In praise of Lidia

When it comes to TV food stars, Rachael Ray may rule the roost, but my heart belongs to Lidia.

Lidia Bastianich looks like good cooks used to look before the days of Botox, liposuction and the Wonderbra. She has chubby hands, short, thinning hair and a face made welcoming by years of living. She seems refreshingly unselfconscious on her PBS shows, which include “Lidia’s Italy.” Most important, she speaks with the authority that comes from time well spent in the kitchen.

Lidia was born in 1947 in a town named Istria, near Venice, which is now part of Croatia. When she turned 12, she moved to New York with her family. Her mother went to work in a bakery, and Lidia was frequently called upon to get dinner on the family table. After marriage came children and a restaurant. The rest, as they say, is history.

Lidia has been preaching the “keep it fresh, keep it seasonal, keep it simple” gospel for a long time, and her recipes reflect her love for well-grown and well-made fresh foods. She has also been preaching the benefits of the family table. Her mother, her son and daughter, and now her grandchildren are all featured regularly on her shows. She’s an ambitious woman, for sure — aside from her TV shows, books and a small fleet of restaurants, she runs high-end Italian travel excursions and sells her own brand of pasta sauces. She has hobnobbed not just with great chefs like the late Julia Child but superstars like Sophia Loren. She has cooked dinner for the pope. But it is her family that is front and center in her books, her TV shows and — one can’t help but believe — in her heart.

The recipes below come from her penultimate book “Lidia’s Family Table” (Knopf, 2004); a new one, “Lidia Cooks from the Heart of Italy,” is due out in October. These are twists on more well-known recipes: The “gnudi” are “naked” dumplings (ravioli filling without the pasta covering), and the peach “lasagna” resembles bread pudding. When you serve them, make sure to say, as she does at each show’s end: “Tutti a tavola a mangiare!” (“Everyone to the table to eat!”)

GNUDI (NAKED RAVIOLI)

20 ounces fresh or frozen spinach

1 pound fresh ricotta, drained

1 egg

3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese, preferably Parmigiano-Reggiano

6 tablespoons fine breadcrumbs, or more, as needed

1/4 cup flour, plus extra for rolling the gnudi

1/2 teaspoon salt

freshly ground black pepper

For the sauce:

8 tablespoons butter

10 whole fresh sage leaves

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

The day before you are going to make the gnudi, cook the fresh spinach in boiling water for 5 minutes, and drain it in a colander; or, if using frozen, put it in a colander to thaw and drain. Squeeze out as much liquid as you can. Let sit overnight in the fridge, draining the liquid from the colander into a bowl. The next morning, squeeze out as much extra liquid as you can, and puree the spinach in a food processor.

Put a large pot of salted water on to boil. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place some extra flour in a shallow bowl.

While the water is heating, blend the ricotta and egg together in a large bowl. Mix in the pureed spinach, 1/4 cup of the cheese, breadcrumbs, 1/4 cup of the flour and the salt and pepper, and knead lightly. Test the consistency of the dough by scooping up a heaping tablespoonful, forming it into a ball and rolling it in flour. Drop it into the boiling water; if it doesn’t hold its shape and rise to the surface of the water within a minute, add more breadcrumbs to your dough. Test again.

When you have the right consistency, shape all of the dough into balls the size of golf balls, then roll them lightly in flour and lay them out on the prepared baking sheet.

Make the sauce: Melt the butter in a large skillet set over medium heat, lay in the sage leaves, and heat until the butter is sizzling gently. Toss the leaves for a minute or more. Ladle in 1 cup of boiling water, and stir and simmer for about 2 minutes, reducing the liquid by half. Grind the black pepper directly into the sauce. Keep over low heat.

Cook the gnudi: Drop the balls gently one by one into the boiling water, and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, until they rise to the top and come to a rolling boil. To test for doneness, scoop out a ball and press it with your fingers. It should bound back, leaving no indentation.

Remove cooked gnudi from the water with a slotted spoon, and gently place in the skillet with the sage and butter. Spoon the sauce over the gnudi, and top with the remaining 1/2 cup cheese.

Yield: Serves 6 as a first course, 4 as a main course

Recipe from “Lidia’s Family Table” by Lidia Bastianich (Knopf, 2004)

PEACH LASAGNA

For the fruit layers:

3 pounds fresh peaches

grated zest and juice of 1 lemon

3/4 cup sugar

For the bread layers:

6 tablespoons butter

8 slices country bread, not too thickly cut, from a round country loaf

1-1/2 tablespoons sugar

For the crumb topping:

1/3 cup flour

1/4 cup sugar

1 tablespoon dark-brown sugar

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

pinch of salt

4 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces

3 tablespoons finely chopped almonds

Bring a pot of water to a boil. Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Peel the peaches by cutting an X in the skin in the bottom and tossing them into the boiling water. Remove after a minute or so and drain. When cool enough to handle, slip off the skin. Slice them in 1/4-inch wedges, and toss them in a bowl with the lemon zest, juice and the sugar.

Melt 3 tablespoons of butter in a large skillet, and lay in half the bread slices. Brown them lightly on one side, then turn and brown on the other. Repeat with remaining butter and bread and, when you are done, sprinkle the 1-1/2 tablespoons sugar over all.

Line the bottom of an 8-by-10-inch baking dish with half the bread. Spoon half the peaches and juice on top. Then repeat with bread and fruit, using all the juices.

Prepare the topping by tossing together in a bowl the flour, sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon and salt. Cut in the butter using your fingertips or a pastry blender, leaving small, flaky pieces of butter throughout. Stir in the chopped almonds.

Sprinkle the topping evenly over the lasagna, and bake for 50 minutes. If the peaches were very ripe and juicy, it will be done; otherwise, it will take a full hour or more. The peaches should be tender, the juices bubbling, and the top nicely browned.

Serve warm.

Yield: 8 servings

Recipe from “Lidia’s Family Table” by Lidia Bastianich (Knopf, 2004)

Marialisa Calta is the author of “Barbarians at the Plate: Taming and Feeding the American Family” (Perigee, 2005). For more information, go to www.marialisacalta.com.