Giardiniera

It's a salad, a pickle, and a condiment—all at the same time!

When I lived in Chicago, for a period after grad school I worked for an art handling company, driving trucks all over Chicagoland delivering and installing all kinds of art in insanely expensive houses and apartments. I got to see some great work up close, and met some cool people—including the very nice couple with a stunning collection who went on to buy enough of my work so that I could quit the job and paint full time for about six months until I moved to New York City.

There was a deli west of the Loop called Bari Italian Subs that one of my coworkers turned me on to, and it became our go-to lunch spot, even when going to it meant driving an absurd number of miles out of our way. We would always blame traffic on the resulting delays (this being blissfully before GPS tracking). The deli is a pretty standard Italian deli but for one thing: their house brand of hot giardiniera (the menu now calls it “superhot”). It was magnificent, and seriously no-fucking-around hot (and I assume the recipe hasn’t changed). It hurt so good, and then again the next day, but it induced such euphoria that the burn was worth it.

Years later, when I moved upstate and began growing my own food, I naturally sought to reproduce this iconic condiment. There are tons of recipes available, but I wanted to hip you to this version, which uses two methods to maximize flavor—fermentation and hot oil. I feel like it gives you the best of both worlds: fermented tang and a liminal, neither-raw-nor-cooked vibe that’s pretty magical. Most versions pickle the veg in a vinegar brine, and that’s great, but I’m a big fan of an oilier interpretation. When I lived in Italy the second time, my girlfriend and I would always have a jar of an oil-based brand on hand. She called it “greasy salad” and that’s a perfect descriptor.

To start, you want some nice fresh cauliflower, carrot, celery, and jalapeño. Other vegetables work too, but this is the classic roster for me. The ratios are infinitely flexible, but for a “normal” version I generally like to treat the cauliflower as the star, followed by the carrot, with the others acting as supporting players. BUT! Since we’re talking about heat here, if you want to go for it, use lots of jalapeños. LOTS. For the Bari experience, treat the hot peppers as the main event and all the other veg as flavorings. Also, given that jalapeños are now being bred to be less hot, you might want to use serranos instead.

Cut everything into small pieces. Ideally you want the result to be usable in a sandwich (like a sub or muffuletta) so you don’t want giant cauliflower florets deforming the topology of your lunch. Chop a few garlic cloves as well, and/or leeks or shallots if you have them. They’ll make it extra dank and stinky in the best possible way.

Pack all your veg into a jar along with a bay leaf and a couple sprigs each of thyme and oregano, then make a 4% brine (40g of salt per liter of water) and pour it over the top to cover. Weigh the food down so it stays submerged, and ferment it somewhere cool for 3-7 days depending on the ambient temperature and how funky you want it to get. You’re looking for kind of a half-sour vibe, where it gets tangy but stays fully crunchy. Taste it every day until it speaks to you.

Drain the vegetables, but save the brine! It’s perfect for everything from ceviche to gravy. Discard the herbs and pack the veg mixture back into a canning jar, leaving an inch or so of room at the top. Take enough olive oil to fill that jar halfway (so if your mixture is in a quart, you need a pint of oil) and heat it to about 350˚F, just below its smoke point. When it’s hot, pour it carefully (use a metal canning funnel) into the jar with the fermented veg, going slowly and keeping a close eye on the level.

The oil will sizzle and lightly fry the veg as it fills the jar, and you should stop just when it covers the food. Let it cool down to room temp, and then dissolve a fat pinch of salt in about 1/4 cup of red wine vinegar. Pour that over the top, lid the jar, and give it a good shake. The oil and vinegar will separate, so you’ll want to stir or shake it before each time you use it.

If you make sure to keep the food covered in oil, you don’t *need* to refrigerate it, especially if you shake the jar every day to bathe everything in acidity. Keeping it out on the counter will allow the oil to stay liquid, while putting it in the fridge will solidify it so you’ll need to plan ahead and let it warm up a bit before using.

Whatever your preferred choice for things to put on your bread, a spoon or two of this glistening elixir will make it better—tangier, hotter, oilier. You can also just boil some pasta and toss it in some of this either by itself or with some capers, fresh parsley, olives, and such for an insanely tasty (and easy) pasta salad. It’s wicked with potatoes too.

Once you’ve eaten it all, save the oil as you did the brine from the fermentation phase. It’s super flavorful and great for drizzling over all sorts of things. You could even use it and some of that brine as the basis for a pretty dramatic marinade or vinaigrette. Learning to use the brines and oils from preparations like this is a big step forward in deepening your cooking practice, since reducing waste and maximizing flavor are two sides of the same culinary coin.