Scallop Sauce with Olive Oil, Garlic, and Hot Pepper

The smallest -and perhaps the tasties- of several varietes of scallop found in Italian waters is called canestrelli, smaller, when shelled, than the nail of a child's little finger. When fresh, North American scallops are exceptionally good too, particularly the sweet ones known as bay scallops, but they are larger than canestrelli, and should be cut up so that, like canestrelli, there will be more little pieces available to carry the seasoning.

1 pound fresh bay or deep sea scallops
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon garlic chopped very fine
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
Chopped hot red chili pepper, to taste
Salt
1 and 1/2 pounds pasta
1/2 cup dry, unflavored bread crumbs, lightly toasted in the oven or in a skillet

Recommended pasta: As in so many other seafood sauces, spaghettini, thin spaghetti, is the most congenial shape, but spaghetti is an equally valid choice.

1. Wash the scallops in cold water, pat thoroughly dry with a cloth towel, and cut up into pieces about 3/8 inch thick.

2. Put the olive oil and garlic in a saucepan, turn on the heat to medium, and cook, stirring, until the garlic becomes colored a light gold. Add the parsley and hot pepper. Stir once or twice, then add the scallops and one or two large pinches of salt. Turn the heat up to high, and cook for about 1 1/2 minutes, stirring frequently, until the scallops lose their shine and turn a flat white. Do not overcook the scallops or they will become tough. Taste and correct for salt and hot pepper. If the scallops should shed a lot of liquid, remove them from the pan with a slotted spoon, and boil down the watery juices. Return the scallops to the pan, turn them over quickly, then turn off the beat.

3. Toss thorougly with cooked drained spaghettini, add the bread crumbs, toss again, and serve at once.

Baked Sea Bass or Other Whole Fish Stuffed with Shellfish

In this preparation, a whole bass is stuffed with shellfish, onions, olive oil, and lemon juice; it is then tightly sealed in foil or parchment paper and baked in the oven, where it braises in its own juices and those released by the stuffing. It merges from the cooking with its flesh extraordinarily moist and saturated with a medley of sea frangrances.
The most agreeable way to serve the fish is whole, with the head and tail on, but completely boned. If you have an obliging fish dealer, he would know how to do it for you. If he is not that obliging, you can settle for having him fillet the fish, splitting it into two halves, removing the head and tail bone it yourself, which is really not all that difficult as you will see from the instructions below.
Boning fish while leaving it whole: a slit will be made in the fish's belly when it is gutted at the store. With a sharp knife, extend the slit the whole length of the fish, head to tail. The entire backbone will then be exposed, along with the rib bones embedded in the upper part of the belly. With your fingertips and with the help of a paring knife, pry all the rib bones loose, detach them, and discard them. Use the same technique to loosen the backbone, separating it from the flesh attached to it. Carefully bend the head without detaching it, until the backbone snaps off. Do the same at the tail end. You can now lift off the entire backbone, and your whole, boneless fish is ready to be stuffed.

For 6 or more serving

1 dozen clams
1 dozen mussels
6 medium raw shrimp
2 garlic cloves
1 small onion
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
Freshly squeezed juice of 1 lemon
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
Salt
Black pepper, ground fresh from the mill
1/2 cup fine, dry, unflavored bread crumbs
A 4-to-5 pound whole sea bass, red snapper, or small salmon, or similar fish, boned as described above
Heavy-weight cooking parchment or foil

1. Wash and scrub the clams and mussels. Discard those that stay open when handled. Put them in a pan broad enough so that they don't need to be piled up more than 3 deep, cover the pan, and turn on the heat to high. Check the mussels and clams frequently, turning them over, and promptly removing them from the pan as they open their shells.

2. When all the clams and mussels have opened up, detach their meat from the shells. Put the shellfish meat in a bowl and cover it with its own juices from the pan. To be sure, as you are doing this, that any sand is left behind, tip the pan and gently spoon off the liquid from the top.

3. Let the clam and mussel meat rest for 20 or 30 minutes, so that it may shed any sand still clinging to it, then retrieve it gently with a slotted spoon, and put it in a bowl large enough to contain later all the other ingredients except for the fish. Line a strainer with paper towels, and filter the shellfish juices through the paper into the bowl.

Ahead-of-time note: The steps above may be completed 2 or 3 hours in advance.

4. Shell the strimp and remove their dark vein. Wash in cold water and pat thoroughly dry with cloth kitchen towels. If using very large shrimp, slice them in half, lengthwise. Add them to the bowl.

5. Mash the garlic lightly with a heavy knife handle, just hard enough to split its skin and peel it. Add it to the bowl.

6. Slice the onion as fine as possible. Add it to the bowl.

7. Put all the other ingredients listed, except for the fish, into the bowl. Toss thoroughly to coat all the shellfish well.

8. Preheat oven to 475°.

9. Wash the fish in cold water inside and out, then pat thoroughly dry with paper towels.

10. Lay a double thickness of aluminum foil or cooking parchment on the bottom of a long, shallow baking dish, bearing in mind that there must be enough to close over the whole fish. Pour some of the liquid in the mixing bowl over the foil or parchment, tipping the baking dish to spread it evenly. Place the fish in the center and stuff it with all the contents of the bowl, reserving just some of the liquid. If you have opted for having the fish split into two fillets, sandwich the contents of the bowl between them. Use the liquid you just reserved to moisten the skin side of the fish. Fold the foil or parchment over the fish, crimping the edges to seal tightly throughout, and tucking the ends under the fish.

11. Bake in the upper third of the preheated oven, let the fish rest for 10 minutes in the sealed foil or parchment. If the baking dish is not presentable for the table, transfer the still-sealed fish to a platter. With scissors, cut the foil or parchment open, trimming it down to the edge of the dish. Don't attempt to lift the fish out of the wrapping, because it is boneless and will break up. Serve it directly from the foil or parchment, slicing the fish across as you might a roast, pouring over each portion some of the juices.

Insalata di Limone, Cetriolo e Peperone
Lemon, cucumber, and pepper salad

The only fruits used in Italian salads are either oranges or lemons, because of their citric tartness. The refreshing coolness of both the taste and the prevailing colors in this salad is particularly welcome after a fish course.

For 4 to 6 persons

2 or 3 lemons (depending on size)
Salt
1 sweet red bell pepper
2 cucumbers, preferably the so-called English variety without seed
Extra virgin olive oil
Black pepper in a grinder
1 tablespoon parsley chopped coarse

1. Wash the lemons and slice them, with the rind on, as thin as possible, but no thicker than l/8 inch. With the tip of a paring knife pick out all the seeds you can, in particular the cut ones, which secrete a bitter oil.

2. Put the lemon slices in a small bowl and sprinkle liberally with salt.

3. Cut the bell pepper lengthwise along its creases. Remove the stem, core, and seeds. Skin the pepper with a peeler and cut the flesh into the thinnest possible strips, no more than 1/4 inch thick. Set aside.

4. Using a mandolin, the single long slit of a four-sided grater, or the thin slicing disk in a food processor, slice the cucumber paper thin, leaving the peel on. If using a regular cucumber, first wash it under a strong jet of cold running water, rubbing it vigorously with a rough cloth. Set the sliced cucumber aside.

5. When ready to serve, choose a very shallow bowl or deep serving dish where the ingredients can be spread out. Line the bottom with cucumber slices. Drain the lemon and put the slices over the cucumber, allowing a border of cucumber to show. Repeat the concentric arrangement with the peppers, placing them over the lemon. Sprinkle with olive oil, pouring it in a thin stream in a figure 8 pattern to distribute it evenly. Add a few grindings of pepper and top with the chopped parsley. Just before serving, but not earlier, sprinkle with salt.

Monte Bianco
Puréed Chestnut and Chocolate Mound

On those days when Milan's veil of gray air miraculously dissolves, and through gaps in the city skyline one can see the mountains lined up on the horizon, the eye is irresistibly drawn up to the perpetually white summit of Mont Blanc, gleaming like a frosty mirage in the northern sky. Monte Bianco, to call the mount by its Italian name, has a namesake that, in the holiday season, makes its appearance on demand on Milanese tables: It is a pyramid of dark chocolate and puréed fresh chestnuts, topped by a snowy peak of whipped cream. We can be deeply -even if only momentarily- consoled for the bitterness of winter by the heartwarming aroma and flavor of fresh chestnuts, and in Monte Bianco they find their most succulent employment.

1 pound fresh chestnust, soaked and gashed
Milk
Salt
6 ounces semisweet chocolate in drops or chopped squares
A double boiler
1/4 cup rum
A mixing bowl kept in the freezer
2 cups very cold heavy whipping cream
2 teaspoons granulated sugar

1. Put the gashed chestnuts in a pot, cover amply with water, put a lid on the pot, bring the water to a boil, and cook for 25 minutes after the boil begins. Scoop the chestnuts out of the water a few at a time, peeling them while still very warm. Make sure you remove not only the outer shell, but also the wrinkled inner skin, but do not worry about keeping the chestnuts whole because you'll be puréeing them later.

2. Put the peeled nuts in a saucepan with just enough milk to cover and a pinch of salt. Cook at a steady simmer without covering the pan until all the milk has been absorded, about 15 minutes.

3. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler.

4. Purée the chestnuts into a bowl, passing them trough a food mill fitted with the disk with large holes. Add the melted chocolate and rum, mixing the ingredients well. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Ahead-of-time note: The chestnuts and chocolate mixture can be prepared up to this point a day in advance and refrigerated until you are ready to proceed.

5. Pass the chestnut purée and chocolate mixture through the food mill, fitted with the same disk, letting it drop onto a round serving platter. At first hold the food mill close to the edge of the dish; as you pass the mixture through it and as it piles up, bring the food mill gradually toward the center of the dish in an upward spiral direction. What you want to do is distribute the chestnut and chocolate on the platter so that it forms a cone-shaped mound. Do not pat it, or shape it in any way, but leave it looking exactly the way it did when it dropped from the mill.

6. Put the cream and sugar in the bowl you had been keeping in the freezer and whip it with a whisk until stiff. Use half the whipped cream to cover the top of the chestnut mound, coming about two-thirds of the way down. It should have a natural, "snowed-on" look, so let the cream come down the mound at random in peaks and hollows.

Ahead-of-time- note: The Monte Bianco can be completed as described above, and served up to 4 to 6 hours later. Refrigerate it, but do not cover it. Also refrigerate the remaining half of the whipped cream.

7. Serve the dessert with the remaining whipped cream on the side for those who would like their Monte Bianco with little more "snow".