When one thinks of Rome, one thinks of food. And when one thinks of Roman food, one thinks of pizza and pasta slathered with rich, delicious tomato sauce and embellished with juicy slices of eggplant, tasty charred bits of roasted red pepper, and sweet crispy
But that’s summer food! Head off to a Roman market in the winter and you’ll notice that the tomatoes, the peppers, the eggplant and the zucchini seem a little anemic and that they’re sporting price tags that threaten to break the bank.
So, if those cliched standards are out, what’s one to eat in Rome in the winter? Given the mild climate in central Italy, there’s no shortage of delicious things out there and a trip to the market will produce baskets full of richly-colored cold-weather vegetables that will please both eye and stomach.
Take, for example, the photo above, taken after yesterday morning’s visit to the organic market that happens every second and last Sunday of the month on Vicolo della Moretta. There’s bunches and bunches of beautiful baby carrots, a butternut squash, kohl rabi, and some brilliantly colored radicchio that’s just begging to be sprinkled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar and roasted in the oven.
Or there’s the fine examples above: a broccoli romanesco (sometimes called a minaret for its unusual shape); a bunch of cavolo nero that’s so green it’s almost black in color; and a head of green radicchio that seems to have been splattered with red paint.
What to do with all of this? There’s a world of vegetable soups and stews that keep us warm here at the eCool compound, but our absolute favorite winter dish is a pesto made of cavolo nero. The recipe comes from the River Cafe Italian Country Cookbook by Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray.
Winter Pesto of Cavolo Nero
2 1/2 lbs cavolo nero leaves
4 garlic cloves, peeled
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper (we add pepperoncino too)
Remove the stems of the cavolo nero leaves, but keep the leaves whole. (Hey, we don’t even remove the stems. We just cut off the thickest part of the ends.) Blanch them in a generous amount of boiling slated water along with 2 garlic cloves for a few minutes only. Drain well. Put the blanched garlic and cavolo nero into the food processor and pulse/chop to a fairly coarse puree. In the last couple of seconds, pour into the processor about 5 tablespoons of the oil. This makes a fairly liquid, dark green (and utterly delicious) puree.
Crush the remaining 2 garlic cloves with 1 tablespoon of sea salt (and some pepperoncino). Stir into the puree along with a further 5 tablespoons of oil. Season to taste.
Use as you would a summer basil pesto, stirring into hot pasta until all the pasta is thickly coated. Add olive oil and grated parmesan as necessary or desirable.
