Advice from an Italian grandmother

A LONG TIME AGO (decades, actually), the Italian grandma or nonna of my then-husband, Rick, gave me some cooking advice that I have never forgotten. So now it’s time to pass it on to you.

After you come home with your fresh vegetables from the store or market, she said, be sure to parboil them soon after (preferably the same day) so they stay green and crisp. This just means, have a good quantity of boiling salted water (don’t be sparing with the salt) and put your vegetables in just until they are crisp-tender. It’s helpful to have a bowl of ice water close by so you can plunge in the veggies before they get too soft. Then drain the water and store the vegetables in a bowl or container in the refrigerator, ready to use and eat.

The method makes vegetables last longer than uncooked ones in your fridge, so there’s less waste — no cutting off brown or rotten parts. When it’s time to eat them, you can just heat them up very quickly any way you like. Don’t overcook. Rick’s nonna liked to saute the parboiled broccoli in olive oil with some garlic and cayenne pepper.

I confess I have followed this advice only haphazardly over the years, but in the last year, after I decided to really commit to this practice, my parboil record really improved (hmmm, I’ve never used the phrase “parboil record” before).

As a great benefit, the vegetables look so inviting, that I’m sure I eat more of them. I like both the broccoli and the green beans, whether hot or cold, simply dressed with  lemon juice and salt.

It’s a great tip from a wise nonna. Now all you have to do is follow it.

For more on Rick’s nonna’s cooking advice see “Meatballs of Love,” (published in Salon 20 years ago!)

The cooking o’ the greens

Since it’s nearly that very GREEN day of the year, St. Patrick’s Day, I’ve been thinking about edible greens, and one very important cooking tip I learned long ago from my Italian grandmother. No wait — she wasn’t really my grandmother, but the nonna of my ex-husband. No matter. She had some great cooking tips, and I’m always eager to learn about cooking from Italians.

It was simple: after you buy your green vegetables at the market, she said, go home and parboil them (parboiling is simply a brief boiling, which is an incomplete form of cooking). The vegetables will stay fresher in the parboiled form, kept in a covered container, and when you’re ready to eat them, you can toss them in a saute pan without worrying that they’ll be tough or undercooked.

I served the greens and vegetables over some polenta

I confess, I don’t always do this, but with heartier (or tougher) green vegetables such as broccoli or curly kale, I’m very glad when I do. It’s true that the greens stay fresher longer in the fridge (or you can freeze them for a practically unlimited life span) and it’s quicker and easier to add them to any recipe, so I’m likelier to eat my greens.

Saute some onions and mushrooms as I did here, add the greens and maybe some red pepper and serve over polenta — or pasta, brown rice, bulgur, risotto, barley…..of course, you can season and add proteins (chicken, fish, tofu) or not as you like…..

Leftover polenta and parboiled kale made another quick meal.

Well, it’s been more than 35 years since Nonna Miccucci told me that little cooking tip, but it’s stuck with me ever since. It’s a basic lesson: spending a little time now will save time and aggravation (i.e. wilted vegetables) later.

One good tip can go a long way in the kitchen, and maybe also in life.

More polenta days…

I can’t believe I forgot to write about polenta with mushrooms. Last weekend Cathy served a delicious dinner of roast chicken (with lemons), accompanied by polenta with sauteed mushrooms and parsley.

I didn’t have any roast chicken last night, but I did have mushrooms.  I sauteed some red onion along with a pile of sliced mushrooms, then tossed in some finely chopped parsley and a bit of fresh rosemary.  A little salt and pepper and that made another fine topping for polenta.

By the way, I noticed that Martha Rose Shulman, who writes a “Recipes for Health” series for the New York Times, has a method for “Easy oven-baked polenta. I haven’t tried it–the stovetop method seems easy enough–but for those averse to stirring occasionally for 20 minutes, it could be just the thing (though it takes an hour that way).  She also has some nice recipes for grilled polenta.

As for the broccoli, I cooked it the way Rick’s Italian grandma, Isabelle Micucci, taught me:

• First, parboil (or steam) the broccoli till it’s bright green and just-tender. Plunge it in cold water to stop the cooking. (She recommended cooking green vegetables like this just after you buy them, to seal in the freshness, then cooking the rest of the way before you’re ready to eat them).
• About five minutes before you are ready to eat, heat up a skillet with some olive oil, and saute a couple cloves of garlic along with the broccoli spears (Isabelle Micucci liked to remove the garlic rather than serve it; I like to slice it before I put it in the pan and eat it along with the broccoli).
• Sprinkle a little salt and hot red pepper flakes to taste, and serve. I like my broccoli with a squeeze of lemon too.

If you want to read an essay I wrote a long time ago about Isabelle Micucci and her cooking, you could look here… and for the meat eaters, there’s also a recipe for some special Micucci meatballs.

With the polenta meal, we also had a slice (or two) of some semolina bread I made. It was fantastic — and it will be the subject of my next post.