{"id":732,"date":"2015-05-05T10:48:37","date_gmt":"2015-05-05T14:48:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/?p=732"},"modified":"2016-11-09T11:16:12","modified_gmt":"2016-11-09T16:16:12","slug":"a-nicoise-panzanella-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/?p=732","title":{"rendered":"A Nicoise Panzanella Moment"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"cooling<\/a><\/p>\n

Suddenly, it’s hot in Rome. Hot.<\/p>\n

Fa caldo<\/em>. Fa caldo tutti insieme-<\/em> I’m pretty sure those were the words that came galloping out of the mouth of the organic vegetable vendor at the market today. It’s hot all of a sudden!<\/em> She said some other things too, which I didn’t quite catch.<\/p>\n

I was shopping for dinner, looking all around the market to see what was best today. The rughetta<\/em> (rocket, arugula)\u00a0 looked lively, which is more than I can say for the other limp greens I saw (although one vendor had a freshly spritzed crate of cicoria<\/em>, which gave me a pang…a momentary desire to hold onto the winter and spring vegetables I’ve been loving and never let them go; to stop time from passing).<\/p>\n

But here we are, it’s May…I mentally prepared for a seasonal update. Cucumbers are coming in now and hers looked good. They would be juicy.\u00a0 I needed eggs, so I bought six from her stall.\u00a0 And rosy, tight garlic heads with stalks- all were biologico<\/em>.\u00a0 Ok, good. One of my favorite simple summer dinners is chicken with a salad. I had the salad…so I crossed over to the butcher and pick up some petti di pollo<\/em>, which he sliced in fine scallopine<\/em> for me.<\/p>\n

It was so hot, I walked home directly to get the chicken in the fridge.\u00a0 But once at home I realized I’d forgotten about lunch.\u00a0 What could I make with what I had, the familiar refrain? I needed something cool and healthy and salty.\u00a0 Egg, rocket, cucumber…. I made an eight minute egg.\u00a0 I had some stale but delicious olive bread from Le Levain<\/a> bakery, so the toasted olive bread became the base for a salty, savory, juicy and satisfying salad.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_9356\"<\/a>This is how to make a sort of panzanella<\/em>– or maybe it’s a Nicoise bread salad. Or do the oregano and olives make it a Greek one?<\/p>\n

Toast sliced olive bread (or just toast plain, rustic bread and then add olives to your salad). You could rub the bread with a garlic clove when it’s warm, to impart just a whiff. But have you ever had garlic so fresh it’s still juicy? Mine was, so I decided to thinly slice it and add it to the bowl, yum. And some best quality anchovies from a jar- I’ll eat six fillets, but you should decide for yourself.\u00a0 The toasted bread needs to be torn with your hands and then moistened. I don’t like it to be soft as pap, so I pour in a little bit of water, and then a few drops more, just until the bread is tender. I add balsamic vinegar and olive oil; a few crumbles of dried oregano and a pinch of spicy crushed red pepper go in and it all gets tossed really well.\u00a0 Now the green. I tear the rocket leaves and add them to the bowl along with thick half moons of cucumber.<\/p>\n

That’s it. I slice the egg in half and marvel at its yolk. Did you know that in Italian the egg yolk is referred to as the rosso<\/em> (red)?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Suddenly, it’s hot in Rome. Hot. Fa caldo. Fa caldo tutti insieme- I’m pretty sure those were the words that came galloping out of the mouth of the organic vegetable vendor at the market today. It’s hot all of a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[190,184,106,43,206,20,92,150,75,188,135,167,131,41,207],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/IMG_9368.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5ICYG-bO","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annakovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}