Liver Pate'

This recipe comes from the most antique cooking writing called “De re coquinaria”. It was written by Apicio, a rich Roman who loved good food and spent all his money for it. At least old rich man in Italy used to have better habits than the current ones....

He writes: “cook liver, chop it and add pepper or “liquamen” (you don't really want to eat that!) or salt and add olive oil – hare liver (or lamb or chicken) and shape it as fish if you like. Pour on it olive oil”

Here you are my own version of it: 

300gr lamb or chicken liver, wash it and put in a pan with chopped onions, a couple of bay tree leaves and two anchovies. When start browning pour Vinsanto (holy wine). If you do not have it but you can replace it with Marsala wine, usually more easy to find, or some similar sweet wine. Add some salt if needed. Whip everything (its own liquid included) adding some butter until creamy. Pour in a mold. Let it cool and turn out the mold before serving.

Lent biscuits

Since Lent just started, I decided to write about “Quaresimali”, a kind of dark biscuits shaped as letters or numbers born in the kitchen of Tuscan convents and eaten in the period between Carnival and Easter. Today you can find them just in bakeries around Florence. I prepare them to color the tray where I serve “cantuccini” and “brutti boni”, two other types of buiscuits that my guests like a lot. Then you will have 3 different types of biscuits to choose from!

Quaresimali


Ingredients:

gr: 200 flour
gr: 200 sugar
gr:50 peeled and roasted almond
gr. 50 peeled and roasted hazelnuts
3 eggs white
gr. 50 unsweeted cocoa powder
vanilla extract
cinnemon
about 8 gr. of baking powder

Mill hazelnuts and almonds, mix with flour, sugar, cocoa, vanilla, cinnemon and baking powder. Whip the eggs white and add the other ingredients stirring from down to up. When the mixture is consistent, shape the biscuits on an oven tray. Bake 140°C for about 15 minutes.

Brutti- boni

Ingredients:

g 350 peeled almonds
gr. 300 sugar
4 eggs white

Chopp almonds and mix them with sugar. Whip the eggs white and add almonds. Using two spoons make small balls and let them wait for about an hour and bake at low temperature for about 30 minutes.

Cantuccini

Ingredients:

400 gr.flour
250 gr. sugar
250 gr. peeled almonds
2 eggs
3 yolks
baking powder
orange zert
salt

Whip yolks and eggs with the sugar until creamy, add flour mixed with baking powder, almonds (a bit roasted in advanced) and orange zest.

Shape long cylinders  3 fingers large and one thick. Bake at 180°C for about 20 minutes. Cut obliquely giving the traditional shape. Re-bake for 10 minutes to crisp.All these kind of biscuits have to be kept in glass jar to stay crumbly.

Pici - my son Marco favorite!

Yesterday I received an e-mail from one of my guests asking about a kind of pasta she tasted here. The only clue I had was her definition as the “pasta of the poor man”. That is when I understood! We have many traditional poor recipes but the best is “pici con le briciole” (pici with roasted bread crumbs). In fact the only ingredients are: flour, water, bread, olive oil and grated pecorino cheese.

For 6 people: mix together 600gr flour, 280gr water and salt. Make a small ball  and let sit for 1 hour. 

Stretch pasta 1 cm thick and cut in thin stripes. 

Using your hand make long thick “spaghetti”. We define this process as “appiciare” which is the way we make this kind of pasta. The technique can be difficult the first times, you need to practise a bit.

In the meantime put the “pici” on a wood table covered with flour and a dishcloth dividing the different "levels" that they keep on forming as fast as you make they. In this way they will not touch each other.

In a saucepan pour olive oil and 4 garlic cloves. When they start browning add crumbs bread and stir. Add salt and pepper. In a big pot pour water and salt, when the water boils put the  “pici”. Cook for about 3 minutes from the moment they bob up. Drain them and add in the saucepan with bread crumbs. Add grated pecorino cheese.

Now your “pici” are ready!

                                         
During summer period the perfect way to present them is with a tomatoes topping, a very quick and tasty sauce.

To prepare this sauce pour olive oil and garlic in a pan, let it cook for a few minutes then add chopped tomatoes, salt and pepper. Let it cook for 20 minutes and finish it with basil. In this version use parmigiano cheese instead of pecortino.

                                       

During winter time, instead,  meat “ragù” is the best.

                                      

Il Lesso (Boiled Meat)

At the end of the XIX century Artusi, one of the most important Italian cooking writer of the period, used to say “the good and healthy stock” was fading away together with good recipes like “lesso rifatto” (an old recipe in which boiled meat is pan fried with vegetables). 

Today we spend less time cooking and this is the reason why nobody prepares homemade stock anymore and also why we can find boiled meat just in restaurants offered as a "delicacy", while it used to be a really common meal for our grandparents. Re-discovering simple flavors can actually be useful to understand how we used to live in the past. We all know that cooking is culture and that it reflects the society. Today we judge everything first of all by its appearance only and this is also true also for dishes. In the postwar period, when Italian economy started growing, but we still had strong rural culture, a natural way of cooking was created and I hope we will not lose these traditions.

I know today it is not so easy to find high quality meat, but if you have the opportunity try to prepare it in combination with your own stock, you can serve the boiled meat with different kind of sauces or cook “lesso rifatto”.

MEAT STOCK

Ingredients for 2 liters stock  

gr. 500 beef

a piece of bone and one of beef leg
half chicken

1 onion

2 carrots

1 celery

2 tomatoes
2 gloves

Salt

In a saucepan put all the ingredients, 3 liters of water and let them boil for 2 hours. When the meat is soft, remove it and pass the liquid through a strainer. Put it in the fridge for a few hours, then take away the fat on the top.

STRACCIATELLA

Half scrambled egg

1 spoon of parmigian cheese

Salt

Nutmeg

Mix everything together and pour in the boiling stock

                           

FRASCARELLI

This recipe comes from Pienza, a place you want to visit when you come to visit us in Tuscany. 

Mix 2 eggs and 200 gr flour and make crumbs using your fingers. Cook it then for few minutes in boiling stock. Serve with topping of parmigiano cheese.

LESSO RIFATTO

Ingredients:

300 gr. cold boiled meat
3 onions
4 small tomatoes
olive oil, salt and pepper
flour

Mince the onion and let them brown with 4 spoons of olive oil, then put the boiled meat chopped and cover with a bit of flour. Add salt and pepper and stir for a few minutes. When the meat starts browning add the tomatoes. If it dries too much add some stock. Cook it for 10 minutes. If you want you can garnish it by adding anchovy and parsley on top.

                                   

Torta di Rose (Rose Cake)

When my guests leave usually they ask me some of the recipes from the dish they loved the most. I am usually really busy so I tell them quickly that “I will send you an e-mail”! One of the most requested recipe it is the “Torta di rose”, so I am finally explaining it.

Ingredients:

350 gr. flour

yeast

3 yolks

40 gr. olive oil

150 gr. milk

70 gr. sugar

Lemon zest

For the filling: 150 gr. sugar and 150 gr. soft butter. Butter and sugar have to be mixed together until creamy ( you can use instead 200gr jam or crema gianduia, see my previous post about it)

Warm the milk to 37°and mix it with olive oil, sugar, yeast and yolks. When the yeast has melted, pour the flour and make a hole in the middle. Pour inside the mixture and stir using a fork and your fingers until you have a smooth ball. Let it rise. Knead pastry using fingers then level it at 2 cm thick using a rolling pin. Spread the filling. Roll up the pastry until it takes the shape of a cylinder. Cut 4 cm rounds and put them on a baking tray. Leave space between one another and let it rise again. Bake in pre-heated oven 180 degrees celcius for 30 minutes.

Boar Meat Ragu

Ingredients for 6 people

1,2 kg boar meat
300 gr mince beef

500 gr tomato sauce

3 onions

3 carrots

3 celerys

4 garlic cloves

rosemary, sage and laurel

3 juniper berries

2 cloves

Red wine

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

Cut boar meat and put it in a bowl with half liter of red wine, 1 onion, 1 carrot and 1 celery. Vegetables have to be minced in advance. Add 2 laurel leaves, rosemary and sage. Let them marinate all night then throw away the liquid and keep only the meat. Put the boar meat in a saucepan and cook it on high fire to dry a bit. Then add 1 glass of olive oil, 1 carrot, 1 celery, 1 onion cut and the rest of the herbs, salt and pepper. When the meat start browning, pour a glass of wine.

In the meantime in another saucepan roast the beef with 4 spoons of olive oil and carrot, celery and onion passed in the mixer. When the wine pour on the boar meat has evaporated, add tomato sauce and beef, turn down the fire and cook for some hours. When the boar is soft take half and mince it, then put back in the saucepan and continue cooking. If it dries out add some stock.

You can use the sauce as topping for pasta and the meat as a second course served with some vegetables. This is the reason why cooking together pasta's toppings and the second course is really common in our countryside. It was the same for cooking other kinds of meats like duck, rabbit and hare. The topping was really tasty and they saved time and energy.


                                            

                                             

Gabry's Chianina meat sauce

After handmade pasta I have to give you my chianina meat ragù recipe because it is the most traditional way to flavor “tagliatelle” or “pappardelle”.

Before starting I have to explain the difference between what we call “ragù” and what we call “sugo” (sauce). “Sugo” is made with one piece meat that we mince after cooking. Instead “ragù” is prepared using minced meat, so the flavor of vegetables mix with the meat, while preparing “sugo” vegetables are instead sautéed in advance.

We call all the toppings, except for beef, “sugo” because we use big pieces of meat for it.

Ingredients for 6 people:

300 gr minced beef meat

100 gr minced pork

400 gr tomatoes

1 big onion

2 carrots

1 celery

Red wine

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

Dice all the vegetables, put them in a saucepan with the whole meat, half glass of olive oil and salt. Mix using a wooden spoon. Start cooking on high fire until the meat starts drying then pour half glass of wine and turn down the fire. When the wine evaporates add tomatoes and cook for half an hour. Add pepper.

I must say this is not the traditional Tuscan “ragù” recipe, but it is my own version, simplified and with shorter cooking time. If you use high quality meat this version will be lighter and more tasty. Buon appetito! 

Handmade pasta

Ingredients for 4 people:

200 gr flour

2 eggs

Salt

Pour flour on the table (better wooden board what we call “spianatoia”) and make a hole in the middle (we call it “fontana”). Pour inside 2 eggs and salt, mix it using first a fork then fingers until you have a smooth ball. Let it sit for about an hour. Then make the dough very thin using a rolling pin. Put in a cover in flour fabric and let it dry a bit. It has to be not too dry, otherwise it will crumble when you cut it, but not too wet because it would stick while cutting it. Cover pasta lightly with flour and bend it on itself so it results in a long cylinder you cut 1 cm depth if you want “tagliatelle” and 3 cm for “pappardelle”. Now stretch the pasta and it will be ready to cook.

Today just few people make handmade pasta because it is easier to buy it and it is supposed to be as good as the one handmade on a wooden board. But that is not true, of course. The materials make the difference: wood gives porosity and different thickness which will be obvious when you will flavor the pasta with the sauce. There is also a machine to stretch pasta, it is a quicker way to prepare it but the result does not mean you will necessarily save time in this way. I suggest to try once the traditional way, I am sure you will not find it so difficult and it will not take you long to prepare it.

Milk sandwich breads

After “crema gianduia” recipe I want to write about milk sandwich breads, so you can spread gianduia on them (or just eat it by themselves if you prefer!)

Ingredients:

550 gr. manitoba flour
250 gr. milk
1 egg and 1 yolk
60 gr. olive oil
10 gr. sugar
10 gr. salt
1 yeast

Warm the milk and add olive oil, sugar, egg, yeast and mix everything. Pour the flour on the table and make a hole in the middle, slowly pour the mixture in the hole and knead using a fork and then your fingers until it makes a ball. Let it rise. After an hour knead again and make a cylinder of 6 cm diameter. Cut in 26 pieces and put on a baking pan. Brush the top with the yolk and let them rise until they double in size. Bake in pre-heated oven 180 degrees celcicus for 20 minutes.

                                                           

Crema Gianduia - Homemade Nutella!

Children, but also adults love “Nutella”, one of most famous Italian products. 
My family loves it too, so I decided to replace it with a healthy, good, homemade version.

CREMA GIANDUIA

Ingredients:
60 gr. toasted hazelnut
100 gr. dark chocolate
100 gr. sugar
70 gr. butter
100 gr. milk

Mix sugar and hazelnut.

Put in a saucepan milk, butter and chocolate and let them melt until they get creamy. Add hazelnut and sugar, stir cooking for 8 minutes. Pour in a can or glass jar when it is warm and keep in the fridge.

If you prefer a sweeter taste perfect for children try this version:

100 gr. toasted hazelnut
150 gr. sugar
100 gr. Dark chocolate
100 gr. milk chocolate
100 gr. white chocolate
200 gr. milk
150 gr. butter

                                                       

You can use it to prepare chocolate biscuits, preparing short crust pastry using:

100 gr. sugar
120 gr. melted butter
300 gr. flour
1 egg and 1 yolk

Mix all the ingredients using your fingers and let it sit for 1 hour in the fridge. Stretch 2/3 of the pastry using a rolling pin and spread them with “crema gianduia” on top. With the rest of the pastry make thin stripes to decorate. Bake 180°C pre-heaten oven for 30 minutes. Let it cool and cut small squares of 4 cm long each. Buon appetito!

                                                   


                                                     

Cenci alla fiorentina

One of the most classical deserts of Carnival time 

Ingredients:

350 gr. flour
50 gr. Melted butter
2 egg
20 gr. sugar
icing sugar
big fry pan with seed (vegetable) oil

Make a hole in the middle of the flour and pour the butter, eggs, 20 gr of sugar and salt. Using fingers mix everything and slowly absorb the flour then mix using your hand. Divide the mixture in 4 parts and using a rolling pin make 3 cm thick pastry sheets. Cut in slice 10 cm long and 4 cm large. Pour in hot oil until it browns. Before serving sprinkle with icing sugar. Enjoy!

                                                                   

Grandmother's pancake (Frittelle)

I haven’t written for some days because I was really busy cooking for my grandson Arturo's birthday party for which I decided to prepare finger food for the children to eat easily. The menu included pancakes and “cenci” (fried sweet pastry typical in Carnival period), shortcake with hazelnut cream, other cakes, focaccia bread baked in my wood oven.

GRANDMOTHER’S PANCAKE (FRITTELLE)

Ingredients:

200 gr. flour
15 gr. yeast
100 gr. rice
2 yolks and 1 egg
50 gr. raisin
25 gr. pine nut
120 gr. sugar
600 gr. milk
lemon zeist

Pan fry using seeds oil

Boil rice in 500 gr milk and let it cool. In the meantime mix 40 gr of flour and the yeast (soften it in a bit of warm milk) in a bowl. Knead well, make a kind of ball and let it rise for about half an hour. Mix the leftover flour with the rice, the yolk and the egg, salt, the risen mixture, raisin, pine nuts, lemon zest and 20gr of sugar. Let it sit for 20 minutes then using a spoon pour in hot oil. When frittelle become golden take them and serve after coating them with 100 gr of sugar.