Arugula, Citrus Infused Raisins, Fried Onions and Ricotta Salata

Best Pizza’s Arugula and Tangy Raisin Salad

  • Best Pizza’s Arugula and Tangy Raisin Salad
  • Best Pizza’s Arugula and Tangy Raisin Salad
  • Best Pizza’s Arugula and Tangy Raisin Salad
  • Best Pizza’s Arugula and Tangy Raisin Salad
  • Best Pizza’s Arugula and Tangy Raisin Salad
  • Best Pizza’s Arugula and Tangy Raisin Salad
  • Best Pizza’s Arugula and Tangy Raisin Salad
  • Best Pizza’s Arugula and Tangy Raisin Salad

NOTES

Think of raisins has tiny sponges, ready willing and able to absorb flavor and liquid. Frank insists that key to a good salad is properly salting your greens, pro-tip!

INSTRUCTIONS

Do ahead: Thinly slice red onion, add half of the onion to a small bowl and cover with red wine vinegar and tsp of sugar. Refrigerate for at least 20 minutes.

Soak raisins in a mixture of sherry and lemon juice while you prepare the rest of your salad.

Dredge thinly sliced onions in gluten-free flour. Wondra works too. Heat up a pan with vegetable oil and fry the onions until golden-brown and delicious. Place the fried onions on a paper towel to cool.

Combine the lemon juice and olive oil in a mixing bowl, whisk to combine. Toss in the arugula and season with salt and pepper. Taste a leaf to make sure you have seasoned with enough salt. Add the pickled red onions fried onions, raisins and ricotta salata.

RECIPE

SERVES

2

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PREP TIME

15 MINS

SALAD

  • 7 
    oz 
    arugula
  • 3 
    tbs 
    gluten-free flour or Wondra
  • 1  
    medium 
    red onion
  • 1/3 
    cup  
    red wine vinegar
  • 1 
    tsp 
    sugar
  • 1/3 
    cup 
    vegetable oil
  • 3  
    oz 
    ricotta salata
  • 1 
    oz 
    raisins
  • 1 
    tbs 
    sherry vinegar
  • 3 
    tbs 
    lemon juice

DRESSING

  • 2 oz 
     
    lemon juice
  • 1 oz 
     
    olive oil
  •  
     
    salt
  •  
     
    pepper

INSTRUCTIONS

Do ahead: Thinly slice red onion, add half of the onion to a small bowl and cover with red wine vinegar and tsp of sugar. Refrigerate for at least 20 minutes.

Soak raisins in a mixture of sherry and lemon juice while you prepare the rest of your salad.

Dredge thinly sliced onions in gluten-free flour. Wondra works too. Heat up a pan with vegetable oil and fry the onions until golden-brown and delicious. Place the fried onions on a paper towel to cool.

Combine the lemon juice and olive oil in a mixing bowl, whisk to combine. Toss in the arugula and season with salt and pepper. Taste a leaf to make sure you have seasoned with enough salt. Add the pickled red onions fried onions, raisins and ricotta salata.

Frank Pinello is a Mama’s Boy in the most endearing sense of the word. Best Pizza, his restaurant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, has the feeling of a 3rd generation family business, but in fact, Frank established the joint only 4 years ago. His mother, a native Sicilian, comes in to do the books once a week, a service to which Frank has grown so accustomed, he cannot imagine working without her assistance. As payment for her time, he regularly takes her out to eat at some of the best restaurants in New York (ladies, keep your tops on).

Best Pizza holds up the appearance of a traditional local pizza parlor — they serve by the slice on white paper plates that reappear on the walls with amusing doodles made by devoted customers. There is a 100 year old pizza oven, dried oregano, parmesan cheese and chili flakes in glass shakers, and salad served in bent wood bowls. None of the critical charms of a classic NY pizza parlor have been spared. But somehow, this restaurant counts its fans as far afield as the editors of Bon Appétit, who swear no other pie shall cross the threshold of their office doors, construction workers, and the old-guard Williamsburg Italian American community who stop in daily.

Frank holds a degree in Culinary Arts from The Culinary Institute of America, but he attributes his greatest inspiration to his Sicilian roots and his Italian family, whom he visits as often as possible. He has a dogged commitment to perfecting the slice without gussying it up (hence the name Best Pizza), but he allows the influence of contemporary culinary practice to permeate his pie when it should. Frank is currently experimenting with alternative flours such as kamut, amaranth and quinoa, to blend or substitute the traditional bleached white flour found in crust. Not because “gluten-free” is trendy, or because it is grounds for price inflation, but because after reading Dan Barber’s The Third Plate, Frank was inspired to make a tastier, healthier, more sustainable crust. Long story short, he ain’t your average dough-slinging pizzaiolo.

Frank and I collaborated on a game of late-night Spin The Salad (the salad was later tossed atop his pizza shells as a late night snack) on the occasion of the Creative Time Fall benefit. Working with Frank was certainly the biggest reward of the experience for me. This salad recipe is solid, but I urge you to head over to Best Pizza in Williamsburg to get your salad from the man himself, after ordering a slice of the Marinara pie.

Frank Pinello in His Own Words

Julia: You make pizza by the slice, but you have a pretty fancy culinary degree from CIA. When you were in culinary school, did you ever imagine you would own a pizza parlor?

Frank Pinello: Funny, my mother always wanted me to open a pizzeria because she thought they made good money. It used to piss me off so much. All I wanted to cook was fancy French food. Years later, here I am. Guess Mother is always right, huh?

JS: Your pizza is damned near perfect. Why would you bother experimenting with new flours and grains? When I was there, your first two customers were construction workers covered in sawdust. Do you think they will be stoked about a gluten free millet crust?

FP: Ha! I’ve been inspired by other chefs, and, this gluten allergy thing isn’t going anywhere any time soon. I love pizza, but I don’t love bleached white flour. I know that’s weird to say, but I think if we can make pizza great and really good for you for the planet, then why not? My dreams will come true when those construction dudes order veggie whole wheat slices… That would be so good.

JS: How did you find this spot, and what is the story behind your oven?

FP: The spot found me. Chris from Roberta’s and Quino Baca of the Brooklyn Star brought me on board to run a pizza place. Things changed and I ended up the owner. A mix of benevolence and luck! The oven is a 100 year old coal burning oven that was used to bake bread for a bakery.

JS: You have one salad on the menu right now, and it is an Italian­-American classic with red wine vinegar and dried oregano. You and I see eye-­to­-eye on the pleasures of this unpretentious salad. What is it that makes that salad so comforting, and why did you choose to go that route on the menu instead of serving something that speaks to your more sophisticated palate?

FP: Well to me, it’s the idea of shitty/good. Romaine is not the best leafy green, and like you said, red wine vinaigrette is not very sophisticated, but there is a nostalgia that goes along with it. Also, a well-seasoned salad with good acid served in a woven wooden bowl has a special place in my heart!

JS: What was the inspiration for this salad we made?

FP: The inspiration for the salad was another pizzeria and Italian restaurant classic: the Arugula salad. The raisins and ricotta salata is a Sicilian influence. I like the idea of classics done well, simplicity but with a signature touch.

JS: You seem to really enjoy doing events and experiencing the social and cultural context around food. Besides our epic game of Spin The Salad, what other events have you done that you found to be particularly enriching or exciting?

FP: One was personal event: a friend’s wedding in Mendicino in Northern California where we cooked fresh food for friends and people that were important to me. It was both beautiful and challenging (there was no kitchen and we had to cook on an open fire), but very rewarding in the end. The other was the Vice anniversary party last week. It was bonkers! Vice is a neighborhood company that has supported us since day one. It felt good. Plus ‘Lil Wayne was there.

JS: Tell me about your experience gardening and how you learned that this was something you enjoyed?

FP: My grandfather was a farmer in Sicily, who later did some of the most amazing urban gardening in Bensonhurst — Saving seeds, growing our own veggies, composting. Some of my earliest food memories were in the garden with my him. He would pick a tomato off the vine, pull a salt shaker out of his pocket and split that delicious fruit with me. I think about those moments with him often. I am comforted by the concept of  eating what you grow and feeding people that way; there’s nothing like eating veggies that are still warm from the sun.

JS: Has your Sicilian family tried your pizza? What do they think?

FP: My family from Sicily has tried my food. They really like it. I think they like the way I’ve used sesame seeds, Sicilian oregano and other sicilian pantry items. I think it makes them happy and proud. If they hated it they would probably lie and tell me they loved it anyway, ha!