More than a week has passed since I first came to London and in a few days I’ll be back in my mansard over my family kitchen overlooking the woods and fields, waiting for the wheat to turn pale green to announce that the spring has finally arrived.

You may wonder what I have been up to in ​​this first week… if your answer is mostly eating, you are very close to the truth! Being it Indian, English, Turkish or Italian, being it home-made, eaten sitting in a restaurant or standing up waiting for the best Beigel ever tasted or even perched on a rock by the sea, we ate and celebrated the power of food, the best way to communicate, to get to know each other and become friend.

In this never ending feast of abundance, imagination and creativity, there was a sandwich, a very simple one but generous in flavour, that is worth sharing with you. Let’s say it’s an excuse to bring you with me to Beachy Head, but believe me that the sandwich has more than a reason to be celebrated.

Beachy Head, an hour’s drive south of London, is a place that leaves you speechless. Breathtaking is not only the view of the cliffs on a gray winter day, so bright white that it hurts your eyes when kissed by the sun. Breathtaking is also the steep climb back from the lighthouse, against the wind and with a large bag weighed down with camera, gloves, hat, scarf and other bare necessities.

You can tell who is trained and who is not. I am not, but definitely Beachy Head is worth of being short of breath and being almost lifted up by the gale that swept away the clouds and any existential doubts…

But let’s get back to that sandwich, eaten sitting on a white rock looking out to the sea with a thermos full of hot Earl Grey next to us. In these moments, essence wins over anything else: two slices of fresh store-bought organic bread made with caramelized onions, Tuscan salted cured pork shoulder and home-made butter.

To purists it may seem quite an unusual combination, but it reminds me so much of the Tuscan bread, butter and anchovies, the easiest holidays appetizer or one of the most typical afternoon snacks from my childhood.

The salty anchovies – and in this case a few knife cut slices of tasty Tuscan cured pork shoulder or ham – are balanced by the creamy butter, that smooths the edges and softens the flavours. If you have high quality ingredients, there’s really no need to over complicate.

It is just an idea, but try to follow me. You are cutting the fresh bread on a wooden board lit by a slanted sunbeam entering through the kitchen window. The bread is a freshly baked sourdough loaf and the knife makes that tempting sound as it plunges into the crust, that for a while resists then breaks into a crackle, yielding to the softness of the well-leavened bread.

Then there is a small glass dish with the home-made butter, that tastes just like cream and is made only with fresh double cream and a few flakes of Maldon salt. The butter surrenders to the bread slices and creates a melting contrast to the tasty slices of Tuscan pork shoulder, marbled with fat.

You are bringing to the beach all these memories and sensations, wrapped in a paper towel along with the sandwich: there is the crackling sound of the crusty bread, that ray of sunshine that came across the window, the cured Tuscan pork shoulder I brought from home, the silky butter made ​​by a friend and the person who taught you how to make that sandwich. Try it, read inside the sandwich your own story and memories, then tell me if it is just a sandwich or not!

** If you want to make your homemade butter, buy the best double cream and check Sarka’s blog Cook your dream, where you’ll find a recipe beautifully illustrated in its simplicity… marvelous!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Picnic at Beachy Head

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1. An eco-friendly picnic
2. Cocoa No Knead Bread
3. Véronique’s crêpes with salted butter and raspberries

Hello from London! Today I’m sitting in a cosy kitchen in London, the sky as you can easily imagine is leaden gray and it is also fairly cold. What am I doing here? let’s step back a few months…

As soon as I knew that my contract wouldn’t have been renewed I bought a ticket (a return ticket, don’t worry Mum) to London, to turn at least one of my many projects into reality: I wanted to work on my blog for a while from here with my friend Sarka, because every time we meet with her and the other friends from the Foodblogger Connect network interesting ideas are developed and I feel recharged, filled with life blood.

The plan is simple: I will keep on living the usual life that I would have had at home, but from a different point of view for two weeks, plus there will be some interesting meetings for my future work, fun, friends and so much food!

So here I am, trying to look at things from the outside, because thinking out of the box helps to streamline the projects, put them in order but even sometime make them more risky, or hopefully to see tiny back lanes you wouldn’t otherwise have seen.

When English people want to relax and find inspiration, they come to Tuscany, they visit the Chiantishire and live a gratifying experience under the Tuscan Sun, getting willingly lost in our rolling hills. On the contrary, I bought a ticket to spend some time under the British rain, to immerse myself into the buzzing city life of London, but also in the peaceful English countryside… My focus remains the same, my country, but sometimes it is useful to abstract yourself and look at your life with different eyes, or simply see what’s out of your kitchen garden, to come back home crammed with popping energy.

Thus, being focused on genuine country cooking dishes, I cannot offer you nothing better than this hearty and cosy winter soup, made with a fruity extra virgin olive oil from Umbria and roveja. The Roveja wild pea was grown for centuries on high altitude terrain in the Sibillini mountains in Umbria where it was part of the staple diet of the local population. It almost disappeared from tables completely until it was recovered by a Slow Food Presidium. Roveja is a small wild pea with a dark brown, reddish or dark green colour (you can find more info here).

Add a sprig of thyme for a touch of pungent green and a generous handful of sourdough bread croutons for a crispy crunchiness.

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Cosy winter soup: spelt and roveja with thyme

You should be interested also in:

1. Acquacotta, the Tuscan stone soup
2. Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: bean soup
3. The roots. Jersusalem artichokes soup

During those old times the vagabonds were still crossing the country, living by their wits to get once in a while a hot meal to give them strength during the long and frozen moonless nights. In those days a witty vagabond was wandering near to the village, spending lonely hours at the edge of the forest and in the beech clearing. In his wanderings the Vagabond met a peasant, a poor widow who lived in poverty in her old hut near the river, and asked for some benevolence and charity, a soup and a warm place for the night.

The poor woman gave reluctantly a shelter to the wanderer, immediately pointing out that there was nothing to eat, since the pantry was empty. The Vagabond said he knew the secret of a magic recipe, the stone soup, so all he needed was just some water and a stone taken from the riverbed. Put a pot of water on the fire, Grandma, I will take care of the soup.

And so the Vagabond walked up and down along the bank of the river until he chose a beautiful gray stone with red veins. He rinsed the stone and brought it to the kitchen where a pot blackened by the years was already simmering over the fire. The Vagabond threw the stone into the pot and sat down to wait, under the unbelieving gaze of the old woman, who was knitting by the fireplace with an air of indifference.

In the silence broken only by the crackling of the fire, the Vagabond said, as to himself: Certainly, if we had a pinch of salt the soup would be even better… And the old woman, crawling to the cupboard, sought out a pinch of salt at the bottom of an old jar.

The Vagabond added: Certainly, if we had a potato, even old, the soup would be even better. The old woman went to the vegetable garden behind the house with a torch and returned with an old and wrinkled potato and a cabbage leaf, burned by the winter frost.

Not satisfied, the Vagabond , stirring the stone soup, said to the old woman: and now, if only we had an old ham bone, the soup would be really good! The old woman remembered the old bone with no meat in her pantry and gave it to the tramp, who added it to the stone soup that, to be honest, was already smelling good. And now, Grandma, the soup is ready! If only we had a morsel of stale bread, the…

I see, I see… interrupted the old woman. She rose again from her straw stool, rummaged in the bottom of the cupboard and found a morsel of dry bread, from which she cut two thin slices to put at the bottom of the two bowl.

The Vagabond poured a generous portion of soup in each bowl, and sat at the table with the old woman for a tasty and warm dinner. At the end, before going to sleep in the barn, he went to pot, picked up the magic stone, washed it, wrapped it in a rag and put it in the cupboard, then said to the old woman: Grandma, whenever you feel like a good stone soup, all you have to do is to simmer a pot of water over the stove and add the magic stone! Goodnight and thank you for your gracious hospitality!

This is well-known folk tale, sometimes the Vagabond is a beggar, sometimes a wily monk, sometimes a soldier… but the long and short of the story is always the same: with just a little you can really do something good, being it considered literally or as a metaphor, perfect of those days of big dreams!

The first time I heard this folk tale, it immediately reminded me of the acquacotta, literally the cooked water, a soup typical of the Maremma, a Tuscan area which was once very poor. It is another good example of peasant cooking along with many other recipes that have as main ingredients stale bread and some seasonal vegetables. It is a nomad dish that followed the people from the mountain Amiata who moved in winter to the plain of Maremma in search of work, bringing with them a few ingredients, among which there were always onions. The basic ingredients of acquacotta are indeed water, bread and onions.

I made a richer version, the kind of soup that at the time of the lean was reserved only for holidays or lucky days. In addition to bread, water and onions, there are the tomatoes, a can of peeled tomatoes that Mum made ​​during the summer, the egg cooked in the soup itself and a good deal of grated pecorino cheese, which is just divine as it melts with the liquid egg yolk!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Acquacotta, the Tuscan stone soup

You should be interested also in:

1. Cosy winter soup: spelt and roveja with thyme
2. Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: tomato-bread soup
3. Ravioli filled with tomato bread soup

On Christmas day it was really cold here in Tuscany: the sky was clear of clouds and the sun seemed to shine more than usual, but just left the house, warmed by the fire, the freezing air quickly reddened the cheeks and pricked the nose.

The clear winter day was too tempting not to attempt an afternoon stroll, enticed by the bright air and by the sun going down in an almost fairy-tale scenery behind the hills.

The hills in the dusk had turned purple, gradually fading into the deep blue and the moss-green. Then suddenly the nearest trees lighted up in warm colors, red and brown, and the air began to beam in the twilight tones, vibrating of life with the last leaves on the trees.

In these moments you feel the magic of Nature, its power and its mystery. In these moments you value what remains of the day.

What remains of the Christmas day, though?

After a lunch with more courses than a wedding feast there are many leftovers in the fridge: small pieces of cheese from the festive platter, a tiny pot with some good chicken stock used for the homemade cappelletti and few spoonfuls of mustard made for the bollito misto.

If you happen to have also half a glass of dark beer and a few slices of bread, do not miss the chance to make a creamy soup with a rich and deep flavour, to be eaten steaming hot in these winter days of frost and crystal clear air.

Searching for other ideas to mix cheese and beer in a comforting soup, I found this Anthony Bourdain’s video, look at that soup, sounds divine! Do you have any interesting recipe to share? I am curious to try other versions!

If you feel like mac’n'cheese instead, try the basic version or the pumpkin mac’n'cheese, one of my favourite dishes ever!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

The remains of the (Christmas) day: beer and cheese soup

You should be interested also in:

1. Beer and artichoke risotto with crumbled goat cheese
2. Pork loin with lager beer and mustard
3. Acquacotta, the Tuscan stone soup

There are rules in my family, rules that must be followed if you don’t want to be banned from the kitchen: bell peppers have to be stuffed with rice. When you come to small green peppers, though, the story is totally different! This is a recipe that comes from the South of Italy, from my father’s branch of family, from Melfi (PZ).

The recipe belongs to my Aunt Patrizia (known as zizi), my granddad’s sister. When Aunt Teresa and Uncle Cesare go to Melfi to visit her, she knows that, as soon as they pass Rome, everything they expect and foretaste are these stuffed green peppers. Zia Patrizia makes the stuffed green peppers the day before, because if you give them a little while to rest, they are still better and gain a deeper flavour.

These peppers come in the late summer and are wisely filled with leftovers, with what is left in the house after the heath of the summer months. The poor version is made only with stale bread, capers and some anchovy fillets, nothing more. With the passing of time the technique has been refined and you end up putting into the stuffing tuna, some pickles and a generous handful of green and black olives.

The importance of bread. As you can see, breadcrumbs are the most important ingredient in your shopping list, but I’m not talking about the classic breadcrumbs you can buy in a bag, with a sandy texture and a sawdust after-taste. I mean a bowl of fragrant breadcrumbs made in the moment, something that you can store for months in the refrigerator in an airtight jar.

As it happens in many families, you can have leftover bread: do not throw it away, but grate your home bread or blend it into a liquidizer until you get a rustic crumbly texture. It is a breadcrumbs that brings its origins intertwined into its flavourful crumbs: the breadcrumbs made from the South Italy bread will be darker and tasty, the one made from Tuscan bread will be sciocco, without salt. Yes, even Dante Alighieri, the most renowned Tuscan poet, pointed this out:

Tu proverai sì come sa di sale lo pane altrui
Thou shalt have proof how savoureth of salt The bread of others

Are you curious to know something more about the cooking of Lucania, this tiny region in the South of Italy? Here you can find a couple of suggestions:

• rich lasagna from the South of Italy, the festive dish. When my big and loud family gathers for special occasions, this baked lasagna with all you can imagine inside can’t be missed!
• Oriental style peppers, a colourful side dish, a tempting appetizer, a break in the afternoon with some crusty bread… choose your moment, you’ll love them!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Stuffed green peppers from the South of Italy

You should be interested also in:

1. Stuffed bell peppers and the weight of traditions
2. Oriental style peppers
3. Rich Lasagne from the South of Italy

Which kind of awakening do you have? I seriously envy how my mum manages to wake up in a fraction of second: the alarm is set for 6 o’ clock and she’s already up in good time, heading to the kitchen for her solo breakfast when it is still dark outside. All she needs are 10 minutes, a book, a mug of steaming milk, 3 biscuits and she’s ready to become the active and tireless woman I admire so much, the woman able to balance into the very same day kilometers, activities, committees, work and family until evening comes and she can eventually enjoy her daily 5-minute relax, made of crosswords and a sharp pencil.

My awakening is slightly different: the first alarm is my mother, who usually tries to wake me up 5 minutes before the appointed time, Heaven forbid I might be late for work! then comes the turn of my alarm clock, that goes off at least ten times before I get into the kitchen in a zombie mode only to be invested by the cheerful chatter of my mum who, again, is already on the move for at least an hour! I reckon I need a bit of time to wake up completely. And possibly a cup of hot tea and carbs!

This is a good example of a breakfast to get you going in the morning, something to boost your energy from the very first bite, a perfect solution to make you look at the upcoming day with a brighter smile. This cocoa bread recipe, slightly changed, is the same I already posted here for the 5° World Bread Day.

Ingredients:

• Manitoba flour, 500 g
• unsweetened cocoa, 2 tablespoons
• caster sugar, 2 tablespoons
• brewer’s yeast, 3 g
• warm water, 400 ml
• Manitoba flour to dust the dough

Dissolve yeast in warm water then stir quickly into the flour, cocoa powder and sugar. It will be a sticky and ugly to be seen dough, cover it with plastic wrap and let it rest for about 12 – 18 hours in a warm place (no more than 18 hours, otherwise you loose the perfect moment and the dough will collapse on itself. It has happened to me!).

After 18 hours, dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles, doubled in volume. Flour a working surface and place the dough on it. With floured hands, fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover it with plastic wrap and let it rest about 15 minutes. Flour generously a cotton towel with white flour, put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, cover with another towel and let it rest another 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 220°C, and about half an hour before baking the bread, put a covered cast iron pot in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot.

Cover with lid and cook for 30 minutes, then remove the lid and cook for another 15 minutes, until bread is golden brown. Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack.

Tasting test. It might be a childish and redundant match, but I swear there’s nothing better than a slice of cocoa bread, a piece of dark chocolate and a glass of milk to wake up a sleeping log with an energy boost!  The crust is crunchy and fragrant, the breadcrumb is soft, chewy and slightly sweet, with an enchanting cocoa scent.

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Cocoa No Knead Bread

You should be interested also in:

1. 5° World Bread Day – No Knead Bread with Fleur de Sel de Camargue 3 Poivres
2. Dutch cocoa cupcakes
3. The Italian breakfast, spelt flour and cocoa ring cake. Guest post for Kulsum of Journey Kitchen

Did I waste it?
Not so much I couldn’t taste it
Life should be fragrant
Rooftop to the basement

U2 – Kite

It’s the first time I take part to the World Bread Day, 5th edition this year. Why this year? first of all because eventually I had the courage to do it, and secondly because it was a such a long time I wanted to make the No Knead Bread and finally I had the proper cast iron pan! And then there’s another simple reason, written into U2′s song, Kite, mentioned above… Life Should Be fragrant, just like bread, I might add!

Fresh, crunchy, but at the same time soft and fragrant, a daily pleasure, not pretentious, special but for everyone. In short, life is like bread, fragrant!

The recipe is THE classic recipe, the famous one for No Knead Bread of the 2006 New York Times. Making it, I slightly changed the quantities of ingredients, so now it is my own version of No Knead Bread, enriched by the Fleur de Sel de Camargue 3 Poivres. I bought this salt this year in Camargue, a wonderful salt with black pepper, coriander seeds and the 5 baies melange, that it again black pepper, white pepper, green pepper, pink pepper and Jamaica pepper. An explosion of color and scent, wonderful!

Ingredients:

• Manitoba flour, 500 g
• wheat germ, 2 tablespoons
• brewer’s yeast, 3 g
• fleur de sel de Camargue, 1 tablespoon
• warm water, 400 ml
• a mix of different flours, as Manitoba flour, corn flour and fleur de sel de Camargue to dust the dough
  

The process is very simple.

1. Crush fleur de sel de Camargue in a mortar. Dissolve yeast in warm water then stir quickly into the flour, salt and wheat germ. It will be a sticky and ugly to be seen dough, cover it with plastic wrap and let it rest for about 18 hours in a warm place.
2. After 18 hours, dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles, doubled in volume. Flour a working surface and place the dough on it. With floured hands, fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover it with plastic wrap and let it rest about 15 minutes. Flour generously a cotton towel with a mix of white flour, corn flour and fleur de sel, put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, cover with another towel and let it rest another 2 hours.
3. Preheat oven to 220°C, and about half an hour before baking the bread, put a covered cast iron pot in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot.
4. Cover with lid and cook for 30 minutes, then remove the lid and cook for another 15 minutes, until bread is golden brown. Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack.

Tasting test. I congratulated myself on this bread, a bread that tastes like bread, which looks like a loaf of bread and it smells terribly fragrant. A bread that is how life should be, crunchy yet soft, with a strong smell of pepper that takes you on a ship full of spices back from India. The perfect complement? A slice of pecorino cheese, a quick and satisfying meal!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

5° World Bread Day – No Knead Bread with Fleur de Sel de Camargue 3 Poivres

You should be interested also in:

1. Cocoa No Knead Bread
2. Riz rouge de Camargue with fennel confit
3. Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: bread soup

On sunday my mum and I were looking through cookbooks, searching for something that could inspire us for the weekly recipe  dedicated to the Tuscan cuisine, when I saw her eyes live up with joy: she had just found a recipe that she liked, that reminded her of a dish that my grandfather used to make for her and my aunt when they were children. What could have caught her attention, usually not inclined to be fascinated by recipes and well photographed dishes? No dainty, complex and elaborate dishes, made to impress, nothing containing ingredients difficult to find and even to pronounce … it was simply a dish that represents her well: omelette with crumbs.

This omelette is also called poor’s omelette in Siena, because it tries to bring out the best of a few ingredients, so that you can put a cheap but satisfying dinner on the table in five minutes, nothing more, nothing less. As in other dishes typical of the Sienese country – see the pici with crumbs – the hero is that leftover slice of bread that has been there for a while, too stale to be eaten but certainly not too old to be thrown or used to make food for the animals.

What has this to do with Mum? It could seem almost offensive! What I mean is that she is just like today’s recipe: she likes simple things, she’s good, commfprting and reassuring as an omelette made with fresh farmer’s egg. Mum making an omelette for dinner is a scene that is often present in my childhood memories: the sound of the beating fork in an clay dish, the deep yellow of the eggs from our hens, the sizzle of olive oil when mom pours beaten eggs into the pan, the frothy and light omelette that slowly looses all its volume in my plate, and then mum’s inevitable and desired caress.

Ingredients for an omelette:

• extra fresh eggs, 2
• milk, a few drops… let’s say 50ml
• Tuscan stale bread, 1 slice
• grated Parmesan Cheese, 1 tablespoon
• salt and pepper, to taste
• extra virgin olive oil

Beat eggs with a pinch of salt and pepper, add milk and a tablespoon of cheese. Meanwhile, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a nonstick pan. When it is hot, crumble with your hands the slice of bread over the olive oil and make the crumbs brown, being careful not to burn them. If necessary, add another tablespoon of olive oil, wait until the olive oil is hot again and pour in beaten egg mixture. Cook until the eggs have set on the bottom, turn it and let the eggs set the other side as well.

Serve immediately as a hot unusual appetizer – cut into strips or cubes – or as a main dish, with a mixed salad and the unmissable slice of Tuscan bread.

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: crumble omelette

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1. Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: Onion Omelette
2. Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: Pumpkin Omelette
3. Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: leaf cabbage crostoni

Bread soup, also known as black cabbage and beans soup, it’s one of the most popular dish in Tuscany, during cold months, it is an old recipe, typical of farmers of all times, one of those dishes you could make each and every single day for months!

It wasn’t so typical at home when my grandma was a child, as her dad didin’t liked it too much, but it was extremely appreciated by her mum and all her family. She used to make it with black cabbage, but she loved it with chard too, as the soup flavour gained sweetness and softness.

Making this soup has been a dive into the past, back to the end of the Nineteenth century, because this white and blue soup tureen belongs to Tommaso and Adele, my grandma’s grandparents, who inherited it when they left the house where they used to live with Tommaso’s brothers and sisiters and Maria and Giuseppe, the oldest ancestors we can reach in my grandma’s memories.

I’ve been witness of a powerful stream of consciousness, where pepole life were told through their objects and trasures, while my grandmother was making this dish.

This white and blue soup tureen was part of Tommaso and Adele treasure, together with a Chinese service that is still showing its past glory into my grandma cupboard.

While grandma was telling me stories about old houses built over Etruscan tombs used as cellar, of long trip to Livorno, on the coast, to visit the wonderful aunt Giulia, Tommaso’s sister, of farmers who used to change house and farm every few years, until they built the house where we are still living, in 1926, I was mesmerized by her hands, that were making this soup with experience.

::::: BREAD SOUP :::::

Ingredients:

• black cabbage, a bunch
  
• spring cabbage, a quarter of a cabbage ball
  
• savoy, a quarter of a cabbage ball
• carrotts, 2 medium
• potatoes, 3 medium
• previously boiled beans, with their cooking water, about 300 gr (dried beans weight)
• red onion, ½
• tomatoes, 3
• sliced stale bread
• extravirgin olive oil
• salt & pepper
• pork bone to flavour the soup, or 125 gr of diced bacon
  

First thing to do: boil your beans in a large pot with plentiful of water, so that you’ll be able to use bean cooking water to make your bread soup.

Chop finely onion and sautée it with olive oil in an large pot. If you don’t have a pork bone to let simmer in the soup, this is the moment to add diced bacon, to give a whip of taste to the soup. When the onion is golden, add carrots and potatoes, peeled and diced, the three kinds of cabbage, sliced into stripes not too thin (especially as regards black cabbage, it should remain visibile into the soup). Lately, add diced tomatoes.

Cover all the vegetable with beans cooking water, season with salt and pepper and let simmer for about 45 minutes, adding hot water if needed: it should remain quite watery.

Pass through a vegetable mill 2/3 of beans and add bean puree to the soup: let it simmer for other 30 minutes.

At the end, add leftover beans, check the flavour and add salt and pepper in needed, then remove form the heat.

Into a large soup tureen make a layer with stale bread slices, cover with some ladles of soup (vegetables and broth) and keep on going until you finish all the ingredients. Set aside for a few minutes and serve hot or warm.

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: bread soup

You should be interested also in:

1. Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: tomato-bread soup
2. Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: bean soup
3. Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: leaf cabbage crostoni

Today’s recipe is the outcome of the mingled experiences of two great food experts in my family. One of the typical November cakes in Siena and sourroundings is pan co’ santi, that is sweet bread with raisins and walnuts (called Saints as you usually eat this cake around All Saints celebrations). The problem was that I have always eaten giftet or bought pan co’ santi… I have never attempted to make my own pan co’ santi, until I decided it was time to try.

So I started to ring up all my relatives, to find a trace of family tradition.

The first one to answer was Gelsomino, mum’s cousin. He used to be a professional chef until he retired: now he loves cooking for family and friends. He learned to cook when he was only a child, since his mother had to work and his choir was to look after all pots and pans. He explained me how to enrich pan co’ santi and how to treat all the sweet ingredients.

The second expert to answer was Aunt Teresa: she’s actually dad’s cousin, but I call her Aunt as I consider uncles and aunts all dad’s cousins (and they are really a lot!). Aunt Teresa is an amazing family magnet, her Christmas and Easter parties are famous because she creates an unique and cozy atmoshpere. She explained me how to knead pan co’ santi and the right times to respect to make it raise.

Ingredients for 2 small round loafs:

• brewer’s yeast, 45 gr (about 2 pats)
• flour ’00′, about 450 gr (it may require more than that)
  
• raisins, 165 gr
• walnuts, 250 gr
• caster sugar, 50 gr
• salt, 1 teaspoon
• pepper, ½ teaspoon
• extra virgin olive oil, 100 gr (you can use either butter or lard)
• red wine, 150 ml
• egg yolk to rub the surface
  

You must make it in two steps.

The previous night, dissolve half of the brewer’s yeast into warm water (about 150ml), combine some flour and cover with the leftover flour, using a large bowl. I made this step at 4 am in the morning, coming back form a night out.. it was already late! Wait till the next day or unitl the flour explodes… What do I mean with ‘explode’? I was quite doubtful until I saw the result: the yeast becomes alive and comes out of the flour, making small trikles of rised dough. SInce I was sceptical, I closed the bowl with flour and yeast into the oven… otherwise, how to explain to my mother a kitchen covered in flour the day afer? eh eh eh

So, the day after, soak raisins into warm water. Heat olive oil in a large saucepan and add chopped walnuts, sugar and squeezed raisins (remove all the water). Make sautee for a few minutes and remove from the heat. Let it cool down.

Add this mixture to ‘exploded’ flour, combining leftover yeast (dissolved into about 150ml of warm water) and other ingredients as well. Knead the dough for about 10 minutes until it gets smooth and it doesn’t stick to your hands anymore. Let rise for about 2 hours in a warm place covered with a table napkin, until it doubles its size. Now knead again the dough for about 5 minutes and make two small round loafs, carve them with a cross cut and make them rise again until they double their size. Rub them with beaten egg yolk and bake them in preheated oven to 180°C for about 40 minutes.

Let them cool down. They give their best the day after!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: pan co’ santi

You should be interested also in:

1. Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: grape ‘schiacciata’
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3. Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: Prato Cookies

Have I ever told you my mus has a twin? Aunt Silvana, they are as like as two peas in a pod. In the family, we are totally aware of all the differences: they have different voices, different hair cut, different attitude, not to mention accent! Since she married, Aunt Silvana lives in Florence, so now she speaks with a nice Florentine accent, so different from my mother’s way of speaking! If people meet one of them just a few times, it’s always the same… questioning glance, whispering and question such: has she changed clothes? wasn’t she in the other room? don’t you recognize me? and so on!

They have another important difference: mum cooks because she has to cook, she’s good, now, but she doesn’t love it. Aunt Silvana, on the other hand, really loves cooking, pots and pans!

Stew carrots cooked by Aunt Silvana are totally different from any other stew carrots I have ever tasted, and with roast beef and onions, meat loaf or all kind of vegetables is the same! So, when time came to cook leaf cabbage, the first thing I did was to phone Aunt Silvana to ask her some information. The telephone rang twice, then her jolly and loving voice welcomed me: “My love! Tell me!”.

Then she began telling me about Camillo, an old man who gave her this recipe to taste just pressed extra virgin olive oil at its best.

::::: LEAF CABBAGE CROSTONI :::::

Ingredients:

• leaf cabbage
• Tuscan bread
• extra virgin olive oil
• salt
• chili
• garlic

Choose a fresh bunch of leaf cabbage, rinse each leaf and remove keels to hard to be eaten. Fill a large pot with salted water and boil leaf cabbage for about one hour.

Slice Tuscan bread (bread without salt), grill the slices and rub them with a clove of garlic, if you like it.

Drain leaf cabbage, without removing all cooking water, chop it roughly and put it over grilled bread slices. If you have leftover boiled white beans, add them to the leaf  cabbage, then season with extra virgin olive oil and salt and chili to taste. Better if olive oil has just been pressed: it will add a nice spicy and strong touch.

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Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: leaf cabbage crostoni

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The tomato-bread soup (known as pappa al pomodoro) is one of the most famous and prepared dishes of our culinary tradition, with a large number of versions.

It used to be my grand-grandad favourite dish. When I was a child my grand-grandad Pietro was very old, he had a huge hand, in which my little child hand seemed to disappear. He was a bit confused, so he kept on searching for the cows in my house, where there used to be the stable before. I used to run after him, take his hand and bring him back to Grandma Marcella, saying “Where are you going Grandad? There are no more cows!” while shaking my head as a grown-up little woman.

One day Grandma Marcella left him at home: my mother’s task was to prepare lunch for Grandad Piero. He asked for pappa al pomodoro and my mother, newlywed bride, answered frankly: how can I make it? My grand-grandad answer is in the top ten of our family comic moments: “Listen to me, make some plain pasta, it’s better!”

As you’ll see, it’s not so hardo to prepare, following Grandma Marcella directions!

::::: PAPPA AL POMODORO :::::

Ingredients:

• stale Tuscan* bread, 200gr
• ripe florentine** tomatoes, 2
• garlic, 1 clove
• basil, a lot
• salt
• extravirgin olive oil
• (chili)

Break the bread into large pieces, put it in a large pot.

Blanch tomatoes in boiling water for 2 minutes, so that you can easily peel them. Deseed tomatoes, chop them and add them to the bread, togethr with garlic, basil leaves and salt. Cover with water.

There are various traditions: we use water, but you can use also light vegetable broth.

Let the soup simmer, stirring frequently so that the bread can become a mush. Let cook for about 30 minutes: it should be as in the picture above!

Set aside to cool and serve with some extra virgin olive oil and basil leaves. If you like it, you can add some chili.

* Tuscan bread is made without salt, this is the main characteristic of our bread.

** Tomato-bread soup is a dish that, with its semplicity, exalts tomato quality: we used florentine tomatoes, wonderful, with a red, firm and juicy pulp. They’re perfect in a salad or to make a sauce, not to mention pappa al pomodoro!

P.S. Just a remind! The poll for Gourmet Girl Magazine’s 2009 Summer Cupcake Crawl is now open! My Matcha and White Chocolate Cupcakes are waitinig for your kind support!! You can vote for me HERE!! You have time until 25 of July! THANK YOU!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: tomato-bread soup

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Breakfast is universally acknowledged as one of the main meals of the day: milk, coffee, fruit juices, cookies, brioches, and maybe yoghurt, home made jam and, why not, some pizza.

This is nowadays breakfast. In the past, when my grandma was a little child, it was totally different. They used to have panzanella (Tuscan bread salad) for breakfast. I love panzanella, because it’s refreshing, light and good, a summer dish… for lunch or dinner, not for breakfast!

Panzanella was summer breakfast, made with leftover bread. During the winter, they used to have polenta to start the day in a glorious way! It used to be audult people’s breakfast, grandma used to have milk instead – since they had a cow and a goat in the farm. Men who went to work in the fields at dawn made the panzanella in a lunch box and brought it with them in a basket. When breakfast time came, they used to eat the panzanella drinking some home made red wine.

Nowadays, panzanella is a refreshing first course to have in those first summer days.

Ingredients:

• stale Tuscan* bread, 300gr
• ripe tomatoes, 2
• Certaldo onion, 1
• basil, a lot
• salt
• extravirgin olive oil
• white vinegar

* Tuscan bread is made without salt, this is the main characteristic of our bread!

Break the bread into large pieces, put it in a large bowl and soak it with water, without dipping it into the water. They used to make panzanella with leftover home made baked bread: it had a very different and better flavour and took a lot of time to soak up.

Slice thinly the onion and drown it in cold water, to shade its strong taste. We used Certaldo onion, a round, sweet, juicy and light violet onion. Dice the tomatoes.

After 10 minutes, when the bread is soft, squeeze it, crumble it with your hands, put it in a large bowl and flavour with onion, tomato and basil, torn roughly with your hand.

Season with salt and plenty of extra virgin olive oil, then sprinkle with some white vinegar. In the past, as my grandma says, it used to be real wine vinegar, very good and light, as regards white vinegar. Don’t use the red one, or it will redden the bread! If you desire a very light vinegar, you can use also apple vinegar.

Set aside for half an hour, then it’s ready to be eaten!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: the “panzanella”

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