enjoy it and make it your own -- but make it, pronto. The perfect summer seafood saute' is in your future!
Saute’
di Cozze
Serves 4 people
4-5 TBS. extra-virgin olive oil
1-2 cloves of garlic, peeled and left whole
5 lbs. fresh
mussels
½ cup white wine
Bunch of parsley (Italian flat-leaf), chopped finely
Pinch of red pepper flakes
Salt + pepper to taste
- In a large bowl/pot of water, add the mussels and
a healthy bit of salt or cornmeal. Let sit for 10 minutes. Then, using your
hands, pick up a handful of mussels in each hand, lift them out of the water a
bit, and scrub together using the mussels themselves to clean the outer shells.
Repeat several times, changing the water to clean.
- Drain mussels, and using your fingers, quickly
peel away the “beard” (the hairy-looking thing hanging from the lip of the
mussel shell). It will require a quick yank, so hold the mussel closed with one
hand, and quickly rip off the beard with the other. Do this on all the mussels that have beards.
- Heat a large skillet over medium heat, and add the olive oil and garlic to cook for one minute.
- Add the mussels and stir a bit. Add the white
wine, the parsley, and cover, cooking over medium-low heat for 3 minutes. Add
the chili flakes and salt and pepper to taste, and continue cooking until the
shells of the mussels have fully opened. Mix to make sure all are opened, adding
olive oil and/or salt & pepper to taste, and turn to coat thoroughly. Serve
at once with nice, crusty bread.
For me, the first time I tried gamberi rossi in Italy, it was love at first sight. Its flavor is much more delicate than that of any other shrimp, its color beautiful on the plate. This was my entrata into understanding the importance and beauty of eating simply-prepared, high-quality local seafood that one might not be able to find in other parts of the world. I've never seen the gambero rosso in America, though perhaps some upscale seafood eateries are importing it somewhere stateside. But it's a go-to whenever I'm in any coastal area in southern Italy. I seek it out. I always order it when I find it on a menu. I prefer it uncooked. And since the Mediterranean red prawn lives at a depth of between 200 - 1000 meters beneath the sea -- deeper waters tend to be cleaner waters -- its wonderfully delicate flesh is amazing when eaten raw.
Campo de' Fiori, in Italian, means field of flowers, which this piazza once was. And it was here in 1600 that Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for heresy, and where, six years later, Caravaggio (the first bad-boy Italian artist) killed a young man in a sword fight that ended in Caravaggio fleeing Rome for the rest of his life (sadly, only another 4 years). Today there's no statue for the murderous master of chiaroscuro, but there is one for Bruno, who overlooks the square from its center. These days, though, the only fights you'll see in the piazza are people haggling over the price of pomodori, or inebriated twenty-somethings fighting over young female tourists' attentions in the piazza's bars.
The market is a riot of color and noise, with the season's offerings on tempting display. As I always explained to my cooking students, Italy as a united country is a century younger than the U.S. Of course, as a place and a culture it's been around for thousands of years. But Italians tend to think of themselves even today as they always have, historically. They think locally. Regions and cities and towns have always had rivalries, teamed up to fight common enemies, killed each other's kings and overthrown each other's governments. And though all of these places, these regions, these kingdoms are technically united under the Italian flag and its government today (troubled as it is), these historic differences run deep. So instead of conjuring a coup, in modern times, these rivalries are translated to two places: the soccer pitches and kitchens -- for the most part, less dangerous than government overthrow. For the most part.
So, what does this all mean for food? Well, it's on display at the Campo market. Italians haven;t experienced the locavore movement like America has, because Italians never really strayed from eating and cooking locally in the first place. What you will see in the market are Roman artichokes, globe-shaped beauties instead of the tulip-shaped variety you'd find in Venice. (Venice! chu-puh!). The greens are local, bitter greens for which Rome is famous. The fiori di zucca are found at the end of the zucchine romanesche, which have vertical striations that make them different -- and better, of course! -- than zucchine from elsewhere in Italy. In fact, most everything you see here is grown within Lazio, Rome's region. The vendors prefer to sell strawberries from nearby Terracina. They want arugula ("rughetta" in Roman dialect) that grows wild along the road heading out of the city. They want to sell you pecorino Romano, not that other sheep's milk cheese from Sardegna or Tuscany. No. Here, you get what this wonderful city gives, and it gives a bounty. 
