Pizza rolls are a very popular street food and this tear-and-share traybake makes a great and always welcome addition to an informal dinner buffet, a picnic or a kids’ birthday party.
Common fillings include the usual tomato sauce, mozzarella and often ham; however, this recipe uses one of my favourite combinations based on ripe red sweet peppers and onions. The vegetables are simmered before being blended to a cream: the cooking brings out their sweetness and makes them easier to digest. The creamed filling also makes a delicious dipping sauce, so don’t throw away any leftovers!
My mother got this recipe from her friend Judy, a Korean woman who immigrated to Argentina before making her way to the States. Judy’s empanadas are like grown-up hot pockets, neatly packaged meals of tomato-y beef, melty cheese, hard-boiled egg, and a single olive tucked into each like in a dirty martini (which makes all the difference). Stored in the freezer, they feed the family happily throughout the holiday season.
For the best marinated olives recipe, we started with good brined olives that still contain their pits, which have a better flavor than pitted olives. For the marinade, we started with a base of olive oil and added garlic, herbs like thyme, and red pepper flakes. In addition to these basics, we liked thinly sliced shallots, which softened in the mixture and contributed their welcome allium bite, and grated orange zest for a lively citrus kick. The real surprise in our marinated olives recipe came when we added a splash of anise-flavored (or Pernod), which enhanced all the other flavors.
Attend a festival in Le Marche, and you may sample one of the greatest snacks you’ll ever have: olive all’ascolana. Crisp-coated, salty fried olives stuffed with a rich meat filling are a culinary marvel of taste and texture that originated in the town of Ascoli Piceno. We just had to try making these delightful bites, but we suspected it might be a challenge—after all, we’d have to figure out how to pit and stuff an olive! We tried starting with pitted olives as a short-cut, but found them lacking in color, texture, and overall olive flavor. Instead we used large, mild-flavored Cerignola olives, which are easy to find in delis and prepared food places. To remove the pits, we left the olive flesh in one piece, slicing down one side of the olive and cutting around the pit with a paring knife as if we were peeling an apple. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the process went quickly after we got used to pitting the first few. With these olives, the filling shares the spotlight, and we found a lot of impractical recipes calling for a menagerie of meat scraps or specialty cuts. We started with ground pork; while uninspiring by itself, additions of prosciutto, sautéed carrot, and shallot built beautiful layers of flavor. A little nutmeg provided the classic warm spice and aroma, while wine added brightness. One large yolk and Parmigiano gave the filling richness and a creamy texture. We prefer to use Cerignola olives, but other large brine-cured green olives will work, too. To allow for practice, the recipe calls for extra olives.
I always feel like I’m the last one to pick up my kids from school, probably because I always think that I have more time than I actually do or that I can get from A to B faster than I really can. Copenhagen’s Torvehallerne Market is practically next door to the school, and I stop in just about every day before picking them up. Of course, once I’m there I have to get a coffee, and then I bump into a friend and stop to chat for what seems like only a minute, and all of a sudden time has gotten away from me and I know I’ll only have a half-hour to cook dinner when we get home. Fortunately, this baked fish takes even less time than that. It’s a go-to for busy weeknights.
Piquillo peppers, descendants of Peru’s chile de arbol, require a long, hot, dry growing season, which fits Sonoma’s Dry Creek Valley to a T. Gardeners and farmers get their piquillo pepper seeds from the Chile Pepper Institute at New Mexico State University or online from Peppermania. Piquillos are not edible raw; instead, they’re smoke-roasted over wood and then packed in brine in jars or cans. If you grow piquillos, simply smoke-roast them until they’re done. Banana peppers are a good substitute for the piquillo peppers, too.
If you are one of the many people who have only tried cooked beets, be prepared to fall in love. The secret to the tastiest raw beets is to cut them very thinly.
Making empanadas is a labor of love. The recipe for our pint-size version, which streamlines the process by calling for store-bought pie dough, can also be assembled ahead of time and baked just before serving
It packs a punch, it includes my beloved cilantro, and is so hot it makes you reach for a beer. I make it a lot to go with lamb as well as chicken.
When I visited A Bolota, a lovely restaurant perched on the sweeping plains of the eastern Alentejo, this dip, called pate de azeitonas verdes, was brought to our table. As I nattered away with friends, I dipped, spread, and nibbled, until I realized I alone had eaten all of it. Later, when I became friendly with the cook, Ilda Vinagre, I watched her make it and was flummoxed when she whipped up its silky base: milk “mayonnaise”—whole milk whirred into a smooth consistency with the addition of vegetable oil. I serve this as a dip with a platter of crudites, alongside crackers or bread, or, sometimes, as a topping for grilled fish.—David Leite