Emiko Davies's Blog, page 7

Pici all’aglione, Tuscany’s rustic pasta al pomodoro

Cooking post-lockdown is still keeping us grounded, but also relaxed and even entertained. I have been turning more than ever to Tuscany’s comforting, frugal cuisine for inspiration – it just feels right. Not because we can’t get ingredients or are rationing but just using what we have on hand or what is abundant (hello tomatoes) at the little bottega in the piazza, skipping that trip to the supermarket in favour of staying home or close as possible to it.

I have been loving making pici since lockdown, a humble and ancient Tuscan pasta of flour and water, hand-rolled into long, fat noodles, so easy that even a two year old can make them.

The therapeutic nature of making dough with your hands, of kneading and rolling is an activity itself that is calming and stress-relieving. This pasta doesn’t take that long to make but I also find it such a pleasure that I like to take my time with this. In my opinion, pici should always be handmade; there is nothing like the charmingly imperfect quality of proper pici, painstakingly rolled one by one. It results in an almost primitive pasta with bite and a good chew that reminds me, nostalgically, of udon noodles. Noodles strong enough that they can support robust sauces like wild boar or hearty duck ragu, the carb-on-carb treat of anchovy and garlic-enhanced breadcrumbs or this classic all’aglione, a rich, rustic tomato sauce.

The sauce

Aglio means garlic, so aglione means literally “big garlic” and you’ll see why, it looks like an enormous bulb that can easily weigh over half a kilogram, the cloves of which are sometimes as large as one regular garlic bulb. But despite its looks, aglione isn’t actually a giant garlic, it’s a variety of allium ampeloprasum, which is a wild leek — surprise!

Aglione‘s main feature is that it is sweeter and milder than regular garlic and doesn’t contain allicin, which is what gives garlic its distinctive odour. In Tuscany it’s only grown by a couple of handfuls of producers today in the Valdichiana, the southern region between Siena and Arezzo, and since it was traditionally a vegetable only used by the farmers who grew it, it’s not all that diffused throughout the region so true aglione is hard to find even in Florence! It’s harvested in the summer so now is the best time to try to find it. It’s also native to many countries including all around the Black Sea, as well as Portugal to Egypt and found all over the world so maybe you have seen it in another context?

But even without true aglione you could replicate this with regular garlic too. I love the way the aglione is prepared in this rich tomato sauce, on a low and very slow simmer in lots of white wine and olive oil that brings out its sweet and mellow flavour before being mashed with a fork and added to the ripe tomatoes. It works wonderfully with regular garlic (perhaps with a bit of leek too?).

The pasta

Pici (or pinchi as they are called in Montalcino) come from the province of Siena and I’ve always loved them for the fact that they are so rustic, that you can instantly recognize handmade pici over machine made ones. I like to use a mix of semola (durum wheat) and regular (00) flour made of grano tenero (soft wheat). But you can use all flour or all semola if you like. As this is a rustic and poor dough, there is traditionally no egg in it, just water and a touch of olive oil.

The olive oil doesn’t go into the dough but onto it — a trick I learned at Villa Pienza (which is bang in the middle of pici territory in the incomparably beautiful Valdorcia). Rub about 1 tablespoon of olive oil into the surface of the rolled out dough — this creates a protective film over the dough which prevents it from drying out too quickly and keeps it soft, even if you keep the dough partially covered. This is important to keep the dough soft and pliable, you don’t want any cracking. If this is a technique you’d like to perfect, I highly recommend visiting cookbook author Rosetta Costantino’s tutorials on IGTV. She has an excellent series on how to hand roll and stretch semola and water pasta dough, each video based on shape. Check out the one on how to make rope shapes such as fedelini (which are the Calabrian cousin of pici) and lorighittas, it is enlightening to just watch how her hands move over the dough to roll them into perfect noodles.

The Recipe

Pici all’aglione

Note: Aglione literally means “big garlic” but actually comes from the wild leek family (allium ampeloprasum, Holmense variety, similar to Elephant Garlic which is the Ampeloprasum variety), with a mellower flavour than regular garlic. It’s a typical product from the Valdichiana area in Tuscany and has only recently been rediscovered and brought back into production (the ones I found are grown by Ortofrutticola Castiglionese). If you don’t have aglione, you can try doing this technique with regular garlic too. For those who like a bit of heat, some chilli is good in this too.

Serves 4

For the pici:

1½ cups/ 200 grams of plain flour

1½ cups/ 200 grams of semola, plus more for dusting

1 cup/ 200 ml water

1 tablespoon olive oil

For the sauce:

4 cloves of aglione

60 ml ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

100 ml white wine

400 gr tinned or fresh tomato pulp

salt and pepper

To make the pici, mix the two flours together on a clean surface, forming a pyramid. Create a well in the centre of the pyramid and pour in the water bit by bit while incorporating the flour by carefully swirling the liquid with your hands. Continue combining the flour and water this way until you have a smooth dough. If you find your dough comes together before you finish incorporating all the flour, stop there; if it is too sticky, dust on some extra flour. You want a ball of dough that springs back when you poke it and no longer sticks to your hands when you roll it. Set the dough aside to rest, covered, for at least 30 minutes (I use this time to start making the sauce).

Separate the dough into two pieces to begin with and on a well-floured surface roll out the first piece until it is about 2-3mm (1/10 inch) thick. Cut long strips and then with the palms of your hands on a board or between your thumb and fingers in the air, roll each flat strip from the center outwards, until you have thick noodle. Dust with plenty of semola and roll around your hand then set aside — I usually place them in a single layer on a wooden board dusted with semola or flour. Continue until you have finished all the dough.

Heat a pot of water to boil the pasta and season with 1 teaspoon of salt for each litre (4 cups) of water.

For the sauce: If you are using fresh tomatoes, you should blanch them in a pot of boiling water for 30 seconds first to peel the skins off, then chop roughly.

Peel the garlic cloves and place them whole (or if extra large, halved) in the pan with the olive oil and white wine. Turn heat on low and gently heat. The aim here is to very gently cook the garlic cloves without them colouring, until they are so soft that you can them crush them easily with a fork – it will take about 30 minutes at least, covered. If you’re using regular garlic then you’ll need less, about 15-20 minutes. The reason to do this and not chop them before is that they will more easily burn in smaller pieces and you want to draw out their sweetness by the slow, low cooking. Add the tomato pulp, season with salt and pepper to taste, and continue cooking a further 20 minutes, uncovered, until the sauce has thickened slightly, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon.

Boil the pasta until al dente, about 3 minutes for fresh pici, then drain and toss through the warm sauce until well coated and serve immediately.

A tip for preparing for this recipe: I would not recommend trying to make this pasta too far in advance as the pici could start sticking — or drying out too much which can affect the texture. If you would like to prepare a part of this recipe ahead of time, make the sauce. It will keep well in an airtight container such as a jar for a few days in the fridge. But otherwise, start first by making the dough. Then, while it is resting for 30 minutes, start the sauce. Go back to the dough once it is rested and by the time you have made the pasta and are ready to boil it, the sauce will be ready, and still warm.

A Cinque Terre getaway

If I could describe the summer break we just had in the Cinque Terre in a handful of words, it’d be a list of some of my favourite things, especially when experienced together: saltwater, anchovies, lemons, sea breeze, pesto, winding coastal roads, chilled white wine and cheesy focaccia that leaves your hands deliciously greasy with olive oil.

It’s been over 10 years since my last trip to the Cinque Terre, and even then, we always visited in the off-season, in particular March or October. I’ve never jumped into the refreshing, crystalline waters of Liguria before — I have clearly been missing out, but the five pretty seaside villages that make up the Cinque Terre on a most delicate hillside nestled in a UNESCO World Heritage recognised national park are small and easily crowded. It’s often too hard to find a place to stay or it’s just too unpleasantly crowded on the train to get there and move around — and let’s face it, being packed like sardines on a hot train takes some of the magic away from this very special part of the world. Over the years, as tourism has grown, the Cinque Terre has become a very popular destination for day-trippers and cruise ship goers too, giving it a similar problem to Venice.

This unusual summer of covid-19, made all the more sweet after one of the world’s strictest three month lockdowns, means travel to Italy is still off for Americans, Australians and many more — which means it’s a unique time for those of us in Italy to actually visit relatively uncrowded sights we may normally avoid. We managed to book this trip to the Cinque Terre less than 24 hours before we set off, unheard of in August! There was no traffic getting there, a quiet drive, just under 2 hours from Florence. We had no trouble finding parking, or getting restaurant reservations on the day. We even lucked out and found a comfortable family room (with air conditioning) in a beautiful, secluded spot between Corniglia and Vernazza with a 180 degree view of the sea (see the photo above and the two photos directly below): Cadè Ventu. The photos on their website don’t even do it justice.

I know how lucky we were, I lapped up every second of this short, lovely trip, making memories with the family — I know we may never get to experience it this way again, which I have very mixed feelings about. My eldest asked if we can come back next weekend (and I just might be tempted!).

Although we didn’t visit in the order listed below but rather we skipped around, arriving in Manarola for lunch, then spending the rest of the day/evening in Monterosso, or leaving the car in Riomaggiore for a dip in the sea, then taking the ferry to Vernazza, the train back to Riomaggiore then driving to dinner in Corniglia, I thought I’d list our favourite experiences by order of town as I find that most useful. I would say, you could do this all easily without the car of course (car access to the towns is extremely limited so you are better off traveling by train which is very handy indeed) but if you are staying in the accommodation we stayed in, they recommend having a car to get there (I would too) as it is quite secluded, though not impossible to do by bus/shuttle.

RIOMAGGIORE:

The southernmost of the five villages is, like the northernmost village, Monterosso al Mare, one of the larger of the villages (population 1500). There is one main, very steep, street where you’ll find shops, minimarkets, plenty of places to eat and more, but life really revolves around the pretty marina where there are restaurants and bars with sea views and boats to take you around to private coves and beaches you can only reach by sea.

We grabbed a delicious fritto misto from Tutti Fritti (Via Colombo, 161), a tiny, takeaway spot where everything is fried to order, and took it down to the marina to eat with legs dangling towards the water. A five minute walk from the marina takes you up and around the rocks to the rocky beach with the most crystalline water — an absolute dream, though not for the faint of heart as the rocks make it quite a challenge to get in or out of the water and there is no shade — however, it is totally worth the effort. It is up there as one of my favourite swims, ever (and I’ve swum in some remarkable places around the world!).

Halfway between the marina and the beach, you’ll pass by the ferry stop — if you’ve been clever enough to buy a ferry ticket at the little booth at the top of the steps from the marina then you won’t have to come back this way so that after a swim you can just hop on the ferry to another town of your choice (it costs 11 euro one way, 20 return, children are free).

MANAROLA:

The second smallest of the town with a population of 350 people, this charming little pastel-toned village has a pretty view from the church piazza (which doubles as a soccer field as it’s the only flat, wide surface in town for the kids to play on!).

Climb a little further up and you’ll find Trattoria da Billy, a sweet, little restaurant with a tiny terrace that boasts a sea view from high up — we shared the anchovies marinated in lemon (a Cinque Terre specialty, I ate it everywhere I went!) as antipasto, followed by pasta: handrolled trofie with pesto (the region’s specialty; this one with a very good garlicky kick and the classic addition of potatoes and green beans), spaghetti with vongole and bottarga, tagliolini with scampi and a julienne of vegetables; fried calamari for the girls and then semifreddo for dessert. If I knew I was going to have room for it, the mixed house antipasto consisting of many little dishes looked so good, and so did the off-menu special of pasta with swordfish and summer truffle that I could smell from the table next to us.

CORNIGLIA:

The tiniest of Cinque Terre is also the only one that doesn’t have the sea lapping at its edges. Higher up means you have a few hundred steps to reach the village from the train station but it’s pedestrian-only medieval streets lead to a beautiful terrace where you can see all the other four villages. And there are also a couple of wonderful places to dine here — Cantina de Mananan, which I first heard about thanks to the Slow Food Guide about 12 years ago. I admit, it’s been about a decade since I’ve been back but it continues to be a mainstay of the recommended restaurants in the area by guides like Gambero Rosso too, for its dedication to typical Ligurian cuisine and absolutely fresh fish. It’s directly inside the medieval hamlet so is quite small and cosy and tavern-like.

The place we chose to have dinner this recent trip is a spot my husband Marco used to take hikers to when he did tours of the Cinque Terre over a decade ago, Ristorante da Cecio. He was pleasantly surprised to find all the same staff still there, who still remembered him. We had a memorable meal here watching the sunset over the sea from the hydrangea and lemon tree-lined terrace: more lemon-marinated anchovies (these ones with the addition of diced fresh tomato), more handmade trofie with pesto (I could not resist), spaghetti alle vongole for the girls, pansotti (Ligurian ravioli) filled with black lobster in a creamy tomato sauce and perfectly cooked whole grilled sea bream with a chilled bottle of Cinque Terre DOC. We finished with lemon sorbet and a custard and pine nut tart. It is a romantic spot with its view over Corniglia and the sea behind it, but it’s perfect too for a larger gathering of family or friends as it has two large terraces for outdoor eating so everyone gets a spot with a view. We had such a lovely night here, dinner was well-paced, so fresh and delicious, the warm evening was breezy, the view was incredibly special, even the girls were well behaved! If you’re looking for a place to stay they also have rooms above the restaurant.

VERNAZZA:

With its natural port and it’s colourful houses that look as if they’re almost tumbling into the sea, Vernazza is irresistibly pretty – 10 years ago it was by my favourite of the villages but on this recent trip I felt that it had lost a little of the authenticity that you can still find in the other villages, perhaps it was also because it also felt like the most crowded of all the villages, possibly because of its narrow streets and smaller size.

We popped in on the ferry from Riomaggiore that arrives right in the marina and spent the afternoon wandering, having a spritz and eating gelato (Gelateria Stalìn had a very good selection of quality gelato, I had basil-infused fior di latte and ‘stracciamenta’, or mint chocolate chip, the girls had a mousse-like nutella and lemon sorbetto that they ate right down to the tip of the cone — sounds obvious but actually my girls normally tend to abandon gelato halfway through, the fact that they didn’t this time was testament to how good it was!).

There is also a small sandy beach right where the port meets the piazza, where many people were relaxing and sun bathing more than swimming. Being right inside the port, the water didn’t look as clean as the other beaches we visited but it’s definitely an accessible option and the kids playing in the water seemed to be having a blast.

If we had decided to stay here for dinner the place I had my eye on was Gianni Franzi, where you can eat out in the open right in Piazza Marconi overlooking the marina. Look at the appealing “off menu” items above – tagliatelle with mantis shrimp, soup with vongole and venus clams, linguine with lobster, roast fish with potatoes. After I read about their stuffed anchovies and the “tegame Vernazza” — a panful layered with Monterosso anchovies, potatoes, tomatoes and herbs — I think I may come back just to try it.

Our accommodation was halfway between Vernazza and Corniglia, 350 metres above sea level in the lush green national park, Cadè Ventu. If you don’t have a car, you can reach it by bus from Vernazza.

MONTEROSSO AL MARE:

Without a doubt Monterosso was the whole family’s favourite village. We arrived in the late afternoon and had a long wander through the centre of town, browsing shops — Lanapo for artisan-made sandals, hats and handbags inspired by the Cinque Terre, and Fabbrica d’Arte for artisan ceramics (I love anchovies of all kinds, even their ceramic ones, what a perfect souvenir of the Cinque Terre), stopping for snacks of cheesy focaccia and heavenly fried stracchino-filled focaccia at Il Frantoio (Via Gioberti, 1 – they mainly function as takeaway and sell by the slice) and lemon granita and gelato, before arriving at the beach.

Here there is a portion of the beach that is “free” (this part gets covered by shade first) and the rest is private (and has a longer time in the sun), accessible by renting an umbrella and lounge chairs at one of the bagni such as Bar Bagno Alga, where you also find showers, kayaks for rent and a bar for drinks, snacks or light meals  — we were able to snap up a spot since it was late in the day but in August you’ll usually find it full. The water was glorious, crystal clear, the sand here is very fine and kept beautifully clean by the bagni. We were the last ones to leave when they closed at 7pm and the water turned silver as the shade drew across the beach, it was that hard to drag ourselves away!

We had booked a table for a light meal at a long standing favourite wine bar, Enoteca Internazionale, when we stopped at Il Frantoio for focaccia (it’s next door), and I’m glad we did as its outdoor wooden tables fill up quickly. It’s the perfect spot for tasting wine, with plenty of local wines by the glass (many natural options) and if you feel like a nibble, there’s a big selection of things such as platters of salumi, cheese or long boards of bruschette topped with anchovies (what else? This is Monterosso’s specialty after all), pesto, mozzarella and tomato, tuna carpaccio and creamy local cheese, but you can also just pop in to buy bottles of wine or other local specialties (pesto, honey, salted anchovies, Ligurian olive oil, traditional candies and biscuits, all the best kind of souvenirs!) to take home. Some other good places to eat that were recommended to me are Miky (perhaps to visit minus kids) and Ristorante Ciak, a favourite local restaurant that has been going strong for the past 50 years. We didn’t have time to eat there this time but they were high on my list after reading about them on Gambero Rosso and getting some personal recommendations too.

Admittedly the highlight for the girls (who are 7 and 2) was the playground and the beach, which are just steps away from each other. The playground is fenced so it keep the kids contained and parents can rest easy. Like most Italian families in the summer, we visited after dinner in the dark, when it’s no longer hot and the well-lit playground was crawling with kids until late!

Thinking about it, maybe we will just pop back next weekend.

Pan roasted sausages with grapes for Artusi’s 200th birthday

I would go as far as to say that Pellegrino Artusi helped me start this blog almost a decade ago. And write my first cookbook, Florentine. He would be turning 200 today, so I felt it apt to cook him dinner for his birthday. I didn’t choose anything fancy because to be honest, the recipes in his 790 page cookbook are anything but fancy. They’re regular recipes of the best kind — home cooking. So I chose something satisfying, homely, seasonal and, well, something that felt very ‘Artusi’ to me.

Born into a wealthy family in Forlimpoli in Emilia-Romagna on August 4, 1820, Artusi moved to Florence in 1852. He bought a home in the leafy Piazza d’Azeglio (incidentally, it is one of my favourite piazze in Florence — it is also very close to the Sant’Ambrogio market), where he lived with his butler and cook until his death in 1911 at the age of 90. He wrote several books but the one that he is known for, Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well, which he self-published at the age of 71 in 1891, is not only considered the first Italian cookbook (which makes him the great-grandfather of Italian cuisine) but it has never gone out of print. It’s a book that you’ll find in the kitchens of most Italian families, dog-eared and stained from frequent use, passed down from generation to generation.

I would say every Tuscan in particular knows ‘Artusi’, as his book is often called, and is familiar with its dishes — it does have a slight Tuscan bias to its language and recipes, as you would expect from someone who lived in Florence most of his life. In fact, he is even credited with contributing to unifying a young, highly regional Italy with one language: Tuscan, the language of Dante, Petrarch… and Artusi.

I was introduced to Artusi before I even started this blog; but the book was one of the reasons I began writing about food. It was a tattered, yellowing copy belonging to Marco’s nonna, Lina, passed on to my mother in law. The splattered cover was falling off, notes were stuck in randomly here and there, and the book opened instantly to the most well-used pages (the pasta frolla recipe, along with the notes in nonna Lina’s handwriting pointing to pastry “recipe B”, it is my absolute go-to for any shortcrust pastry but epecially for a classic crostata).

But my main relationship with Artusi really began when my blog was only a month old, in January 2011, when I began a series where I wrote about one of his recipes each month for a year — here is the first of that series, Artusi’s January, with a recipe for biancomangiare, or almond milk pudding. I got to know Artusi very well in that first year, choosing recipes from his seasonal menus or letting fate pick a page for me. I kept the book by my bedside table and carried in my handbag; it went everywhere with me. With nearly 800 recipes in the book, there is always something interesting to try or read about.

It had never occurred to me to make these sausages with grapes until now, but somehow it seemed quite fitting. It’s August, we are still a few weeks away from proper grape harvest season but it’ll be upon us any moment and you can find good grapes already. Plus, his three-sentence ‘recipe’ for salsicce coll’uva starts charmingly with “It is a trivial and ordinary dish, but I note it because the sausage, with that sweetness of the grapes could be to someone’s liking.”

Artusi’s recipe doesn’t specify any quantities, or whether the grapes are white or red. There is no other ingredient called for other than “a drop of water.” In Umbria, where this is a typical country dish, white grapes are often used. In Tuscany, where red grapes reign, I thought it would make sense to go with red, but in the end I couldn’t resist trying both. My verdict: go with a grape that has a hint of acidity. I find the green table grapes I used were very sweet, too much so, while the red grapes had a more interesting flavour here. I threw in some rosemary and sage with the sausages, and instead of water, added a splash of white wine — but I do believe water is just as fine. Either way, the wonderful thing is the little sauce that gathers at the bottom of the pan, a mixture of fat from the sausages and juice from the grapes, watch that it doesn’t evaporate all away.

Salsicce coll’uva (Sausages with grapes)

Serves 4

4 Tuscan pork and fennel sausages

a sprig of rosemary and 4-6 sage leaves

1 bunch of red grapes (or mixed red and green grapes)

60 ml (1/4 cup) white wine or water

Poke the sausages here and there with a fork and place them in a frying pan over medium heat. Let them brown all over and release some fat, then add the herbs and the grapes. Pour over the wine (or water) and continue cooking, turning the sausages and grapes as needed — you want the sausages evenly cooked and the grapes to be puffed and a little blistered. If the pan is looking a little dry, add a splash more wine or water or cover to stop the evaporation. It should take all of 15 minutes. I did not add any salt or pepper to this dish as Tuscan sausages are flavourful enough. Serve with crusty bread, a glass of wine and something green — a salad or some sauteed spinach. Or below for another Artusi recipe with spinach.

Frittata in riccioli per contorno (Spinach frittate for a side dish)

This is a cute and intriguing recipe that I wanted to try (see photo at the top of this post). Artusi suggests serving it as a side dish to a stew. It makes a nice lunch on its own too, maybe with a tomato salad.

1 small bunch of English spinach, washed

2-3 eggs

salt and pepper

knob of butter

freshly grated parmesan cheese

Blanch the spinach until it is completely wilted. Drain very well (you should have just a small handful left) then pulse it in a food processor until it is smooth. Crack 2 eggs into the processor and blend together with a pinch of salt and ground pepper. It should look very, very green, but you can add another egg if the ratio of spinach is so high that the frittate don’t hold. In a small frying pan greased with butter, fry very thin frittate, rather like crepes, until dry on one side. You don’t need to flip them, but turn them out onto a board until you have finished all the mixture. Roll up the crepes and slice into “tagliatelle”, then put these back into the pan with a knob of butter and toss well until coated. If you like, you can sprinkle them with freshly grated parmesan cheese. Serve immediately.

If you’d like to see more of Artusi, please do take a look at some of these — just a small selection of some favourite recipes I’ve written about in the past:

Zuppa Certosina (a sort of egg drop fish soup named for the Tuscan monastery)

Artusi’s gnocchi alla romana (baked semolina gnocchi)

Tuscan chicken liver pate (as is common, Artusi doesn’t give any measurements for this one, which he likes to add dried porcini to)

Artusi’s raspberry acetosa (a delicious raspberry syrup with a vinegary kick)

Duck pappardelle (still one of my all-time favourite pasta sauces)

Chicken gnocchi (the chicken is actually inside the gnocchi; one of the most soothing, comforting dishes ever)

Pumpkin pie (not just an American tradition after all, this is a favourite I make every autumn)

Rose petal jam (one of the most popular recipes on my blog, and one very close to my heart)

Torta Margherita (a 4 ingredient gluten an dairy free birthday cake)

Quattro-quarti (a pound cake, which I adapt into a pistachio, polenta and olive oil version)

100 year old apricot jam (my very favourite)

Polenta and elderflower cookies (modern sounding but delightfully old fashioned)

Braciuole nella scamerita (a wintry, very Tuscan, comforting pork neck with cavolo nero)

Spiced walnut linguine (a “lean” dish of walnut pesto laced with sugar and spices)

Artusi’s Good Friday menu (save this for a traditional Easter meal)

Almond milk gelato (with a hint of orange blossom water, so refreshing)

Sweet tomato jam (yes, this is sweet, you’d never guess it’s actually made from tomatoes)

Artusi on the perfect bistecca

Nocino (sweet and spicy walnut liqueur)

Artusi’s minestrone (and one of my favourite anecdotes in the book)

The language of food (an essay about how Artusi contributed to the Italian language)

Brodo (beef broth; the very first recipe in Artusi’s 790 recipe cookbook)

Artusi’s bomboloni

Polpette di trippa (funnily enough, Artusi was not fond of tripe but he includes this recipe which he in turn found in a seventeenth century cookbook. It’s insanely delicious; it will convert any tripe hater)

Stay at home with these comforting family recipes

What a summer! Post-lockdown Florence is bittersweet, we are wary and careful – masks still on, distances kept, obsessive hand washing and hand sanitizer a prerequisite for entry into any indoor space – the streets and piazze are free of travellers and previously tourist-dependant parts of the city now are left for residents to discover their own city again. It’s great to be able to see friends and family again and even take the odd weekend away (to nearby Maremma or Venice), but to be honest I’m still reluctant to be out in public too much – home is definitely a haven for me, where I feel most comfortable and where food is still providing comfort and nurturing.

With my friends and family in Melbourne back in Lockdown for a further 6 weeks and cases still climbing out of control in the US, it feels a bit too soon to be going outside no matter where you are, so I thought someone might appreciate some simple, satisfying foods to stay at home with. I’ve compiled a list of favourite, comforting, even distracting (for when you need a good project to keep your mind busy with something else) foods, the sort of dishes that have a good satisfaction to maintenance ratio, dishes that are easy anytime but perhaps right now are even inspiring in that they might take you daydreaming to Italy or remind you of a big Italian lunch. Yes, quite a few pasta dishes are here, it’s true, to me there is nothing more comforting!

These recipes all come from my latest cookbook, Tortellini at Midnight, which is about home-cooking, inspired by my in-law’s family and their origins in Puglia, Piedmont and Tuscany. It is family-friendly food, but like all homemade dishes, can be made to adjust portions (or simply freeze the leftovers for a day when you don’t feel like cooking – here is a handy, general guide on freezing food from NHS).

If you don’t have the cookbook, I’ve added the links below to where you can find them online so that I can share these all with you easily.

Ziti al Forno

Because pasta is always a winner in our home. It’s what we make when we need something quick, and satisfying, that everyone will be happy with. Ziti al forno is a classic southern Italian dish – basically pasta with tomato sauce and melted cheese baked in the oven. Marco likes to add sausage to it (pull off its casing, roll the sausage meat into tiny meatballs and add to the sauce). If you can’t find ziti, which are long tubes of pasta, you can substitute rigatoni as Nigella Lawson suggests. If you click on the recipe title above, it’ll take you to my recipe on Nigella’s site.

Ditalini con cozze e fagioli (Ditalini pasta with mussels and beans)

I can’t tell you how much I love this dish. Part soup, part pasta, all delicious, this is a classic homestyle dish from the port of Taranto, where all of my in law’s as far as I could trace back to the 1700s are from (side note: here is a rabbit hole you could go down if you have Italian family, try to map your family tree, I’ve created an article with all the resources I used to do ours here). Mussels are a specialty of Taranto and we ate this dish in every trattoria we visited, I could never tire from it. Thrifty, quick, easy and nourishing, this has all the elements I want too when it comes to comfort: broth, pasta, warmth and tasting of home. Clicking on the recipe title will take you to the Australian Good Food Guide site where my recipe is featured.

Agnolotti al plin (pasta stuffed with roast meat)

When you want a project to do, pull out the pasta machine and get to making these delightful little parcels. They are by far my absolute favourite filled pasta to make (and eat), I find them so satisfying! This is the very traditional meat filling from Piedmont – the idea is to use up leftover roast meat – served in the pan sauces with some butter and sage, but you can easily make it vegetarian with a ricotta and spinach filling like this one (from my recipe for tortelli maremmani for delicious magazine), the key is quite a firm filling so make sure you use well-drained ricotta and spinach if you go that way – and serve with a simple sauce of sage wilted in melted butter. If you need to see how to make them, a Pasta Granny can help you with that. Here is the inspiring 93 year old Ida making her agnolotti al plin with the ease and expertise of someone who has been doing it for a lifetime! Click on the recipe title above to go to my recipe on The Canberra Times.

Polpette di Nonna Anna (Nonna Anna’s meatballs)

This is probably one of the most loved dishes at home, one of my personal favourites from the book and definitely the one most made by other people (along with Angela’s apple cake below!). Kids and adults alike love it and if you’ve got leftovers, they are even more delicious the next day. If you eat all the meatballs and find yourself with a lot of leftover tomato sauce, it’s actually (like many good Pugliese dishes) meant to be stretched into another meal, to be served with pasta the next day – the tomato sauce with all the extra flavours from the meatballs and pancetta is so delicious. Click on the title to go to the feature in National Geographic or you can find a version of it here, along with the story behind this recipe in our family — a dish that belonged to my husband’s great-grandmother, a noblewoman who eloped with the postman.

Torta di Mele di Angela (Angela’s Apple Cake)

Baking is my favourite form of distraction when I need it, and I’m sure you already know this but baking is the best therapy, even science says so. While this isn’t a traditional Tuscan apple cake like this one from Florentine, my mother in law, Angela’s apple cake, was the cake she baked through most of the 80s and 90s. It has plenty of butter in it – beware those who try to bake it in a springform tin, as some of the butter might leak out and burn on the bottom of the oven. Please do try it in a cake tin that won’t leak. It is divine, especially still-warm, with some whipped cream. Click on the link to go to my recipe on the Australian Good Food Guide site.

Toast al cioccolato (grilled chocolate-hazelnut sandwiches)

When you need an instant pick me up, literally a food-hug, it is this grilled sandwich with special, gold-foil wrapped gianduiotto chocolates from Turin. Of course you can use any chocolate you have, just don’t feel guilty, take one bite of this and don’t look back. Click on the link for my recipe on Saveur.com.

All of these beautiful shots are from the cookbook, with my talented team, styled by Deb Kaloper and photographed by Lauren Bamford with me (4 week old baby wrapped around my chest!), Marco, my intern Helen Johnson and home economist Alice Adams in the kitchen, on location at Valdirose, my friend Irene Berni’s beautiful B&B in Tuscany. More on the behind the scenes/the making of the cookbook here.

Venice, post-lockdown, is still about the cicchetti

I don’t know if it’s just me but even after leaving Venice I feel like I’m still swaying on a pier waiting for the vaporetto. Maybe it’s the heat, maybe it was one too many spritzes or a little bit of Venice’s version of Stendhal’s syndrome (also called Florence syndrome, from the feeling of dizziness and like you might faint after being exposed to the great beauty of the Renaissance city that I call home) but my head is still spinning after an intense weekend in Venice!

After seeing Florence’s centre so uniquely quiet and tourist-free, I knew it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to see Venice in a similar state (minus the dreaded cruise ships too!), so we brought the kids, met up with some good friends from Trento for a weekend of cicchetti-ing and enjoying having the place to ourselves. However, it was busier than I expected, particularly on Sunday, and it was very hot (especially on the vaporetto, where we were squeezed in like sardines, masks on but not a lot of social distancing happening there otherwise), reminding me why I love Venice (and Florence) so much in the autumn and winter. Once meeting up with our Venetian friends too we had six kids in tow (2 in prams to carry over a bridge every 2 minutes) so it was quite the endeavour! But the thing I have always loved about Venice, even pre-pandemic, is that that it has plenty of quiet pockets, backstreets and wide campi where there are no crowds, but just the peace and pace of neighbourhoods coming back to life and people enjoying being outside.

In 2016 I wrote a blog post called The Venice List with a handy list of some favourite things about Venice.  They’re all still favouries but here are some more to add to that.

The Venice List II

Campo San Giacomo dell’Orio — here the kids played in the tree-filled piazza while the adults drank spritzes of all colours (Select, Cynar and Aperol!) at Al Bagolo. There are plenty of benches for people watching and there is also a handy Coop supermarket here and a water fountain to fill up water bottles.

Orsoni Venezia 1888 — Our good friend Edoardo was one of the architects who helped restore this stunning artisan mosaic workshop (the only one in Venice that makes glass mosaics in an ancient onsite furnace) so he was able to give us a personal tour. If you find some way to get in here (perhaps during the Biennale or some other special event) and see it’s “colour library” of 3,500 coloured glasses, it is one of the most fascinating places I’ve seen in Venice, just a testament to what a unique city it is especially for artisans, creatives and the arts.

Cicchetti — I have written a lot about my favourite cicchetti bars and I can happily say the ones I’ve written about earlier are still up there on my favourites list but also I would add Antica Mola, the new addition to Timon in Cannareggio. We had excellent oysters, shucked to order, and delicious cicchetti with fresh prawns and fennel and juicy, still warm polpette di tonno washed down with prosecco.

Fondaco dei Tedeschi Rooftop — Simply a stunning 360C view over the rooftops of Venice at the elegant Fondaco dei Tedeschi palazzo turned department store, conveniently right by the Rialto bridge. As numbers are limited you need to reserve your spot to go up there but it is free (and yes, there is an elevator).

Torcello Island — we spent Sunday on the island of Torcello at Taverna Tipica Veneziana with our Venetian friends. The draw card was the ample outdoor eating area, plus fun stuff for all the kids (goats, rabbits and playground equipment!). The food is classic Venetian, simple, no-frills, but aimed to please, a little like eating at nonna’s. We had squid stewed with tomatoes and peas and prawns in saor as antipasto, then fried calamari, bigoli in salsa (anchovy and onion sauce) and tiramisu.

Rialto market — I know, it’s always on my lists. But it’s just my favourite thing to do. Coffee and cornetto at Caffe del Doge sitting out in a backstreet, then second breakfast at All’Arco (for baccalà mantecato and a glass of prosecco), then a stroll around the market where I bought things for cooking dinner at our friends’ place: zucchini flowers from the island of Sant’ Erasmo (fried in batter after being filled with mozzarella and anchovies), line-caught sea bass (roasted with lemon and parsley), calamari for frying, razor clams (grilled quickly then tossed in a hot pan with samphire and dressed with lemon, olive oil, parsley and garlic).

Not everything was open, like many things around town, which sadly means some are finding it hard to reopen after lockdown but I am hopeful that Venice finds a way to come back, finding some balance, minus the cruise ships and mass hordes to blossom. Speaking of which, here is some interesting reading on the future of Venice and sustainable tourism that I highly recommend:

Venice Tourism May Never Be the Same. It Could be Better (New York Times)

Sail Away, No Seriously Sail Away (Prior)

It’s an Exciting Beginning: Venice Opens to Tourists (Guardian)

The Trampling of Venice Shows Why Tourism Must Change After Covid-19 (Guardian)

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Edna Lewis’ white pound cake

Between making yolk-rich pasta, the odd carbonara, or whipping up some crema, I always seem to have a few egg whites lying around — I honestly can’t bear to throw them away. I usually freeze the egg whites, hoping to find something useful for them but inevitably they sit there in the freezer, multiplying. My girls love meringues but I’ve found that defrosted egg whites don’t make the best meringues (or pavlova!). If I have just one or two I might make semifreddo with them, or lemon sorbet, two wonderful treats that often call for fluffy whites to add airiness.

Then, amidst an emotional and turbulent couple of weeks of the Black Lives Matter movement, learning and reading more about Black cookbook authors, I discovered Edna Lewis and her Taste of Country Cooking (1976) book (side note: this was a very interesting article to read, Cookbooks, not Restaurants, are giving Black Foodways an Identity, I’m looking forward to receiving Byron Ford’s New World Sourdough, which just came out, and Bryant Terry’s Vegetable Kingdom looks great; Deb from Smitten Kitchen has a long list here that I suggest you check out too if you’re interested). I honestly feel ridiculous for not knowing about her cooking and her books until now, about what an important culinary figure she is in American cooking (there are many great articles written on her, this New York Times article from 2015 seems particularly meaningful today, Edna Lewis and the Black Roots of American Cooking). I was so hooked, I ignored my family all day and just read it cover to cover. And amongst those page I found the absolute best thing to do with all those leftover egg whites: white pound cake.

It is exactly what I love most in a cookbook – full of personal stories, almost a memoir, with her recollections, a celebration, of an upbringing in a farming community in Virginia, where her family recipes followed the seasons (as do her chapters and the menus in each chapter) with simple, good food inspired by and with great respect for the ingredients and above all, the land. Her recipes are written with love, care and life experience, full of so many tips that are hard to find in cookbooks these days.

I know why Alice Waters said, “When I discovered her cookbook, it felt like a terribly good friend.”

What to cook first from it? I let Mariù choose, and as any 7 year old would, she picked the blackberry cobbler and lemonade, which we filmed. I was inclined to go with the casserole of sage-flavored pork, hot buttered beets and pan-fried chicken (cooked in hand-churned butter and home-rendered lard, served with a cream gravy because in the summer the calves were weaned and cream was plentiful, as was the green grass for them to graze on) from the same menu as the cobbler, the wheat-harvesting midday dinner from the summer chapter. I’m regretting that I didn’t know about dandelion blossom wine earlier but am drooling over the pickled watermelon rind and smothered rabbit, and holding out for the September green tomatoes to make preserves that Lewis says tastes like honey. Maybe with a batch of her corn muffins. The way she describes how her family wrapped the rest of the green tomatoes in tissue paper and stored in a cool, dark place to make it to Christmas reminds me of my mother in law’s recollections of the tomatoes her father would hang, as they often do in Puglia, in the attic to last until Christmas time. As her editor Judith Jones wrote, “I think every reader will feel genuinely grateful for the memories Edna shares with us.”

This white pound cake immediately caught me eye, perhaps because of the resourceful use of egg whites, but also because of all the simple, comforting recipes that fill this book, the very simplest ones like her yeasted bread rolls and this pound cake appealed in an enormous way to me. I knew this was going to be a wonderful recipe before I even made it and now that I have, I can say it is truly the best pound cake I have ever made or eaten. I honestly can’t stop walking over to the kitchen bench just to inhale the perfume of this cake!

I will say I used some special ingredients. I imagine that when Edna Lewis was writing these recipes she was also using the freshest ingredients off the farm. So I chose a very special butter from the mountains near Pistoia, you can eat it right from the packet, it tastes like cream. And I used raw milk from Camporbiano, a nearby farm, that comes in a bottle and still has a thick layer of cream on top. I only ever use organic, free range eggs and organic flour. I think Edna would approve, she speaks often in her book about using fruit or even water without chemicals, often even calling for bottled water in her recipes.

I had to adjust this recipe slightly from Edna Lewis’ original, partly because I don’t have a 10 inch bundt tin, as she calls for. I planned to use a loaf tin and I know from experience having baked many pound cakes in this tin before (like this pistachio, polenta, olive oil pound cake and this peach and jam pound cake from Acquacotta) that there would be too much batter to fit. So if you do plan to make this in a bundt you could probably double this – or go with Edna’s original (admittedly, although I reduced all the other ingredients, I kept the egg whites the same because I had so many)! 

One thing I did not use from the original was almond extract, which I think would be lovely, and would give it a beautiful perfume. But at the last moment, I replaced it with a splash of sassolino, a clear, Italian liqueur with a strong, distinct aniseed flavour. Many Tuscan desserts are made with aniseed in them and I thought this might be a lovely way to bring that local flavour into this recipe from Lewis’ Virginian farm.

I hope you love it as much as I do. I urge you to try this with a few simple quality ingredients if you can – or splurge on just one, the butter would be my choice. It will make a difference.

Edna Lewis’ White Pound Cake

Plum cake bianco di Edna Lewis

For one loaf tin

I don’t normally post in cups, because it’s incredibly confusing, can you believe the US, Australia and the UK have slightly different cup measurements?! So please be aware these are US cup measurements. Since the original was in cups, I based this on that recipe, measuring on my scales in grams too.

200 grams/1 cup sugar

220 grams/1 cup best quality butter, softened

250 grams/2 cups flour

125 ml/ 1/2 cup milk

Pinch salt

2 tsp almond extract (or aniseed liqueur, try it!)

160 grams/2/3 cup egg white (about 4 whites from large eggs)

Prepare a loaf tin (I line mine with parchment paper) and preheat oven to 300°F / 150°C.

Beat the butter until creamy, then add sugar and beat well until pale and creamy. Fold in the flour and milk, alternating each until combined, starting and ending with the flour. Add the salt and almond extract.

In a clean bowl with clean mixers, whip the egg whites until fluffy and soft, not stiff peaks. Fold these in bit by bit (I did it in four lots) until incorporated and you have a smooth, creamy batter. Pour into the loaf tin and place in oven.

After 40 minutes, turn heat up to 325°F / 165°C and continue baking a further 15 minutes or until the top feels firm and a toothpick inserted inside comes out clean (I actually kept mine in 25 minutes; I would start checking from 15 as Edna instructs).

Remove cake from oven and leave in tin for 15 minutes before removing from tin and allowing to cool. Keep the cake covered (Lewis instructs to cover it after 15 minutes to ensure it stays soft), I keep mine wrapped in its original parchment paper and a clean linen teatowel around it. It keeps well without drying out this way for several days. If you can resist.

Fried tuna polpette, a favourite pantry meal

Whenever I make polpette, I have this image in my head of tiny Nonna Lina, Marco’s grandmother, standing by the stove, frying, creating an enormous pyramid of these polpette, only to have people pop in and out of the kitchen, stealing the one on the top, too hot to even hold let alone stick in your mouth. “Polpette” is also the name for meatballs but it can really refer to any roundish fried thing, regardless of whether or not they have meat in them. These particular polpette are more like croquettes, where mashed potato gives them body and you can add whatever protein you like — tuna is my favourite storecupboard staple.

Usually this is an excellent vehicle for recycling leftover meat, roast meat in particular, but also ham, perhaps with odd ends of cheese. This polpette recipe is itself a variation of the “polpette di lesso” from my latest cookbook, Tortellini at Midnight, which is a classic Tuscan recipe. It used to be common to make meat broth (in my in law’s home brodo was a daily preparation!) and the boiled meat leftover was aplenty so it was refashioned in different ways, namely these fried treats and also in a hearty onion stew that Florentines call Francesina.

I’ve been putting this version with a tin of tuna, in the regular rotation of meals lately, the whole family loves them (which you may have been following has been a battle for a while) and it’s been a very handy pantry meal to have on hand — potatoes, a tin of tuna (mackerel is also great), breadcrumbs, a garlic clove and you’re more than halfway there. I bind the mixture with an egg and a handful of parmesan cheese too. It doesn’t need much else but if you have it, parsley or some other fresh herbs like oregano or thyme, is nice in here. My girls like it with a squeeze of lemon and mayonnaise to dip them in, but they are also delicious as they are or with a dollop of zingy salsa verde.

Other variations: Vegetarians can easily do these polpette without the tuna (you’ll only need 1 egg), but you should also try this version with cannellini beans too, it’s absolutely delicious and is inspired by historian and well-connected British expat Janet Ross’ century old cookbook, Leaves from our Tuscan Kitchen (1899). If you don’t know it yet, it is a wonderful book of vegetable recipes. She lived in Poggio Gherardo which is a beautiful villa (now a monastery), part of the skyline of my neighbourhood of Settignano.

And when you have leftover polpette (incredibly, it happens), they happen to be delicious cold and are ideal to put in a lunch box or take on a picnic, but Tuscans often prepare them “rifatte”, which is where they are warmed in a tomato sauce — and it is perhaps even more delicious. With each reinvention, they just seem to get better.

Polpette di tonno

Fried tuna polpette

This makes about 20, which you could serve as part of an antipasto or aperitivo for a gathering or as a meal, with salad, for 4.

2 medium potatoes

250 grams tinned tuna

salt and pepper

1-2 eggs, beaten

40 grams of parmesan, finely grated

1 clove of garlic, finely chopped

handful of flat leaf parsley, finely chopped

80 grams breadcrumbs

vegetable oil for frying

Peel and roughly chop the potatoes. Place in a saucepan of cold water and bring the the boil over medium heat. Cook until fork-tender, then drain and mash with a generous pinch of salt. Set aside to cool (refrigerate if not using right away).

Drain the tuna and place in a bowl along with the mashed potato, egg (I use 1-2 depending on the consistency of the mixture or what I have on hand), parmesan and herbs and combine well, adding a pinch of salt taken with three fingers and some freshly ground pepper. Taking about 2 tablespoons of mixture at a time, form cylinders and place on a plate until you have used all the mixture.

Place the breadcrumbs in a shallow dish and roll each polpetta to coat completely. Set aside. Pour enough vegetable oil in a wide pan (cast iron is ideal for frying, if you have it) to about 3cm and heat over medium-high heat. To test when oil is ready, a cube of bread should turn golden brown in about 15 seconds – less and it is too hot, more and it’s not hot enough – adjust heat accordingly. Fry the meatballs in a single layer for about 3 minutes on each side or until deep brown. Drain on paper towels and salt while still hot. Serve immediately.

Strawberry tiramisu

I made a video of my girls and I making strawberry tiramisu recently on Instagram and it was such a hit, I loved seeing others making this, so decided it should be a permanent recipe on the blog too!

There are so many reasons I love this version of tiramisu, first and foremost because strawberries and cream in any combination is a treat. But also, this tastes like strawberry shortcake without having to bake (note that down, those without an oven or, like me, who live in sweltering hot places in the summer and don’t want to bake), and because of that you can even make it in any container or form you like — individual cups or glasses, in a long, rectangular glass dish, a trifle bowl, or like here, a cake tin (which I love as it feels more like “cake” and reminds me of making a Tuscan zuppa inglese). Finally, even though it’s best to wait a few hours for it to set, it’s quick and easy to make. Even the kids can do it.

This is more or less the tiramisu recipe that I learned when I was 16 from a family friend who had lived in Rome. Actually tiramisu is one of those newer recipes — invented in the 1960s in the Veneto, they say — which explains the cross-regional ingredients (savoiardi from the Veneto and mascarpone from Lombardy) and also means, unlike centuries old traditional recipes, there is really no “set” way to make it. My Tuscan mother in law makes a tiramisu in a way that I admit isn’t my favourite — she uses pavesini biscuits, which are the same shape as savoiardi but flat and in my opinion are inferior because you don’t get the fluffy, sponge like layer that you have from savoiardi and they can too easily get soggy. She also uses dark chocolate, chopped roughly in chunks to cover her tiramisu, which I think jars with the delicate cloud-like cream and fluffy biscuit layer – a light dusting of grated chocolate or even powdered cocoa is my preference, if anything at all.

To be honest, it’s just a very simple variation of the classic tiramisu, just more kid friendly. In place of the coffee (spiked perhaps with rum or vin santo), the biscuits are dipped in macerated strawberries and their juices. I recommend doing this in high strawberry season when they are ripe and plentiful — you will get plenty of juice as the strawberries macerate with a bit of sugar and lemon juice. But if you find they’re not as juicy as you hoped, you can add a splash of orange juice (blood orange juice is wonderful, also for the colour), and while you’re at it, add a bit of the zest in there too! Raspberries are a delicious alternative.

Strawberry Tiramisu

Note, this recipe uses raw eggs so it is important that you have very fresh, organic, free-range eggs – if that isn’t already your norm. There are many recipes online that involve pasteurising the eggs if you are squeamish about using them raw, but it isn’t the way it is normally done in Italy so rest assured this is a healthy, delicious treat as it is.

500 grams of ripe strawberries (note, my girls eat a lot of them along the way, I think we used in the end about 400 grams)
200 grams sugar
1 lemon, zest and juice
3 very fresh eggs, separated
500 grams mascarpone (if you want to make your own, see here)
500 gr savoiardi (lady finger) biscuits
A small square of dark chocolate, grated, or powdered cocoa for garnish, optional

Chop the strawberries into small pieces or slices, discarding the green tops. Place the strawberry pieces in a bowl and scatter over 50 grams of the sugar and the zest and juice of the lemon. Leave to marinate (macerate) about 1 hour at least. 

To make the mascarpone cream, separate the yolks and the whites into two medium to large sized bowls. Whip the yolks with the sugar until you have a dense, creamy and pale mixture. Add the mascarpone until combined. Whisk the egg whites (make sure you use a very clean bowl, glass or metal is best, and very clean beaters to quickly get beautifully stiff whites) until you have stiff peaks that hold their shape even when you turn the bowl upside down. Fold the whites into the mascarpone mixture. Set aside — if not using straight away, store covered in the fridge.

If making a round, cake-like tiramisu this should make 3 layers. You may get 2 if using a rectangular glass dish.

The strawberries should have created a lot of lovely juice. Strain the juice into a shallow dish wide enough for the biscuits to fit and set aside the berries. Dip biscuits one by one quickly on both sides and make an even layer your prepared tin. Repeat with more biscuits until you have a nice, tight layer that covers the base of the tin – you can break them to make sure they fit. Cover the lady fingers with a thick layer of mascarpone cream (if making three layers, use one third of the mixture, if making two use half). Layer over some of the macerated strawberries. Repeat layering with dipped lady fingers, cream again, strawberries and so on until you finish with a thick layer of cream. 

Leave in the fridge overnight (or for at least four hours if you are in a hurry), covered. Decorate with more strawberries, grated chocolate or cocoa powder and enjoy!

What we are drinking in lockdown

I’ve been talking a lot about what we have been cooking in lockdown for the past two months (most recently for the Financial Times How to Spend It weekend magazine), and it’s unsurprisingly been a lot of comfort food, a lot of baking and lots and lots of bread as our sourdough starter has finally been given a life!

Off the back of a fun little live chat that Marco and I did on Instagram recently about wine (you can see the notes from it in my highlights here), I thought it would be nice to do another “what we are drinking” blog post, which is about introducing some interesting Italian winemakers that Marco picked and why we like them.

In lockdown, drinking wine has been part of our daily aperitivo ritual – a glass of wine with nibbles as we are preparing dinner, or maybe taken down to our neighbour’s olive grove, picnic style, with some tiny glasses, salami and Marco’s sourdough bread, so the girls can stretch their legs after being cooped up for most of the day. That golden hour before dinner is the prettiest time to be out on the hillside, under the olive trees, it is absolutely magical and it has been a lifesaving, head-clearing ritual over the past weeks, a nice excuse to go for a walk, look up at the sky, switch off and relax with my family and I keep reminding myself to do it more often while we can (we have to enjoy it now before the mosquitoes drive us away)!

But to the wine, I want to share something with you about these interesting grape varieties from equally interesting wineries, a selection of the things that have stood out lately. It’s a coincidence but they all come from northern Italy and, looking at these now written down together, they actually make the start of what would be a fabulous food and wine inspired road trip!

Marta Valpiani, Albana di Romagna 2018 Madonna dei Fiori (Emilia-Romagna)

Marta Valpiani is a winery in Emilia-Romagna, near the medieval town of Castrocaro Terme, composed of a mother and daughter team that call themselves “artisan winegrowers”, which I like. We ordered a few of their wines as well as their olive oil and really enjoyed this Albana (below), a golden white wine made from older vines (between 30-60 years old) grown according to organic and biodynamic principles, harvested by hand. It’s a wine for dining with and goes well with punchy flavours like bottarga, anchovies, even artichokes which are notorious for pairing with wine.

Ca’ Lojera Lugana Annata Storica 1999, Lake Garda (Lombardy)

Ca’ Lojera is an organic winery situated on the south side of Lake Garda, right on the Lombardy/Veneto border – not far from Verona, even if it’s on the Lombardy side. We picked up this 21 year old special vintage Lugana (above), made with 100% Turbiana grapes at our local bistro in Settignano, Caffe Desiderio, which is closed like all restaurants and bars right now, but offering deliveries. It was a steal, too, at 30 euro. It was balanced and elegant, with notes of apricot and honey to match its deep honey colour (see the first photo in this post!). We drank it with a whole roasted sea bream with potatoes, but it would have been wonderful with a plate of cheeses too. If you’re interested about this grape variety, Turbiana, Wine Folly has an interesting story on it here, until recently it was thought to be a Trebbiano grape but it is actually a Verdicchio, which in Lugana’s microclimate is expressed in a very unique way.

Le Sincette Groppello from Lake Garda (Lombardy)

We visited this winery (in photo below) last autumn, while driving back from beautiful Bergamo. Situated on the southwest side of Lake Garda, near Salò, it is one of the most important biodynamic wineries in the area. They grow mostly red grapes, plus chardonnay, an interesting one is their Groppello. It’s a native grape to the little pocket of vineyards on this end of Lake Garda on the Lombardy/Veneto border (it is one of the few DOC wines that crosses borders actually, though on the Veneto side this same grape is called Rossignola), and is often used in blends with Sangiovese, Marzemimo and Barbera — single variety wines like this are rare. A nice red to go with salumi.

Diego Morra Verduno Pelaverga, an unusual grape variety from La Morra (Piemonte)

Pelaverga piccolo is a rare grape varietal grown in the Langhe in Piedmont, especially around the town of Verduno. It’s production today is limited to about 18 hectares divided by about 10 producers only, but it has actually been around since at least the 1400s when this small, black grape was trained over fruit trees as supports. It had a little revival in the 70s and in 1995 was awarded DOC status (in an effort to showcase some of Piedmont’s lesser known varieties) but as you can imagine, it’s still overshadowed by the region’s more famous Nebbiolo, Barolo and Barbera. It’s a fruity, aromatic, peppery, bright red wine and is versatile for pairing with but Marco rightly suggests to simply drink it on its own, so you can enjoy this unusual and rare grape without any distractions. Diego Morra is a family winery run by three generations of winemakers in one of the most beautiful winemaking regions I’ve ever been to.

I’ll leave you with this intriguing piece by journalist and wine writer, Alice Feiring, on what has changed by drinking alone in isolation:

“When drinking with others (even one other), my game plan is to choose wines that can oil the joints of conversation, wit, gossip, and sometimes argument. But COVID-19 requires more proletarian options.”

It’s interesting, is wine the same when you don’t have someone to share a conversation with? Marco has always been reluctant to write about wine, or let me even interview him about wine for the blog, insisting that wine writing is outright boring. What’s interesting – to him – is the tasting, and especially tasting with others, so that you can talk about it together. He was even skeptical about me writing this post but I stubbornly insisted because I like to share and tell the story of food and recipes, things we have been enjoying, why not wine?  Yes, he’s right that it’s not the same as drinking it at the table together in person, but hopefully you find this useful, maybe you can seek out these interesting grapes or these particular low intervention winemakers where you are, or plan a trip for the future. And hopefully one day we can drink them around the table together.

Carrot and ricotta gnudi

This is actually a recipe I already had on the blog — one of the very early ones, from March 2011, believe it or not. But I wanted to revisit the dish. It is one that I love for a couple of reasons — one, because it is a recipe that was first made for me by my college roommate, Sara Lando (an incredible Venetian photographer and part of the duo behind the design of this blog) and it brings me back to her, and our time navigating art school in the US together — nearly 20 years ago now! This is in fact a revisitation of her original recipe.

And secondly, because it is simply such a pleasure to eat — while I was preparing these this time, I said to Marco, “I don’t know why this isn’t more of a thing, why don’t people do this all the time?” So here it is, again, re-introduced because it is spring, carrots are delicious and I think this wonderful dish needs a little bit more attention.

Sara, who comes from the beautiful town of Bassano del Grappa, actually called these carrot gnocchi. But because these remind me so much of Tuscan gnudi — pillowy balls of equal amounts of ricotta and spinach, usually served in a sauce of just-melted butter and wilted sage leaves — I can’t help but keep calling them gnudi too. I also couldn’t help add a little bit more ricotta to the mixture than what Sara does (I doubled it), and a few leaves of sage, but aside from these minor changes I’ve stuck to Sara’s recipe.

Funnily enough, Sara often lived on a bag of crisps for dinner, so when she said she was cooking dinner and presented these gnocchi to me one night, I was totally blown away! It is also telling of this lovely recipe — it is actually a cinch to make.

My tips for making these are similar to the classic Tuscan gnudi. Get a nice firm ricotta, and if you need to (usually you do), ensure it is well-drained. This is a soft mixture, not a firm one, but if you are finding the mixture too soft to shape into balls, use two spoons to help you, and I admit I was heavy handed in the extra dusting of semolina once shaped so they are easier to handle (and even more similar to classic gnudi!).

Carrot gnudi

This recipe below makes about 16 gnudi, which is plenty for 2, even stretching to 3. And if you’re serving this as a starter before another course, it makes a perfect portion of about 4 gnudi a head for 4 people. You can easily double it.

Serves 2-3 as a main or 4 as a starter

500 grams carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
120 gr (1/2 cup) fresh ricotta, well drained
2 egg yolks
1 tbs semolina flour, plus more for dusting (aka semolina rimacinata, if you do not have this use plain flour)
35 gr (1/4 cup) plain flour
1 tbs finely grated parmesan cheese, plus more for serving
nutmeg (or white or black pepper)
50 gr butter
handful of fresh sage leaves

Boil or steam the carrots until tender, then either blend in a food processor or squash them with a potato masher until mashed. Set aside to cool.

In a bowl, combine ricotta, egg yolks, flours and parmesan cheese until just combined. Add the cooled carrot mash and season with salt and nutmeg.

With two tablespoons to help you, make golf-ball sized balls of the mixture, placing them on semolina-dusted surface (wood preferably, as stone or marble tends to cause sticking, otherwise on top of parchment paper) until you’ve finished. Heat a pot of salted water to boil and carefully drop in the gnudi. After a minute, give a gentle stir to make sure they are not stuck to the bottom of the pot.

In the meantime, melt the butter gently in a pan wide enough to fit the gnudi too. Add the sage leaves and gently wilt in the butter. Add a few spoonfuls of water from the pot and bring to a fast simmer, which should ensure the butter doesn’t brown (although that is another type of sauce entirely and might also be nice) and instead creates a sweet, creamy emulsion.

Let boil for several minutes, when they feel firm and begin to float, remove with a slotted spoon placing gnudi directly into the butter sauce. Serve with parmesan cheese.