La pastiera (Easter Neapolitan sweet pie with wheat and ricotta)

06/04/202319/04/2024 ~ stefano arturi ~ 9 Comments

In Campania, no Easter would be conceivable without pastiera, a wonderful cake that exemplifies Southern Italy cooking at its best. It is decadent, generous, refined and simple at the same time. A rich and crumbly pasta frolla (sweet pastry), plump soft wheat berries cooked to a cream in milk, sweet snow-white ricotta, eggs, exotic orange flower water, and bright candied citrus peels that bring the sunshine of the costiera into your home. Impossible to resist – but then why should you? Continue reading “La pastiera (Easter Neapolitan sweet pie with wheat and ricotta)” →

Torta di farro della Garfagnana (emmer savoury pie from Garfagnana)

14/02/2022 ~ stefano arturi ~ 11 Comments

A savoury pie typical of Garfagnana and Lunigiana, those mountainous areas in between North Tuscany, South Liguria and west Emilia Romagna, sparsely populated, traditionally poor (hence their rather sombre style of cooking), thickly covered in chestnut tree woods (hence the many dishes based on chestnuts, once called “the bread of the poor”, because they were free and highly nutritious) and where mushrooms and wild boars are still abundant. It is farro, however, or emmer (Triticum dicoccum), a type of wheat, that is perhaps the most celebrated produce of this part of Italy.

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‘Ndunderi di Minori, nella costiera amalfitana (ricotta gnocchi from Minori, on the Amalfi coast)

03/08/202103/08/2021 ~ stefano arturi ~ 19 Comments

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)” →

Torta Pasqualina (Easter chard and fresh cheese pie from Liguria)

21/03/202126/03/2021 ~ stefano arturi ~ 42 Comments

To say that we Italians are food traditionalists is an understatement. Time and time again we go back to dishes that we have known since we were kids and we still enjoy them immensely. Come Easter and torta pasqualina will appear on very many tables. “Torta pasqualina” translates as Eastertide cake but it is actually a savory pie: layers of a golden, shatteringly flaky olive oil pastry, encasing a substantial filling of chards (biete, in Italian), fresh soft cheese, Parmigiano or pecorino , eggs and marjoram. It is a centuries old dish and one of the highlights of the Italian vegetarian canon – the quintessential spring dish. Continue reading “Torta Pasqualina (Easter chard and fresh cheese pie from Liguria)” →

My Castagnaccio ricco – chestnut pudding

12/12/201910/02/2022 ~ stefano arturi ~ 5 Comments

castagnaccio

Castagnaccio is one of the oldest sweet dishes in the Italian repertoire: chestnut flour whisked with water and a little olive oil, a few needles of rosemary for perfume, then baked until it turns into a sort of cake, a true poor people’s dessert in this most basic version. Chestnut flour is sweet and this makes adding sugar to the batter unnecessary. For greater extravagance, you could add pinenuts, walnuts and sultanas.
In Italy, well until the second world war, chestnuts were regarded as an important, cheap but nutritious food for a large section of the population – if you were poor, meat was an occasional luxury and beans and chestnuts were more likely to be part of your diet.

Truth be told, the castagnaccio you see in most bakeries now can be the stuff of nightmares: stodgy, to say the least, Continue reading “My Castagnaccio ricco – chestnut pudding” →