Black Squid Ink Risotto with Grilled Calamari

Black squid risotto can be found in many restaurants in Italy but not often anywhere else in the world. I suppose it is because it isn’t easy to find sepia ink. It is a powerful dye made from the ink of the cuttlefish. Where to buy it is the question. You can try to collect the ink bag when cleaning the squid, but this is difficult. It is often sold in small packets or bottles in some Italian specialty stores. You can ask your fish monger if he can order it for you. I buy it in small bottles at the fish section of the market in Switzerland or in Italy and store it in my refrigerator. I often make black tagliatelle and risotto and it always makes a big impression with guests. The ink is mild and doesn’t have a strong fishy flavor. It’s beautiful black silky color is impressive and best of all it is delicious mixed with shell fish of suid as I have here in this recipe.

Risotto Nero

Recipe Summary
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Yield: 4 Servings as a side dish, 2 servings as a main course

Ingredients
1 cup Arborio rice
5 cups chicken broth or vegetable or fish stock broth
4 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (light flavor)
1 small white onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 cup good white wine
2 tablespoons seppia ink
Ground pepper
Salt as needed

Heat the stock and seppia ink in a pan and leave it on low temperature to keep it warm.

Sauté the onions and garlic in the olive oil in a sauce pan. When they are translucent, add the rice and allow the rice to become opaque in color stirring it for about 2-3 minutes on medium heat. Add the wine enough to cover the rice and stir. Cover the rice with broth until the rice has absorbed the liquid and then add more doing the same thing until the rice is al dente.

The cooking should be about 20 minutes. Remove the risotto from the stove and stir in the butter until it has melted into the rice. This will create a nice creamy risotto. Add salt to taste.

Note: If you wish you can add some squid rings or chopped the tentacles at the very end and cook only a few minutes. Squid cooks very fast and it will be nice and tender with just a few minutes cooking time.

Grilled Squid

PREPARATION
Remove the tentacles, sac, beak, eyes and spine and wash any sand off the squid. Using a kitchen scissors cut the squid lengthwise. You can either cut it in quarters or in half lengthwise. Make small incisions in both directions with a very sharp knife on the inside flesh of the squid.

This will help to keep the squid flat instead of curling up.
Place them on long wet skewers.

Place them on a very hot grill a few minutes on each side. You will see when they start to brown. Squid can become very rubbery so the timing is critical. Salt them immediately.

Spätzli And Game, A Swiss Specialty

Hunting season starts in September in Switzerland and the locals look forward to the hunt (Jagd). Switzerland strictly controls the hunt by setting limits to each species. The season lasts only about 3 weeks. Hunters bring their catch of mountain goat, wild boar, elk or deer to local butchers (Metzgerei). He prepares the animals into steaks, roasts, racks, bunderfliesh and hirschpfeffer, venison meat marinated in wine and a specialty here. It is not unusual to see a deer sitting in front of the butchers’ door waiting for him to arrive in the morning. After the hunter takes what he wants, the rest is sold by the butcher. If you are a good friend of the butcher, you can make your selection early in the season and have him store it for you in his freezer for the rest of the winter. When you want it, just give him a call and he will have your selection ready and waiting for you.

This is the start of Fall and the Alps are amazingly beautiful with the trees turning yellow and rust tones and light dustings of snow on the mountaintops. The anticipation of winter on its way moves people here. Winter is the bread and butter season in the Alps. The excitement begins with the hunting season, when the slow summer goes back to sleep and the cool air means getting the hay cut and into the barns, grapes harvested and the hotels and ski operations start preparations for the winter tourists.

Venison is traditionally served with spätzli and caramelized chestnuts. Spätzli is a thick batter that is scraped off a wet board into boiling water. It is similar to dumplings except looks more like pasta. Spätzli is a Swiss specialty and I can’t imagine venison without it. It also goes well with other meats and once you have learned to prepare it, you will find that when you are looking for something different to take the place of pasta or potatoes, spätzli is a very good substitute. The Austrians, Germans and Italian have their version of spätzli, but they are all pretty much the same except maybe for the size.

There is a gadget that is available to make spätzli but it is so simple by hand that I think it is a waste of money and effort to use it. I like the old fashion way.

Spätzli

Recipe Summary
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: In boiling water approximately 2 minutes per späzli batch
Yield: 4 Servings

Ingredients
2 cups flour
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon salt
2-3 tablespoons butter

Prepare a large pasta pan of boiling salted water. Mix the flour, egg, and water, milk and salt. The batter should have the consistency of thick pancake batter.

Dunk the board into the boiling water so that the board is wet.

Place a ladle full of the batter on the wet cutting board.

Holding the board over the boiling water, scrap small amounts of batter about the size of ziti macaroni into the boiling water. When they float to the top, which takes about 2 minutes, remove them to a dish. Toss them immediately with some butter to prevent them from sticking and continue finishing each batch.

When you are ready to serve, put a tablespoon or two of butter into a frying pan and toss the spätzli with the butter until they are warm.

Note: You can mix mashed beats, spinach or carrots etc. into the batter to make different colors and flavors. Broth can be substituted for the cooking water.

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TV Dinner & Tuna Carpaccio

What does tuna capaccio have to do with sports? We have what we call sports TV dinners. When there is a sports event such as the upcoming US Open Tennis Tournament, or a baseball, football world series, or the Olympics, these are TV dinner nights. No, not frozen TV dinners, but moving dinner from the dinning room table to the cocktail table. We don’t often eat in front of the TV, but a sports event is a good excuse. Not that we make it less formal, as we still have a nice table setting, candles and of course wine.

On these evenings when we want something easy but still special. We might grill pizza in our fireplace, make a fondue or a racellette with boiled potatoes and conichones. Sometimes we get a little fancier and have caviar with chopped egg yolk, chopped egg white and chopped onions, or smoked salmon with toast. But when we can get fresh sushi style tuna, it is tuna carpaccio every time.

We start by buying excellent quality fresh tuna; it is warped in plastic wrap and put into the freezer for about 15 minutes. During this time I toast pignoli nuts and let them to cool. Chop fresh basil and slice sun dried tomatoes. When I have black olives from Puglia I’ll slice slivers and put this aside.

When the tuna is just beginning to freeze, remove it from the freezer and slice it very thinly. Layer the slices by overlapping them covering the dish completely.

The next step is sprinkling the nuts, basil, sun dried tomatoes and olives if you have them over the top. For this dish I like the flavor of light extra virgin olive oil from Puglia. This oil is perfect for fish, as it doesn’t have the strong pungent Tuscan oil flavor that is great for salads but not for fish. Next I sprinkle a few large grains of Mediterranean Sea Salt over the top, use the salt very sparingly. The salt is crunchy and adds a nice salty flavor when you bite a grain of salt now and then.

A nice light good quality Prosecco pares very well with this dish.

For dessert I like to have a cool lemony sorbeto drink. In summer I mix some lemon sorbet with half & half cream and lemoncello and beat it in the blender. If it is winter it will be my homemade Limoncello. Limoncello helps to naturalize the salt and fish taste. It is perfect after a fish dinner.

And then with some nice placemats and a candle burning we enjoy our favorite TV dinner and the game.

Tuna Carpaccio

Recipe Summary
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Yield: 2 people as a main course

Ingredients
1 lb Sashimi quality tuna
Fresh basil
8 Sun dried tomatoes
1/2 cup pine nuts (pignoli)
Extra Virgin Olive oil (very light)
Lemon juice
Sea salt (medium or large grain)

Put the tuna in the freezer for about 15 minutes. You don’t want to freeze it, but it should be at the point where it is just beginning to freeze. This makes it easier to cut paper-thin slices. Lay the tuna slices on a plate slightly overlapping them. Refrigerate until you are ready to serve.

Toast the pignoli nuts in a non-stick sauce pan. This can be done without any butter or oil. Remove them from the heat as soon as they start to brown; let the heat from the pan continue to brown them. They brown very fast and can easily burn. Put them aside to cool.

Julienne the sun dried tomatoes and olives if you have them and set them aside.

Just before serving, sprinkle the tuna with the sea salt. It gives a very nice taste to the tuna and also adds a little crunch. Roughly chop several pieces of fresh basil and set them aside.

Just before serving, sprinkle the toasted pine nuts, basil and sun dried tomatoes over the tuna. Drizzle olive oil and lemon juice over the top of the capaccio and serve cold.

A fresh dessert drink – Sorbetto Al Limone
http://turosdolci.wordpress.com/2009/08/10/a-fresh-dessert-drink-sorbetto-al-lemone/

Lemoncello: Sorrento’s Liquid Gold
http://turosdolci.wordpress.com/2009/11/05/lemoncello-sorrento’s-liquid-gold/

Cherry Crumble Tart: A tart with a “Wow Factor”

Making as much in advance when having guests for a party or dinner is part of my meal plan. I want to have fun also and enjoy my guests after all that is why I invited them in the first place. But I also want to have a “wow factor” dessert without have to work in a hot kitchen for hours. I don’t want any last minute thing that I have to do to finish it off either. This tart fits all my needs but also makes it look like I’ve spent hours preparing it. If you have a food processor the crust is quickly prepared and there is no rolling out the dough. You just press it in with your hands and mix all the filling ingredients and into the oven it goes. It can be made the day before so that you can concentrate on all the other dishes you are going to prepare.

Cherry Crumble Tart is not sweet and the binder of crushed amoretti is typical of Italian desserts. The only thing you have to watch for is that it has the right amount of sweetness. If you use another biscotti such as ladyfingers that are less sweet then you might have to add a little sugar. I generally use what ever biscotti I have in the house. This tart can be made with other types of fruit such as apples, pears, maybe even figs, although I haven’t tried figs yet.

Ciliege torta della Nonna

Recipe Summary
Prep time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 60 minutes @ 350º F
Yield: 8 servings

CRUST
2 cups flour
3/4 cups hazel nuts, ground (ground almonds can be substituted)
1 teaspoon baking powder
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 large egg
6 tablespoons water, ice cold
1/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon butter, for greasing the pan

Filling
5 amoretti or ladyfingers, crumbled
1 1/2 lbs. dark cherries, fresh or frozen, stones removed
1 cup walnuts, roughly chopped
1/2 cup currant jelly

CRUST
Place the flour, hazelnuts (or almonds) and baking powder in a bowl. Put the unsalted butter and sugar in a food processor. Pulsate the ingredients until they are fluffy and add the egg. Add the dry ingredients and mix until it looks like cornmeal. Add 1/2 of the water and process for 30 seconds. Feel the dough; it should stick together, if it doesn’t add the remaining water. Place the dough wrapped in plastic wrap in the refrigerator while you are preparing the filling.

Rub about 1 tablespoon of butter onto a spring form pan. Press 2/3 of the dough on the bottom and up the sides to about 1” of the side of the pan. The remaining dough will be crumbled over the top.

FILLING
Put all the filling ingredients in a bowl and coat the cherries well. Taste for sweetness. The type of cookies that you use will determine if additional sugar is needed. Spread the filling in the prepared crust.

Crumble the remaining dough over the top of the cherry mixture.

Place the tart into the middle of the oven and bake for 1 hour.

SERVING
Release the spring form the pan and allow the tart to cool. Serve the tart warm or room temperature with a spoon full of creme fraiche over the top.

A no bake dessert that is fast & pretty: Ricotta Truffles

There aren’t too many desserts that are not high in calories and fat. Also something you can make that is fast and pretty. Ricotta truffles are easy to make and you can use a variety of coatings according to your taste. It takes very little time and the only requirement is that they must be refrigerated until you serve them.

I like to make them with coconut, pure dark and milk cocoa powder and crushed pistachios. But other coatings such as chopped dates, any kind of chopped nuts or chocolate shavings in any of the different flavors available. It all depends on how many calories you want to add. They are pretty, flavorful and you don’t have to know how to bake to make this dessert. In fact people will ask you what they are made of because you can’t tell that it is Ricotta.

A friend of mine introduced me to these at a lovely Italian dinner in Milano. I’ve also used low fat Ricotta when we have been on a diet using only dark chocolate as a coating and a sweetener, and they can also be served to a diabetic.

Ricotta Truffles

Recipe Summary
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Yield: 30 balls

Ingredients
1 cup confectionary sugar
1 cup good quality cocoa powder (no sugar added)
1 7 oz. package shredded sweet coconut
1 lb. of whole milk ricotta

PREPARATION
Mix equal amounts of ricotta and powdered sugar and place the mixture in the refrigerator until it hardens to the point of being able to roll into a ball.

ASSEMBLY
Roll out into small balls the size of chocolate truffles. Roll 50% of them in the cocoa powder and 50% of them in the grated coconut. Keep them refrigerated until you are ready to serve them.

NOTE
It is possible to prepare them in the morning and serve in the evening. However, they will only stay a few days in the refrigerator and are never as good as when eaten the same day.

Summer pasta with Strozzapreti, Arugula, Potatoes & Mussels

You hardly feel like cooking on hot summer days and yet fish and sellfish seem so perfect for light summer meals. They are also very easy and fast to prepare. I have a husband who just didn’t like fish but would eat shellfish. I solved this problem by taking him to a cooking class in Italy where just about all the dishes we prepared were fish. There were 4 chefs from a 5 star restaurant and just the two of us. I didn’t expect this, as it was a class at a hotel that we had gone to many times and advertised as a class for a maximum of 6 people. Seems we signed up for the first class of the season that started the beginning of June. Along the Adriatic, this is not high season and we were the only ones to register. The chefs wanted to do the class in any case, probably to test it out, how lucky was that!

I wondered how my husband was going to deal with eating the meals we prepared, as he really hated fish. My husband is a diabetic and it was important for him to change his diet that consisted mostly of meat. This class was the cure and he totally enjoyed every dish we prepared. He still eats meat, but today we have fish at least two or three times a week. The message is that if there is something you don’t like, it is worthwhile to learn how to prepare it. Many times you can find recipes that you never new existed and will satisfy your taste.

The following is an easy recipe that is great as it includes greens, shellfish and pasta, what is there not to like!

Strozzapreti con rucola, patate e cozze
Chef Franco, Vieste (Foggia), Italy

Recipe Summary
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Yield: 4 Servings

Ingredients
1 lb. strozzapreti, cavatelli or pasta of your choice
1 bunch arugula (rucola in Italian)
1/4 lb. of potatoes
1 lb. of mussels
2 cloves garlic, sliced
1 medium onion, chopped
4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
1 pepperoncino

Wash the mussels thoroughly and let them soak for about 1/2 hour in cold water, changing the water a few times. Remove the beard that is between the shells. Steam them in a small amount of boiling salted water. This will take 3-6 minutes; discard any that have not opened. Strain out all the liquid and reserve it for the sauce. Remove most of the mussels from their shells, keeping about 5 per person for garnish.

Peel and cut the potatoes into small squares, par boil them in salted water. Set them aside.

In a skillet, sauté the oil and onions until they become slightly translucent. Add the garlic and pepperoncino and cook a few more minutes. Add the reserved mussel liquid and boil it down to about half. Add the cubed potatoes.

In a large saucepan, cook the strozzapreti in salted boiling water. Three minutes before the strozzapreti is cooked add the arugula in with the strozzapreti and cook until the strozzapreti are al dente. Drain them and toss them into the skillet blending them until they are completely covered with the sauce.

Sfogliatelle or Cannoli: The Ultimate Italian Pastry

Some may think that cannoli is the ultimate Italian pastry, but for me it is sfogliatelle. I have traveled long and far to purchase them. When studying Italian in Bologna, there was a pasticceria across the street from the apartment I rented. Every morning they make them fresh, and I was there when they came out of the oven to enjoy a warm sfogliatelle for breakfast – I still dream of those mornings.

One Easter on our way to Genoa we stopped at an Agip highway restaurant for an espresso and they were giving them out free for Easter, what a wonderful surprise.

In Genoa they had stalls in the outdoor market selling them in huge quantities filled with variety of fillings. We bought several as I wanted to try all the assortments, but I still prefer the traditional sfogliatelle.

The Villa Crespi is a magnificent Middle Eastern style, 4 star luxury hotel with a 2 star Michelin rated restaurant overlooking Lago di Orta. A merchant who traded in Iraq built the Moorish style villa. You can have a massage in your huge room beautifully appointed with antiques or relax in the garden on lounge chairs with views of the lake. It is a short walk to the village where you can visit the shops or take a boat to the island. Visit the many vineyards of the Piedmonte region where you can taste wines such as Barbaresco, Baarolo, Muscato and Asti Spumante . Nebbiolo is the main grape grown here in the Piedmonte, which is one of Italy’s largest wine growing regions.

The chef, Antonio Cannavacciuolo runs the hotel and elegant restaurant serving creative, artistically presented cuisine that is a dream to eat. The chef made sfogliatelle every afternoon and served them with espresso for a late afternoon delight. They were smaller then the typical ones you find in the bakery and light. Filled with the traditional ricotta filling, I was there in the garden waiting every day during our relaxing visit.
http://www.hotelvillacrespi.it/

Orta is a small picturesque village along the lake in the Piedmonte west of Lago Maggiore. It is one of the smallest and least known towns along the lakes. If you have spent your vacation visiting the Lakes region and want a few days of relaxation before returning home, spend them at the unique Villa Crespi. The hotel is only 45 minutes from Milan’s Malpensa International airport and a perfect hotel to wind down.

This recipe was taken from one of the chef’s antique cookbooks and I translated it into English.

http://www.orta.net/eng1/indexe.htm

Sfogliatelle Ricce

Recipe Summary
Prep time: 1 hour
Cook time: 15 minutes @ 400º F, 15 minutes @ 350º F, 5-10 minutes @ 250º F
Yield: 16 large or 32 small pastries

Dough
8 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
2 cups suet or lard
1 3/4 cups cold water, more if needed
2 tablespoons fine salt
1/2 cup honey

Filling
2 cups semolina
1 3/4 cups whole milk ricotta
2 cups confectionary sugar
2 large eggs
3/4 cup candied fruit, chopped
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 pinches cinnamon
7 oz. distilled water, as needed
Salt to taste

Egg Wash
1 egg, beaten with the water
1 tablespoons water

Other things needed
Pasta machine

Dough

Melt the honey with water.

Put the flour into a food processor and add the suet, salt and mix until it crumbles. Add the honey/water mixture a little at a time until the dough forms into a ball. Knead the dough until it is smooth and elastic.

If making the dough by hand, put the flour in a large bowl or on a wooden board. Make a well in the middle and add the suet, salt, honey and water. Mix with your hands until you form a ball. Knead the dough until it is smooth and elastic. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and store it in the refrigerator until you are ready to use it.

ASSEMBLY

Roll out thin strips of the dough in the pasta machine. Make several equal strips in length of at least 40”. The strip should be the thickness of 1/16” or less.

With care, lightly but lavishly brush the suet onto each strip. In doing this, you must be very careful that the strips are not stretched or torn. Never use flour.

Place 3 of the greased strips on top of each other. Tightly roll up the strips toward you. You will find that the fat will begin to melt. Continue with this process until you have rolled up all the strips.
You will then have a coil of approximately 12” in length and 3” in diameter; you will find that the suet has melted somewhat. Cover the cylinder with plastic wrap. Put it in the refrigerator for 24 hours.

If using a pasta machine your strips are not going to be the same size, they will be the width of the pasta machine. This is not a problem; just follow the recipe directions in the same way.

ASSEMBLY
The following day proceed with filling and baking them. Remove the cylinder from the refrigerator. Cut the cylinders into slices the thickness of 1”.

You must transform the slice into sfogliatelle flakes. On the cut side, using your fingers, gently push in the folds from the center inwards. Making the inverse movement on the outside, from the edge towards the larger end. Gently spread the larger end outwards, so that it looks like a clamshell with grooves.

Continue with the same treatment for the other slices. Then, maneuvering delicately and flattening them to take the shape again working in the shape of a clamshell with a point on top and wide at the base creating what looks like a shell; finally the sfogliatelle is ready to be filled.

Another possibility is to take each 1” slice and sprinkle a little flour on a board and a little on the slice. With a rolling pin, roll from the center out to the right and the left. Again place the rolling pin in the middle of the oval and roll down forming an oval shape. Pick up the oval and fill with the filling in the middle. Seal the wide part of the oval and place on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper.

This process does not create the typical shell shape but is acceptable.

FILLING
Place all the ingredients in a bowl except for the water. Beat by hand until you have blended all the ingredients. Begin to add a little water at a time beating it in until the filling is just a little fluid. This is a thick filling and you just want to add enough water to make it smooth.

ASSEMBLY

Hold the shell in the hollow of your hand, put a spoon full of filling inside the center; seal the edges, but don’t pinch them together. Carefully lay them down on your cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Brush each one with an egg wash or melted suet or lard whatever you choose to use.

BAKE
Prepare all the sfogliatelle. Bake in a 400º F oven for 15 minutes. Brush with the lard and reduce the heat to 350º F and cook for another 15 minutes. Brush with an egg wash and cook for another 5-10 minutes at 250º F. When they are a beautifully golden in color, remove them from the oven.

Sprinkle them with a veil of powdered sugar when they are hot out of the oven, and serve them warm if possible.

NOTE: A special machine is used in bakeries to form the pastry and this can’t be effectively reproduced at home even when using a pasta machine. They are delicious even though the pastry isn’t as fine.

NOTE: Sfogliatelle do not stay well. It is best to make the dough and rolls the day before and the next day bake and serve them.

Blueberry Loaf With Blueberry Syrup

Blueberry picking is a tradition in our family. Everyone joined in, my grandfather, kids and friends packed a lunch and spent a day at the farm picking blueberries.

Since they freeze so well we pick enough to last all winter. Then the fun part begins making pies, cakes, muffins, breads and scones. We have blueberry pies right up to Christmas and the last pie is on Christmas Eve bringing back the fun memories of our summer blueberry picking trip.

Blueberries are packed with health benefits and eating a small cup of frozen berries is a satisfying and healthy snack alternative. They can be mixed with salads, we have even mixed them into lobster salad. Use them in maple syrup for pancakes and in pancakes. I make blueberry syrup and dribble it over my blueberry loaf, which gives it an even more fresh blueberry flavor.

Blueberry Loaf

Recipe Summary
Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 1 hour @ 350ºF
Yield: 8 slices

Dry Ingredients
2 cup all purpose flour
1 tablespoon flour, for dusting the blueberries
3/4 cup sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Wet Ingredients
2 large eggs
1/2 stick butter softened, plus 1 tablespoon for greasing the pan
3/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 cup blueberries

Other things needed
9” x 3” loaf pan
Parchment paper

BATTER
Combine the sugar and butter until it is light yellow. Add the eggs and blend. Mix the flour, baking powder, salt and zest together. Add them into the sugar mixture a little at a time alternating with the milk.

Toss the blueberries with a tablespoon of flour and fold them into the batter.

BAKE
Rub a little shortening at the bottom of a loaf pan. Cut a piece of parchment paper the size of the bottom of the pan and line the pan with the parchment paper. Pour the batter into the pan and bake it at 350ºF for an hour or until a tester comes out dry. Allow it to cool on a rack before cutting it.

Make blueberry syrup by mixing sugar and blueberries and maybe a strip of lemon skin and boiling them down to light syrup. The amount of sugar is dependant on the sweetness of the blueberries, add the sugar accordingly. When the syrup is thick enough, strain it through a fine strainer and allow it to cool to room temperature.

Note: This loaf can be made with cranberries.

A Fish Story – In Search for Blue Fish & Stripped Bass on Cape Cod

We have spent our summers on Cape Cod ever since we were kids and we loved to fish. Our family always thought that we should have the talent to be geat fishermen because my grandparents came from Gargano on the south of the Adriatic Cost of Italy, and my grandfather was a fisherman (pescatore). We stayed in a big house with my aunts and cousins and my father and uncles alternated days off during the week to join us. My family was in the food and restaurant business and the markets and restaurants were open 7 days a week at that time. We waited for them to arrive and prepared for our fishing trips to the Cape Cod Canal. We would come home from these trips sleepy, smelling of bait, no fish and disappointed but not deterred. After all, our grandfather was a fisherman; we must have inherited this passion from him.

We went to every bait store searching for the right bait. We talked to anyone who could give us fishing secrets or lures that were a sure thing. We paid attention to the tides and set our alarm clocks so that we were at the suggested fishing spots at the exact time the fish were running, and we caught no fish. Later when we older we bought a sailboat and continued the same routine, maybe this was the answer. We had tried fishing off the canal docks, off the rocks, on the beach and we bought all kinds of fishing poles and gear. We would see all the other boats pulling in the fish, the fish leaping out of the water all around us and still no fish. Then my brother decided the sailboat wasn’t the right boat and bought a Boston Whaler. This was surly the answer and the ritual went on and still no fish. I remember he caught a flounder and a bluefish once and this was a great occasion with photo’s and excitement and a grand fish dinner. I have to say that we had lobster traps and were much more successful catching more lobster then we could eat so not all was lost. There were summers when we decided we would catch everything we ate during a weekend. We were great at clamming and carried home buckets of steamers, little necks and mussels. We made calms on the half shell, chowder, pasta with clam sauce, calms casino, stuffed mussels, grilled, boiled, baked, stuffed lobster and pasta with lobster sauce, but no fresh grilled fish. We just couldn’t understand it, what was the problem after all we must have the gene; our grandfather was a fisherman in Italy how could we miss.

The next generation continued this search for the answer and was about to give up. My brother-in-law Peter and my nephew Nick experiencing the same curse went fishing one day and met up with a man who had caught several huge stripped bass. As usual they befriended him and he told them how to make his special lure. As we all laughed at them and said, “Oh here we go again” out they went searching for all the components and proceeded to make this new, magic lure. With trepidation mixed with a lot of hope they headed out to Nantucket Sound. They not only tackled the curse, they have been catching huge blue’s and stripped bass ever since, they broke the curse!

As all this was happening I went to Vieste, Italy searching for information about our grandparents. I was in a state of shock when I noticed his profession in the documents I found. He was not a fisherman but a shepherd (pastore). We should have been raising cattle not fishing. This just goes to show you how the translation of a word can effect your whole life. Our family being mostly 1st & 2nd generation Italian-American never learned to speak Italian and translated the word incorrectly. Well so goes the fishing talent that we thought we should have inherited.

We had a great time in our search for the big fish, and thinking our grandfather was with us, probably he was laughing at us. The most wonderful stories, laughs and memories of our efforts might not have been the same fun. It is like being told that Santa doesn’t exist and not being upset. Being together as a family on Cape Cod in the summer was the best part.

Grilled Whole Fish In Foil

Recipe Summary
Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 30 minutes
Yield: 8 servings

Ingredients
1 18 lb. Fresh whole bluefish, striped bass, cleaned and gutted
1 large orange, skin and segments
2 fennels with stems
Salt & pepper to taste

Other things needed
2 large pieces of foil or parchment paper

PREPARATION
Scale and gut the fish and wash it inside and out. Salt and pepper the inside and outside of the fish.
Lay out enough foil or parchment paper large enough to place the fish and eventually covering it with another piece of foil to form an envelope. Lay the fish on the foil.

Remove the skin of the orange and separate the orange segments. Cut the fennels into thick slices including the stocks and leaves.

Salt & pepper the fish outside and inside the cavity. Stuff cavity with the fennels, orange segments and orange rind.

Place another piece of foil over the top and crimp the edges of the foil to form an envelope.

BAKING/GRILLING
Place the fish on a hot grill or in the oven. If grilling the fish turn it over after 10-15 minutes. And grill it for another 10-15 minutes. The time depends on the size of the fish. Puncture the fish in the thickest part with a knife, if it is done it should go through easily. Don’t over cook as it will dry out.

Remove it from the grill and carefully open the envelope. Remove all the fennel and oranges.

SERVE
Remove the head and tail and fins on the top and bottom of the fish. With a sharp knife remove the skin on one side pulling it gently away from the flesh. Make a cut down the center and cut the fish into segments removing them with specula. If the fish is done the flesh will come off the bone easily. Turn the fish over and do the same to the other side.

Serve the fish with fennel and orange salad. Make a simple dressing of extra virgin olive oil and fresh lemon juice.

NOTE: Other fish can be prepared in this manner such as salmon, trout etc.