We’re in the midst of a bit of a cool down right now, but I know there’s another heatwave waiting around the corner. And today’s Italian Heatwave menu will be ready when it hits. Today’s menu gathers inspiration from Southern Italy. It features an Orange Rosemary Bianco Spritz and Bloody Mary Oil, which you’ve already met. The main event is a tangle of bucatini studded with steamed mussels dressed in a Sicilian pesto. The pasta is paired with a salty/sweet and infinitely refreshing Cantaloupe Green Olive Salad with Crispy Prosciutto and Pistachios. And the meal concludes with a Red Berry Sorbet served over lightly salted Whipped Ricotta. The dish is finished with a drizzle of olive oil and fresh ground pepper for that perfect sweet and savoury treat.
In true heatwave fashion, this menu comes together without the use of an oven. And the stove time clocks in at under 30 minutes, so even if your kitchen feels uninhabitable, this menu, at the very least, won’t make it worse. But beyond the practicalities of these courses, the menu is full of crowd pleasers that will garner more than a few groans of yummy approval from your guests. This menu can feed 4-6 people with leftovers. And if you add another baguette to the opening course, you could probably accommodate 8. Let’s dive in!
Orange Rosemary Bianco Spritz
The welcome cocktail for this menu posed a puzzling question: How can I avoid an Aperol Spritz? Listen, I’m not here to disparage the much-beloved and circulated Aperol Spritz. I know people love them. I know they are inextricably linked with *summer vibes*. And I generally don’t like hating on things people enjoy, especially when it comes to food and drink. We consume a lot of it purely for pleasure, and if Aperol Spritzes give you that, then that is fabulous.
Sadly, Aperol Spritzes do not bring me pleasure. I don’t know why, but I don’t love them. I like looking at them from a distance. They look hella refreshing, but that is not how they strike my palette. So, what other cocktail would be appropriate for an Italian Heatwave-themed dinner party? Well, I decided to keep things in the Spritz family and whip up this savoury, herbaceous, bitter, and slightly sweet sipper.
This Orange Rosemary Bianco Spritz features an orange, rosemary, and cracked pepper-infused gin paired with white vermouth, prosecco, and a splash of sparkling water. The drink is finished with a slice of orange and a sprig of rosemary. For those who haven’t had the pleasure, Bianco is an Italian white vermouth. And what is a white vermouth, you might ask. White vermouth is an aromatized, fortified wine. It is considered a semi-dry/sweet vermouth and is characterized by its herbal, vanilla, and citrus notes. It’s worth getting acquainted with. But if you’re not a spritz fan, I recommend giving it a go in a White Negroni. You can also sip Bianco on its own. Try enjoying it on the rocks with a bit of lemon.
Bloody Mary Oil with Crisp Baguette
This dead-simple starter is the free recipe of the week. You can find it in the downloadable recipe booklet at the bottom of this article. Or you can find it for free right here. As with the lemonade from last week, I’m not going to go into too much detail about this recipe because I already did that. But as a quick refresher, this oil is inspired by happy childhood memories when my family would legitimately destroy an entire loaf of bread for dinner. It was just us, a few baguettes, and a plate of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. This recipe captures that simple bliss but with a tomato-based cocktail twist. Basically, you’ll find everything you would find in a Bloody Mary swimming in this oil - minus the vodka.
Cantaloupe Green Olive Salad with Crispy Prosciutto
We’ve got a lot of heavy hitters in this menu flavour-wise, so when it came to the salad, I wanted it to be juicy, refreshing, and subtle. Enter this Cantaloupe Green Olive Salad. This salad features juicy pieces of cantaloupe coated in a garlic scape dressing studded with halved green olives. The salad is finished with a healthy sprinkling of crumbled fried prosciutto, coarsely chopped pistachios, and fresh ground pepper. Honestly, this is my new favourite salad. It hits all the right notes and would be fabulous with nothing more than some crusty bread for mopping up the dressing-tinged melon juices.
I kept things a little rustic by creating shallow scoops of cantaloupe. You can make tidy melon balls, but I wanted this salad to evoke a slightly more laid-back vibe. This is a heatwave-friendly dinner party menu after all.
The dressing can be made up to three days in advance, and the fried prosciutto effectively takes care of itself. Seriously, place the prosciutto in a cold pan over low heat and walk away. Wander back in to flip and then let it coast until golden, and irresistibly crispy. And yes, this is one of the few instances in this entire menu that I will ask you to turn on the stove.
Mussel Bucatini with Pesto Alla Trapanese
Pesto is a dinner party host’s best friend. You can whip it up well in advance because its flavour deepens with time and the, um, healthy amount of olive oil partially preserves it. Pesto Alla Trapanese is a Sicilian pesto that differs from the more recognizable Genovese version by using fresh tomatoes, almonds in place of pine nuts, and pecorino in place of Parmigiano Reggiano. This works out very well for me because I am allergic to pine nuts. So yeah, where has this pesto been all my life?
So, you’re armed with pesto, but what are you going to do with it? Well, steam a pound of mussels, of course! Not your immediate instinct? Just me? I like mussels in this context because they are cost-effective (I paid $13 CND for this pound), delicious, and they cook very quickly. This is a heatwave menu; we’re not about keeping our stove on long-term. Just cook your mussels while your pasta boils, and your burners will be on for 15 minutes tops.
And speaking of pasta, this dish has the king of long pastas - bucatini. That is, of course, a matter of opinion, but I do believe I am correct. What I love about bucatini in this dish is that it is beefy enough to hold its own in a dish with actual seashells. I tried finer long pastas, and the noodles more or less gathered underneath the mussels like shrinking violets. The bucatini ropes around the bivalves in a way that I find endlessly satisfying.
Red Berry Sorbet with Whipped Ricotta
This is a heatwave menu - we have to end on a refreshing note. And what’s more refreshing than a summer berry sorbet that never asks you to turn on a stove or oven at any point. All you have to do is pile some strawberries and raspberries into a food processor and add a little lime juice, sugar, and a whisper of salt. Chill the berry puree down, and then you simply churn it in an ice cream maker and freeze it overnight. I’m particularly proud of this batch of Red Berry Sorbet because it features raspberries I grew myself. My raspberry cane is still producing, too, so don’t be surprised if there’s another raspberry recipe coming your way soon.
The Red Berry Sorbet sits on a bed of creamy Whipped Ricotta, delicately salted to provide a counterpoint to the tart sweetness of the sorbet. The dessert is finished with a drizzle of olive oil and fresh ground pepper, for a quiet, unctuous, and savoury note.
Although this dish is our finisher, we will actually start out by making the puree for this sorbet because it requires a few chilling interludes. Trust me, that is not a process you can rush. The handy prep schedule included in the booklet will keep you on track, so you don’t find yourself with a half-frozen sorbet on game day. The whipped ricotta can be made in advance as well. So when dessert time rolls around, all you have to do is plate and serve.
