Recipes Featuring Peperoncino Flakes
View all 10Winter Minestrone
As with my Summer Minestrone, think of this recipe as a template for any hearty winter vegetable soup. You can vary the dried beans and include other vegetables- such as leeks, potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnips or rutabaga, parsnips, or myriad winter greens, like escarole, spinach, and chard.
Italian
Penne Rigate with Sausage, Mushrooms, and Ricotta
This recipe will become a regular request from your family and guests. It is often known as boscaiola, or “of the forest,” because of the earthy mushrooms in the sauce. Definitely one of Tanya’s favorites, this dish spent many years on the menu of my restaurants. On cold winter nights in New York City, when Tanya and her teenage friends had no other place to go, I would serve them this pasta followed by hot chocolate in our private dining room. I loved seeing them so full, chatty, and happy. It is easy to assemble, flavorful, and filling.
Italian
Tomato Soup with Fregola and Clams
There is not one person in my family who does not adore clams, and we eat them in a variety of ways. Stuffed clams are great for an appetizer; a big pot of clams sautéed with some onions and seasonings can make a whole meal as you pick through, enjoying the juices and slurping down the clams. As a young girl, I would go to the sea and collect clams, mostly cockles and smaller clams than what are seen in America today. This soup has also become one of our family’s favorite ways to enjoy clams. Tomato soup is a popular soup in America, but here is an Italian rendition that can be a main course. Though I have added clams, it can be made with mussels, shrimps, scallops, or even mixed seafood; just mind the cooking time that each requires. Fregola comes in different sizes. I use large ones here, but if yours are smaller, start checking for doneness after 10 minutes. You can leave a few clams in their shells for an attractive presentation, as I do here, or remove them all.
Italian
Cream of Fava Soup with Rice
Mostly, one thinks of favas as the puffy green pod with the fava bean in it. Well, just as all beans get dried and saved for off-season cooking, so do favas. Shelled and dried, they behave like dried peas when cooked, disintegrating and making a delicious and dense soup. When I was a little girl, it was part of my job to help Nonna Rosa pull the beans out of the pods and lay them on mats for drying so she could make rich winter soups. In my own kitchen, this was a job my mother, Erminia, took very seriously, and she would patiently sit at our kitchen table for hours, pulling beans out of pods, sometimes singing an old Italian song as she proceeded. Since the favas you use here are peeled and split before drying, you do not have to soak them as long as other dried beans—3 hours is fine. You can soak them overnight if you prefer; just be aware that the cooking time on the soup will be a little less. You can make this soup ahead, but add rice only to the portion you want to serve right away.
Italian
Butternut Squash and Cannellini Beans
Beans are great by themselves as well as being an excellent complement to vegetables or proteins. I like these kinds of side dishes because in one pot you have the legumes and the vegetables. Here the beans and squash are sweet; the tartness and complexity of the balsamic reduction balances them out. I usually toast up two slices of bread and use them to accompany this dish and to sop up any juices.
Italian
Summer Minestrone
This soup is meant to showcase the vegetables of summer, so feel free to vary, based on what is good at your farmers’ market – green beans, yellow squash, or even a handful of cherry tomatoes would be a wonderful addition here. If you’re starting with favas in the pod, you’ll need about 4 pounds or so to get the yield below. But don’t worry- make it a family affair and you’ll have them shucked and peeled in no time.
Italian