Italian rice salad. Welcome September + links
Welcome, September. You are the sweetest month, you give us a new beginning, a second chance, the inspiration to dream big. You are just like January, but dressed in softer colours and warmer lights. Graced with mild temperatures, you bring us ripe figs, grapes, and the first, crisp apples. Let’s start again, we’re ready for a new season of recipes, stories, projects, and, hopefully, some precious family time.
And now, as always, a list of things I’m cooking, listening to, watching, and reading, as this is what is keeping me inspired and connected from our last newsletter. Read it to discover also 10 recipes to cook this month.
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What I am cooking
When summer will be over, I’ll be missing all these seasonal vegetables, and the morning stroll in the vegetable garden to pick something for lunch and dinner. As much as I love shopping for fruit and vegetables at the market, there is nothing like picking your own tomatoes or choosing the ripest fig dangling from the highest branch. As a consequence, my meals are overloaded with vegetables, as I can’t have enough roasted eggplants and peppers, tomato salads, or stewed green beans.
I made some more jams and preserves, and jars of rice salad condiments to stir into a bowl of rice at the very last minute. You’ll find the recipe below.
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What I am reading
Every morning, after Livia has had her bottle of milk, she reaches for a book and brings it to me. She is in the I-love-leafing-through-pages phase, and I’m enjoying these quiet moments together.
I’m slow at reading my books these days, even though I just started a classic, Food and Healing: How What You Eat Determines Your Health, Your Well-Being, and the Quality of Your Life, by Annemarie Colbin, and I have on the list also Healing with Whole Foods, Asian Traditions and Modern Nutrition, by Paul Pitchford.
Everything sparked from a question on fermented foods I shared on Instagram: my friend Nina Gigante, a food, travel, and wellness journalist suggested I should read these two books (you can listen to our conversation about Salento in the last episode of Cooking with an Italian Accent). These are not the typical books I would read, nor it is an easy subject for me, but I am curious to delve into a totally new approach to food, at least for me.
What I am watching
We started watching the second season of Ted Lasso. I am not a soccer fan, so at the beginning I was hesitant, but after a few minutes, I was hooked. It is all about good feelings, optimism, and the clash between the American and the British culture. At the end of a long day, it really lifts up your spirits.
What I am listening to
The book deadline is approaching, so I am mainly listening to movie soundtracks – The Last of the Mohicans and The Lord of the Rings being my favourites – while I type away at my desk.
During August I suspended my daily walks for the heat, but now I have no excuses, I’ll be back walking in the morning – and to the swimming pool, too, fingers crossed – and I’ll catch up with my favourite podcasts.
Where I am dreaming to go
At the end of the month, we’ll celebrate our third wedding anniversary, so at the moment I’m dreaming about a romantic weekend somewhere in the mountains. It would also be the first time up there with Livia, hopefully, we’ll manage to run away for a couple of days, even if the cookbook deadline is approaching. I still feel very unsure about dreaming of a holiday somewhere abroad, even though at the moment I often find myself browsing through our honeymoon pictures in Scotland and Ireland.
Italian rice salad, with quick-pickled vegetables
Recipe developed in collaboration with Tenuta San Carlo
When I was a child, there was a bowl of rice salad sitting in the fridge at home all summer long. When I got hungry, even if it wasn’t lunch or dinner time, I would open the fridge, lift the plate that kept the rice salad covered, and steal a spoonful of it. I was very intentional in choosing a bite that was rich with pickled vegetables, hard-boiled eggs, sausages, or cooked ham. Then I would give the rice a good stir to even out the surface, hiding my robbery, and quietly close the fridge.
Years have passed since that Italian rice salad made with store-bought condiments, but once in a while, I still find myself craving for that fresh dish, a symbol of the ’80s and ’90s Italian summers.
When Tenuta San Carlo asked me to develop a recipe with their rice, there I was back in the mood for rice salad. I wanted it to be fresh, savoury, acidic, and crunchy, celebrating the late summer flavours.
I chose their organic Ribe Rice, dedicated to Ennio, the grandfather of Tenuta San Carlo owners. Hailing from Veneto, one of the rice-producing regions in Italy, Ennio saw an opportunity to grow rice in the former marshlands of Maremma. So, in the sixties, Ennio and his wife Olga created the fields where they grow their rice today. Artisanally stone-milled, this rice is versatile and works well in an endless variety of recipes – from soups to salads to desserts.
There was an excellent rice to start. Now, it was time to think about the dressing. I decided to make a homemade condiriso, the ubiquitous jarred rice dressing of my childhood, so I put together a giardiniera, a collection of pickled seasonal vegetables blanched in water and vinegar and preserved in oil.
With this amount of vegetables, you will get enough condiments for two rice salads for 6 people.
I always prefer to make it in bulk to have some vegetables ready in the fridge for the next time. Unlike the classic rice salad of the 80s, there is no mayonnaise here. Instead, hard boil some eggs, then mash them with a fork and stir them into the rice. When the hard-boiled eggs marry the extra virgin olive oil, they create a lighter but equally creamy dressing.
Italian rice salad, with quick-pickled vegetables
Ingredients
For the cooking liquid
- 1 l water
- 1 l vinegar
- 100 g sugar
- 60 g salt
- 2 bay leaves
- 5 peppercorns
For the vegetables
- 2 carrots
- 2 celery stalks
- 1 handful green beans
- 2 zucchini
- ½ red pepper
- ½ yellow pepper
- ¼ cauliflower
- 1 red onion
- ½ cup olives, pitted
- 1/3 cup capers, desalted
- 1 cup extra virgin olive oil
For the rice salad
- 480 g organic Ribe Rice Ennio, Tenuta San Carlo
- 4 hard-boiled eggs
- Salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- Fresh basil
Instructions
Prepare the seasoning for the rice
- Start by preparing the vegetables, cleaning and cutting them, keeping them all separate. Divide the cauliflower into florets. Slice the celery and zucchini into rounds. Cut the peppers and carrots into sticks. Remove the tips from the green beans and cut them into 2 cm sticks. Finally, slice the onion into wedges.
- Pour the vinegar, the water, the salt, and the sugar into a large saucepan. Stir to dissolve the salt and sugar, and then bring to a boil.
- Blanch the vegetables separately, for a few minutes, until al dente. Then, remove them from the pan with a slotted spoon and place them on a clean cloth to dry for a few hours. Do the same with all the vegetables.
- Once dry, place the vegetables in a bowl and cover them with extra virgin olive oil. Add the desalted capers and pitted olives. Stir, and store in the fridge, covered with cling film, for a week.
Prepare the rice salad
- Cook the rice in a pot of boiling salted water, drain when al dente, and run under cold water to stop the cooking.
- Collect the rice in a large salad bowl, add half of the prepared seasoning, or as much as you like. Use the vegetable olive oil to dress the salad, as in the meantime, it will have absorbed all the flavours from the vegetables.
- Mash the hard-boiled eggs with a fork, and add them to the rice salad along with the basil, torn with your hands. Give the rice salad a good stir, cover with cling film, and stash in the fridge for a few hours before serving.
- It will keep in the fridge in an airtight container for a few days.
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Do you think fennel would be good added to the pickled vegetables?
Fennel would be fabulous here!