Squint at this dish of roasted okra with guanciale and peppers and you might mistake it for an Italian bagna cauda. Except that okra doesn’t register on Italian culinary radar. Which is not to say that it can’t work with an Italian sensibility. Think of this as American trying on an Italian sport coat. Unexpectedly, …
Tag Archives: anchovies
Contorni – Whole Roasted Cauliflower with Mushrooms, Anchovies and Tomatoes
Vegetables never ranked high in my juvenile estimation, and cauliflower occupied a particularly low rung on the ladder, beneath broccoli but definitely above rutabegas. Everybody behaved as though cauliflower were a deviant vegetable, safely edible only after an extended baptism in a volcanic bath to exorcise its cruciferous demons. This reduced it to a watery, …
Swiss Chard Tart with Gruyère and Anchovies
Ceci n’est pas une quiche. It’s a Swiss Chard Tart with Gruyère and Anchovies. Quiche sounds so seventies, like the ubiquitous anonymous “white wine” that came into vogue as an alternative to cocktails during the same culinary epoch. Boring. White. Food. But a tart, a tart can play. Sweet or savory, rich or light, it has no rules beyond the obligatory crust, and inclination to use whatever looks good in the market that day. And what looked good to us was the Swiss chard. So, yes, this is a savory custard tart, but it’s really about the chard. Oh, and the anchovies. The tart doesn’t taste like anchovies–it tastes like chard, with cream and cheese, and something salty and elusively delicious in the background.