My Italian food
An unusual recipe where toasted hazelnuts replace minced meat. I discovered this idea online, but there is not much information about it – I suspect this is a relatively modern recipe.
The chopped hazelnuts lose their crunchiness, and, with the support of tomatoes, dried ceps, spices and red wine, become a deeply flavoured sauce, as satisfying as a conventional meat ragu’.
This really is a sumptuous condiment for pasta and polenta, which happens to be vegan.
“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”
UPDATE September 2022: please check the end of this post
In her last book, even the arch-traditionalist Marcella Hazan said that making egg pasta dough in the food processor is fine. She was finally acknowledging what home cooks and restaurant chefs had probably been doing for a long time, but it was also testament to her intelligence: food and cooking must evolve to stay alive. It would be foolish to ignore that cooking is an ever changing reality that resists being imprisoned in dogmas: we do not eat, cook or think about food one year for the other.
As much as I love traditions and traditional food, I am also very open to “new ways” in the kitchen, as long as they make my life easier and/or my food better. The pressure cooker is a good example. Continue reading “Ragù alla bolognese in pentola a pressione (pressure cooker Ragù Bolognese, even better than the conventional one)”
A rather difficult name for an easy peasy pasta: ‘ndunderi are ricotta and pecorino cheese gnocchi from Minori, on the Amalfi coast. These cheesy morsels are firmer than potato gnocchi but positevly tender and are a cinch to make. They go back centuries: in fact they are said to be deriving from the little pasta balls of farro flour (spelt) and soured milk that the ancient Romans used to make. Continue reading “‘Ndunderi di Minori, nella costiera amalfitana (ricotta gnocchi from Minori, on the Amalfi coast)”
The calendar says it is spring. We moved the clocks forward, magnolias and camellias are in bloom, the days are longer and brighter and, with some luck, the sun is less reluctant to pay us a visit – well, up to a point of course, we are in the UK after all.
Visiting my local market a few days ago though, I was reminded that from a culinary point of view, we are not out of winter yet; we are still in the infamous “hungry gap”: plenty of winter vegetables (celeriac, cabbages, leeks, carrots, cauliflowers) but no new, spring crop in sight. For asparagus and globe artichokes, beans and peas, patience is needed – a few more weeks to wait.
No point in whinging: time to find new ways to use those brassicas and root vegetables. This Neapolitan pasta with cauliflower comes in handy: cauliflowers, with their pale green, tender leaves hugging their floral heads, are still plentiful and of good quality.
Continue reading “Pasta e cavolo (Pasta and cauliflower Neapolitan style)”
Italian home cooking 