Tuscan Panzanella

Tuscan Panzanella is a salad made with stale unsalted bread from Tuscany, onion and tomatoes.
Its name could be a familiar short of the word panzana, a term used to indicate the usual meal: a way to say pap.

image from www.theblackfig.com

Further south in Italy, in Cilento, this salad of dried bread and vegetables is usually called Caponata or Caponatina and as bread are used the Friselle, those slices of toasted bread well known and available all over the eastern Mediterranean.

This type of preparation is now popular in most of the italian peninsula and, they told me also in the Sicilian province of Enna: each place has got time to create some local legend about its source.

In Lebanon and Palestine is very much liked a veggie salad, the Fatousha, made with Arab or pita bread, dried and broken.

Gazpacho Andaluz

Isabel Gonzales in his book Round ricos de Comida, Comida pobre writes:  

Sòlo decis que hay tantos gazpachos como pueblos incluso come familia, pues cada una le da su toque, su punto especial, quie es, desde luego, el mejor. Los gaszpachos veraniegos, ya sean majados o no, pues tutavia hay quien sigue majando y no por ello ha de ser octogenario, se hacen, cuando menos, a base de tomate, pimiento, pan, ajo, sal aceite y vinagre. Segùn los casos, les pueden anadir otros ingredientes. 
(There are many gazpacho many villages or families, everyone gives his special touch, which of course is the best. Gaszpachos the summer, which may or may not be purées without necessarily intended to be an octogenarian, prepare at least with tomato, pepper, bread, garlic, salt, oil and vinegar.Depending on the circumstances, you can add other ingredients.)

This is the queen of cold soups, a salvation for appetite in hot summer days

Ingredients: 1kg of Ripe red tomatoes, 2 green peppers, a cucumber average, a clove of garlic (optional), Mollica Bread or Crackers Corn, Olive oil, a tablespoon of vinegar, 3/4 of a liter of water and salt.

Lebanese Rice with Apricot Compote

I combined the recipe for Lebanese Rice&Milk  with an easy apricot compote to get a fresh and delicious dessert that fits well in the heat of these days

Ingredients for 6 servings: about 125g of small grain rice or basmati rice, the same volume of water, 1 liter of milk, 150g  sugar (preferably raw and cane sugar), 2 tablespoons scented water (orange blossom or thousand flowers), 1 kg of apricots cleaned and without stones, juice of 1 lemon, 300g of water.

Lebanese Rice&Milk

Ingredients: 3.5 ìl. of milk, 200g rice, 50g of orange flower water, 20g of cold water, 500g of sugar

Heat milk in a saucepan and add the rice when boiling.
Let boil gently for about 50 minutes.
So turn up heat and stir constantly until it becomes thick and dense.

Finally add orange scent water and sugar and let it boil longer.
Pour into a bowl or on a large individual dish and let it cool.
Serve garnished with a fruit compote.

Patatoes "à l'échirlète"

Ingredients: 3/4 ]b. (about 16) 1 1/2 inch new potatoes, 1 cup water or chicken or beef stock, 3 cloves of garlic, 2 tablespoons goose fat, salt. 

Wash patatoes.
If you do not have the new one, you can choose yellow potatoes and cut them into small pieces  giving them a rounded shape typical of this recipe. Put them in a saucepan just covered with water or stock, with garlic cloves and salt.
Cover and cook 15 minutes or until potatoes are tender. If all liquid is not absorbed, take patatoes out of the saucepan and let them to dry on a dish.
Take a large skillet, add goose fat and when it will be warm add patatoes.
Cook slowly until they are lightly browned.
Serve with roast of pork, beef, veal or lamb.

Broccoli with raisins and pine nuts

This to me is a recipe from memory. It remembers me a gentle woman who worked for my family as cook: a dalicate and tiny woman and very kind as well and also a very good cook.
She was Friulian but cause she had worked in many in many cities in Italy, from North to South, and brought in her kitchen the memory of the places where she lived and worked.

Ingredients: broccoli tops, a clove of garlic, pine nuts, dried raisins, olive oil, salt.

Stuffed artichokes "in teglia"

Artichokes are delicious both raw or cooked in different ways.
A simpler version of this recipe is on my book Cucina mediterranea. La Storia nel piatto

Ingredients: Artichokes (Roman or Sardinian), Lemon, a bunch of Parsley, a small Shallot, a bread crumps, few tablespoons of grated Parmesan, Olive Oil, white Wine and water, Salt and Pepper.

Sprouting Broccoli and Sausages

Ingredients: 6 pork sausages, about 1kg of broccoli, 1 clove of garlic, oil, 1 fresh chili pepper, dry white wine, salt.

 It's a simple very tasty.
Cut broccoli into small florets and let them to soak in cold water for at least 10 minutes.
Blanch quickly in unsalted hot water, so that they remain still crunchy.

Cut each sausage in half, sauté briefly in a pan and then with white wine.
Meanwhile, in another saucepan heat a clove of crushed garlic with the olive oil.
When garlic is golden, add chilli sliced, well drained broccoli florets and, after a few minutes, also sausages.
Salt and simmer, partially covered, for others 10 or 15 minutes .

Pan Fried Chicory

This easy and healthy way to prepare chicory, is typical Roman cuisine.
In Ciociaria this preparation is called "crazy chicory" probably due to the presence of hot chilli, usually abundant.
However, in Rome it is often prepared also without chilli, because the goodness of this recipe depends on the type of chicory, usually tender and sweet.

This is a great recipe to cook the green longue leaves that surround the heads of chicory buds used to prepare the salad of Puntarelle.

Ingredients: 1kg of chicory, 1 hot Chilli, 2 cloves garlic, 4 Tsp of olive oil, salt.

Clean and wash very carefully chicory to remove all traces of dirt.
Boil it in plenty of lightly salted water until it will become soft (it may take even longer than 30 minutes).
When cooked, drain and squeeze it immediately.
Now in a pan, sauté garlic and chilli with olive oil. Then add chicory and continue cooking for about 10 minutes, stirring constantly.
Add salt just before serving.

Frittedda

A wonderful Sicilian dish where is crucial the freshness of the ingredients, that should be all first produce, is crucial It's a recipe for the spring, to cook in the month of March and, in the north, until the month of April.
All ingredients should be fresh and just as soon sprung up from the ground.

Ingredients: 2 fresh onions or the corresponding weight of onions weds, 6 new and tender artichokes, 800gr fresh medium peas, 800gr of fava beans, ½ cup of olive oil, salt and pepper. Wild fennel or mint, minced.

Shell the peas and fava beans and if you want to do a good job, remove from favas even their outer skin. This may takes some time but also creates an occasion to get help from friends in the kitchen .

In ancient times, the particular envelope that surrounds fava bean has fueled legends related to myths of death and rebirth. Pythagoras himself, because of a myth telling that inside fava beans there were souls of the dead, decided to abstain from eating.

Clean artichokes removing the woody parts and any outer leaves that are tough, slice them into rather small wedges, remove the central hay (that should not be there if the artichokes are just young and fresh), and put them on hold in water acidulated with lemon juice.

Thinly slice onions and let them dry in a pan with the oil. Add to the pan artichokes, well dried, and brown for 10 minutes. Then add fava beans and finally, after few minutes peas. Cook very slowly, shaking the pan occasionally until vegetables are cooked and only finally season with salt and pepper.
Finish with chopped Ffennel or Mint as I prefer.
The Frittedda might be over here and that's how I prefer it.
But as I mentioned in the recipe described in my book La Storia nel Piatto, somebody completes it fading with ½ cup of not too strong vinegar and evaporates it quickly over high heat.

Note
However, never add water and possibly limit the risk of drying too much vegetable, keeping the pan partially covered.

Merveilles, Carnival fritters

Everywhere fritters are the Carnival sweets.
In the south of France, in Aquitaine they are called Merveilles and are quite similar to what we call Chiacchiere in Italy .

It’s a simple recipe, but there are several variants with different yeasts, different liquor and more or less sugar.

Ingredients: 1/2kg flour, 100gr sugar, ½ small bag of yeast, 10gr butter, 4 eggs, orange scent water, a pinch of salt, oil for frying, powdered sugar.

In a bowl, mix flour with sugar, orange water, yeast and a pinch of salt. Add eggs and then the melted butter.
Mix very well to obtain a homogeneous mixture.
Knead until it detaches from your hands, adding a little flour if needed and then put it to rest for 1 or 2 hours in a cool place, covered with a sheet.
To make fritters, heat the oil for frying and lightly flour the work surface.
Take a small amount of dough at a time (a little more than a walnut) and roll it out very thinly with a rolling pin. Cut portions of various shapes, square, rectangular or even sticks and put them immediately to fry. It's traditionalyou to make lozenges engraved in the middle.
The frying time is fast cause the Merveilles must have a light golden color. To make they swell well, it is necessary a very thin dough and an oil temperature hot but not smoking, because this would affect the result.

image from the blog 123Merveilles

As you remove them from the oil, drain immediately the Merveilles on a sheet of absorbent paper.
Garnish with powdered sugar and serve warm or cold.

Chicken Tajine with vegetables and plums

A tajine is a unique type of ceramic cookware that's popular in North Africa.
The bottom is a wide, circular shallow dish used for both cooking and serving, while the top of the tagine is distinctively shaped into a rounded dome or cone.

The word tajine also refers to the succulent dish which is slow-cooked inside the cooking vessel.
A tajine is a rich stew of meat tipical of Morocco and most often includes vegetables and fruit.

How works a TAJINE

This pan allows slow cooking times, where meat are juicy and very tender.

Ingredients: 1 whole chicken of 1200gr cut into pieces, 200gr dried plums, 1 medium onions, 1 clove of garlic, 2 carots, celery, 2 big potatoes and eventually other vegetables, some slice of preserved lemon (Citron Confit), 2 teaspoons of mixed spices (ginger, curcuma, saffron threads, cumin and cilantro seeds crumbled), salt and pepper, a little olive oil.

Arrange the chicken pieces in the tagine (flesh-side down).
Distribute onions and garlic, very finely chopped, all around and also all other vegetables cut into medium sized pieces. Add preserved lemon slices and spices. Salt and pepper.

Add a small amount of water and place over a medium-low heat eventually on a diffuser and always covered. Simmer slowly always covered for at least 2 hour.
If necessary add again a little water to mantain the meat wet. In the meantime, put dried plums in water and add them to the stew only when the cicken is near cooked.

Stir gently not to mash plums and vegetables and let on the fire other 20 minutes.
If you like, add also sliced almonds, first stir fried with a little oil.

Serve with white boiled rice or Couscous.

Puntarelle "a la Romana"

In Italy, in the country near Rome are called Puntarelle the chicory sprouts when they are cut and treated in a particular way. This roman chicory is not the quality rather tough and bitter widespread in northern regions, but a more tender and sweet quality.  However today, it's not difficult to find it in almost every fruit and vegetable markets .

Ingredients for the salad : Garlic, 4 or 5 salted fillets of anchov, 2 tablespoons of good wine vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper.

The secret for this salad is the way to cut the chicory sprouts

Artichokes "a la Matticella"

This recipe is a specialty of region of Velletri and Viterbo, in northern Lazio First,

Why this strange name, matticella?

Matticella is a bundle of vine shoots, those which are cut off the plant during maintenance of the vines carried out in early spring.
These branches are pruned quite thin and long it would weaken the plant. Branches are gnarled and are generally very irregular, and they seem a bit ' crazy .
Artichokes a la matticella are cooked on a fire of bundles of matticelle .

Some argue that this recipe was already in use by the Etruscans, but they are first documented in the early 1800s or late 1700s and come from some of the writings of the Jesuits. In fact they settled in the territory of Lazio precisely on those dates.

There is also a legend of a girl, named Assuntina who, while flirting with a boy, forgot artichokes that she had collected, right near the embers of matticelle and then, to repair the damage and not be scolded by her father, had the idea to remedy stuffing them with olive oil and garlic. This idea, fortunately, was lucked and pleased to her father who decided that these artichokes were very good if eated drinking the new wine ...

The recipe is not complicated but need absolutely not only matticelle but also patience, and this is a quality not easy to find: the matticelle, in fact, should be left to consume slowly until they are brace.

I recommend it especially for those who are working in the country or in the garden and who are friends of some farmer who has a vineyard.
It is a good way to organize an outdoor barbecue ... tasting the new wine .

Ingredients: artichokes, bacon, pork, olive oil, garlic (as always optional and at your discretion ), salt, pepper, mint leaves.

Pittule from Apulia

Today I want to recommend the Facebook page ricette di Nina because it is full of gorgeous recipes, most quite traditional, other more imaginative but all tasty and innovative.

Among them there’s the recipe of Pettole from Apulia, which are pretty much the same of the zeppole from Naples.

In Apulia this is a traditional preparation of holidays periods of Autumn, when the new wine is ready.
Ingredients are simple: flour, salt, yeast and water and sometimes even boiled potatoes. That’s all. Simple to make and even easier to eat.

In Naples they’re generally a street food that you can eat while walking .

Frying pettole at the Pettole Festival in the town of Noci

In Apulia, however, the preparation is almost a ritual occasion to gather the whole family around the kitchen, where the family mama frys these simple but delicious pancakes.

In few seconds they go from the pan into the mouth of some of the presents, immediately, without any seasoning or just sweetened or salted, depending on people taste, or dipped in honey, must or figs wine.
It’s said that ... pettole attract the new wine.
What do you think, might be true?

Vermicelli with zucchini

I've learned this recipes in Naples. In the original dish zucchini are sliced ​​thin but instead I suggest a julienne cut, a solution that will undoubtedly improves the flavor of the dish. Remember, however, to cook zucchini quickly so they still remain firm and almost crunchy.

Ingredients for 4 people: 350gr of vermicelli (must be bigger than the normal spaghetti), 2 or 3 medium zucchini, some garlic clove or shallot, 2 whole eggs, Parmesan cheese, extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper, a few mint leaves for garnish.

While boiling water for the pasta, clean zucchini taking off the internel part (keep it aside for another recipe) and cut them into julienne making threads long enough to be similar to spaghetti.

Break eggs in a bowl and beat them with a little salt and plenty of grated Parmesan cheese. Finely chop garlic or shallots and brown it in a saucepan with a fair amount of oil. When the pasta water boils, add salt and put to cook the noodles.

Meanwhile, combine zucchini with garlic or shallots, browning them very quickly. When pasta is cooked, drain and add to the zucchini inside the saltapasta (a pan similar toa chnese wok), tossing it on high heat.

Finally, pour in the egg mixture and Parmesan cheese. Stir briefly with energy so that the eggs remain as much as possible with soft and adhering to the pasta but without solidify.
Switch off and serve immediately, garnish sprinkling of black pepper and few leaves of mint. Questa è una ricetta che ho imparato a Napoli.
 

LEBNEH

A soft cream, not sour nor sweet, ideal as a dip.

It is a Lebanese recipe easy to prepare at home.
My old book about Lebanese cooking , “L'art culinaire libanais”, written by George N.Rayes in 1950, a gift of a friend of my father, describes a method to prepare it from milk that is so laborious that I would never be able to prepare without the help of my friend Christina who learned it from the Lebanese cook working for her family when they were living in Kenya.

Ingredients: 250gr of plain full fat yogurt of good quality, extra virgin olive oil, salt, rose pepper and other spices you like (Curcuma, Turmeric , Saffron, Garam Masala, Cinnamon et)

Place a large colander over a bowl.
Wrap it with one or two layers of paper towels or with a paper filter used to make coffee (such as Melitta filters).

Pour yoghurt into he colander.
Cover with kitchen cellophane and place in the fridge overnight.
The day after, the liquid (a kind of buttermilk ) will be inside the bowl and, in the filter, there will be a white cream, the lebneh, that you will place into a serving dish.

Remove paper and gently, spread lebneh making dimples in it with a spoon.
Season with a little olive oil, salt and and sprinkle red Aleppo pepper or sweet paprika and curcuma.

Serve this dip with other Mezedes, as appetizer or quick snack, accompanied by unsalted crackers.

You can also use it as a base for other cream as tzatzik. It 's also very good if you season it simply with good olive oil and chopped fresh herbs.

Note 
If you think that your freshly prepared lebneh tantes too acid, pour over it fresh water ad let it drain again. The water will wash the lebneh, removing  all the acidity.
(From " Cucina mediterranea – La Storia nel Piatto" )  

Kolòkitho keftédes

Polpettine greche di zucchine e Feta  (Κολοκυθοκεφτέδες με φέτα)

Queste polpette sono uno dei miei piatti preferiti. Spesso sono anche servite tra i mezédes

Image from nostimada.gr

Ingredients for 4 people: 700gr small and temder zucchini, 2 medium and white onions, bunch of parsley, a bunch of mint, 3 o 4 bread slices, 1 garlic ( il you like it), 300gr of Feta cheese, 2 eggs, grated lemon peel, some spoon of white flour, a pinch of instant baking powder, salt and pepper,olive oil for frying.

Grate the zucchini on a coarse grater and leave in colander after the brining to strain. Finely chop the onions, mint and parsley. Finely chop Feta cheese that you can substitute with another kind of cheese you have at home.
Put in a bowl zucchini and chopped herbs. Mix the flour with the baking powder and add to the mixture with also eggs and mix everything together. Stirring constantly, add a pinch of baking powder, salt an pepper.
Please note that usually the feta cheese is already a little salty If you want to give to your croquettes a fine round shape, it's better to add also the bread, soaked first in water and then crushed. Otherwise don't use it but in this case, shape them with the help of 2 spoons just when you throw them in the frying pan.

Fry in a pan with not too hot olive oil is and turn them when they are cooked on one side. Garnish with a few slices of lemon. They are delicious served with the Lebneh or other Greek salad like Tzatzik, aside.

La Cucina Povera

Che cos’è la cucina povera?

Questa dizione, cucina povera, cominciò ad essere usata a cominciare dagli anni ’60 per indicare tutto un insieme di ricette e di modi di cucinare e portarli a far parte di diritto della gastronomia italiana.

Grande promozione in questo senso fece Luigi Veronelli, enologo e gastronomo molto attivo sia come scrittore che come conduttore ed ideatore di trasmissioni televisive nel valorizzare e diffondere il patrimonio enogastronomico italiano: era un sostenitore ante litteram di posizioni di preservazione delle diversità in campo agricolo ed alimentare che, all’avanguardia anche oggi si stanno facendo strada tra i consumatori consapevoli.

Ci sono però alcuni malintesi su questa cucina povera e sul suo significato. Dobbiamo quindi forse fare chiarezza.

La cucina povera non è la cucina praticata abitualmente dalla popolazione povera nel corso della Storia perché i poveri  in realtà non avevano quasi nulla e spesso proprio nulla da mangiare.

I poveri sono sempre stati,  in Italia ed anche in Europa, la grande maggioranza della popolazione anche se nella Storia se ne parla poco o pochissimo. Si hanno notizie di percentuali quasi stabili di circa il 70% della popolazione!

Non ne abbiamo notizie precise su larga scala a causa del numero basso di riflessioni, scritti e ricerche in tal senso ed anche della mancanza di metodi numericamente validi, di strumenti di rilevamento, di informazioni e di diffusione della comunicazione.

Quasi tutte le notizie sono da riferirsi ad ambiti locali e noi, oggi, potremmo arrivare a tracciarne uno scenario più ampio soltanto considerando nel loro insieme moltissimi dati anche non direttamente legati al tema, spesso fortemente influenzati anche dalle sensazioni e dalle emozioni di chi scriveva e facendo poi le nostre deduzioni.

La cucina povera quindi non è il modo di mangiare dei poveri ma una cucina che utilizza prodotti, stratagemmi e metodi poveri, semplici, più direttamente collegati con la terra e che spesso possiamo rintracciare in quella cucina praticata per economia dalla parte della popolazione meno abbiente.

E’ comunque un concetto in evoluzione, perché gli elementi e le risorse variano ed oggi non sono più quelli di una volta. Così oggi alcuni elementi, prodotti o risorse/capacità come ad esempio il tempo o la capacità di cavarsela in cucina entrano a far parte della ricetta ed altri se ne escono.

É classificata senza dubbio cucina povera la minestra di sole erbe selvatiche, sia brodosa che più asciutta, così diffusa anche oggi sulle tavole contadine del Sud Italia, semplicemente condita con poco olio, sale e peperoncino anche se il sale non è stato sempre alla portata di tutte le tasche.

Ma oggi, a meno di andarsele a cogliere da sé, soprattutto se abitiamo in città, dove le troviamo le erbe selvatiche? Quando se ne trovano nei mercati rionali non sappiamo niente sulla loro provenienza ma vediamo tutti che hanno prezzi spropositati, molto più alti di quanto costano gli erbaggi coltivati, diffusi sui banchi dei supermarket ed ufficialmente più nobili . Allora, questo piatto povero oggi é diventato costoso e ricercato.

Taramosalata to lumpfish roe

Quite often, outside Greece, it's difficult to find the main ingredient in this recipe, the Taramas. This is specially hard in Italy.
Taramas are preserved fish eggs, generally cod eggs but also carp eggs, one of the most precious quality. It's a kind of mullet very fresh and not too salty.
These eggs have not treated have a natural off-white color and the pink to orange candy color we know is only due to food coloring that is added from 1950 to make it more attractive and palatable, as told by the author of the blog  greAT MANGIARE GRECO.

Taramosalata is very good and beloved by Greeks. Me too, I like it a lot and cause it always reminds me of summer and Greece, one of my places of the heart. It is so good that it is a pity it is little known in Italy and almost impossible to prepare for the difficulty to find the main ingredient, Taramas.

But, behind a suggestion of my daughter Annalaura now I can prepare a version made ​​from lumpfish roe that, despite being an imitation, approaches it enough to make me remember it without regret.


Ingredients: 1 small jar of lumpfish roe, red onion and garlic (or shallots), olive oil, ½ lemon, crumb of stale bread.

In a large and deep bowl combine with lumpfish roe the same volume of chopped shallot or onion and garlic ( if you ike it). Cover with olive oil and whisk everything as for a mayonnaise adding oil little by little. You can also use the blender. (Just like mayonnaise, this sauce would go crazy. In this case filter the oil and start again).

When the sauce becomes thick, add bread crumbs soaked in water and finely chopped and whisk it with the rest and then, with caution, add the juice of ½ lemon. The crumb will adjust the consistency of the sauce making it more soft and smooth and will help to get rid of the feeling of fat.
The oil should be as tasteless as possible, so not to overpower the scent of Taramas. For this reason choose a lite oliv oil or a seed oil.

Serve garnished with olives, capers and lemon slices and accompanied by crackers or pitas in the absence of Arab bread or toasted bread Carasau