WALNUT SAUCE, A LIGURIAN FRESH DELICACY

Traditionally, this walnut sauce was meant to be served with pansoti, typical Ligurian stuffed pasta, yet it is excellent with fusilli, potato gnocchi and other specialties.
In these super-hot summers 🔥 , we all need something fresh, a fast yet nice sauce that does not need cooking.
This walnut sauce, a delicious vegetarian dish, cannot be kept for more than 4-5 days in the fridge. Store it to a glass container and cover it with some olive oil.

 

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cooking Time: 15 minutes | Total Time: 35 minutes | Yield: Makes 4 servings.

Ingredients

FOR THE STUFFING

  • 20 walnuts, shelled
  • ½ cup (100 g) cream or curd
  • ¼ cup (30 g) grated Parmigiano
  • ½ cup milk
  • 2 tbsps olive oil
  • 2 slices of stale bread, Ciabatta-style, deprived of the crust
  • 1 tbsp fresh marjoram, minced
  • ½ garlic clove
  • Sea salt to tast

Instructions

In a small bowl, soak the bread in the milk. After 5 minutes, squeeze the milk out of the bread.

In a food processor, begin to mix the walnuts, garlic, bread and marjoram together. Add the other ingredients, oil and cream or curd in successive batches, mix for one minute, and the sauce is ready.

If you have a mortar, the ideal method is to mix all the ingredients together.

Often, the marjoram will turn brown. An excellent way to prevent this is to add a few ice cubes in the food processor or by keeping the food processor bowl in the freezer.

Traditionally, this sauce was meant to be served with pansoti, typical Ligurian stuffed pasta, yet it is excellent with potato gnocchi and other specialties.

In these super-hot summers, we all need something fresh, a fast yet nice sauce that does not need cooking.

This walnut sauce, a delicious vegetarian dish, cannot be kept for more than 4-5 days in the fridge. Store it to a glass container and cover it with some olive oil.

 



ORVIETO, ITS CLIFF AND PIGEON BREEDING.

Orvieto is a beautiful Etruscan town built on a sheer cliff that is mainly composed of tuff and pozzolana, a soft material easy to excavate.

The Orvieto cliff was apt to being easily defendable thanks to its structure; meanwhile its inhabitants started to excavate its underground in order to obtain factories, storehouses and plants without distancing themselves from the powerful walls which defended the town.

Over the three thousand years of its history, the inhabitants bored more than one thousand cavities: I visited the widest, where there are the remnants of an oil mill and some millstones. Toward the interior of the cliff, the cavity is articulated in a series of rooms: among them, three Etruscan wells with their characteristic notches were workers who were excavating put their feet (pedarole in Italian). Another cavity, bordering with it, overlooks the cliff sides, and it is characterized by a great quantity of columbaria or dovecotes. These are rooms with a great quantity of recesses where pigeon could nest. This function is validated by the presence of water tanks and openings in the cliff edge to allow the pigeon keeper to give his animals liberty for purposes of exercise while allowing them to re-enter the house without special assistance from the keeper. At the same time, these houses are constructed to keep the pigeons safe from predators and inclement weather and give them nesting places in which to raise their squabs.

Pigeons were especially prized because they would produce fresh meat during the winter months when larger animals were unavailable as a food source. In the past wealthy landowners often had pigeon houses and there are still remnants of them in some European manor houses. Orvieto dovecots were especially useful in case the town were under siege and deprived of supplies of fresh food from the country nearby.

 

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cooking Time: 1 hour + 35 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour + 50 minutes | Yield: Makes 4  servings.

Ingredients

  • 2 pigeons about 10-14 oz. (300-400 g.) each.

For the stuffing

  • 2 fresh Italian sausages, peeled OR 9 oz. (250 g.) ground pork generously seasoned with salt and freshly milled black pepper
  • 2 tablespoons fresh Pecorino cheese, grated
  • 1,5 oz. (40 g.) stale bread (Ciabatta-like), deprived of crust
  • 1 egg
  • ¼ cup milk
  • 1 tablespoon fresh parsley, finely minced

For the cooking

  • 3 garlic cloves
  • ½ cup dry white wine
  • 3 sage leaves
  • 4 Juniper berries
  • 2 sprigs of rosemary
  • 3 tablespoons olive oil
  • 2 slices pancetta

Instructions

In a small bowl, pour the milk and soak the bread in it. Squeeze the milk out of it, put it in a bowl with the meat, and mix it with all the other ingredients, using your hands.

Season the pigeons with salt and pepper and the Juniper berries lightly crushed, and then stuff them but not completely, since the stuffing will swell when cooking. Close the pigeon with a toothpick or needle and thread.

Pour the oil in a heavy saucepan and add garlic, rosemary and sage. Place the pigeons in it and pancetta on the pigeons. Pigeons tend to dry, so choose a saucepan that fits them perfectly, not too large.

Roast the pigeons in all their sides and simmer with the wine until reduced.

Make the pigeons simmer for about 1 hour, covered with the lid, and add some tablespoons of water if necessary.

Serve them still warm, cut in two halves. Great with mashed potatoes.



CARMELA’S STUFFED EGGPLANT

This recipe of stuffed eggplant was generously given me by Carmela, a very sweet woman from Puglia.

In Calabria they boil the eggplant whole and then scoop out the flesh. Of course there are many variations: stuffed with stockfish, with or without tomato, with meat…And of course each family claims its own version is the best one, and if I were you I would agree with them – just saying…

I love this one because it is vegetarian and really enhances the sweetness of ripe eggplant: capers and the herbs are totally Mediterranean.

We cannot help again to thank the Arabs who imported eggplant and gave us all these wonderful recipes that enrich the cuisine of the Mediterranean, from Lebanon to Spain.

It is a very rich dish, my advice is avoiding it for dinner, digestion is very demanding. Accompanied by a green salad, it is a perfect main course.

Carmela’s stuffed eggplant

These stuffed eggplant are a symbol of Southern Italy and summer, the season in which eggplants are ripe and sweet.

  • For tomato sauce
  • 1 (28-oz) can whole tomato purée ((preferably Italian))
  • 2 tbsp olive oil (extra virgin)
  • 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • 1 small onion finely chopped
  • 1 cup water
  • 6 basil leaves
  • sea salt for seasoning
  • 1 pinch chili

• In case you do not find an Italian purée you might need to add 2 tablespoons tomato paste, 1 teaspoon sugar to add taste.

  • For eggplant and stuffing
  • 8 round eggplants
  • 1 oz. finely grated Parmesan
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
  • 1 tbsp chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
  • 1 tbsp chopped fresh basil
  • 2 cups vegetable oil
  • 1 tbsp salted capers carefully washed
  • 3 slices firm white bread Ciabatta style, torn into 1-inch piece (about 3 oz.)
  1. Make sauce:
  2. In a saucepan brown softly garlic and onion in olive oil, add the tomato purée, basil, a pinch of chili and season with salt. Add water, you need a sauce not too concentrated. Make it simmer for at least 20-25 minutes, until the tomato sauce turns sweet.
  3. Fry eggplants and make filling while sauce simmers:
  4. Cut the stem of the eggplants, halve them lengthwise. With a small sharp knife or a spoon, scoop out and reserve flesh, leaving 1/4-inch-thick shells. Chop flesh and transfer to a bowl.
  5. Fry the eggplants, turning over once using 2 slotted spoons, until pale brown, 3 to 5 minutes total, then transfer, stuffing sides down, to paper towels to drain.
  6. Fry the flesh in the remaining oil in the skillet, if needed add more olive oil. Strain it, squeezing the oil out of the flesh with a spoon against the strainer.
  7. When the flesh is cold, pour it in an electric mixer with chopped bread, capers, basil, celery tops, garlic, parsley, eggs and a tablespoon of tomato sauce.
  8. Spread some olive oil and 2 tablespoons of tomato sauce in a backing pan.
  9. Firmly pack the eggplant stuffing into each eggplant shell and lay them in the backing pan, stuffing sides up.
  10. With a spoon, spread the tomato sauce on the eggplants.
  11. Sprinkle generously the Parmesan on the eggplants, and bake, until Parmesan is light brown, about 40 minutes at 350 F.