There are few things that bother me more than throwing out food, so I’m often looking for ways to recycle leftovers, use up stray bits of veg and other stuff in the fridge or, as in today’s recipe, make good use of trimmings. I often use trimmings as a flavor … Read More
Erbazzone (Savory Greens Pie)
Erbazzone is a savory vegetable pie from Reggio-Emilia in Emilia-Romagna. Greens are sautéed with onion and pancetta and enriched with Parmesan cheese, encased in a crust made from an unleavened dough of flour and water enriched with oil or lard called pasta matta, and then baked. Simple, honest food, made from humble ingredients in … Read More
Pastiera Napoletana
It wouldn’t be a proper Easter dinner in Naples without a pastiera napoletana for dessert, as essential to the Neapolitan Easter as struffoli are to Christmas. This wheatberry and ricotta pie is wonderfully perfumed with orange blossom water, cinnamon and candied fruits, a kind of ne plus ultra version of the … Read More
Sformatini di fagiolini (Green Bean Timbales)
A traditional sformato is an old fashioned dish. It’s a dish that takes some time and care to make, involving several steps. The kind of thing many people can’t be bothered with these days. But I think it’s well worth the effort. Not quite a quiche, not quite a soufflé, not quite … Read More
Migliaccio di semolino (Semolina Cake)
Migliaccio, a crustless Neapolitan Semolina Cake, is a traditional sweet dish for Carnevale, may be less well known than the more iconic Neapolitan Carnival treats like those fried dough ribbons called chiacchiere or the lasagna di Carnevale so dear to the hearts of so many Italian-Americans, but it’s well worth discovering. … Read More
Torta Pasqualina (Easter Pie from Liguria)
Savory pies and enriched breads figure prominently on the Easter dinner table. We’ve already featured a couple Neapolitan examples on the blog: the casatiello and the incredibly rich pizza rustica. Today we head north to Liguria to present another classic savory pie served around Easter time: la torta pasqualina or, “Easter Pie”. … Read More
Angelina’s Polpettone (Angelina’s Meatloaf)
Yes, Italians make meatloaf. They call it polpettone, or a ‘big meatball’, which is, in fact, what it is if you think about it. It’s made from essentially the same mixture of minced beef and pork (and optionally veal), lightened with bread and flavored with garlic, cheese and parsley that you would use to make … Read More
Cantucci (Tuscan Almond Cookies)
Cantucci, also known as biscotti di Prato, are perhaps the best known of Italian cookies. Made from a simple dough of flour, sugar and egg, into which whole almonds are folded, they are baked twice: once in cylindrical ‘logs’ to cook on the outside, then cut into sliced and baked again … Read More