Bread and Zucchini Lasagna

Don’t be quick to discard old bread; so long as it hasn’t become moldy, it can still be put to good use. Using bread slices in lieu of pasta to separate the layers of lasagna is one of the many ways to revive stale bread. It’s a clever twist on a classic Italian dish: the bread soaks up the sweet tomato sauces, becoming slightly moist while retaining its shape, texture and chewiness. And in between these slices of bread sits a colorful medley of melted mozzarella and Parmesan cheese, and flour-dredged and egg-battered fried zucchini strips. You’ll never again underestimate stale bread.

Note on the bread: For this dish, I recommend a hearty, chewy peasant’s bread. At my neighborhood Merkator, I purchase malnar, which is a light and chewy wheat bread, similar to but slightly bit denser than ciabatta. I’ve never tried this dish with pre-sliced loaves of bread, though I am sure it will work, so long as the bread you’re using has some density. Since pre-sliced breads are so thin, you’ll need to use slightly less sauce so that the bread does not become too soggy.

Ingredients:

2 to 3 mid-sized zucchini fried into strips

2-3 cups of sweet tomato sauce

300g or ¾ cup coarsely grated fresh mozzarella cheese

½ cup coarsely grated Parmesan cheese, or less if using finely-grated cheese

½ to ¾ a loaf of a stale, hearty peasant’s bread like malnar

¼ cup of toasted finely-powered breadcrumbs, or ½ cup of larger, crouton-sized breadcrumbs

1) Follow this recipe to fry the zucchini.

2) If you have prepared and frozen some sweet tomato sauce, set it to defrost in the fridge the night before you plan to make this lasagna. Otherwise, prepare a fresh batch using this recipe.

3) Cut the bread into ½ inch slices. The amount of bread you will require depends on the size of your casserole dish. The casserole dish that I use at home measures 7½ by 7½ inches, with a depth of about 4 inches. I managed to fit in two layers of bread, which required a little more than ½ a loaf of malnar.

4) Coarsely grate the mozzarella cheese, so that it is crumbly, and the Parmesan cheese. Toss the two cheeses together and set aside.

5) Preheat the oven to 200° C.

6) Place the slices of bread on a baking sheet and allow them to toast for about five to ten minutes. You want the bread to dry out partially, so that the top and bottom sides are dry and crunchy while the inside is still a bit moist and chewy. This way, when it is time to layer and you pour over tomato sauce, the bread will absorb the sauce and become moist but not soggy.

7) Once the bread is out of the oven, allow it to cool for five minutes. Then you can start layering.

8) Coat your casserole dish with a thin film of olive oil. Ladle out some tomato sauce and spread it over the bottom of the dish. You want only a thin layer of sauce on the base; you should be able to see through it to the base of the casserole dish.

9) Now cover the layer of sauce with slices of bread. You need not worry about covering every empty spot with a piece of bread.

10) Then begin to layer the strips of zucchini. I like doubling up on the zucchini, so that after the first layer of strips, I scatter some more tomato sauce, then I start placing the next layer of zucchini over that.

11) Scatter a generous handful of the cheese mixture over the zucchini, then cover with another layer of zucchini.

12) Top with some tomato sauce, then cover with more slices of bread. This is the second layer and last layer of bread.

13) Spoon some more tomato sauce over the bread, and then cover with yet another layer of zucchini.

14) Over this final layer of zucchini, scatter another generous handful of the cheese mixture.

15) Cover the final layer of cheese with the finely powdered or the crouton-sized breadcrumbs. I used the larger variety because that was what I had handy, though normally, I like using a mix.

16) Then set to bake in the oven for 15 minutes. Check intermittently to make sure the top layer of breadcrumbs does not burn. Keep in mind that all parts of the lasagna are already cooked, so the only purpose for baking it at the end is for the cheese to melt and the flavors to meld. Once you see that the cheese has melted, it is can be taken out of the oven.

17) Let the lasagna cool for about 5 minutes so that it does not fall apart when you cut it and serve it.

This recipe has been adapted from Lidia Bastianich’s cookbook, “Lidia’s Family Table.”

Capturing Summer in a Sweet Tomato Sauce

The beauty of a tomato sauce is its versatility: it appears in a variety of dishes and never follows a standard recipe. I always make my own tomato sauce, sometimes using canned pelati, sometimes using fresh Roma tomatoes, or sometimes incorporating meat . . . the permutations and combinations are endless. This is one of the many tomato sauce recipes that I’ll post. Though summer has officially ended, the Central Market still sells tomatoes, and as long as they’re in stock, I’ve decided to make a big batch of this savory tomato sauce.

Ingredients:

1 kilo tomatoes, mid-sized beef or Roma tomatoes, and cherry tomatoes in a 50-50 ratio

6 or 7 cloves of garlic

1 or 2 midsized onions

6 or 7 big basil leaves

½ tsp. of chili powder or peperoncino flakes

Olive oil

Salt and to taste

Optional:

½ to 1 cup of water

Pinch of sugar

1) Peel the garlic cloves and slice into think slices. To make this process easier, press down on the garlic with the side of the knife’s blade. This loosens the skin, making it easier to remove. Set the garlic aside.

2) Peel the onions and chop into half. Cut each half lengthwise, into half-moons. Set these aside. (It doesn’t really matter which onions you use. Vadalia onions, walla walla onions and Spanish onions have various degrees of sweetness that they impart to the sauce while red onions are spicier and stronger in the flavor they contribute. I happened to have half a red onion sitting in my fridge, so I tossed it into my sauce.)

3) Wash the tomatoes and remove any stems. Cut the beef and Roma tomatoes into quarters, and remove any hard, white cores. Then cut them into one-inch cubes, the cherry tomatoes into halves, and set aside. As you cut, the tomatoes will release their juices, which you don’t want to lose. When you are finished cutting, pour the puddle of juice that has gathered on your board over the pile of tomatoes.

4) Wash the basil leaves thoroughly and shake off excess water. Gather the leaves together and chop into slices. This chiffonade should not be too thin, so that after the basil strips are still recognizable even after they have cooked and wilted in the sauce.

5) Pour a thin layer of oil in a pot and allow it to heat. When the oil is hot, toss in the garlic slices and sauté until golden, but do not let them brown. Remove the garlic slices from the oil and discard.

6) Add the onion half-moon slices to the hot garlicky oil, and lower the flame to a medium low. Allow the onions to cook for about ten to fifteen minutes, until soft and translucent. Make sure there is enough oil in the pot so that the onions keep moist and do not burn.

7) Push the onions aside to one side of the pot, and add in an additional teaspoon or so of olive in the clear area. When this oil is hot, toss in the chili powder, and allow it to fry for half a minute. Then mix this chili oil with the onions, so that each onion slice is coated with some spice. Allow the onions and the chili powder to cook together for about five minutes.

8) Then toss in the tomatoes along with the basil. Sprinkle salt over the vegetables to speed up the process of the tomatoes releasing their juices.

9) Stir the contents of the pot so that all the ingredients are evenly mixed and distributed. Then cover the pot and allow it to simmer on a medium low flame for an hour.

10) Peek inside the pot intermittently to check on the consistency. Stir around the tomatoes to help break up stubborn chunks, and observe the quantity of liquid. The sauce should be fluid. If the sauce is becoming too dense, add in some water, about ½ cup to 1 cup depending on the state of the sauce.

11) To confirm that the sauce is ready, you should look for the following:

a) Color: the color should have changed from the bright, orangey red that it started out as to a deeper hue of red.

b) Taste: the flavors should have melded nicely, with no one flavor too prominent. Sometimes, long-cooked tomatoes can have a slight bitterness. If this is the case, add in a pinch of sugar to mask that taste. gar to mask that bitterness.

c) Consistency: the consistency should be chunky but loose and fluid.

12) This sauce can be used immediately as the base of any pasta dish, or stored and kept frozen until the next moment of inspiration.

A Spicy Side Note: Chili Powder

This is the famous chili powder that I use and mention regularly. The brand is inconsequential, since all brands sell the same thing: finely ground Kashmiri chili. You can find this powder in any South Asian supermarket, though in Ljubljana, I have yet to see it. I brought this with me from New York, since I can’t live without it.

In dishes that call for spice, I always add this chili powder. The red color looks threatening but it’s one of the mildest varieties of Indian chili, so the Western palette needn't fear. I inevitably substitute it for peperoncino flakes, since I believe Kashmiri chili has a more robust taste. Perhaps I’m biased; after all, I’ve grown on its flavor. Kashmiri chili undoubtedly adds an extra kick to tomato sauces, as well as to many meat dishes.

I also keep a small bottle of chili oil handy, to drizzle over soups and add to sauces. It’s easy to make: heat up a cup of olive oil over a medium flame, add 3 tsp. of chili powder, and allow it to fry for about one to two minutes. Pour this spicy mixture into a bottle, and store it in a cool, dark place. Chili oil keeps for months. I’m sure there are many other uses for Kashmiri chili in Western cuisine, and as I find them out, I’ll post these moments of Eureka!

Magic Beans Maccù

In the market the other day, there was a woman selling onions, shallots and colorful beans. Displayed in a wooden box, the beans looked like sorcerer’s tokens, each small, round and smooth, speckled with black and lavender.

As soon as I went up to inquire what they were and how much they cost, the vendor told me that another customer had just purchased them. Alas! Snatched right out of my hands! For the next few days, I scouted the market for that woman and her beans, but it seemed as though she had disappeared, and that those legumes were but a mirage. I found her again on a Thursday, the very day I was hosting my first dinner party. I pounced on this opportunity and purchased all the beans that she had; it was a little over a kilo. I had no idea what they were, and when I sought clarification, she told me what I already knew: these were called fizol, meaning, quite simply, beans in Slovene. Since I did not know what exactly they were, I figured I had creative leeway in how I would go about preparing them. In Sicily, I had eaten a hearty, peasant fava bean and fennel soup called maccù, that I thought would be a worthy recipe for my mottled beans.

You can recreate this dish using dried fizol, however, you would need to soak them over night so that they hydrate and cook faster the next day.

Ingredients:

½ kilo fresh, shelled beans

1 mid-sized fresh, young fennel bulb (with the fronds)

½ tsp. of chili powder or peperoncino flakes

3 cups of water

olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

1) Wash the fennel bulb, and remove any wilted outer layers.

2) Chop the bulb into slices about ¼ of an inch thick.

3) In a pot, pour in a thin layer of olive oil and allow it to heat up over a medium flame. When the oil is hot, add in the fennel. Allow the fennel to cook for about seven minutes, until they slices are slightly translucent.

4) Then push the fennel to one side of the pot, and pour a bit of oil into the open space. Once that spot of oil has heated up, toss in the chili powder and allow it to fry for about one minute. Then mix it with the fennel, so that each piece is evenly coated with the spice. This technique of allowing the chili to fry on its own before mixing it with the other ingredients brings out the flavor of the chili, giving it depth and complexity.

5) Allow the fennel and chili too cook for about eight minutes, stirring frequently so that the fennel does not burn.

6) Wash the beans, and drop them into the pot.

7) Add in the water, and salt according to taste. If the fennel bulb you are using is a bit old and has a weak scent, you may want to incorporate the fennel fronds to enhance the flavor. Just wash some of the fennel fronds and toss them into the soup.

8) Since the beans are fresh, the soup only requires about an hour to an hour and a half to cook. The soup will start out clear, as seen in the photo above, and darken as it cooks and the beans begin to soften. You want some of the beans to loose shape and disintegrate giving the soup a smooth and starchy texture.

9) If you have used fennel fronds, you may want to fish out the stems to enhance the texture and appearance of the soup.

10) Serve with thin julienned slices of fresh fennel, a grating of fresh pepper, and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, or a drizzle of chili oil, which is prepared by frying chili powder in olive oil for half a minute. The chili oil adds a splash of vibrant red color to the soup, and an additional kick.

Fried Zucchini Plain or in a Sandwich

This is the debut of that loveable, green, omnipresent squash— zucchini. I love fried zucchini, and these flour-dredged, egg-battered strips taste great right out of the pan or even lukewarm in a sandwich. They last in the fridge for days, though in my home, a plate never makes it past one meal. Good things go quickly.

Serves 2-3 people

Ingredients:1 kilo sweet fresh tomatoes, preferably a mix of varieties and colors

2-3 small to mid-sized zucchini (about ½ a kilo)

1 cup of flour of dredging

2 eggs beaten

Olive oil for frying

Salt and pepper to taste

1) Wash the zucchini well and dry. Trim off the stem and the bottom. Slice the zucchini in half, and then cut each half horizontally into strips. The strips should be about 1/8^th inch thick.

2) On a plate, scatter the flour and mix in salt and pepper to taste. On a separate plate, pour out the beaten eggs.

3) In a pan on medium heat, pour a layer of olive oil and wait for it to heat up. You’ll know that the oil is ready if you drip a bit of the egg batter into the pan and it sizzles. If the oil is smoking, or the batter darkens almost immediately, then the oil is too hot and you ought to take it off the flame to cool down a bit.

4) Toss a few zucchini slices into the flour mixture, so that all sides are lightly coated. Then dip the strips into the beaten eggs, shaking off any excess batter. One by one, place them into the frying pan once the oil is hot and ready.

5) When one side is golden brown, which takes in about a minute and a half on a medium flame, flip the strip, allowing the other side to golden.

6) When both sides are golden, transfer the strips to a plate. I used to cover the plate with paper towels, but I realize that detracts from the crispiness. The strips are now ready to eat.

7) To make a fried zucchini sandwich, take two slices of bread, preferably cut from a hearty loaf, and let them toast in the oven for a few minutes. When I set my oven to 200°C, it takes about 5-7 minutes to toast, once the oven is hot.

8) Once the bread has toasted, slather butter on both sides. Don’t be afraid to cook with and consume butter occasionally; it’s high in vitamin E, which keeps the skin supple and radiant.

9) Lay five or six zucchini strips on a slice of bread, and top with a generous helping of freshly ground pepper. Place the other slice of bread on top, and you’ve got your zucchini sandwich.

This recipe has been adapted from Lidia Bastianich’s cookbook, “Lidia’s Family Table."

Penne with Fresh Summer Tomatoes

There's a man at the market who sells extraordinarily sweet cherry tomatoes, some of which are bright red, others that are maroon with dark green stripes. This recipe does justice to those tomatoes, or any fresh and flavorful ones for that matter.

Serves 4-5 people

Ingredients:

1 kilo sweet fresh tomatoes, preferably a mix of varieties and colors

5 or 6 garlic cloves

salt to taste

5 to 6 large basil leaves

½ cup extra virgin olive oil

½ teaspoon chili powder or peperoncino flakes

400 grams mozzarella cheese, cut up into little cubes

500 grams of dried penne rigate pasta

1) Wash the tomatoes, core them, and cut into one-inch chunks. If using cherry tomatoes, cut into fourths. Set aside in a large bowl.

2) Chop the garlic as finely as possible. Adding salt to the garlic while you chop will make it a bit easier. Then scatter the chopped garlic over the tomatoes.

3) Gather together the basil leaves and chop into a long strips. I personally like these strips to be somewhat thick, about ¼ inch to ½ an inch wide, so that when they wilt, they do not end up looking like green slime. Add the basil strips to the tomatoes.

4) Add the chili powder or peperoncino flakes to the tomatoes. Chili powder, which I brought with me from New York, is a fine powder of ground Kashmiri chili. I like food to be flavorful, and think this powder has more kick than peperoncino flakes.

5) Scatter salt all over the tomatoes, as per your taste.

6) Pour in the oil. It’s important to use a flavorful olive oil since its taste can only enhance this raw sauce. Then stir lightly to make sure the tomatoes are coated with the marinade. Be careful not to stir too much, distorting the shape of the tomatoes.

7) Cover the bowl and set to marinate in the fridge for one to two hours. The salt will draw out the water from the tomatoes, and these juices will absorb the flavor of the garlic and the basil.

8) When ready to serve, chop the mozzarella into one-inch chunks and fold into the tomato mixture. In the meantime, boil the penne until al dante, as per the time given on the box. Then add the freshly cooked and drained pasta to the marinated sauce.

This recipe has been adapted from Lidia Bastianich’s cookbook, “Lidia’s Family Table."

To Market, To Market to Buy a Fat Pig

On the south side of the Ljubljanica River, between the triple-bridge Tromostovje and the Dragon Bridge, appears an outdoor market, where each day venders peddle fruits and vegetables from local farms, wild flowers from evergreen forests, and Slovenian kitsch to clutter the home. Nearby, in a stone arcade perched along a section of the river, the market continues. The long corridor within is divided according to food group, with designated areas for the bakers, the cheese sellers, and the butchers.

On the lower level of this arcade sits the fish market. The pungent smell of salt water and fish lingers in the stone stairway leading downstairs. The fish mongers stand in a line, and on beds of ice before them lay the glistening bodies of mackerel, monk fish, shrimp, scampi, calamari and other creatures from the depths of the Adriatic. “Welcome, Gospa!” they call out to me as I walk past them, surveying their goods and their prices. “What would you like today?” they ask.

I have once seen swordfish steaks for sale, with the freshly cut head of the swordfish set on ice, its sharp nose reaching for the ceiling, like a lean vase. Fish is supposedly freshest on Fridays, a remnant from the city’s Catholic past.

I try to make my way over to the market almost daily. The weather these afternoons has been mild and sunny; that’s enough to get me to cross the river and go food shopping. I find it therapeutic to walk past rows of colorful vegetables beaming freshness and health.

At present, succulent peaches from the Primorska region are in season, as are pears, little plums and summer’s last few batches of tender zucchini. The presence of bees, though irksome, can be of help in selection, for they always hover above the ripe and pesticide-free fruit.

The market is more expensive than picking up groceries at a local Mercator or Spar; zucchini at Merkator sells for 1.80 Euro a kilo while at the outdoor market, they sell for 2 Euro per kilo. But I do think it’s worth the additional expense. I’ve never eaten tomatoes as sweet as the ones I buy from the market, and the garlic sold there actually has flavor. The market produce is “organic” and “local,” buzzwords with a hefty price tag back home in New York, that fortunately, haven’t quite yet caught caught on here. It’s comforting to know that there are still places in the world where nature’s bounty is easily available and affordable.

It’s also become a bit of a challenge to cook using these seasonal ingredients. June’s batch of zucchini, for example, is heralded with great pomp, but by the end of the summer, it’s easy to get bored of the green vegetable. The abundance of market veterans like the ol’ zucchini forces me to continually search for new and tasty recipes.

About Me in More than 1200 Characters

I was born in Bombay, a city in the process of shedding its colonial cloak and returning to its roots: Mumbai. In 1987, my family immigrated to New York, and we spent our first five years in the United States living in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, next to the Belt Parkway highway, amid brick buildings teeming with the immigrant dreams of recently-arrived Russians and Ukrainians.

It was in Brooklyn where I first learned to twist open an Oreo to lick out the sugary vanilla cream and first relished the phenomenon that is melted mozzarella atop pizza. Pizza was such a treat in those days! We went to Tony’s Pizzeria, where I studied the man tossing the dough into the air, only to practice the technique at home with laundry. There we ordered two slices for a dollar apiece, requesting that they be cut down the middle to feed four people.

I remember Sunday walks to Key Food supermarket with my father; they always involved a stop at Weissan’s Bakery where he treated me to an éclair that I could have all to myself. I had never eaten anything like this in India: vanilla cream hidden inside a moist, soft pastry topped with a chocolate glaze.

Ice-cream sandwiches, bubble gum superior to the white Chicklets of India, Frosted Flakes whose sugar-coating dissolved in cold milk, orange Kraft cheese that was the body and soul of my school cafeteria’s grilled cheese sandwiches— it was through food that I assimilated into American culture.

Shortly before I entered the third grade, my family shifted to Stuyvesant Town, a verdant, rent-stabilized suburban paradise, just north of tenement-studded Alphabet City. In Stuyvesant Town, children played unsupervised in parks, squirrels foraged for acorns, and blue jays perched themselves atop benches. I thought Stuyvesant Town was perfect, and still think it is, even though all the buildings are identical, unimaginative twelve-story structures with green window frames.

I wonder if I would have ever left the arbor of Stuyvesant Town had Uros Zver, the Beast, as his language would translate his surname, not approached me in our college dining hall one Sunday afternoon. My mouth was filled, nearly overflowing, rather, with pieces of crepe suzette.

“Hi, I’ve seen you around. And I think you’ve seen me too. I’m Uros.”

Somehow, my name managed to find a way out, past the delicious obstacles within: “I’m Vanashree.”

We shook hands then, and three years later, were married in a civil ceremony at City Hall, New York.

Today we live in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Ljubljana seems to have jumped out of the pages of a Grimm Brothers’ fairy tale; at the center of the city sits a white castle atop a hill, below which flows a narrow river flanked by willow trees whose branches drape over the banks, like locks of a lover’s hair. Sometimes, when I walk alone through the twisting cobblestone street at nights, I expect to see an elf scurrying home or a witch sitting in front of a window, spinning wool while casting spells on the passersby.

Living in Ljubljana, I feel like an immigrant all over again. I am learning Slovene, where nouns decline six times and the whole language starts following a new set of rules when it comes to discussing groups of two. (Complain to native speakers about the dual, and you will find no sympathy, only pride hailing the existence of the dual as the unique beauty of the language.) I am learning the layout of apartment buildings, not to expect an elevator, not to expect the hallways always lit, and to distinguishing the light switch from the doorbell to avoid waking up the neighbors at eleven o’clock at night. I am learning the particulars of setting the table, to place the dessertspoon above the plate, and lay the napkin to the left. I am learning to live life slower than in New York City, to while away an afternoon drinking coffee with a friend and thinking of it as time well spent.

But my favorite lessons have been the edible ones. Soft crescent-shaped kifli rolls, cured prsut ham and bean-laden soups specked with bits of sausage started off as a palatable introduction to Slovenia’s geography, subculture and history, but ended up as additions to my diet.

I write this blog to share my culinary experiences in Slovenia, as I wade through new and familiar flavors, working to find a place for my palette in my new home.