Crostini

One of the most famous dishes in Tuscany is Crostini. Crostini is a must have for every Sunday lunch, like Yorkshire puddings in the UK. Nowadays you can buy the crostini spread in the supermarkets, and I must admit that most of the Tuscan maids do so. Why? It is so easy to prepare crostini and they are much better (and cheaper) when home made. I once had a family drama when I was at lunch at my in-laws and my mother in law had prepared the crostini at home. My nephew, who usually is very fond of crostini, refused to eat them because they were home-made and in his opinion were not good. I know that children can be picky at times, but this is the results of being used to what I call “industrial taste”. I think that the best crostini in the world were those prepared by the grandma of my husband. She was a tiny woman called Italia, who had survived two wars, and had her head full of long surpassed ideas and superstitions. She had only a few kitchen tools, among them a knife and a chopping board made of heavy and thick wood, that over the years had developed a deep groove by the number of crostini she had prepared. But they were the best ever.
So to prepare your crostini you need onions, butter, chicken livers, anchovies (filets in olive oil) and capers (in vinegar). Of course salt and pepper at wish.
Chop the onion and fry it in butter. Calculate one onion of the size of a fist every 4 chicken livers. When golden, add the livers, season and leave them to cook slowly with a cover. Finely chop with a knife the anchovies and the washed capers and add to the chicken livers when ready. Cook at mild temperature for other 10 min and then smash everything with a potato masher. Stir and serve hot onto white crusty bread. Two variations are possible to this. The first one is that you put everything in a food processor the capers, the anchovies, and the livers. This is quick, however it the spread will not have the coarse texture that I think is the best part of it. The way Nonna Italia used to do, was to chop everything with her knife. It takes ages and if you are good at it, it provides the best results. However, I think that using the potato masher (which is not known much in Italy), provides a good compromise.
An alternative to the bread could be slices of deep fried polenta. A bit heavy, but really good!
This is typically a Tuscan starter, where crostini are served together with ham (raw ham like Parma ham but we have our own type), finocchiona, salame, lardo di colonnata. I like also to serve the spread in a pot (those with a candle underneath) and just put the bread in a basket, so that the guests serve themselves with it. But be careful that it will disappear within seconds!!!!