cappelletti, winter delight of every Umbrian home

I have been keeping this post for one of those rare days when I have enough time in my hands. I wanted quiet and concentration to explain everything in sufficient detail. To tell you that cappelletti, the Umbrian diminuitive version of tortellini, is pasta Nirvana.

Well. We are snowed in. We have no car because it has seriously broken down just before the storm. Most of Italy is under the snow so the replacement parts will not be arriving for a while. The rare phone call is of friends wanting to know if we are all right. The next shop is 8 km downhill on a windy road presently covered by ice and almost a foot of snow. We are not going anywhere.

The term cappelletti, means little hats. In Umbria they are generally made for Christmas. I know families who make a few thousands of them and keep them in the freezer to enjoy during the winter months. They are better served in a chicken or capon stock. However, I am not opposed to a dressing of truffle shavings in olive oil or a good porcini sauce.

In my quest of wheat free alternatives, I have made these cappelletti  with organic kamut flour also named khorasan. The recipe works as well, if not a little easier, with regular flour. To choose the right type of flour, please make sure to read my flour tips here.

To freeze, place them individually on floured plastic trays until hard, then transfer into sealed bags or tupperwares so you can scoop as many as you need. Boil in plenty stock or salted water for 3 min. slightly less if fresh.

Recipe

For the filling

• 120 gr / 4 oz. each of ground turkey breast, lean beef and pork
• 1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
• 60 gr / 2 oz. each charcuterie boiled ham, mortadella, grated Parmesan
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• a pinch nutmeg, salt, black pepper

Heat a shallow heavy-bottomed pan, add  two tablespoon olive oil and saute the ground meats on medium-high heat until just starting to brown. If you cook the meat too slowly it will release liquid, loose flavor and feel like sawdust.

Increase heat to maximum, deglaze with white wine, season with salt, nutmeg, a pinch of black pepper and set aside to cool.

In a food processor, pulse the cooked meat, ham, mortadella and grated Parmesan until finely ground.

For the pasta dough:

• 3 eggs
• 300 gr kamut flour (khorasan)
• 3 tablespoon olive oil

Using the ingredients above, make my food processor pasta dough and roll it into thin sheets using a pasta machine. Cover the sheets with a cotton tea towel. Kamut pasta sheets dry quickly and tend to break, so you need to work faster than when using regular flour.

Now follow the instructions in the photo captions below. Click on one of the picture to start the slideshow.

This recipe makes 350 cappelletti. You will need about 25 per person, so you either have a feast or freeze 3 heavenly family dinners for 4 and 1 tete a tete.

kamut cappelletti on the left, wheat cappelletti on the right

Italian style Chantilly aka crema diplomatica

I must be the only woman on the Western hemisphere who is not on a diet after the holidays. It can’t be healthy to be on a diet in the dead of the winter. Besides – with all my food intolerances – I live in such a modesty I can afford some culinary cuddling. Don’t you also need a bit of consolation?

This recipe is from my friend and wonderful cook Grazia of Ristorante Nanà in Perugia. I will be forever grateful to her for wisely revealing that custard can be made with whole eggs. It’s disarmingly easy and not wasteful. In addition, it magically produces  a large amount of a delightful dessert with a small amount of fairly ordinary ingredients.

Recipe

• 250 ml ( 1 cup) milk
• 250 ml ( 1 cup) whipping cream
• 1 whole egg
• 2 tablespoon sugar
• 1 scant tablespoon maizena (corn starch)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon lemon jam or the  zest of 1/2 organic lemon
• 3 tablespoon organic brown sugar or  6 tablespoon caramel
• light cookies or – much better – crumbled puff pastry

Please note that true Chantilly cream is sweetened whipped cream. In Italy however, this concoction of egg custard and whipped cream is called Chantilly and sometimes crema diplomatica.

Make the custard using my microwave method and let it cool completely. Whip the cream until firm and add to the custard. Refrigerate until needed.

Just before serving distribute the cream into pretty serving bowl, crumble the puff pastry over it and sprinkle with brown sugar or drizzle with caramel.

Beware, you will be asked for more.

Serves  6

fresh cardoons, a typical winter vegetable in Central Italy

PARMIGIANA DI CARDI.

This is a recipe which smells intensely of Christmas to me. It reminds me of my mum, perennially standing in her tiny kitchen, creating complicated wonders. Oddly, she hardly made a sound while cooking for a large party, I could hear her breathing.

It reminds me of how my father and I would sneak into the kitchen to steal the fried stems, subtly aromatic, tender as butter. Those and the mellow leftovers we enjoyed the most, as the rest got confused in the abundance of the holiday banquet.

to clean cardoons, remove the outer fibers and inner membrane of the stem

Artichoke and leafy cardoon are two varieties of the same plant . The first is cultivated for its immature inflorescence – also called globe – and the second for its fleshy stems. The taste of cardoon is reminiscent of celery and artichoke with a hint of bitter which is eliminated by blanching. When buying, make sure to pick those with white stems and without signs of rusty spots

Recipe

• 2 kg ( 4 lb) fresh cardoons, outer damaged leaves removed
• 1 lemon
• 2 eggs
• 100 gr (3 oz) all-purpose flour
• 250 gr ( 1/2 lb) mild cows cheese like caciotta (use fresh Asiago if not available)
• 1 recipe ragù
• 1 recipe bechamel (white sauce)
• 60 gr (2 oz) grated Parmesan or pecorino cheese

This is a work intensive recipe, I suggest to prepare the cardoons, blanch them and fry them on the first day and make the tomato, bechamel sauce and assemble the parmigiana on the second day.

Day 1

To clean cardoons,  strip the fibres from the stems with a pairing knife, cut them into 5 cm (2 in.) pieces and  plunge them  in cool water that has been acidulated with the juice of half a lemon.

Add the other half of the lemon to a pan of water you will use to cook the stems. Bring the water to the boil, add 1/2 tablespoon of salt.  Blanch until tender but still firm, 20 to 30 min. Meanwhile whisk the eggs in a large bowl.

Drain and rinse in cold water, pat dry and dredge in flour. Transfer the floured cardoons in the eggs and deep fry them in vegetable oil until lightly golden.

Make sure to work in batches to avoid overcrowding the pan. Drain on paper towels and season with salt and pepper.

If you don’t like to fry, line the largest roasting tin you own with parchment paper. Place the cardoons well spaced on a single layer and bake until colored in a preheated oven at 250 °C (480 °F) , turning once.

Day 2

Make the tomato and bechamel sauce. Slice the caciotta. Prepare all ingredients on your work-top. Butter a 20 x 30 cm (8 x 12 in) gratin dish. You should have enough cardoons to make three layers.

Arrange the cardoons in a single layer at the bottom of the pan. Cover with one third of the sliced cheese and sprinkle one tablespoon of the grated cheese. Drizzle approx. 3 tablespoon of the tomato sauce and 1 and 1/2 tablespoon of the white sauce on the layer. Make sure to use modest amounts of sauce or you will end up with a gloppy soup!

Continue building up the layers ending with Bechamel which will form a lovely crust. Bake in preheated oven at 200° C (390° F) until golden and set, approx. 30 min.

The version  in the picture below is vegetarian and gluten-free. I substituted ragù with a simple tomato sauce and regular flour with rice flour. It’s every bit as delicious as the original one, just lighter.

Serves 6 as a main, 8 as a side

my mother's Christmas treat, I miss you mum.

olive oil is good for the heart, in many ways.

This year I have already had my Christmas gift. Within a couple of days of posting the picture of olive harvest, our very small production of olive oil was practically sold out.

Please believe me, I did not make a penny out of it. The costs of production on a small scale are so high that I am lucky if I cover the preparation of the field and the new nets.

However, this is not the point.

The point is the appreciation of friends and former guests of our B&B for what we do here.

We own a small piece of paradise where these trees have been growing for centuries and we keep it alive. We use no chemicals, we respect the soil, we allow the plants to fend for themselves save for a light spring-pruning.

our olive grove

We watch the drupes, every year with worried expectation, until they are just the perfect color to harvest. The color indicates the peak of flavor and smoothness. We work long hours at the end of a busy tourist season to harvest as quick as possible so they don’t become too ripe and loose that beautiful quality

Invariable, at the end of this gigantic effort we happy and proud of the emerald elixir, “the nectar of the olive gods” as a friend of mine calls it. Now, after having acquired a new olive grove, we can share some of it. Its’ been big news for us.

But even more surprising has been the love of people, the understanding of what we do and why, wanting to support and share our little bit of Umbria. So much enthusiasm has blown me away.

This Christmas, even more than usual, I need to give thanks for what I have received.

buon Natale, buone Feste!!!

Thank you also to my friend Gloria from At Home in Tuscany for inviting me to participate with this post to the Italy blogging roundtable special Christmas event. This is organized, besides Gloria, by  the other fabulous rountablers Alexandra from ArtTrav,  Rebecca from Brigolante, Melanie from Italofile, and Jessica from Why Go Italy . Until 14 December, bloggers are invited to expand upon the topic of “gifts,” somehow connected to Italy, on their blogs. You’re still in time to join!

meltingly tender, the Tuscan peposo stew served with crispy roast potatoes

This is a guest blog post from my dear friend Gloria, an eclectic, ironic and multi-talented  Tuscan. She is a linguist pursuing an academic career, runs a popular travel blog, a couple of holiday rentals, collaborates to all sort of other projects I’ve lost track of, and she is – of course – an excellent cook.   I have tasted and loved this hearty stew at her country home in Southern Tuscany. It’s perfect for a chilly fall evening after a long walk in the woods.

Il Peposo, also known as Peposo del Chianti or Peposo alla Fornacina, is one of the most ancient dishes of the Tuscan cuisine. Despite the fact that it is a meat dish, it belongs in all respects to the “cucina povera”, that is, the culinary tradition of the humble households which resorted to simple, inexpensive and easily available ingredients.

Il Peposo was traditionally a hearty meal for the kiln workers of the Chianti (hence the name Peposo del Chianti). They spent long hours by the kiln making terracotta tiles and utensils and they took advantage of the heat from their ovens to slow cook the meat in pots placed just outside the kilns (hence the name Peposo alla Fornacina, as fornace is an Italian word for kiln).

In the area where my village is located, south of Siena, on the border with the Maremma, Peposo was usually eaten by wood charcoal burners. They would place their pots of Peposo on top of the turf piles under which the wood was slowly burning. In the woods which surround the village, some of the old wood charcoal burning sites are still visible in the growing underwood, and it is quite common to see pieces of broken terracotta pots scattered around the ground.

Peposo is a very easy dish to prepare. It can be prepared either  in a terracotta pot in the oven or in a pot with a heavy lid on the stove (that is what I do, which is also the traditional way around here). For this dish, you need a “poor” cut of meat rather than a tender, good quality cut, because, otherwise, the meat would melt in the slow cooking process. Traditionally, Peposo was made with scraps: the “worst” pieces of beef meat that were relatively cheap to buy. Stewing steak, better if with a bit of fat or callosity, is usually ideal. If you can only find a good cut of beef, then it’s necessary to reduce the cooking time. With the right type of meat, you will typically need 3 hours.

Recipe

• 2 tablespoon olive oil
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 tablespoon black peppercorns
• 1 handful of sage leaves
• 450gr ( 1 lb) of beef meat, cut in approx.  1 inch x 1 inch pieces
• 1/2 lt (2 cups) red table wine (best if a modest Chianti)
• 1 lt (4 cups) hot water

Preheat the olive oil in a Dutch oven and briefly sauté the garlic cloves. Add the peppercorns, the sage and the meat and sear for 5 minutes, until the meat has a nice brownish colour on all sides. Pour in the wine, cover and let it simmer on very low heat or in the oven at 150 °C (300 F°). 
When the wine starts to reduce, add 4 cups (1 lt) hot water and let simmer slowly for 2 hours, checking regularly to see that the liquid has not evaporated completely.

If the liquid dries up, add some more water to cover the meat. After 2 – 2 1/2 hours, remove the lid, and let the liquid evaporate until the meat is left in a thick brown juice. There is usually no need to add salt.

Some people add a few tomatoes to the meat, which results in a creamier dish.
 Il Peposo is best accompanied by a good, hearty red wine, and possibly a salad to compensate for the rich taste of the meat. Some people serve Peposo on stale or toasted Tuscan bread. If you choose to do that, don’t let the juices evaporate completely.

Buon appetito!
Serves 2-3

a country walk and a good dinner afterwards, what else do you need?

a chestnut truck in our village market

October is an incredibly generous month in Umbria. The weather is still mellow and sunny, the winds have cleared up the sky to porcelain blue, we’re counting the days to olive harvest.

This will be the first year we’ll have enough olive oil to sell because we have acquired 40 new olive trees with our new house . We are thrilled and also a bit worried by so many goals, guests, rebuilding, harvest….but sorry, I digress.

Chestnuts have finally made their irresistible appearance on the markets. 

This humble fruit has been a staple of the Mediterranean diet for millennia. Near Mount Etna in Sicily there’s a chestnut tree which is believed to be between 2000 and 4000 years old. Chestnut trees are magnificent creatures, the Sicilian one is said to have sheltered a medieval queen and her 100 knights during a storm.

Every year we buy the first chestnuts, roast them and devour  them in the evening accompanied by a glass of red wine. It’s a most convivial way to end a day and to celebrate the beginning of fall.

If you can’t buy them fresh, you can get your chestnut fix with this easy but sophisticated dessert. Look for chestnut spread, puree, paste or jam which is available from well know brands like e.g. Bonne Maman, Merchant gourmet or Faugier. The chestnut spread I use is very sweet, but you might need to add sugar if the product you buy is unsweetened. 

Recipe

• 250 gr. chestnut jam
• 250 gr mascarpone
• 125 gr fresh ricotta

To finish

• 3 tablespoon toasted almonds or pine nuts
• 3 tablespoon Cointreau or brandy

Stir the mascarpone into the ricotta and whisk until smooth. Swirl in the chestnut spread and distribute into 8 dessert cups or plates. Make sure to make small portions. It’s decadently rich, a tablespoon or so per person will go a long way.  Don’t be tempted by thick sauces or melted chocolate which will overpower the delicate yet intense flavor of the cream.

If the dessert needs to wait, cover with cling film and refrigerate. Just before serving, toast the nuts and sprinkle them while still warm on the cream. If you feel the portion is too little – I don’t -  serve with some additional decoration like ice cream wafers or other light biscuits.Drizzle with a little liqueur and serve.

chestnut decadence

emerald goodness

This is a healthy, refreshing and quite good-looking soup. It’s one of my desperation recipes, meaning that I make it when desperately needing a nutritious and light meal in hardly any time. I often keep a bag of pre-washed spinach in the fridge, but I would not snob some good quality frozen ones, possibly organic.

I often use fresh pasta leftovers which I dry on a towel for a day or two and then roughly crush them with my hands to give it a rustic look. Bought fresh egg-noodles of any shape you like will do just fine, no crushing needed.

What makes the dish is that drizzle of olive oil at the end. The fruity creaminess of the oil brings out the herby intensity of the spinach.

This is a perfect occasion to open that bottle of olive oil you bought during your last holidays in Umbria.

Please don’t be tempted to cook the pasta in the soup, it will be chewy, you want it silky. Fresh noodles cook in no time so it’s not an effort.

If you are gluten free, this is a good recipe to use boiled rice leftovers too. As a further alternative,  you could substitute the pasta with two tablespoon cooked cannellini beans per person. Just warmed them first in a pan with a little garlic and olive oil before gently float them on the soup.

Recipe

• 1/2 kg (1 lb) spinach
• 1 onion
• 1 lt ( 1 quart) boiling water or stock
• 1 teaspoon flour or corn starch

• 60 gr (2 ounces) fresh pasta noodles per person
• 2 teaspoon freshly grated Parmesan per person
• a good quality extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon salt

Dice the onion and soften it in two tablespoon olive oil in a  saucepan which must be large enough to hold the soup. Add the cleaned spinach leaves, cover and simmer slowly until the greens are wilted. Add flour or starch and stir. Add the boiling water or stock, simmer 3-4 more minutes, season and puree until smooth. Cover to keep warm.

In a separate pan cook the noodles in plenty salted boiling  water until al dente. Fresh tagliolini will take no more than one minute.  Drain and toss with one tablespoon of olive oil. Now quickly ladle the spinach puree into bowls, add the pasta, a sprinkle of grated Parmesan, drizzle with good EVO oil and serve immediately.

Serves 4

here, with your sprinkle of cheese

we are still at the crumble stage

Weeks ago I received an email from a woman stating the following:

“we considered staying at your B&B for our holidays but we have read on your blog that you are planning to renovate the new part of the house and we are afraid the works will disturb us during our stay”.

Indeed last May, after a decade of painstaking negotiations and worries, we have fulfilled our dream and bought the second half of our farmhouse. The story is here.

Cara signora (dear lady), I hope you are reading this. Because I want to ask you why you take from me the time which I need to read your message. Then  you take the time I need to reply that of course we would not dream to do any works which could disturb our guests during season. We have a B&B we quite some reputation, so why should we do something so damaging.

And then you don’t even bother to reply because you have already decided that you will not be staying here.

Cara signora I know why you have written this message. You live on a planet where – when you want a house -  you ask your neighbor kindly if he wants to sell it. If he does, after a week all the papers are signed and the house is yours.

The next week you have your plans and you go to one or another public office and ask them kindly if they give you permissions to move a couple of walls, install, new windows, photovoltaic solar panels and a modern, low consumption biomass heater. “A wonderful project!” – they will say – and give you full support.

Say all the above has taken you a month. Then you get immediately all the construction companies and technical consultancy necessary to actually implement the project, order the materials and put up the scaffolding. immediately afterwards the builders speed in and start  hammering making all that horrible noise.

trying to find an opening

Cara signora, can you please tell me on which planet you live? Because I want to move to this place where is possible to buy a house in May and start to the actual renovation work in September. And may be even complete it by Christmas.

I live in Italy.

It’s been 5 busy months and we haven’t even managed to put together all the crazy paperwork necessary for the solar panels  on the roof. The rest of the renovation has to be presented at a later time because it needs even more crazy paperwork.

A couple of days ago, a public officer has announced that after all the documents prepared, we might not be able to install the photovoltaic panels on the roof where they would hardly be visible.

The local government prefers for us to install the panels on our beautiful fields, where they will take up much more space, be visible from very far and disrupt our magnificent view. He said that we have to hide the panels behind a 6 ft tall fence surrounded by tall trees.

Shaded solar panels. Ingenious.

Besides, as we are at the top of a hill on sloping grounds the fence would not hide the panels from view. In contrast, it would only increase the horrendous visual effect of the whole construction.

see the flock of sheep? There's where they want the industrial looking installation

Cara signora, if you would only know how difficult it is to realize a project here, you would not even consider coming over  for holidays.

Please give me the address of your world and I might start packing before it’s too late.

the beautiful little berries

My father will not touch my elderberry jelly. Despite my assurance that I have been eating it for years and even his beloved granddaughter has had it with no ill consequences, he is still convinced that it’s dangerous.

Not even when I tell him that you can buy it in most supermarkets in Switzerland and Germany. What do these Nordics know anyway?

Indeed it is true that bark, leaves, seeds and the raw or unripe elder fruit contain a cyanogenic glycoside, which is potentially toxic. On the other hand, the elder plant has been used as a medicine, to fight influenza and inflamation for hundreds of years. It is also supposed to ward off evil influence and protect from witches. Even Harry Potter has an elder wand.

However, I must say, it does take some wizardry to make elderberry jelly. The berries are tiny. Picking, cutting off the stems, pre-cooking and sieving to remove seeds it’s time and work intensive, and results in only a few precious jars.

Luckily, thanks to the suggestion my friend and preserving wizard Giulia I have recently acquired a steam juice extractor. See in the video below how fabulously easy is to juice the berries, it’s better than a witch cauldron!

To make the jelly I use same amounts (weight) of sugar and elderberry juice, powdered pectin according to package instruction and the juice of 1 lemon/ lt ( 4 cups) juice.

Magical. With cheese.

the elderberry jelly

my homemade gelato

GELATO ALLA PANNA CON PRALINA AL CARAMELLO SALATO.

I must confess I generally am not a fashionable cook. On the contrary, I am a firm believer in tradition and repetition. The simpler a recipe, the better. And, if it’s been invented already and everybody knows it, then I am probably not going to be able to improve it.

I have been ignoring fusion food of any provenance for years. Soy sauce on foie gras? No thanks. Lobster ice cream? Rose flavored salt? mpf……..

Then I met salt and sugar. Years ago, before everybody –   including Obama – started to be crazy about salted caramel.

We were on a Thai island, guests of an adorable local family, preparing a dessert of sticky rice boiled in coconut milk and palm sugar. The whole experience was fantastic. However, what it’s been impressed in my memory was how a sprinkle of salt changed and improved the taste of the coconut and sugar combination.

No news, you will say. We have been adding salt to cakes forever.

Indeed, it’s a tradition. I had forgotten and I had to get all the way to the other side of the world to remember.

Good excuse, I think I need more inspiration.

Recipe

• 100 gr/ 3 oz plain peeled almonds, finely chopped
• 60 gr (1/4 cup) plus 2 tablespoon regular sugar
• 60 gr (1/3 cup) organic brown sugar
• 250 ml (1 cup) whipping cream
• 200 ml (4/5 cup) full fat milk

In a small skillet over low heat, toast the almonds with  2 tablespoons sugar and a pinch of salt.  Keep stirring to coat the almonds with the melted sugar. Continue for a few more minutes until nuts caramelize to a dark brown color, about 5 minutes. Spread them out on a non-stick surface to cool. When cooled, pulverize in a food processor or chop finely to obtain a praline.

Heat the milk with both brown and regular sugar. Stir to dissolve, add the cream and refrigerate for at least one hour. This will shorten the churning time.

Process the creamy mixture in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s instructions. When the mixture is set, sprinkle in the praline and process until it hardens further. Keep in the freezer until ready to serve.

Please note that  I like my gelato to be egg-free and a relatively modest in sugar. As a consequence  it melts quickly. That is, if you can wait long enough before polishing the bowl.

Serves 4-6

unfogettable fun in Thailand