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!