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Local teacher/caterer balances Italian cooking with natural foods

Local teacher/caterer balances Italian cooking with natural foods

By Mary Therese Biebel mbiebel@timesleader.com
Features Writer

When Justin Naylor was studying liberal arts at St. John’s College in Annapolis, Md., intellectual workouts were a big part of his life.

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Pan-seared shrimp, coupled with pancetta and leeks, decorates a bed of soft polenta.

FRED ADAMS/FOR THE TIMES LEADER

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Heidi Schukraft watches her guest chef pan-sear shrimp in her Lehman Township kitchen.

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To stay balanced, he said, “I wanted to do something on the physical side, so I went to work for a farm.”

Planting, weeding and harvesting crops in Pennsylvania’s Chester County introduced him to the pleasures of food that was extremely fresh – “It was phenomenal!” -- and wonderfully varied.

“I knew what a tomato was,” he said. “But I didn’t know there are hundreds of varieties, and some are grown for taste rather than shelf life.”

Naylor was sold on tastier tomatoes, and what he describes as the Italian philosophy of cooking, “finding the best ingredients and processing them as little as possible so you won’t mess them up.”

He follows that goal in the part-time catering business, Classic Italian Cooking, that he and his wife, Dillon, operate out of their home on four rural acres near Huntington Mills.

When he’s not teaching middle-school math and upper-school Latin at Wyoming Seminary, Naylor spends much of his time cooking flavorful meals for clients and their guests.

A recent Monday afternoon found him in the Lehman Township home of Heidi Schukraft, a fellow Wyoming Seminary teacher who had successfully bid on a Classic Italian Cooking dinner for four at a school auction.

“It was so relaxing to entertain guests this way, having someone else cook,” Schukraft said afterward, adding that everyone enjoyed the meal, which was capped by a “not-too-rich, perfect-ending” blood orange tart.

Earlier courses had a seafood theme, with an entr�e of wild-caught salmon atop potatoes and an appetizer of pan-seared shrimp with pancetta, leeks and polenta.

As polenta simmered and pancetta sizzled, Naylor offered some background.

The cornmeal-based polenta, he said, “is meant to be saturated with juices from whatever you’re cooking.”

If you’re unfamiliar with pancetta, that’s “what Italians do with bacon. Instead of smoking it,” Naylor said, “they cure it with salt and herbs, maybe some juniper berries and black pepper.”

The 31-year-old chef believes in using locally grown food whenever possible, gardening some of his own vegetables and buying chicken and eggs from the “pastured poultry” Phil Glatfelter raises on a farm in Benton.

“He doesn’t see food as a commodity,” Glatfelter praised Naylor. “You might call the kind of food he uses ‘niche food’ or ‘artisanal food,’ but it’s really the way food used to be raised.”

Even Naylor’s choice of salmon has a local, small-scale touch. You won’t find that fish swimming through regional waterways, but the chef buys it from a Bloomsburg couple, Steve and Jenn Kurian, who travel to Alaska each June and July to fish during the salmon season.

A “sustainable harvest” that won’t deplete the supply of fish is among their goals, according to their Web site, www.wildforsalmon.com.

Naylor honed his cooking knowledge during a “mini-apprenticeship” at the Pane e Salute restaurant in Woodstock, Vt., and also during a 2005 trip to Italy, where he and his wife cooked with Italian farm families and restaurateurs.

The salmon dish he recently prepared is his adaptation of one of Marcella’s Hazan’s recipes from “The Essentials of Classical Italian Cooking.” We’re publishing his version here today, along with the recipe for the shrimp appetizer.

OVEN ROASTED SALMON WITH POTATOES

1) Peel a pound of potatoes and slice as thin as possible. This is a great time to use a mandoline if you have one.

2) Toss the potatoes with a chopped clove of garlic, a few tablespoons of parsley and several tablespoons of olive oil. Season with salt and pepper.

3) Roast the potatoes at 450 degrees in a dish with an area of about 100 square inches for 15 to 20 minutes, until tender and lightly browned.

4) While potatoes are roasting, brown four 4-ounce salmon fillets in a bit of olive oil over very high heat, about 2 minutes per side.

5) Remove the salmon to a plate, season with salt and pepper, drizzle with olive oil, and add a pinch of chopped parsley and chopped garlic to each fillet.

6) When the potatoes are tender, push them to the side of the pan to make room for the salmon. Place the salmon skin side down, and continue to roast in the oven for 5 to 10 minutes, depending on the salmon’s thickness.

PAN-SEARED SHRIMP WITH PANCETTA, LEEKS AND POLENTA

1) To make the polenta, bring 4 cups of water to a boil, and add 1 1/2 teaspoons salt. Very gradually add 1 cup of medium/course cornmeal, whisking constantly.

2) After all the cornmeal has been added, stir with a wooden spoon about a minute, then reduce the heat to a steady but moderate simmer. Cover pan.

3) Uncover and stir every 10 minutes. The polenta will be ready in about 40 or 45 minutes. It’s ready when it forms a thick mass that pulls away cleanly from the sides of the pan.

4) While the polenta is cooking, brown an ounce of chopped pancetta or bacon in a bit of olive oil and then add four ounces of leeks, sliced thinly. Once the leeks begin to take on some color, deglaze the pan with a bit of wine or water and let the leeks simmer five minutes or so until fully tender. Taste and correct for salt.

5) In a separate pan, brown about a pound of shrimp in a good bit of olive oil, working in batches if necessary. The shrimp should be deeply seared on one side, but the total cooking time should be less than four minutes or so for most shrimp.

6) Spoon a bed of polenta on each plate, then toss the shrimp briefly with the leeks, seasoning with salt and pepper, and serve the shrimp/leeks on the polenta.

7) Soak the polenta pot for several hours, and the residue will simply lift off effortlessly.

FOR MORE RECIPES

To sign up to receive a monthly newsletter with recipes from Justin or to learn about the cooking classes he offers, see his Web site at www.classicitaliancooking.com.

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