Fava bean and pecorino tartlets

Hi, my name is Giulia, I have a problem and I would love to share it with you: I lack the sense of measure. I believe and I do hope it is due to my motto you have to be generous in the kitchen. It happens often during my cooking classes, and my friends are lucky witnesses.

A classic menu is made of five courses – appetizer, first course which usually is a dish of home made pasta, a main dish, a side dish and a dessert. Then you make up quick recipes with leftover ingredients such as salads or tasty frittate. Then how can you skip an olive oil, cheese and charcuterie tasting? If you want to get to the core of the Tuscan cooking you must bravely face all the challenges I will offer you throughout the day.

Then, last but not least, I tend to cook for a minimum of four people, even though we are just three – my guests and me. Just imagine what would happen if they want a second serving and there’s no more meat in the pan! It’s not a proper thing to be seen during a cooking class, at my table, so I just double the quantities and I have no fear.

The result is that we often eat leftovers for the next two meals, venturing in unlikely pairings. Sometimes I invite my friends over for dinner, padding out the meal with a good piece of pecorino cheese, grassy olive oil and wood baked bread. Leftovers are also one of the reasons that urge me to often vary the cooking class menu, otherwise sooner or later my family would mutiny and run away to the nearest fast food (well, at a second thought, probably they would not choose a fast food but a porchetta truck parked along the road selling crackling pork in a well filled sandwich).

Although I often brag quite unconsciously about my ability to over exaggerate the quantities, I messed it dramatically for the last picnic we organized. I made the most classic and crowd pleasing menu – fava beans, pecorino, salami, farro salad, strawberries with whipped cream and mousse au chocolat – then I had the brilliant idea to bake delicate tartlets with fava beans, pecorino and ricotta. It is an unusual way to present fava beans and pecorino, the most classic and loved food pairing of Italian picnics of the 25th of April, our national holiday, and May Day.

Weight the ingredients, add this and that, mix, knead, roll out the dough, bake it… at the end I managed to style prettily on a dish just three tartlets. Three. There were eight people – eight hungry people – coming for the picnic. My crowd pleasing menu would have certainly turned in a fight for the last tartlet. So I decided to cut a long story short and have them for lunch with my sister. My friends would do with the idea of them, I hope!

Do not miss these tartlets  if your ideal picnic includes a checkered tablecloth, a green meadow dotted with daisies, one or more dogs chasing each other in the background and a wicker basket from which you gleefully pull out, just like Mary Poppins, sandwiches, cookies, a refreshing lemonade, a form of cheese that still smells of milk and a generous handful of fava beans.

This is your recipe if you like spring picnics and love to be tickled by that subtle and sparkling liveliness that you can breathe in the shade of an olive tree under the May sky. Just pay attention to the quantities, and bake a tartlet for every friend!

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