My Italian food
One of the great pleasures of cooking Italian is that it offers an amazing array of culinary styles and it is not unusual even for the experienced cook to stumble across completely unheard of foods, recipes and dishes. Continue reading “Mlinci, an unusual corn pasta that is grilled and boiled”
I am not a great fan of potato gnocchi – I love to make them but I always find them dull to eat. I much prefer spinach gnocchi, ricotta gnocchi, bread gnocchi (called canederli) …and these delightful little carrot gnocchi, which I discovered few years ago in Marcella Hazan’s Marcella Says. Her recipe makes for wonderfully cheesy, bright orange morsels and it is a winner. Over time, however, I have strayed from it, Continue reading “Gnocchi di carote (Carrot gnocchi)”
Ideal cold weather fare. I had some excellent beef broth in the fridge (made with a beef tongue, some brisket and some chicken + usual aromatics: celery, carrot, onion in which I had stuck a clove, parsley, bay leaf) and other bits and bobs: finely shredded,steamed cabbage, some boiled pearl barley and some boiled and peeled chestnuts. To make a minestra was the obvious choice.
I reheated everything together + a generous handful of parmesan a tavola.
Oss de mord is Lombardy dialect for the Italian ossa da mordere, which literally translates as “bones to bite”. They are almond, lightly spiced, crunchy biscuits traditionally made only around All Souls Day (il giorno dei morti, in Italian, the second day of November,) – they should resemble dry bones and are meant to honour i morti, the deceased ones. Continue reading “Oss de mord (Almond biscuits for All Souls Day from Lombardy)”
Puntarelle (pronounced poon-ta-REL-lay) is a winter bitter green. It is a member of the chicory family and it is also called catalogna or catalogna spigata. The slender leaves must be boiled/steamed and can be eaten warm as a side dish, with a trickle of olive oil or ri-passate in padella – that is to say, sautéed in oil, garlic and peperoncino. It is the inner crunchy shoots though that is the real reason Italians buy puntarelle – they make one of the best winter salads. Continue reading “Puntarelle in insalata (Puntarelle salad from Rome)”
