Fontina

Rollatini are a popular dish in Italy. They can be made with chicken, veal, or pork, and the stuffing can be just about anything you like, but do include cheese. The delight of rollatini is the oozing cheese when you cut into them. So, whatever you do, do not skimp on the cheese. This dish was very popular on the menus of Italian American restaurants in the sixties and seventies. Fontina has great melting qualities; when it is not readily available, Muenster cheese is often substituted.

GINA Set out a unique dip to get this cheer rolling in! No one ever really expects you to go to the trouble of making something as special as a warm crab dip—but they sure are happy if you do. It adds a festive, caring quality to the party in the same way a great piece of jewelry can make a whole outfit special.

This dish requires a little effort ahead of time but finishes quick and easy, making it perfect for a casual weeknight dinner. It’s an adaptation of saltimbocca (Italian for “jump in your mouth”), traditionally made with thin slices of veal sautéed with prosciutto and sage. Since veal can be a little harder to find, and pricier, I use a less expensive cut of meat and splurge on an embellishment: a genuine Fontina Val d’Aosta, from the Piedmont region in Italy. This combination will literally jump in your mouth! I recommend serving it with tender asparagus.

This is what I call a “close your eyes and sigh” dish—one of those fragrant and comforting meals that remind us what makes eating such a soul-satisfying experience. It can be served as a vegetarian entrée or as a side dish with chicken, veal, or lamb. Polenta provides the creamy base that melds alternating layers of cheese and vegetables. During baking, the flavors intermingle, and the fontina and roasted garlic provide a pleasing gooey texture. A simple tomato basil sauce brightens up the mellow flavor of the polenta. The result: a perfect confluence of luscious Italian flavors. If you have never had real Val d’Aosta fontina cheese, this is an excellent time to try it. The difference is noticeable: Val d’Aosta is firm and has a savory, slightly grassy flavor. If you are short on time, forgo the sauce; this polenta is delicious without it.

A trip to New York City wouldn’t be complete without stopping in a Jewish-style deli, and you can’t go to a New York deli without trying a Reuben sandwich piled sky-high with corned beef brisket, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, and Russian or Thousand Island dressing. This is my southern take on that great sandwich. Lean bison is naturally lower in fat than beef, but its flavor is quite similar and you should feel free to use beef brisket if you can’t find or don’t care for bison. I often dress red cabbage as coleslaw for sandwiches, but cooking it first mellows its bitter note. Hundred Island Dressing is revamped from the original with a substitution of pickled okra for pickle relish. Okra reinforces the southern touch that’s also present in the barbecue sauce.

I say fontina because that is what I had in the kitchen last time I made this—it’s a fondue cheese that melts sublimely and doesn’t overpower the leeks. But Taleggio, another milky Italian, would be just fine, too.

You haven’t had a baked ziti like this before. Our version of this traditional favorite enhances the flavor with a creamy co-mingling of tangy Gorgonzola, nutty fontina, mozzarella, and sharp Parmesan cheese. Since this is such a rich and filling dish, it’s great to serve when entertaining both vegetarians and meat lovers. Who doesn’t love cheesy baked pasta? If you can’t find Gorgonzola or fontina at your local market, you can substitute! Use regular ol’ blue cheese for the Gorgonzola and replace the fontina with shredded Italian cheese mix. These prepared cheese mixes usually include a variety of tasty Italian cheeses that complement this dish perfectly.

I’m a huge fan of potatoes! Which is why I love this dish. It’s the perfect base for poached eggs at brunch, to sop up the juices of a big rib eye steak (page 156), to complement my fabulous brined pork chops (page 170), or just for lunch. When this was on the menu at my restaurant and I was craving something porky, cheesy, and delicious, I’d have one of the line cooks fry up one of these lovelies for me to eat while I worked. Yum!

For years polenta reminded me of the Cream of Wheat my mother used to send me off to school with in the morning. It was totally boring. But once I started making polenta for myself I discovered I LOVED it. My special twist? I fat it up with milk, Parm, Fontina cheese, and mascarpone until it’s creamy, decadent, and delicious. Just remember, the kicker here is to season the liquid with plenty of salt in the beginning—it makes all the difference.

These gnocchi are also called malfatti (which translates to “badly made”) or gnudi (which means “nude”) because essentially these are ravioli without the pasta—they’re naked! No matter what you call them, I ADORE these delicate little cheese dumplings. They’re little bundles of spinach and ricotta sitting on top of melted Fontina mixed with heavy cream, mascarpone, and egg yolks. A little bit of this dish goes a long way—right to my booty usually!

Panade sounds kind of “chefy” but in truth, the dish, made from crusty bread and lots of cheese, is just a cross between a savory bread pudding and holiday stuffing. When mixed with eggs and cream, the bread softens so it becomes almost soufflé-like, with pillows of puffy goodness infused with chard and caramelized onions. If something can be peasant food and elegant at once, this is it! Pair this as a side with Whole Roasted Chicken with Plumped Raisins, Toasted Pine Nuts, and Arugula (page 142) or serve it with a simple green salad, and you’ve got dinner.

The great bonus about making Slow-Roasted Boneless Short Ribs is that you’ll have leftover meat to spin into this melt-in-your-mouth sandwich, panini-style. It hits the spot when you’re in the mood for some serious comfort food. The Tomato-Onion Chutney is so freakin’ good, you’ll want to put it on everything. For starters, try it as a condiment with Whole Roasted Chicken (page 142).

This creamy, cold-weather casserole with a golden, crunchy topping can be assembled ahead and baked when you’re ready.

This recipe is based on a Cuban sandwich traditionally made with roast pork, ham, pickles, Swiss cheese, and mustard. We start with the same main ingredient—the pork. It can be a loin, a ham, even a shoulder, but it should be roasted so that it retains some texture. Then we ratchet things up. In place of the ham, we have coppa, which comes from the neck of the pig and is cured and dried like prosciutto. Standing in for the pickle, we have a pickled pepper relish. The sugar in the recipe cuts through the spiciness and acidity, rounding out the flavors in the relish. Instead of the Swiss cheese in a Cuban, we use fontina. We press the sandwich just as you would a Cuban, and presto! We have what we have nicknamed the Cubano-Italiano.

This delicate little indulgence makes a marvelous treat; cut up into little squares, it’s perfect party fare. We were already considering creating a grilled cheese sandwich with fontina when one of our purveyors came to us with the white truffle fondue. Unlike many truffle oil products, this fondue is made with real truffles. We tried it . . . and loved it. It is the ideal complement to the mellow flavor of fontina and the fresh Pullman bread. We wanted to add some sautéed mushrooms, and chose the black trumpets for their low moisture content and springy texture. If you find them fresh—which can be difficult, even in season—rinse them well to get rid of all the grit.

Late-night eating is one of those things that’s pretty much a fact of a chef’s life. Really late-night eating. And I often end up with friends at ’ino and ’inoteca, where they make the greatest panini in New York. One very late night, my cooks and I thought it would be fun to create a sandwich for the dessert menu. Here’s the result. The combination of chocolate with the tangy olives is addictive.

Even though this dish uses only zucchini, my grandmother called it Verdure al Forno, which means “vegetables in the oven.” (So it should really be called Zucchine al Forno, but there was absolutely no way anybody would tell that to my grandmother.) You could substitute eggplant, summer squash, potatoes, or even cauliflower for the zucchini, and make this your very own Verdure al Forno.

Traditionally, this rich dish is served as a main course, and as a kid that’s the way I ate it. But it also works in our health-conscious world as a starter or a side with something fresher and lighter—say, grilled fish drizzled with lemon juice or grilled meat. A creamy, cheesy dish like this is just the thing to make you feel coddled, as if your dining room is the coziest spot on earth.

When asparagus is in season in springtime, use it to capture the flavors of the garden with a minimal amount of effort. It cooks quickly by any method—steaming, boiling, grilling, or sautéing, as here—and it’s very easy to prepare. To trim asparagus of its woody stem end, simply hold one end of the spear in one hand, the other end in the other hand, and bend gently until the spear snaps—which it will do exactly where the stem starts to get woody. Asparagus has its own built-in sous chef.

This dish is real comfort food without the meat. It’s great for Sunday family dinners, as a side or a main course, and an equally great way to sneak some greens into your diet. You’ll need a pastry bag fitted with a large round tip for this recipe.