wild boar sausage, boiled potato, leeks; Roman puntarelle

I would have picked a sausage from Schaller & Weber, since I love patronizing that wonderful Yorkville German food emporium, and Barry was going to be up there in the afternoon, but I was thinking of this as an Italian meal, mostly because of the puntarelle I wanted to serve, so it was the turn of our local Italian outlet, Eataly.

But then the very Germanic potato ended up as a part of the meal after all (although dressed with olive oil rather than butter).

  • four links of a wild boar sausage from Eataly (the ingredients were, simply, wild boar, salt, pepper, and wine), cooked by heating them with about a quarter inch of water in the bottom of a covered heavy cast iron pan for about 15 minutes, removing the lid and allowing the liquid to evaporate (although, not wanting to overcook them, on this occasion I poured out most of the now-flavored liquid before continuing, indicating that this technique is a work in process for me), then letting the sausages brown, turning occasionally, in the fat that accumulated with the small amount of liquid that remained until they began to look just a little blistery
  • one large, oddly double-spheroid, ‘yellow potato’ from from N.J. Jersey Farm Produce, Inc. in the 23rd Street Saturday farmers market, halved, making 2 rounds, scrubbed, boiled, drained, dried, mixed with a little olive oil and chopped French leeks from Mountain Sweet Berry Farm
  • one small bunch (about 6 ounces) of young puntarelle from Tamarack Hollow Farm, thoroughly washed, the leaves separated and placed inside a large bowl of ice water, where they were allowed to let sit, outside the refrigerator, for about one hour, while, half an hour later, three quarters of a tablespoon of red wine vinegar was placed inside a small bowl with 2 well-rinsed, finely-chopped salted Sicilian anchovies and 2 crushed cloves of garlic from Lucky Dog Organic Farm, and allowed to rest for about half an hour, also outside the refrigerator, at which time the garlic was removed from the small bowl and the puntarelle was drained and dried (using towels or a vegetable spinner), placed inside a large dry bowl and the vinegar mixture poured over it, seasoned very lightly with sea salt, one and a half tablespoons of olive oil added, along with freshly-ground Tellicherry pepper, the salad mixed/tossed at the last minute and served [NOTE: the puntarelle didn’t curl up as it really should have, probably because it had not been sliced at all, and so did not up as thin as it would have had I been working with a larger bunch, or ‘head’ of this very special chicory]
  • the wine was an Italian (Puglia) red, Salice Salentino DOC, from Philippe Liquors and Wine
  • the music was from the album, ‘William Christie conducts Charpentier’