Rustic Italian : Fresh produce. Grilled meat. Seasonal ingredients. Two native Los Angeles chefs bring home the robust flavor of simple country cooking.
Food is so important to people in Italy. They have a really intense relationship with it, as if it were a person. --EVAN KLEIMAN
California cuisine started in France and began a gradual glide toward Italy.
In the early ‘70s, when American food began to change, we looked to France for inspiration. Alice Waters started Chez Panisse in Northern California as an attempt to recapture the flavor of the foods she had eaten in France; even her menus were written in French. In Southern California, Michael McCarty employed California chefs and California ingredients, but what he was cooking was nouvelle cuisine. As with Waters, the French were his inspiration, and like Waters, his early menus were written in French.
Then Wolfgang Puck came along and gave his restaurant an Italian name (Spago, the word that spaghetti comes from, means “string” in Italian), but Italy wasn’t really on his mind. He was a thoroughly French-trained chef, and the model for his pizza parlor was a Provencal pizza place called Chez Gu, which was frequented by celebrities in the South of France. His food, like that in all of the early emporiums of California cuisine, leaned towards France.
But something happened in the middle of the food revolution: our tastes changed. Simplicity became the hallmark of California cooking. We began to crave fresh clear flavors, to favor grilling over slow-cooking, to replace the richness of butter with the strength of olive oil. Sauces started to disappear; pasta became paramount. We wanted food that fit into the lives we were leading and that didn’t have a lot to do with France. Suddenly French food seemed too rich, too fussy, too contrived. For the first time Americans trusted their own taste; we began to look for the sort of food that we really wanted to eat. All at once we were looking across France and straight into Italy.
Restaurants that had been resolutely French suddenly had pasta on their menus. Nine out of ten restaurants that opened in Southern California were Italian. Chez Panisse shifted from a chef named Moulle to one named Bertolli. Spago’s former head chef opened a restaurant with an Italian name (Campanile) that actually featured rustic Italian food. Italian wine became suddenly chic.
It couldn’t have happened soon enough for Viana La Place and Evan Kleiman. Both had been passionate about food--Italian food--for years. “I grew up in Covina,” La Place says, “but mine was the first generation in my family to do so. My parents grew up in Sicily. They took me on a visit to Sicily when I was a kid, and I never forgot all those tastes and smells. I used to dream about them.” She dreamed all through her years at UC Berkeley while she studied painting. Finally the pull of cooking became too strong to resist.
Much the same thing happened to Evan Kleiman, who earned a master’s degree in business administration but found that she had no interest in a traditional career. The work bored her. “I’d always been really interested in food, but I’d always had an uncomfortable sense around ‘gourmetness,’ around what I perceived to be food snobbery. When I went to Italy, the places I ended up eating in every night were trattoria. I’m still that way; I do go to fine dining places, but for me the best food is in the little places.”
And it was at a little place that La Place and Kleiman first met. “In 1981 we were both cooking at Mangia in West Los Angeles,” La Place says. (Mangia was on the site now occupied by Primi.) “All sorts of new ingredients were becoming available. We started experimenting with fresh herbs. I think it was a really important place.”
Los Angeles, of course, had had Italian restaurants. But they were, for the most part, serving the rich, old-style, tomato-based cooking of the spaghetti-and-meat-sauce school. Mangia was different.
“My first job,” La Place says, “was cleaning a mountain of fresh basil. It was so intense that tears were streaming down my face. The experience was overwhelming.”
Mangia itself was soon overwhelmed. Within a couple of months the place, which began as a small Italian deli offering beautiful salads and antipasti to take out, became so popular that it started serving entire meals. Los Angeles was in love with Mangia. Fresh , light , subtle are the words you read over and over in the restaurant’s first reviews.
In 1982 Kleiman was hired to be head chef at another new Italian restaurant, Verdi. La Place went with her. The food there was even more stripped down than Mangia’s. In her review Times critic Lois Dwan called the food austere, characterizing the style of cooking as “sophisticated simplicity.” The food had almost no sauces; it depended on good ingredients and strong flavors for its punch.
And then in 1984 Kleiman opened Angeli. It was the sort of simple trattoria that she loved--and it changed the Italian food scene in Los Angeles. Angeli was a small, spare place serving pizzas whose punch came more from the lightness of the crust than the intensity of the toppings. Pasta was tossed with just a bit of sauce. The restaurant baked its own bread for the sandwiches, served a perfectly plain roast chicken--and was instantly packed. Italians came to eat and said that the food tasted like the food in Italy. Few restaurants (with the exception of Spago) have been more copied; today almost no neighborhood in Southern California is without a trattoria. For the first time Los Angeles had simple, straightforward, rustic Italian food--at affordable prices.
But it was their first cookbook, “Cucina Fresca,” published in 1985, that really put La Place and Kleiman on the map. “One of the most exciting cookbooks we’ve read,” Food and Wine magazine gushed. And no wonder: the book offered dozens of really simple recipes for dishes that could be served at room temperature.
That book was followed in 1988 by “Pasta Fresca,” which concentrated on interesting and unusual pasta dishes. (One recipe, pasta with fresh tuna, has become a standard in my family kitchen. It’s everything you want a dish to be: fresh, delicious, unusual, easy to make.)
Now their third book, “Cucina Rustica,” has appeared. The book is bigger and more complete than either of the other books. “It’s more expressive of our style,” Kleiman says. “It’s got a little bit of everything we love.” There are chapters on salads, soups, polenta, vegetables, meat, fish and desserts. If anything, the recipes are even more relaxed than those in their previous books.
“This style of cooking,” they say, “represents a return to basic, almost primitive pleasures.” They write about coarse bread, tender lettuces, grilled meats and fish. They wax enthusiastic about the pleasures of fresh vegetables. They discuss a healthful style of eating.
Reading it, you can’t help thinking that what they are talking about is pretty much what we have come to think of as California Cuisine.
Styled by Donna Deane
Insalata Siciliana
This Sicilian salad of obvious Moroccan influence has extraordinary color and taste that contrast the sweet juiciness of navel oranges with pungent black olives and the sharp bite of red onion. Perfect and refreshing for a tired summer palate. If you can find tarocchi, blood oranges, use them for this dish.
INSALATA SICILIANA
4 navel or blood oranges
1 very small or 1/2 large red onion
1/4 cup Moroccan oil-cured olives
1 to 2 fresh red chiles, seeded and finely minced, or 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
Coarse salt
Extra-virgin olive oil
Peel oranges, removing all white pith. Slice. Cut onion into paper-thin slices.
Arrange orange slices in circular pattern on flat serving platter. Scatter onion slices, olives and minced chiles over oranges. Season to taste with salt and drizzle olive oil over all. Makes 4 to 6 servings.
Zuppa di Pesce
There are few dishes easier to prepare that have such a visual impact at the table. Presented in a beautiful white or terra-cotta bowl, the black mussels, earthy gray-brown clams and delicate pink shrimp look beautiful floating in a fragrant broth redolent of the sea.
Use whatever shellfish and/or fish is available , varying the combinations each time you make this recipe. The soup is most flavorful when it is made with unshelled shrimp and very small whole fish or crosswised slices of larger fish. If you wish a soup that is easier to eat, it’s OK to first shell the shrimp and use large pieces of fish fillets. This soup takes only minutes to cook, so be careful not to overcook the ingredients.
ZUPPA DI PESCE
1 pound small clams
1/2 pound mussels
1 pound squid
Extra-virgin olive oil
6 cloves garlic, sliced
2 dashes red pepper flakes
1/4 cup tomato paste
1 cup water
20 large shrimp, left whole or shelled and deveined
1 pound fish (swordfish, tuna, sea bass), cut into large chunks
3 cups Brodo di Pesce
3/4 cup chopped Italian parsley
Crostini
To clean clams, soak well in large bowl or sink of heavily salted water at least 15 minutes. Lift clams out of water and rinse under cold running water. Repeat soaking and rinsing procedures.
To clean mussels, scrub well under cold running water. Remove all traces of grit. Remove beard by moving back and forth. Discard any open or cracked shells.
To clean squid, carefully pull head and tentacles from body sac. Cut tentacles above eyes. Pop out little ball or beak in center of tentacles and discard along with innards. Pull out quill-shaped bone in body sac and discard. Peel off skin. Thoroughly rinse interior of body and tentacles. Drain. Cut into 1/4-inch rings.
Pour enough olive oil in large heavy skillet to cover bottom by 1/4 inch. Add garlic and red pepper flakes and cook few seconds. Add tomato paste diluted with water and cook 2 minutes.
Add clams, mussels and shrimp (if still in the shell). Cover skillet and cook briefly over high heat, just until shells open. Add squid, shrimp (if shelled), fish, Brodo di Pesce and parsley and cook over low heat until fish and shrimp are tender. Serve soup in large individual bowls over Crostini. Makes 6 to 8 servings.
Brodo di Pesce
12 mussels
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 onion, peeled and coarsely chopped
1 fennel bulb with stalks, coarsely chopped
1 stalk celery, coarsely chopped
1 large carrot, coarsely chopped
1 large leek, coarsely chopped
1 tomato, diced
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 bay leaves
3/4 cup coarsely chopped Italian parsley
10 black peppercorns
5 pounds fish bones
1/2 cup dry white wine
Juice of 1 lemon
3 quarts water
Scrub mussels under cold running water. Discard any open or cracked shells. Set aside.
Heat olive oil in large stockpot. Add onion, fennel, celery, carrot, leek, tomato, garlic, bay leaves, parsley and peppercorns and saute over moderate heat about 5 minutes or until vegetables begin to wilt.
Add fish bones and cook about 8 minutes, or until any flesh remaining on bones turns white. Make certain all sides of bones are cooked.
Add mussels to stockpot and cook 2 minutes. Add white wine to deglaze pan and cook over high heat until alcohol evaporates. Add lemon juice and water. Bring to simmer and cook gently 20 minutes. Strain broth. Makes 3 quarts.
Crostini
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
4 cloves garlic
1 baguette, sliced
Heat olive oil in skillet. Add garlic and cook gently over low heat until aroma is released. Add bread slices and saute until golden on 1 side, then turn each slice and saute other side.
Budino di Ricotta
This lovely pudding with the delicate, milky taste of ricotta is served with a simple raspberry puree. The scarlet of the raspberries is a striking contrast to the snowy white pudding.
BUDINO DI RICOTTA
2 pounds ricotta
Butter
1 egg yolk
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons lemon zest
3 egg whites
Dash salt
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
Place ricotta in cheesecloth or muslin-lined strainer and set over sink. Let drain overnight.
Butter medium-sized loaf pan. Set aside. Prepare water bath by half filling rectangular baking pan with water. Loaf pan containing pudding will be placed in pan to bake evenly and gently.
Process or beat ricotta, egg yolk, sugar, vanilla, almond extract and cinnamon in food processor or with electric mixer until very smooth and light. Add lemon zest. Transfer to large mixing bowl.
Whip egg whites with salt and cream of tartar until stiff. Beat 1/4 of egg whites into ricotta mixture, then with rubber spatula, gently fold in remaining whites.
Gently pour mixture into prepared loaf pan and set pan in water bath. Bake at 325 degrees 35 to 40 minutes or until wood pick or thin knife inserted in center is dry when removed. Allow to cool before serving. Makes 8 to 10 servings.
RASPBERRY SAUCE
1 (16-ounce) package unsweetened frozen raspberries
1 cup Simple Syrup, or to taste
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Dash Grand Marnier
Thaw raspberries. Puree in blender until liquid. Strain through mesh sieve to remove seeds. Add simple syrup, lemon juice and Grand Marnier. Chill. Makes about 2 cups.
Simple Syrup
1 cup water
3/4 cup sugar
Combine water and sugar in small saucepan. Heat to boiling. Cool. Makes 1 1/3 cups.
POLLO FRITO AL LIMONE (Fried Lemon-Marinated Chicken
1 frying chicken
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Juice of 1 large lemon
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Olive oil for frying
Unbleached flour
Lemon wedges
Cut up chicken pieces. Cut breast in half then each half into thirds. Season pieces with salt to taste and sprinkle generously with pepper. Place in shallow dish. Drizzle with lemon juice and 3 tablespoons extra virgin oil. Turn pieces over in marinade few times to coat chicken evenly. Cover dish and refrigerate. Allow chicken to marinate 2 to 3 hours, or overnight, turning occasionally.
Place some flour on plate. Remove chicken from marinade and pat dry with paper towels. Dredge in flour, shaking off excess.
In large skillet, pour olive oil to depth of 1/4 inch. Heat oil until very hot but not smoking. Place chicken pieces in hot oil and quickly fry on all sides. Reduce heat to medium and cook about 15 minutes or longer, or until chicken feels springy to touch and is golden brown. Drain on paper towels. Serve with lemon wedges on side. Makes 4 servings.
Note: In order for chicken pieces to fry properly, avoid overcrowding in pan. If necessary, fry chicken in 2 batches.
SPINACH SALTATI AL PROSCIUTTO
(Sauteed Spinach with Prosciutto)
2 pounds fresh spinach
Salt
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
4 slices prosciutto, cut julienne
Remove any tough stems from spinach. Wash well in 3 changes cold water to remove all traces of sand and dirt. Drain. Place spinach in large pot. Cover and cook over medium heat just until spinach wilts. Drain well in colander, gently pressing out excess water with back of wooden spoon.
In medium-size saute pan, combine olive oil and garlic. Cook over low heat 2 to 3 minutes. Add prosciutto and cook another 1 to 2 minutes. Add spinach and season to taste with salt. Toss gently over medium low heat until spinach is hot. Makes 4 servings.
SPAGHETTI AL TONNO FRESCO (Spaghetti With Fresh Tuna)
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 pound fresh tuna
6 anchovy fillets, roughly chopped
10-15 Kalamata olives, pitted and roughly chopped
1 Tablespoon capers
1/4 cup coarsely chopped Italian parsley
1 lemon
Coarse Seasoned Bread Crumbs
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 pound imported spaghetti
Cut tuna into 1-inch pieces.
In medium skillet heat extra-virgin olive oil over medium heat. Add tuna pieces, anchovies, olives, capers, and parsley. Gently saute until tuna is just cooked. Remove from heat and squeeze lemon over tuna mixture. Cover and set aside to keep warm.
Cook pasta in abundant boiling salted water until al dente. Quickly drain and place in shallow serving bowl. Lightly toss tuna mixture into pasta. Sprinkle with toasted bread crumbs and serve quickly. Makes 4-6 servings.
Coarse Seasoned Bread Crumbs
2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 thick slices good-quality fresh Italian or French bread
In small skillet saute garlic in olive oil until opaque. Chop bread, including crust by hand or in food processor, until approximately size of peas. In small baking dish combine garlic and oil with bread crumbs and bake in preheated 400 degree oven until crisp, approximately 8 minutes. Watch carefully, as they burn easily.