Green beans are an excellent fresh vegetable, but there are not many variations for their preparation. They are usually boiled and eaten accompanied by simple olive oil. But Italian creativity enriched a dull preparation with a touch of herbs and the beloved tomato, inventing a unique and tasty side dish, a symbol of summer and its fruits.

There are many versions of this dish: mine is the simplest, but an excellent one is using minced onion instead of garlic and adding chili pepper. Another version that is very popular in Tuscany, the land of meat-eaters where it is difficult to make vegetables appetizing for children, some grandmothers prefer preparing a soffritto with finely minced onion, celery, and carrot, and diced pancetta.

While up to few decades ago vegetables were boiled for an unnecessarily long time, or as my vegetarian brother complained, they were “tortured to death”, now we prefer crispy vegetables.

They are easy, quick to prepare, and impossible to get wrong, unless you abandon them in boiling water for hours. The result is a half-destroyed yellowish hay that not even a horse would eat.

Break off the top and wash them, leaving them whole. Today’s green beans have no strings, since only the fresh and best ones are harvested.

An excellent way to cook green beans and vegetables in general is to cook them in simmering water for 6 to 7 minutes (test them, they must be cooked but still al dente), and then immediately drained in a colander and plunged into ice cold water to bring the temperature down.  A rule of thumb is that the beans should spend as much time in the cold water as in the hot water.

Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cooking Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 25 minutes | Yield: Makes 4 servings.

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp fresh parsley, finely minced
• 500 g fresh green beans, washed
• 1 garlic clove, finely minced
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tin crushed tomato or peeled plum tomatoes

Instructions

Preparation 1

Cook the green beans in simmering water for 6 to 7 minutes, immediately drain in a colander and plunge them into ice cold water to bring the temperature down.

In a deep pan (the one you use for sautéing pasta is ideal) sauté the garlic in the olive oil. Add the tomato sauce and cook for 10 minutes. When the tomato sauce has lost its acidity, season with salt and pepper and add the green beans and parsley.

Stir for 2 to 3 minutes and serve.

Preparation 2, the original

In a deep pan sauté the garlic in the olive oil. Add the tomato sauce, season with salt and pepper and add the green beans and parsley. Add water to cover the beans. Simmer for 10 minutes covered with a lid. Remove the lid and simmer for another 35 to 40 minutes, checking the green beans by tasting them, and if necessary, adding a bit more water.

This way of cooking them has the advantage of using less saucepans and bowls, and of course the green beans have more taste because they absorb the tomato sauce while cooking.

Cauliflower is normally not a very exciting dish, but you can give it some pizazz thanks to this recipe: a crispy and flavourful gratin turns a conventional vegetable into a real treat.

This recipe uses the same ingredients as a Mornay sauce, but is a bit lighter because there is no cream added. If you do not have Grana Padano or Parmigiano cheese, add some other cheese that you love, as long as it is not too strong so that it does not overwhelm the cauliflower’s flavour. The gratin needs Grana Padano or Parmigiano though, to which you could add a bit of grated bread if you want to make it even crispier.

Italian sformato, also known as flan, can be prepared with a variety of vegetables. This cauliflower version was once prepared in the French cuisine tradition. The cauliflower was puréed with the same sauce ingredients as our recipe, placed in a fluted pan baked in bain-marie in the oven. This type of recipe dates back to a time when Italians cooked their vegetables until they had no texture, taste or nutritional value left. Thank goodness times have changed!

Cauliflower is a very ancient vegetable in Italian cuisine, already mentioned in the 1st century AD by Pliny the Elder, who included it among his descriptions of cultivated plants in his Natural History treatise. This sauce adds a bit of fat to an amazing vegetable, which is low in calories, has no fat, but it is an incredibly healthy choice. It is rich in sodium, dietary fiber, vitamin C, vitamin K, calcium, iron, potassium, and magnesium. Last, but not least, since it is mainly composed of water, cauliflower can help keep you hydrated. The list of benefits is not finished yet, since this veggie has a group of substances known as glucosinolates. During digestion, these substances are broken down into compounds that may help prevent cancer , since they help protect cells from damage and have anti-inflammatory, antiviral, and antibacterial effects.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cooking Time: 25 minutes | Total Time: 35 minutes | Yield: Makes 6 servings.

Ingredients

• 1.2 kg (2 lbs) cauliflower florets, washed
• 1 L (4 cups) milk
• 80 g (⅔ cup) flour
• 80 g (cup) butter + more for the gratin
• Salt
• 50 g (1.5 oz) grated Grana Padano or Parmigiano cheese
• 2 egg yolks
• ½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
• 2 tbsp olive oil

Instructions

Boil the cauliflower florets in salted water for 15 minutes. If you have a steamer, even better.

In the meantime, make the bechamel sauce.

Drain the cauliflower when it is cooked but still firm, since it will be baked. Move the florets to a bowl.

Heat the milk.

In a saucepan, melt the butter, add the flour and stir. When it begins to thicken, begin to pour the milk in batches, stirring constantly until you finish. Add the nutmeg, yolks, salt, and ⅔ of the Grana Padano cheese to the bechamel, and stir, mixing thoroughly. If there are any lumps, use a hand blender. Toss the cauliflower with the sauce to coat. Let cool for 5 minutes.

Pre-heat the oven to 200° C (400° F).

Brush a casserole dish with oil using a pastry brush.

Move the cauliflower mix to the casserole and sprinkle the remaining Grana Padano cheese and dot with bits of butter on top.

Bake for 20 minutes until the top turns golden and serve warm.

This side dish was created in Emilia, and it is the perfect complement to a vast variety of roasted meats, such as beef braised in Barolo wine.

It is a unique side dish, rich in fibre without the boring stigma associated with “healthy” foods.

In order to peel the onions, I found an American recipe that blanches them in a pot of boiling water followed by immersing them in a bowl of cold water to stop them from cooking. The temperature shift makes them easier to peel. In Italy, I usually find them peeled.

Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cooking Time: 25 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes | Yield: Makes 4 servings.

Ingredients

• 1 kg – 2.2 lbs Borettane onions, peeled
• 60 g – 1/3 cup sugar
• 300 g – 1½ cups water
• 150 g – ¾ cup balsamic vinegar
• 3 tbsp olive oil

Instructions

In a non-stick pan, heat the olive oil and add the onions. Brown the onions and add the sugar. Stir to melt the sugar, and when onions are caramelized add the vinegar and cook for a few minutes, until most of it evaporates. Add the water, stir gently and cook for 10 minutes, then cover with a lid and cook for 10 more minutes.

Test with a fork; the onions are ready when they are soft.

Gurguglione is a typical stew of summer vegetables eaten by the miners of Elba Island.
It was mentioned when I visited the Ginevro gallery, that is a magnetite mine near Capoliveri, now closed because of the competition by developing countries. This stew was a typical dish of the miners of Elba Island, which has always been known for the richness of its mines since the Etruscans began to inhabit it.
A shiver ran down my spine as I entered the mine and I thought of those poor miners who had to venture into the bowels of the earth, with insufficient light and air, and work for 12 hours to excavate by a 35-kilos jackhammer the holes for dynamite. And then, after the explosion, loading the mining trolleys for hours.
In spite of being highly specialized workers, their payroll was so low that they had to keep a veggie garden in order to make ends meet and have enough food for the family. At the time vegetarianism was not an option, and the most of the European population suffered from a chronic deprivation of animal proteins. In the past, it was an entrée, while now it is served as an excellent side dish.
It is composed of the typical summer vegetables, zucchini, peppers, eggplant, tomatoes and onions, and it is a kind of stew that we can find in all Italian regions, with local variations. Some add olives, capers, celery. My mum makes a fricò frying each vegetable separately, due to the difference in cooking time of the various vegetables and then joins them in a tomato sauce rich in garlic and basil.
When these dishes so rich in fats were created, the most of people had such heavy jobs that the abundance of olive oil was not an issue. Yet, it is possible to reduce the quantity of oil if we use a good non-sticking skillet; when the dish was created the most common kind of pan was an iron one.