The cuisine in Emilia-Romagna is permeated with sexual innuendos, expressed in its iconic stuffed pasta, tortellini. Local legends say that the creation of tortellini was inspired by the goddess Venus herself, who was spotted by an innkeeper while staying at his inn. Stricken by this vision, he rushed to the kitchen, rolled out a sheet of pasta and shaped it like the only part of his beautiful guest’s body he had seen from the lock. Today, the hole in the centre of a tortellino is still called “Venus’ navel”.

I follow my grand-grandmother’s recipe, who was from Modena, and made an all-pork stuffing, whereas in other parts of Emilia they prefer substituting pork loin with beef.

Tortellini are a typical Christmas dish in Emilia, but nowadays you can find them at any time during the winter season.

At Christmas, my family cooks them in a warm capon stock that I prefer preparing one day in advance, in order to refrigerate it in a smaller container overnight to remove the solidified fat from the top of the chilled stock. On normal Sundays, we have tortellini in our traditional meat stock (link).

Making tortellini is quite complicated and time-consuming, and it has always been a team effort. Traditionally, the entire family gathered around the “arzdora” (the mother, the real family boss in Ravenna dialect) to put the filling on the small squares of pasta and shape the tortellini. With their small fingers, women and children were the most capable when it came to sealing the tortellini.

In order to be efficient, the filling and the dough can be prepared one or two days in advance. I love using a piping-bag for the filling, and recently, a chef suggested I refrigerate the dough in a vacuum-bag, since the absence of air in the bag prevents oxidation and the dough from changing colour. Still, it is better to work as a team – at least two skilled people – in order to shape tortellini in time to prevent the sheet of pasta from drying.

Prep Time: 4 hours | Cooking Time: 30 minutes | Total Time: 5 hours | Yield: Makes 10 servings.

Ingredients

For the filling

• 3.5 oz (100 g) pork loin
• 1 tbsp dry white wine
• Sea salt and black pepper to taste
• 2 tbsp (30 g) butter
• 1 garlic clove
• 1 small rosemary sprig
• 2.8 oz (80 g) Parmigiano Reggiano
• 3 oz (90 g) Parma ham
• 3 oz (90 g) Bologna mortadella
• 2 eggs
• 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg, freshly grated

For the pasta

• 6 eggs
• 4 cups (500 g) all-purpose flour

For the capon stock

• 1 medium onion, peeled
• 1 medium carrot, peeled
• 1 celery stalk
• Half capon
• 3 parsley sprigs
• 4-5 black pepper corns
• 1 kg (2.5 lbs) various beef cuts used for Italian braised meat like beef tongue, tail, shin bones with meat, marrow bones and bones with a little meat on them, such as oxtail, short ribs, or knuckle bones (cut in half by a butcher)

Instructions

For the capon stock (one day in advance)

Place a large stockpot on the biggest burner. Fill with 4-5 litres/4.5 to 5.5 quarts of cold water (about two-thirds full) and add all the ingredients. Bring the water to the simmering point.

Gently simmer the stock, covered, for 3-4 hours, or even longer if you have time, topping up with water if necessary. Skim the white foam that bubbles to the surface with a slotted spoon.

Strain stock using a fine-mesh sieve and discard bones and vegetables. Let the broth continue to cool until barely warm, then refrigerate in smaller containers overnight. Remove solidified fat from the top of the chilled stock.

For the filling

Add the butter, rosemary, and garlic to a small pan, and sauté the meat. When the meat is roasted externally, add the wine and season with salt and pepper. Cook for five minutes and let it cool down. When it reaches room temperature, coarsely chop and put in a food processor with all the other ingredients. mince at maximum speed until the filling is perfectly blended and is pink in colour. Fill a piping-bag and keep in the fridge. Take it out and keep at room temperature an hour before using it, or it will be too hard to squeeze it out of the piping bag.

For the pasta

On a wooden pastry board, pour the flour into a mound, make a well in its centre and crack the eggs into it. Blend by hand, making a dough that you are going to smooth with a rolling pin.

Divide the dough into two halves, wrap them in plastic wrap and put in the fridge for a couple of hours.

Roll them out, remembering to sprinkle them with flour. Roll each ball of dough into a sheet about 2 mm (1/24 inch) thick.

Cut each dough into small 2-inch (5 cm) squares, and put little piles of filling in each  centre.

Fold the squares into rectangles enclosing the filling. Gently lift one of the long sides against the stuffing at a time, roll around your baby finger and overlap the two corners. Lay on a paper tray or a normal tray covered with parchment, make regular rows and avoid that they come into contact with one another or they will stick together.

Cook them in the boiling stock and serve them still fuming hot.

This Christmas Log, also known as Swiss Roll, originates from the French Bûche de Noël.

It represents the ancient tradition of burning a large log in the fireplace which started on Christmas eve and was supposed to last for the entire festive period, later replaced by this suggestive dessert. Nowadays, the different fillings for the sponge cake can vary from pistachio to tropical fruits. In the European tradition, we can find similar cakes all over the Western countries, such as in Spain with its Brazo de Gitano literally the Gipsy’s Arm, which probably share a very common concept.

Although it is not an extremely difficult recipe, it is fundamental to respect the temperature and cooking time for the sponge cake. If it dries out too much, it will be impossible to roll, and it will break.

Prep Time: 45 minutes | Cooking Time: 15 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour| Yield: Makes 6 servings.

Ingredients

For the sponge cake

• 5 eggs
• 1 pinch sea salt
• 1 tsp vanilla
• ½ tbsp (10 g) honey
• 1 cup (100 g) cake flour, sifted
• ¾ cup (140 g) white sugar

For the chocolate ganache

• 1½ cups (350 ml) fresh whipping cream
• 12.5 oz (350 g) dark chocolate, chopped

Instructions

Put a bowl in the freezer.

For the sponge cake

Pre-heat the oven at 425° F (220° C)

Separate the eggs, and put the yolks in the bowl of a free-standing mixer and in another bowl, whip the egg whites with a pinch of salt.

Add the honey, the sugar, and the vanilla to the yolks, and beat for 7 to 9 minutes with the whisk attachment.

Gently fold in the whipped egg whites in two batches using a large spoon, with large circular movements from top to bottom.

When it is well-mixed, add the flour in 3-4 batches. Pour the batter in a 12×15 inch (30×37 cm) baking pan, covered by parchment. Level it, creating a ½ inch (1 cm) layer.

Bake for 5-6 minutes until golden and firm.

While it is baking, prepare a film layer on the kitchen top, the surface must be larger than the one of the sponge cake.

When the sponge cake is ready, lay the top of it on the film, take the parchment off immediately, and sprinkle with 2 tablespoons of sugar, in order not to make it stick together. Roll it immediately, using the film to help your work, close and leave it in the film.

For the chocolate ganache

Put the cream on the stove and bring it to almost a boil. Switch off and pour the chocolate in it. Mix it with a whisk until chocolate will be perfectly melted.

Move to the bowl you take off the freezer and whip with an electric hand whisk for 10 minutes.

Spread half of the ganache on the sponge cake, except 1-inch (2 cm) from the border. Roll it again, cut a small piece which shall be connected to the log, in order to make a small branch.

Spread the rest of the ganache on the log and use the prongs of a fork to simulate the surface of a log.

Imperial soup has an Austrian origin, and was introduced to Emilia-Romagna by Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma, the second wife of the Emperor Napoleon I. As usual, this soup which can be traced back to Krinofel, went through a major process of adjustment to adapt to local ingredients. Yet, this recipe is “heretical” in a country where caconic recipes are considered with religious devotion: the traditional preparation includes semolina and butter, as Marcella Hazan shows in her Marcella’s Italian Kitchen, which my mum replaced with ricotta cheese.
This soup is therefore lighter and gluten-free, not a bad option for celiacs, still extremely tasty and comforting. Cooked and served in a sumptuous meat stock, it is a luscious dish, a festive delicacy once offered during the Christmas and Easter festivities, but now quite common at Sunday lunches.

Meat stock or broth (nowadays the distinction is quite blurred) is a very popular dish in Northern Italy. It is not only used for adding juices to roasted meats, stews and meat sauces during prolonged cooking, but it also creates wonderful dishes on its own. Northern Italy offers a wonderful variety of pastas created to be cooked and served in broth. There is a whole world of different stocks, made with vegetables, beef, chicken, or fumetto made with fish.

This is a family recipe, it includes hen and beef, and the Italian tradition provides many ways to reuse meats that have lost their juices in the stock.

In order to make a sumptuous stock, meats and vegetables are added to the stockpot when water is cold and left simmering for hours.

The traditional family recipes are very simple, you just need to use a very big stockpot, put the ingredients in it and cover with water. Then it must be put on the stove and left gently bubbling for a long period of time.

Now chefs have enhanced the recipe by cutting the onion into two halves and roasting it for few minutes in a non-stick pan. It adds a stronger flavour to the stock, as it extracts the essence of the vegetable.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cooking Time: 4 hours | Total Time: 4 hours and 20 minutes | Yield: Makes 2 servings.

Ingredients

• 1 medium onion, peeled
• 1 medium carrot, peeled
• 1 celery stalk
• 2 medium potatoes
• 3 cherry tomatoes
• Half hen or 2-pounds chicken wings
• 1 to 1.5 kg (2.5 to 3.5 lbs) various beef cuts used for Italian braised meat like beef tongue, tail, shin bones with meat, marrow bones and bones with a little meat on them, such as oxtail, short ribs, or knuckle bones (cut in half by a butcher)
• Makes 2.5 litres/10.5 cups

Instructions

Place a large stockpot on the biggest burner. Fill with 4-5 litres/4.5 to 5.5 quarts of cold water (about two-thirds full) and add all the ingredients. Bring the water up to the simmering point.

Gently simmer the stock, covered, for 3-4 hours, or even longer if you have time, topping up with water if necessary. Skim the white foam that bubbles to the surface with a slotted spoon.

Strain stock using a fine-mesh sieve and discard bones and vegetables. Let the broth continue to cool until barely warm, then refrigerate in smaller containers overnight. Remove solidified fat from the top of the chilled stock.

Freeze it in ice cube trays and add it to your risotto, stews and roasts.

Dogs love the boiled carrots, and can be given some of the beef bones. The boiled beef is recycled as a stew, in a dish called lesso rifatto or francesina. I add the hen to vegetable soups, to improve the texture.