Polpette di pane – bread polpette or breadballs, if you insist

~ stefano arturi ~ 20 Comments

Lucca, June 2022 .
London, August 2022. This has been the best, most rewarding recipe of this summer. Just love it

I am a bread collector. All those stale loaf-ends (apparently called “the heels”) that cannot be eaten but cannot be turned into breadcrumbs either, I put aside – “I will make a bread pudding or a pancotto, an Italian bread soup”, I solemnly declare. P and Lucia roll their eyes, because they know their chickens: often these grand plans are not acted upon and, after weeks of ignoring it, I bin my bread, with a bad conscience.

This time, I looked at my collection of odd ends of bread and I decided to make polpette di pane, bread polpette and what an inspired decision that was. Over the last month I have cooked them a few times, actually buying and collecting bread with this purpose in mind. 

Continue reading “Polpette di pane – bread polpette or breadballs, if you insist” →

Miascia (Bread, grape and rosemary cake from Lake Como)

~ stefano arturi ~ 4 Comments

Miascia (mee-AH-sha) is a bread cake typically found in the lovely villages dotting Lake Como. It is an impromptu cake, made with cheap ingredients: stale bread, milk, some fruit, fresh or dried, polenta flour, sugar, a little chopped rosemary to give an elusive perfume. Nothing fancy and yet the final result is truly delicious. The bread is soaked in milk and then fruit is added, with very little flour to bind. This creates a lovely custardy texture that contrasts well with the crunchy topping. Continue reading “Miascia (Bread, grape and rosemary cake from Lake Como)” →

Scarpaccia viareggina (sweet and custardy courgette cake from Viareggio, in Tuscany)

~ stefano arturi ~ 18 Comments

Scarpaccia viareggina
Scarpaccia viareggina
Scarpaccia viareggina
Scarpaccia viareggina
Scarpaccia
Scarpaccia viareggina
Scarpaccia viareggina
Scarpaccia viareggina

It took a leap of faith and my avid curiosity to try this cake: could a basic sweet batter and some grated courgettes make a good cake? No nuts, no sultanas, no spices…really? A resolute “yes!” is the answer.
This is a most unusual and excellent cake come dessert: delicate, plain and light, but not at all boring, with a delicious custardy quality. Burnished golden outside, yellow with specks of green inside, it is also pretty.
Scarpaccia  means “nasty/old shoe” and no one really knows why such an uninspiring name; it is possibly something to do with the appearance of this dessert: a genuine scarpaccia should be a fairly thin and crusty affair – like an old, over-worn shoe. It is the contrast between the sugary and crusty exterior (due to a good drizzle of olive oil) and the custardy, vanilla scented interior that make this unposessing looking dessert sing.
It is a Tuscan speciality and you will not find anywhere else in Italy – Continue reading “Scarpaccia viareggina (sweet and custardy courgette cake from Viareggio, in Tuscany)” →

Pasta china – baked pasta with mini meatballs and lots of other lovely things, from Calabria

~ stefano arturi ~ 18 Comments

“Pasta china” is the name of a sumptuous, festive, baked pasta dish from Calabria, the heel of Italy, in the deep south. In the local dialect, “china” stands for the Italian adjective “piena”, full, and that’s exactly what this dish is about: a riotous affair of short tubular pasta dressed with a spicy tomato sauce, layered with marble-size meatballs, gooey cheese, crumbled boiled eggs, spicy Calabrese sausage, grated parmigiano and pecorino. Definitely, one of those Southern Italian dishes where restraint is out of the question.

Continue reading “Pasta china – baked pasta with mini meatballs and lots of other lovely things, from Calabria” →