I don’t eat out at restaurants a lot (because, frankly, it’s often disappointing, overly salty, and expensive), but when I do it’s mostly for inspiration. I recently ate at Ristorante La Norma in Lucca, Italy. It was a pleasant surprise and if you’re ever in Lucca, I recommend it. I especially liked their chef’s 5-sampler appetizers, one of which was a standout: Burrata in a bowl drizzled with excellent olive oil, sprinkled with granules of pistachios, and topped with a savory tomato sorbet. We were eating outside and there were a lot of mosquitoes buzzing around me, so I wasn’t paying too much attention to the server when she explained the dish. I kept trying to figure out what the sorbet was. Tuna tartar? Carpaccio? It had kind of a meaty texture, but I couldn’t pin it down.
I asked the server when she came back, and she told me it was tomato sorbet and a light bulb went off in my head thinking, “Hmm, I can easily recreate this at home.” And this is why I occasionally go to restaurants, for this type of inspiration.
Doing my best to emulate the texture of the appetizer, I tried versions with peeled tomatoes and with skin intact. I prefer the peeled, version, but the choice is yours. Just skip the peeling portion in the recipe below if you want a shortcut.
Arliano Update (Aggiornamento Arliano):
We’re still yielding 8-12 zucchini every day. I’ve now given them to neighbors, fellow students at driving school, a more distant neighbor who cuts the weeds in our fields, and the young man who plows our garden and who recently removed a bunch of invasive bamboo. Speaking of whom, most people we’ve met are as nice as can be, welcoming, and are willing to help us stranieri (foreigners). Gabriele (pictured below) is an emerging entrepreneur building a farming and vineyard support business with his team and variety of tractors and other equipment — which is impressive given his age and within a slowly dying local industry.
We’ve started to receive estimates to renovate the little house behind or main house, which will be a 2-bedroom rental property in the future. Since there are no more rebate “bonus” programs to be had by the government, we’re on our own and the numbers are eye-opening. We’ve been told materials prices are finally dropping, which had been inflated 4X during the bonus programs. We don’t see evidence of the price reductions yet, but maybe they’ll appear while we’re awaiting renovation permits. We’ve even asked ourselves if it would be less costly to raze the structure and build a new place. Or, perhaps we leave it as a glorified storage unit. The estimates will guide us to the right decision.
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Burrata, Pistachio and Tomato Sorbet Appetizer
Ingredients
- 1 extra large or 2 medium balls of burrata, divided into 4
- 1 cup (about 175 grams), or 14-16 cherry or grape tomatoes
- 1/3 cup (33 grams) very finely chopped roasted pistachios
- 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, plus more to drizzle
- 1 medium basil leaf (yes, just 1. You want it to be an undertone, not the star), plus extra leaves for garnish, if you’d like
- 1 small clove of garlic, very finely minced
- 1/2 teaspoon Kosher or sea salt (not iodized table salt)
- 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
Directions
- Bring a medium pot of water to boil. While the water is heating prepare a bowl with an ice-water bath
- Cut a small cross on the stem-end of each tomato. Place the tomatoes in the pot and boil for 30 seconds. Remove the tomatoes with a slotted spoon and place them in the ice water bath. Let them cool for 1 minute, then remove the tomatoes and gently peel off their skin. Pat the tomatoes dry and place them in a container and freeze for at least 6 hours, or overnight
- In a food processor or high-speed blender, place the frozen tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper, and the basil leaf. Process until very smooth (you’ll likely have to scrape down the bowl several times). Don’t be tempted to add more olive oil, or anything else if it not coming together and smoothing out. Instead, let the tomato sorbet soften a bit until you can form a rounded tablespoon and it holds together
- Place the burrata pieces in individual serving bowls, sprinkle pistachios over each, and a little drizzle of olive oil. Top each with a large tablespoon of the tomato sorbet. Re-freeze any extra sorbet for later use
Greg Nelson Cooks 