Saltimbocca is one of the chief delights of Roman cuisine. I'm not talking about the ancient Romans—who sprayed a fermented fish sauce called garam on nearly everything—but modern Romans. These urbanites have developed a cuisine that mixes and matches modified provincial dishes with new inventions, and when you look into the history of a contemporary Roman recipe, such as fettuccine Alfredo, you're likely to find that it's decades, not centuries, old. Saltimbocca, meaning "jump in the mouth," probably has a late-19th-century origin. It's made by pinning slices of veal and prosciutto together with a toothpick, sautéing them in butter, and then deglazing the assemblage with white wine. At Cacio e Pepe the veal has been replaced with monkfish, and the resulting saltimbocca ($14.95) is richer than the original. It arrives crusted with grated pecorino and wearing whole sage leaves proudly on its breast like a Swift boat veteran... More >>>