Almost Italian

Here is a dish whose whole vastly exceeds the sum of its parts. Unassuming in its simplicity, cudduruni appeases the appetite until the serving of a more substantial meal. It’s a favorite at Christmas and Easter. But in our opinion, it’s too delicious—and too easy—to save for only those occasions.

Slices of Cudduruni
Copyright © 2009, Skip Lombardi

So as you plan your Superbowl menu, take a page from the Almost Italian playbook. Excerpted from our new book Almost Italian: A Cookbook & History of Italian Food in America, this recipe for cudduruni should give you the courage to say “NO” to game-day interruptions by franchise pizza chain delivery boys. Although it’s hard to resist eating this treat hot out of the oven, most Sicilians prefer cudduruni at room temperature.

Èccolo! Here’s the perfect football food. Sometimes known as “pizza strips*,” cudduruni, shares some of the characteristics of deep-dish pizza and focaccia. Nonetheless, it really is distinct from anything else in Sicilian-American cooking.

With its Sicilian pedigree, we think a sheet pan of cudduruni could well be the most diplomatic way to feed Superbowl XLVII fans and honor the contending teams. Hailing from San Francisco and Baltimore, two cities with large populations of southern Italian descent, The 49ers and The Ravens will be playing in the Big Easy, whose French Quarter was once so solidly Sicilian that it was known as Little Palermo!

Cudduruni, fresh from the oven
Copyright © 2009, Skip Lombardi

Among the qualities that distinguish cudduruni are:

• Cudduruni is always baked in a pan, even if it goes into a wood-fired oven.
• The cheese topping, if any, is parmesan or romano. Never mozzarella. (If cheese were ever incorporated in the Old World Sicilian version, it would have been the sheep’s milk pecorino of the Italian South.)
• The “sauce” is no more than canned, crushed tomatoes in a heavy purée. (Some families did use strattu, the sun-dried tomato conserve many southern Italian-Americans made at home.)

Nearly every Little Italy bakery in New England once produced some version of cudduruni. Traditionally available only on Saturday morning, the treat was typically just a slab of dough spread with the requisite olive oil, tomato purée, and parmesan. (The Palmieri Bakery in Providence, Rhode Island, still offers their brilliantly simple, cheeseless version.) A few establishments added sliced garlic or dried oregano to the topping, while a handful went all out in their expression of abbondanza by tossing on ground beef, sausage, or anchovies before the pan went into the oven.

Skip recalls-

Our recipe here is a little more conservative with the oil. By using parchment paper, we have an easier clean-up and still get that delicious, baked-with-olive-oil flavor.

Cudduruni

Ingredients:

1 Lb. Pizza dough at room temperature
2 – 3 Tbs. Olive oil
1 1/2 Cups crushed tomatoes in heavy purée
1 tsp. Crushed red pepper flakes (peperoncini)
1/2 Cup freshly grated parmesan or romano cheese

Preparation:

Use a baking dish or heavy sheet pan at least 9 x 14 inches. Cut a sheet of parchment paper large enough cover the bottom and sides of the pan. (It’s okay if the paper sticks up a little above the sides.) Fit the paper into the pan and set it aside.
Preheat the oven to 375 F.

If you’re using parchment paper, lightly flour the dough, then stretch and roll it out to approximately the size of your pan. Place the rolled-out dough into the pan and stretch it to meet the sides.

If you’re not using parchment, lightly coat the bottom of a sheet pan with olive oil. Place the dough in the center of the sheet pan, then press and stretch to flatten the dough to fill the pan.

Coat the top of the dough with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. Then, using a large spoon or ladle, spread the crushed tomatoes over the oiled dough.

Sprinkle the red pepper flakes and grated cheese evenly over the tomatoes.

Bake for approximately 40 minutes in the middle of the preheated oven.

Serves a sofa-full of fans.

Anche un po di vino va bene
Copyright © 2009, Skip Lombardi

Trust us: cudduruni really IS delicious at room temperature, and in our opinion, that makes it ideal football fare.**

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Caponata— a medley of eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, olives, raisins, garlic, onion, and capers— has long been a favorite in the Sicilian communities of New England. Usually spread on crostini and served at room-temperature as an appetizer, caponata is equally delicious as a side dish or even as a condimento over short pasta.

Final Harvest: Assorted Eggplants and Peppers for Caponata
Copyright © 2012, Skip Lombardi

At first glance, all the caponata components appear to be quintessentially Mediterranean. However, that’s not the whole story. Some claim caponata is an ancient dish, that its agro-dolce (sweet and sour) combination of vinegar and raisins pegs it as Roman or medieval. Many give the peripatetic Arabs a nod, not only for introducing the Southeast Asian eggplant around the Mediterranean, but also for mixing sweet with savory, a Persian tradition which Arabs brought to the Sicilian melting-pot. However, New World peppers (Capsicum sp.) as well as another tart-sweet ingredient, the tomato, weren’t widely consumed in southern Italy until the 18th century. Thus, caponata, as we make it today, seems to have fairly recent origins, though it boasts botanical ancestry that reaches from Central America to Indochina. But no matter where it’s made, we deem caponata a hybrid, and thus, “Almost Italian.”

Our investigation of the word “caponata” has lead us to think that the “capon—” of caponata has the same origin as the “cappon” of the luxurious northern Italian Cappon Magro, in which “cappon” proclaims that, even if the dish is meatless, it offers rich flavors. Both preparations seem to take their names from the verb caponare, which means “to neuter.”

In Volume I of our book, Almost Italian, we emphasized how infrequently most Old World Italians consumed poultry. However, one bird, the fattened capon (a neutered rooster), did star in the holiday feasts of the wealthy. Genoese bankers and shipping magnates enjoyed their grain-fed, barnyard fowl while families whose protein was at the mercy and whims of the sea also called their holiday catch, with more than a little tongue-in-cheek, “cappon.” Today, Ligurians proudly serve their elaborate seafood and vegetable salad known as Cappon Magro, which translates as “Lean Capon” an oxymoron that exemplifies Italian gastronomic humor.

In times and places where most who could afford to eat meat invariably would, a main dish without flesh could be considered lacking. Fortunately, necessity and wishful thinking have inspired scores of delectable Mediterranean main dishes based on “meaty” eggplant.

Caponata
Copyright © 2012, Skip Lombardi

In the interest of leaving nothing, meaty or not, for the omnivorous raccoons, our favorite aunt recently plucked every last pepper and eggplant from her Cape Cod garden. It was a clear mandate for caponata, which we served as a main dish, over pasta.

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon peperoncino(crushed red pepper flakes)
1/2 teaspoon coarsely ground plack pepper
4 cloves garlic, peeled and thinly sliced
1 bay leaf
1 medium onion, peeled and thinly sliced
1 1/4 pounds eggplant (1 large or assorted smaller fruits), cut into 1-inch cubes
2 medium bell peppers, cored and cut into 3/4-inch chunks
2 stalks celery, thinly sliced
1/4 pound green olives, pits removed
3 tablespoons capers, drained
1 Cup Italian plum tomatoes, roughly chopped*
3 tablespoons flat-leaf Italian parsley, finely chopped
1/4 Cup red wine vinegar
1/2 Cup seedless raisins

2 tablespoons flat-leaf Italian parsley, finely chopped
2 tablespoons fresh spearmint, finely chopped

*You may use either canned or fresh plum tomatoes

Garnish:
Extra virgin olive oil, to drizzle
More chopped parsley and mint, to taste

Preparation:

In a large sauté pan, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Add the peperoncino, freshly ground black pepper, garlic, bay leaf, and onions. Cook, stirring often, until the onions have wilted.

Add the eggplant, bell peppers, and celery and stir to coat with the oil. Season with salt and cover. Sweat the vegetables for 5 – 6 minutes, until the eggplant has softened slightly.

Add the olives, capers, tomatoes and 3 tablespoons of the parsley. Stir to combine and reduce the heat to medium-low. Partially cover the pan and simmer for approximately 15 minutes. There should be enough liquid from the vegetables to keep the mixture from sticking; if necessary, add a couple of tablespoons of water.

Uncover the pan and stir in the vinegar and raisins. Cover the pan completely, turn the heat to low, and cook for approximately 15 minutes more, or until the vegetables are thoroughly softened, but still separate and intact, not mushy.

Turn off the heat and uncover the pan to allow the caponata to cool. When it is lukewarm, remove the bay leaf and stir in the remaining parsley and fresh mint. Taste for salt.

Makes 5-6 cups of caponata.

To serve as a spread or side dish:

Drizzle with a little extra virgin olive oil and garnish with additional chopped mint and parsley.

To serve tossed with pasta:

Allow 1/2 to 3/4 cup of caponata for each serving of short pasta. Chunky caponata complements gemelli, penne, ziti, or our choice— farfalle (also known as bow-ties). Enjoy Pasta con Caponata warm or at room temperature. Finish each portion with a drizzle of flavorful oil and a sprinkling of fresh herbs.

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