Italy

The original Italian recipe called for John Dory or Pomfret, but we don't find that in our local fish markets so I tried it with haddock, and I recommend it. 

This recipe is a little different from most fish recipes here so far because the haddock is pan-fried. Haddock around New England is traditionally sold with the skin on, but you don't really have to skin it as long as you remember to tell your diners which side is up! 

This should work equally well with cod. 

These braised onions from the northwestern foothills of the Alps are simple and delicious, especially since perfectly good pearl onions are available frozen year round.

Serve this with any meaty dish, especially those from the Piedmont and Lombardy regions, and substitute appropriate stock for the vegetable stock. On the other hand, you can make this vegan by following it as written and substitute the more oil for the butter. 

This is a logical  variation on a nineteenth century recipe, recognized by Enrica at the delightful A Small Kitchen in Genoa blog.

In the photo, the whole mussels are just a garnish; the real point of this recipe is the sauce, made from seasoned finely chopped cooked mussels. It was delicious, and not at all difficult to make! 

One of the tricky things about trying to cook Italian recipes in New England is that many of the ingredients are different, especially with regard to seafood. Most of Italy is far closer to where the crops are grown than New England is to California's Central Valley, so their produce tends to be fresher all year round. But for seafood, the fish and shellfish in our waters are in most cases very different from Mediterranean waters.

This recipe calls for Maine shrimp, the delicious little cold-water shrimp from the Bay of Fundy that are not the same as "salad shrimp" that you can get at some food service outlets. Italy has shrimp of all sizes, including little shrimp like these, but I doubt that they are the same species in those warmer waters. Nevertheless, they get us closer to the way this recipe would be made in Venice or Genoa.

A favorite pasta dressing from Genoa.

This was great with boxed penne pasta, but it was absolutely sublime when made with all the best ingredients to dress Mandilli a Saea (see Fresh Pasta ) for a birthday dinner!

In much of Italy and in some parts of this country, rosemary grows year-round and people have hedges of it, but in Plymouth this is one of those taste-of-summer dishes.

It's an easy and flavorful vegetarian pasta dish. It's mostly just chopped tomatoes with a blast of fresh rosemary, a great combination.