Recipe below: Fava and Caciocavallo Salad with Torn Mint Leaves.
My first cooking job was at Restaurant Florent, in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District. It was in many ways a wonderful job, but being a freshman cook I understandably got stuck with some of the more menial tasks. One was preparing what the Mexican busboys and I called “parsley ball” (I shared the job with them). We were instructed to stem whole bunches of beautiful flat-leaf parsley, pile them into a big mound of leaves, and then whack at the mound with a chef’s knife over and over and over and over until it resembled a pile of sad green mush, all the parsley flavor lost to the cutting board. And that wasn’t the end of it. Next the mush had to be wrapped in a towel and squeezed and squeezed until every drop of life was wrung out of it. That was “parsley ball.” It was used as a generic garnish on just about everything that left the kitchen. I found it tragic. It was no way to treat fresh herbs.
My favorite way with most herbs is a quick light few chops with a chef’s knife. I keep my knives really sharp so I get a good, clean swipe. That releases an herb’s oils, giving deep flavor without pulverizing the poor thing. I find it works nicely when you’re adding an herb to a dish during cooking, but it also makes for a lovely last-minute hit of flavor, or a casual garnish.
I also like to add whole sprigs of herbs at the end of cooking or to uncooked dishes. For instance when I’m seasoning olives I’ll toss in a handful of thyme or rosemary sprigs. They flavor the entire bowl but also give a sweet little jolt of flavor when you get a piece clinging to an olive. Sprigs of soft herbs like basil, parsley, mint, and tarragon, when snipped off in little leaf clusters, give you a beautiful way of finishing hot and cold dishes, providing you choose herbs that complement the flavors in the dish. Random herb scattering is not helpful. It just clutters your dish and muddies your culinary head.
If you want to get fancy, with leafy herbs such as basil, lovage, or sage you can do a chiffonade. You simply roll up a few leaves into a tight tube and then cut it widthwise into thin rounds. They’ll open into long, thin strips that give off an intense blast of herb and also look beautiful, especially on cold dishes, where they’ll stay bright and springy (heat will eventually wilt any delicate, leafy herb to some extent). If you don’t want to bother with that, tear whole leaves with your fingers and scatter them over the top of, say, a cold seafood salad or a caprese (in that case I’m talking basil), for great flavor. It may not look tidy, but the haphazard fall of torn leaves will definitely give your dish a nice folklorico feel.
I always love seeing whole herb leaves tossed into a salad or scattered on top of a warm dish. They make me feel the cook cared enough to go for pure glamor. When I make couscous I often toss in chopped mint or Thai basil and then drop a handful of whole mint or Thai basil leaves, sometimes both, over the top. It feels like an announcement of freshness. You can do this with any soft, leafy herb, as long as it works with the dish—for instance if you’ve braised pork shoulder with red wine, juniper, and sage, you might set aside a handful of nice looking sage leaves to garnish each serving. There’s beauty and consistency there.
A mezzaluna as an herb-chopping device looks charming and even a bit romantic, plus it’s Italian, but it’s not for me. I have one. I actually have two. I bought them both in Italy, one in Puglia and the other in Liguria, but I didn’t grow up with the instrument and somehow the rocking motion feels awkward to me, plus I’m uncomfortable having both of my hands tied up in chopping. I need a free hand to move stuff around. I trained in professional kitchens on a Wüsthof eight-inch chef’s knife, and at this point the knife feels like an extension of my hand, so I’m sticking with it.
Since spring is coming now and fava beans will soon show up in the markets, I thought this fava bean and caciocavallo salad with torn mint leaves would be just the thing. Use your best olive oil on it.
Fava and Caciocavallo Salad with Torn Mint Leaves
Buy about 2 pounds of fava beans. Shuck them. Set up a big pot of water, and bring it to a boil. Put the favas in the water, and blanch them for about 15 seconds. Pour them into a colander, and run cold water over them until they’re cool. Now, and here comes the tedious but perversely fun part, with your thumbnail puncture each fava to split its skin near the seam, and then squeeze out the bright green, now skinless, bean into a large bowl. Do this with all the beans.
Take about ½ pound of caciocavallo cheese, remove its waxy surface, and cut it into small cubes, about the size of the beans. Add them to the bowl. Drizzle on a good amount, at least ¼ cup, of your best olive oil (I used Olio Verde, a grassy Sicilian brand). Add a little salt, freshly ground black pepper, and a few drops of rice wine vinegar (very little), and give everything a gentle toss. Tear about a dozen spearmint leaves in half, and scatter them over the top. I like to serve this with good Italian bread, usually piling up the salad on a slice and spooning any oil remaining in the bowl over it. It is best with a glass of Southern Italian rosato. I especially like Cerasuolo d’Abruzzo wines.