Summer, time of preserves. Once again the protagonists are the tomatoes, in a simple version, pure: the preserve, a universal name that does not need specification, because in my house the preserve is exclusively the preserve of tomatoes.

In the collective imagination the tomato is one of the elements that more represent Italy, along with mozzarella, olive oil and pasta. The tomato is used into the pomarola sauce, into the impressive Neapolitan pizza, the caprese salad and my family meat sauce.

Yet it is not always been so. The tomatoes came from Spain to Italy, in Naples, during the Spanish domination, and only at the end of the eighteenth century we began to use them as food: we have spent so much time to understand how gorgeous they are, both cooked and raw!

But with the help of the Italian sun and the ideal climate they quickly became one of our favorite vegetables, and even today tomatoes are the most consumed vegetables by the Italians: in summer I proudly do my part, contributing greatly to keep high the average consumption, choosing often tomatoes – the ox heart are my favorites – as a side dish or light main dish, with fresh onions, corn and Maldon salt!

Do you know that the Italian name for tomato – pomodoro, that sounds like golden apple – was likely initially attributed to a variety of yellow tomatoes, one of the first appeared in Europe from America? Nowadays the yellow tomatoes are among the most wanted and appreciated, along with the green, purple, striped ones… the heirloom tomatoes, a dream for many foodies like me!

My favourite farmer has all kinds of tomatoes, but they are all wonderfully and joyfully red! I’ve been thinking about that green corner so much lately, now I finally got some pictures of the vegetable garden and its products. I went there with my camera and, after having purchased a 10 kilos of tomatoes, I walked along the rows of green beans and tomatoes…

Now that all your bottles of ruby-red tomato sauce are lined up on a shelf or in the pantry, now that the smell and taste of summer are enclosed in a safe place… aren’t you already super-excited, thinking about how many other recipes you can do with the tomato purée? I am, and these are some ideas to use the tomato purée:

• pappa al pomodoro, the tomato bread soup, one of my favorite recipes ever, something that tastes of summer even if made during the long winter nights if you use the tomato sauce bottled during the very hot days of August. Delicious by itself or as a filling for ravioli.
• from Tuscany to Lucania, for the special occasions dish, the rich lasagna from the South of Italy!
• the most classic of classics, my big fat Italian meat sauce, the smell of autumn Sunday mornings.

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Tomato purée, or, as we call it, The Preserve

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1. Italian spirit and the pomarola, the Italian tomato sauce
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3. Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: tomato eggs

Last week I made a guest post for Flipkey, a travel website whose blog features local secrets that travelers might not know about. I wrote about one of the most typical Tuscan fresh pasta, pici… do you want to have a look, or better, a taste? Go to Flipkey blog to discover other interesting and unusual points of view over Tuscany!

So, we were talking about pici… this is a dish really rooted in my geographical area… or better, to be precise, time-honoured in Siena and in all the south part of the Siena area. I am talking about the beautiful Val d’Orcia and of all the wonderful small medieval villages that have remained unchanged for centuries.

A few years ago I made a Val d’Orcia tour with some friends and we stopped over in Bagno Vignoni for dinner. It is really the most enchanting village I have ever visited. The beautiful medieval square is filled with a huge swimming pool of thermal water. The four of us had pici as our pasta dish at a local restaurant: pici are big, thick, hand-made spaghetti, typical of the country tradition of homemade pasta. They are made just of flour and water. If you want to make fresh pasta, begin with pici, they are extremely easy to make!

In Siena there are two typical sauces for pici (although obviously a few more exist): aglione sauce and bread crumbs roasted in olive oil. In this time of the year, when the garlic is fresh and juicy, I do suggest you the aglione sauce… just don’t make it if you have your girlfriend or boyfriend over for dinner!

I just added the possibility to subscribe to Juls’ Kitchen via e-mail. If you register in the sidebar you will receive an e-mail alert every time I publish a new post!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Guest post at Flipkey: Pici all’Aglione and Valdorcia

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1. Nonna Menna’s Kitchen: pici pasta
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It’s Monday, and I’m at home. I woke up slowly, very slowly, I had leftover dessert for breakfast, and I read once again with pleasure my birthday greeting cards. It’s Monday, but I’m on holidays for 4 weeks and yesterday I celebrated my birthday with a ’50s style garden party with a dear friend.

I’m happy for many reasons: first of all I eventually got my much needed holidays and this upcoming month is already full of expectations and comes at the right time. Secondly, thought at a second thought this should definitely be the first reason, yesterday I felt all day overwhelmed by a high tide of friendship. Never before I have been so clearly aware of how much I love all those people who were there and how makes me happy that they love me.

That said, time to tell you which are my plans for this holiday season! I had already planned a series of posts dedicated to a summer dinner in the garden to be published while I’ll be traveling around Europe (we’ll talk about this next time) but after my opening words about the ’50s party, I am now even more confident that I chose the right theme for this August … a midsummer night’s dinner in the garden with your best friends.

I like dining out, watching the sun that slowly disappears behind the hills and the stars that light up one by one in the summer sky.

I like to share these quiet moments with my friends, figuring out whatever excuse to gather to enjoy eating and drinking outdoors, with a concert of cicadas and crickets to accompany our talk and our laughs. I like to do things slowly, going shopping for food in the early morning, starting cooking for dinner the day before, so that when my friends arrive there’s only to set the table and uncork the first bottle of wine: a white tablecloth, white dishes and a few home-made lanterns, made with jam jars and candles, to spread a soften glow among the olive tree branches. I love those summer evenings when you wish a moment to last forever, because you feel happy, loved, protected.

From now till end of August I will propose you a full menu that is enough for at least 15 people, which can be cooked the day before or the very morning, so that you can enjoy your guests without having to travel back and forth between the kitchen and the garden.

Colourful and fresh, these have been our favourite family vegetarian appetizers for the last 30 years, there is no summer dinner without roasted pepper crostini.

ROASTED PEPPERS CROSTINI

Ingredients: 3 red bell peppers – 3 yellow bell peppers – 1 green bell pepper – extra virgin olive oil – 2 cloves of garlic – salt – freshly ground black pepper – dried oregano – toasted bread

Directions

1. Wash the red and yellow peppers and place them whole in the preheated oven to 180°C – grill function – until the skin begins to get burnt at some point.
2. Remove the peppers from the oven – be careful they contain a steaming cooking liquid – and close them into a plastic bag for at least an hour. This will help you to remove easily their outer skin.
3. After an hour, when they are completely cooled down, remove the outer skin and dice the peppers, using a knife.
4. Collect the diced peppers into a bowl and add in the raw green bell pepper, previously cut into small cubes, season with extra virgin olive oil, 2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed, salt, freshly ground black pepper and oregano to taste.
5. Let them infuse their flavours for a few hours in the refrigerator, until you are ready to serve them: the roasted pepper spread can be served on toasted slices of Tuscan bread, of a baguette or some white bread.

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

A midsummer night’s dinner. Roasted peppers crostini

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If you see me now, I have John Wayne’s femininity and charm. I walk with that cow-boy-like walk, staggering, holding my back with one hand and leaning on whatever support I find with the other one. The reason for this behaviour is a horse. And no, I wasn’t trampled by the horse, and I wasn’t neither unseated … I just had a wonderful ride around San Gimignano, one hour of walk, 3 minutes to trot. The result is this crooked walk. My athleticism is well-known, though, so no worries!

After the walk through the Tuscan vineyards and woods, made ​​in the farm Il Vecchio Maneggio, we moved to the Fattoria Poggio Alloro.

The following photos were all taken ​​in Poggio Alloro: at first I thought I would have brought my camera on the horseback as well, but after a careful consideration with Emiko about our respective riding abilities, we decided to leave it in the car. A wisest decision has never been taken before, I thought bouncing unseemly on the horse and holding on with all the hands that I had (I still have two hands, but if I had a third one, I would have used that as well!)

Fattoria Poggio Alloro is an enchanted place, a true and real farm, with real people working every day with passion and enthusiasm. It’s an organic farm, with quality products as wine, olive oil, cereals, saffron and honey. They have the Cinta Senese (a local swine breed well-known for the tasty meat, used for cured meat) and the majestic Chianina breed, the enormous white Tuscan cows.

The view of San Gimignano, my mum’s birthplace, is breathtaking … this is what you see from the terrace during lunch.

And here they are, the Chianina calves… calves, but they seem horses!

It is the newly born baby cow.

These are the cows bred for the milk, while the Chianina is bred for the renowned excellent meat. I love their placid eyes.

It is the funniest, a sweet baby cow.. isn’t it lovely?

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

A wordless Tuscan weekend

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1. The Tuscan pine nut cake – a recipe with a story
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On Friday, coming back home from work, I stopped at the local farmer’s market, the one just opened a few minutes from my house, and I filled my recycled cotton bag with honey scented melons, the freshest garlic, crisp zucchini and small ruby red plums, sweet and juicy. The vegetables were still warm, freshly picked, lightly dusted with dark soil. They were so fresh and carefully grown that could have been the vegetables from my garden.

Once I got home, I could not wait one more day, I wanted to cook immediately the zucchini, firm to the touch and fragrant green. I wanted to use the fresh garlic as well. It was the first time I had found fresh garlic at the market: usually the smell of garlic cloves is acute and pervasive, but this time I was amazed, the cloves were lunar white, with a distinctive earthy tone, juicy and fragrant.

The Summer, now carefree dancing in the cornfields, suggested me a perfect recipe for my crisp zucchini: a sprig of fragrant oregano from the pot on the garden wall and a clove of fresh juicy garlic, to enhance and mark the flavours. Once again a simple dish, almost obvious, cooked in five minutes, styled and photographed in three. Yet this recipe won its place on the Monday morning post, the one that I usually study and refine the most.

So today I’m posting a side dish, a category rather absent on my blog. If a dish of juicy tomatoes seasoned with Maldon salt and apple cider vinegar can save more than a meal, it is also true that sometimes it’s important to make a change and turn the side dish into the true star of the meal!

ZUCCHINI WITH FRESH GARLIC AND OREGANO

Ingredients:

• 5 medium zucchini
• 1 clove of fresh garlic
• 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
• 1 sprig of fresh oregano (or 1 tablespoon of dried oregano)
• salt
• pepper

Directions

1. Wash zucchini and cut them into not too large cubes.
2. Crush a clove of fresh garlic with the back of a knife, put it in a pan with 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil over medium heat and let it infuse its flavour for a minute.
3. Add the zucchini, the fresh oregano leaves, salt and pepper and let cook for about 5 minutes, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. It will take just 5 minutes to cook if the zucchini are fresh and tender, just like mine, otherwise you can cook them a few more minutes, adding a tablespoon of hot water. It’s better to leave them slightly crisp and al dente, to enjoy their freshness.
4. Serve the zucchini warm, sprinkled with some leaves of fresh oregano.

Summer, summer … I recently mentioned summer several times, now I can eventually show you my summer! That’s where I live, indeed better said, that’s where I’m so lucky to live: in these golden days I just feel I’m living in my corner of Eden, the place where I chose to stay, the place that belongs to me and to which I belong.

And now, the big news! I wanted to inform you that last week my very first book was published! It is called My Grandma’s Recipes – a year in my kitchen. I can hardly believe I’m writing these words, my-book, but apparently it’s all true! In the book you will find about eighty recipes, taken from the blog and organized by season, all accompanied by a photo. It is written in Italian and English. I will soon upload a page here with some more information. If you happen to be in Tuscany in these days and want to come and say hi, there will be two book launch events:

1. Monday the 27th of June in Siena – 6.30 pm Bookshop at Palazzo Ravizza, Pian dei Mantellini, 34 (yes, this very evening!)
2. Tuesday the 28th of June in Poggibonsi – 6.30 pm Libreria di Poggibonsi, Via Trento, 19.

The book is sold in Tuscany, Milan and Rome in bookshops and supermarkets. If you can not find it or do not live in these areas, you can also order it by mail to juls@julskitchen.com!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Tuscan summer. Zucchini with fresh garlic and oregano

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I’ve always lived in the Tuscan countryside, between Siena and Florence, near the Chianti area, in the same house where my father was born and my grandma was born. I am a country girl to the core: I love my quiet village, the woods changing colours as the seasons change. I love to be awakened by the birds singing jolly tunes. I even love the hard side of the country life, cold mornings in the winter and 10 km to the nearest shops.

I see autumn coming when the leaves change colours, putting on fire the woods. I smell the winter coming: the smell of burnt wood in the fireplace welcomes me home more than a steaming cup of tea. I hear the summer coming from the relentless buzz of bees and insects in the fields. What about spring?

In spite of my passion for the countryside, I recognize spring coming in the city centre of Florence! In an lazy late winter afternoon you are there, walking with friends and chitchatting, casting a glance at the shop windows and commenting on the nice sunny weather when you are suddenly captured by a flower smell and you recognize that the air is changed. The air takes that indefinable colour that makes you say that, yes, there we are, we’re living the sweetest time of the year.

Spring to me is flowers, the warm and scented air and the picnics in the garden. Enjoy a slice of fragrant apple tart and feel yourself plunged in a warm, lazy spring Tuscan afternoon.

Making the shortcrust pastry

Ingredients:

• 10,5 oz (300 g) white spelt flour
• 5,5 oz (150 g) caster sugar
• 5,5 oz (150 g) softened butter
• grated peel of 1 lemon
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 pinch salt

Sieve the flour with the baking powder and put it on a working surface, make a well in the middle and add the sugar, the salt and the grated peel of one lemon. Beat the egg in a bowl and pour it in the well. Mix the egg with the sugar using your fingers to make a soft dough. Add the softened butter and mix it to the egg and sugar mixture.

When it is totally mixed, rub all the ingredients with your fingertips and make crumbles, then start kneading until you have a nice and smooth ball of dough. Roll it out roughly between two foils of parchment paper and place it in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.

Making the custard

Ingredients:

• 17 fl oz (500 ml) milk
• 2 eggs
• 4 tbs caster sugar
• 2 tbs plain flour
• lemon peel

Heat the milk on medium with the  lemon peel: heat until the steaming point. Whisk the eggs with the sugar and flour. Remove the lemon peel from the hot milk and pour it over the egg mixture and bring back to the heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. As soon as the custard is thick and veils the spoon, remove from the heat, cover with cling film and let cool down.

Assembling the tart

Ingredients:

• 7 oz (200 g) apricot jam
• cinnamon powder
• 2 Golden delicious apples
• caster sugar

Heat the oven to 180°C. Grease a 24 cm round baking tin. Take the shortcrust pastry out of the fridge, unwrap it and roll it out. To help roll the dough, keep the dough on top of the parchment paper and dust with the flour. This can help rolling the dough and can also help when transferring the dough to your pan.

Flip the dough over the baking tin and delicately press it all around so the corners are well covered. Trim the excess dough hanging over the edges of the pan. Prick the bottom of the dough with a fork. Spread evenly the bottom of the tart with the apricot jam, then cover the jam with a thick layer of custard. Sprinkle the top with a pinch of cinnamon.

Peel and core the apples and slice them into 5 mm thick slices. Cover the tart surface with the apple slices, arranging them as you prefer. Slightly overlap each apple slice, as to cover completely the tart. Sprinkle generously with caster sugar.

Put the tart in the oven and bake for about 50 minutes or until the tart is of a nice golden hue and the apples are golden brow. When done, remove the tart from the oven and let cool completely.

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Apple tart and early spring in Florence

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Scents of home. I’m not the first and certainly I won’t be the last to tell something about herself through the scents of her life. I think there is no better time to do that than the first days of summer, when scents are highlighted by hot air and when you can call it a day only after a slow walk intro your favourite country road, in between sweet-smelling hedges and fireflies.

Without any doubt one of the scents that I love the most is the scent of blooming linden trees of early summer, when these so familiar trees explode into a chirping of cicadas and gift us with their cool shade. Their sweet scent reminds me of the beginning of summer, never ending table tennis matches with Chiara in her garden, all in one breath readings of the books I loved as a girl, romances and mystery books, my bicycle leaning against the gate to run and play with my friends, tumbledown huts made of towels and umbrellas under their protective gaze. Every year during this period, when I feel the fragrance of the lindens, I’m back to my childhood and I’m captured again by the desire to play, to make bizarre plans and race my bike in the last hours of the day to enjoy till the end all that summer gives us.

Besides the scent of lime trees, the jasmine – even now it’s creeping from the garden through the open window and wants to draw you out, to live and enjoy the summer night, the shooting stars and the gentle breeze – freshly cut grass, wet ground under the plants of tomatoes and mum’s aromatic salt.

When I had to decide what to bring as little present from Tuscany to London for the Food Bloggers Connect I’ve considered anything from finocchiona (a kind of Tuscan cured meat) to cantuccini (cookies with almonds), from wine to olive oil. But every time I hit the restrictions of hand baggage with RyanAir or obvious difficulties of transport and storage. One evening I felt a familiar smell, the smell of mum’s aromatic salt, which closes Tuscan tastes and smells into a jar. Garlic, rosemary and sage. That’s it. The recipe is just this, in its crystal clear simplicity: nothing more than these three ingredients to represent my country abroad.

It’s just impossible to give exact quantities: roughly I can say use the same amount of sage and rosemary. For the rest, follow your taste whether you like it with more or less garlic, more or less pepper, whether you want to put more salt or more herbs, everything is done following the inspiration of the moment.

Ingredients:

• salt
• rosemary (we call it ramerino in Tuscany)
  
• sage
• garlic
• black pepper
  

Wash sage and dry it well. Do the same with rosemary. Finely chop sage leaves, rosemary and garlic cloves. Combine the mix of sage, rosemary and garlic with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Close in a jar and keep it in the fridge.

Whenever you want to smell a bit of Tuscany, just open the jar and use this salt as a dressing or for cooking. Essential seasoning for roasted pork (porchetta), this salt, flavoured with sage and rosemary, is perfect for seasoning a simple grilled meat – beef, chicken, turkey or pork – for roast beef, for baked fish or even for roasted potatoes.

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Tuscany in a jar: salt with sage and rosemary

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When you have a sister like mine, a sister who, after high school, chooses individually a faculty as Food Technology, you can not but be proud! Obviously, not just for this! I am proud for an infinite number of reasons, she has grown up to be a beautiful young woman, she is sensitive but strong at the same time, she is serious and responsible, but ironic, funny and nice as well. As a sister, I can frankly say she’s the best sister I could ever have, I love her deeply and inexplicably. This is a family bond received as a gift and not chosen: besides that, she is a friend, a friend of whom I am equally proud!

All this to say what? I’ve lost the thread … No, here, I wanted to say that since she decided to attend Food Technology, she studies matters as Horticulture, Field crops and trees or Herbology (no, that is Harry Potter, oops!) and she likes to tell me a lot of interesting things related to fruit and vegetables. The last chat was over artichokes. She was so convincing in explaining how good and healthy artichokes are that shortly after we had a basket full of artichokes in our kitchen!

My young food technologist tells me that artichokes belong to the Asteraceae family and are rich in fiber, sodium, potassium, phosphorus, calcium and cynarine, a bitter substance that stimulates the bilious functions and therefore has therapeutic effects on the liver. So do not blame yourself if you eat a whole artichokes omelet, as in my case, or a bowl of delicious fried artichokes or, why not, an artichoke risotto: you’re doing good and your body will thank you!

Trying to decide how to cook those artichokes, we have involved grandma, whose specialty is risotto with artichokes. Since we couldn’t find a single slice of ham in our fridge – my grandma’s recipe for risotto calls for ham – we chose to make a simple omelet, according to my great-grandmother style, fast and rustic, with a very strong character thanks to artichoke quarters that remain crunchy into the omelet. We had this omelet as a main dish, accompanied by a bowl of lettuce and a slice of bread.

Ingredients:

• artichokes, 6
• whole eggs, 4
• salt and pepper
  
• basil leaves
  
• Roman pecorino cheese
  
• lemon to brush artichokes
• flour to dust
  
• extra virgin olive oil
  

Clean the artichokes by removing the hard outer leaves, trim the top – cutting off the sharp points – and the hard part of the base. Cut them into quarters and brush lemon over artichokes in order to prevent them from blackening before being cooked. Once cleaned and sliced, dust them with flour thoroughly.

Pour a splash of extra virgin olive oil in a thick-bottomed pan: when it is hot, add artichokes and brown them on all sides, stirring often. Meanwhile, whisk the eggs with salt and pepper and a generous grating of Roman pecorino cheese. Pour the egg mixture over artichokes, add a few leaves of basil and let the omelet get firm on one side. Then, with the help of a dish, turn it upsid down and let it get firm on the other side, too. Serve hot, so that the omelet will remain soft and it will exhalt the contrast with the crisp wedges of artichokes.

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Artichoke omelet

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One recipe, two names: malfatti (badly made) in Siena, gnudi (naked) in Florence. The result is still guaranteed, whether you want to speak in the language of Tozzi* and feel yourself in the center of the world in the Piazza del Campo, or you want to use the spoken language of Pratolini**, and get lost in the streets of San Frediano. Malfatti, because their characteristic is to be irregular, different, home made and a bit lumpy. Gnudi because they are ultimately the filling for ravioli, without the external dress of home-made pasta!

However they are called, these dumplings of spinach and ricotta are characterized by the same easy execution and certainly by the same deliciousness: they are good and simple, their few ingredients remind us of family dinners, of women around a table who move their hands automatically and wisely, while the words fly and go to pay a visit – in a round of gossip and confidences – to neighbors and relatives.

Ingredients (serve 6):

• spinach, 500 gr previously boiled and squeezed
• fresh ricotta cheese, 500 gr
• eggs, 2
• salt and pepper
• grated Paresan cheese
• nutmeg
• flour

Whether fresh or frozen spinach, the important thing is that once boiled in salted water you drain them well and squeeze them with your hands (only when they are cold, be careful!). Leave them for a few hours in a colander. Sautée spinach in a pan with a splash of extra virgin olive oil and once cool chop them with a knife finely. Mix spinach with the same weight of fresh ricotta (I used an organic ricotta made with cow milk). Add at least 4 tablespoons of grated Parmesan cheese.

Season with salt and pepper, add grated nutmeg, then add 2 eggs to the mixture: mix well to form a soft mass. Now is time to put your hands in action!

Use plenty of flour to shape small balls with your hands – large more or less like hazelnuts – so that flour can make a protective film and prevent malfatti to melt into boiling water. Put them on a tray spaced from each other until you’ve finished.

Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to the boil and cook malfatti in batches. When they float to the surface  - very few minutes, sometimes it only takes one – lift them out a slotted spoon and season them to serve. They are excellent served with tomato sauce and grated cheese, or if you search for something more appetizing…

Try malfatti baked in the oven with grated smoked ricotta cheese (a delicious ricotta cheese from Calabria) and smoked Prague ham, cut into strips or cubes: the delicacy of malfatti suits beautifully with the smoked sensation of cottage cheese and smoked ham.

* Federigo Tozzi, Senese writer 1883 – 1929, is the author of famous works as with Con gli occhi chiusi (With closed eyes) or Tre Croci (Three Crosses).

** Vasco Pratolini, Florentine writer 1913 – 1991, is the author of famous novels (and very beautiful) as Cronache di poveri amanti (Chronicle of Poor Lovers), or Le ragazze di San Frediano (Girls of San Frediano).

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Granda Menna’s Kitchen: malfatti. Two recipes

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

This Wednesday I wont’ tell you a Tuscan recipe and I wont’ loose myself into my Grandma’s memories, this Wednesday I’m going to take you all in my car and bring you with me for a ride in the Chiantishire, living again the amazing trip I had on Sunday with some friends, foodbloggers and twitterers. This Wednesday we’re going to Panzano in Chianti, famous not for a particular kind of wine, but for a man who has magic in his hands, a huge heart and a mind full of ideas, recites Dante by heart and has an amazing knowledge of meat, in all its shapes and cuts: we’re going to meet Dario Cecchini in Panzano on the very Sunday when there is a market – Aprilante -, like every first Sunday of each month, with artisans and manufacturers.

When you enter the butcher, the meat counter is there, majestically, in a blaze of opulence and wealth, precious and famous cuts alongside pieces less noble but no less tasty. Nearby, you can find products already made by Dario, like fennel scamerite (pork steaks) or Cosimini (3), a Florentine meat-loaf made with minced beef, salt, black pepper, thyme, onion, garlic and egg. In front of the counter, a small selection of appetizers, ranging from beans (1) to porchetta – roast pork (5 and 6), Chianti butter, that is lard treated with some Tuscan spices. Wherever, there are hanging pieces of meat and sausages, as the guanciale (4). The refrigerator is there (2), just have a look inside!

In all this, there is magic. Just look at Dario while cutting the meat and dealing with it with enormous respect, and you will be aware of this subtle spell that surrounds not only the Old Butcher Cecchini, but the entire village of Panzano. In order to describe Dario Cecchini, I will use his own words, taken from his site, www.dariocecchini.com:

For the last 35 years I have been a butcher, seeking to better myself in my art, and to discover the best cutting and cooking methods for each piece of meat. My goal is to respect the animal by using every part in the best way possible. I am an artisan who seeks and offers “Quality”. I select my cuts of meat with a view to offering the best to my customers and to putting my work in the finest light. Trust in what I suggest, or at any rate, I ask that you consider my research and passion for meat outside of the usual parameters.
Letting passion guide you means looking for the best good. Join me in my choices as you see fit. Just maybe thirty years in the butchershop have taught me a thing or two.

From the butcher Cecchini, you can reach the Officina della Bistecca, just climb a few steps and you’ll find a bright space with a few seats just above the butcher shop (photo 5 Judy with two chefs from the Officina) where you can taste a 50€ menu with Bone-in Rib eye or Strip steak, T-bone or Porterhouse steak and Panzanese steak (a cut rediscovered by Cecchini, but once famous during Renaissance banquets, a monumental slice from the heart of a beef leg).

Around Panzano, during the Sunday Market, you can enjoy a flea market and stands with local producers of honey, jams, cheeses from all places (3 and 4) and Chianti pecorino as well, made by Giovanni ( 2). Pay also a visit to a very good osteria in the central square of Panzano, Enoteca Baldi, where you can taste wines, typical dishes, olive oil and pasta, with two very nice owners (1).

And finally, at one o’clock, we reach Solociccia for lunch, a restaurant that is the home of a butcher. A full menu for 30 €, we ate a lot and what an extraordinary experience.. the only problem is to be able to stand up after lunch! Let’s have a look at the menu …

MENU

• Spicy meat ragu on toast (6) a meat sauce let cook for all the time it needs!
• Batter fried meats and vegetables, (3) one of my favourite, with delicious and soft meat balls, with an hint of lemon peel
• Fresh, raw garden vegetables (2)
• Homemade focaccia della Simonetta (1) made with lard
  
• Bread from Panzano
• Garbanzo and white beans (4) to season with profumo del Chianti (5), a salt that is the essence of Tuscany, sun bleached salt and aromatic herbs!

• Sautéed, marinated beef (1), Chianti style sushi, a kind of tartarre meat seasoned with olive oil, sea salt, black pepper, red pepper, garlic, parsley and lemon juice and slipped on a sprig of rosemary
• A roasted dish (2), so soft
  
• Boiled beef and vegetable salad (3), my favorite ever, pieces of  warm meat with a salad of carrots, celery and onion, seasoned with vinegar
• A braised dish
• Red wine (a quarter liter), water with and without bubbles
• Coffee, olive oil cake (4), sweet and soft, fragrant, a delicious dessert!
• Italian Military liqueurs

I really want to thank Judy -Tuscan Diva, for this wonderful day!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Sunday in Panzano in Chianti

As soon as I had the first bite, I was in love. This risotto is not included into the culinary traditions of my family: before last Sunday, nobody had ever heard of it, I must tell the truth!
The first time I tasted it was in the restaurant of a friend, Barbara – she propose it as extra menu dish to give me a try: I was fascinated from the richeness of flavors and from the way the taste of reed tripe was enhanced by the preparation and the rice. I had no idea of the recipe, so when I found myself with leftover reed tripe I tried to figure out a way to make this risotto, but in the end I discovered that my procedure does not differ much from the traditional recipe of Florence, where reed tripe is not only well known, but I would say celebrated, part of the culinary tradition of the city.

Let us see how to recycle the leftover reed tripe, or – changing perspective – how to make a slightly unusual risotto!

Ingredients for 4 people:

• reed tripe, about 500 gr
• celery, 2 stalks
• red onion, 1 (half for the stock and half for the risotto)
• carrots, 1
• ripe tomatoes, 2
• salt
• rice, 400 gr (a creamy rice to make risotto)
• extra virgin olive oil
• Parmesan cheese
• ground black pepper

As you can see, the ingredients are almost the same as last recipe for the making of reed tripe panino. Add all the ingredients in a pot of cold water: reed tripe – previously rinsed – celery, onion, carrot and tomatoes. Add a generous handful of salt.
When the water begins to boil, cook the reed tripe for about an hour, so that it becomes soft and gives all its flavor to the broth.

When an hour has passed, remove the pan from heat and drain well reed tripe, cut it into thin stripes of about 1 cm wide and 5 cm long.
I make risotto with extra virgin olive oil, but you can also follow the tradition and use the butter: cover the bottom of a nonstick skillet with extravirgin olive oil and then sautee the onion, chopped finely. Add reed tripe and rice and stir to toast and flavor the rice. Then cook the rice adding gradually reed tripe broth: remember to stir often, because doing so the rice will release its starch and become much more creamy, without the addition of ‘helping’ tricks!

Once cooked, add a few tablespoons of grated Parmesan cheese and mix with conviction and strenght the risotto. Serve with a freshly ground black pepper.

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: reed tripe risotto

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1. Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: Florentine tripe
2. Beer and artichoke risotto with crumbled goat cheese
3. Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: lampredotto sandwich

Soon it will be spring again, and maybe we’ll be tempted to go to Florence to have a walk in the centre, looking at marvellous shop windows and strolliong up and down along tiny streets and markets, to breathe that amazing air that smells of spring, when fhe sun warms the air and gives it a golden glow.

This is the right time to mingle with the Florentines and eat one of the most famous street food in town: the panino al lampredotto (reed tripe or Abomasum sandwich). Lampredotto or reed is a kind of tripe, darker with a more intense taste. It is boiled in broth and put in a sandwich with salsa verde (green sauce) or – more recently – with a spicy sauce. The bread used is the typical semelle (also known as semellino) and on request it can be soaked into reed broth.
I asked aunt Silvana for the recipe: years ago she was thinking about opening a trippaio dock at the market, so who better than aunt Silvana could give me the recipe?

Ingredients:

• reed tripe, 500 gr
• carrot, 1
• celery, 2 stalks
• ripe tomatoes, 2
• red onion, 1/2
• salt&pepper

Ingredients to make Mum’s green sauce:

• plenty of parsley
• boiled egg, 1
• pickled capers, 1 handful
• bread soaked in white vinegar, 2 slices
• garlic, 1 clove
• extra virgin olive oil
• salt

Rinse reed tripe under cold running water and place it in a pot filled up to 3/4 of water with carrot, celery (because hey, that’s what gives the flavor! – says Aunt Silvana), tomatoes, onion and a handful of coarse salt. Bring to the boil and let simmer on low heat for at least an hour, being careful thatit doesn’t finish all the water.

Meanwhile make the salsa verde. Put an egg in a saucepan with water and boil it until the egg is done. Let it cool. Soak the bread in water and vinegar and squeeze well. Chop the parsley to the knife with the hard boiled egg, a clove of garlic, capers and soaked bread. Put all chopped ingredients in a bowl and pour plenty of extra virgin olive oil, mix well and add salt and pepper.

To prepare the reed tripe sandwich, remove reed tripe from the broth and slice it thinly. Open the sandwich and fill it with reed tripe, season with plenty of salt and ground black pepper and a generous spoonful of salsa verde.

Pay attention while eating your sandwich: the green sauce and the oil will be dripping from all sides, but that’s the beauty of lampredotto sandwich!

Obviously lampredotto can also be eaten sitting at table in a proper dish, seasoned with salt, pepper and extra virgin olive oil or with green sauce, enriched by some pickles.

Let me make a clarification: the bread in the picture is not the well known semelle, a round olive oil sandwich. When I decided to cook lampredotto I forgot to buy the proper bread and at home I had only multicerale bread done with my bread machine. Since it was Saturday night and all the shops were closed, so tried to find a solution!

I was in a pub and at 11pm and I asked the waitress, with an air of dumb naive, a sandwich, empty. The waitress looked at me wide-eyed, then continued the round of orders. At the end she asked me again: are you sure? empty? don’t you want anything inside? And I, innocent as a little child: no no, that’s okay, thanks! To cut a long story short, instead of semelle I used a baguette cut in half and toasted … it is not the same, but the lampredotto was good anyway!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: lampredotto sandwich

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1. Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: Florentine tripe
2. Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: reed tripe risotto
3. Florentine panino al lampredotto and a guest post

Telling you about this cake is like opening the door of my house, showing you the fireplace where my grandpa used to stand, with his hands behind is back to warm himself, it’s like offering you a barley coffee in my grandma tin cup. It’s like walking together on the same path I used to follow coming back from school with the rucksack on my shoulders, waving hello to my neighbours as they appeared at the window. It is a simple and sweet cake we make very often, the main ingredient is rice! It’s a foolproof cake, you’ll love it for is hearty and unique flavour.

Mum loves the central part of the cake, coated with melted sugar, I prefer the shortcrust pastry shell instead, crumbly and orange scented. What I’m going to show you is not the canonical procedure to make shortcrust pastry, but this is how we usually make it at home since I can remember. When I make my shortcrust pastry is like watching an old family movie, one of that movies with bright colours and external voices belonging to people that are not here anymore, but who still live in your heart: it is a reassuring mantra and today we’ll make it together!

::::: RICE CAKE :::::

Ingredients:

• rice, 300 gr (use soft sticky cooking rice to make puddings and desserts)
• milk, 1 lt
• a tablespoon of liqueur (use the one you fancy more)
• peel of one lemon
• eggs, 2
• sugar, 5 tablespoons

Shortcrust pastry:

• plain flour, 300 gr
• sugar, 150 gr
• softened butter, 150 gr
• egg, 1
• baking powder, 1 teaspoon
• peel of one orange, grated
• salt, 1 pinch

Firts thing first, let’s make shortcrust pastry. Put the flour on a working surface, make a well in the middle and add sugar, salt, baking powder, grated orange peel and softened butter, diced. Rub all the ingredients with your fingertips and make crumbles. You must be light and rapid!

Beat the egg in a bowl, then add it to the crumbles and keep rubbing the ingredients with tour fingertips until you have a nice and smooth ball of dough. Wrap it in cling film and place it in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.

While the shortcrust is resting in the refrigerator, pour milk in a large pot and bring it to the simmer with a lemon peel. When it starts simmering, add rice and let it cook completely (it will depend on the kind of rice you chose: it must be throughly cooked, soft and sticky). Remove from the heat and stir in 3 tablespoons of sugar. Let it cool down completely.

When the rice is cold, add 2 egg yolks and 3 tablespoons of sugar and a tablespoon of liqueur as well. Stir well with a wooden spoon until it is well blended. Whip egg whites and fold them softly into the rice mixture.

Roll the pastry out and line a round baking tin (26 – 28 cm wide) with it: roll out the pastry to 5mm of thickness and line bottom and sides of the mould, leaving some extra pastry on the sides. Pour in the rice mixture and fold extra pastry over the mixture. Bake for about 40 minutes in preheated oven to 170°C.

Let it cool down completely and dust with icing sugar to serve.

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: rice cake

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As promised, here it is the perfect match for last week capon braised in tomato: cardoons, or, as we call them in my area, gobbi. Now you can find them quite easily in whatsoever supermarket – even in my town supermarket, not the best furnished shop in the world! -  but in the past farmers made them working directly on an artichoke plant, taking away new sprouts. New artichoke sprouts could be cooked, if tender, in an omelette or a flan.

At the end of summer, the sprouts left on the plant were wrapped in a thick yellow paper and tied up, let grow in the dark, so that they remained white. Winter time is the perfect season to eat cardoons!

In the past weekend I browsed throught the old Pellegrino Artusi book with my grandmother, searching for the recipe they used to make when she was a child. We couldn’t find the recipe of three time cooked cardoons (first, you boil them, second you fry them, third you braise them in capon tomato sauce… give them a try!), but we found many interesting recipes. They all have in common one point: Pellegrino Artusi explains that cardoons are light, easy to digest, refreshing but… tasteless (it’s not true! they remind artichoke flavour!) so you must use lot of sauce and seasoning.

… as we are Tuscan people, we are skilled in sauce and seasoning! So, let’s see Aunt Pasquina recipe for cardoons.

Ingredients:

• cardoons, 1 bunch
• garlic, 1 clove
• parsley, 1 small bunch
• flour to dust
• extra virgin olive oil
• eggs
• milk
• salt and pepper

Rinse cardoons, remove external filaments and cut off hard parts. Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil, and cook cardoons for about 20 minutes. When they get soft, drain them well, pass them under cold running water – to avoid them turning green – and pat them dry with cooking paper. Dust them with flour and set them aside.

Chop finely garlic and parsley and pour a few tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil in a pan: saute them for a few minutes and add cardoons. Brown them on each side, season them with salt and pepper and after 5 minutes add 100 ml of milk. Let it reduce.

Beat eggs (I used 2 eggs, it all depends on how many people you want to serve and on the purpose you are making this dish for:  main course or side dish) with salt and pepper and pour them over cardoons: stir roughly to thicken eggs and cardoons are ready!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: cardoons

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Christmas has already gone, it seems like it has been ages ago (is it the same for you? I feel like I’ve been working for months, already). If I look back I can see a mosaic made of images and lights: Christmas boxes, giftrapped and dolled up, trees and butcher’s broom, mistletoe, Christmas sweets, snowflakes and Santa Claus. This is my Christmas imagery since I was a child, since I used to be mesmerized by Coca Cola advertisings.

Recently, I was in a memories mood, so I asked Grandma how was her Christmas time, and I discovered the simplicity and the value of people able to appreciate little happy moments. She told me that children used to receive gifts just for the Epiphany (la Befana, 6th of January), and it was all about sweets, toffees and oranges. I can barely figure out the suprise to find, in a cold and foggy winter morning, an explosion of colour and smell, an orange rich and flavourful, something to tickle your eyes and your heart. They didn’t use to trim the tree: they only made the Christmas crib, they went to the Mass on Christmas morning and they used to eat capon braised in tomato for lunch, with cardoons as side dishes. This used to be my grand grand father favourite dish!

The first trimmed Christmas tree my Grandma has ever seen was during the Second World War, when there were relatives, uncles and aunts in the country house to escape the war. One of the sister of Aunt Antonietta was a modern and creative woman, who trimmed a tree and made a lot of small gifts for everyone. My grandma received an embroidered handkerchief, she can still remember it! Altough they started to trim the tree, the main dish was capon braised in tomato, as usual! Each family bred  and  fed their own capons. When I asked Grandma how did they make capons, she told me that there was an old woman who passed from house to house, at the end of the summer, to make them capons… and she didn’t add any further details! Such an educate and well-mannered woman!

Ingredients:

• capon, 1 cut into medium pieces
• carrot, 1
• onion, 1
• celery, 1 stalk
• tomato sauce, 500 ml
• red wine, 1 glass
• salt and pepper
• extra virgin olive oil

Rince capon under running water and chop it into medium pieces, then put it in a pan without anything else (no oil, no butter, no grease) and let it cook for 10 minutes: it will loose liquid and fat, and it will be a bit lighter (not so much, eh eh) . This is a modern procedure, it wasn’t used in the past, they weren’t so maniac about light food!

In the meanwhile, chop finely carrot, celery and onion, cover the bottom of a pan with extravirgin olive oil and saute chopped vegetables. After a few minutes add capon, season with salt and pepper and brown it on every side, stirring it with a wooden spoon. Now pour in a glass of red wine and make it reduce, then add tomato sauce. Let it simmer for about one hour, adding some tablespoons of water, if necessary. After this time, it’s ready!

Eat capon hot, with a slice (or more) of Tuscan bread and a good dollop of cardoon flan.. but this is another story!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: Capon braised in tomato

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1. Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: tomato-bread soup
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3. Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: fricassee boiled beef

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

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

Here we are again. After tripe, spleen crostini and chiken liver crostini my true and genuine Tuscan blood comes out again to reveal a deep love for offals! This is the turn of pork liver. It is such a simple and true dish, perfect for upcoming winter months since it is flavourful and nourishing. The first time I found pork liver into my dish I was quite astonished, because I couldn’t understand waht I was going to eat and it was difficult as well to give a name to that meat wrapped into a strange ‘net’. Once you overtake the initial distrust, you discover a rich and unique taste.
Pork liver was one of Grandad Remigio’s favourite dishes. He used to fry them up, filling the house with smoke and smell! You could understand which was today’s dish coming form outside!

We wrap pork liver pieces into the ratta, also known as net, that is a fat tissue that wraps pork intestines. Here in Tuscany you can find this ‘net’ together with pork liver at butcher’s counter. You wrap pork liver pieces into this fat net so that, while cooking, it will release its fat and make them softer and more tasteful.

Ingredients:

• pork liver
  
• pork ‘net’
  
• Tuscan bread slices
  
• sage
• salt&pepper
• wild fennel
  
• extra virgin olive oil
  

Cut pork liver into chunks of the same size, wrap each piece into the fat net and stick them into a skewer, alternating a piece of liver, a leaf of save and a slice of bread. Put the skewers into a large oven-proof dish and season them with salt, pepper and a few drops of extra virgin olive oil. If you like it – I love it, but mum doesn’t – add also wild fennel: it suits perfectly pork meat in general.

Bake in preheated oven to 180°C for about 30 minutes, turning them once in a while. You can cook them in a pat as well, but you must cover it, otherwise your kitchen would be full of smoke!

P.S. Have a look at my table! yes, that one in the first picture! It used to be my gran grandad working table, where he made bee houses, when we still used to produce honey.

Then it became grandad Biagio working table, where every day he used to work and make his arts and crafts masterpieces. Notwithstanding the fact that he was working with glue, wood and iron, he used to wear every day a suite, with a neat shirt and a waistcoat.

After my grandad Biagio, it became my dad working table, and it saw hifi systems, bow and arrows. Now it is in a small storeroom, waiting to be restored by dad’s expert and competent hands: it will be my future house kitchen table, as soon as I’ll have my own house!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: pork liver

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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

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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.

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: leaf cabbage crostoni

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