More recipes from Julia on

The recipes in this section are from Julia's book:
Italian Home Cooking: 125 Recipes to Comfort Your Soul
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> Creamy Eggplant Spread on Bruschetta
> Lentil Soup with Crumbled Sausage and Ditalini (“Little Thimble”) Pasta
> Signora Coluccio's Quick Linguine and Tomato Lunch
> Oven-Fried Tilapia with Fennel Crust
> Nonna Vera's Sweet and Sour Carrots

Creamy Eggplant Spread on Bruschetta
Serves 4

The Italians have so many delicious ways of cooking eggplant, but this, perhaps one of the simplest, is a favorite of my daughter, a vegetarian. The clear flavors of fresh eggplant and good olive oil pop because no herbs or spices distract save a pinch of oregano. The trick to transforming eggplant from bitter to sweet without salting it is to remove excess seeds after roasting or grilling (if charred on a wood-fired grill, the pulp will take on a pleasant smoky flavor).

2 medium Italian eggplants
4 cloveS garlic, unpeeled
2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
freshly sliced and toasted artisan
bread, for serving
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano, crushed

1. Preheat an oven to 400' F.
2. Place the whole eggplants and garlic cloves on a baking sheet and slide the pan onto the middle rack of the oven. Roast the garlic until soft, about 15 minutes; remove from the oven and set aside. Roast the eggplant until completely soft and collapsed and the skin is blackened, about 40 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool. Use a spoon to scoop and discard excess seeds from the eggplant. Put the pulp in a sieve and allow it to drain to release excess moisture, from 1 hour to overnight, chilled.
3. Peel and mash the garlic and place it and the eggplant pulp in the bowl of an electric mixer. Alternatively, place it in a mixing bowl and use a hand whisk. Add the vinegar. Using the whisk attachment, or whisking by hand, whisk the mixture while pouring in the olive oil little by little, as though you were making mayonnaise, until the eggplant mixture is creamy and light. Season with salt and pepper.
4. Spread the eggplant cream onto the warm toasted bread slices. Sprinkle with oregano and serve.

Ahead-of-time note: This spread can be made well ahead of time and stored in a covered vessel, chilled, for up to 5 days.

Lentil Soup with Crumbled Sausage and Ditalini Pasta
Serves 4 to 6

I have never eaten a lentil soup better than this one I grew up on. It was one of my mother’s winter supper inventions, which she alternated with versions substituting smoked sausage (like luganega, or if she couldn’t get it, Polish- or Ukrainian-style kielbasa) for fresh, sweet pork and fennel sausage.

1/2 pound (1 1/2 cups) brown lentils
10 cups Chick en Broth (page 214) or water
1 bay leaf
5 link s lean, sweet fennel-flavored1/2Italian pork sausages
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
6 large cloves garlic, smashed
1 onion, chopped
1 large celery stalk, inc luding1/2leaves, chopped
2 teaspoons fresh thyme, minced, or 1 teaspoon dried thyme
3 tablespoons tomato paste
1 16-ounce can plum tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped, liquid reserved
1/2 cup ditalini (“little thimble”) pasta
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons chopped fres flat-leaf parsley

1. Pick over and wash the lentils in cold water. Transfer them to an ample pot, cover with the broth or water, and add the bay leaf. Bring to a boil, then immediately reduce to a simmer. Cook over medium-low heat until half-cooked, 10 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, slip the casings off the sausages. In an ample skillet, warm the olive oil. Brown the sausage meat over medium heat until lightly colored all over, about 7 minutes. Transfer to a side dish and drain any excess fat from the pan, leaving 3 tablespoons. Add the garlic, onion, celery, and thyme to the pan and sauté until the garlic is golden and the vegetables are softened and aromatic, about 5 minutes. Return the sausage to the pan. Dissolve the tomato paste in a little of the lentil broth and add it to the pan. Follow with the chopped tomatoes and their liquid. Simmer all together for 5 minutes.
3. Bring the lentils to a boil once again if they have cooled down. Transfer the skillet contents and the pasta to the pot with the boiling lentils. Simmer to marry the flavors, about 5 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Turn off the heat, cover the pot, and allow the soup to rest until the pasta is fully cooked, about 4 more minutes. Discard the bay leaf, sprinkle with parsley, and serve.

Signora Coluccio’s Quick Linguine and Tomato Lunch
Serves 4 children or 2 adults

Here is a surprising recipe from the Coluccio family, founders of the noteworthy Italian grocery in Brooklyn named Coluccio & Sons—surprising because from a few ordinary ingredients, most of them from the pantry, comes an astonishingly good dish. It is one of those quick dishes that is prepared for hungry children almost instantly and becomes a fond memory of childhood—and a standby in adult life. It works best in small quantities for a pound or less of pasta. Because some of the pasta water serves as a vehicle for the sauce, the dish needs to be eaten immediately while it is still very moist.

8 whole fresh or canned peeled
plum tomatoes, drained
1/2 pound imported Italian linguine
or spaghetti, broken in half
3 tablespoons kosher salt
6 fresh basil leaves, if available,
chopped
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
4 tablespoons freshly grated
Pecorino Romano, caciocavallo,
Parmigiano-Reggiano, or Grana
Padano cheese

1. Bring 2 1/2 quarts water to a rolling boil. Slip in the whole tomatoes and cook for 1 minute. Add the pasta and salt to the water and cook until it is al dente, or according to the directions on the pasta box. Drain the pasta and the tomatoes and reserve about 1/4 cup of the pasta cooking water. While the pasta is still dripping wet, transfer it along with the tomatoes to an individual serving dishes.
   
2. Use a fork to mash up the tomatoes, mixing them with the basil leaves. Add about 1 tablespoon of the reserved pasta water to each serving to moisten the pasta if necessary. Top with the olive oil and cheese and serve at once.

Oven-Fried Tilapia with Fennel Crust
Serves 4

The Mediterranean combination of fish and fennel is a marriage made in heaven, especially in this crunchy-crusted tilapia creation I originally invented for schoolchildren. Once introduced to their repertoire, it became one of the all-time favorites on the lunch menu—for children and adults alike, even among the less sophisticated eaters who thought they didn’t like fish.

1 1/4 cups bread crumbs or Panko
1 teaspoon freshly, finely ground fennel seeds
1/2 teaspoon crushed dried thyme
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil, or as needed
4 fresh tilapia fillets (about 2 pounds), each cut down the middle and sliced into a total of 6 pieces
4 tablespoons Dijon mustard

1. Preheat an oven to 200' F. Spread the bread crumbs out on a sheet pan and slide them onto the middle rack of the oven. Bake until faintly colored but not at all brown, about 7 minutes. Remove and cool.
2. Increase the oven temperature to 350' F. Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray.
3. In a shallow bowl, combine the bread crumbs with the herbs and the olive oil. Using a pastry brush, paint the fish pieces with a thin film of the mustard. Then coat each piece with the bread crumb mixture and transfer to the baking sheet, leaving plenty of room between each piece for heat to circulate around it.
4. Bake until cooked through but still moist and tender, about 10 minutes. (Note: Cooking time is accurate for small, cut-up fillet pieces. For larger pieces, cook longer.) Arrange 6 pieces of the fillets on each individual plate and serve at once.

Nonna Vera’s Sweet and Sour Carrots
Serves 4

Vera Erenbourg D’Angara was a Russian painter and actress who was the first lady of the Russian theater in Geneva at the turn of the last century. After the Russian revolution, she lost her fabulous wealth within three days and in 1918 was taken stateless and penniless to Rome by Anna Maria D’Annunzio. She was a gifted cook, and her granddaughter, my friend Anna Maria Erenbourg Weld, has kindly shared her recipes. Many, such as this lovely sweet-and-sour dish, are a combination of Russian and Italian cooking (also see Nonna Vera’s Tender and Crunchy Beef Medallions, page 133).

10 carrots
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 onions, thinly sliced
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

∆ TOP

1. Peel the carrots and cut off their tops. Slice them into 1/4-inch rounds.
2. In a skillet, warm the olive oil and butter together. Add the onions and carrots and 1/2 cup water. Cover and allow the carrots to cook over medium heat until tender and the water is evaporated, stirring frequently, about 30 minutes. Sprinkle with the sugar, salt, and vinegar. Continue to cook, uncovered, until the carrots and onions become caramelized, crisp at the edges, and cast with a mahogany sheen.
   Serve at once.