Recipe below: Gemelli with Escarole, Anchovies, Raisins, and Pine Nuts
“That’s a lot of sca-roll.” That’s what years ago I heard my uncle Jack snottily and jealously joke after seeing my dad drive up in yet another new Cadillac. Translated, that meant, “You paid big time for that, Dicky boy.” Sca-roll meant money, but more specifically green cash. My father Richard, known as Dick, paid for many big ticket items in cash. Not unusual in his circle. And sca-roll was also, as every Italian American learned at an early age, a very fine green vegetable.
The Italian name for the green is scarola, but we called it sca-roll or sometimes shka-roll, actually more often the latter. Escarole is the French spelling, which America seemed to have adopted. The plant is a chicory, related to endive, originally from the East Indies before moving into Sicily and then up north, settling in Campania and surrounding areas, where it was revered. Most of the original shka-roll eaters in America had it presented to them by their Neapolitan, Calabrian, or Sicilian elders, who either brought seeds over or hunted them down on arrival in the USA. Couldn’t do without scarola. Southern Italians in Italy lived on greens, both domesticated and foraged.
When I was a kid in the sixties and seventies, nobody ate the stuff except Italians, but we ate it a lot. It was something that made us other, though in New York there were so many Italian Americans it didn’t seem very other to me, except when an Irish school chum came for dinner. Then there would be yuck, ick, gross, which nobody could understand—and she would truly horrify my family by asking for a glass of orange juice to go with her spaghetti. Now, that was the real yuck, ick, gross.
Every meal had to have greens. It was medicine, kept the blood flowing. For my grandmother it was escarole or dandelions or spinach. I remember watching her eat big bowls of escarole when she was going through one of her migraine depressions. Self-medicating. That seemed tragic when I was a kid. My mom made sure escarole or chicory salad came out every night at some point during the meal. In her mind a meal was not complete without a bracing salad.
Escarole, along with broccoli rabe, is still extremely popular with Italian Americans. I guess people can flee from the bitter earth but you can’t chase the bitter edge out of them. I certainly feel that way. I love bitter, and in the world of Italian bitter stuff, escarole is pretty tame. Broccoli rabe and radicchio, for instance, are both much more bitter.
There were many dishes that needed escarole. Escarole with olive oil and garlic and dried chili flakes was a standard. And then there were escarole with raisins and pine nuts, no dried chili flakes; escarole with cannellini beans; escarole with ceci; escarole with anchovies and penne; orecchiette with escarole and sausage (as a change from the more common broccoli rabe and sausage); soup with red beans and escarole; soup with escarole and baby meatballs or chunks of pancetta; escarole with eggs, not exactly a frittata, more like scrambled eggs made with long, broad sweeps of a spatula to create I kind of flat but loose omelet; escarole salad with croutons and pecorino, sort of like a Caesar except not creamy. Escarole is excellent piled on grilled bread for a kind of hard-to-eat bruschetta. And there’s also a labor-intensive and in my opinion rather stupid Neapolitan preparation of a whole stuffed escarole head tied with string and braised. I tried making it a few time and found it a complete mess to cut and serve. I also love escarole with shrimp and fresh hot chilies. And then there’s the gorgeous pizza di scarola, something so special to me that I only make it on Christmas Eve. But my all time fave way with shka-roll is in a pasta with the classic raisin and pine nut duo and a good hit of anchovy. Here’s my slightly updated version.
Gemelli with Escarole, Anchovies, Raisins, and Pine Nuts
1 large head good-looking escarole, or two medium heads (you want a lot of escarole here)
Salt
1 pound gemelli (I used the Setaro brand from Naples—you can order it and many other shapes from Buonitalia)
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 large shallot, cut into small dice
2 very fresh unsprouted garlic cloves, very thinly sliced
5 or 6 oil-packed anchovies, chopped (I’ve lately been really liking the Ortiz brand)
5 large thyme sprigs, the leaves lightly chopped
½ teaspoon ground allspice
1 fresh red peperoncino, minced (or as much or as little as you like)
About ½ cup raisins soaked in a small glass of dry white wine
½ to ¾ cup lightly toasted pine nuts
I always blanch my escarole. It isn’t absolutely necessary, but I really want to preserve its green color. It looks so much more appealing. I don’t do it to remove bitterness; I love bitter, and frankly escarole is really very mild. So, I set up a big pot of water, preferably with a pasta drainer insert so I can blanch and drain the escarole and then keep the water to cook the pasta. To do this, bring the water to a boil, and add a good amount of salt. Add the escarole, pushing it down with a wooden spoon until it’s all submerged. Blanch it for about a minute. Pull the drainer up and out, and run the escarole under cold water. That will set its color. Squeeze out as much water as you can, and turn the escarole out onto a few sheets of paper towels so it can continue draining.
Bring the water back to a boil, and drop in the gemelli.
Get out a large sauté pan, and put in over medium heat. Add a generous amount of olive oil, and let it warm up. Add the shallot, and sauté until it just starts to soften, about 2 minutes. Add the garlic, anchovies, thyme, allspice, and peperoncino, and sauté until everything is fragrant and the flavors are melding, a few minutes longer.
Add the escarole, spreading it out in the pan. Season with a touch of salt (remember that the anchovies are salty), and stir it around to coat it well with the anchovy and all the other flavors. Add a little more olive oil if you think it needs it. When the escarole is warmed through and nicely sautéed, add the raisins with their soaking wine, letting it bubble for a few seconds.
When the gemelli is al dente, drain it, saving a little of the cooking water.
If your pan is big enough, add the gemelli to the escarole, and give it a final quick toss over medium heat for a few seconds. Though this is ideal, it’s not always possible. You need a gigantic pan to hold all that, and most people don’t have one. Alternately, pour the gemelli into a large warmed serving bowl, and pour the escarole, with all its pan juices, on top. Add the pine nuts. Give it a good toss, adding a little of the cooking water to loosen it up. Finish with a drizzle of fresh olive oil. Serve right away. I prefer this pasta without cheese, but a few gratings of a young pecorino won’t hurt anyone. My sister Liti prefers it that way.