Puntarelle con la salsa gets to the heart of Roman fare

The food of Rome is strong, asser- tive, and straight forward, never bland . The dish that to me best exemplifies la cucina Romana, surprisingly, is a salad called pun- tarelle. Made with a particular variety of chicory, Catalonian chicory, it is always served with a strong, piquant, garlicky, anchovy salsa, or dressing. It's never mixed with other greens, and it's never seasoned with any other dressing. This is a salad I've enjoyed countless times at restaurants, but I had never prepared it at home. Spending three months here during puntarelle season changed that.

For a lesson, I went with fellow writer and cookbook author Maureen Fant to the market in the Testaccio neighborhood, considered by locals to be the best food market in the city. Among Maureen's books are "Williams-Sonoma Rome," a collection of traditional recipes, and "Trattorias of Rome, Florence, and Venice." She has been living in Rome for almost 30 years and seems to know everything about the local specialties, including how food is grown or produced, the best places to buy it, and of course how to prepare it yourself. She often leads groups on culinary tours of the city, but I was lucky enough to have Maureen all to myself.

Puntarelle, she tells me, grows in short full stalks with dark green leaves and white stems. Once the green leaves are trimmed, the stems are pared down into long thin strands that are crisp and crunchy with a slightly bitter taste, something akin to Belgian endive. Catalonian chicory may be available elsewhere -- even in other parts of Italy -- but puntarelle salad is unique to Rome. We found bags of puntarelle already trimmed and ready to eat (here, too, people want foods that are partially prepared), although Maureen's preference is to do the trimming by hand with a small sharp knife, the way her Rome-born husband Franco does it.

The ingredients for the dressing are good quality anchovies, either oil-packed or salted, fresh garlic, white wine vinegar, and extra-virgin olive oil. Maureen explains that this salsa is one of only a few dressings in Italy made separately and poured over the salad. The usual practice is to create the dressing right on top of the greens.

As for the anchovies, jars of oil-packed are by far the most convenient and easiest to use; salted anchovies, available from specialty markets, require some work. They're usually bigger, meatier, more flavorful, and therefore more desirable than the oil-packed. To prepare the dressing, the anchovies and garlic are chopped or mashed together, then mixed with the vinegar and oil.

If there is no puntarelle where you live, there are probably other salad greens that are good substitutes. Maureen advises, "In the absence of puntarelle you can use curly endive or romaine or any salad green that is neither so delicate as to be overwhelmed nor so precious that it's a sacrilege to use such a strong dressing."

My own preference is for curly endive, also known as frisee. The next time you want the bold, pungent flavors of Rome, think about making a salad.

This is the sixth in an eight-part series on authentic Roman food by Cambridge-based writer Judith Barrett, who is living in Rome. Barrett is the author of "Fagioli," "Saved by Soup," and "Risotto." To read the other cooking lessons, go

to boston.com/food.