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Paula Wolfert is an expert on Mediterranean food and the author of nine cookbooks, including The Food of Morocco, Mediterranean Clay Pot Cooking, The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen, and The Cooking of Southwest France. Wolfert has won the James Beard Award, the Julia Child Award, the M. F. K. Fisher Award, and the Tastemaker Award, and was a finalist for the André Simon Award. A regular columnist for Food & Wine, Wolfert lives in Sonoma, California.

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Renowned food writer Paula Wolfert revises her classic cookbook in which she celebrates the sensuous pleasures of health and popular Mediterranean cooking with more than 150 delicious dishes from this region, 75 of them new.

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Mediterranean Cooking

Perennial

Pasta con Mollica di Pane

Pasta with bread crumbs (Italy)

Serves 4

This is a real peasant pasta dish from Sicily.

Ingredients:

1-1/2 teaspoons finely chopped garlic
1/4Cup olive oil
2-2-ounce cans anchovies, rinsed and drained
1-1/2 cups fresh or canned tomato purée (not tomato paste)
1/3 cup finely chopped parsley
Freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon crumbled Mediterranean oregano
3/4 pound spaghetti
Salt
1/3 cup fresh white bread crumbs, toasted in the oven with a few drops of olive oil

Instructions:

1. Gently cook the garlic in olive oil until golden. Add the anchovies and mash to a purée with the back of a wooden spoon. Cook 1 minute. Stir in the tomato purée and parsley and simmer, uncovered, for 2 to 3 minutes. Season with pepper to taste. Add the oregano.

2. Cook the spaghetti in boiling salted water until tender. Drain. Toss with the hot sauce and sprinkle with the bread crumbs. Serve at once.

Cordornices Guisados

Double marinated quail (Portugal)

Serves 4

This this delicious specialty of the Azores, the quail is marinated in sweet and hot paprika-scented beer for an intense flavor, then cooked in the marinade and left to marinate again up to two days. When ready to serve, the quail may be broiled or grilled quickly until the skin crisps.

Ingredients:

4 quail (4 ounces each), fresh or defrosted
White vinegar
3 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed with 1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sweet paprika
1/2 teaspoon hot Hungarian paprika, or more to taste
6 fluid ounces (1/2 can) domestic beer
1 tablespoon vinegar with 7 percent acetic acid
1/4 Cup Olive Oil
Coarse salt
Sprigs of parsley or watercress as garnish
8 lemon wedges

Instructions:

1. Cut the quail in half, wash them in vinegared water, drain, and pat dry with kitchen towels.

2. Combine the garlic and sweet and hot paprika and rub over the quail thoroughly. Combine the beer and vinegar in a bowl, add the quail, and marinate for at least 8 hours,, turning occasionally.

3. Put the quail, marinade, and the 1/4 cup olive oil in a large skillet and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and cook, covered, for 10 to 15 minutes. Transfer the quail to a deep bowl. Boil the cooking liquid until it coats a spoon. Add more hot paprika to taste. Pour over the quail; cool, cover, and refrigerate up to 2 days.

4. Remove the quail from the soaking marinade and, without drying. broil themclose to the heat, turning once and basting with the marinade until crisp and well browned. Serve at once, sprinkled with coarse salt and surrounded by parsley and lemon wedges.

Excerpted from Mediterranean Cookingby Wolfert, Paula Copyright © 2004 by Paula Wolfert. Excerpted by permission.
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