This Apulian caponata is a version of this one of Sicily’s essential dishes. It is a vegetarian eggplant stew–more like a relish, really–made of eggplant, onions, bell pepper, celery and tomatoes with briny olives and capers.

There are variations of this tasty eggplant dish. Most of caponatas are spiked with vinegar or raisins.

This version was given to me by a dear friend who lives in Prato, but she owns her Apulian origins a fantastic touch with veggies. This ratatouille is baked, and much lighter then the original version with fried veggies.

The addition of Juniper berries and bay leaves to caponata confers it a very unusual taste which, surprisingly enough (usually these herbs are used in game or meat cooking), melts perfectly with this tasty deli.

It is best the next day, so try to make it ahead and store it in the fridge in a tight-lid mason jar. Bring it to room temperature before serving.

Prep Time: 20 mins | Cooking Time: 60 mins | Total Time: 1 hour + 20 mins minutes | Yield: Makes 8 servings.

Ingredients 

• 4 medium yellow onions
• 1 yellow bell pepper
• 1 red bell peppers
• 3 medium potatoes
• 1 large eggplant
• 125 ml (½ cup) EVO oil
• 10 bay leaves
• 1 tablespoon black peppercorns
• 1 tablespoon Juniper berries
• Sea salt

Instructions

Cut the eggplant in chunks, sprinkle with salt and let drain in a colander.

Halve and de–seed the peppers, then roughly cut into large chunks. Do the same with potatoes and zucchini.

Heat oven to 180C/170C (350 F) fan.

Cover two shallow roasting pans with parchment paper, pour in the vegetables except the eggplant, and season with salt.

With a clean tea towel, squeeze the eggplant chunks and add them to the other vegetables.

Spoon two-thirds juniper berries, peppercorns and olive oil and bay leaves (roughly broken into two halves) into the vegetable mixture, toss together, then roast for 40 minutes.

While vegetables are baking, cut the onions in two halves and then into strips.

Put them in a bowl, season with salt and the remaining herbs and olive oil.

After the vegetables have cooked for 40’, add the onion, mix and let it cook for 20’, or until all the vegetables are soft.

This gluten-free dark chocolate cake was created by accident in Capri in 1920, in a similar way to the birth of Tarte Tatin. The pastry chef was in a stressful day and created this magic cake with chocolate and ground almonds forgetting flour: the result is this magic cake covered by a thin and crunchy crust that contains a moist and soft interior like a chocolate truffle.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cooking Time: 30 minutes | Total Time: 40 minutes | Yield: Makes 8 servings.

Ingredients for a 7 IN (20 cm) mold

• 6,5 oz (g 185) almond flour
• 4,5 oz (125 g) dark chocolate 70%, crumbled
• 4,5 oz (125 g) butter, soft
• 3 medium eggs, room temperature (kept out of the fridge at least 12 hours in advance)
• 4,5 oz (125 g) white sugar
• 1 tablespoon dark rhum

Instructions

A gorgeous pie that increases the freshness of local and seasonal products like squash, leeks and chestnut with a twist given by Phyllo pastry.

Not a personal creation, but a recipe I stole from Cristina Lunardini, an excellent Italian chef, a Romagnolo like me, who I admire, a model to me.

Fresh vegetables which can brighten up our Thanksgiving table or a rainy Sunday brunch; leeks, chestnuts and squash are offered in a new combination, a quite intriguing pie. With this dosage you can make two, you can serve them still warm from the oven or cook and freeze.

Prep Time: 30 minutes | Cooking Time: 50-60 minutes | Total Time: 90 minutes | Yield: Makes 12 servings.

Ingredients:

• 10 sheets of Phyllo pastry, thawed if frozen
• ¼ cup (35 g) corn starch
• 2¼ cups olive oil or unsalted butter, melted if you cannot find good quality olive oil

Ingredients for the filling

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 leeks, cleaned and cut into rings
• 0,65 pounds (300 g) butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and grated (using the biggest side of a four-sided grater) or finely chopped
• 7 oz (200 g) chestnuts, boiled and peeled
• 7 oz (200 g) creamy cheese (possibly chèvre) or Robiola cheese
• ½ cup (125 ml) milk
• 2 eggs
• 2 oz (60 g) grated cheese
• Sea salt and white pepper, freshly milled

Special equipment

2 plum-cake molds

Instructions

In a pan, brown slightly the leeks and add the squash as they turn into light gold (no more then 10 minutes, as all ingredients will be properly cooked in the oven)

Preheat the oven to 350°F (180 C).

Butter or oil a plum-cake mould.

In a bowl beat eggs with grated cheese, the creamy one and milk. Add salt and pepper and crumbled chestnuts.

Unfold the sheets of phyllo dough, lay the stack on a work surface, and cover with wax paper and then a damp kitchen towel to keep it from drying out. Remove 1 piece of phyllo, place it in the mold, and brush it with some oil (or butter). Continue in the same way with the phyllo and oil/butter until you have used the other 4 sheets of phyllo. Repeat with the other mold.

Move the filling from the pan to the bowl and fill the pies. Cover the tops with the flaps of the phyllo dough, intersecting them and making a kind of decorative pattern. Brush again with some fats.

Bake for 30-40 minutes.

Still excellent if served the day after, warm.

As our beloved Pellegrino Artusi claimed, “Cooking is a troublesome sprite”.

Clear of any more or less pleasant surprises that can happen to those who decide to measure themselves against the kitchen stove, there are some fundamental principles of Italian cuisine that we take for granted, that prove otherwise, especially if we compare them to foreign experiences.

Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well is not only the first cookbook for the families of a country recently united in the mid-19th century, but it marks another Florentine record, since it was printed here by the Bemporad publishing company (even if at the beginning of this adventure the Florentines were not very “pleasant” with my fellow countryman).

The title page of the book, ever-present in every Italian kitchen, often stained and tattered, introduces the rules of Italian cuisine that, to this day, we still abide by: cleanliness – thriftiness – good taste.

In Italy, the regulations on food safety and hygiene, both in distribution and food service, are the strictest in Europe, bearing in mind that the European Union has some of the highest standard’s in the world. The use  of antibiotics for livestock, the use of pesticides in agriculture, and the hygiene controls in food production and distribution are extremely strict.

Comparing the allergen list that must be listed on food labels or on restaurant menus, Europe classifies fourteen of them, while the American FDA only recognises eight.

Italian cuisine includes an ample list of “leftover recipes” which, in addition to the traditional meatloaves and meatballs of Western cuisines, adds ingenious pan fried risottos, pasta frittatas, soups and desserts made with stale bread, in addition to frying breadcrumbs to use as a condiment for pasta (not to mention roast meat leftovers and pan juices to make fillings and sauces for mouth-watering stuffed pastas).

As for good taste, Italians are privileged to be surrounded by beauty and art. The relentless search for quality in every detail has led to the development of a kind of instinct and culture passed down from generation to generation of families, an ability to carefully combine foods and beverages, and select raw materials. Our dear Artusi warned us at the time “…always choose the finest ingredients as your raw materials, for these will you make you shine”.

Things have never changed since then; some years ago, the ambassador of Italian cuisine in the UK, Anna Del Conte, reaffirmed the cornerstones of Italian cuisine for her British readers, which she divided into the ten commandments-of-italian-cooking. Among them, the first commandment was the invitation to purchase the best ingredients possible.

What constantly amazes my foreign clients is the ability of Italian cuisine to create unique dishes, rich in flavour and character with very few ingredients. This is possible because the selection of excellent raw materials is combined with constant attention to the dish being prepared from start to finish, subtle seasoning and dosing of spices and herbs, and constant tasting and adjusting.

Wider than “angel’s hair” pasta but thinner than tagliatelle noodles, tajarin (tagliolini noodles in the  Piedmont dialect) were made in the Langhe and Monferrato area farmsteads, in the Piedmont region. From the 15th century, tajarin spread throughout Piedmont, as related in early chronicles. 

It is a festive dish, enjoyed mainly during important celebrations. The generous quantity of
egg yolks in this amazing pasta makes it a “rich” dish, not the best choice
during the working week. Purists consider tajarin to be genuine when it
is made with at least 30 egg yolks per kilo of flour.

I enjoyed tajarin in Alba, a town in Piedmont that is famous for its sophisticated cuisine and famous “white truffle”. 
The restaurant’s pièce-de-résistance was tajarin with white truffle
finely sliced with the special truffle slicer (done by the waiter at my table), tossed with Malga butter (a very fresh rich butter made in a shepherd’s cottage in the mountains). I made my own butter at home: I bought fresh whipping cream and put it in the bowl of a stand mixer, and whisked it at maximum speed until the fat content emulsified. Then I picked up the butter with wet hands and rolled it into balls which I plunged into a bowl of ice water. It only takes few
minutes.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cooking Time: 5 minutes | Total Time: 50 minutes | Yield: Makes 2 servings.

Ingredients

• 7 egg yolks (if the dough is too dry, you can add a few tablespoons of egg white)
• 2 cups (250 g) all-purpose flour
• 3 tbsp (40 g) butter
• 1 tin of crushed tomato 

Instructions

  On a wooden pastry board, pour the flour into a mound, make a hole in its centre and drop the egg yolks into it.

Mix by hand to make a dough that you are going to roll out using a rolling pin.

Let the dough sit for at least 30 minutes, wrap it in cling film or, even better, cover it in a glass bowl.

Roll the dough into a sheet about two millimetres (1/24-inch) thick. Let it dry for at least an hour and a half (depending on the season, in summer 15 minutes are usually enough. The sheet of dough must be dry enough not to stick when you roll it but still flexible to be rolled on itself without breaking).

Flour it lightly, fold a few times to form stacking layers and, using a knife, cut fettuccine about 2 millimetres wide (1/24 inch).

Boil them in salted water for a couple of minutes if they are fresh. If they are frozen, put them directly in the boiling water without thawing, and add a minute to cooking time.

Meanwhile, melt the butter in a pan, add the drained pasta and 3-4 tablespoons of cooking water, mix and serve. Slice the truffle directly on pasta in the dishes. 

Italian bread is famous for being based exclusively on flour and water, yet this recipe, typical of nothern Italy, includes olive oil in its dough. The presence of fats creates a very soft bread, which is easy to be preserved in the foggy climate of Po valley. Moreover, olive oil can be replaced by butter or suet. In the last case, suet helps to clean the mouth if accompanying cold cuts like salami or prosciutto. It sounds incredibly odd, but fats “refresh” your mouth.

Anyway, if you prefer to make simple but genuine appetizers, you can bake these little amuse bouche, and spread them, still warm, with vodka butter and smoked salmon.

NB: this is a small quantity, just enough to make these bite-sized snacks for a party. If you double the ingredients you can make a very tasty bread, which can last even a week, even longer if you keep it in a plastic bag in the fridge and heat it up in the oven for a few minutes.

Prep Time: 30 minutes | Cooking Time: 10 minutes | Total Time: 40 minutes (+ 2 hours for leavening) | Yield: Makes 6  servings.

Ingredients

•  1 cup (250 g) bread flour
•  1 tsp (6 g) active brewer’s yeast
• 1 tsp (6 g) sea salt
• 2 tbsp + 1 tsp (35 ml) olive oil
• 1 tbsp + 1 tsp (20 g) sugar
• ½ cup + 2 tbsp (150 ml) cold water

Preparation

Add both flours, yeasts, and water to the bowl of a stand mixer. Knead it with the dough hook in place. You can also do it by hand in a bowl, but the process takes around 14 minutes of work.

Add the sugar a bit at a time, and when it is well kneaded, add the salt, again in several batches, slowly. Finally, add the oil, slowly. When the dough sticks to the dough hook in a ball, remove it and knead it on a surface sprinkled with flour.

Place the dough in a floured bowl, cover with cling film, and let it rise for 45 minutes. Times vary depending on the time of the year and how warm the kitchen is. At my house, the winter temperature is around 19 C (66 F), so I prefer to move the bowl to a warm oven with the light on.

After the dough has doubled in volume, roll it with the rolling pin, and cut out small circles.  I use a sherry glass, 4 cm in diameter. Roll all the pieces in the palm of your hands, until you create little balls. Make sure to use the remnants of the cuts, or you’ll have to knead them again and make them rise.

As you make the balls, put the on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Cover with cling film and leave them to rise for 40/60 minutes.

Discard the cling film and cook in a pre-heated convection oven for 8 to 10 minutes at 375 F (190 C).

Pignolata, also known nationally and internationally as Struffoli is a very popular dessert in Southern Italy at Christmas time. It is not hard to make but time-consuming, and the best advice I can give is collecting the family around the table in order to roll them into the small marbles.

The traditional dessert is arranged like a pine cone or pigna, from which its name, pignolata is  derived.

There is another recipe, with my mother-in-law’s doses, enough to feed an army, in the best southern tradition. On the other hand, sometimes a bit of innovation can be stimulating, since creativity is a fundamental ingredient of cooking.

I added some raspberry puree which you can make very easily with the fresh ingredients: just blend a cup of raspberries mixed with 2 tablespoons water and press through a sieve.

Prep Time: 50 minutes | Cooking Time: 40 minutes | Total Time: 90 minutes (+ 2 hours for cooling the ganache) | Yield: Makes 6  servings.

Ingredients

For the dough

• 2 ¼cups  (300 g) all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling
• 3 eggs
• A pinch of salt
• 2 tablespoons (30 ml) Anise or Sambuca liqueur
• 2 tbsp white sugar
• 1 organic lemon zest, finely grated

For finishing

• Vegetable oil (sunflower) for frying
•  14 oz (400 g) honey
• ½ cup raspberry puree

For the dark chocolate ganache

• 8 oz (250 g) semi-sweet baker’s chocolate, chopped
• ½  cup (125 ml) whipping cream
• 1 tbsp (15 g) unsalted butter

Preparation

Mix all the ingredients (except the honey and vegetable oil) in a bowl, you can use a stand mixer with a dough hook. Work the dough until it is smooth. This doesn’t take very long: about 3 minutes or 5 minutes by hand.

Let it rest in the bowl, covered with plastic wrap, for 2 hours.

Flour your work surface and turn out your dough. Then divide the dough into 10 roughly equal pieces, each about the size of a golf ball. Take 1 ball and roll it out into a rope approx. 1/2 inch thick, then with floury hands, divide this into about 20 small pieces, and roll each piece between your hands (flouring them again if this helps) to make marble-sized balls.

Fry them (deep frying) in small batches until they are golden and lay the marbles on kitchen paper. When you have finished frying, discard the oil and clean the pan with kitchen paper.

Pour the honey in the pan and, when the honey is warm, tip all of the fried dough balls into it and, using a soft spatula, turn them gently to coat them.

Get out a large plate or cake stand with a slight lip or rim and place a wet glass or a pastry ring on it. Arrange the balls in the shape of a pyramid or a wreath with a serving spoon.

Add the raspberry purée to the honey and mix for 6 to 7 minutes, until the purée is caramelised.

The small balls can then be arranged in individual dessert plates in a random shape or again, into a pyramid or wreath.

Make the Ganache.

In a saucepan, pour the cream and butter and bring to an almost boil. When the cream is simmering and starts bubbling, add the chocolate and switch off the heat. Mix with a whisk and move to the fridge. Let it stand for at least a couple of hours, then move to a piping bag with a wide star tip.

Decorate the plate piping little amounts of ganache.  Add some green candied fruit.

These mini savoury panettoni are a bit time-consuming but not hard to do, you can decide whatever stuffing you love. The classic recipe included prawns with cocktail sauce, smoked salmon with cream cheese and chives and lemon zest. Or cold cuts and cheeses, or vegetarian fillings.

You can choose whatever filling you love.

Prep Time: 30 minutes | Cooking Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 50 minutes (4 hours for cooling down) | Yield: Makes 6  servings.

Ingredients

• ¼ cup (50 ml) warm milk
• 13 g fresh baker’s yeast or 4 g dry active yeast
• 1 egg, beaten
• 3 ½ tbsp (50 g) butter, room temperature, cut in small pieces
• 1 cup (240 g) bread (Manitoba) flour
• 1/2 tbsp honey
• 25 ml water
• 1 ½ tbsp (20 g) white sugar
• Butter for the tin
• 4 tbsp fresh cream or an egg yolk + some milk for glazing

Preparation

Add the warm milk, honey, and water to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook attachment on medium speed. Add the yeast and, after a minute, the egg.

Then add the flour, and when it is well mixed, add the sugar, and finally the salt. If the dough is too dry, add some water. The total time including the kneading of the dough takes around 15 minutes.

Let the dough sit in a deep bowl and cover with plastic wrap. If the temperature in your kitchen is around 77 F (25 C) let it rise for 2 hours. If your temperature is around 66 F (19 C) like in my kitchen, add half an hour.

After the dough has doubled, divide it into 6 balls and knead it, bending the folds under each ball.

Butter the muffin tin and place one ball in each hole. Let it rise again for 2 hours, covering with plastic wrap.

Modify the rising time according to the temperatures in your kitchen.

Pre-heat the oven to 350 F (175 C).  Using a pastry brush, coat the balls with fresh cream, or an egg yolk mixed with 2 tablespoons of milk. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes.

When the pannettoni reach room temperature, move to a cooling rack. They will be firm enough to be cut in thin slices the next day. Calculate making 5 cuts, top included. Fill the layers every 2 cuts, in order to make a sandwich. Choose your favourite canapé fillings. Once you have finished, make at least one vertical cut.

Pasta e fagioli (pasta and beans) is a very typical Italian soup, simple, easy, yet incredibly versatile, as it is prepared many ways all across Italy.

For thousands of years, beans have nourished people from every social class, but its richness in proteins allowed the survival of the most of population who could not afford meat. Every region and corner of Italy has a version of this kind of soup, the simplest soup. It is prepared with an incredible set of variations: with the trinity of onion, carrot and celery, the fundamental ingredients of the majority of Italian sauces and stews; just simply with sliced onion and tomato in order to highlight the flavour of the beans, or parsley, or rosemary. In every Italian town and family there is always the addition of a personal touch.

Yet, despite its modesty, it is considered a comfort food, nourishing, simple but heart-warming.

This recipe is the one I rely on as a Romagnola, and I used it to civilize my husband: he had never eaten beans and soups before meeting me, and since he was such a carnivore, my trick was to blend all the vegetables and add some pancetta or ham to disguise the vegetables. It was like a kind of weaning.

Nowadays, sometimes my pasta e  fagioli (the Italian for pasta & beans) is vegan: I often refer to a recipe I was given in Le Marche region by a restaurant owner/chef, which used just onion and tomato for his soffritto. Then of course you follow the recipe as usual. I always have a supply of frozen maltagliati (fresh egg pasta) in my freezer, but if I use dried pasta, I even create a vegan and even lighter dish.

If I am using fresh pasta which cooks quickly, I cook it in the soup directly, in which case some attentive stirring is in order or the pasta will stick to the bottom of the pot. If you prefer using dried pasta – you should  cook it separately and then add it to the soup.

The only tricky part of making this dish is remembering to soak the beans, which if you are me, can be quite tricky, but is most satisfying when you remember. Then you need to remember to cook them, at a gentle simmer for at least a couple of hours while you spend  your time reading everybody’s latest posts. You can use tinned beans. but then you will miss the water the chickpeas were cooked in which provides agreat stock for your soup.

Usually, in most cookbooks, the beans and the soffritto are cooked in 2 different pots, whereas, since washing too many dishes is against my religion, I use always the same one.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cooking Time: 40 minutes | Total Time: 50 minutes | Yield: Makes 4  servings.

Ingredients

• 250g dried chickpeas soaked overnight OR 700g fresh Romano beans
• ½ onion, finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1 small carrot, finely chopped
• ½ celery stick, finely chopped
• 50 g fresh pancetta or pork jowl, diced
• ½ cup (130 g) tomato puree
• 4 tablespoons cup olive oil
• 6 cups (1.5 L) water
• 200g maltagliati pasta (fresh pasta) or ditalini

Instructions

In the pot, sauté the vegetables in olive oil, and after 2 minutes, add the pancetta or pork jowl. Cook for 5-6 minutes on medium-low heat.

When the soffritto is golden, add the tomato puree and simmer for 15 to 17 minutes. Add the beans and 4 cups water (1 L water). Season with salt and let it cook, simmering. It takes about 80 minutes if you decide to cook with a normal pot; if this is the case, I strongly recommend a cast iron pot. In a pressure cooker it takes 20 minutes.

In the cast iron pot, you’ll have probably to add the rest of the water, or even more. Just add it gradually. Preferably hot, or you will lower the cooking temperature and it will take longer.

When beans are cooked, remove a ladleful of beans with some liquid and blend with an immersion blender in a container and add it back to the pot. It will give the soup a creamier texture without adding cheese.

Add pasta and follow the indications for cooking time.

When it is cooked, let it sit for 3 minutes and serve.

Around the time of the grape harvest in Tuscany, in all Florentine bakeries you can find a very popular dessert, flat bread with grapes (schiacciata con l’uva). This a seasonal dessert made with bread dough, , olive oil, rosemary and grapes. Some recipes include red wine, finely chopped rosemary and anise seeds. I prefer a simpler version, in which I heat the oil with a sprig of rosemary at a very moderate power (oil must not fry) and use the rosemary as a brush.

It’s an excellent dessert when fresh, like all leavened cake, based on bread dough, the day after tends to get rubbery, so my advice is warming it up for few minutes in an electric oven.

Prep Time: 35 minutes | Cooking Time: 25 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour | Yield: Makes 8  servings.

TIP – rising time: 4 hours for rising

Ingredients for the dough

• 4⅓  cups pastry flour
• ½ cup white sugar
• 5 tbsp delicate olive oil or seed oil
• 1 sprig of rosemary
• 0.35 oz fresh active yeast or ½ packet instant yeast (1 tsp)
• 1¼ cups warm water
• A pinch of sea salt

Ingredients for the filling

• 2 lbs red concord grapes
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 3 tbsp cane sugar

Instructions 

In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast in the warm water and add the sugar, then mix in the oil and the sifted flour. Add the salt last.

The dough must be very soft and sticky. In order to work it, you should spread some drops of oil on your hands.

Spread a tablespoon of oil on the dough and fold the outer edges into the centre as you turn the bowl. Let it rest for 15 minutes, covering with cling wrap.

Again, spread a tablespoon of oil onto the dough and repeat folding. Let it rest for 45 minutes, covering with cling wrap.

Repeat, and let the dough rest for 2 – 3 hours, until the dough has doubled in size.

Heat the oil with a sprig of rosemary and prepare a baking tray with parchment paper. Brush it with the flavoured oil using the rosemary sprig, and sprinkle a tablespoon of cane sugar on it.

Pre-heat the oven to 480 F (250 C).

Divide the dough into two parts. Place a piece of it on the prepared parchment, using your fingers and not a rolling pin to flatten it out, but not too thin. Brush with a tablespoon of oil, sprinkle with sugar, and spread with half of the grapes.

Repeat and lay the other half of the flattened dough on top, using your fingers to seal the edges. Again, brush with a tablespoon of oil, sprinkle with sugar, and add the remaining grapes.

Lower the oven temperatures to 430 F (220 C) and bake the flat bread for 20-25 minutes. Test for doneness with a toothpick. Let cool, and serve.