I have had the recent good fortune to receive several choice cookbooks from my loving family. The largest and most imposing is called The Silver Spoon. At least that’s what it’s called in English as it has been only published in Italian for the last fifty-five years. The thing is immense and intimidating and of Biblical proportions, but man it sure looks fun.
It is a virtually inexhaustible repository of traditional, family-style, basic, delicious, Italian dishes- weighing in at two-thousand recipes and change. It seems to cover every vegetable, meat, fish, pasta, and grain and throws in a few that I’ve never heard of for good measure. It’s almost as if Italians have had a multi-millennial long history of cooking and cooking well. Wait. Anyway, it’s an amazing cookbook.
For my first foray into its’ deep and imposing innards, I chose two dishes; a simple but intriguing combination of braised lettuce with green peas and a nifty number called Eggs in their Nests.
The peas and lettuce are pretty much just that. Sauté a little scallion and then add a chopped lettuce and four or five cups of peas. Pour in enough boiling water to come about halfway up and season to taste. Simmer for 20-30 minutes. Delicate and yummy. Lettuce, much like flat leaf parsley is way under appreciated.
Eggs in Nests are just as easy if more on the cute side. Basically, you make some loose mashed potatoes of whatever flavor you want (we went garlic, thyme, and parmesan) and mix in an egg. Then use a pastry bag or zip lock minus one corner to pipe the mash into a spiral base with a few higher supporting rings on top. Geez that sounds kinda complicated, but trust me it’s easy.
Pop the potato volcanoes into the oven at 350˚F for about 20 minutes until they’re brown all over. Just before you take them out, scramble up some soft, savory eggs and use them to stuff the hollow spud receptacles when you pull them out of the oven. Top it with pepper or pepper oil or regular olive oil or any herb or sauce of your liking. Eat!
All in all I was quite pleased with the outcome. Next time I might break a raw egg into the nests a few minutes before the end of cooking, then finish it off under the broiler. More yolk makes me happy.
Well, this was a great intro into a fantastic book and now that I’ve up and broke the ice I suspect I’ll be working my way through this culinary behemoth for quite some pleasurable time. Look for more num-nums to come.
-M. Pants
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