Emiko Davies's Blog, page 5

Farm to Table at the Adler Ritten Lodge in the Dolomites

I had the pleasure of a truly relaxing and rewarding getaway earlier this month in the Dolomites, an area of Italy I have only scratched the surface of so far, but that is so worth digging deeper into! I was invited to stay at Adler Dolomiti in the heart of the charming centro storico of Ortisei (more on this soon), and at their sister property, Adler Lodge Ritten, in the beautiful, unspoilt Alpine highlands of Ritten (also known as Renon), sitting northeast of Bolzano in the South Tyrol.

At 1,100+ meters above sea level and with the Dolomites as a stunning backdrop, it feels like being in an entirely different world, so it is almost hard to believe that this is just a 3 hour train ride from Florence to Bolzano — and then an incredible 12-minute floating ride in the clouds on a cable car (the Funivia) to a little forest train that brings you right to the lodge in Ritten.

This was an absolutely beautiful stay, I can wholeheartedly say one of the most rejuvenating, relaxing and refreshing stays — the unbeatable mountain views, the heated infinity pool, Finnish saunas with ice cold pools in the forest (and even a private one in the room), yoga amongst the trees, cosy pine cabins with a view and Slow Food-inspired, Farm to Table fine cuisine. But I think another part of the reason this is so relaxing is the format of the stay, which is all inclusive full board, meaning all the food and drink and scheduled activities are all included. The mini bar, the breakfast and lunch buffets, the afternoon tea offering of cakes, and of course dinner. You can help yourself to wine and soft drinks (I loved the local Kohl juices, they are based just down the road and, based on the juice of different varieties of mountain apples in many different flavours, are something special) in the lobby’s lounge area, or ask for a cocktail or a tisane of mountain herbs on the deck. It’s all included. You don’t need to think about it.

For me, dinner was the highlight. I would come back and stay here just to be able to taste head chef Hannes Pignater’s menu again. And actually it is the only way you can taste his food because the restaurant is not open to the public — only for guests. Being a private restaurant, it’s not up for certifications like Slow Food or awards from the Michelin guide, but it is in every way a restaurant that upholds both Slow Food ideals and Michelin quality and skill.

There are two menus offered at dinner, an à la carte menu that changes daily and the Farm to Table menu, which Hannes, who is from Alto Adige, tells me is “his identity.” I saved it for the last night because I like to do that, save the best for last, but honestly the à la carte menu was a delight as well. We tried raw, marinated turnip and a beautiful tomato broth with trout, and venison with coffee and braised eschalot. One of the things that struck me was the taste of his canederli, the traditional bread dumplings of Alto Adige, which were served on a bed of finely sliced braised cabbage and a delicious jus. When cut open, inside were crispy, delicate tasty pieces of cubed potato and Grammlen, pork scratchings, a traditional frugal specialty from Austria and a recipe learned by Hannes’ Austrian mother in law, he tells me. To me it tasted of my Japanese grandmother’s okonomiyaki, which is like a pancake made with cabbage, pork belly and the crispy bits leftover from frying tempura with a dark, sweet sauce over the top and this comparison is something I will never forget.

When I sat down the next day to chat with Hannes before trying the Farm to Table menu, amongst many things we talked about the mix of cultures in this corner of Italy (long part of the Austrian empire, Alto Adige became part of Italy in 1919, in fact 95% of the population speak German as their first language, just 4.5% are mother tongue Italian) with both influencing what he eats at home and cooks for his farm to table menu. He seeks out the most interesting local producers to inspire his menus, from the goats cheese to organic beef (served as a tartare) to the ancient grains for pasta (farro dicocco nero which is made into tagliolini in Hannes’ kitchen and served with local smoked cheese and juniper jus, is being produced in extremely small quantities, recounts Hannes, by a German farmer who grew up here as a child and wanting to escape his city life, decided to farm something that was once all over Ritten and couldn’t be found anymore).

Hannes has built an important relationship with local producers and farmers, many of whom are young and often work part time jobs to help support their businesses. He hopes to be able to guarantee them enough work to keep them going, so they can just focus on the farming, and would rather nurture this relationship with the producers and wait to be able to use their local products than find other quicker or easier alternatives. He pointed out to me that, just like a wine list has the name of the producer, the year and such, that he wanted to do the same on his menu, to amplify the farmer, the face and the person behind the ingredients, which is part of the story to tell — so he does indeed list the producer an the place underneath the Farm to Table dishes.

When I asked if he finds there is something that the clientele asks for that he has to accommodate for — I suppose I was curious if they prefer more “pan-Italian” dishes or if they want the local fare, Hannes rightly tells me that he has long stopped asking what the clients wants and instead offers what he wants to show them, what products he wants them to try. And after hearing how passionately he speaks about the produce and the area, I only want to eat what Hannes tells me I should try.

My favourite dish next to the tagliolini was a last minute change to the Farm to Table menu that night — a wonderful broth infused with locally grown saffron (another young, new producer) and smoked trout from the Venosta Valley. It was absolutely delicious, yet delicate and elegant that felt like a warm, enveloping embrace — a little bit like how I felt about this entire stay.

This was a Press Trip organised by TN Hotel Media Consulting but the views expressed are, as always here, purely my own opinion.

Insalata Gigliese, a summery salad from a Tuscan island

I’m counting down the days until we get back to our favourite annual Tuscan holiday spot, Giglio island, and in the meantime I’m feeling a little bit nostalgic about the cookbook where this recipe for Insalata Gigliese (a deliciously refreshing salad of tomatoes and celery) comes from, Acquacotta. I recently found out that it is getting harder to find copies of Acquacotta because it sadly isn’t going back into another reprint, which is such a shame because to be perfectly honest it is my favourite.

It came out 5 years ago in March 2016 and is a celebration of a little part of Tuscany that we called home for 6 months in 2015 when my husband Marco was head sommelier of the divine Pellicano Hotel. We lived in the little fishing port of Porto Ercole in Monte Argentario: a gem. The whole area of Southern Tuscany, a small part of the Maremma, from Giglio Island to Capalbio to moody Pitigliano, which looks as if it’s carved right out of tufa, to the hot springs of Saturnia, is an incredibly beautiful, rugged and still undiscovered part of Tuscany.

The landscape is one of the things that soothes my soul as it reminds me of a mixture of Italian coast and the southeastern Australian coast, where I grew up — the best of both worlds. So that gets me every time, but then there is the food. It’s the kind of food I really love: wild food from the mountains, incomparable seafood, delicious cheese, grains and legumes from the farms and rustic, ancient sweet treats. And something strangely that reminds me of Japanese food, not in the flavours (which are thoroughly mediterranean) but in the ingredients themselves and how they are used. I think as well it is just that mix of mountain and sea coming together, which is the ideal combination in Japanese cuisine too — with a similar landscape to Monte Argentario of mountains meeting the sea. So it is a combination of recipes and stories about a place that is really close to my heart.

When you see these recipes, I think they’ll surprise you, they aren’t what most people know of as “Tuscan food” (which is generally speaking quite meat and carbohydrate heavy!) and yet they are so traditional and so intertwined with the landscape around them. Of the 80 recipes, more than half are vegetarian (and of those, more than half are vegan) and over a third are gluten free (lots of chestnuts, rice and polenta here) and that’s not counting the many pasta recipes that could simply be substituted with gluten free pasta. Every dish tells a very unique story.

This salad’s story is about Giglio Island. The main protagonists are tomatoes and celery and it is so fresh and so good, I love it especially with grilled fish. We fell in love with Giglio when we visited for the first time while living in Porto Ercole to see some winemaker friends Francesco Carfagna and his family, who make the most delicious macerated ansonica. You can only reach Giglio by boat from Monte Argentario, but you have to drive over the bigger port, Porto Santo Stefano. Because of this it’s a lesser-trodden part of the coast (as the Maremma is in general). Even in the middle of summer it’s nowhere near as crowded as the rest of the Italian coast and that is a big part of why I love it so much. You can catch a glimpse of it in this 24 hour visit recap and also in this magical hideaway on the island too.

Insalata Gigliese (Tomato and celery salad) from Acquacotta

One bite of this salad and I imagine I’m looking over that absolutely crystal sea and those huge granite rocks, a glass of amber coloured ansonica in hand. What I love about this salad is that the celery leaves are treated almost like a herb – so pick a nice stalk of celery that’s not too large and old (which will be tough), something young and tender with healthy leaves. It’s a good one to prepare in advance to give the flavours a chance to mingle.

Serves 4 as a side dish.

2 spring onions, finely sliced4 young celery stalks, leaves and all, finely sliced4 ripe tomatoes, diced2-3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil1 1/2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar1 handful of flat leaf parsley, finely chopped

Put the sliced spring onions (try red onion if you don’t have spring onion) in a bowl of cold water for 10 minutes. Drain, then toss together with the celery and tomatoes. Dress with olive oil and vinegar and season with salt and pepper about 30 minutes before you want to serve it. This gives the ingredients a bit of time to get to know each other. Finally, toss through the parsley and serve.

{This photo above of the salad is by Lauren Bamford, styled by Deb Kaloper for Acquacotta}

Making our home in Tuscany: How it’s going

As some of you know, we recently bought and renovated our first home — right out of lockdown in 2020 — in the place my husband Marco was born, San Miniato. It’s a hill top village between Florence and Pisa, and equidistant to Siena, San Gimignano, Livorno (the sea! The fish market!), Lucca and Pistoia. It’s really in the heart of everything. From the large windows of our home, a 100 square metre apartment that was built in 1800, we have sunset views over the valley and even the Apuane mountains, where I can tell with just a glance at what the weather is like or what season it is — so far I’ve tracked the blossoming of the walnut tree, the elderflower and False Acacia. I’ve noted the rambling blackberries and loquats that are way out of our reach. A garden is missing but somehow, seeing this horizon every day, and filling my senses with this nature and greenery, is a huge comfort.

We renovated the apartment on a budget, enough to make it liveable and “us,” while looking towards whatever thing we could do to make it more energy efficient and sustainable, and still adhering to the rules that surround renovating historic properties — which meant, we kept the original floors with their decorative cement tiles known as cementine in Italian, and we kept the charmingly old fashioned bathroom as it was, but we are replacing all the old, drafty, badly painted single-pane windows (taking advantage of a new government bonus called bonus infissi that will cover 50% of these expenses). The most exciting parts of the renovation however was building the kitchen and I’m sure that’s what you have come here for too!

Many of my readers followed the whole process over on Instagram as it was unfolding and I got many questions (and great advice!) about our choices in the kitchen that I promised I’d respond to. We finally moved in to our home in February and now, a few months in (with not only daily usage but I’ve just finished shooting my new cookbook all on my own here), I thought I would let you know how it is all going. I was recently visiting an architect friend in Venice and his first question that he wanted to know is:

What is one thing that I like best about the new kitchen?

It is a good question, because there are many things I like but I couldn’t help but blurt out right away: “It is so easy to clean!” Honestly, let’s be practical. New kitchens are lovely and choosing them are fun but it’s so hard to know until you put it into good use whether you really did make all the right choices. So this for me, right now, is my favourite thing about the kitchen. It cleans like a dream. It feels effortless!

What material are your beautiful worktops made from and how are you finding them?

This in some form is probably the most asked question I get! I am in love with marble terrazzo, so it was hard to resist when choosing what kind of counter top. Terrazzo is a traditional eighteenth century northern Italian (in Italian actually it is called graniglia or  pavimento alla veneziana, referring to the classic Venetian pavements) technique of reutilising off cuts of quartz, stone or marble and mixed together and cast with a binder (this one is bound with resin). Ours is marble and made in Verona by Santa Margherita and this colour combination is called Vendome.

I am finding it very practical as you don’t need to be as careful of stains as you do with marble or wood tops as we used to have (I am so tired of nagging Marco about wine stains!). Cleaning is so easy. However, like a whole marble slab, you do need to be careful about acidic ingredients (wine! Also coffee, lemon, juice, vinegar etc) and you do need to make sure to use a pH neutral cleaner for this reason too. But for the most part a quick clean up ensures that even a small spill doesn’t affect the finish of the terrazzo — if you missed a spill, what happens is you’ll see a duller spot at a certain angle — there are special creams and polishes you can use to touch these up and maintain the shine of your marble and terrazzo.

Very interested in your appliances. How’s the hob and dishwasher, size and function. Any regrets?

I have a dishwasher for the first time in my life and for the amount of cooking I do, this is so freeing! I am a little bit in love with the dishwasher. It’s a horizontal 90cm long design, from Smeg, so it is full size but it doesn’t go all the way down to the ground so you don’t have to bend down so much (I feel old as I write this but let’s be practical!). It is also designed to actually wash your dishes — which it does beautifully — so you do not need to rinse anything before putting them in. I keep testing it. I put things in there like a bowl I made a sticky dough in or a blender I made a smoothie in, a pan that I shouldn’t have tried to cook eggs in and I even leave them overnight to crust up. Comes out perfect. Watching my parents and mother in law load their dishwashers where they wash everything before putting it in, I always thought was so much work and so counterproductive. This is not a sponsored post, I’m sure this goes for most new dishwashers these days, but the point of this dishwasher is (and this is written multiple times in the instructions manual) that pre-washing is simply a waste of water and energy and therefore is not sustainable. So there’s the end of that argument! Don’t pre-wash your dishes.

I’m sure a very big part of my kitchen love is the induction stove top. It is a wide 90cm hob, equivalent to 6 hobs but these also work in “zones” so there are three zones where you can technically fit as many pots and pans as you can. I love the size — there is more space to spread out, I am often cooking side by side with Marco, or cooking multiple things for a recipe test and family meals, so I am absolutely loving the size. No regrets!

Do you have an induction or gas cooktop?

Why we chose induction — I get asked about this a lot. Marco and I have previously only ever both had gas stovetops, and years ago I thought I wouldn’t be converted, perhaps because I like the idea of cooking over a flame, perhaps something about the induction top reminded me too much of an electric stovetop that is my least favourite form of cooking. However, in designing our new kitchen we decided on induction purely for energy-efficiency and sustainability (although Marco had also convinced me that it would be perfect for beautiful food because this is what they use in the Michelin star kitchen where he works). We wanted to move away from relying on gas as a non-renewable energy source. We still have gas in this old apartment for heating and heating hot water — this is something I hope to change one day, maybe as new options come in (we cannot put solar panels on the roof because of rules surrounding preserving the historical centre of Italian villages – ie for aesthetics). But at least we are less reliant on gas for the kitchen, which I admit we use a LOT.

We did have to make sure that we could use our exisiting pots and pans on the induction stove top — you just place a magnet on the bottom and see if it sticks. Sadly, I can’t use the few copper pots I own (though they still work nicely in the oven so I kept them) and some small pans I gave away that we can’t use here anymore. I was thrilled that my cast iron pan still works wonderfully. We invested in a couple of good, new pots and pans though and we use these all the time.

I can say after using induction for three months now that I love it, I’ve cooked an entire new cookbook with it, and I have no regrets about our choice. It is easy to use, easy to control, water comes to a boil so quickly — I’m still being caught by surprise by it. Food cooks beautifully, even things that need to sear quickly or be cooked on very high heat. The only time that I’ve had a problem is a pot of liquid like milk that boils over and spills onto the cooktop sends the system bonkers and it turns off. But the same would happen on a gas stovetop too and you have to wait until it dries before lighting it again. Oh and did I mention it is so easy to clean — a wipe and you are done.

Where do you store your plates and pans? Are you planning on putting in upper cabinets?

I was a tiny bit worried before we moved in that we wouldn’t have enough space for our things as we decided to forego any upper cabinets on the wall in favour of a lighter, brighter space — there is also a questionable pipe that goes behind this wall diagonally like a tree branch that we need to avoid if we put holes anywhere (you can see it in the before and after photos below!). So we went for a long rod (it’s actually 2 of the Fintorp rods from Ikea) for hanging larger utensils and accessories that we use often, and another two for pans on the wall. It means they’re on display all the time, quite like open shelves, but everything is so conveniently at our fingertips. I’m also really happy with the deep, wide drawers that we have for cutlery (especially the hidden knife drawer, it is now my favourite place for knives rather than a knife rack) and the bottom drawer for pots.

We have a separate cabinet for crockery, glasses and baking trays/cake pans that is working well for us. We also turned a funny little room off to the side of the kitchen into an open pantry with shelves (see the after photos below. It is a small room with a tiny window that is shared with the washing machine — my first time ever since moving to Italy not having a washing machine in the kitchen). Marco’s great-grandfather Angiolino’s old marble table, upcycled from a marble slab from the alimentari Angiolino owned before the Second World War and rescued from my mother in law’s attic sits in the middle of the whole kitchen.

Where did you get your pans/equipment/light switches/appliances/kitchen cabinets etc from?

For those interested in where we sourced some of the things you see here, I have a list of sources below, also for some details in the rest of the house that I’ve been asked about.

As much as possible I wanted to support local companies and Very Simple Kitchen were a big part of making my dream sustainable kitchen come true — someone asked me what the role of a kitchen designer does, and I have to say that what Federica and Riccardo did for me was invaluable! Their signature stainless steel kitchen modules are inspired by vintage industrial work benches, in other words, built to last and be practical but they can powder coat them in any colour you can imagine (we chose them in a deep teal green that they call ‘Comodoro’, it’s a chameleon, it changes hue depending on the light and sometimes looks dark blue). They made really good suggestions about the best, most practical layout — we wanted to maximise the counter space of the 3 metre long space we had, and have a huge sink and the 90cm induction; it was also their idea to hide the dishwasher to look like one of the drawers. I love what they did. Also using their contacts we also got a good discount on the appliances and terrazzo top. (Full disclosure, I only paid for half of the kitchen in return for visibility about their work, but I had already approached them over a year before we worked on this together to see their kitchens and I would highly recommend them now that I’ve been using it).

We chose Smeg for all our appliances, choosing the most energy efficient models we could afford in our budget (they’re high quality, Italian and rate well in terms of sustainability, I found this Ethical Consumer guide from the UK really useful, you can search their product guides to dishwashers, fridges, ovens, etc and find a list of which companies rate the most sustainable).

Can you share your budget?

We went over our restoration budget (is it ever possible not to?), especially once we removed the kitchen and I realised how awful the old white tiles were, but below you’ll see some of the numbers for the kitchen.

Our biggest expenses after the actual kitchen were the electrician and the lights/switches/cables, as we had to entirely redo the extremely outdated electrical system in the apartment. This turned out to be tricky because we couldn’t put the wires inside the walls anywhere (being load bearing walls) or under the floors (being heritage) so they had to be external and we went for a vintage style braided silk wire coverings (copper pipes in the bathroom). It was time consuming too. We ended up having to cover some larger wires for the heavy appliances just above the kitchen with drywall (and conveniently some lights went in here too). The builders were another a big expense but they were amazing, they retiled the kitchen, the toilet and fixed up many general little issues all over the house (for example removing the horrible pvc covers that covered the pipes and tubes in every room that the previous owners had installed; we simply left them exposed and painted them white) as well as painting the entire house and more. The plumber had to move the original sink taps towards the window and close off access to gas in the kitchen. I haven’t included those costs in the kitchen breakdown but I would estimate their combined work in this portion of the house to be about 3,000 euro.

In general, some other expenses to consider when buying property in Italy is the real estate agent’s commission (2%) and the cost of the notary and the surveyor (geometra) or architect who will see through the project, sign off on paperwork, research any past issues or interventions with the house and be present at all the major work. It all adds up!

Kitchen by Very Simple Kitchen (Bologna), including transport and mounting: 9,000 euro

Smeg appliances including Dishwasher (STO905-1), Induction Stovetop (SIM693WLD), Oven (SF6390XE), Fridge/freezer (FC183PXNE), Range Hood (KATE900EX), total: 3,800 euro

Kitchen tiles/backsplash are Atlas in Ivory by Cifre Ceramica (Spain): 28 euro per square metre and we bought some extra just in case so in the end I think we ended up with about 4 square metres of tiles, another 112 euro.

Before and After scenes:

Ready for a house tour?! Below you’ll find some of my favourite before and after (and a few during) of the process. The main projects were obviously the kitchen and the toilet. We left the bathroom as it was except for changing the taps, shower and sink — it made such a difference. The radiators were in pretty awful condition in all the rooms. I simply painted them and they looked brand new — you can buy special paint that is heat resistant for radiators. I recommend the spray paint version so you won’t see any streaks.

Before: The living room

After: The living room

Before: The kitchen!

After!

Before: The kitchen cabinets

After: The kitchen

Before: We moved the taps closer to the window to maximise counter space

Halfway through! We took out the gas, moved the water pipes and redid the tiles.

After: (and here is where the dishwasher is hidden)

After: my cookbooks, pans and the pantry

Before: The bathroom

After: The bathroom (we changed the taps and shower, sink, mirror and lights and the builders tidied up the tiles behind the sink)

After: In love with the new shower!

Before: The ghastly toilet

After: the toilet

Details in the bathroom

After: Details in the toilet

After: The girls’ room (still a work in progress!)

After: We had some of the doors restored rather than get new ones and I’m so glad we did this

Sources:

Ceramic light switches by Fontini (Garby series, Spain) and Fanton (“Country” series, Italy) which in Italy you can buy online here

Pans and olive wood boards and utensils and copper utensil holder by Ruffoni (Piemonte)

Washable paper bag containers in pantry and bathroom by Uashmama (Tuscany)

Kids bunk beds — which I get asked a lot about — are the Kura bed from Ikea!

Cotton curtains for bunk beds were repurposed from a long window curtain by Numero 74

Bathroom mirror and shelf from Zara Home

Taps and shower head by Bugnatese in “Classic” series

Hexagonal terracotta tiles in toilet by Cotto Impruneta (Tuscany)

Linen curtain in bathroom made from vintage linen from La Grosse Toile (France)

Subway tiles in toilet by Artens (a good solution for small budgets! 12 euro per square metre).

Artwork around the house from my children, flea markets, Marta Abbott, La Tipografa Toscana, me, Arts Project Australia.

 

A spring recipe + a workshop at Anna Tasca Lanza Cooking School in Sicily

If you love cooking and all of Italy’s regional food traditions then probably you have already heard of Anna Tasca Lanza cooking school in Sicily. It is run by Fabrizia Lanza, whose mother Anna founded the school in the 1980s. Every year Fabrizia hosts a number of students from all over the world at Case Vecchie, Fabrizia’s beautiful nineteenth century property in central Sicily with organic vegetable gardens, fruit and olive orchards, wheat fields and 500 hectares of vineyard (the Tasca d’Almerita winery). Since 2016 she has run Cook the Farm, a two-month long, immersive, educational winter programme of food experts that goes beyond just the kitchen, with lectures, tastings as well as hands on cooking too. And in the summer she runs shorter workshops with co-hosts from around the world with various themes.

I was thrilled when Fabrizia contacted me last year and we began planning a workshop — with all fingers crossed — for May 24-29th, 2021 and here we are, still keen but we are still playing things by ear, waiting to find out if the world is ready, and if anyone is able to come to it. It may be pushed to June 7th-12th. My workshop at Case Vecchie will be based on pasta and seasonal sweets, accommodation will be in the beautiful, rustic rooms of Case Vecchie, with views of the vineyard and garden, furnished with pieces from the original estate. You can enquire directly through this form, if interested and hopefully we can rustle up a wonderful week together in Sicily.

I love this description of Case Vecchie that Fabrizia has on her website:

Perched on a working vineyard and surrounded by cultivated land, the 19th-century farmhouse Case Vecchie is near to nowhere. Its remote location makes for stunning panoramas and a certain stillness, allowing guests to embrace each changing moment. Surrounding an open courtyard are the guest rooms and kitchen. Walking trails cut through vines that parade a rainbow of colors with the changing seasons. In warmer months, a peaceful pool invites you to cool off and chill out. When rain rages, cozy up with a good book from our extensive food-focused and place-based library.

To connect, we did a live cook along on Instagram last week, where you can see us chatting and making Fabrizia’s verdure primaverili, a proper celebration of spring and the garden, quite like a Roman vignarola. And so here I share it with you too. I adore this dish so much, as Fabrizia says, it’s delicious cold or warm, it’s lovely as part of a bigger meal like a side dish, you could even toss it through pasta, but I do love Fabrizia’s addition of boiled eggs with it, which just makes it the perfect light meal with some nice bread and a glass of wine!

Fabrizia’s Verdure Primaverili (Spring vegetable stew)

2 kg (about 10 large) artichokes
1 lemon, juiced
1 large onion, diced
60 ml (1/4 cup) extra virgin olive oil
1 bunch of asparagus (10 asparagus if thin, 6 of the large ones), cut in segments about 3 cm long
100 gr of peas
3 hard boiled eggs, peeled and halved
Handful of parsley, finely chopped

First you need to prepare the artichokes by trimming the stalk and removing and discarding the tough outer leaves (yes, you will have to remove quite a lot of the leaves, take a look at the prepped on in the photo above!). When you reach the tender, soft, pale yellow leaves inside, cut the top half of the artichoke off completely, then slice the artichoke in half to reveal the centre, remove the choke with a teaspoon and cut into thin slices. Keep the artichokes in a bowl of cold water and lemon juice until ready to use.

Cook the onion with a pinch of salt in the olive oil in a large sauté pan until just golden, about 5 minutes. 

Add the artichokes then cover and cook for 10 minutes. If needed add some water through the cooking. Add the asparagus and the peas, adjust salt and pepper. Let the vegetables simmer until they are homogeneously cooked then transfer to a large bowl or platter and cool.

Pile the vegetables in a small pyramid and surround it with hard boiled eggs. Sprinkle with chopped parsley and serve cold or at room temperature. Buon appetito!

Notes: this dish even better if made a day before and served at room temperature.

Sausage and Mushroom Lasagne di Pane Carasau

We’ve had a strange April, most of it spent in ‘red zone’ lockdown (this weekend is the first time since mid-March that some slight restrictions are lifted — two steps closer closer to freedom!) with temperatures dipping to freezing point, even though a month ago it seemed as if summer had arrived a few months early. The cold front was devastating for winemakers in northern Italy, some even set up burning pyres to warm the crops and keep away the frost (as an aside, this was a story I read in journalist Jamie Mackay’s newsletter The Week in Italy, which is excellent if you want to keep up with a range of things going on in Italy).

But I personally don’t mind a few extra weeks of cooler weather — I am glad of it actually, as it means I can make more things like this sausage ragu, to which, as a last minute thought, I added mushrooms and pretended it was autumn. Marco also likes to add a touch of milk at the end which kind of rounds everything off and gives the sauce an appealingly creamy-but-not-too-creamy silkiness.

We layered it in a sort of lasagne with pane carasau, a rustic, paper-thin, delicate flat bread from Sardinia, and — an impulse buy.  They’re also known as carta musica, “music paper” as it is said that the dough needs to be so thin you can read a sheet of music through it. Once this paper-thin sheet is baked, it is opened, separating into two sheets again, and these are baked further to reach ultimate crispness. It is an ancient bread and was once a staple for shepherds who were away from home for months and could appreciate this long-lasting bread.

It comes in impossibly huge packets of half-meter wide incredibly crisp breads wrapped in paper and one of the things that I love doing with it is layering it in a lasagne in place of pasta into what some Italians might call a “pasticcio.”

Like a pasticcio or a lasagne, you could layer pane carasau with really anything you like — you only need a sauce, some cheese, maybe some bechamel. A simple tomato and mozzarella version is wonderful too, or you could make a spring vegetable version with a sauce of green vegetables like artichokes or asparagus and herbs.

The recipe

For the sugo recipe, see this flavourful sugo bugiardo (an oldie but a real goodie of a recipe from the province of Siena) with crumbled up Tuscan pork and fennel sausages, rigatino or pancetta, a soffritto of onion, carrot and celery, red wine and tomato. I added about 150 grams of chiodini and button mushrooms that I had cooked separately (as an after thought) with garlic and parsley, and Marco added his splash of milk right at the end too. I suppose this was sort of a lazy way for adding creaminess without having to make a bechamel sauce (though I admit, I love bechamel and it would go really well in this too). Four small balls of buffalo mozzarella were torn up and added between the layers of sugo and pane carasau too and a handful of Parmesan went over the top and it went into the oven (190C for about 25 minutes) until well-browned with those crispy bits at the edges that everyone fights over. It’s a really full flavoured dish, I’d suggest a crisp and crunchy salad to pair with it and a nice glass of red.

Note: Some people like to moisten the pane carasau before layering, with water usually, but I find this really unnecessary as the sauce and cheese has more than enough moisture in it.

Nonna Vera’s Almond Cake and a new cookbook

Introducing my new cookbook, Torta della Nonna ~

Making sweets was my first foray into cooking independently in the kitchen, and as a teenager I could often be found baking my way through my mother’s cookbooks, in particular an American pie cookbook – I have always had a thing for pastry. You will see a bias towards it in this collection too, from southern Italian custard and jam bocconotti to ricotta-filled crostata and Florence’s little rice pudding pastries, budini di riso. Oh and Torta della Nonna, a shortcrust pastry case filled with pastry cream and topped with pine nuts.

I also have a thing for historic Italian cookbooks, as they have been instrumental in helping me appreciate the unchanging nature of regional Italian cuisine, as well as being a constant source of inspiration for recipes. My Tuscan mother in law, Angela, relied on her mother for recipes, who, in turn, like so many Italian housewives of her generation, relied on her Artusi.

A thick copy of Pellegrino Artusi’s 1891 cookbook, Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well, with its 790 recipes, was often given to new Italian brides to guide them in the kitchen. Angela’s copy (inherited from her mother, Lina) is so well-worn that the spine is broken and the book automatically opens to Artusi’s three recipes for pasta frolla (Italy’s soft shortcrust pastry) and there is a little mark next to recipe B – Lina’s and my preferred of the three, too, and one of the essentials in my kitchen today.

In fact, many of the recipes in this book have their beginnings in that very pasta frolla. Many are the kind of recipes that Carol Field refers to in her excellent The Italian Baker (1985), sweets that “have perfumed mountain homes in Val d’Aosta, simple farmhouses near Bologna, villas in the Tuscan countryside, and apartments in Rome. Emanating from a simple way of life, they almost invariably start with pasta frolla.”

A few decades after Artusi’s publication, in 1929, a Roman magazine editor, Ada Boni, published Il Talismano della Felicità (The Talisman of Happiness, an enormous collection of more than 1000 classic recipes) and, along with Artusi, it became the Joy of Cooking for many Italian households too. Her book is still an important reference book, the recipes still very much valid today, like Artusi’s, but easier to follow for a modern reader in a modern kitchen than Artusi’s charming, nineteenth century banter-filled recipes. From granita to stuffed peaches and the wonderful thrifty chocolate cake (a dense, satisfying cake made with only pantry items and milk, no eggs or butter), Boni’s no-nonsense recipes are still among some of my favourites when I want to produce something that channels my inner nonna.

The recipes in Torta della Nonna, which have been plucked out of my three cookbooks, Florentine, Acquacotta and Tortellini at Midnight, along with a handful of new inclusions (such as latte alla portoghese, chocolate semifreddo, homemade savoiardi and more), are a collection of beloved Italian classics, many of which you could likely find on nonna’s table for Sunday lunch, in a homely trattoria or one of Florence’s best pastry shops, broken down into 8 chapters.

You can read a full review of the book over at Shipshape Eatworthy.

The recipe I want to share with you from this book is probably one of my very favourite cakes, but is definitely an underrated recipe — you would probably skim past it, possibly never even try it because there is also no photo to accompany Nonna Vera’s Almond Cake. But there are a few reasons why I love it so much.

One, because it is a cake recipe that was given to my mother in law by her mother in law, Vera, who is now in her mid-nineties and still lives alone in her own home — it is for our family, literally the “torta della nonna.” Two, it is the simplest cake to make: a one bowl cake, you put everything in together and just combine it with a fork. You don’t even need any rising agents in this. It has the taste of a perfectly simple, satisfying cake: buttery, a slight hint of lemon, a delicious crunch of toasted almonds. Whenever I have made this for events, it is the first thing that disappears. You can eat it at any moment of the day and it’s just perfect, especially, in my opinion, with an epresso or a cup of tea. I hope you’ll try it. It’s a solid, foolproof recipe, easy to remember and so easy to whip up – all you need is a bowl and a fork. Practical, just like Nonna Vera.

Torta di Mandorle di Nonna Vera
Nonna Vera’s Almond Cake

Serves 6–8

150 g (1 cup) plain (all-purpose) flour
150 g (3/4 cup) sugar
150 g (1/3 cup) butter, melted
1 whole egg
3 egg yolks
finely grated zest of 1 lemon
100 g (3½ oz) blanched whole almonds

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F) and grease and line a 20 cm (8 in) round cake tin.

Combine the flour and sugar in a bowl. Add the melted butter and mix in along with the egg and yolks, and then the lemon zest, stirring with a fork until just combined. Pour the cake batter into the tin and top with the whole almonds, pushing them in slightly.

Bake for 30 minutes, or until golden brown and springy on top. If you like you can dust with icing sugar to serve; in the summertime my mother in law, Angela, likes to top the cake with strawberries macerated in a bit of sugar.

Torta della Nonna is published by Hardie Grant Books and is available worldwide now!

Bitter orange marmalade from San Miniato

It’s not every day that you walk into a butcher shop and come out with a few kilos of bitter oranges aka Seville oranges or arance amare in Italian. But it’s also, I think, not every day that you find a butcher shop that has this sort of garden out the back with a sweeping view over the valley and terraces of mandarins, lemons and Seville orange trees. San Miniato seems to be full of these terraces of citrus trees and one of the homes we saw when house hunting had a garden full of trees so laden and ripe with fruit that the boughs were almost dragging on the ground and the girls were running through them, playing hide and seek behind the dark green leaves. I had dreams of buying that house and making pots and pots of marmalade, but unfortunately the house itself had its own issues (rooms with no windows and an ongoing dispute with the neighbours over a faulty ceiling with cracked beams) but I still dream of that garden.

Cue my friend and favourite butcher, Andrea Falaschi, whose trees are packed like over-decorated Christmas trees. I have dropped hints before but this particular visit, Andrea’s mamma Lina (who you might remember with her stuffed chicken recipe), ushered me out the back with a large bowl to collect some. I told her I’d try out a test batch of marmalade. “But come back and get the rest,” she urged me, “They’ll only drop and go rotten otherwise!” As I started picking them, I couldn’t help but think of all the abandoned trees I’d seen around town where this does happen. It reminded me of a little project my friend Alice in Rome runs which she calls the Neighbourhood Orange Project — they collect bitter oranges from the decorative trees that line Roman roadsides and she has been teaching refugees to make marmalade, which they sell, with success.

Bitter oranges, or Seville oranges, are a hybrid citrus, a cross between mandarin and pomelo. They come into season in deep winter and have a thick peel and an extremely bitter pulp that tickles the back of your throat. Although inedible raw, bitter oranges make a delicious and fragrant marmalade and as they have a higher than usual pectin content, it seems a no-brainer to just make jam out of them. But you can also make good use of the peel in liqueurs (think of homemade bitters, vermouth or even cordials), candied fruits, spoon sweets (swoon!) or even pickles. People told me about making preserved orange peel much like preserved lemons, and marinades for meat (cochinita pibil!) and fish (ceviche!) with the juice. So if you have access to one of these trees — which seem to be easier to find abandoned in a garden or on a roadside than in the markets, at least here in Italy — it could be a little playground for culinary experiments.

I asked around for some great marmalade recipes and had some wonderful tips come in that I thought I’d share. Many suggested Delia Smith’s traditional Seville Orange marmalade recipe which I noticed is quite sweet (2 kg of sugar for 1 kg of fruit; more on this below) and involves juicing all the fruit, then chopping the peels and tying the pips and membranes in a little muslin bag to pop into the saucepan (this helps to draw out the pectin). After 2 hours of simmering, the sugar goes in and it is cooked until set. Nigel Slater’s marmalade with ginger, which is similar but requires the addition of 4 lemons and 100 grams of fresh, shredded ginger for 1 kg of Seville oranges. There is also Stephanie Alexander’s recipe in The Cook’s Companion, where the fruit is separated from the peel, the peel is shredded and this is (minus pips and bitter membranes) all cooked together with water and a pinch of salt and left overnight. The next day, you add sugar to match the weight of the cooked fruit and boil for 30 minutes and a bright, just-set marmalade is made. I love Stephanie’s no-fuss approach.

Pam Corbin, also known as Pam the Jam, author of a number of jam books including the River Cottage Preserves book, shares wonderful jamming tips on her instagram feed, such as make sure to fill the jam to the brim of your jars and using herb scissors to save time cuttings the peels. I loved the idea of freezing Seville oranges (for when you have a glut but not enough energy to make it all into jam!).  She also wrote to me, “Marmalade making can be split over several days. It’s always good to slice and then allow the sliced peels to soak to soften and begin pectin release. Also a day for the softened peel to steep in the sugar syrup turns the peels beautifully translucent and tender.” Great ideas!

While I was looking into all these recipes, my old neighbour from Settignano, Helen, an Australian who has been living in Florence longer than I’ve been on this earth, sent me pictures of her marmalade making process – so wonderfully organised and precise! She orders her oranges from Sicily when she can’t find them at the Sant’Ambrogio market and makes enough to last a year, her beautiful jars all perfectly lined up in her cupboard to go with her homemade sourdough that she bakes once a week.

But the recipe and post I fell in love with was Luisa Weiss, aka the Wednesday Chef, who recently wrote a post on her blog about her “holiest of kitchen rituals,” marmalade-making. It made me want to race into the kitchen right away and cook these oranges but when Luisa writes, “Not only does nothing commercially made come close to the brightness and flavor of homemade Seville orange marmalade, but there is a certain Zen flow to the process of making the marmalade that I have come to cherish. Even my family respects the marmalade zone, giving me a wide berth while I’m elbow deep in granulated sugar and hair-thin shreds of orange peel, the kitchen windows fogged up with orange-scented air,” it made me just cleared my schedule and rolled up my sleeves. Perhaps I was also looking for some Zen flow and a wide berth from the family but it was just the inspiration I needed!

One thing Luisa does that I love is that she boils the oranges whole first. When I read this, it suddenly clicked to me that this is what I do when I make lemon marmalade. I admit, it’s been a while since I’ve had a lemon tree but in the days when I did, this recipe is how I loved to preserve them. And guess what, it’s practically the same as Luisa’s! It is, unsurprisingly, inspired by a bitter orange marmalade recipe from Emma Gardner’s Poires et Chocolate blog, who in turn was inspired by Jane Grigson’s recipe in English Food.

Back to the whole oranges. I love this trick. It resolves many marmalade making tips in one. First, it just makes the whole process easier, in particular the shredding and separating part. Second, it produces a beautifully clear, jewel-like jelly. Luisa’s method is handy if you don’t have a muslin cloth for the tying of the pith and seeds, which can seem a bit fiddly. Also, the cooking whole and (if you leave it overnight in the pot, to continue the next day – I do like breaking it up into 2 days if you can’t get all the time at once) the soaking releases the prized pectin that helps to set the jam.

The world may not need another marmalade recipe when there are already so many good ones, so I won’t add more other than, I’m back to using my lemon marmalade recipe for the bitter oranges too. But like Luisa, I added the juice of a few lemons, and I used less sugar so I could enjoy that natural bitterness (for 1 kg of fruit, try 1.5 kg of sugar instead of 2). I also warmed the sugar in the oven as Luisa suggests — heating the sugar makes it dissolve faster and, I’ve learned, the quicker a jam is made, the fresher, and brighter it tastes.

Finally, if you need a little citrus inspiration, while you’re waiting for the whole oranges to simmer sit down and read this post on citron inspired by Helena Attlee’s The Land Where Lemons Grow, one of my favourite reads ever.

A dreamy weekend at Adler Resort in Bagno Vignoni

The Valdorcia is one of my very favourite areas to visit in Tuscany, it embodies so much about what I love about this region — the green and golden rolling hills, magnificent stone hamlets, rustic and genuine country food and the delights of the natural landscape, in particular the pampering hot springs.

In Bagno Vignoni, one of the most charming towns of the area, natural thermal springs flow that have been attracting travellers since Roman times who appreciated the water’s curing and revitalising properties. Not surprising then that Saint Catherine of Siena and Lorenzo the Magnificent liked to visit too.  In Piazza delle Sorgenti is an enormous, stunning, fifteenth century pool filled with the steaming hot spring water — particularly beautiful to see in the cooler months when the steam is rising up from the water into the cool air. These thermal waters are the hottest in Tuscany (about 50C) so this is another reason why this is a spot I love to visit in the winter because there is nothing like being outdoors in the water in the winter but feeling like you are wrapped up in a warm cocoon!

Recently, I was invited to experience Bagno Vignoni’s thermal waters at the Adler Resort, a short walk from the historic town. The whole theme of this resort is comfort and relaxation — once you walk in, you feel immediately taken care of. The girls spied the Kids Club and just wanted to stay there for the rest of the stay! Our 8 year old joined in on movie night after dinner in their mini cinema, walks to Bagno Vignoni, lunch, crafts and free play (which the little one loved too). There’s also an outdoor playground and an area to play bocce (boules), so it is full of things to keep kids busy.

Our room was a large family suite with a second bedroom attached, a comfortable lounge area and a terrace that overlooked the valley and hills with those iconic cypress trees lining the long driveways to hill top farmhouses. I’m told this is the quiet side of the hotel — indeed, it is incredibly peaceful and private. The opposite wing of the hotel has a view over the hot spring pools, which is popular for those who like to be amongst it all.

The first thing we did when we arrived in our room was get into our swimmers — of course! In the room was a whole set of fluffy white dressing gowns for the whole family for going to the pools in and we couldn’t wait to get in — and the out — of them! The pools of thermal hot springs begin with a serene indoor pool that has an automatic door that leads into the main outdoor pool which looks out over the valley, and it is here around which our mornings and evenings revolved. There are sections that have water jets like a jacuzzi and there is a central waterfall that is heavenly to stand under for a great shoulder and neck massage! Coming first thing in the morning at 8am before anyone else was there one was one of the best things we did, and I highly recommend it! We could have easily spent all day here, if it weren’t for hungry tummies rumbling.

The Food and Wine

Considering that breakfast and dinner are included in the stay, the restaurant is an important feature of the resort and they pride themselves on their housemade offerings, from the jam to the bread to the pasta and excellent pastries and desserts. Working with many local producers, the chef Gaetano Vaccaro, likes to highlight the ingredients of the Valdorcia, for example local saffron, honey, salumi, cheese, seasonal fruits and the stone ground, organic ancient grain flour from the nearby Mulino Valdorcia for their pasta and bread (which is so popular that guests want to take it home; you can by ordering it 24 hours ahead of time! During dinner you receive a beautiful bread basket full of different types of baked goodies so you can taste test ahead of time). Seeing as the bread is so good, it is unsurprising that they also do a superlative pappa al pomodoro, a bread and tomato soup, easily one of the best I have tasted. Handrolled pici with local Chianina beef ragu was a highlight — and just what I wanted to eat being in the Valdorcia — and tiny, pillowy gnocchi with creamy vongole sauce was a nice change.

Much appreciated was the children’s menu but there is no doubt that their favourite part of dinner was the buffet of desserts, in particular the gelato. Handy tip: if you see something you like, you better taste it then and there as every night the menu and offerings change! The chestnut cake with rosemary gelato and custard was my favourite. After dinner, you can wander to the bar where you’ll find a view overlooking the lit-up thermal pools and people playing cards in front of the fireplace or live music.

Breakfast, like dessert, is a generous spread, buffet style (in singular portions carefully displayed in glass Weck jars), while you can ask the chef for eggs, any which way, cooked on the spot. There’s also fresh bread, fruit, delicious muesli, any kind of yogurt (sheeps milk? soy milk?) and cereal, fresh juices (we loved the carrot, orange and ginger combination), crepes made on the spot, housemade jam, fresh ricotta and smoked salmon or sword fish, and more. Another thing I liked was the generous timing for breakfast, which is served until 11am, allowing for a leisurely morning swim before an equally leisurely, slow breakfast.

For those who are interested in wine, you can visit the resort’s own winery, Tenuta Sanoner, which is a few minutes drive away on a dramatic spot with a 180 degree panoramic view (above). Here you can do a full tasting of their biodynamic and organic wines and also taste their olive oil along with a platter of salumi and cheese. For the Valdorcia, where you can often stumble across riper, more concentrated wines, the Tenuta Sanoner wines (which are called Aetos) achieve something more elegant. Try the Aetos Orcia Organic Sangiovese Riserva 2017, and also interesting is the project on metodo classico sparkling wine from 100% biodynamic and organic Sangiovese grapes (Aetos Classic Method Extra Brut). The fact that they put a lot of effort into sustainability and being environmentally friendly gives them more points from me!

The Spa and Gym

There is a well-equipped gym with a great view and a soothing stream of water running through it. They have a schedule of classes running throughout the day that you can join in on or you can be free to use the equipment as you like. I joined in on a yoga flow class on our last morning and doing a salute to the actual sun as it rose over the valley was so rewarding!

The spa includes the thermal springs and five different saunas (four of which need to be booked as only one room at a time can go in), but there are also beauty treatments and massages available throughout the day. While I was there, unwinding in the warmth of the outdoor pool, I knew I couldn’t pass up arranging a massage, after all I am at a spa — it is an extra expense but it is totally worthwhile! The serene rooms face another thermal pool (but one that you can’t swim in) where you can also find the saunas. It is private and a curtain gets drawn for more subdued light and a quiet atmosphere. I chose the “Kerala” massage, the ultimate relaxing massage with warm sesame oil, which lasts 75 minutes. Marco always likes something stronger — as he says, he likes to feel pain! — so he chose a Lomi Lomi massage, which is done with elbow and forearms, also 75 minutes, and came out a new person! The kids during this time? They were in the Kids Club!

The Kids

Outside there is a bocce pit and a beautiful playground with swings, a slide and a cubby, all facing the wonderful view of the valley. The children also loved the thermal pools in general and would have spent all their time in there if it weren’t for the discovery of the Kids Club. The Kids Club is usually for 4 years and above, but Luna (2 1/2) joined in on the free play a couple of times. They have a fun schedule with activities that range from crafts to making popcorn or cotton candy to a walk to Bagno Vignoni and playing in the playground. The kids can eat all their meals with the Kids Club if they like and after dinner there is a movie in their mini cinema! It is open until 10pm so it means parents can enjoy a more relaxed dinner while the kids watch their favourite movie in the cinema. Mariù (8 years) loved it so much she only wanted to be here the entire time!

An important detail: The resort is a “covid-free” area; all guest (except children) are required to either bring a negative result test taken within 48 hours with them (otherwise you can do it on the spot on arrival), so this allows for maximum relaxation as it is something you don’t have to worry about! Masks are worn throughout the hotel but in the water and spa areas you do not wear them.

Some tips for visiting the resort and hot springs: The resort supplies you with a lovely fluffy dressing gown (children included) and flip flops for wearing to the hot spring pools or wherever you like around the hotel (even at breakfast if you fancy!), but if you do have children with you, do bring their own flip flops or sandals as they do not supply those. There are showers by the pool, both outdoors and indoors, but some say for the best effect of the water’s curing properties you do not need to shower after coming out of the water! It is very warm and comfortable in the hotel, even on a cold winter’s day, and I found we needed to dress only lightly and comfortably. We even forgot to put on our coats and jackets when we checked out and left — I think we were still in a haze of delight!

Four excellent ways with radicchio

“It looks like a fleshy purple flower, as fresh as if it had been specially created to bring spring to the dinner table in winter,” wrote Ada Boni in her Regional Italian Cuisine cookbook, while Marcella Hazan calls it the “most magnificent vegetable.” I have to agree. Radicchio might just be my favourite vegetable. It’s beautiful to look at, it’s incredibly versatile — you can grill it, roast it, braise it, have it raw or even in a cake — and that is before I even go into how delicious it is with its slightly bitter, juicy leaves. I find myself seeking it out every week and the market, and whenever I see the impossible curls of radicchio tardivo, or the rose-like speckled pink tender leaves of radicchio variegato Castelfranco, I cannot help but impulse buy — and cook!

Radicchio varieties

First, a bit about the different varieties because in Italy, radicchio is also the name given to chicory in general, not just the reddish-purple salad you may know, so sometimes it is also called radicchio rosso (red radicchio). The main varieties are named after their cities of origin.

The most well-known are radicchio di Chioggia — a round salad head, slightly less bitter than its relatives, from the town of Chioggia, south of Venice — and radicchio di Treviso, an elongated variety from Treviso, just north of Venice, which actually comes in two forms. The first, simply called Treviso or precoce, is an early-harvested version with long flat leaves, similar in shape to a Belgian endive (witlof), and the second is the tardivo, a highly prized, late-harvest version with beautiful, gently curled, crunchy leaves that have large white veins that resemble fingers or tentacles. It’s impressive.

To earn prestigious IGP status, both Treviso precoce and Treviso tardivo must be grown only in a select number of municipalities in the provinces of Treviso, Padova or Venice on land rich in water in central Veneto. Tardivo is a work of art, literally, and considered the king of the radicchio family. It doesn’t just grow like this but takes weeks of manual work. The seeds are planted in fields in the height of summer, then once the first frosts of autumn come along (there should be two frosts for IGP standards), the leaves are ‘burned’ and growth is stopped. This is usually at the start of late November and this is where the transformation begins — the radicchio is taken, roots and all, and transferred to large pools of running water at a constant temperature in complete darkness for 10-25 days. The water revives the plant and it begins to grow again. Without sunlight and without photosynthesis turning the leaves green, the characteristic brilliant red and white leaves grow. The plant is then trimmed and cleaned manually — a process called toelettatura — removing about 70% of the dead and wilted outer leaves and trimming the root to retain just the heart of the plant. It is then thoroughly washed and packed ready for the market. It’s in season in the coldest months of winter, until the end of February.

Meanwhile the regular Treviso (or precoce) is harvested earlier in the season — from September. It’s characteristic elongated form is created in the fields, an elastic band wrapped around the tops of each broad salad head like “soldatini“, soldiers, which keeps the hearts of the salad blanketed in darkness for 15-20 days so that, like the Tardivo, the lack of photosynthesis keeps the new leaves from turning green. When they are harvested, they are cleaned in the field of their outer green leaves to reveal their red hearts.

Some favourite radicchio recipes

I love radicchio in basically any form. I most often eat it as a salad vegetable, it’s delicious dressed in something sweet-acidic to balance its slight bitterness. This is one very rare occasion where I like balsamic vinegar in salad, particularly a sweeter, aged one. It’s also very nice with a mustardy dressing or with something strong and salty — hello anchovies (recently I have been testing it in a salad with salted herring). And it goes so well with cheese — gorgonzola is my go to, it ticks the salty/strong/spicy boxes all at once. Tardivo is the preferred, prized radicchio to cook with, but outside of Italy it might be easier to find the round Chioggia or the early Treviso precoce, which are also slightly less bitter. 

Radicchio, mascarpone and walnut cream is a condiment that is just as excellent as a dip with crunchy vegetables, a few nicely aged cheeses and crostini, as it is on sandwiches (below on a bagel with ham and more radicchio!) or even as a pasta sauce! It’s also a very pretty colour to brighten up the winter table.

Grilled radicchio, although I don’t have a recipe to send you to, this is an easy non-recipe. I like the elongated radicchio precoce for this one. Slice it in half lengthways and cook it on a dry grill pan or barbecue until wilted and tender. Serve it on a plate dressed in some extra virgin olive oil, balsamic or red wine vinegar, salt and pepper. (You could, if you wished to, wrap them in some lardo or pancetta before grilling).

Risotto al radicchio, a simple winter risotto that marries two iconic ingredients of the Veneto – rice and radicchio. Plus a good slug of red wine. There are a couple of ways sweetness is brought into this classic Venetian risotto. One is through the use of onion, and the other is the addition of pancetta, with its salty-sweet tendency. I love the red wine in this, you could use white too but I love that it matches the beautiful color of raw radicchio – which the vegetable inevitably loses as it cooks. To help with the balance of flavors, you could go for a red wine on the sweeter side too, perhaps a Lambrusco Amabile or, for a local choice, Barbera.

Torta di Radicchio That’s right. This is an intriguing, delicious, dessert made with radicchio. It is a Tessa Kiros recipe for a traditional, if unconventional, cake from Chioggia. Tessa tops it with an easy, thick glaze of melted white chocolate—even for those who aren’t fans of white chocolate, it’s an addition that works beautifully with this otherwise quite plain, but moist radicchio cake. But you could also dust with powdered sugar or do a simple lemon glaze here too.

This recipe comes from Tessa Kiros’ Linenwater and Limoncello cookbook, which I adore. I have only made one quite different modification, which is to add lemon juice to the water where the radicchio leaves are blanched. This acidic bath keeps the radicchio a bright pink (which you can see in flecks in the finished cake) —otherwise, the leaves can turn greenish blue, especially if you happen to live in a place with hard water (I do), or use unprocessed sugar, which can be slightly basic rather than neutral. Radicchio, like red cabbage and other fruit and vegetables that contain anthocyanin, can change colour from red to blue in acidic and basic environments.

Do you have a favourite way with radicchio?

Lina’s pollo in galantina, an Italian family classic

My favourite butcher shop, Sergio Falaschi, which is one of the reasons why we bought a house in San Miniato (joking — sort of!) has one of the prettiest and enticing counters, it could compete with any pastry shop window. It is run by my friend Andrea, Sergio’s son, and they are the fourth and third generation to run this shop, with great care for the products, and in turn the heirloom breed animals and local farmers they work with (see my last post all about their prosciutto di Cinta Senese). I’ve always loved walking through the butcher section in the Florentine markets to marvel at what they have on display, offering not only all the classics, from the most rustic to the most sought after cuts, but also an array of inventive, creative and delicious prepared meats ready to simply take home to cook.

At Falaschi, they have things like cotolette (flattened out crumbed chicken thighs with the bone still attached), collo ripieno (stuffed chicken necks), roast pork wrapped and tied with lardo and rosemary, fegatelli in the winter season (pork liver wrapped in caul fat and stored in lard, my husband’s favourite dish) and  spiedini. I love their boiled beef polpette, ready to take home to fry until golden brown (delicious with salsa verde) and their filetto in crosta (below), which is a delicious pork loin rolled in finely chopped rosemary, garlic, thyme and fennel seed. It’s pushed into the crust of an emptied out baguette and the whole thing is wrapped in pancetta. They’re sold like this, ready for roasting for about 20 minutes in a hot oven.

They also sell some cooked dishes too, including ready made ragus, insalata russa (Russian or Olivier salad) and pollo in galantina, which is a classic Italian family dish, popular in Tuscany and Emilia Romagna. It’s rather like a meatloaf wrapped inside a chicken and is a dish that I’ve heard being called “a forgotten dish” but it is one still often made for important celebrations like Christmas, when there is broth being made (important for the obligatory tortellini) and plenty of people around the table to feed. It was once considered a noble dish, prepared with time and care for that special occasion.

I recently spent some time in the kitchen at the back of the butcher shop — which, before the pandemic, did a roaring trade as a restaurant — with Lina, Andrea’s mamma (those are her hands above, chopping vegetables for the insalata russa) and she showed me how she makes her glorious pollo in galantina for the shop, to share here on my blog.

Lina’s Pollo in Galantina or Stuffed Chicken
Pollo in Galantina di Lina da Sergio Falaschi Macelleria, San Miniato

Lina uses a deboned, butterflied chicken with the wings still attached whole but the legs boned out (in Italy a whole chicken, in particular free range, local ones like the ones they have at Falaschi’s butcher shop, weigh about 1 kg whole). And she uses a large sewing needle and kitchen string to sew it all up! It is ideal to start this dish 24 hours before you want to serve it so that the chicken can chill and set in the fridge. It will be easier to slice after this. See this instagram post for some helpful videos of Lina making this!

Serves 5

For the chicken stuffing:

1/2 small white onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
small handful of fresh parsley, chopped
600 grams minced veal and pork (Lina prefers mostly veal, with a small quantity of pork)
1 egg, beaten
40 grams grated Parmesan
pinch of grated nutmeg
salt and pepper
1 piece of boiled beef tongue in brine (lingua salmistrata), diced (or if you don’t have it perhaps try diced mortadella)
150 grams of prosciutto, diced
a handful of blanched peas
a handful of pistachios, toasted lightly (optional)
1 deboned chicken, approximately 800 grams in weight
2 hard boiled eggs, peeled

For the broth:

1 onion
1 carrot
1 stick of celery
1 bay leaf
Enough water to cover

To serve:

Salsa verde (see recipe here)
Salsa tonnata/tuna mayonnaise (see recipe here)
Boiled potatoes or Insalata russa (Russian or Olivier salad)
Giardiniera (Italian Pickles, see my recipe here)

Method:

Combine the onion, garlic, parsley in a large bowl with the minced veal and pork. Add the beaten egg and mix through, along with a good pinch of salt, a good grinding of pepper, Parmesan and nutmeg. Mix until well combined then add the diced tongue, prosciutto, peas, and pistachios (if using), until well distributed.

Now take the deboned, butterflied chicken and place it skin side down on a board. Sprinkle over salt and pepper and rub it in. Place about half the stuffing on the chicken and then arrange the two boiled eggs inside then cover with the rest of the stuffing mixture. Sew the chicken back up with kitchen string, closing it entirely and securely. You can (and should) also tie the chicken as you would a good roast pork.

Heat the oven to 160C. In a large dutch oven place the vegetables for the broth and the bay leaf, along with the tied chicken and add water to cover. Cover and let it cook gently for 1-1 1/2 hours. You can also boil it on a stove top but be careful to cook it gently and slowly so that it doesn’t break open. Remove pan from the heat and allow it to cool entirely in the broth. Once cool, pull off the wings and set them aside, then you can slice the pollo in galantina easily — not too thin, not too thick (hint, the more chilled it is, the easier it is to slice thinly, which is why you should do this the day before you would like to serve it and keep it in the fridge). You can eat this cold or warm. To serve it warm, reheat the slices with some of the broth.

Serve the pollo in galantina with salsa verde and salsa tonnato (tuna mayonnaise), piping hot boiled potatoes, pickles or Olivier salad (insalata russa).

Notes: Some like to prepare a broth beforehand, using the bones of the chicken, so if you’ve deboned your own chicken that would be a very good idea to not waste the bones! Also at the end of the cooking, you should definitely keep the broth to make a minestrone or some other warming, comforting dish. It’ll be delicious.

Thank you to the Falaschi family for their generosity and time!