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contents
Preface
Romesco 00
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
The Peak of a Wave by Anna Dunn 00
Nettle Sauce 00
Sandwiches 00
Bowls —Soups, Egg Bowls, and Salad Bowls 00
Fresh Herb Mix 00
Chapter 1
Herb Butter 00
Introduction to Saltie 00
Salsa Verde 00 Yogurt Sauce 00 Homemade Yogurt 00
Alice Waters’ Spring Onion Sandwich 00 Walty 00 Clean Slate 00
S ou ps 0 0
Italian-American 00
E ggs 0 0
Curried Rabbit 00
Chilled Cucumber Soup with Yogurt and Coriander 00
Soft-Scrambled Eggs 00
The Famous Bun 00
Potato, Nettle, Ramp, and Pecorino Soup 00
Brigade de Cuisine: Staff, Heat, Space, and Necessary Tools 00
Sunny-Side Eggs Three Ways 00
Green Egg 00
Hard-Boiled Eggs 00
Ship’s Biscuit 00
Late-Summer Roasted Tomato Soup with Fregola and Kale 00
Notes on Key Ingredients 00
Pickled Eggs 00
The Town Ho 00
A Brief History of My Culinary Career and the Serendipitous Formation of Saltie by Caroline Fidanza 00
Chapter 2
Basics 00
Scuttlebutt 00 P i c k l es 0 0
Refrigerator Pickles 00 Dill Pickles 00
Spanish Armada 00 Henry Hudson 00 The Captain’s Daughter 00
Cauliflower, Leek, and Gruyere Soup 00 Ribollita 00 Curried Squash and Red Lentil Soup 00 Cock-a-Leekie 00 Beef Shin and Farro Soup 00
Romaine Dinghy 00
Cabbage, Celery Root, Smoked Pork Hock, and Bread Soup 00
East India Trade Chicken, a.k.a. Coronation Chicken 00
E gg B o w l s 0 0
Carrot Pickle 00
The Gam 00
Fried Rice with Scallions and Sesame Seeds 00
S preads , D ress i n gs , a n d S a u ces 0 0
Pickled Jalapeños 00
The Little Chef 00
Succotash 00
Mayonnaise 00
Currant Pickle 00
The Balmy 00
Papi Romesco 00
Curried Mayonnaise 00
Fermented Pickles 00
The Longshoreman 00
Kedgeree 00
Pimentón Aioli 00
Sauerkraut 00
The Meat Hook 00
Lazy Housewife Vinaigrette 00
Fermented Cucumber Pickles 00
Breads 0 0
Focaccia 00 Naan 00
Pesto and Pistou 00
Curried Pickled Green Tomatoes 00 Pickled Beets 00 Pickled Red Onions 00
con t . . .
: D D TE E N H IZ IO IG R T R HO BU PY T I O U TR C T A IS O D N R FO
contents
S a l ad B o w l s 0 0
Chocolate Brioche 00
Flageolets with Green Dressing and Butter Lettuce 00
Chocolate Mouse 00
Cranberry Beans with Charred Peppers and Mustard Greens 00 Dandelion Salad with Anchovy Vinaigrette and Croutons 00 Radishes and Chives with Yogurt and Baby Arugula 00
Chocolate-Rum Ice Cream 00 Chocolate and Focaccia Ice Cream Sandwich 00 Anise Hyssop Ice Cream 00 Anise Hyssop Floatilla with Rhubarb Cooler 00 Rose Meringues 00
Farro, Peas, and Leeks 00
Rose Meringues with Chocolate 00
Panzanella 00
Eton Mess 00
Salade Rapide 00
Candied Quince 00
Eggplant Salad with Sesame Seeds 00
Drinks 00
Peachy Salad 00 Chopped Salad of Romaine and Herbs 00
Chapter 5
Sweets and Drinks 00
Lass i 0 0
Cardamom and Honey Lassi 00 Saffron Lassi 00 Squash Lassi 00 Quince Lassi 00 Fruit Coolers 00 Rhubarb Hyssop 00
S w ee ts 00
Chocolate Nudge Cookies 00 The Adult Chip 00 Buckwheat–Black Olive Shortbread 00 Lavender Bars 00
Cantaloupe Cooler 00 Concord Grape Cooler 00 Cucumber Cooler 00 C h o c o l at e D r i n k s 0 0
Pâte Brisée 00
Hot Chocolate 00
Fruit Galette 00
Cold Chocolate for Mocha 00
Squashbuckling Pockets with Candied Pumpkin 00 Eccles Cakes 00 Olive Oil Cake 00 Brioche 00
Index
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Table of Equivalents
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: D D TE E N H IZ IO IG R T R HO BU PY T I O U TR C T A IS O D N R FO
Breads
Perhaps one of the things that distinguish the sandwiches at Saltie is the idea that they are not just sandwiches but in fact complete little meals on bread. Culinary microcosms. Staged experiences. Dioramas. When we developed them, we did it in the same way that we would a restaurant menu. Bread is just the delivery system. In our minds we weren’t opening a sandwich shop per se, but a little shop where we could serve the things we like to make and eat. The only real difference conceptually between this food and the food we’ve made anywhere else is the presence or absence of bread. Take away the bread and the Captain’s Daughter makes a perfect appetizer of sardines, pickled eggs, and salsa verde. The Scuttlebutt is a Greek salad. The Spanish Armada is lunch or a snack with a glass of rose. The Clean Slate is a mezze plate.
And although I may have just portrayed bread as expendable, we knew that the vehicle had to be equally as considered and distinctive as that which it transports. We knew immediately that we could not make sandwiches without making our own bread. We also wanted to get away from what have become standard sandwich breads like baguette or Pullman loaves. The bread we would choose would need to work well with anything that may come to rest between it. It needed to be special, adaptable and simple to produce. We settled on focaccia and naan.
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6¹⁄₄ cups all-purpose flour
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and yeast.
2 tablespoons kosher salt
Add the warm water to the flour mixture and stir with a
1 teaspoon active dry yeast
wooden spoon until all of the flour is incorporated and a sticky dough forms (no kneading required). Pour the
3¹⁄₂ cups warm water
¹⁄₄ cup olive oil into a X-quart plastic food container with
¹⁄₄ cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for greasing and drizzling
a tight-fitting lid. Transfer the focaccia dough to the plastic container, turn to coat, and cover tightly. Place in the refrigerator to rise for at least X hours or for up to 2 days.
Coarse sea salt
When you’re ready to bake, lightly oil an 18-byUGH
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8-10
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13-inch baking sheet. Remove the focaccia dough from
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the refrigerator and transfer to the prepared pan. Using your hands, spread the dough out on the prepared pan much as possible, adding oil to the dough as needed to keep it from sticking. Place the dough in a warm place and let rise until about doubled in bulk. The rising time will vary considerably depending on the season. (In the summer, it may only take 20 minutes for the dough to warm up and rise; in the winter it can take an hour or more.) When the dough is ready, it should be room temperature, spread out on the sheet, and fluffy feeling. Preheat the oven to 450°F. con t . . .
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Focaccia
Focaccia is the bread that we use for most of the sandwiches at Saltie. The reasons for choosing this soft-butchewy classic Italian yeast bread were equally pragmatic and delicious. We considered what we could reasonably produce and decided a bread that we could make on a baking sheet would be much more economical in terms of time and space than one that required more individual attention. As has been the case with many of our choices at Saltie, landing on focaccia may have seemed the solution to how to do something in the best and most efficient way at first, but it quickly became the fact-of-the-matter only possible choice that it is today. Now, I can’t imagine life without focaccia. Its fluffy, oily welcome cheers me daily.
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tions in the dough with your fingertips. Dimple the entire dough and then drizzle the whole thing again with olive oil. Sprinkle the entire surface of the focaccia evenly with sea salt. Bake, rotating once front to back, until the top is uniformly golden brown, 10–15 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool, then turn out of the pan. Use right away or wrap tightly in plastic wrap and store at room temperature for up to 1 day. Note: Unfortunately, focaccia suffers a rapid and signi-
ficant deterioration in quality after baking. It is also impossible to make bread crumbs with. Your best solution if in the focaccia mood and you have leftovers: Invite a lot of people over! (Or bake off a smaller quantity; remember, the dough keeps for a couple days.) Note: This easy recipe calls for a large plastic food-
storage container, about a X-quart capacity, with a tight-fitting lid. Otherwise, you can use a large mixing bowl and cover the dough with plastic wrap.
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Pat down the focaccia to an even thickness of about X inch on the baking sheet tray and begin to make indenta-
Naan 2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, salt, and baking
³⁄₄ cup whole-grain spelt flour
a wooden spoon. When the dough becomes too stiff to
powder. Add the buttermilk and stir it into the flour with mix with a spoon, dust your hands with flour and knead
1 teaspoon kosher salt ¹⁄₂ teaspoon baking powder 1¹⁄₃ cups buttermilk or yogurt Extra-virgin olive oil for frying
the dough in the bowl until the dry and wet ingredients are thoroughly incorporated. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a clean kitchen towel and refrigerate the dough for at least 1 hour and up to 2 days. When you’re ready to serve, remove the dough from the refrigerator, dust your work surface liberally with flour,
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and portion the naan dough into 3¹⁄₂–4-ounce balls (use R
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a scale, or alternatively, make balls that are roughly 2¹⁄₂ inches in diameter). This dough will be very sticky—
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don’t be afraid to use a lot of flour to handle it. Roll out each dough ball into a circle about 7 inches in diameter. Heat a dry cast-iron skillet over high heat until smoking. Drizzle 1 tablespoon olive oil around the skillet. Pick up a naan, stretch it out a bit more [and give it an oval shape], shake off any excess flour, and place it in the skillet. When the naan starts to bubble, after about 1 minute, drizzle another tablespoon of olive oil over the surface and use tongs or a metal spatula to flip it. The first side should be deep brown, even charred. Cook until golden, 1–2 minutes longer. Transfer to a plate and keep warm in a low oven while you fry the rest of the naan. Serve warm. Wrap any leftover naan in plastic wrap for up to 2 days. Reheat in a 350°F oven until warm. saltie
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Whenever I am cooking this naan in a cast-iron skillet, I have to fight the urge to eat one right then and there. It kind of drives me crazy. And not just because it’s delicious—far from exotic or complicated, naan is so easy to make, it seems a shame to me that chances are most people, even avid cooks, will never try. Making naan is not like making bread. It’s quick, easy, and fun. You can mix it by hand and it’s ready in a flash. It smells great, tastes great, and is a wonderful complement to just about anything.
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Green Egg
Nettle Sauce, sunny-side egg, pecorino 1 sandwich-sized piece of Focaccia (page XX)
Cut the bread in half horizontally. Put the bottom on a plate, cut side up, and set the top aside. Heat a nonstick skillet and fry the egg sunny side
1 large egg 3 tablespoons Nettle Sauce (page XX), or more as desired Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
the bread. sea salt lightly over all. Shave the pecorino over the egg and finish with grindings of black pepper. Serve right way, open faced, placing the top piece of the foccacia on the side to dip in the egg and sauce.
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sauce generously on (and overflowing) the bottom half of Place the egg on top of the nettle sauce and sprinkle
1 small piece (about 1 ounce) pecorino toscano cheese, preferably 30-day aged K MA ES
(see pages XX–XX). When the egg is cooked, spread the
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It’s hard to fall in love with nettles, especially when they’re all that God or Guy Jones has to give you. Nettles may be the first green to arrive each year, but each year, you are faced with having to coax them from their prickly, earthy constitution. But when we came up with this dish, I did fall in love with them. This combination brings out their bright green, earthy, minerality and natural sweetness. This is something I think of more as an egg dish than a sandwich. It’s not something that you can pick up with your hands and eat. This sandwich is meant to be eaten with a knife and fork, so be generous with the sauce; it can and should pour over onto the plate.
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—Elizabeth David
We knew we wanted to have an egg sandwich on the menu and that it should be as simple as an egg sandwich that you get at a diner or even a bodega. While in the recipe testing phase for the focaccia, we decided to make egg sandwiches for ourselves for breakfast. The only cheese in the house was ricotta. A revelation. There’s not much to this sandwich but it is creamy, light, and luxurious. The two important things here are the ricotta and the egg technique. It’s not always easy to find good fresh ricotta. We use Calabro, made in East Haven, Connecticut. I have seen Calabro ricotta here and there in local retail markets. The ricotta available commercially on a national level is not very good. It’s dry and grainy. If you can find a ricotta that is still a little wet, that’s the best choice. Any good Italian market should have something better than what’s available in the supermarket. It’s also really easy to make your own ricotta (see box).
Ship’s Biscuit
Soft-scrambled eggs, fresh ricotta 1 sandwich-sized piece of Focaccia (page XX)
Cut the focaccia in half horizontally and put the bottom
About 2 tablespoons fresh ricotta
and generous layer on the cut side . Set aside.
2 large eggs
page XX).
half on a plate, cut side up. Spread the ricotta in an even Soft-scramble the eggs with a pinch of sea salt (see Spoon the eggs on top of the ricotta. Replace the
Coarse sea salt
top of the bread and serve right away. •
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“What one wants is the taste of the fresh eggs and the fresh butter . . . It should not be a busy, important urban dish but something gentle and pastoral, with the clean scent of the dairy, the kitchen garden . . .”
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