Pappa al pomodoro

This is a really traditional dish of Florentine cooking, and as soon as I will describe that to you you will for sure recognize the features it has in common with other traditional recipes: old bread and extra virgin olive oil. I must admit that this dish was almost not known outside Florence, until it was cited in a TV series in the 60s. This corresponded to the “internationalization” of the dish outside of the Florentine walls, even though it remains a traditional florentine dish. I must admit that I have tried to make “Pappa al pomodoro” using non Tuscan bread, and the result has been by far better than for example with ribollita or Panzanella. I also would like to add that there is no unique way of preparing a proper Pappa. Some prepare it with Garlic, some with onions, etc. I will describe here my way of preparing int and also some tricks for preparing it without proper Tuscan bread. However is someone would add comments or describe his/her way of preparing it… comments are more than welcome.

The recipe for 4 persons:

1 leek

1 onion

1 chilly pepper

8 ripen tomatoes

500 g of old Tuscan bread

1 liter of vegetable broth (no meat broath please!!!

8-10 leaves of basil

Salt and pepper to taste.

The dish is better prepared in a Terracotta pan. Finely chop the leek and the onion and fry together with the chilly in plenty of olive oil. When ready add the diced tomatoes and cook with the lid on for 15-20 min. Adjust salt and pepper to your taste and remove from heat.

Cut the bread in cubes around 3-4 cm wide and put in the pan adding around ½ of the hot broth. Close the lid and leave for 5-10 min. As the amount of broth to be added depends on the bread , add the broath until the bread is tender. At this point stir with a wodden spoon and add the finely cut basil leaves. The result should be a thick pap. Serve with some extra virgin olive oil.

In case you don’t have Tuscan bread at hand take some old white bread and fry it in extra virgin olive oil before using it in the Pappa as described abroad. The result will not be 100% perfect but it is a good alternative!

Some prepare the tomato sauce with garlic only, but I think that the result is a little bit heavy!

Cantuccini di Prato (or Prato Biscuits)

This is probably one of the most famous desserts from Florence. Simple but tasty! I will give you the recipe from the biscuits, however for a proper dessert serving a few biscuits are placed in a tray, alongside a small glass of Vin Santo, a liquorous wine. The trick is to dip the biscuits in the wine prior to eating them. I personally don’t like wine at all so I have never tried this. However I heard it is fantastic!

The recipe originates from the shop in Prato that first offered them. That’s why they are called Prato Biscuits. In Prato they are also called Biscotti del Mattonella, as Mr. Mattonella was the baker that “invented” them. However I really like their other name, cantucci as it means small bits and this is really how they are meant to be eaten: one after the other.

There are very easy to prepare , they look very Tuscan, and the result is guaranteed. I look forward to seeing your “Cantuccini” pictures posted in my blog alongside mine!

Here is the recipe:

500 g of white flour
150g of butter
200 g of sugar
4 eggs
300g of unpeeled almonds
1 dose of raising powder
A hint of lemon

Place the flour on the table forming a vulcano or fountain (as you prefer). Add the butter that has been cut to small pieces and left at room temperature, the raising powder, the lemon zest (just a hint) and beat 3 eggs in the flour producing a very soft dough. Work thoroughlly and add the almonds making sure that they are evenly scattered in the dough. Form tubes of the dough (slightly compressed on the top so that an oval shape results) and place in a oven tray making sure that you have enough distance between them. Beat the 4th egg and smear it thoroughlly on each tube. Place in a hot oven (200 Deg) for around 20 min and once cooked (you can check with a wooden toothpick if there is still moisture inside) let them cool down. Cut in slices around 1-2 cm wide and:

1st version: eat like that

2nd version: slightly toast them on both side making sure that they don’t get brownish at all.

Insalata di polpo (Octopus salad)

This is a very simple recipe for cooking octopus and should be part of a general seafood antipasto. So I will give you the amounts for a small portion per person, but consider that you will need double amounts in case you want to serve as a main course.

The result depends a lot on the octopus quality. Just consider that there are various kinds and the highest quality ones can be recognized as each tentacle has 2 lines of “suction cups”. These will be softer and tastier. Also the general rule is that the bigger the better….

You will need a pressure cooker for the best results.

For an appetizer for 4 persons:
1kg of fresh octopus
2 potatoes
1 handful of parsley
Extra virgin olive oil

Remove the skin and clean the “head” of the octopus. Remove the beak. In case you could not remove the skin thoroughly don’t worry. You will finish the job once it is cooked and you will get better results. Place the cleaned octopus in the pressure cooker and cook for 15 min. Remove from the heat and leave for other 15 min in the cooker to “soften” In the meanwhile boil 2 medium sized potatoes.

Cut the potatoes in small dices and put in a large bowl. Remove the skin from the octopus and cut in small bits (more or less the size of the potato dices). Add the octopus to the potatoes and season with salt, chopped parsely and extra virgin olive oil. At your wish a hint of lemon juice can also be added. Serve lukewarm with fresh bread.

Spaghetti alle cozze (spaghetti with mussels)

It is summer and definitively seaside time. I live now 600 km far away from nearest sea coast, and I really miss a nice walk on the beach. Therefore I tried to push away this “sea-sickness” (so to say) by cooking a nice recipe that I want to share with you. The trick for a good result of this dish is the pan. You need a large aluminum pan to sautee the spaghetti. When I mean large, consider that I have one measuring around 40 cm in diameter!

For 4 persons:

1 kg of mussels (fresh = alive)
450 g of Spaghetti (good quality pasta, i.e. De Cecco)
1 clove garlic
1 chilly pepper
1 handful of parsley
Extra virgin olive oil
1 glass of white wine.

To start with clean the mussels. With a knife scrape off all the “scale” that is attached to the shell and pull the rope that they have on one side in order to remove it. You should end up with perfect black shells!

In the pan place the chopped garlic and chilly in plenty of extra virgin olive oil and fry a few minutes (be careful that it does not burn!). Add the mussels, decrease the heat to medium power and cover. Let it cook this way for 5-10 min stirring continuously with a wooden spoon. You should see the shells opening and on the bottom the juices should be released. I don’t know where you are, but in Italy the mussels have been pre-purged prior to commercialization. If this is not your case (and you have just realized this) a sand layer will be covering the bottom of your pan. Don’t dispair! Once ready, remove all the shells in the pan and set aside. Filter the juices in order to remove all the sand. Prepare another chopped garlic and chilly, stir fry and then add the juices. The result will be the same. In case the sand is not hunting you, set aside the shells. In the meanwhile cook the spaghetti in plenty of salted water (be careful as the mussels will be very tasty, so put less salt than usual). Reduce the juices at high heat and add the glass of red wine. Make the wine vapourize and then put the spaghetti cooked “al dente”. Sautee for a few minutes adding finely chopped parsley and extra virgin olive oil to your taste. Put in the dishes and add on top the mussels prior to serving. Serve the dish with a small side dish for the shells. It is delicious!!!!

Panzanella

This is really the quintessence of Tuscan “cooking”, the most traditional dish that you will not find outside Tuscany and in a sense it really reflects our food philosophy. The word panzanella has not a clear origin. Some say that it means delicacy, however the word “panzana” means lie. And I want to think that this is also reflected in the dish, especially due to the fact that such a “poor” dish is offered at outrageous prices in restaurants in Florence nowadays!

In order to make a perfect panzanella you need (4 persons):

Sunshine and at least 27 Deg Celsius (you can appreaciate it only when it is hot).

500 g of 3-4 days old Tuscan bread

The results will not be good if the bread is fresh or if it is not Tuscan

4 ripen tomatoes

8-10 basil leaves

2 onions (better if Tropea or Certaldo)

1 cucumber

Salt, pepper, vinegar (standard one, not balsamic!) and lots of extravirgin olive oil.



Cut the bread in big chunks (3-4) and soak it in fresh water. In the meanwhile prepare the “condimento” (seasoning). Wash the tomatoes and cut in dices around 1 cm wide.

Finely chop the onion.

Peel the cucumber, cut lengthwise in quarters and (I like to do like that, but there are people that do not understand this) remove the seeds. Slice the cucumber quarters. Coarsely chop the basil leaves and mix everything together seasoning with salt, pepper, vinegar and oil as if you were doing a salad. Be careful as the bread has no salt, therefore a little bit more salt than usual should be added. The same can be said for oil.

By now the bread should have turned soft. Squeeze it with your hands and remove all the excess water. The bread has to be soft but not wet. You will see that the bread will break apart in small bits. This will happen if it is proper Tuscan bread, otherwise you will get a sticky ball of glueish stuff that you can throw away.

Mix the bread and the vegetables, and serve.

If you don’t have Tuscan bread you can try to use cous cous. The result is not exactly the same, but it gives you an idea.

Vegetarian BBQ or Verdure grigliate

Believe it or not, but BBQ is a tradition in Italy as well. I can cite several countries that state that they are the traditionalist of BBQ and I cannot say who originated this in reality.

Just to support the cause for the Italian origin of BBQ, I will tell you that the traditional dish of Florence is beef steak. We call it bistecca, which is a way of distorting the English word “Beef Steak” into Italian. It seems that this really comes from some English speaking guys visiting Florence. Again this goes back to the time when Florence was a real melting pot! Might be that the same guy imported BBQ in the UK and then to the US? Just joking, I don’t think you need a tradition for setting up an open fire and putting a grill on top of it to cook meat and vegetables….

I am currently collecting some research info and will write a post on bistecca soon. Here I would like to give you here some hints on Veggie BBQ. When I lived in the UK this meant cooking on the grill Vegetarian hamburgers and chicken legs….i.e. a sort of wood stick with some soya stuff that resembles a chicken leg. Why should a vegetarian be willing to eat something that resembles chicken?

I think that you can do excellent things on a grill without meat and fish and I will suggest you some here:

Fettunta: Slices of Tuscan bread grilled and seasoned with smeared garlic, salt, pepper and extra virgin olive oil. Jummy. One of the best things in life! Really!

Grilled peppers: Wash and cut the peppers in quarters. Remove the seeds and the whitish filaments and place on the grill. Remove when tender. The skin will be black by this time. Put the peppers in a Polyethylene bag (the one you get at the supermarket when buying vegetables) and leave a couple of minutes. You will see after this “treatment” how easy is to remove the skin. Place all the peppers in a tray and season with the “battuto” I will describe in a minute.

Grilled eggplants (or aubergines): Wash and cut the aubergines in 1 cm thick slices lengthwise. With a cooking brush smear a fine layer of extra virgin olive oil on each side of the slice. Grill turning regularly until tender. Place the aubergines in a try and season with the battuto

Grilled zucchini or courgettes: Follow the description for the egglants but the slices should be ½ cm thick.

Battuto:. Finely cut Parsley, Garlic (2 cloves), Chilly Pepper (1) and smear on the vegetables. Add extra virgin olive oil to cover completely the vegetables.

Serve with bread. You can also serve as a complimentary dish mozzarella or burrata.



You will not miss meat at all!

Rice salad with bresaola, rucola salad and flakes of parmigiano reggiano

Summer is finally arriving and I am dying for a dish of refreshing Panzanella. In Basel it is impossible to find proper Tuscan bread to prepare one so I will try to make myself happy with a rice salad. Rice salad is an easy to prepare dish that does not require much effort, but for sure a lot of creativity. I will provide you here with one quite sophisticated version that you can prepare when you have guests for dinner. This recipe came into my repertoire originating from my father in-law. It reflects his strong know how of food.
You will need to boil the rice some time in advance as it is thoroughly cold when served. For 4 people calculate around 300g of paraboiled rice. It is fundamental to use this variety. In fact for a rice salad to be successful, the grains of the rice have to be well separated and have an al-dente taste. Follow the cooking instructions on the rice box and leave to cool down.
For the seasoning: 150 g of Bresaola, 75 g of rucola salad, 50 g of Parmigiano reggiano, pepper, lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil.
Cut the bresaola slices so to form small “droplets”around ½ cm wide and 1 cm long (this does not have to be perfect, I put down some numbers just to give you an idea.
Wash the rucola salad and dry it thoroughly. Coarsely chop it.
Coarsely grate the parmesan in order to form “flakes”
Mix the three ingredients, add salt and pepper and season with extra virgin olive oil and a hint of lemon juice.
Mix with the cold rice and keep refrigerated before serving.

It is delicious

Peppers Wendy Style

I would say that this is a Tuscan Recipe just because is part of my know-how and I am Tuscan. But this recipe was suggested to me by Wendy, a fellow student during my years at Durham who, unlike the majority of the other people I met, was a fantastic cook and I am positive that she has even improved her skills in these years that we have not met each other. I do not remember her original input and I am positive that I have changed the recipe during the years. I will provide you the latest and simplest version!

I post this recipe as I prepared it for my Indian friends last weekend and they were really positive! They call peppers capsicum, which sounds a little bit posh to me as this is the scientific name, but apparently this is quite common in India. And being strict vegetarian it is always a challenge for me to prepare something for them, as in Tuscany we do not consider a proper meal unless there is some blood on our dish!

For 4 persons:

4 peppers (mixed colors for a better effect!)

4 ripe tomatoes

2 cloves garlic

Parsley and

2 tablespoons of capers in salt.

1 chilly pepper



Cut the peppers in halves by the length trying to cut in two also the stem that is at the end! Remove the white stuff and the seeds from the inside (being careful not to cut the pepper) and wash with plenty of water. Place the peppers on a roasting pan with some olive oil on the bottom, so that the cavity faces you (and you can fill it!).

Cut the tomatoes in dices and fill the peppers with it. Finely chop the garlic, the parsley and the chilly pepper and distribute on top of the peppers. Season with salt and pepper and plenty of olive oil. Preheat the oven at 200 Deg and place the peppers at a medium height for 30-40 min (or until soft). Serve with ciabatta bread and enjoy!

For a better result you could place an anchovy fillet in each of the peppers, it will dissolve during the cooking and give plenty of flavor. However, in this way it would no longer be a fully vegetarian dish!

At home I have seldom eaten peppers. There was always the idea that they are heavy and difficult to digest! How can vegetables be heavy? The reason is that the way we prepare them in Italy are in the Peperonata, that is fried with onions and tomatoes. If you wish I will give you the recipe in a separate post. However this comes from the preparation and has nothing to do with the vegetable, which is fantastic!

Peppers look so Mediterranean and it is amazing to think that they are originally from America and were introduced in our gastronomy only recently (16th century… but if you have 3000 years of history as we have in Tuscany this is recent!).
Leonardo da Vinci or Dante never tried Peppers.

Ragu

On the English Forum this week there was a thread on Pasta sauce and Bolognese sauce, etc. I have read several things and would not comment on that. I just want to add this post, complimentary to last week one on Tagliatelle, where I would like to share with you the hits and tricks to make a proper Ragu. Before I start please let me make a few comments on this topic:

1. There is no such thing as Bolognese Sauce in Italy. What you mean with this term is Ragu or Sugo in Italy. Stay away from a restaurant that in Italy serves Spaghetti Bolognese, it is a tourist trap for sure.
2. There is no such thing as the real recipe for the Ragu, every cook and every person has his/her own way of cooking it and his/her own secret ingredient
3. The best match for Sugo are Tagliatelle or Penne. Spaghetti with Ragu is not a perfect match in Italy.
4. The basics of Ragu is Battuto, i.e. a mixture of finely chopped vegetables, plus Beef minced meat and tomatoes.
5. No spices are added to the Ragu, i.e. Basil, Rosemary, etc.

So let’s start from the very beginning, i.e. Battuto. This word in Italian literally means “Beaten” but in culinary terms its is a mixture of finely chopped mixture of vegetables and herbs that are a base for a recipe. In case of Ragu the Battuto is prepared with what we call “Odori”, i.e. onion, celery, carrot and parsley. Odori literally means Smells and I guess that this word is used because they provide aroma to the dish you are cooking.
In the vegetables section of main supermarkets in Italy you will find bags of “Odori”, ready to be used for your ragu. The same are used also for Lesso .
So going back to our Ragu, consider for 500g of minced meat 1 large onion, 2 carrots, 2 sticks of celery and a handful of parsley. Ideally you should use a chopping knife and lots of patience. I use the food processor, being careful not to overdo with it as it might get pulp like, but you want it to preserve its texture. Once ready transfer everything in a large pan (ideally a terracotta pan) and add plenty of extra virgin olive oil. Cook gently until very very very soften. This might take around 30 min, and you have to carefully check that the battuto cooks without sticking to the bottom or burning.
Once cooked raise the heat and add the salted minced meat and let the meat fry for 10-15 until the meat is thoroughly cooked. The meat should release all the juices into the pan. To enhance the flavor of your ragu you can add some finely chopped dry porcini mushrooms (previously wetted) together with the water using for wetting or a sausage, or a finely chopped chicken or rabbit liver. I do not like wine, but I know of people that add a glass of red Tuscan wine as well.
Once the meat is cooked add a can of chopped tomatoes and leave it to cook for 1h at least. Check that it does not burn or sticks to the bottom. Adjust with salt and pepper and it’s done!
Enjoy with tagliatelle and plenty of Parmigiano Reggiano!

Tagliatelle, Pappardelle, etc. Make your own pasta

Although not proper Tuscan, fresh hand-made pasta is thoroughly available in Tuscan restaurants. I am lucky. My grandma comes from Emilia region, the homeland of fresh pasta and I had an excellent teacher. I do not have much time, but I love making pasta for guests. It tastes differently, it is fun and it is not that effort at the end. The recipe is 1 egg every 100 g of flour. That’s it. So for 4 people make at least 6 eggs and 600 g of flour. My grandma adds also one spoon of extravirgin olive oil. I usually do but do not really know whenever it is fundamental! Have flour available as you need during the process! I will describe you first the proper way of doing and the way I do. Probably not orthodox, but definitively time saving! In both cases you need clean hands, a wooden top surface, plenty of flour (in addition to the recipe one) and a noodle machine.

Proper way

Put the flour on the wooden surface making a mountain like shape. Create a volcano by making a crater in the middle of that. Put one after the other the eggs in the volcano (open of course) and then with a fork beat the eggs by scraping some flour from the walls of the volcano but being careful not to create an opening as the egg lava will start to flow like hell and will make your kitchen look a little messy. If you do it properly you will get a dough of soft consistency that you have to further work with the flour in order to get it very hard. This process can be very energetic as the dough will get harder and harder. Be aware that when the dough is too soft it will be very difficult for you to handle your pasta afterwards, as it will stick to everything. Do not try to make the dough too smooth. A trick is to leave it for one hour in the fridge and it will get better and better.

My way.

Take a food processor and put the flour and the eggs in it. For a 2L container, make slots of 300g and 3 eggs. Switch on at the maximum speed until you have a brittle mixture. Pour in a wooden surface and work into a dough. It will be very easy and the results will be perfect!


In both cases leave the dough for 1h minimum in the fridge in a metal or ceramic container covered with a dish Make sure that the dough is not loose in the container, so that the latter just fits right. I do not know why it should be like that, my grandma said. One thing that you have to be careful about is that the dough does not dry out. It has to be always moist. In Florence the air is humid, so this is not a big issue. But here in Switzerland it can be a race against time to make your tagliatelle.

The noodle machine:

Don’t be scared, it does not bite. Follow the instructions and firmly fix it at the table. Make sure that you have plenty of flour and clean kitchen towels around you to go through the pasta production. Get familiar with the rolling sizes

Cut a bit of dough (around the size of a mobile phone) and roll it at the thicker size. Fold it and pass it again. Repeat this step until you have a smooth dough. Once this is done pass it at a thinner size until you reach the thinnest. You do not have to go through one measure at the time, just make a couple of steps from the thickest to the thinner. If it gets too long cut in two and process one at the time. When ready place the rolled dough on a kitchen towel and leave it to dry out a bit.

If the dough was properly done, you will not have problems in these steps. If it is too dry it will get brittle and it will separate during the rolling. Work it again with a bit of water and leave it to rest for 10 min before trying again. If it is too soft (wet) then it sticks everywhere. Once you have rolled it, smear plenty of flour on both sides before going to the next step.

Your noodle machine will have a tagliatelle cutting tool. Use it to create your own tagliatelle.

Cook your tagliatelle in plenty of salted hot water and… enjoy with your favourite sauce.

The recipe for the ragu (i.e. Bolognese sauce) will follow.

Baccalà alla Livornese (Leghourn-style cod)

Nowadays you can eat fish everywhere. Probably you do not know that, but the best place to have some fresh fish in Italy is Milan, even if it is far away from the sea. The reason is that it hosts one of the biggest fish markets in Europe, and here is where all the fish is collected and handled before it reaches your table.
But it was not like this in the past. As it was impossible to keep fresh the fish during transportation from the coast to the internal areas, someone living in Florence had to rely on fresh water fish or processed (salted or dried) fish. Going back to the Renaissance period, many villas of that time had huge tanks to store fish. Villa la Petraia and Villa di Castello in Florence are an example of this as you can see from the picture that I enclose here and that reproduces Villa di Castello as it was in the past.
Salted anchovies were a good example of the kind of fish that was consumed in Florence in the past. You can find them as ingredient in many dishes, crostini and salsa verde for example. I have already given a recipe for these in this blog. However a cheap source of protein in the past were for sure the products coming from North Atlantic, in particular Herrings and Cod. Funny enough, nowadays they are a very expensive alternative to the fresh and cheap Sea Basses that come from the fish farms.
So coming to cod there are two kinds, the Baccala’ (salted) and Stoccafisso (dry). In both case their name comes from German and means fish in a stick. The meaning that I have given to the two words is how we use it in Florence, but I might be wrong. In Florence we typically have Baccala’, the salted version. Local food shops (good old times when there was one in every corner… now they have disappeared!) used to sell it on Fridays, when the Catholic tradition prohibits the consumption of meat. I have never understood why if you are not supposed to eat meat you can have fish instead, but this is my personal consideration.  The shops used to start preparing it on Thursday. The preparation involves wetting (re-hydrating) and removing the excess salt. For this reason they put the baccala’ in a special tank with continous flow of water. If you buy the salted version, just put it in water and change the water every 30 min. That should do the job. It might take one day before the fish is ready.
Remove the bones, the skin , and cut the fish in stripes. Cover with plenty of flour and fry the cod in oil (peanuts oil would do the job). In a separate pan fry some garlic, capers and chilli peppers in some olive oil. Once the garlic turns golden, add the tomato sauce and leave it cooking for a few minutes. Before serving briefly cook the cod in the sauce and serve hot with plenty of chopped parsley on top of the fish. It is delicious. In this way you can prepare also red mullets, which are a typical fish of Leghourn. In this case clean the fish (remove the inside and grate off the sloughs), cover in flour, fry and then put in the sauce. They are delicious!!!!

Arista

This is one of the most classical dishes (roasts) in Tuscan cooking and I must admit that it is one of my favourite. It is basically a pork roast taking the pork sirloin cut. Better would be to have it with the bones, far from Tuscany however this is a meat cut not easy to find. The name dates back to the Renaissance period, when Florence was a melting pot. The legend says that the Medici family organized an ecumenical council with the Roman and Greek churches (sort of G8 of that time). As usually happens in Italy, no problem how harsh the discussion might have been during the day, once at sharing a meal everyone agrees on it. So the Greek cardinal, tried the pork roast and after the first taste simply said “aristos”, the best, and from then onwards the dish got the name of Arista.

I agree with the Greek cardinal, arista is for sure one of the best dishes of Tuscan cooking. It is not very common in restaurants, but it is one of the most popular Sunday lunches in Florence.

So here are the ingredients for 4 people

Pork sirloin (whole) 800g
Rosemary
1 Teaspoon of Fennel seeds
2 cloves garlic
Salt, Pepper
Extra virgin olive oil

For the best results I would suggest that you prepare the meat a few hours or the night before cooking. In this way it will be tasteful.
Finely chop the garlic and the rosemary with the fennel seeds, add the pepper (1/2 teaspoon should be enough) and cover the arista with this mixture.

DO NOT:
Add salt at this point, it will recall all the liquids from the meat resulting in a chunky shoe sole
Punch the meat, it has to be as integral as possible
Add the mixture to the sides.

Depending on the size of the meat the cooking will take around 40-90 min. And it is better eaten if left for 15 min to rest after the cooking. So consider your timing accordingly. Before the cooking add plenty of salt to the arista (again on the top and bottom, not to the sides), and cover with olive oil, Place in the oven (using a suitable tray of course) at maximum heat for 15 min. Then cool the oven at around 200° and continue to cook. You can check the cooking by punching the meat and once you feel it is soft inside it is ready. Also during this checks you can collect some of the juices that form on the bottom and you pour over the meat. For a 800 g piece 60 min are usually required.
Collect the juices in a bowl and cut the meat into ½ cm slices. Serve with the juices on the side.

As a side dish you can prepare some roast potatoes. Cut the potatoes in cubes around 2 cm long. Place in a metal tray with plenty of salt, rosemary (you can prepare also some extra herbs mixture that you used for the meat) and olive oil and cook with the meat.

Frittelle di San Giuseppe

19th of March is the day of St. Joseph. Being the main paternal character of the Christian tradition, this day is considered father’s day in Italy. And in the best of Italian tradition we do not do cards, or give presents such as chocolate golf balls and so on. We eat! San Giuseppe is the day of “Frittelle” . Again all the main bakeries will sell them during this period of time, but being far away from Florence I will have to prepare them myself. It takes some time but the result is worth the effort. I do not know how to translate Frittelle into English. If you prepare them and find a suitable English name, please send it to me.

Also a key point about Frittelle is that they are one of the few dishes in Florentine tradition with rice. Rice is traditional a northern Italy dish, and risotto is something that you better eat in Milan or in Piedmont. In the south of Italy rice is used in preparations such as stuffed tomatoes and peppers and arancini. However rice is almost unexistant in Tuscan cooking. Frittelle are an exception…. And a very good one.



1 liter of Milk

250g Rice

2 Eggs

Sugar

2 tablespoons Ron

50 g Raisins

100g Flour

1 untreated lemon

1 table spoon of sodium carbonate

1 vanilla bean

50 g of butter

Cook the rice in the milk with the butter and the vanilla bean until all the milk is absorbed (if it dryes out before the rice is cooked, add some water). Remove the vanilla bean and leave the rice to cool down (Practical tip, prepare the night before).
Separate the eggs and add the yolk to the rice. Beat the egg whites until stiff.
Add the rehydrated raisin, the ron,the flour, the grated lemon zest and at the very last moment the egg whites, being careful when mixing in order to keep the air bubbles in the mixture.
Prepare a large pan with plenty of peanuts oil to fry the frittelle. Heat the oil.
Add spoons of the mixture in the oil and fry turning occasionally.
Once brown remove from the pan, dry the excess oil and cover with sugar (crystal sugar). Frittelle are best enjoyed cold!

Occasionally the Italian maid will fill one frittella with a piece of cotton wool before frying. This is a sort of joke in order to laugh at whoever gets it. Once in my family all the frittelle were gone and the cotton had not appeared!!!! Someone had something hard to digest!

pinzimonio

To prepare this dish you need as many small bowls (ideally 10 cm in diameter and 10 cm tall) as your guests and a large basket of fresh vegetables.

This can include:

Fennels - Wash in plenty of water and remove the hard outer leaves. Cut in quarters.

Spring onions - wash in plenty of water and remove the hard outer layers.

Celery - Use only the heart and wash in plenty of water

Artichokes - Only the Tuscan variety, skinny, purple in color. Simply wash in plenty of water and then I will explain how to eat them!

Horse radishes – Washed and peeled.

Other vegetables you can use but are not traditional : indive , carrots.

Each person is assigned a small bowl with some olive oil (extra virgin, etc... as usual), salt and pepper and you leave the vegetables in the middle of the table.

The meal consists on picking the vegetables, dipping in the sauce and eating the tip. After doing so you dip again and eat, etc.

An international kitchen cookbook would call this crudite, but in Tuscany we call it pinzimonio. This is really a strange word, and I guess that only a few people know its meaning outside Tuscany.I made a brief research on its etimology and the word comes from "pizzo", tip.

Probably due to the fact that you only eat the tip...

So let's come to the artichokes, this odd vegetable that resembles a flower. You remove the outer leaves, the ones that are all of dark colour. Then you will see that the leaves will start to have a whitish (pale green) bottom. That part is soft and edible. Dip it in the sauce and eat.

The pale green part will become bigger and bigger as you go inside the artichoke. At a certain point you will see that the leaves are all pale green and soft. You reached the heart of the artichoke.

At this point cut the top bit (1-2 cm) of the artichoke to remove the spines, reduce the stem to 3-4 cm length and peel of the outer layer of the stem. Cut in quarters, remove the hairy bit in the middle (if it is a good artichoke no hairs will be inside) and eat it.

Don't be afraid, it is more complicated to say than to do. Try and enjoy your first carciofo in pinzimonio.
Don’t try to prepare the artichoke in advance as it will get dark very soon.

You can eat some Tuscan bread with the vegetables.

The key of success of this dish is the quality of the oil and the quality of the vegetables. It is usually eaten as a second course. Spring onions can be a challenging experience…

crespelle alla fiorentina

Alla fiorentina is often used outside of Italy to indicate a dish which contains some sort of cheesy spinaches on top. An example of that is the most unflorentine of all dishes: pizza alla fiorentina. No one would ever dream of eating such pizza in Florence…

I wonder where this could come from… and I started thinking of the most “alla fiorentina” dish that you can find in a real Tuscan menu. The only dish I could think of is Crespelle alla fiorentina. This is a first course made of crepes filled with ricotta and spinaches and topped with besciamella sauce. The master of this dish in my family is the grandma of my husband. Now she is approaching her 90s and does not cook elaborate dishes anymore. However I was lucky enough to meet her a few years ago, and I must admit that she used to make memorable crespelle.

So if you want to prepare a proper “Crespelle alla fiorentina you need)



For 4 persons:



For the crepes:

4 eggs

6 tablespoons of flour (white, 00)

100 g of butter

A pinch of salt

Milk



For the filling



5000g of fresh spinaches

300g of ricotta cheese (better if you can get your hands of sheep milk one)

Grated Parmigiano reggiano (no Parmesan!)

Grated nutmeg

Salt and Pepper



For the sauce



100 g of flour

100 g of butter

500 ml of milk



A can of chopped tomatoes



The best way to proceed is to prepare the filling then the crepes and then the sauce.



Filling preparation

So for the filling boil the spinaches and rinse the excess water. Finely chop them and slightly fry with a clove of garlic and some butter to dry them. Remove the garlic, add the ricotta and the parmesan, grate some nutmeg on top (not too much) and adjust salt and pepper to your taste.



Crepes preparation

Have and antiadherent pan ready around 25 cm in diameter. Beat the eggs with the flour and add some milk until you have reached a creamy although fluid mixture. In case you have lumps of flour I suggest that you use a blender to remove them. Gently warm the butter in the pan until melted and then add the butter to the dough. Add some salt and pepper to your taste. Do not clean the pan! Make sure that the bottom of the pan is covered with butter and heat the pan. Transfer one ladle of the dough to the pan and move the liquid so that it forms a thin layer on the pan. Cook on both sides (I usually use a dish to turn it around) until ready. Proceed in this way for all the crepes adding butter in case it runs out. You should have at the end around 12 crepes.



Put one spoon of the ricotta and spinaches filling on one crepe and roll it. Place the crepes in a buttered baking pan, put some chopped tomatoes on top of each (1 spoon should be enough) and prepare the sauce.



In a cooking pan melt the butter and add the flour. Slightly fry the flour and then add the milk in small batches until you get a creamy mixture. Are you getting a lumpy milky mixture. Use the minipimer and you will get fantastic results! Add the parmesan and adjust the salt. Cover the crepes with the sauce and add some grated parmigiano reggiano on top. Bake in the oven at 200 deg. For around 20 min and serve hot!

Lesso

Literally means Boiled and in Tuscany is a word that identifies boiled beef. I would not define this a simple dish.... it is a whole world. It is a preparation that allows a cooking maid to have a first course (soup) a main dish, and also clearly reusable leftovers. I will talk of all these possibilites in this post, but first let me provide some background information on this dish.It is a very poor dish, it employes the bad quality meat, the one that needs long boiling in order to get minimally tender to be eaten. But don't get me wrong here, this does not mean that it is not delicious. I just mean that in the past, the working class could not affords the nice beef cuts that you can braise and roast and get tasty Sunday lunches. The only beef that you could afford was only edible when boiled, and that's why this is a “poor” dish. However, today's hectic life, makes this dish a real speciality as only few people have the patience and time necessary for its preparation. To give you an idea on the importance of “Lesso” for a maid in the past, I have to go back to my grandma. In fact for her any sum of money is measured by the amount of “Lesso” meat that you can buy with it. I still remember when my teenage uncle came back home having spent 50.000 Lire (around 25€) for a pair of stone washed 501 Levi's. Apart from the fact that she could not understand how you wanted to buy a pair of trousers that looked old and worn out, but what could not get out of her mind for days after this happened, is that she could have bought 10 Kgs of “Lesso” for the same sum!
Having said that, let's go to the golden rule for boiled beef preparation: you want a nice soup? Place the meat before the water boils. You want a tasty meat dish? Put the meat in the boiling water. Probably because I am Italian, but I like to go round this rule by preparing Lesso with different meat cuts. I usually buy a small piece of low quality cut (usually from the leg, the rule is that it must come with some bone) to prepare the broth and put it in the cold water. And then I add a nicer cut to the boing water. I know that the cuts of meat differ from country (and in Italy from city to city) so I would suggest that you speak to your butcher for best advice. However a good … for a nice “Lesso” is that you must have some bone, some fat, and a decent quantity of lean meat to eat. For a cut of around 1 kg of meat I would use around 2 liters of water, 2 carrots, 1 large onions, one bunch of parsley (I usually add the stems in the broth and use the leaves for other preparations), two sticks of celery. Clean the vegetable and place in the cold water together with the meat and bring to boil. At this moment adjust the salt and put down the heat so that it slightly bubbles. Leave boiling for at least 2 hours. Be carefull to adjust the salt before the broth is starting to take consistency, as it is very tricky to do afterwards.
Soup:
What we call minestra is a broth soup where some pasta is cooked in the broth. The pasta is usually of small format and of egg dough. You can also cook tiny egg noodles in the soup or tortellini. Be careful that the tortellini have to be small (around 10 euro cents coin) and have a meaty filling (ham or meat). Once you have prepared your Lesso filter the broth with a colander and consider 3 xxx of broth per person. Bring to boil and add the pasta (around 30-40 grams per person or 50 g of tortellini). Serve with grated parmesan once the pasta is cooked. Do not add herbs, cream or any other thing to this dish.
For a healthier alternative, leave the broth to cool down before filtering. This will enable the fat to solidify on the top, so that it is easily removed once filtered. You can also freeze the broth for future use.
Meat:
You will love me for this... I am finally providing some recipes for sauces. Yes, we use sauces, but only on Lesso.
The queen of Lesso sauces in Tuscany is salsa verde, which literally means green sauce. Salsa verde is based on parsley, and you need a generous handful of parsley leaves. You remember what I said before? Put the stems and leave the leaves. Lesso is a “poor” dish which optimizes the usage of all ingredients.
Let's try to do this in a structured way:
1 handful of parsley leaves, washed
1 boiled egg
2 spoons of mixed vegetables in vinegar
In case you have... 1 slice of left over tuscan bread. Do not use other types of bread as it will not work.
2 fillets of anchovies in olive oil.

In case you use the bread soak it in water and then squeeze out the water. Finely cut (you might want to use a food processor for this) the egg, the vegetables and the anchovies and add to the bread. Adjust the salt and pepper and cover with oil. It can last for one week in your fridge. Serve with Lesso meat. It is delicious.

Vitello tonnato:

In case you have a nice cut of lesso, that can be sliced in nice round bits, prepare the vitello tonnato, or beef with tuna fish. This is a cold dish, perfect in summer. Cut the beef in thin slides and adjust them in a serving dish.

For the sauce:

1 can (150g) of tuna in oil
2 fillets of anchovies
1 spoonful of capers in salt
100 g of ready mayonnaise (the plain one, not that that contains mustards or other additives)

Wash the capers to remove the sald and finely chop them with the anchovies and the tuna. Add this mixture to the mayonnaise and cover the meat with this sauce. It is great!

The leftovers

There are always leftovers of meat from a Lesso prepartion. Put them in a food processor with a clove garlic and some parsley. Add the same amount of smashed boiled potatoes and an egg and work this mixture (dough) until uniform. Form some balls around 2 cm in diameter and flatten them. Cover them in breadcrumbs and fry. You have just prepared polpette (I think this word has the same root as pulp, which resembles the fact that they come from a pulp of different things), however the translation into meat balls does not satisfy me. These are just polpette. Best served once cold. You can prepare polpette also with minced meat, however it does not have the same fascination as when prepared with leftovers.

Following the same procedure as above, you can prepare a polpettone, the Italian version for meat loaf. However once the meat is processed with the garlic and the parsley, you add bradcrumbs and eggs. Work until uniform and then form a loaf. You can wrap it in aluminium foil (remember to spread it with olive oil to avoid it sticking to the polpettone!) and boil, or you can braise in a tomato sauce prepared by slightly cooking a can of chopped tomatoes with some garlic. In this case make sure that it does not stick to the pan during the cooking, that can require one hour.
In both cases cut into thick slices and serve!

So as you can see I have presented you not only a recipe, but a whole world.

Rabbit Baldina Style

A few words about the title. I know that lots of people consider rabbit a pet, but before judging the people who ate (and eat) this animal please consider that in the past there was no room and money for pets. Cats were kept at home because they got rid of mice, and dogs were used as guards and shephards. You do not need too much space to raise rabbits and they grow fast and mate continuously: in a few word they were a cheap source of protein intake for our poor peasants! Especially in Tuscany! But do not think that in the past peasants were eating rabbit every day! My grandfather recalled eating rabbit on Sundays, his whole family, made of 18 people, shared a single rabbit!
Baldina is my grandma. As you probably know, she was born in Emilia, in the small village of Scandiano. Her name is highly unusual, if not unique, and I think it was invented by her father in honour of her grandfather. The official story is that it is a shorten version of “Garibaldina”, which means follower of Garibaldi, the Italian hero of the 19th Century that lead to Italy union. Her grandfather was probably one of the 1000 that formed the original nucleus of Garibaldi expedition and she remembers him as an old man with the red shirt! Her father was a painter, he liked painting oil canvas, however, got all his income from painting walls in rich people houses, sometimes adding some frescos landscapes or hunting scenes. In my family there were several paintings by him, and the majority got destroyed during the Florence flood in 1966. Just three are left, two views of Venice and a flower vase. My grandma family was not rich, and at the age of 12 she moved with her sister to Rome to become a servant. So she started to learn how to cook, and over the years some recipes have become very famous, also outside our family circle. I want to share the all time classic of my grandma, the rabbit!
For 4 people:
1 whole rabbit (approx 1,200 g), no head andxxx
Rosemary, salt, pepper and extra virgin olive oil as required.
Take at least three sprigs of fresh rosemary and finely chop the leaves with a knife. Add one tablespoon of salt and one of pepper and mix.
Clean the rabbit and cut it in three pieces. Season well the bits with the rosemary mixture you have prepared and put it in a large saucing pan with lots of olive oil and half a glass of water. Bring to heat and cook covered.
Transfer the cooked rabbit in a roasting pan (if you wish you can add some diced potatoes) and cover with the juices that were released in the pan. Transfer in the preheated oven at 250° C and roast until a nice crust is formed.
Serve hot and enjoy

What is the secret of this recipe? Rabbit’s meat is very lean and if you place it directly in the oven it will dry out and get chewy. With the double cooking you preserve the tenderness of the meat and at the same time you will have a roast crusty effect. Eat with salad, roasted potatoes or whatever you want, but please refrain from adding any sauce to it!

Fritto misto

One of the specialties of my mother is the Fritto misto, literally "fried mixture". She is really good in that and she has unique capabilities in doing a perfect dish. I know what you think, fried food is junk food, is not good for your health, and is not a “gourmet” specialty. However try a real fritto misto Tuscan way and you will change your mind. In Florence there used to be several deep frying shops (friggitorie) that served everything from antipasti (coccoli), to sweets (doughnuts, called Bomboloni). There is one left in via S.Antonino, but last time I went was run by Chinese serving spring rolls! I don’t have anything against them, but for sure is no longer the “Tuscan” version. There are several bakeries (pasticceria) that usually serve doughnuts after 4 p.m. The best one is in Piazza Viesseux, and we used to go there on Sundays, usually to sweeten the defeat of Fiorentina. For a good deep fried mix I have heard that “Trattoria I ricchi “ in Cercina is the best: http://www.iricchi.it/English/index.html.
However if you are far away from Florence and you want to try a fritto misto here is how to prepare it. In this post I will give you an overview of the different deep frying techniques and what you can prepare using those. If you want to try other things, just send me a comment and I will give you suggestions on how to fry it!
What is in a fritto misto:
Meat
Chicken, usually with bones and cut into pieces around 4-5 cm long. I would leave out the wings. Wash the meat, but do not marinate it!
Rabbit, usually with bones and cut into pieces around 4-5 cm long. Wash the meat, but do not marinate it!
Brain. Yes it is a Tuscan specialty. However I dislike the idea and would not know how to prepare it. If you wish to try I will ask my mum that used to prepare it.
Vegetables:
Potatoes. Be careful here on what variety you choose. I hardly find good potatoes to deep fry nowadays. I don’t know which the best is, just try out different varieties! I cut them in sticks 0.5 cm thick and leave in water to remove the excess starch.
Zucchini. Cut in slices around 0.5 mm thick
Artichokes. Remove the external leaves and once you have the “heart” remove the top part (usually purple color). Cut in quarters and remove the “hairs” that you find inside. Cut the quarters in smaller segments/slices (0.5 cm thick) and leave them in water with some lemon to avoid their blackening.
Mushrooms: must be Porcini (boletus). Fresh and hard. Cut into 1-2 cm dices.

Bread:
Yes I know what you mean, Tuscan are worse than Scottish when it comes to deep frying. Actually it is true even if we would never think of frying a Mars bar!

I do not have a deep fryer so I use an iron pan. The rule would ask to use Extra Virgin Olive oil, however that you are careful not to overheat the oil, peanuts oil is perfect. The pan must be full of oil, so that whatever you fry will be soaked. If you are planning a fritto misto, fry the potatoes first and then all the rest, leaving the meat at last.
For the potatoes, dry with a kitchen towel and then pour in the hot oil. Let them fry at medium heat (you have to al least hear the frying!)covered for a few minutes until soft, then rise the heat and remove the cover for the last touch. Remove when they have formed the hard shell.
For the zucchini you need to prepare the batter. Beat an egg with flour and salt and add some water or milk to create a creamy mixture. Adjust the texture with flour and water so that you have a thick batter that flows and sticks to the zucchini. Pour the zucchini in the batter, make sure that they are fully covered and then pour them in oil and fry until golden turning them a couple of times. Add salt and serve hot. You have some batter left. Pour little spoons in the hot oil and create small “frittelle”
For the artichokes and meat. Make sure that the ingredients are wet and then pour in flour so that they are well covered. Beat an egg with some salt and slightly cover the floured ingredient with that before pouring in the hot oil. Make sure that the egg just covers the meat, etc. To do so I usually pour the ingredients in the eggs and then take them out with a fork and with a shake I try to drain out the excess before pouring in the hot oil. You have some egg left? Take slices of bread; pass them in the egg and then fry. It is delicious!
Mushrooms: Slightly wash the mushrooms and then cover with “yellow flour”, i.e. polenta or corn flour before frying them.
Add salt to your taste and serve with lemon. Do you want to do it Tuscan style? Please refrain from using any sauce. I allow you only some lemon juice!!!!

Strawberry cake of aunt Nidalia

This is one of the best cakes I have ever made, and for sure the easiest to make. The only drawback is that you need fresh strawberries so it can be done only in the springtime. My aunt (so to say because is the acquired aunt of my mum, however is more than that to me) taught me the recipe and I must say that I have successfully prepared it in several occasions. I have spread the recipe around the world and more and more people are enjoying it! It is simple, if you follow my suggestions it comes out wonderful looking with the minimum effort, I have never found someone that did not like it!
I usually prepare it in a removable bottom cake pan around 25 cm in diameter. For such a cake you need 500g of strawberries, sugar, 1 lemon, 500 g of sponge finger biscuits, 250g of whipped cream.
Prepare the whipped cream.
Clean the strawberries and put them in a food processor with the juice of 1 lemon and 2 table spoons of sugar. You might want to keep some strawberries for decoration. Mix them until you have a liquid cream. Adjust sugar to your taste but be careful as you might have added some sugar to the cream and the biscuits are covered in sugar as well.
Cover the cake pan with butter to avoid the cake to stick to the walls. Then pour the “strawberry cream” in a large bowl and soak the biscuits in that liquid and create a layer in the pan. In order to enhance the decorative effect I usually cut a few biscuits at the height of the pan and then create a circle (wall) to start with. However when you have finished a layer, pour a generous layer of whipped cream and then start with another layer until the cake pan is full. Then if you have some whipped cream and strawberry cream left, mix them and pour on the top. Allow the cake to rest in the fridge for a couple of hours minimum and then enjoy.
Variations: Between the layers of biscuits you can put some fresh strawberries. Probably it is good with other fruits as well; however I have never tried it!

Fagioli all’uccelletto

This dish literarily means beans with small birds, as in the whole of Italy some people (don’t look at me) eat sparrows and I think that the name comes from the fact that sparrows are usually cooked with fresh sage. So I think that the meaning of the name of this recipe is Beans cooked at sparrow way! However, don’t worry as this can be a fully vegetarian dish, or you can add some sausages. This clearly reminds to the old times when meat was only for wealthy classes and the peasants had to rely on beans for a protein in-take. Nowadays some bean variety cost more than beef filet. I am talking about the Fagiolo solfino di Sorana, smaller than cannellini, and really tasteful!
Sausage version:
Take a Tuscan Sausage and fry in some olive oil until fairly cooked. Add to the oil some garlic, sage (fresh!!!), tomato sauce (chopped tomatoes or peeled tomatoes in a can are perfect) and cooked cannellini beans. Cook for a few minutes and serve hot!
Vegetarian version:
Fry some garlic with fresh sage and when brown add some tomato sauce and the cooked cannellini beans. Cook for a few minutes and serve hot!

Minestrone e Ribollita

I will now give you a recipe for a vegetable soup, minestrone (if you were to apply a literally translation that would be the “big soup”) and will explain to you how to transform it into a Ribollita (again literally translated into “re-boiled soup”). In fact what is the king dish of Tuscan cooking, the ribollita, is just the leftovers of the minestrone boiled once again with some Tuscan bread! I learned how to make good minestrone from my grandfather. I have seen him preparing just minestrone and pesto, but both of them were outstanding. His family was from the Chianti region, they were peasant, and when his father died he was just 7 years old. This changed his life dramatically as he was separated from his mother, and sent to live with his uncle, where he worked as a peasant/gardener. And ribollita was his meal (there were no breakfast-lunch-dinner-snacks at the time). He would take the leftovers of the vegetable soup, add a lot of bread to fill the stomach, and bring it to the fields to eat during the break. So each time you order a ribollita in a nice restaurant, think of what it represented to the Tuscan peasants.
Each time he prepared Minestrone, a discussion arose between my grandparents. My grandma is more practical, and as soon as the ready-made deep frozen version was available, she switched to that. But my grandfather did not accept that and he wanted to prepare the minestrone his way, transforming the kitchen into a mess! I myself have never used the deep frozen version. If I want a minestrone, I’d better have the proper one.
So to prepare the minestrone you need:
Onions, leeks, carrots, celery, parsley, courgettes (or zucchini), black cabbage, Swiss chard, Spinaches, peas, potatoes, cooked cannellini beans. I underlined the compulsory ingredients. Other ingredients could be green cabbage and turnips, even if I would leave out peppers, cauliflower, sprouts, aubergines, chickpeas. If you are unsure whenever to use an ingredient for a minestrone, just write me and I will judge it.
Well the next step is to cook the minestrone. Start with the “soffritto”, which is a standard for any Italian dish. This consists on finely chopped (by hand!) onions, celery, carrots and parsley. For the minestrone however, I do not finely chop the vegetable, but just make stripes or dices of around 0.5-1 cm width. Cook the soffritto in a big casserole with some olive oil and salt, covered and at gentle heat for around 10 min, until the vegetables are soft.
In the meanwhile prepare a big bowl of water (or use the sink if clean), and wash there the cut cabbage, curd, spinaches and leak. Slightly drain the vegetables and add to the casserole together with the peas (if you are using the fresh or the frozen ones). Cover and keep cooking at gentle heat. The water inside the vegetable and that from the washing should be enough to keep the soup moist, if you keep the casserole closed. In case you see it tends to dry, just add half a glass of water. When cooked add the potatoes, zucchini and beans. Again adjust the water as explained above. Once they are cooked your minestrone is ready. As I do not add any water, the minestrone results in a thick soup. I like it that way, with just a C of olive oil on top. People use also the chilly oil, which is olive oil where you leave some chili peppers.
From a minestrone you can prepare other things:
1.Ribollita: Add water and dry bread and gently cook again until all the bread is soft and amalgamates with the soup. Again a C of olive oil on top
2.Vegetable cream: Mix the minestrone in a food processor and you will have a yummy vegetable soup. If you like you can add some water and cook some pasta in it (short pasta, ideally ditali).
3.Minestrone with pasta: add water to the minestrone and cook some pasta in it.